Hello hello dirty fellows!

Let's get down to it. I had a pretty bad week in so many sense, and i was pretty glad when it was the weekend. But in everything, the joy of the Lord is my strength!

I got this email once from my aunt (her emails are probably the few worth opening) and it was an article written by rick warren and it talks about something like this. Life is going to be a series of problems. It's either we're in one now, we've just gone through one, or we're going to go through one. And it says this:

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on, and no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

If we spend all our time focusing on our problems, it only gets worse and we fall into self-centredness and self pity. The best way to get out of it, is to shift our focus onto God and others instead of ourselves.

In the email, it also reminded me this. God is more interested in my character than my comfort. Since i know that, i'm not going to waste precious time trying to get comfortable. I'm going to use the time to work on my character, to aim towards Christ-likeness.

Okay, enough self pep talk! Time to bring it out to practice into real life! Being positive is really tough, cause we always feel like we want to be negative 'just in case', so we have something to fall back on. Like it's wrong to be positive after all we've been through, perhaps it doesn't get us the sympathy we want from people. But we just gotta draw strength from God, not ourselves, and fight on.

Have a blessed week everyone! The joy of the Lord is our strength :)

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in the wires that decide

Posted on 11:28 PM, under

Hello! Okay, so i cannot help blogging about this cool thing i experienced this week. (besides the movie surrogate, tgv popcorn, and a slightly slower paced maths lecture yay!)

A few of my uni friends and I decided to go to this research and invention exposition at Kuala Lumpur Convention Center last Thursday cause there wasn't any class in the afternoon yet. Of course on the way, we caved in to Bruce Willis' new movie Surrogate + TGV popcorn (always the best choice!). This exposition features booths of Malaysia's higher institutes of learning's new inventions and research. It was really cool to see some creative inventions and for an hour or so i felt this awesome-nerdish feeling.

Well, let's keep this as short as possible. The main part is, there was this booth where the invention seemed to be a wheelchair. It's called (from my very bad memory) Brain Interface System for Robotic Use or something like that. So what was it actually? It's like this. The person who sits on this chair is hooked onto some stuff like probes to read their brain waves. Then once the whole setting up process is done, how it works is this. The user cannot move any part of their body, even the eyes, and needs to focus hard. If the user imagines his/her hands to move forward, then the chair moves forward. To move right or left, just imagine your hand moving in that direction and the chair follows suit.

I heard the theory, and I tried it out cause it was SO COOL. Some more right after watching Surrogates, this sort of technology awed me. Okay, I know it doesn't sound so cool with no visual and just me and my words but I'm sorry that's the best I can give you. The expo ended today. There is a video but I have to get it from my friend.

So yeah, that's it. What an awkward way to end haha. Oh yeah, Wenshan said a woman asked him if i was paralysed while I was trying out the chair cause I wasn't supposed to move anything at all and had to focus very intently.

Have a good week everyone!

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Update! I'm actually feeling like crap right now cause my nose has been running non-stop all day, but on the bright side the sore throat is getting better! So while waiting for the medicine to kick in, I'll update this dusty blog.

I finally had my first week of class after 4 months. It's been great, I guess first weeks are always more relaxing cause lab hasn't started and it's usually introduction of topics so it's not so hardcore stuff. I say 'usually' because just when I thought first week couldn't get any more relaxing, friday morning came. And yes, it's friday and for this week only it's only going to be a 2 hour class so it couldn't get any better right?

Definitely right.

Let me tell you straight it was the craziest maths class I have ever attended, and that's saying something cause I've had my fair share of out-of-this-world maths class. That said, I still have this fondness for the lecturer, I don't know why. She's like a mum. A mum who loves maths la.

So why was it crazy? Well, the moment the clock struck 9am, she started which is great cause punctuality is the key right. Her speed was that of a bullet train I am so not kidding you, and after one hour of non-stop (I stress that it was non-stop talking and writing notes) we thought she would give us a break, cause that's usually the case. We get a 5-10 minutes break an hour into a 2 hour lecture. But no. She continued like no one's business, and so the thought of a break (and at that moment, a much needed toilet break) was gone with the wind. Usually, if a lecturer doesn't give us a break, they finish about 20-30 minutes earlier so that was a motivating thought. Guess what? She went NON-STOP until 11am.

If it were a 2 hours class of some theoretical module (which yes, i grant you, is scarce in an engineering course) then at least one's attention could wander and it wouldn't be so tiring trying to catch up. But it was maths. Not just any maths, it's called Mathematical Techniques for E&E Engineers. Which means no one else in other engineering courses share this same module. Since foundation, every student regardless of their engineering course, share the same maths module. So I've always had this one friend from mechanical engineering who had a burden to help me in maths (bless her), of which I am very thankful.

So when my attention threatens to wander in class, I tell myself I can't depend on her anymore, I've got to put in more effort! Trust me, even the world's best multi-tasker will find it hard to digest new maths equations, techniques, while trying their best to copy the notes which the lecturer (due to her huge handwriting- no complains there) erases very quickly, and at the same time try to figure out just what in the world they are copying.

Basically, to summarise, if you were to spend even 5 seconds thinking "Boy, am I hungry, I wonder what's for lunch" or "Man, I sure need to go to the toilet", you'll suffer and be lost for the rest of the class. Which explains why my notes are clean with no scribbling at the last page because i totally lost her at the last 15 minutes of the class.

Started Bible study again, had ConneXion House Opening, climbed Broga Hill, slept early, woke early, had a good week in general :) Yes, I know I used like 5 paragraphs talking bout that one maths class and one sentence to describe the rest of the week- it was that crazy!

I'm glad tomorrow is Sunday, I love how I learn a little more each week of how to worship Him from my heart, and lay my burdens down at His feet and leave them there. I love how He gives me a quiet strength to go through another week where my fears and discouragement sometimes overwhelm me. I love how He loves me, and I love how that is starting to be my ultimate motivating factor despite all that I've faced, and will face. I love how imperfect I can feel one moment, and comforted by His perfection the next moment. I love how I am nothing and yet I can do things through Him who gives me strength.

Most importantly, I really love Jesus, and that's an amazing feeling.

We love Him, because He first loved us.
1John 4:19

Haven't sang this hymn in ages, but it has been playing in my head. I hope it blesses you the way it blesses me in the worst of days.

Love Was When
    Love was when God became a man,
    Locked in time and space, without rank or place;
    Love was God born of Jewish kin;
    Just a carpenter with some fishermen;

    Love was when Jesus walked in history,
    Lovingly He brought a new life that's free,
    Love was God nailed to bleed and die
    To reach and love one such as I.

    Love was when God became a man,
    Down where I could see love that reached to me;
    Love was God dying for my sin
    And so trapped was I my whole world caved in.

    Love was when Jesus met me, now it's real;
    Lovingly He came, I can feel He's real!
    Love was God, only He would try
    To reach and love one such as I.


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Just a short post. Blogging is really not as easy as it looks haha. So last week i spent every alternate day at the ConneXion student house in semenyih, off my university campus. In a nutshell, to enlighten you, we have a Bible study group on campus but now we're starting this student house too so we can have activities here and students can hang out. So basically this summer has been a Project Revamp.

So we were raking the grass right cause it was sooo long and if the grass cutting man (is there a better term? haha) were to rake it for us after cutting, it would cost an extra RM30 (!! yes it's a bungalow but it's not a mansion!) So we did it ourselves. It took about 4 hours spread out in 2 days.

Before raking it looks like this


you cant see it but it's actually more than an inch thick of cut grass


Then after tirelessly raking under the burning hot afternoon sun, obviously satisfaction is aplenty when we achieve this


However, one's happiness is short lived, when she looked over the fence at the neighbour's house to see this

Talk about a demotivator! Haha, but still, a cup of cold 100 plus does make up for it :)


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*click to enlarge*


I miss high school life and the people:)

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there is someone here inside

Posted on 1:30 AM, under

I am officially messed up. And i need advice on how to make this right. So, what am i talking about?

My sleeping time.

Ya i mean i obviously already knew that, cause for the last 2 months of my summer break, i have put in considerable effort to sleep as late as possible (i.e. 4am-5am). Don't blame me, it's called summer break reflex. [hint: denial]

Remember learning how if we touch a boiling kettle, our receptors in the skin sends a message to our brain to tell it that the kettle's hot and then the brain sends a message back and tells the hands to move away? And all these happens in warp speed because if it doesnt our fingers would have already turned into fried sausages by the time the message gets from the brain to our hands. And that's called reflex, which google defined as,

"An automatic instinctive unlearned reaction to a stimulus, without volition or conscious control"

So you see it's the same with my summer break reflex. 4 months of break from studies is like the boiling kettle. Spot the similarity? Okay la, maybe not the volition or conscious control part.

But i digress.

What stirred this feeling of,
"Wow, i really did mess up and i need to fix it." ?

Well, i had a long day today. After youth i stayed back for some practice and then went for a movie [ghosts of girlfriends' past, which incidentally i do not recommend (now i really have this urge to break into a song *be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little eyes what you see, for the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see*)]

Then of course, took the ktm home. And we all know how the ktm has a knack for causing advanced aging.

When i got home after dinner, i was really feeling sleepy (hint: shock!) so i went to bed at about 10pm. I was very happy cause i mean c'mon, i usually only feel sleepy in the range of 3.30am. So i slept. And guess what?

I woke at bout 11.45pm and just couldnt go back to sleep anymore. I felt wide awake! I was like what? No! I mean isn't there like this rule when you feel sleepy AT NIGHT you automatically sleep soundly all night?! After tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep in total total vain-ness (okay that was very grammatically wrong i think, but i really wanna get a message across haha. i meant to say 'in vain' in case you did not understand), i gave up and here i am.

Although my body and i are not really on speaking terms right now (cause it refuses to help me out when i ask it to just go to sleep), i got a feeling we're just waiting for 4am to come.

Oh, it's only 2.18am.


I think i'll go read a book.

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I'm not a fan of lady gaga. But when i first heard her song Poker Face, the really upbeat one, i thought "hey, this is something." It's a nice song, but it's just not done you know? Then i heard her acoustic version, the one she did on american idol i think, and i was like, "well, we're getting somewhere, this is definitely better." A lotta people beg to disagree with me when i say that.

Guess what? I finally discovered a justified version of that song.





Be back soon with more than just a video (my first too!) update. In the meantime, i'm off to work on those acoustic guitar playing skills in hope that i can be half the musician jason mraz is.

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