don't lie to me

"the ups and downs..."

Last weekend was one of the most wasteful weekends. Don't ask...

Then comes monday... started the day well, with a perfect breakfast. Thought of doing something nice, and decided to make dinner for my family after work. since i've always been cooking with friends and haven't officially prepared a proper meal for my parents yet.

Went shop around Cold storage after work, bought the neccesary ingredients, beef, pasta sauce, mushrooms, and one whole black peppered roasted chicken.

and yep... whipped out Beef Bolognese pasta, with roasted chicken. mmmm... might start making this a weekly affair... xD

Well... had a hearty meal with mum and brother, everyone's happy... everyone's smiling and chatting, while waiting for my dad to return home from work to hav his late dinner.

And i thought I could end the day with high spirits...

wooo... i was dead wrong.

about 10pm+++ i was in my room, overheard some commotion outside. then there was loud banging on my parent's door. I opened my door have a peek...

And i saw my uncle banging... my mum locked herself in her room, dad and uncle discussing something... uncle (my mum's bro) and mum not talking...

What the hell was going on?!

Then my uncle said to me, "Oh its nothing, you go back and sleep, just wanting to take back a chair from your mummy thats all."

ZzZzzz... harlow?? do i look stupid? that's like an obvious lie man! I may be born yesterday, but i wasnt born 2 hours ago! something was definitely wrong!

ok.... back to work, have stuff to do now...

Time

"Will it be too late by then?"

All of us just want to do so many things... but we always do not seem to have the time for it...

Meeting up with a good friend for dinner, playing at the arcade, window shopping around, spending time practising the guitar, chatting online with friends, watching your awaited favourite drama serial, spending time with God, having a short personal workout, having your favourite cereal for supper, checking emails, standing one side looking at my mum's pet mices having a whirl of a time among themselves and their new offsprings, taking a nice warm shower, and of course, having a good night's sleep to end the day.

Yep... did all the above yesterday night. amazing isn't it.

Yepyep... new skin for this site. The pic, is taken by my brother at pasir ris park. so yea, no plagarism here ya... copyrighted stuff... mmm... His camera too chim... so many variables to play with... haha. read his cam manual can also fall asleep.

Yepyep... today's a good day... xD

more than hope

"We all need a reminder once in awhile..."

Sometimes, i just hate the system that men themself create.

Do you know that when you make a purchase thru a Credit Card transaction, even if you didn't sign on the merchant's receipt or invoice, the transaction will still go through?

Even if a STUPID taxi driver (from a blue cab company) delibrately takes ur card, and charge the fare to Mastercard, the transaction still goes through and you still pay the stupidly high admin charges. EVEN if you didn't sign the merchant's receipt.

so in short, one swipe = transaction goes through.

According to DBS bank when i called, the signing of the receipt thingy after a purchase of a product/service doesn't mean much... its only for the sake of Formality.

Only when some client found out theres some discrepancies in his Bill, and complain, then an investigation may be filed, which might take up to 60 days!! then i guess only then they will somehow trace back and find the signed receipts from the merchant and verify. Then again, there is yet another administrative charge, payable by us if they take the effort to find the receipt.

Then again... actually theres no need of a signature when u use a card transaction. think online shopping. yep.

So since theres no need of any signature to begin with... scrap it!! Formallity sake? wad nonsense! if theres no good sense in implementing something, then Don't!

Well as always, we singaporeans will keep complaining on soemthing, and almost Nothing will ever be done. UNTIL something MAJOR happens.

maybe one day when all taxi drivers starts snatching consumer's credit card and swipe it using Visa or master. forcing us not to pay by cash and/or nets. Only THEN maybe will have new legislation that enforces all invoices and receipts to be Signed by consumer before the bank transaction goes through...

Its not about the money. its not that i'm poor and can't pay. Its a matter of principle. Why can't you wait for a mere 3 minutes to receive your cash? Why are you forcing me to pay the high admin charge? it may be a simple as a few cents/dollars now... but wad about next time, when we're talking about 3 or 4 digit figures?

Why must alot of singapore merchants have Crappy Customer Services? Why? Is it that your bosses are reaping in most of the profits and is paying you peas? Is it becoz of tt you are not happy working, thus cant be bothered with providing service to the customers? Then Don't Work in the service sector!! SHOO!!

Places which recently pissed me of due to their CRAPPY customer services:
- Pizza Hut (Tampines Mall)
- Comfort Taxi
(cant remember le... i tend to forgive and forget... sometimes i think i forgive too easily... jia lat...)
- The drinks stall at the coffeshop at Marsiling, near Jared's place. HAHA! another story another time.
- My camp's Store and their storemen. (HAHA!)

Places with excellent services:
- Hisshou Jap restuarant, at Pasir ris elias mall (ala carte buffet)
- Oscar restuarant at Conrad Centennial Hotel (awesome waffles and crayfish)
- The Ban Mian stall at the coffeshop at Marsiling, near Jared's place

Ok. its late! time to sleep soon! Good night!!

Anyway some positive stuff about this past week!

Church today!! fellowship with cell during lunch was interesting... talking about buddhism and some evolution theory stuff, regarding priscilla's essay.

Choir was great as always... love the tune of Altho parts in some songs... super nice. bedder than the tune of melody in certain songs... hahaha... love singing... even though my range not that good yet... hmm...

Bought the soundtrack of High School Musical Yesterday!! I'm Soaring!!

Also met up with daniel, Jared and grace ytd. Argh... must be determined to complete House of the Dead 4 the Next time round!!! *digs for more coins...

Dinner with Choir members and Yong bin! super talented guy with great voice... i must learn more... mmm...


Althos, the ally of us Basses. =D


Fish Steamboat. Which contains mostly Fishhead! so lil meat. mmm... to add fish meat, it's cost us ten bucks more. hmm...

Had waffles and Ice cream once again (after SO long) at Galare with Linda early this week!! xD helping her in her course to gain some weight... haha!


Chocolate Overload. mmm...


my hair abit messy man... and the one who complained that she's too thin! where got?

Cheers, have a blessed week ahead my dear friends!!

"...and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us"
- Hebrews 12:1 -

muffins anyone?

"and i thank God for food..."

I finally know what they mean when they say that breakfast is the most important meal of all. and i agree! It starts your day right, make you feel good and ready for today's work, and gives you a smile! and of course it also comes with the energy to live for the day. accompany breakfast with prayer in the morning, i do not see how we will dread our day.

And of course, like all other claims and statements, it comes with a certain fine print which states the terms and conditions. of which, most of us cant be bothered to read.

For example, when you sign up for a new cellphone line, how many of us actually spend time time reading the FULL long pages containing the terms and conditions? most of the time we dumb customers will just listen to the sales person, get persuaded by him/her to sign up blah blah... and just sign on the dotted line, without reading the full terms.

We all know that the 3 mobile telcos in singapore provide free incoming calls all day for most postpaid suscription. but if you read their fine print...

M1's free incoming calls are valid till 31st dec 2009.
(http://m1.com.sg/M1/site/M1Corp/)

While starhub's free incoming are valid till 31st dec 2008. About one year plus remaining.
(http://www.starhub.com/portal/site/Mobile)

Yep, we know that they most likely might continue providing the free incoming calls service after their expiry date, so as to keep consumers, like us, happy.

But there is also another possibility...

All three telcos could just stop providing the free incoming service when it reaches the stipulated date. And if there isnt any other new telco services available, we all have to start paying for our incoming calls form then...

All they have to do is to cite an increase in operating cost and that they are unable to provide this service anymore as it will not be financially sound.

Who knows...

haha. just as how certain transport companys are boasting of 30+ millions of profits quarterly, and are still wanting to increase fares, citing increased operating cost as an excuse a reason.

Anyway... back to terms and conditions regarding breakfast being the most important meal of all.

1) breakfast we eat must be something we love... it will not work if we eat something distatseful or something we dislike.

2) Time. We must have a good amount of time to slowly consume our breakfast. If we rush... how are we to enjoy breakfast? how are we savour the great tatse of the chicken sasage and muffin?

So the question of the day is... have you had your breakfast yet?

morning thoughts

"Breakfast is good"

A slice of muffin with grape jam.

Another slice of muffin with chicken sausage and cheese.

A nice hot cup of tea. =)

A simple yet delicious breakfast... to kill the monday blues away.

"An unfortunate side to the evangelical movement in Korea is increased competition. Churches number in the tens of thousands here, and are competing so intensely for members that pastors feel pressured to engage in a kind of one-upmanship: sending congregants on as many overseas missions as possible. New markets and riskier missions tend to garner more publicity, which until now has translated into more kudos and ultimately more money for the pastor and the church."
-> http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1647646,00.html

Its great to know that His word is spreading rampantly in korea... but i do hope & pray that the pastors are not evangelising for sake of just rasing more money and funds for personnal benefits...

Something for us to watch out for too... when serving in any ministry, there could be times we may feel tired and weary, and we start to serve and do the things we do for the sake of doing it, and losing sight of the main initial purpose of serving. At times i guess we just need to take a quick short break and breather... stop and reflect. and remind ourself again. and ask ourself again, why are we serving? who are we working for? what are we working for?

we really need to constantly remind ourselves... constantly...

really blessed to have a close brother-in-christ, aka my best buddy!! Its always great to have someone to talk to, to pray for each other and to support each other in times of need. Just realised my best buddy didnt bathe since last night! haha!

he better shower and wash up before going to for his first day of uni later man. Right Jared?

where's the cake?

"Music changes moods"

Someone told me before, that I think too much. until my wandering mind takes control of me... till i can become emo about some matter which is small to begin with.

Just messaged Lie Cong via sms. i'm sorry for being emo just now.

What may be a small thing to others, may be a significant thing to me.

Anyway... yep, went to watch fireworks just now with my cell group. it's been really a long time since some of us watched the display live. mmm... i still can remember the past, where i watched the national day parade preview live at the outdoor stadium, when we were like, primary 5? haha... then eating their Kfc dinner set, while waiting for the parade to start.

I miss being young.

Gonna turn 21 real soon... hmm.

So our cell went over to Marina square, outside macdonals there. yea... the display rocks!







Grey;s Anatomy is back!! First episode is on next wednesday!! But I can't watch! Arghh!! Next wed to fri, there's overnight exercise, for the graduating spec course... can someone help me record?

Oh! and this month's guard duty is on a weekend! on a Sunday again! ZzZzzz...

serenity

"As the Angels take up their instruments and play,
all worries will fade away for the day..."

Life.

Life and work.

Life, work and bosses.

The Power of Trinity. The source of all worries. But sometimes... all we need to do is do find a time to sit down, turn on our media player on our coms, turn up the volume, and bask in the serenity of instrumentals and our Father's worship...

and all the troubles of work will be gone.

Haha!

mmm...

Anyone wanna go Genting with me for my birthday? yep... guess i'll be doing something abit diff... alot of my frens already doing bbq and chalets le. Yep its always fun cooking our chicken wings, peeling prawns, catching up with frens... but sure i do want to do something different.

get out of singapore! take a break from army! yea... i know some say genting is boring and all... but well... i dun have alot of time to visit other places yet... gotta wait till i finish my 2 years liability first. and besides, haven been to genting for a long time le... besides, theres also shopping at KL. think its gonna be my first overseas trip w/o my parents haha. Well of course apart from my overseas training in brunei and taiwan.

Man... after ORD... wanna go Perth... and perhaps Japan too... mmmmm...

ok... going sleep le. tmr morning having commander's parade. Fainting at a parade is a Chargable offense under the law of the SAF!!

Blessed night everyone.

standing tall

"Climbing back on my feet,
never to fall again.
Putting aside the past,
not wanting to feel the pain."
- eugene -

It is not easy.

It was never easy... to climb back up... all by yourself after a dreadful fall while walking while walking on this path also known as "life". It has been 4 long months.

Four months seems to be long enough for someone to recover, but the truth is, the pain still lingers whenever i still think about it. I've tried many ways to remove the pain... tried distracting myself with doing other activities... going shopping and buying lots of unneeded stuffs... and the list goes on...

I'm a christian... and yes i know we all are supposed to submit to God and pray for our problems. But ever since the fall in Taiwan, no matter how many times i tried to give myself to our Father, I still can't find the strength and courage to stand back on my feet.

Until now.

Well... i guess i have recovered emotionally... but it sure took a long time.

During this time, it was a good period to reflect back on life. From the time in Bmt, to Ocs, to the training in Socc, to the fall in Taiwan... also reflected back on my life... life as a believer of Christ, my walk with God... relationship with my friends and brothers and sisters-in-christ, and of course, my family.

This time of reflection was good... i guess God did teach me a lesson he wanted me to learn. And I had to learn it the hard way...

Now i'm back up again. Smiling once again. Although i didn't make it for the grand parade on 9th June... at least i'm glad some of my friends did.

Desmond Goh. One of my section buddy who I really thank God for. Thanks for all the encouragement during our confinement days back in Alpha wing in Ocs... really dun know how to survive if you weren't there.

I'm glad he made it through the full 9 months.

Yep! I'm standing once again. Smiling once again.

Now im quite contented with my new current posting in the army. With more freedom and a relatively easier life, there's nothing much to complain except to be thankful for it.

Went for this year's Choir and Musician's Retreat. Haha... it was awesome man... a time to get away from regimentation and be around friends you love... a good break from Ns...





Yep no longer a trainee means more weekend time, means more time spent in church and fellowship! w00t! Really great to go back to the Choir and be able to sing God's praises as one united body of Christ! Always looking forward to sundays everyweek.

Well... life's been good... been going uphill these few months... all (i think) of my medical tests are done, and I'm actually fine!! praise God. Docs cant find anything albeit docs in taiwan almost treated me like i was dying... which i almost did. i think. Hmmm.

Ah crap.

Forget the past. Learn from it. Move on. and smile while you are at it.

Anyway... this is my 5th season of my blogs... starting again brand new with a new address as u can see. from a lil chicken... to a full grown eagle... no longer on the ground...

But Soaring high above the Heavens.

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