Congratulations to Ong Shi Ting, who had is now the first p6 who had stumbled on this blog! Haha. Welcome. Of course, this blog was initially not meant for you guys, but i knew sumone would sooner or later find it out, so i kinda catered it for you all. haha. Welcome once again.

Anyways, you might notice i do not have any links on my blog, partially cos i'm lazy to add, but also cos of security reasons. heh. So, before you link me, try to ask me for permission, becos while i love you all dropping by, i do mind by whom am i linked by, cos i dun want too many people linking here, lol. Of course, Tag if u want to, i'll try to reply as and when. haha.

Also, you might want to drop by the COS Praise Team P6 first session official blog. LOL. Just msg me and i'll tell u abt it. =)

Ok, thats it for now! SU-COS Children's Camp Oligopistos 2008 is starting in 2 days time!

What will you do if someone published an essay, wholly dedicated to put you down?

The normal reaction from a mild temperate being would be to let the wildfire of anger burn immediately without being quenched, to write back in retaliation until the last drop of ink on earth had been used up. If only it could be done this way. As the world continues to be observed, few can challenge the notion that 'Vengence breeds vengence'. 'Revenge', is just a start of a sentence without a fullstop, but only forgiveness can end it.

Recently, I've the honor of being the target of such a practice. Though there were no names mentioned in the article(s), one does not need to have an IQ of over 130 to realise for whom the post was for. To such a circumstance, I can only say, "May the Lord my God vindicate me". Yes, my soul and spirit were being crushed by the way the article(s) had been written, but I find no logical point to clarify myself by writting and publishing an article to put down the flaming arrows. I'm not saying that I am without fault, and the points of arguement in the article(s) stand and exist as it is, but I felt a certain injustice that only the Lord knows.

Reading through the articles had been like a fish bone stucked in my throat, but I got reminded of the story i read in the bible about King Hezekiah of Judah (2 King chapter 18). When King Hezekiah was met with an enemy who scorns him and the God of Judah, even to the extent of sending in a letter of insult, the reaction King Hezekiah gave in response to the letter was a major learning point which one can draw. Here in 2 Kings 19, Hezekiah said:

"This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. It may be that the Lord you God will hear all the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnenat that still survives."

At that point in time, Isaiah was a prophet in the remnant of Israel, and he reassured King Hezekiah not to be afraid, and that the Lord will be fighting for the remnant of Israel. Here, the King realised that he is nothing without God, and only God can extinguish all these accusations. He did not turn to people, nor did he tell announce to the whole world and make a big fuss out of it such that the people all get worried, but he only presented his case to the one who matters most; God.

It is almost impossible to walk through life without someone throwing things at you, both literally and figuratively. Now, the test of true character is, will you bend down and pick up a larger stone to throw back at the person(and this cycle continues till both parties are tired and injured), or would you rather not retaliate such that the stone throwing will end? Learn to accept that we are imperfect beings, such that we also make mistakes and through these mistakes, we might recieve criticisms which we might not like, but help us grow stronger and closer to God if we present our problems to Him.

In ending, i can only say in the face of these criticisms that i will overcome by not reacting to the way the world expects of me, but only to the way which God wants and expects of me. Its pretty hard, but this is what i learnt today during sermon;

Philipians 4:13

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Its been quite happening last week. My unit went to out for a cohesion activity visiting farms. Yes, farms as in Hay Diaries Goat Farm, Fish Farm, Veggie Farm.

The tour guide for the day was this guy whom we addressed as 'Uncle William'. Talked non stop (i guess you have to have this talent if u wanna be a guide) and i was amazed that even after 30 minutes into the trip from Base to Yio Chu Kang, he still had so much to talk, and even more amazing was that almost everyone was paying attention, including me. Just to introduce him a little, he told us that he was doing his Quiet Time one day in NS when God spoke to him to open a Quail farm, and his farm is currently the main producer of quail eggs in Singapore, but since the Gah Men is scared of bird flu, so he had to stop visitors from coming into his farm. =(

First stop was the Goat Farm. Just some fun facts. Did u know that;

- the meat of the goat is not 'MUTTON', but 'CHEVON'. I wonder how it tastes like - stewed, fried, baked, steamed, with bread, boiled... mmMMm

- mother goats produces 4 litres of milk a day while a mother cow produces 20 litres of milk a day.

- no matter cow or goat milk, you should not heat it over fire. If happens anyone wants to warm it, the milk should be poured into a cup and placed in warm water. Heating it up via induction from the warm water. Such way, the milk does not lose its nutrients.

- i love goat milk.

Oh, i meant, i love the PURE goat milk, not the chocolate one.

Proceeded to a fish farm, which was full of TOMAN fish. Good fish for fighting with using a rod, but not exactly friendly creatures which are capable of jumping high out of water and falling back, resulting in an unwelcomed splash in all directions. The freshwater eel on the other hand, was nice and slimmy.

Next was a veggie farm. The only interesting plant was the dragonfruit, which of course does NOT look like a dragon nor a fruit, but its delicious. I have never known that the dragonfruit belongs to the cactus family. Cool huh. Cant really imagine people finding this plant in the dessert though. Ironically, the main attraction of the VEGGIE farm for us NSF was the ginormous(gigantic+enormous) fishes from the amazon river, the smallest measuring 2m in length, 3 of them swimming in an even more ginormous tank. Imagine, the regular goldfish is their 'twisties' snack. i think the fruit is riped. If i could just sink my teeth into the tender white flesh... mMmmM..

And the Whatever-the-name fish which can prolly feed my family for 1 month. Photo compliment of ziyu.

The last trip was to the FarmMart, where Uncle William has a shop selling his quails(dead) and the eggs, and surprises of surprise, crocodile meat. Apparently, he had a deal with one of the crocodile farms in Singapore. cool, i'll have a try at crocodile one day. looks delicious. BBQ, anyone?
There, Uncle William and the Croc Paw. Looks Yummy...

The free quail eggs provided by Uncle William, which were tasty. I asked him how he made it, if there were treatment after the boiling, and he told me to soak it in salt water. whatever the case, it tasted nicer than the normal boiled quail eggs every new year.

The rest of the weekdays crawled by...

Now, weekends was much better. Went for my first dance practice before YPM and well, its better and more fun than expected. lol. Anyways, Taiyong was back, so dinnered with him and the sec 1s this year, whom i taught 2 years back with Samuel Kerk, Rachel Ong and Beverly Foo. Had a really treasured time talking to them and catching up a little, though i was never as close to them as my current batch of p6.

Churched the next day. Less than 2 months before we do Handling Over/Taking Over for these darlings. Awww...

Lastly, had a last minute planned dinner with Taiyong on Monday evening, which turned out to be a very enjoyable time of sharing and edifying, Just the 2 of us, partially thanks to Lowell having his exams and Jeshua's family forcing him to eat with them. Haha. (Lowell, dont worry, after exams if u wanna treat, got more such chances for fellowship, LOL)

PICs coming up soon, thats if Gan sends it to me soon. haha.