morocco

anyway, am i supposed to update about what happened in my holidays? it’s rather long, but i prefer that i start anyway, with the possibility that i do not finish.

so on the 16th i went off to marrakech, morocco, in expectancy of a relaxing and enriching trip. enriching, yes, i certainly had that, but i do not recall a relaxing moment at all.

enriching is easy to explain: as far as i could see, morocco was a pleasant fusion of french and arabic culture. french tourists, people speaking french, french fries, baguettes, french traffic juntions (i thought they were zebra crossings..), but predominantly islamic.

people are extremely hospitable and forthcoming. you will NOT walk 5m without having a local greet you “koninchiwa”. (english speaking)locals would chat up with you over a teapot of hot mint tea (ahh….), on a train ride, or while queueing up for food.

moroccan culture is also unlike any other culture that i’ve seen before: gorgeous minarets and madrasahs, geometric tiling patters, incredibly confusing roads in the old city (Medina). for food, ask Ben Tay.

the Sahara, as far as i know / can see, is quite big.

www.facebook.com for the photos

TBC

just a thought

in the space of a week, God gave me the chance to pray with 2 separate friends. both of them do not believe in God / that God exists / in a need for God, but both allowed me to pray with them anyway.

i wonder if that is how God is trying to reach them, in their dire circumstances. prior to this, they were 2 people i can’t imagine how i could even share about God. but the chance to pray with them was presented.

my heart goes out to them. God bless them. Amen.

i post i post!!!

dear me. did the term just blink by?

the people in ntu, who have just ended their exams (i think), have too much time on their hands. and they have noticed the inactivity on this website.

and in that same space of time, i watched a term just go by.

and what have i done in the past 4 weeks? it does feel like i’m entering a rather routine schedule of lectures in morning, a bit of work in the afternoon, supervisions, some activites or events in the evening, followed by an incredible weekend of no work. and life does appear to be rather comfortable and eventful. there’s hardly a dull moment, plenty of time to meet different people up, eat or play some games. i do forget the importance of counting on God at times.

this weekend had been superb. lan gaming to the wee hours in the early morning while getting just in time for service, a city tour in the brutal cold (brutal because i don’t have enough warm clothing), board games, waffles with mushroom toppings, and then a lovely christmas carol service!

and in the midst of all this fun here, i wonder if i should stop and hear a word from God, telling me what He wants me to do. and on that carol service, and in the midst of these christmas celebrations and preparations, i think God dropped a small hint about what people think of christmas.

its interesting to realise how special was christmas 3years ago for me. and as i look at that bottle of mulled wine which i’ve kept for over a month, i hope this christmas will be a special christmas for some people too.

weekend

saturday lectures are among one of the most awful things that could ever happen to anyone. i would liken this to permanent “saturday morning confinement”: the sheer agony of watching every other recruit book out on a friday evening while you are stuck in camp till saturday morning. EVERY week.

which made me a little bit more desperate to enjoy my weekends, no matter how short.

afternoon came and i had a very relaxed time chilling out watching Tyne-Wear derby at Quinns Pub. and, of course, other than the football game, it was really enjoyable. which would be followed by a real football game (shouldn’t play right after beer, not even if you didn’t had much). rather sporting and friendly game. physical, committed but nonetheless good-hearted fun. which was real tragic that 4 locals would (somehow) walk in at the end of the game, mess it up and trigger a rather ugly incident.

not forgetting a very comical and mindless msn convo with daniel, abigail and siyun in the wee hours of 5am (S’pore).

sunday was a bit more interesting: daniel and i thought we would try out the college 3rd team football (against Queen’s 3rd where Leonard was supposed to play but never turned up). really physical (and with everyone seemingly twice my size..), felt very much like a game on tv just that i’m in it.

followed by dinner at Dave’s place (Dave coordinates bible study at a church on tuesday evenings for a group of 8 of us). lovely dinner, lovely company and a relaxed game of poker.

and now, even as i nurse my injuries from 2 separate studs-in incident (gosh it really hurts), it felt like a really great weekend. i chatted with joyce, tracy and sherwin separately about churches and about a need to be challenged (so that we grow spiritually), and about how i do miss hope: truth is that, despite distance, God spoked to me this weekend through a sermon. i also saw how God really blessed me with a wonderful weekend. and if you are reading this, i pray that God gives you a good weekend this coming week

i’m gonna save the world!

silly alarm clock. i was in the midst of one of my most exciting dreams i ever had. on the verge of cracking the big puzzle to save the world.

ah foo was in the dream. somehow we were transported back to the carpark at my home. traded some well wishes, before i whispered to ah foo, “eh how, the world is gonna end by febuary.” and a few more lines in chinese (because we didn’t want anyone else to hear what we were saying). next thing, i remembered punching and heatbutting somebody so hard i cracked his nose/broke his teeth.

we were brought to a hospital. and there was a dentistry section with really cool looking doors. except that we were under the control of some really secret force. and to my memory, this dental clinic is a horror place: people who go in have some really horrific treatment, followed by another treatment to erase the most recent memory so that they can come again. i walked ahfoo to the door, not daring to follow him in. whew: the nurse said “by appointment only”.

i recall making some really wonderful music by claning pots and pans and blowing a flute that somehow appeared in my dream.

and then, i found the key to the puzzle!!! i found it!!!

to save the world, a team of us (those who knew that the world was ending) had to find clues a “Word from God”. somehow “God” speaks to us in a very subtle way, only to people “He” wishes to talk to, through earphones.

yaoyu was on the computer terminal listening to a recording from a documentary about a passage from the OT. studying the passage for academic reasons i suppose. i whispered to him, “is “God” speaking to you?” (which really was a very vague comment actually). but he nodded his head! i took over the phones and what i heard was this person reading off a passage that started off with “And God said…”. THAT must have been the clue! i passed the earphones to another person in the team to save the world. and he too agreed that it must be the clue to the puzzle! a breakthrough! and then the alarm clock rang.

am i late for lectures?

Bridget

To Bridget Qinny Pei: congratulations! and even if i’m not able to personally witness it, i still want to say that i’m heartened by it

3 strokes, starting with stroke… now!

tried rowing on the Big-Rowing-Day after saturday lectures. it was good fun, as promised by everyone who tried it. just a bit hard to coordinate the strokes together, and at the same time making sure my paddle does not get stuck too deep in the water.

i certainly hope this won’t be my last time. just need to find some crazy fellas who are willing to wake up at obscene hours.

i particularly enjoyed sunday’s sermon about deeds by faith. to cap it off, we had another friend, joe, joining us for service. (i hear that there’s a bigger reason to celebrate about saturday’s hope service!)

and after playing more football than i ever did in the past month, leonard, shooby and i walked (i hobbled) down to buy/collect pizzas from domino. so for 5.33 you get 6-7 slices from a large pizza: might be a feasible permanent solution for dinner. except that some slices are bigger than others: 4 times bigger to be exact.

is it monday?

2008! what a great year!

in the words of Dr Wormald (whom i found out, says that every year) in his welcome speech. reminds me of my jc days when the then-principal Mr Hodge would proudly announce the A-level results

“Class of 2004 has done us proud. The best results ever! Best in 22 years!” (and then the following year)

“Class of 2005 has done us proud! The best results in 1 year!” (quoted from JP, whose prediction never materialized)

after a week of ruling the CC staircase (and the toilet), i finally have to relinquish my throne on this lonely (but quite lovely) corridor with the other occupants who have finally moved in. gone are the days where i can go to the toilet without locking any doors.

the last weekend was rather happening: shooby and i met niangjun and yefan during lunch. yefan invited us for his CG, which would be held that evening, 7pm, in a room in sidney sussex college. brilliant idea! to crash a CG on a free friday night (without arrows from ruixia or tracy)! so right after the dreadful afternoon lecture at the even more dreadful newton-dunnowhat-institute (travelling time to + fro >= lecture time), we rushed back to college, dropped by nicole’s and jasmine room (show-face, say “hi! sorry we had lectures. couldn’t come back in time to help you out with the boxes. but look! its all sorted out. great job guys!”), gobbled dinner down, and finally made our way to sidney.

ya, where on earth in sidney. thank God i met yixun earlier that day, and we traded numbers so that i could contact him to find out where CG was held. interestingly, when i called lynette, i heard 2 “hi”s: one from my earpiece, the other from the lady standing 5m away. to cap this wonderful night off, we found out that dinner was being served.

great time of fellowship nevertheless. and chinese food! puts the english to shame: rice is MEANT to be steamed and veggies can also be FRIED.

started sunday morning off with service! (goes by the name St Andrew’s the Great) refreshing moment to step in the house of God after a fortnight. nothing like Hope, however, but it still preaches the same message, its a student service, and the people are wam and friendly. got a long way to go in settling in, whichever church we will eventually decide to settle in, so pray for us! thanks!

we also sang “How Great is Our God” which kinda made me feel so much more at home

after an annoyingly wasted trip to the east-side of the city at Argos to buy a kettle and a filter and some light lamps only to find that everything is out of stock (but oh you can take home the catalogue book! its  like a yellow book! equally thick! but with colours!) was the Deans-Tea Party, fondly called the “Sar-Deans” (? did i spell it right? certainly felt more like vacuum-packed rice, though). met many new people, forgot just as many names too. oh well, i’m sick of recounting all the events: there’s nothing more to drinks (other than chosing between ale, gin, cider, stout, fosters, baccardi just as you can choose between teh, teh-o, teh-c, teh-o-siu-dai, teh tarik, teh hala(?), earl gray in a tea party aha) so far. haha. hope they can come up with something better sometime soon. better than “给我 tempo-ready-go”, maybe.

nycb4

well, actually its just QT at daniel’s bunk, but anything to spite Rui Xia. but its a fruitful time well spent anyway! thank God! (and shooby)

we had a go at punting along the river too. that was wednesday.

tried to watch liverpool v psv but none of the TVs in college would work, except the one at the porters lodge (“security guard post”). so we resorted to live-footy and i promptly got a letter from the network: you have exceeded your daily quota by 13%. your network will be capped at 100kbps until you learn your lesson.

had revenge on that incident by playing real football with some malaysian students we met. which was refreshing (even in the cold!) considering that my feet haven’t had anything to kick since the game at beachroad (scroll down).

when the cold wind blows

i’m glad i bought a powershot that allows me to adjust the shutter speed. the photo looks really cheerful and gorgeous, with the bright blue sky in the background (taking a nice photo of the sky is tricky). truth is: its anything but that. its (very) cold and the sky gets gloomy at times. which really reminds of this army song that brings back plenty of memories from my BMT days:

In the early morning march, with my fieldpack on my back, with an inkling? in my heart, and my body’s full of sweat, I’m a long, long way from home, and i miss my lover so, in the early morning march… when the cold wind blows (x7) i wanna go home (i know i know! you have to go.. so hurry back home, cos i miss you so)

anyway, victor shared last week sermon notes with me. it was about “how to experience a miracle” (something like that). which was great that today i got to experience firsthand how God can work: my first day in school was very isolated (daniel: yeah we could live in isolation), so we prayed for a bit more interaction. and today we managed to hang around them a lot more, talk, eat and even a trip to the supermarket.