today i woke up and then i ate some bacon and then i played soccer way longer than ever before and then i put on my leash and took mom and dad on an hour long walk called the small loop.  it was so much fun.  and then we cooked for thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.  so many scraps for me to eat.  then i took a nap

-sweetie

I’m pretty sure I have Clostridium difficile, AKA c dif. I’m thinking Zeke has it, too. I’ve been reading up on people and dogs with it. We are miserable

Why do we always get the sickest for nights, weekends and holidays?

Dear God,

Thank You for all the wonderful things You’ve done in my life. Lord, I pray that You will give me the strength to carry on with life, and that You can guide me to save myself, and the many others I love from the various hardships that we’re facing now. Father, I understand that I can never do things alone, that I need You in my life, but sometimes I  forget. And Lord, I pray that in these times where I wander off from You, that I can find my way back to Your guiding lamp, and fall back into Your love. Father, give me the determination to persevere through the commitments and expectations, and help me to escape this messed-up world I’ve created in my head. Lord, I pray that You’ll mend broken hearts and broken lives tonight. I pray that You’ll save us humans tonight.

In Your most Precious Name, Amen.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-38)

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

Lord, help me to believe.

I am freaked out by a certain boy.

I am more freaked out by the fact that Deborah is reading my mind (just as I am reading hers).

I am most freaked out by my hopes and thoughts.

The thing about parents is that no matter what you do they’re never going to be satisfied with you. I told my mum the truth, and she didn’t listen/believe it, and I got a 15 minutes nag from her. I told my mum I will work hard for my math, and she says “Ya. You say that every time.”. I told my mum I’d be home late and tell her my whole schedule, and when I get back, she’ll ask “Why are you so late?”. Dear Mummy, I do love you so very much, but can you just try to believe me when I’m telling the truth? At least have some faith in me.

———-

Well. That’s over. Camp Comm meeting today was fun haha.

Today I learnt that:

1. Daiso is awesome at English, and Japan has happy endings for all fairy tales.
2. Aston’s has a side dish that should be called “Mashed potatoes with smashed porcelain plate”, and Marcus got a free meal from discovering its existence.
3. Sembawang Shopping Centre’s Giant has their chocolate collection arranged as written in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (according to Jie)
4. Ginger (Marcus’s dog) thinks I’m a lollipop ._.
5. Ann and I are hooked on the X-box game now T.T
6. I cannot shop with Deborah because it freaks us both out at how alike we are, and we never keep track of time.

There’s probably a lot more I wanted to blog about, but facebook is tempting me by sending so many emails, and I shall grant facebook its wish.

P.S. Deborah, as much as we are similar, I’m sure we have a totally different taste in boys.

I typed “I baked my first loaf of bread yesterday.” I got the result “omfgwtfbbq”.

Google is officially my favorite website.

Girls are like apples… the best ones are at the top of the trees. The boys don’t want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples that are on the ground that aren’t as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think there is something wrong with them, when, in reality, they are amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who’s brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree…

I love Pete Wentz.

So, I had my gall bladder removed on Friday the 13th.

See? I’m not making this stuff up, you guys.  My life is as dramatic and exciting as my blog makes it out to be.  Now if I could just figure out how to channel that excitement into more of a jet-setting, wealth-building, award-winning sort of direction.

I was going to do a giant, excruciatingly detailed, daily account of the preceding illness and subsequent surgery, but I don’t really have it in me anymore.  Maybe it’s the pain pills talking?  Maybe this is my body’s reaction to a new, gall free existence?  Perhaps my “brush” with “death” has made me reorganize the priorities of my life/blog?  Ah, so many questions…

Anyway, the short version is that I started getting really sick that Wednesday (Veteran’s Day).  It felt like I had a bad stomach ache that wouldn’t go away and I was nauseous and feverish.  I wasn’t feeling any better on Thursday and had developed a pain in the right side of my abdomen, just below my ribs.  So, I made an appointment with my doctor.

The doctor told me there was something wrong with my gall bladder and that I needed to go to the emergency room to have an ultrasound.  Wendy drove me to Rose Medical Center (wonderful hospital btw, everyone was super nice and professional) and I got an ultrasound, some excellent, intravenous pain medication, and admitted to the hospital just before midnight. I had surgery at noon the next day.

I was supposed to have a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, but the surgeon switched to an open cholecystectomy (meaning, they cut open my abdomen the old-fashioned way) when he discovered that my bladder de gall was gangrenous, full of stones, and falling apart.  I stayed at the hospital for three more days and I’ve been home ever since.

I’m fine now, thanks for asking.  I had my staples out last Friday and I feel about 75% of normal.  But abdominal surgery isn’t something I recommend for, you know, kicks and stuff.  I’m glad they were able to take out my accursed gall bladder without incident, but I’ll not darken their door again…if I can help it.

The doctor said I could go back to work this week, but I decided to take the rest of it off.  We have a short work week due to the Thanksgiving holiday and I don’t feel great about a long commute in my delicate condition.  So, I’ll be back to work on the 30th.

Wowser, that wasn’t shorter at all, sorry.  So, what else is new?  Um, my Mom and Aunt’s visit went really well.  I have more to say about it, but I’m getting really sick of writing.  Stay tuned.  Also upcoming: a list of rock guys Wendy and I would totally do it with and how I started dating Lil John, sort of.

It’s nearing 3 am as I sit on the sofa typing out this post. I am currently feeling as proud as a mum showing off her newborn child: the oven just went ‘ding’, and the first loaf of bread that I ever tried baking is done. After around 4 hours of stirring, mixing, kneading and waiting, the result is a really fragrant, honey-brown crusted bread. And it’s making me hungry just looking at it. (I’ll upload a picture later in the day)

But alas, there’s 4 hours more to wait, before I show off my new success to my family. And I think I’ve found a new hobby

Some people are alive just to provide humor to mine. You are one sick joke that life played on me and now I just can’t stop laughing at you. Call me cynical, but you’re just pathetic. Quit getting attention for yourself: you already have neon signs saying “I am anything but decent” on top of you.

Consider yourself warned.

Honestly, can someone tell me what’s the big deal about being in a relationship?

I was just reading the blog of a girl I attended primary school with, and she had a boyfriend. My sister came in, saw it, and went: “Christine, she have boyfriend leh, why you don’t have?” (yes, she doesn’t speak the perfect English that I would have preferred) And my response to that question was “Why do I need a boyfriend? I’m not planning to get married in the next five years.” And she went “Why not? Got boyfriend can show off mah.” And I rolled my eyes at her.

I mean, seriously, what’s the point of a boyfriend when you’re not going to get married anytime soon? Sure, a boyfriend means one more person to go out with, gifts, flowers, cards, something to show off to the world and all that lovey dovey stuff, but boyfriend also equates to an extra commitment, money expenditure, an extra worry (in case he gets stolen -.-), an extra person to please, another heartache in the making. Oh, and an unnecessary temptation to sin.

I don’t know. A boyfriend is really just an ornament to show off to me right now. I’m fifteen, gets all the love I need from God, has a wonderful family, is satisfied with life (right now), and I don’t plan to get pregnant anytime soon. No, boyfriends right now are out of the question.

Someday, we all grow up and realize that we’ve got to get on with our lives. Had a really bad nightmare last night after a really long breakdown. My eyes feel really heavy now. Have to go prepare for school. Bye people.

Please refer to Dylan’s post on 21/11 for what I really want to post here but can’t because of copyright reasons and all that weird and fancy rules that kills copycats. Other than the fact that I’m talking about a whole other camp, I believe that the essence of the post is there.

Dear Life, you are truly wonderful and beautiful and all that stuff, but honestly, you would do a whole lot better without Commitments, and I hope that you can dump/kill him ASAP, because it’s killing me if you don’t. Thank you, and I’d love you even more if you can do it before tomorrow comes. PS. I really hate you now.

Today I got ready to go to church in 15 minutes. Because I turned my alarm off instead of pressing the snooze button, and ended up waking up at 0828. Literally ran down to church, and ended up being early (again!  Why can’t I be later than Deborah for once ._.)

Sermon was kinda slow and draggy again today. Then again, I’m thinking it’s my late nights and Pastor Kenny’s voice that’s causing the mental slowdown. After service has CG “sports day”; played captain’s ball, frisbee and block catching/Police & Thief. Had an awesome time running and jumping around haha.

Returned to church after CG and talked about Farmville (and how I leveled up so quickly and Olive trees), CG Chalet (can’t wait 8D) and random stuff. After that blissful 45 minutes was a mad rush for all the Youth Camp stuff from 1+ to 7+. MTM Camp Comm made up of such an efficient and dedicated group of people haha. Only 9 more days to camp!

Came home and got scolded by my mum for having so many commitments. I don’t know how to put into words the way I’m feeling now. It’s like “Ugh! It’s not as if I wanted to have so many commitments. All the SJ stuff are compulsory because of the (FILL IN THE BLANK) teachers/seniors, and it’s just so CANNOT BE TYPED HERE BECAUSE OF JUNIORS .” I mean, the only commitment that I ever really want to do in this holiday is MTM, the rest is like *rolls eyes and groans that I have to do it*. And my mum just can’t understand that.

Compared to me, Dylan, I think your reason for getting scolded is so much easier to solve.

Q: Can you please post about an eyebrow person you recommend?  I think they are so important for framing the face and my lady just tweezed the crap out of mine, after I’ve spent the last year trying to grow them out to be full and au naturel.  I’m back to Greta Garbo eyebrows. M.M, NY, NY

A: Let’s face it: Greta Garbo brows only work if you’re Greta Garbo. My good friend Cher had a similar experience. She went to some expensive lady who turned her into a chola. I feel for you. It just so happens I have the most amazing eyebrow lady: her name is Wendy and she is an eyebrow genius. I found her through one of my best friends, Antonia, who has a scar running through one of her eyebrows, making them notoriously hard to wax. Antonia is Brazilian and has extra high standards for waxing. I have seen many expensive pluckers: Robert Sweet at Barney’s, Robin Narvaez at Borja. None of them made my eyebrows look as good as Wendy and just left me feeling like I spent too much money for nothing.

Wendy costs $13.50 and is worth ten times that. She can take one look at you and assess the best shape for your face. She uses a combination of plucking and waxing to get them perfect and precise. Don’t be fooled by the unglamorous salon and I promise it’s worth going all the way to Murray Hill.

Wendy @ Lookin’ Good NYC
416 3rd Ave (between 29th St & 30th St)
(212) 685-9475

Today I woke up and played soccer for about 10 minutes.  Then I took mom and dad out for a walk.  We went on the big loop.  It is about 3 miles up  and down some big hills.  It took us a bit over an hour cause mom was slowing me and dad down.  She was real sore from her workout the other day and that made the hills tough for her.

After I came home and took a nap.

Whew!

I heard grandma was not feeling well so I hope she gets some rest.  Take a nap like me.  And grandpa apparently has been squatting like crazy.  Good job

Love

Sweetie- ruff! ruff!

Hey alex what are you trying to show off??? that is long?.  Just kidding i know you were not.  your work out looks easy (sweetie even told me so – she was watching)

Today i did a warm up and then decided to test my level of fitness.  I plan to do this test every month.  It went well, my legs are really tired now they are shaking while i walk.  It is a cool feeling – love it.  Also alex said i should start posting Sweeties workout. Stay tuned…

15min of elliptical (cardio machine). warm up

150 – squats without stopping

50 crunches

10 leg raises plus leg raise holding for 30sec

3 sets of 10 hamstring curls on a ball.

Stretching

Dear friend, I really want to help you but I don’t know how to. Please just send me a message, on facebook, email, WLM, SMS, it doesn’t matter what, just as long as you can feel better about yourself. You know my email, number, and name. It’s your decision.

xoxo

Foreword: This entry is written entirely IN MY OPINION. I am, by no means, a certified reviewer nor criticizer, but I do have the right to voice out what I think, especially since this is my personal blog and not some weird public forum. I understand that many people may disagree with what I have typed, and I do welcome people who want to change my views by explaining your views to me, but people who are just here to slander me for having different opinions from them can just click that tempting little white cross in a red box at the top right corner of your window and never see my blog ever again. I repeat, once again, that this entry is written entirely IN MY OPINION, and I do agree that my opinion can be wrong. Thank you for reading this long foreword. Consider yourself forewarned that a lot of criticism will follow the reviews.

———-

To me, Tim Elmore’s seminar today was more about seeing how believers from other churches worship God, and trying to accept their way of worship, rather than the Habitudes that he was trying to preach.

The whole deal about “Rivers & Floods”, “Big Rocks First” and “Iceberg” was just “Focus on your goal, Prioritize your life, and Be yourself”. They’re just fancy names for basic things that your teachers tell you every single day in school.

I was expecting the lecture to be more focused on God, y’know? Instead of telling you everything you need to do and just garnishing the surface with some quotes from the Bible, I expected a lecture like the one Nick Vujici gave: Something that had more impact on my Christian life as compared to just (re)teaching me life skills. Yes, Tim Elmore is a good speaker, and I do believe that he has a very strong relationship with God, but I’m sure that he could have done better than just coming up with some recounts of his encounters with God. It wasn’t supposed to be a lecture on how great and mighty our Lord is: we can all find that out from the Bible and Internet. It was supposed to be a lecture on how the Lord can work in our lives and help us lead by example and not authority. At least, that’s what I thought it was supposed to be.

On the other hand, I learnt a lot more about worship through observation.

Firstly, the songs just didn’t make sense to me. I’m okay with all the upbeat, pop star-ish attitude and stuff, but songs that nobody actually knows that have misleading lyrics and contradictions? (See this and this) And the most ridiculous one went something like “he doesn’t offer me anything, that’s why I pray”. Are you serious? I really don’t see how these songs are to praise God: they’re so much more self-centered than God-centered. I don’t know about other people, but I really couldn’t bring myself to sing the songs.

Secondly, the sight of people jumping up and down when the song reaches the chorus. Sadly, it reminded me of people clubbing. I really don’t see how that will make me seem like I’m praising God more: it just makes me hot, sweaty and have adrenaline pumped in my blood. Definitely not a good thing to feel during a seminar.

Thirdly, using soccer to compare with Christianity? The whole mood then was just so fabricated. I mean, come on, starting the thing off with asking soccer fans to cheer for their teams, then teaching the audience some new “cheer for God” which is supposed to be louder and greater than the soccer cheers? No; definitely not the way I want to praise God. Moreover, splitting the audience into groups to compare the loudness of their cheers and then combining them into one big group was so primary school.

And despite all these, I had the feeling that God was just trying to teach me to respect their way of worship. And to understand that although I may feel offended/do not approve of their manner of worship, they do have the right to worship in any way that they want. As the preacher of “Embracing Love” (I am so sorry I forgot her name) has aptly put, “I can feel impatient, but not display impatience”, in the same way, I can disapprove, but I can accept.

This was what I think I truly brought back from Tim Elmore.

So I see Alex’s post today.  That is coming from love.  Alex and I are motivated and always have been.  But I understand how hard it is to work out (juan i use to hate them to) but it needs to be done.  Life without movement is just Death.  Someone told me that analogy yesterday at an ergo meeting.  They were talking about how we put people in static postures which is pretty much death. He was asking why dont we make things move for employees so it forces employees to change their posture slightly.  This guy was a sales man who invented moving keyboards and mice so they change position on their own (motorized) pretty cool ha.  I think that statement has some truth to it.  I no it is tuff.  Today i took spinning again (because it is Thursday) since I left Chevron i have had a hard time getting motivated during my workout and have not been doing spinning.   Spinning is tuff you are on a bike that is probably the most uncomfortable bike you would ever sit on.  If you are not use to it your butt hurts, hips, knees, hands, wrists, neck, shoulders, back, and my feet go numb for about 45min.  I will probably experience this every time I go to spinning until my body gets use to it.  I am sure it is even harder for you both but I know you can do it.  I try to think about other things when i first start my workout (to distract me) I do this until i get use to the pain.  Then when my mind is ok with the pain, i then, can finally get into my workout.  Today was one of those great days.  After about 15min of the hour long class i started to really push myself, with feet numb, wrists hurting, butt sore, etc.   I know, from past experience, it will get easier and my body will hurt less.  What ends up happening, after you get in a good work out routine with good progression, your body actually hurts to not workout.  If you miss more then a day or two of movement that is when your body will actually hurt.  You will actually feel like you are getting sick but really your muscles are just itching for a workout.

Workouts dont just help with muscles/movements, etc.  They also help with mental health.  Your body feels a increase in the happy chemical, which we all need daily.  look forward to seeing you both next weekend.  Also i am guessing we can not bring Sweetie?

I know I have run on sentence issues – just ignore them.

Spinning – 1 hour with a intense effort

Today’s gonna be a long but interesting day! Youth Camp meeting in a while, then Orchard with Deborah, then Tim Elmore at night 8D I’m geared up and ready to go haha.

On off topic note, I really hate it when Dylan is right. Google Chrome screwed up on me this morning, and my Starhub broadband is being really slow today. Let’s just hope it’s a server problem.

Our trip to New Mexico was definitely a much needed vacation! But it caused me to get so far behind on everything else… which is why this blog is suffering! So I decided to get day 3 posted today. If you would like to read starting with day 1, click here.

By the time day three rolled around, we were all so exhausted. We could definitely feel the lack of sleep catching up with us. But that didn’t stop us. We woke up around 7:00 am, took our showers, went downstairs for breakfast at the hotel, and set off in search of the Turquoise Trail.

After driving down the Turquoise trail for about an hour, Meagan spotted a fabulous little church that was surrounded by a chain link fence. Inside this fence along with the church were these really fabulous grave sites (grave sites in New Mexico are really fascinating). And right next door to this little church was the ruins of a stone house that had obviously been through some sort of storm. It wasn’t until we stopped at this site to take pictures that I realized I left my stinkin’ camera battery at the hotel! Can you say, @@X##@X!!?? Meagan and Scott were being a really good sport about it, and kept telling me not to worry. But I was totally sick to my stomach that I was causing us to have to drive an hour back to the hotel and then another hour back to where we were so that we could continue our journey down the trail to Santa Fe. I am blessed to have such understanding, patient, and wonderful people in my life.

So once we finally went to retreive my battery, stopped for lunch, and ended up back on the trail, we stopped back by this little church and took some pictures. It was then that we realized that there were several set of ruins in the area, and we didn’t skip a beat. We spent a good 45 minutes in the area. But that wasn’t my only disaster of the day. Somehow I managed to lose some of my photos from this area. I guess I’m lucky that I only lost the shots of the church, but it is still sad. For whatever reason, my laptop decided to have a panic attack. I was dumping my cards on my external drive every night at the hotel, but somehow I lost a few when my laptop decided that it would only work for me again if I did a complete system restore! But at least I managed to salvage the other 99% of my photos from my trip.

Nashville Wedding Photographers: Wendy C. Photography

Wendy C. Photography: Nashville Wedding Photographer

Nashville Wedding Photographer: Wendy C. Photography

Wedding Photographers Nashville: Wendy C. Photography

We continues our journey down the trail and we surprisingly stumbled upon a little community by the name of Madrid. This is the town where the movie “Wild Hogs” was filmed. It is a cute little community that is full of Harley Davidson lovers (imagine that) as well as sophisticated art lovers. The restaurants were cooking and it smelled like food being grilled in the back yard. This liitle town made me dizzy as it overwhelmed every sense in my body. It was eye candy for a photographer, and the smells made my tummy rumble with hunger as I smelled something being grilled in the middle of town. And the food was delicious. I ended up eating a taco salad (I craved spicy food while I was in New Mexico) and I watched Scott and Meagan finish off an ice cream cone and a chocolate malt (as my mouth watered). And I swear the guy in the photo below is Willie Nelson! (I WISH!)

Nashville Wedding Photographers: Wendy C. Photography

Nashville Wedding Photographers: Wendy C. Photography

And for all you movie buffs or “Wild Hog” fans… you will appreciate this one!

Wedding Photographers Nashville Tennessee: Wendy C. Photography

After enjoying the relaxed atmosphere in this community, and stuffing our faces with food because the smells drove our tummies wild, we decided to keep on driving. We had no idea where we would end up at the end of the day; we just knew we would keep driving until dark and then head back to the hotel. Well… the trail ended in Santa Fe, new Mexico so we decided to head toward the little town of Taos where I had heard about a fabulous spot where people still live like they did 1000 years ago. They still live with no running water or electricity, and the town surrounds the most sacred spot to them… the mission. So that is where we were headed. We had no idea what we were in store for along the way. I’ve never seen such beaty as that of New Mexico. Just look at what we drove through on the way to Taos.

Nashville Wedding Photographers: Wendy C. Photography

We had no idea that we would be driving through the Santa Fe Canyon down Canyon Road. Like I said before, we had no destination in mind when we left the hotel. We just decided to wing it on this particular day. What a gorgeous drive it was to Taos. But by the time we got there, it was too late to photograph the community that I had hoped to. When we arrived, there were signs up telling us that they were closed for the day, and that there was no trespassing or photographs allowed. We decided not to risk it (although I was trying to talk Scott and Meagan into it). So we headed down some other road just to see what we would see along the way and after driving through the forrest for what seemed like forever, we ended up passing this fabulous little shop in the middle of nowhere… literally! We simply stopped the car on the side of the road and stuck our camera out the window to take a picture of this green door that was lit up in the middle of pitch black nowhere. I still have no idea what this place is, or why it is even there. Surely people do not drive that far to go here. As we were hanging our heads out the window shooting this door, we were listening to the coyotes scream and howl at us for invading their territory.

Nashville Wedding Photographers: Wendy C. Photography

There wasn’t much more that we could photograph in the middle of nowhere in the dark. When it gets dark in the mountains, forest, and desert, it is REALLY dark. You can barely see your hand right in front of your face. So we told Laura Lou (my gps) to take us back to the hotel. As usual, Meagan fell asleep in the back seat, and I tried my best to keep Scott awake (because he had driven constantly since we arrived in NM). About the time we made it to Santa Fe, the ipod on shuffle, starts playing the song “Back to the Hotel” by N2Deep. That totally brought back an 80’s moment for me and Scott, so we turned up the music and jammed like our lives depended on it. How ironic that this song came on as we were actually headed “back to the hotel”. Meagan never woke up.

Thanks for letting me share my vacation with you. I hope you enjoy the stories, and the pics! Day 4 in New Mexico will be next, and it is actually my favorite day! So don’t miss it!