27th today. 2 more days till Taiyong's touchdown to homebase. Its been a long long time...

Now, for the highlights of the past week

1) Had an X-ray of my lungs at Aerospace Medical Centre. Can you believe it? Singapore Technologies even has the Medical wing. Got a 2 days MC at 4.30pm that day, which effectively means only 1 day of rest. Just for latest updates, i havent recovered from this monstrous cough.

2) Drove from house to hougang to fetch the brother, and headed to Church via the KPE for JAMMING! haha. New groove.

3) Almost knocked someone down on the way home cos of the dark. Thank God for my Bro who saw the person. (Pls dun tell my parents, if not i will not be able to get the car so easily! LOL. But, I've learnt my lesson, so everyone, pls continue to cross roads at the right crossing points. thanks loads.)

4) Missed eating suckling pig on friday. Base had a Base BBQ and ordered 6 of such. Well, dear wayne had his birthday party, so this miss is relatively worthwhile. Anyway, if God allows, He'll either make me rich enough to eat a whole suckling piglet, or that it would somehow drop from the sky. haha.

5) Jammin' with the kids(Shiri, Kasia, Kelly, Faith...) and some others. Pure joy. Late lunch at 4pm thanks to Vanessa Hudgens. LOL.

6) Taught this year's year end camp theme song during Praise and Worship. "You Have Been Faithful" by Steven Wee of Scripture Union.

7) Had a prayer meeting with my sesison teachers. I hope this can continue :)

8) Still EMO.

There there, and now, something to look forward to...

1) RECOVER FROM THIS COUGH!

2) One whole month without public holidays, and then i can enjoy ORD Mood.

Heartbreak.

First time in a long while i've added a title to my blog post. Emo, emo, emo. Heart-wrenching indeed, and its been like that since saturday. To make it worse, this emo thing feels like its gonna last a long long time, and this is definately not the last time i will feel so. How now, brown cow?

Sigh, its like this everytime i think about this batch of Primary Six-esrs, ever since saturday. Guess it had finally hit hard this time, reality. Fact is; "THEY ARE ALL LEAVING CHILDREN'S MINISTRY". To see them playing, enjoying themselves and integrating into YPM, hear them laughing, the frequent bickering, and at times crying.. these voices which i grew to be familiar with, soon fading away into the crowd. Gosh, i cant believe this is what Aunty Cindy feels every year for the past decade or so.

Well one point of comfort is, they will still be in the same church, and we will always have chances to meet, but to have the chance for this whole class(including the teachers) to congregate and enjoy another time together after this year, honestly, its pretty slim. Yes, i do still catch up occasionally with the current batch of Secondary Ones(I taught them two years back), but its quite saddening to see that not all the sheeps continue to stay in the same pan. Of those left, i mostly communicate with Annette , Kimberly, Anna, Joseph and Moses Ng(Very heartwarming for me, and the last 2 still call me Kor Kor Caleb!!). Even then most times are just the routine "Hi" and "Bye", but i cant ask for more, can i?

Back to reminiscing. I will never forget:

- how much Josiah had changed from the boy 'who refuse to let us convince his parents about saturday tuition', to become one of the most frequent student.

- how much Daniel had changed from the boy who 'could find fault with even the existence of a single plankton', to become so friendly; so much more jovial and opened up

- how Clara is always punctual for tuition, about 1hr early most times, but spends 99% the time chattering away at supersonic speed.

- how Faith Yeo became my underground propaganda machine for the Study Camp (LOL, and i still owe her bubble tea for that)

- how Garik, though being the older twin and shows a desire to grow up, is always following the footsteps of his pessimistc brother Gared. haha

- how Johnmiah and Nat Boon always end up in their own world of the gnomes...

- how Johnmiah always 'Chao Kgeng' his way out of things by faking a headache and at times, cry. haha

- how amusing Shiri looks when she attempts to play the drums

- how painful it was each time Michelle whacked me

- how responsibly cute when Isabelle will msg to inform us of her absence if she is not coming Children Church

- how impossible to see Faith Tiew without a smile accompanying her

- how Dayn brings in live frogs and fish to classes from time to time and everyone gathers to look

- how enthusiastic the gals were when asked to do Praise and Worship

- how funny Kasia and Janice looked when they thought that they had inccured the wrath of my brother when they were responsible for the massive disappearance of his cadbury sweets, a whole 3/4 of the whole tub!(interesting thing was that Faith yeo was actually the one depleting the sweets by popping one into her mouth every 2 minutes)

- how involved Jessica was when she was playing wack-o

- how loud Dorcas could actually be, and my my, her reactions when playing games are top-notched thanks to the 3 cupboard full of games at home.

- how Siyi would look at me with her slit eyes and purposely mispronounce my chinese name to make it sound like that of the China actress Zhang 'Ziyi', and almost afterwhich get irritated when i either refuse to acknowledge her presence, or slang her name in a similiar way

- how quiet Nat Teo and Amelia was and still is

- how Kelly Chew appears only during holidays

- how Josiah favourite word changed from 'huh?' to 'SOCCER!!'

And both Micky and Yu Yu, who had been MIA from ages and eons ago.

I will soooo miss the way Lowell 'interact' with them. haha

and the second session kids;

- Janelle aka Miss Blogspot

- Annabel the daughter of Uncle Danny

- Shi Ting, the cool and amiable 1st generation christian

- Miguel the Children-Church-Teacher-Wannabe

- Ernest, who kept asking me how i knew his name, when i should be the one asking him how his mom got her hands on my handphone number

- Samuel the i-look-like-i'm-on-cloud-9

- William Ang (Junior)

- Johannas Chong the pretty boy, Jesh's youngest brother

- Edwin the boss

- Joel with the toothy grin

- Ruey Ling the silent one, who made me look like i was talking to myself during the cycling trip due to her nil replies, haha

- Grace, Ruey Ling's friend

Not forgetting my dearest Eugene Sim, who cant seems to decide if he hates me or if he loves me, and Esther Soon Sawyers, a girl who has by far successfuly completely convinced herself that she is ugly, but who is actually very pretty.

What broke my fragile heart was to hear Aunty Cindy telling me personally that the class had asked her if they could stay one more year in Children Ministry, and the fact that it was an impossible request was like the atomic bomb 'Fatman', which was dropped on Nagasaki; end of war - end of story.

Been on MC from yesterday till today. Some serious coughing translates to some serious resting at home. Lots of sleeping and now, i'm half as fit as a fiddle.

I'm quite glad to announce that i've officially joined the I-Read-The-Whole-Bible-Within-One-Year club. Its been on my mind to do it for the past few years before i finally settled down and started during the SAFSA Track And Field Competition (In March) while i was forced into the quiet storeroom to man the stores. And yeap, finally done with reading through the bible once. Started the second round today.

Of course, sole reading of the bible is not enough, as James 1:22 had written; "Do not merely listen to the Word and so decieve yourself. Do what it says". Right now as usual, its a step at a time.

Today, 2nd last day of PSLE for those who do not take higher mothertongue. 3 days ago marked the last session of the weekly tuition which few of the p6 sunday school teachers had organised in a joint effort. Indeed, I've been greatly blessed by being part of this ministry. Teaching a classroom lesson had never been my forte, but i do love these kids. I'm glad to be working with Lowell, Angela, Zhangqi - the first session P6 teachers, and also the other helpers who does this voluntarily without being paid.

I can only laugh at utter embarrassment as i recall my short and trying stint at trying to tidy up their chinese language, only to stand corrected by the kids(thank God for Jaslyn for standing in for the chinese language). Gosh, i kinda disgraced my former school. lol.

And of course the refreshments. Who could forget the kind kitchen aunties who allowed us to use their facilities to fry some simple finger food for the break in between lessons, and the kind parents who provided free food, and Aunty Cindy's many sweets and cakes... the list just stretches on, but they all played vital roles.

The most encouraging thing by far, is that these kids have all bonded together, much closer than when they first started off; when the boys shun the girls like plague, and the girls giggle and roll their eyes at the then not-so-matured boys(yeah its a fact i observed, that generally, boys mature at a later age). Certain indivuduals i see have also started to bloom. These all took time, and now, the time is coming nearer and nearer when these darlings are going to be integrated into the Youth Ministry, and instead of calling me "Kor Kor Caleb", they could be just calling me by my name. Haha. Its about time though.

Ahhh. Beautiful memories.

Bro Tian Ming was sharing about his insights on Psalms 23 yesterday during service. I thought it was very apt, the message. For certain reasons recently, i've been forced to look back at my walk with God. If possible, i would really liked to put on sackclothes and sprinkle some dust on my head to mourn. Mourn, because the spiritual platform i am standing now is much shakier and further away from the one i stood on a few years ago. Not a natural process, but i've kinda forced myself to ungrow my maturity, and there is no other culprit but me. No, its not Army, though the circumstances do more often than not, promote the spiral downfall. Two sides to a coin though, one could have used these circumstances to their own advantage by growing exponentially.

What i wanted to and seek to become, i've not seriously strived for it already. My sole and most important destiny. Its becoming more of the dream which never comes true. Sure, from time to time i pray and do my QT, but many times these are done to 'clock' fulfillment rates of QTs. There is more to this I'm sure. I've seen it before and tasted it for myself, kinda like Moses standing atop of the mountain, looking at the Promised Land and smelling the sweet fragrance of the promise, but never stepping into its vicinity.

I should seriously grap the chance while it last. 128 days in total more, including weekends, leave, off, and public holidays.

Spent Sunday late morning till about 3 plus in the afternoon in the zoo. Thought that it was pretty much revamped from the zoo i used to know. And the best part was, our class has the best student to teacher ratio; 1 is to 3. 1 student, 3 teachers. Oh well, on a self consoling note, i'm glad most of them are trying/being forced to opt out of this children's day trip so that they can /attempt to concentrate on their PSLE.

Though t'was just one kid, i pretty much liked the company. Me, Lowell and Zhang Qi, lastly was Daniel Lai. Never a boring moment. Not when Daniel kept complaining that we should all take the tram than walk, and sulk when i tell him that we had no money. Lastly, when he realised that there was no way to make us agree with a free-spending boy, he resorted to reminding us the number of trams we missed when each tram passed us subsequently. Oh well, theres no guessing that the thrifty won the deal.

Wanted daniel to take a picture with the Lions so we can name the picture "Daniel and the Lions' Den", but oh well, he's too shy.

I thought this was one of the better zoo visits we have, not only cos of the company, but cos of the sufficient time there. For once in my memory, i remember not having to rush too much for a children's day at some paid park. Had the time to stroll from one show to another. One recommendation is the "Splash" show. "Rainforest Fights Back" was Ok. The animals were super cute. One advice: bring your own food and drinks!

On a different occasion earlier this week, i had this orientation on my dad's auto car. He was going through the uses of the different button, but accidentally depressed the button for the front bonnet. So, i ended up learning the stuff in the front bonnet, AND the ultimate trial of trying to learn how to change a car tyre. Couldnt have survived the whole lesson without my bro.

Hari Raya Children's Day tml. Hooray.