Memories and a Blessed Day
Usually my weekends are the times when everything is jam packed together. This weekend being no exception. I would say it is one big stretch for me. For starters, there's day shift duty at the base as well as serving God in ministry on Sunday. Following which I have rush off from church and down to base for night shift duty. Indeed, even though this only happens once a month. I honestly do dread it as it is seriously tiring, draining and sometimes affects my operational readiness. Nevertheless I will continue to be faithful to God and to serve Him to the best of my ability.
Earlier today I headed down to the driving center. As usual, I arrived early. In fact, too early and started wandering around the place when I realised somebody was waving at me. To my big surprise, it was my very good ex-mountain biking buddy Mervyn. After both of us started our NS, we have no time or opportunity to go mountain biking together again. Although I have the chance to do it with Nico. With Nico, the priority is still with computers and cameras. Mervyn on the other hand is a die hard solid mountain biker. He's really good in this sport and has given me many tips on better racing technique. Indeed. On slopes in Bukit Timah where I will be just pushing my bike up the slope. He will be happily freewheeling it up ahead like nobody's business. Besides, he too was a great friend to have in the ultimate ultra slack CCA in the gym that I was in during JC1. Alas, one good friend that brings back all the nonsensical memories.
He was at the center to start enrolling for lessons. After seeing how a vast majority of his classmates both in army and university have finished their lessons and have obtained their licenses on their first try. He too, like me, does feel the "heat" to quickly get a class 3 to avoid being left out in the fray. I was at the center for the judgement day of driving lessons. It was my test day. Maybe about 20 or 30 blog posts earlier. More or less my standard of driving is absolutely horrific. Mounting kerbs, engine always dying, poor engaging of gears, speeding on slow roads, moving too slowly on fast roads, crappy parking and the list goes on. I was quite nervous, as anyone would be since this is the litmus test for nerves of steel. Bumping in Mervyn was indeed one big blessing as chatting with him alone could calm my nerves and distract myself from the test later on.
Believe me. When I was doing my warm up driving around the circuit. My foot on the clutch was oscillating in simple harmonic motion with a maximum amplitude of about an inch or so. Normally for lessons, I am so relaxed and at ease. Yet somehow when its the "real deal" and when "everything counts". My body just reacts differently to an ends that I myself cannot control. I struck the kerb in the circuit whilst doing the crank course - something that has only happened once in all my other driving lessons ever. How demoralising it is to start off the course having struck the kerb. It is as bad as knocking down the pole - 10 demerit points! My driving wasn't good at all. The tester asked me to make a right turn and before I knew it, I totally missed the turn and almost turned in the S-course route from the wrong entrace by mistake. What was even funnier was that I could wait there with my signal intending to turn into the exit even as all the cars going through the course are coming out. How blur I am sometimes. Yes, I was THAT nervous. Sigh.
I had an easy test route. Light traffic. I collected demerit points for of all things - "insufficient acceleration", "speed too slow" and "fail to use appropriate gear". But well, by the goodness of God (always). I actually passed my driving test. On Friday the 13th. So thank God big time. 16 people took the test. Only 6 passed. And they were all younger than me JC kids else waiting to enter NS! And the adults in my test group? All failed! Nonsense right? Sometimes I wonder if these traffic police testers have a quota to fail and pass, just so that the government coffers can collect more test fee monies. Well, LTA (Long Tio Ah!) should certainly revamp the outdated system in which class 3 licenses are to be obtained. Tremendously bureaucratic and nonsensical as compared to so many other countries.
Later in the afternoon, I went back down to ACJC for Christian Fellowship again. I get such an opportunity about roughly once a month. Sometimes two. And this time, two good ex-CF ACJC friends would be heading down for the same meeting as well, so it is a very good time to catch up with each other. Even though I don't really feel close to school anymore, and for the record that I seldom keep in touch with friends. Thank God for these few opportunities to catch up with people from my time in school. Especially during NS when everyone's schedule is just almost incompatible with each other's.
Walked to LT3, where I thought CF would be held and found it to be totally empty. Which means CF is big enough to be held in LT2! Wonderful! I walked into LT2 (that nonsensical place for physics lectures with Daniel Khor) and found both Boon Leong, Reverend Charles as well as Don, vice-president of CF for my junior year and Adeline! These are all really wonderful people. All living their lives as a testimony for God. They're lives are inspirations to me and collectively with others, set a benchmark for me to gauge my own character. CF was great. Probably nothing fantastic if it boiled down to music, songs or whatever. But definitely everyone present had a heart for God. Its not everyday where you find 40 odd ACJC people on a Friday evening after school willing to stay back to praise the Lord when everyone knows ACJC people skip school half their lives to have fun in Orchard. Temptation especially great on a Friday. Anyway, all of us ended up seating in a row of LT2 dubbed "first class". Its so-called because as a walkway cuts through the row. It has the biggest and largest leg space compared to any other row in the LT. During my time My class would always vie for places on this row as we could sink really far down into our seats and yet stretch our legs out and slack through the lectures.
Pastor just shared a very brief message about choosing the right life partner and then the entire gathering broke up into small nurture groups for their own discussion. I managed to catch up with Pastor Barnabas. A wonderful man I met when I was in secondary 4. Of all places - MGS. And he shared so many encouraging things with me and Don. My time, CF wasn't exactly good in attendance. People who walked into school in the mornings seeing us having morning worship at the bleaches often wondered what we were up to. Small groups were non-existent. At even during our religious day, only 9 people received salvation. I was there. It was heart-breakingly discouraging. Yet, Reverend Charles spearheaded a prayer movement for revival. Guess what happened?
This year in ACJC along. On religious day. 110 people received salvation for Jesus Christ! And more than 200 rededicated their lives to Him! Wow! Indeed! I'm very happy to hear this. Seems like all the prayers we made to God 2 years ago are beginning to be answered. I am told that there are JC2 students so passionate for the Lord that they have meetings everyday during recess in a group of about 20 or so just to pray for Revival. My time it was just 4 persons during recess time. Morning worship during my time in ACJC was just 10 or 15 persons. Today, more than a hundred worship God at the bleaches every morning! This is so very encouraging indeed! Ah, after hearing all the good news. I realise that its not our timing. But God's timing.
That's me on the left talking to Pastor with Don and one of the nurture small groups meeting at the other end of the hallway outside LT2. I lent my camera to Joseph Nair (BARKER POWER!) to play with. He's one of the guys who lent me Nikon lenses to shoot with during the ACJC vs RJC rugby final earlier this year and this shot was taken by him. Love the dividing perspective that the corner of the wall provides to the picture.
Later I headed down to the VOID DECK (READ: Old Canteen) to chat with the juniors. Ah, everyone's as nice as ever. Always a pleasure to know more all the younger generation of ACSians. As usual, as it is a few days away from the prelims, the VOID DECK was stocked full of people studying for the papers even at about 6.30 in the evening. And in tradition. Food was provided by the parent's support group (PSG) - also chaired by Aunty Ros. I remember during my time, there would be a stamped at about 5.30p.m when the "free food" came out. As usual, the pasta tastes great in classic "so and so's mother cook one" fashion. Not to mention that one eats it in school with all the friends around. Really brings back so much memories.
Definitely one of my better photographs of ACJC. Shot it was I was rushing out of ACJC with Don towards the hours of darkness. We were heading down to meet up with Reverend Charles for dinner. I have not seen him since he left for England last September and there is just SO much to catch up with. As we wandered throughout City Hall, I passed my camera to Adeline to have a few fun shoots with. Adeline's a really really talented person in art. Her quality of art is so good that some of her works have been displayed in the MOE building and her boyfriend proudly proclaims that her art pieces could sell for thousands of dollars. Believable, because even though she has little practical knowledge on photography. I just asked her to shoot what she saw fit using automatic settings and indeed, I do believe that her visual intelligence level is superseeds that of a large number of people.
The photograph was taken by Ade. Remember. "She has no professional training and is shooting just for fun". And somehow, I think it looks good. Balanced perspective as well as the reflections adding a hint of more than one vanishing point. Not to mention the objects in the display window.
Reverend Charles and I wandered around the place not knowing what or where should we get dinner from. In the end, and of all places, everyone settled for a Japanese restaurant to eat Sushi. The conveyor belt variety of a sushi restaurant. Ade just picked a plate off the belt and started shooting the food at close distance. And it looks good enough to print on a sushi menu already. Indeed, even though I may have a good amount of tecnical photographic knowledge. Nothing beats true creativity. Because with true creativity, one can churn out beautiful photographs even from cheapo cameras.
Indeed, dinner was really good as everyone proceeded to share their testimonies and the good things God has done for them in their lives. Its a great chance to catch up with my Oxford educated friend who has once been described by an ACJC girl as "a 50 year old man trapped in the body of a 19 year old". Indeed, Rev. Charles. A person I'll always respect and thank for being such a blessing to my life. A person that probably everyone needs to meet in their lifetime. I'm very blessed to have such good times with friends, even though they are few and far in between. A driving licence at long last as well as the fact that all the prayers sown in the past have now grown up and is bearing fruit visible in the student body of ACJC.
"Truly a Man of God!"
To God Be The Glory! The Best Is Yet To Be!
Usually my weekends are the times when everything is jam packed together. This weekend being no exception. I would say it is one big stretch for me. For starters, there's day shift duty at the base as well as serving God in ministry on Sunday. Following which I have rush off from church and down to base for night shift duty. Indeed, even though this only happens once a month. I honestly do dread it as it is seriously tiring, draining and sometimes affects my operational readiness. Nevertheless I will continue to be faithful to God and to serve Him to the best of my ability.
Earlier today I headed down to the driving center. As usual, I arrived early. In fact, too early and started wandering around the place when I realised somebody was waving at me. To my big surprise, it was my very good ex-mountain biking buddy Mervyn. After both of us started our NS, we have no time or opportunity to go mountain biking together again. Although I have the chance to do it with Nico. With Nico, the priority is still with computers and cameras. Mervyn on the other hand is a die hard solid mountain biker. He's really good in this sport and has given me many tips on better racing technique. Indeed. On slopes in Bukit Timah where I will be just pushing my bike up the slope. He will be happily freewheeling it up ahead like nobody's business. Besides, he too was a great friend to have in the ultimate ultra slack CCA in the gym that I was in during JC1. Alas, one good friend that brings back all the nonsensical memories.
He was at the center to start enrolling for lessons. After seeing how a vast majority of his classmates both in army and university have finished their lessons and have obtained their licenses on their first try. He too, like me, does feel the "heat" to quickly get a class 3 to avoid being left out in the fray. I was at the center for the judgement day of driving lessons. It was my test day. Maybe about 20 or 30 blog posts earlier. More or less my standard of driving is absolutely horrific. Mounting kerbs, engine always dying, poor engaging of gears, speeding on slow roads, moving too slowly on fast roads, crappy parking and the list goes on. I was quite nervous, as anyone would be since this is the litmus test for nerves of steel. Bumping in Mervyn was indeed one big blessing as chatting with him alone could calm my nerves and distract myself from the test later on.
Believe me. When I was doing my warm up driving around the circuit. My foot on the clutch was oscillating in simple harmonic motion with a maximum amplitude of about an inch or so. Normally for lessons, I am so relaxed and at ease. Yet somehow when its the "real deal" and when "everything counts". My body just reacts differently to an ends that I myself cannot control. I struck the kerb in the circuit whilst doing the crank course - something that has only happened once in all my other driving lessons ever. How demoralising it is to start off the course having struck the kerb. It is as bad as knocking down the pole - 10 demerit points! My driving wasn't good at all. The tester asked me to make a right turn and before I knew it, I totally missed the turn and almost turned in the S-course route from the wrong entrace by mistake. What was even funnier was that I could wait there with my signal intending to turn into the exit even as all the cars going through the course are coming out. How blur I am sometimes. Yes, I was THAT nervous. Sigh.
I had an easy test route. Light traffic. I collected demerit points for of all things - "insufficient acceleration", "speed too slow" and "fail to use appropriate gear". But well, by the goodness of God (always). I actually passed my driving test. On Friday the 13th. So thank God big time. 16 people took the test. Only 6 passed. And they were all younger than me JC kids else waiting to enter NS! And the adults in my test group? All failed! Nonsense right? Sometimes I wonder if these traffic police testers have a quota to fail and pass, just so that the government coffers can collect more test fee monies. Well, LTA (Long Tio Ah!) should certainly revamp the outdated system in which class 3 licenses are to be obtained. Tremendously bureaucratic and nonsensical as compared to so many other countries.
Later in the afternoon, I went back down to ACJC for Christian Fellowship again. I get such an opportunity about roughly once a month. Sometimes two. And this time, two good ex-CF ACJC friends would be heading down for the same meeting as well, so it is a very good time to catch up with each other. Even though I don't really feel close to school anymore, and for the record that I seldom keep in touch with friends. Thank God for these few opportunities to catch up with people from my time in school. Especially during NS when everyone's schedule is just almost incompatible with each other's.
Walked to LT3, where I thought CF would be held and found it to be totally empty. Which means CF is big enough to be held in LT2! Wonderful! I walked into LT2 (that nonsensical place for physics lectures with Daniel Khor) and found both Boon Leong, Reverend Charles as well as Don, vice-president of CF for my junior year and Adeline! These are all really wonderful people. All living their lives as a testimony for God. They're lives are inspirations to me and collectively with others, set a benchmark for me to gauge my own character. CF was great. Probably nothing fantastic if it boiled down to music, songs or whatever. But definitely everyone present had a heart for God. Its not everyday where you find 40 odd ACJC people on a Friday evening after school willing to stay back to praise the Lord when everyone knows ACJC people skip school half their lives to have fun in Orchard. Temptation especially great on a Friday. Anyway, all of us ended up seating in a row of LT2 dubbed "first class". Its so-called because as a walkway cuts through the row. It has the biggest and largest leg space compared to any other row in the LT. During my time My class would always vie for places on this row as we could sink really far down into our seats and yet stretch our legs out and slack through the lectures.
Pastor just shared a very brief message about choosing the right life partner and then the entire gathering broke up into small nurture groups for their own discussion. I managed to catch up with Pastor Barnabas. A wonderful man I met when I was in secondary 4. Of all places - MGS. And he shared so many encouraging things with me and Don. My time, CF wasn't exactly good in attendance. People who walked into school in the mornings seeing us having morning worship at the bleaches often wondered what we were up to. Small groups were non-existent. At even during our religious day, only 9 people received salvation. I was there. It was heart-breakingly discouraging. Yet, Reverend Charles spearheaded a prayer movement for revival. Guess what happened?
This year in ACJC along. On religious day. 110 people received salvation for Jesus Christ! And more than 200 rededicated their lives to Him! Wow! Indeed! I'm very happy to hear this. Seems like all the prayers we made to God 2 years ago are beginning to be answered. I am told that there are JC2 students so passionate for the Lord that they have meetings everyday during recess in a group of about 20 or so just to pray for Revival. My time it was just 4 persons during recess time. Morning worship during my time in ACJC was just 10 or 15 persons. Today, more than a hundred worship God at the bleaches every morning! This is so very encouraging indeed! Ah, after hearing all the good news. I realise that its not our timing. But God's timing.
That's me on the left talking to Pastor with Don and one of the nurture small groups meeting at the other end of the hallway outside LT2. I lent my camera to Joseph Nair (BARKER POWER!) to play with. He's one of the guys who lent me Nikon lenses to shoot with during the ACJC vs RJC rugby final earlier this year and this shot was taken by him. Love the dividing perspective that the corner of the wall provides to the picture.
Later I headed down to the VOID DECK (READ: Old Canteen) to chat with the juniors. Ah, everyone's as nice as ever. Always a pleasure to know more all the younger generation of ACSians. As usual, as it is a few days away from the prelims, the VOID DECK was stocked full of people studying for the papers even at about 6.30 in the evening. And in tradition. Food was provided by the parent's support group (PSG) - also chaired by Aunty Ros. I remember during my time, there would be a stamped at about 5.30p.m when the "free food" came out. As usual, the pasta tastes great in classic "so and so's mother cook one" fashion. Not to mention that one eats it in school with all the friends around. Really brings back so much memories.
Definitely one of my better photographs of ACJC. Shot it was I was rushing out of ACJC with Don towards the hours of darkness. We were heading down to meet up with Reverend Charles for dinner. I have not seen him since he left for England last September and there is just SO much to catch up with. As we wandered throughout City Hall, I passed my camera to Adeline to have a few fun shoots with. Adeline's a really really talented person in art. Her quality of art is so good that some of her works have been displayed in the MOE building and her boyfriend proudly proclaims that her art pieces could sell for thousands of dollars. Believable, because even though she has little practical knowledge on photography. I just asked her to shoot what she saw fit using automatic settings and indeed, I do believe that her visual intelligence level is superseeds that of a large number of people.
The photograph was taken by Ade. Remember. "She has no professional training and is shooting just for fun". And somehow, I think it looks good. Balanced perspective as well as the reflections adding a hint of more than one vanishing point. Not to mention the objects in the display window.
Reverend Charles and I wandered around the place not knowing what or where should we get dinner from. In the end, and of all places, everyone settled for a Japanese restaurant to eat Sushi. The conveyor belt variety of a sushi restaurant. Ade just picked a plate off the belt and started shooting the food at close distance. And it looks good enough to print on a sushi menu already. Indeed, even though I may have a good amount of tecnical photographic knowledge. Nothing beats true creativity. Because with true creativity, one can churn out beautiful photographs even from cheapo cameras.
Indeed, dinner was really good as everyone proceeded to share their testimonies and the good things God has done for them in their lives. Its a great chance to catch up with my Oxford educated friend who has once been described by an ACJC girl as "a 50 year old man trapped in the body of a 19 year old". Indeed, Rev. Charles. A person I'll always respect and thank for being such a blessing to my life. A person that probably everyone needs to meet in their lifetime. I'm very blessed to have such good times with friends, even though they are few and far in between. A driving licence at long last as well as the fact that all the prayers sown in the past have now grown up and is bearing fruit visible in the student body of ACJC.
"Truly a Man of God!"
To God Be The Glory! The Best Is Yet To Be!
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