Final Part of Parts

I can't believe what happened in 1 whole day (24 hours) could take up 3 posts. My day must have been real long.... Anyways, last Saturday was the end of RR KL#1's annual camp and at the same time graduation night in college as well. Talk about busy rushy weekends. I volunteered to help out ushering cause it's the easiest and no work involved. The ushers were told to be in college by 6pm and the guests will start coming in by 7pm. Well...reached there exactly at 6, crappy weather...rained again so my mom drove me to college. She doesn't trust me with her car....and guess what? The college was...empty!

Not entirely empty..there were the musicians going through last practices. So I waited and waited. Keen Wai came along. It took quite a while for us to eventually went looking all over the college and finally found Mrs. Sharma at the entrance. Got the booklets, both of us looked smart and the ushering...or rather just greeting and putting a booklet into the hands of the guests began.

It went on until the booklets ran out and we got sick of it. I personally went into the hall and gone through with all the speeches. Then came the awards presentation....blah blah blah. Was standing all the way, imagine the pain. Not so much the pain but the boredom that squeezed the life outta me. Then came the entertainment. Everyone expected it to be entertaining but what can I say. Datin's way off. The 'rasa sayang' with electric guitar was pretty cool but didn't hear much of it. After that was the big sketch the whole college was fusing about. Extra practices after college everyday has gone into this. Scripts after scripts written by students just got juiced out and bottled up into Datin's personal homemade fruit juice. Hahaha. Just love those paraphrases.

First sketch was done by the students taking English as their second language. Storyline was quite nice but the voice recordings just didn't go well with the lip sync. And Eunice says the biscuits were tasty. Moving on...the overpopulation sketch...Datin's personal homemade fruit juice. The story speaks of a joint expeditionary probe to Mars where an alien convention was held. The usual planets were in it...Andromeda, I knew that was the closest galaxy but then came along Cartwheel. I thought it was some sort of prank but turns out there really was such a galaxy. Debate..debate..debate..Malaysian Astronaut?..Debate...debate...End. What a waste of time.

At least that's an extra line in my testimonial and the food was awesome! Superb catering service! Got sotong and ais kacang and tong sui. What can beat that? Ended the night trying to find Krystal who has her brother's car keys which is the only way for me to get home. Figure out the rest. God Bless!

Part 2 of Many Parts...

23 August, 0600 hours:

The world around me came back into existence...sensations came running back one by one. First sensation...cold. The warm and cozy fire died off, leaving a few embers. There was nothing much left to burn, just two ends of the log. I was way too lazy to start it back anyway. Went back to sleep...

0700 hours:

Woke up again. This time couldn't get back to sleep. Everyone else were waking up too. Packing up started soon after. Life is indeed full of surprises. It rained so much last night, its expected the morning would be cool, nice and clear, right? Right? Wrong. Before we did much, it poured again. Haih. Not much of a camp, eh? Rain, rain and more rain. I pray and hope that CF won't be like that. So what to do? Nothing to do about it so sleep again. Did I mention that sleep is a hobby of mine. Haha. Kah Meng was right. Sleeping in the van was awesome.

Later...

The rain stopped. Cmdr. Eddy arrived with his Hilux. It's nice to ride on the side of a 4-wheel drive. Missed the moments. Back at the cmdr's chalet, breakfast was served. Maggi Mee with vege and delicious meatballs. Then pack up, pack up and more packing up. Left the campsite and headed back to church. Unpack, unpack and more unpacking. Went back home.

Like I said, long, long days. One more up to go.

CF camp just round the weekend. I always said that time is a perspective of the mind...but undeniably it does fly fast. Devotions to prepare...and much more praying to be done. God Bless!

Of Many Parts...

Like all my other posts the title says it all. This weekend has been eventful and very full indeed. First up, KL#1 Royal Rangers finally had its combined annual camp after having separate outpost camps all these years. The camp started on Thursday but I could only come on Friday cause my mom won't let me skip classes. So on Friday, had chem, oblivious to Mr. Ratna's teaching, Bio Lab after that, experiment didn't work out, then meet with Cmdr. Jeffrey and we left for Sungai Congkak...

We reached there just in time for lunch. Moving ahead...DR had to do lashing, went for a dip in the river...


Nice and clean river. You don't find this a lot nowadays. After that, we wanted to build a CoF (Council of Fire is actually a nicely stacked arrangement of firewood that burns nicely) but then the worst happened...

No..someone did not impale himself on a stick of firewood but it started to rain. Small drizzle...fat drops of water then BOOM! the heavens squeezed out every last drop of its tears. That was it. The plan for the night was gone with the rain. We just sat under the canopy and waited. Dinner time passed by and the rain still prevailed. Right at the last moment, before Tim started to light the stove and warm his pack of Brahim's from Tahan using cold water, Cmdr Yoke Yee showed up with the van. So we shooed all the boys into the van and left for the chalet. Thank God for the Commander's chalet..never liked to just wait for the rain to stop...

Back at the Cmdr's chalet...had wonderful dinner prepared by Cmdr Yoke Yee...her famous spaghetti. Soong played a little game with the boys...


A short devotion by Cmdr. Yoke Yee followed...then the time for judgement arrived. Muahahaha! Tiger Court! Made it a game show with Ngeow as executioner. Nicely done my friend. He played a "Professor" with 135 years of cooking experience. Haha. What's more fun is his balance using falsetto and a harsh tone. Punishment...evil food concoctions..hahahaha. Anyone up for grape with mayonnaise and soy sause?

That aside, the day or rather the night ended with me sleeping outside next to the nature's TV after the rain stopped. More to come on my next post...stay tuned.

Of LRT glitches and camps

Today I was nearly caught in the middle of a LRT track system glitch. Thank God that I wasn't. The LRT took a whole lot longer to close its doors at KLCC. I was afraid I would be caught again in the ever problematic transport system. May I remind you that I once got caught twice in 3 days!!! But thank God yet again that it finally closed and went on. Unfortunately for my friend, Kiat Jin, he got stuck with the crowd at the LRT station back in Wangsa Maju. He finally got to college just in time before his class started. Poor guy. His dad had to send him all the way to the monorail station.

Speaking about lateness...

I was nearly late myself. Thanks to the LRT glitch. Bio test some more. This time it wasn't so bad. Managed to study a bit at home and in the LRT. Whether I did well or not, we shall see....

It's raining now...tomorrow's KL#1's annual camp already...and MCKL's very first CF camp is coming up next week. Ah...when will my weekends ever be free...God Bless!

Of Olympics and a Silver Medal

By now you should know what this post is about. If you really don't know, then you must be hiding under a rock. Malaysia entered the Beijing Olympics with one of the most promising badminton teams. Unfortunately, all fell but one. He was like the hero who stood firm when all others failed. The shining hope that would finally bring in a gold medal for Malaysia - and win the 1 Million ringgit incentive. Joining the probable hundred thousands or millions of Malaysians out there who watched the match, for once all of us felt the same. Disappointed. Our "hero", World No.2 Lee Chong Wei, fought through to the final just to present his adversary, Lin Dan with the gold medal. For the optimists, he fought and went down with honour. For the pessimists, he had no chance. Well...who am I to judge. I'm not the one playing for our nation.

On the other side of the world, another war wages and the ebb and flow is just electrifying. What am I talking about? The EPL of course. Football has came back to life. Sad to say that Manchester United, the team that I support..woohoo! only managed to draw their first match with Newcastle United. Van der Sar made a huge mistake which eventually lead to a goal. The details are just too depressing to express. At least the match wasn't as bad. An early header by Frasier Campbell on target to goal bounced off dazed Shay Given's head. Then came efforts by Rooney and Scholes. This time the keeper actually did well to save the shots. And finally, to even out the match, Darren Fletcher dashed past the defenders to score a stunning goal. MU starts the season with 1 point but it's still early and like last season, I betcha MU will come chasing to the top.

Have a great week in Jesus!

Thankfulness

Luke 16:10-12

10"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?"

This passage of scripture has been really true in my life for the past weekend. I want to thank God for promotions. I want to thank God for friends. God has just been so good to me all this time in college. During service, I've just been reminded that it's not what I do or who I am that has brought me to where I am today. He who gave the promotion can easily take it away. Pride can so easily seep into our lives and soon we forget who was the One that actually brought about the real promotion. The bible so clearly says that "pride comes before the fall". So keep me humble, oh Lord...

2 in 1

Jon Chandra


...met him at 2nd Central District Pow Wow 2006. He was my team captain. A charismatic guy with good team spirit. He connected well with his team and eventually won 3rd place. It was good fun knowing him. Last year...GY camp...awesome drummer...hard at work with Perky...didn't see him much but he was there...to greet me and to say our goodbyes. April. KL#1 and Sel#1 combined 25th anniversary camp. Again. Awesome drummer. Played for us too when we lacked one. Stayed up all night and had great fun together. We never made it to Camporama as promised. Haha. Anyways, he flew off to Hawaii this afternoon at 2.20. Didn't get to say my goodbyes. Well...praying that you have a safe flight there, find good friends and a great church. I kinda hate goodbyes so no goodbye for you. Just a take care and may you find what God has planned for your life. God bless you, dude!


A Long Day...


Today was the day that MCSC (Malayan Christian School Council) decided to hold a symposium at my college. Turns out that we only found out about it a few days ago. Furthermore, we were only briefed very briefly. And so the 8 of us (Me, Pranav, Jon Chin, Stephen, Mark, Eunice, Denise and Jessica) came to college at 8 in the morning without knowing what we were doing. Well...as you should know by now, *points at secondary title*, I'm quite worn out. Anyways, to cut the long story short, we had LOADS of FUN carrying food to the hall..4 times up and down to be exact. The CF camp committee stayed overnight in college just to plan for the camp. Really salute you guys, it better be an awesome camp...Back to my day...had real good laughs with the guys. Funny jokes but not very clean-minded...that aside, we had a lot of time doing nothing, watching Mark and Eunice fighting using Taboo and a lot of ushering. After this all ended, I had to rush back to church. Thanks again Mark for driving me to church! Reached just in time for hospitality leaders meeting...discuss, discuss, discuss...meeting ended...rush for choir...recital practice...rushed home. Hah. Phew. Like I said...long day.

RM50

Guess what? Today at the KL Central LRT station, I saw a 50 dollar note on the floor right next to a line of people waiting to buy their ticket. Wah! 50 dollar note! You don't see that everyday. Then comes the hard part...ask if anyone dropped the note, pick it up for myself or just walk away. Well...I'm not real pleased to say that I walked away. You know what? Our Christian lives can also be like that...

"So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth." - Revelation 3:16 (NIV)

Some time ago, I always dwelled on being neutral, neither good nor bad, politically neutral and so on...it's true that being neutral is safe but then again, God cannot tolerate lukewarm people and thus Revelation 3:16. Sitting on the fence and doing nothing just doesn't cut it. In fact, the devil oh so likes people to play his game of complacency. Just like what happened earlier, if no one does anything then nothing will happen and the person who dropped the money will lose it. Similarly, if we Christians don't do anything then people will lose the chance of salvation that they once had. So Christians out there who are reading this blog, do to your best for God if not at least do something to make a change. Practice what you preach, Kah Yun. God Bless!

A CrAzYcOnTrAdIcTioN just for you:
Yesterday, outside the student lounge...
(Carmen, severely depressed by her results)
Kah Yun: You should get lotsa, lotsa, lotsa, lotsa sleep.
Kartik: You should drink lotsa, lotsa, lotsa, lotsa coffee.
-_-"

A-level results

The title is obvious enough. Today the results for the A-level examinations were released. I'm guessing you want to know my results, right? Aww..too bad. I haven't sat for the exam yet so no results. Muahahaha. As usual, the release of exam results are not pleasant to some...people crying and depressed over their results...and to some...a cause for celebration and a reason to call everyone they knew to tell them how well they did. How relieved I was that I'm not one of them. Quite entertaining to see the entire drama unfold in the student lounge...yet it serves as a reminder that it is inevitable and I was merely slower to catch it. Moving on...

I got chosen to do public speaking in IELTS class today...thanks to Kern Wen - YOU ARE SO DEAD! Miss Grace actually had a topic for me...quite an interesting one but I was totally unprepared for it. Guess what? I got the topic "height". Wow! The description most associated with me was to bring about my own demise. Just gave a few examples of tall landmarks and people - KLCC, Mt Kinabalu, Mt Olympus Mons, Yao Ming, Peter Crouch........yeah that's it and I flew past three minutes. Had a lot of "errs" and "arrs" though. Kern Wen, you are still so dead! God Bless!

Introduction! Whee!

Finally...my own blog...born from influences of the world. Haih. The path that lead to the creation of this blog was not an easy one. Like the title says, "Standing Tall...through the rough and tough", I had to overcome many difficulties just to post my very first post. The creation of this blog itself was not much of a challenge but it was quite time-consuming and head-cracking just to figure out an address. Then there was the chatbox which took about an hour of my life away. Btw, I only have knowledge about HTML the size of a bit so I'm not so good at it but at least I could get the chatbox up. Woohoo! The biggest obstacle came when I received an e-mail saying that my blog was flagged as a spam blog just hours after it's creation...thanks to self-admitted very flawed bots. Took me all the trouble to send a request to review..killed a few mins in physics class..not so bad and a dreaded wait to post this. And finally, the purpose of this blog is like the title..again..standing tall (literally and metaphorically)...through the rough and tough of life, showing perseverance and God's grace.

I end with a cRaZyCoNtRaDiCtIoN: Quote Leon Lor in IELTS class - "....it's astronomically PUNY!"