First week of school :)

I survived! :D School has been interesting, full of life, busy and full of new things for me to learn and get used to. I like my class... it's small, with a great mix of people who have a passion for the course. :D The subjects we've been learning so far have been, written communication, psychology, sociology, community services and ITabs (which teaches us IT stuff to help us out with using IT for our course). Projects are slowly piling up, giving  us little time to catch our breaths. Simply, our lecturer told us during tutorial, "This is poly life." :)

It's also a small, small world. I met familiar people almost everyday. They were either my sec 1 school friends, smss friends or my primary school mates. I didn't intentionally see them, in fact most of  them who were my primary school mates and sec 1 school friends tapped on me to ask me if I remembered them! Some of them look so different, I can't recognize them. :D Thank God for all the familiar faces during the week and for new friends, as well as for helping me find my way around. :) Hahaha, I'm prone to getting lost (as I'm not street smart) so I checked out the venues for the classrooms and lecture theatres we had to go to everyday online on the campus map, to make sure I roughly knew where the venues were. Punctuality is taken very seriously. If one is a minute late till 15 mins, one would be marked as late. If one arrives after 15 mins, one is marked as absent.

Today, we had sports and wellness briefing and I took up badminton as my sport. It's going to be intensive for 11 weeks learning badminton proper+ competitions in the later weeks. For people like me, who hardly exercise, it's great to keep fit and have fun away from studying.

Thank God for bringing me through this first week at school.

An eventful week (100th post!)

Ok, randomly, this is my 100th post!

Seriously... this has been an eventful week.

First, was the HMS (humanities school) orientation camp. It was really full of activities and my orientation group was extremely enthusiastic... it seems like their energy never dies and they can really scream their lungs out. :) Thank God for safety, good sleep, familiar faces and for a fun time! He actually opened some witnessing opportunities for me but I didn't really make use of it well. (jolts me to be prepared next time... the harvest is plentiful!) God gave me a few pleasant surprises during camp, I met some secondary schoolmates (1 who will be in the same course :) ), 2 primary school friends (1 who was in my orientation group) and placed me in a group who were majority girls. (only 1 boy... actually in hms, boys are a minority.)
 Ok, about the witnessing part. Actually it started with me reading a portion of scripture before I went to sleep (I brought the small bible, only the new testament). On the 1st night, my room mates (2 of them both free thinkers), just noticed that I was reading a bible and when asked if I was a Christian, I said yes. They went to sleep after that. The next night, we didn't have a lights-out, so we decided to stay up longer to chat. I read my bible, while they talked for awhile. After I read it, I joined their conversation and KY ( one of them) asked me, "Actually, what is the Bible about?" Her question caught me by surprise and I was momentarily stunned. Her question seemed simple, yet I could not seem to think of a satisfactory explanation, so I showed her the Bible and asked her to read it. (that was not really wise of me actually, come to think about it) After flipping the Bible for awhile she replied that it was very "cheem." I didn't know how to continue... Then the other girl piped up, "I know, the Bible has Matthew, Mark and all that right?" ( it turns out that she attended a church before) and she also asked if I was a Protestant or Catholic. I was surprised to know that she knew there was a difference between the two denominations. Our conversation lingered for awhile on religion and then drifted away to other topics. In my heart, I was thinking, "Oh man, I just missed such a great witnessing opportunity because I wasn't prepared to give an answer when I should be prepared." I'm sure God put this incident in place to remind me to always be prepared to give an answer to anyone. ( as written in James)  

Next, it was Francis's frantabulous fourteenth birthday! ( heh heh, I made the too sweet 'toy drum cake.' It was just jelly beans and chocolate all over, from the inside out. It tasted too sweet for me. :D) My mum improvised the drumsticks. She wrapped a pair of chopsticks with aluminium foil. :D  Haha, it was fun...

Lastly, was the "Grace" charity concert which I self-dragged myself into which I originally, simply intended to support the players by watching but ended up performing too. :D  It was tiring but fun to play with strings again and meet everyone. :)

                                                          The blue-tie(d) players. :))

Thank God for bringing me through yet another week, for the fun and all the lessons He's teaching me!





                                                

Getting busy

School is starting soon. Next week I'll be having orientation and school starts on the following Monday. I'm excited and nervous at being in a new environment.I've been praying for God to provide some godly Christian friends and to prepare my heart to be discerning.

Besides school starting, I've been partly 'dragged' (that's because I also partly agreed) to be part of the concert coming up. I hope that I'll be able to memorise the pieces, especially the repeats and that I won't forget because I'll not be able to practice for the 2 days that I'll be at orientation. There's also children's camp craft preparation. My leadership skills are really bad and well I've not been really focusing on it as I should have, honestly. I've still a lot to learn and am learning to take constructive feedback. Haha, have to keep telling myself not to be lazy and not to be self-defensive! Surely, God is teaching me something through this. :)

The 4 month hiatus from studying is about to end. Actually, although I'm not studying, there are other things that keep me busy, so I won't say that I'm very free in a way even though many people think so. :D

Thank God for this day! 

Lost sheep

Lost sheep
strayed out of the pen.

Wandering

in the wilderness.

The Shepherd watches,
He knows.

He will bring His lost sheep back
to the fold.

Accounting

Went to help Aunty Mary today. :) I had a good time of fellowship and work. :D During this break before school starts, I've been helping Aunty Mary and learning the ropes of using the computerised program. After awhile, one gets the hang of it but it can get tiring for the eyes because what I'm doing is mainly the book keeping aspect of accounting. It's so different from poa in real practice because you have to sort of visualise what's happening in your head, there are no specified t-accounts drawn out. Of course, computerised accounting is definitely much easier. 

Based on my learning with 师父 so far, I've observed that accountants are generally very organised, responsible and trustworthy. Hahaha, today I learnt that the NEA covers radiation protection (like in x-rays in hospitals), previously, I only associated the NEA with the nature environment like eliminating dengue mosquitoes, revamping and protecting parks, picking up litter etc. It's interesting to know that the 'environment' that NEA is dealing with actually covers quite a wide spectrum of things. :)  This shows that I really have little knowledge on what the NEA does. :)

Good Friday

Today, we had the first session of S.O.P (Seasons Of Prayer). It was great to have a time of silent reflection and reminder of His love in sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Indeed, "His love endures forever!" Thank you LORD for your love and grace.

Thursday

I went back to collect my O level certificate today+yearbook. It was awesome going back to school again. There were some minor infrastructure changes but other than that, the ambience was still quite the same. Everyone, including the students seem to be very busy with activities. Even Miss L. has taken up heavier responsibilities now; although the few of us who went took waited quite awhile for her to finish conducting the interview, it was worth it to get to see her and talk to her again. Love her cheery smile and optimism. :) Haha... M. and I got to talk to her a little longer because of M. 's 'boldness' at calling out to Miss L. for a lift when she was on the way out. :D It was meant to be a joke but she really stopped for us! :D It was a great privilege and we had a longer time to chat with her. :D

I managed to catch up with some classmates who also went back today... long time no see... :) it was pleasant chatting and we had a hale of a time laughing. How my cheeks ache! :D