Month: May 2008

Saturday night, jere, mylene, xiang yu, lisa, lynette, bryan, jared and I rushed down to Expo after Jordanites by cab. It was crowded! The cars were like super long queue. And CHC was having their service like next door lol.

Anyway, we reached there at 5.30pm. I went to find alvin lim to get extra tickets from them. saw jerald also and took one from him. but out of nowhere, I somehow lost it when I went to find alvin lim. Luckily he got another extra ticket. We queued and went into the hall at 6+, and we were given a goodie bag containing a water bottle, a notebook, NCC brochure as well as some wrists light sticks. So that’s what the $5 is for haha.

The pre-service activities were quite dumb, asking us to mass dance and rap to Tell The World which not many people did in the end, as well as fake “body”-surfing…basically passing around giant balloons. lol. No wonder we must come at 6.30pm. The concert only officially started at 7+ after a dance item.

With the lights dimmed and after much anticipation, UNITED started off with their classic The Time Has Come instrumental riff. Joel Houston, Jad Gilles and another male (who looks like Tulele) and female lead (the girl from Came to the Rescue), but no Brooke Fraser though =( The other songs which followed are: Break Free, Take It All, Mighty To Save, Hosanna, You’ll Come (Bridge only), The Stand, Shout Unto God. The last song before the sermon, Joel read out a portion from the Bible which ended with “By His wounds, we are healed.” He then spoke about Mike from Planet Shakers who had cancer, and they sang his Healer song. Quite interesting to hear a United version of it.

The sermon by NCC’s Youth Pastor was too shallow theologically I think. It was a very prosperity/grace gospel and overly emphasized on “undeserved favour”. It was similar to last year’s Planet Shakers concert sermon, also organised by NCC.

The 2nd half was best. After the reprise of Healer, the female lead sang Lead Me To The Cross, All I Need Is You (Chorus and Bridge only), None But Jesus, From The Inside Out, Came to the Rescue (Bridge only), Saviour King. Followed by high praise of Salvation Is Here, What The Word Will Never Take, Tell The World. During the encore, they did One Way and Solution.

The worship was really really good especially at the high instrumental and free worship parts. Exactly like from the With Hearts As One album. It’s really wonderful cos it’s been a long time since I experienced them live in Singapore. The stage setup was quite interesting too, with 4 LED screens, 1 large one showing the main video, 2 smaller squarish ones showing visualisation and effects, and 1 tall rectangular one with the camera angle fixed with a full body shot of the main worship leader. So it looks as if there’s a larger than life person leading worship on the stage. Pretty cool are the effects which also included some photos and people from third world countries.

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Last Monday I went for NUS’ scholarship interview. It was quite threatening as there was like a panel of 7 deans and the provost. And the arts dean decided to ask me about policing the Internet in modern day society. And the business dean decided to probe further and ask with the Singapore Govt should censor and moderate blogs during elections. lol. The provost asked me why I didn’t consider studying overseas…hmm.

Now I’m working as a “glorified” delivery driver at Graceland, the company which produces those christian keychains, name plaques and bookmarks selling at various bookstores in Singapore. Basically, my job is to sort those stuff in alphabetical order, drive and deliver to the shops, replenish stock, bring back the old stock and sort again. Quite a tedious old-fashioned process.

Besides that, I also had to deliver Choices magazine. So for Monday, I spent most of the day sorting out the unsorted stuff, and on Tuesday, I learnt how to use the laser wood engraving machine, which was quite interesting. It works like a printer, yet it magically engraves wood with beautiful markings of different depths, creating images and words. Pretty cool.

On Wednesday, I drove a Fiat Doblo to Changi South, Tecman at Bras Bersah, and Suntec City to run various errands. It was so coincidental that at Tecman, while doing stock replenishing, I met Jimmy Boey, who was doing a similar job as me at Joseph Prince Ministries. And just nice, he can pass me the Hillsong United concert ticket. YAY!

On Thursday, I managed to drive 3 different kinds of vehicles: Nissian Urvan, Toyota Hilux and Opel Vivaro, which is a huge wide body van. I had to drove the last one to various places to deliver the magazines, from SIM to NP to Jurong Point. I did some stupid (dangerous) things, perhaps too long never drive manual, such as trying to move when handbrake is still on, and mounting kerb. LOL.

On Friday, which was the most hectic and rush day, I had to drive to more institutions to deliver magazines, from Bukit Merah (MDIS, MDS, JCU) to Dover (SP, ACJC, ITE) to NUS and to NTU. The last two are the worst, cos I have to deliver to each and every hostel/hall office, and NTU’s hall offices are very hard to find! In the end, I couldn’t finish NTU’s and have to head back to office. Saw 3 accidents along PIE which caused a massive jam, and I have to clutch in for so long quite tiring.

Overall, it’s been a fun week, though I’ve got a slight cold due to the hot weather and my job has to go in and out of the air-con van to deliver stuff, easy to get sick.

That’s all for now.

From 26 April to 1 May, I embarked on a trip with 7 of my batchmates to Bangkok, Thailand. After much planning and research mainly by YF and me, the day finally arrived. This is an supposed to be an extremely long post filled with photos, but my blog died on me and my draft post is now gone. So here’s a summary of what happened.

Day 1

We met at T1 at about 6pm, everyone arrived earlier than that. Mel and edwin shocked us with their HUGE luggage…mel’s was almost 17kg! before all the shopping! lol. After checking in, we decided to visit T3 via the internal transit area skytrain. it’s quite nicely carpeted, and we visited the famous FIFA, Ferrari stores and also the Hard Rock Cafe.

At about 8.15pm, we boarded the plane, SWISS International Airlines LX183, an Airbus A340. In-flight entertainment was not bad, we had a variety of movies to choose…from Sweeny Todd to Enchanted. But too bad our flight was only less than 2.5 hours so we had to stop the movie halfway. Reached Bangkok at 11pm, hired a airport transfer minibus van, bargained price down to 1000 THB, and it took us to our hotel. However, the driver don’t know the place, and I had to direct him based on my Google Maps knowledge. LOL. We reached the hotel, the staff were already expecting us. It was very nice and spacious and homely, and we settled in. Power tripped suddenly while we were bathing but it went back soon after.

Day 2

Had breakfast at hotel, explored the area, went to Khao San, booked our death railway trip, then went to chatcuchak market, lots of things to see and buy, 10 times the size of Bugis Street. In the evening went to Platinum Fashion Mall which is nothing much, mostly girls stuff.

Day 3

Woke up early morning at 5.30am to make it in time for the bus to bring us to Death Railway. Nice cemetery, old and not very well maintained museum. The bridge was beautiful, and the train ride was the best. I love trains! too bad we can’t go hellfire pass. after the train ride, we had a scamy touristy lunch, and then rode the elephant ride which was quite fun. After that was the peaceful bamboo boat ride along River Kwai. Then last stop was the Sai Yok Noi Waterfalls, at the end of the railway track.

At night we went to watch ah guai show. The interesting thing is, we decided to go MBK for dinner, and met the BK people there! lol. MBK = Meet Black Knights. Their flight turned back and got delayed.

Day 4

Shopping day! Went to MBK in the morning, shop the whole day until evening, then we went to Suan Lam Night Market for more shopping. haha. bought lotsa stuff.

Day 5

Morning we went to Grand Palace to take a look but it was too expensive to go in. Imagine paying $10 to go inside Istana. Ridiculous. We went to Wat Pho (Temple of Reclining Buddha) which was cheaper. After that took a stroll down Chinatown, had lunch, and down Sampeng Lane. Then, we went to The Dome at State Tower for the nice magnificent view of Bangkok as recommended by my brother’s friend. However, we were scammed as we were forced to buy one drink, and then got ushered to another area, and when we recommended by the watier to buy another drink, we decided to leave.

In the evening, we went back to MBK for last minute shopping, and we decided to go back to hotel as they want to watch soccer. Edwin, Yk and I, who don’t watch soccer, decided to walk around the area around Victory Monument to see if got any DVDs to buy to watch at night. In the end, we bought Infernal Affairs but watched HBO to sleep. Haha.

Day 6

We woke up late, pack up and got ready to go airport. Everyone had great shopping harvest! haha.

This week was a busy week!

Wednesday was Jere’s birthday, had lunch with him and whit and we discussed our secret project. After that, I went to Trumpet Praise at Novena to try out my new job. After a short chat with Graceland’s Annie on Tuesday, she asked me to try out the job today. I was supposed to sort and deliver those name plaques, keychains and bookmarks to various gift shops. Job officially starts on Monday.

Suddenly, I don’t have time to do my other things, such as redesigning this blog. LOL…I haven’t blogged about our Bangkok trip yet! However, it seems that if I don’t get a job, I will end up procrastinating and slacking at home, and hence not being able to do things productively. If I get a job, then I won’t have time to do these things too. lol.

Wednesday night was mambo jumbo with yf, mlin, zc and wee tiong. It was quite a last minute and we were spontaneous enough to decide to go together. I’ve never been to a mambo night before, and I would say the mambo and pop music is not bad as compared to those techno and trance music. It was an interesting experience although I would say it’s still isn’t my cup of tea. Not cheap to go often especially if you don’t really dance. But once in a while if you go in a big group of friends then it’s more fun.

Thursday, after some video editing for Mothers’ Day, edwin, les, yk and I went cycling on the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network (PCN). We managed to get a good deal at Kit Runners at $12 for 5 hours of rental (similar to yip’s). We cycled through Siglap, Bedok Reservoir, Tampines, Pasir Ris, Changi Beach and then back to ECP. The housing estates part was quite tedious as we had to go through various overhead bridges and traffic junctions. There’s not much signages at certain areas where you are supposed to go, especially at Kembangan MRT, in which you are supposed to go round the MRT station to the other side. Have to have a good sense of direction to know where’s the next connection from Bedok Reservoir Park. There’s also one bridge along Bedok North Road which is not accessible to cyclists (no ramps) so we took a detour and cycled on the road instead.

As les wanted to see the Changi Boardwalk, we took a small detour and push on bikes on it. (It’s a pedestrian walk, not for cyclists =p) It was a nice scenic view with the sea. Cycling past the SAF Ferry Terminal and Tekong brings back familiar memories. The Changi Coast Road is a very very long strength and it seems never ending. Some parts were not lit I wonder why. The street lamps probably tripped. At night, cycling into the curve into the trees at the end was also quite daunting. Haha. We managed to finished the whole lap of about 35km in about 4.5 hours (4.30pm to 9pm) with an ice cream break at a petrol station and a drink break at Changi Village. After that, our feet were wobbly weak and our butt hurt. It was a good ride and workout, along with excellent weather.

And today, Friday, 8 of my batchmates (the Bangkok trip guys + khooty) came over to my house and we distributed our photos, watched Shutter (Thai version) and United 93. Shutter was quite interesting, scary at certain parts, but nothing much lah. Quite sad also. I would say this would probably be the last mass gathering before everyone gets busy with their work and school.

On Monday I went to (another) NIS interview with Microsoft. It was the most challenging interview I’ve ever experienced. I talked abt media and advertising and he kept asking how is it related to IT. He likes to question my answers and ask “Why you said that?” I mentioned banner ads and he said that’s like the lowest form of web advertising (which is true) and say that I can do better than that, since I’m the youngest and hence the coolest person in the room and thus I should have all the time in the world to know more cool stuff than the interviewers. He also asked me why I didn’t talk abt facebook and viral marketing. Well I was too nervous to think abt so many things and perhaps it was meant to struck me…was under-prepared…I didn’t quite like to prepare fixed memorised answers actually. This guy also quite personal, asked me abt family, what is my belief system, what would my mum say abt me etc. I should have recorded the interview!

In the afternoon, YF and les came my house to bake brownies! the last time I did ’em with my mum was 3 years ago in 2005…time really flies. The recipe’s courtesy of Mr. Dax Young from the VJC Journal. It’s was fun and YF is quite good at mixing and doing stuff. We managed to create a chocolatey paste which seems like it’s going to turn out very sweet. After waiting, our hard work tasted just nice…not too sweet, not too hard, but chewy nice brownies. Success! And YF said it’s his first time making successful brownies and he is going to try to do it again for his friends on friday.

Tuesday, in contrast, the SingTel interviewers like didn’t know what to ask. After my self-intro, the director of network/billing said that MDA would be more suitable for me, which seems to imply that they didn’t want me. After that he went on to talk about Victoria School being co-ed and what are my views about that -_- like totally no link!

After that watched Iron Man with zhan, kc, jr, wee suan. great action packed movie. nice F22s.