Saturday, April 29, 2006

Waiter, There are Bugs in my Gravy

Mum, bro and i were having dinner at a kopitiam near our house just now, and we ordered zi cha (zhu chao). halfway through my bro discovered our mini-wok tofu dish had tiny bugs floating around in the gravy.

we started taking spoonfuls of the gravy onto our plate and realized there were at least a few hundred of them inside the wok.. six legs, wings, feelers, and came in Junior or Regular. they were about the size of the fullstop at the end of this sentence.

my mum called for the auntie to come take a look, and the other workers began surrounding our table, squinting at the little bugs on our plates. some claimed (rather confidently) they were brocolli leaves, others said they were pepper bits.. but none of them admitted that the little black things were not supposed to be there.

i'm not trying to be pompus, but do you honestly think that after 16 years of education i do not know a bug when i see MANY? we were horribly insulted to say the least.. and even when my mum quietly went to pay up the full amount, the auntie never dared apologize or bring up the matter. if the bugs were too small, my bro was more than ready to buy a magnifying glass from the bookshop next door.

a similar topic cropped up over lunch with the YG folks when everyone was complaining about how contractors always overlook shoddy work once we pay up.. repairs either come slow, or that their workers would use their favourite line: "it's lidat one lah."

i know we're not in the business, but we know that cracked tiles, clogged toilet bowls or bugs in the gravy warrant more attention than that. where's the integrity and commitment to serve your customers? it's not like they're not getting paid. contractors these days wear Rolex and drive luxurious cars. don't believe me? just look at puah chu kang. (of course most contractors are hardly as aesthetically challenged these days.)

reading Waiterrant has showed me how ugly some customers can be, but on the other end of the spectrum are customers who have to put up with mediocre services or end up disadvantaged because "it's lidat one".

as much as Christians are commanded to be loving, we are also told to be firm and exercise fair judgement. being loving doesn't mean we have to take all sorts of crap from other people, but to tell them what they've done wrong and warn them lest they keep on sinning. having said that, i know that there are and will be times when i'll be on the receiving end of complaints.

i thank God that He is just, because where His kingdom is concerned, you can be sure the nice guys finish first. always.

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9:44 PM

Friday, April 28, 2006

My Newfound Hobby

how many days does it take for jean to finish watching all the Whose Line Is It Anyway? videos on youtube?

well, i've yet to know. but i'm laughing so hard i've lost track of time.

Richard Simmons on Whose Line here
(had some problems embedding the video directly)

tomodachi comes back tmr!! yay!!

1:38 PM

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Love Thy Enemy

the movie I Not Stupid left me in tears and laughs.. its an emotional roller coaster ride everytime i watch it.. Terry is really very funny.

but i think one of the most memorable lines from the movie was when terry's maths teacher told them to face their worst subjects and trying to befriend them and getting to the bottom of them. it just sounded really relevant to me because mathematics used to be one of my most feared subjects. i never did my a.maths assignments (mr poh seng kiat was never a strict teacher) and in JC, had it not been for hau yiang sitting with me thru saturday afternoons doing maths papers at my void deck (in the very cute sheep book he bought me), i would never have gotten that A.

his tuition really helped me in my uni modules because while everyone is under the impression that econs in uni is like JC's, it isn't. i go around telling people "i do econs" while conveniently overlooking the fact that its a Bachelor in Science degree. which means... yes...

MATHS.

lots of it!! i really contemplated switching to social science, as did geri. it was such a struggle for me when i thought that i had chosen the wrong course. i questioned God about my future and dreaded all the differentiation i had to do.

however, by His grace, this term i realised that i have become more comfortable with all that mathematics. i've begun to see the stories that these numbers tell, and how by just differentiating, that you can explain human behaviour. it's actually really fascinating. though the struggle has been long and filled with setbacks of Fs, Os and Cs.... maybe i will begin to nurture my love for maths, because now i understand that while words support your explanations, mathematics serve as evidences that your words are founded.

i think i have gotten to the bottom of it.

looping: linda rondstadt's "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"

11:34 PM

Monday, April 24, 2006

As a child i loved playing with this software game called Living Books. they would recite a story and you could click around to page to uncover hidden animations. one of their series was called The New Kid on the Block: Poems by Jack Prelutsky. oh my how i loved his poems.. they were the most fascinating thing.

though we upgraded our Windows and the software was no longer compatible, until today vivid images of the Living Books pages remain ingrained in my mind.

i scoured the children's section at the National Library and to my delight i found this:

i can't tell you how many times have i read this over since i borrowed it two nights ago. also check out his other complication, "A Pizza the Size of the Sun":

allow me to share some of my faves from "It's Raining Pigs and Noodles". thank God for little pleasures such as these!

Is traffic jam delectable?

Is traffic jam delectable,
does jelly fish in lakes,
does tree bark make a racket,
does the clamor rattle snakes?
Can salmon scale a mountain,
does a belly laugh a lot,
do carpets nap in flower beds
or on an apricot?

Around my handsome bottleneck,
I wear a railroad tie,
my treasure chest puffs up a bit,
I blink my private eye.
I like to use piano keys
to open locks of hair,
then put a pair of brake shoes on
and dance on debonair.

I hold up my electric shorts
with my banana belt,
then sit upon a toadstool
and watch a tuna melt.
I dive into a car pool,
where I take an onion dip,
then stand abroad the tape deck
and sail my penmanship.

I put my dimes in riverbanks
and take a quarterback,
and when I fix a nothing flat
I use a lumberjack.
I often wave my second hand
to tell the overtime,
before I take my bull pen up
to write a silly rhyme.

Nina Tina Fleener

I'm Nina Tina Fleener,
I'm clean, extremely clean,
I bathe eight times an hour
and shower in between.
I scour my head and shoulders,
my nose and knees and neck,
I rub and scrub so thoroughly,
I never leave a speck.

I wash my ears and elbows,
shampoo my lustrous hair,
I make myself so spotless,
I am beyond compare.
I'm certain not to overlook
my fingers and my toes,
so every single bit of me
splendiferously glows.

When my entire body
is shiny as the sun,
I simply start all over,
my cleaning's never done.
There's just one complication
with staying wet all day -
I'm wrinkled as a raisin,
and I'm shriveling away.

I Am a Noted Liar

I am a noted liar,
I cannot help but lie.
I never ever tell the truth,
I never even try.
If I say light, it's heavy,
If I say black, it's white,
If I direct you to the left,
you'd best be going right.

I lie about the temperature,
the time and place and date.
No matter what I talk about,
I must prevaricate.
The more and more I practice,
the greater grows my skill.
Don't think that I won't lie to you,
because I surely will.

I weave fantastic stories
and never blink an eye,
it simply is my nature
to lie and lie and lie.
I like a lie a little,
I love to lie a lot,
I'm truly lying to you now,
though honestly, I'm not.

Hiccup!

I have hiccup hiccup hiccups,
I've had hiccup them all day.
They're persistent hiccup hiccup
and won't hiccup go away.
I've tried gulping hiccup water,
stood upon my hiccup head,
held my breath until my hiccup
hiccup face turned hiccup red.

I've attempted every hiccup
hiccup hiccup cure I could,
but it hasn't hiccup hiccup
done a hiccup bit of good.
And in fact I think I'm hiccup
getting hiccup hiccup worse.
Do I need a hiccup doctor
or a hiccup hiccup nurse?

I can feel my hiccup hiccups
down into my hiccup shoes.
I have hiccup got the hiccup
hiccup hiccup hiccup blues.
I'm afraid my hiccup insides
are about to hiccup pop,
if these hiccup hiccups hiccup
do not hiccup hiccup stop.

2:26 PM

Thursday, April 20, 2006

mum and i were having sweet potato porridge for lunch when she realized her molar hurt.

she felt around in her mouth and realized her tooth cap was nowhere to be found.

"EHHhHHhhhHh?????? BU JIAN LE!!!" she exclaimed frantically.

let's wait for it to emerge from the "back door" then. poor mum.

2:29 PM

Monday, April 17, 2006

An Unlikely Fashionista

would you look at this bizarre sight - a tree sweater!! (Tree, surely you'll have a profound affinity with this!)

find out the origins of its story here.

now i'm imagining my cactus bobby in a bikini.

10:54 PM

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Kena Cheated

It was around April 2003. School just started officially in the JCs, us yr 1s wearing our crisp new bus-driver-green TPJC uniform, already learning the ropes of tucking it out yet in - by stringing a shoelace through the bottom seam of our shirts.

we were in the lecture theatre, ready to begin the first human geography class on - i still remember - air pollution. KT, our lecturer and my civics tutor started JC life on a rather scary note: "now that school has started, you can say goodbye to your social life. this will be the toughest 2 years of your academic life."

logically speaking, he also implied that uni would be less tough than JC. (also that i would end up a social recluse.)

i've come to learn that any JC tutor who told us that was obviously INCORRECT.

uni is much more miserable. as least SMU is. i end up going back to school on sundays and PH's to find the group study rooms almost fully booked. i cram in 4 or 5 textbooks of information every 3 months and have to pray so much harder here for good stress management skills.

i didn't study as much in JC.. but managed to do pretty darn well. here? i study harder only to attain fair results.

slacker than junior college? i would never tell that to my juniors. i'd tell them to really watch out or that GPA will lead you to academic probation before you can say "kbox".

just one more day.. kbox is waiting.

(psst. all the best to my friends who are having their exams too.)

11:31 PM

Friday, April 14, 2006

Crusaders

Meta 2005.. sometime around 4am.

First Life Meeting. Claire and Calyn's birthday!

My Discipleship Group

we. want. to. be. official.

it's coming.. i can just smell it.

keep praying guys! God has brought us a long way, and will continue to.

8:12 PM

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Engrish

The Japanese need to do something about this.

If you think its just this t-shirt, may i just give you a sense of magnitude at Engrish.com. Its a social disease people.

10:40 AM

Monday, April 10, 2006

Requited Love

we were halfway through the sermon yesterday on the Palm Sunday message when Pastor Barnabas Chong broke into "Jesus Loves Me", urging the congregation to sing along.

heads bowed behind our pews we meditated on this children's favourite:

Jesus loves me this I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me,
The Bible tells me so.

the moment i started on the first line my voice was cracking. i was overwhemled by the simplicity of the lyrics - such an important truth many of us tend to neglect in our busyness.

why is it such a classic? because it's the most important truth everyone should know about themselves and about God. everything God does is a result of the outpouring of this love.

as i laid in bed last night i sang the song to myself again - and to God. having a tendency to list out my prayer items to Him every night, or just ramble on while He listens, it's been a while since i just sat there and just bask in His love and listen to Him sing me a love song He never did stop in the first place.

God and i didn't have to exchange many words, but last night i know i was truly praying.

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." - Ephesians 3:17-18

11:25 AM

Friday, April 07, 2006

I am just that weeeeeeee bit lactose intolerant. it's just that the effect tends to magnify when i eat curry or laksa.

i spare everyone from lurid details of my excretion experience - i'm sure you've had a fair share of memorable moments of your own.. but i just want to let you know one more thing:

SHIOK.

11:40 PM

Thursday, April 06, 2006

My Paper Crane

Heidi Kenney makes the cutest things around..

find her site @ www.mypapercrane.com.

10:37 AM

Monday, April 03, 2006

Oomph!

it can be tiring carrying your guilt through life. it nags at you and eats you up, preventing you from realizing your full potential, stopping you from doing certain things you would otherwise go for.

if you say you've never done anyone wrong, or have no guilt, you're either cold or just in denial.

how heavy it is, that we wish we had never even committed that wrong. that someone, anyone would just tell us "you're forgiven".

but you know what's awesome.. when someone so great like God says that to us, it makes all the difference. with His approval, i pick up the pieces, forgive myself first of all, and with the knowledge of His mercy carry on with life - the abundant life He has promised to give.

how about the one who has been wronged? everyone must have been on the receiving end before (and we tend to remember these incidents better than when we wronged others). can we bring ourselves to forgive that person?

i know you want to. because bitterness towards someone binds us - while forgiveness can bring freedom.

but it's hard isn't it? what about all the hurt that person did to you? how can you just let it go? what if he or she does it again? no, i can't be on the losing end. i won't go through this torture again.

when my dad wronged the family, i thought i could never forgive him. after all, what do i have to gain if i did? wouldn't it be better to show him how angry i am, so that he'll know what he has lost? give him a taste of his own medicine, and just maybe, he'll wisen up.

but i imagined if God had thought the way i did, all our destinies would be sure death - eternal separation from Him - because He wanted to give us a taste of our own medicine - abandonment.

i had almost forgotten how dumb jean can be without God's guidance.

i thought the hurt would be too great and overwhelm any compassion or willingness in me to forgive. but i learnt a very important lesson in my walk with the Lord - that how much more painful it was for Him, when He had to send His one and only begotten Son; sinless, innocent of any wrongdoing, to bear our punishments for us on the cross - the most cruel way of death in human history.

i bore on my shoulders the hurt of my dad's sins - while He bore the sins of the world, yours and mine, though He did no wrong, while i have definitely not been the perfect person myself. who were we to send the King of Kings to condemnation, even taking the liberty to mock Him along the way? who am i that the Lord would want to forgive me and invite me into His kingdom.. i am so undeserving.

but such is the greatness of God's love - a love that boggles the mind, that transcends all understanding; a love skeptics would rather reason not to have, a love they thought would not possibly exist.

"if you're really God's Son, save Yourself! why don't You let Yourself come down from that cross?" they challenged. it certainly wasn't that He couldn't - i'm sure the temptation was great. but it was love that kept Him there, because He knew if He didn't, those He loved would never see their Father again.

we hardly say "God has love", but rather "God IS love", because love is the essence of God's being and character.. love is the highest order of the universe.

if you'd rather have a God that took care of everything for You, it wouldn't give you a chance to love Him back. He took the risk of letting hatred roam in the world, just so people could discover this love for themselves. why is there evil and suffering in this world?

well, because there was love. and our own free will to ignore it will eventually lead to the destruction of man.

would you want a boy/girlfriend who has no choice but to love you? no. because you'd rather have a boy/girlfriend who loves you because he or she chose to.

the most important thing i want to let everyone know here is that this love is available to all. the only thing that makes a difference is our choice to receive it or not - because nothing we can do will make God love us more, and nothing we can do will make Him love us less. God has given everything so that we will love Him back. the onus is on each and everyone of us, individually, to accept this gift. yes, free of charge.

and i cannot make this decision for you. all i can do is to pray, and to tell you about how this love has changed me, hoping that one day you'll see the need for this change. it'll put the "oomph" back in your life like nothing else can. =)

coming back to the topic of my dad, i can now proudly say that i have forgiven him. i cannot describe the liberation i feel - the amount of maturity and wisdom i have gained because i chose to obey the Lord. i feel even more effective when sharing about my faith with my dad now because i can do it without inhibition - i can talk to him like a man who really can be forgiven by God regardless of what he has done wrong - and i've never doubted that one day God can turn him back to righteousness.

it just sounds so encouraging you're picturing me leaping across a field, a rainbow in the sky, bunnies hopping by my side, flowers all around. surely you would say "that's great. i'm thankful that you have a God who can give you that kind of support".

don't say it like it can never happen to you. and who would you be thankful for, unless you've been touched by what God has done. i'm glad if you feel happy for me, but let me tell you one last thing:

i look forward to the day i can be thankful to God for you, because you made the choice to receive His love just like i did that fateful day. God bless, my friends. i mean it.

12:11 AM