ME-ME-ME

Three Names you go by
1. The Chilibuddy
2. Jie-jie
3. my name (which I rarely use on the blog)

Three Parts of Your Heritage
1. Chinese
2. Malay
3. Singaporean?

Three Things That Scare You
1. separation from God
2. that I won't travel the world in the future.
3. that I will settle.

Three of Your Everyday Essentials
1. my iBook
2. music
3. God's word

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. a Northface fleece
2. trackpants
3. my pink Ugg boots

Three Things You Need in a Relationship (other than Real Love)
1. presence
2. communication
3. touch

Two Truths and a Lie (in jumbled order, u figure them out)
1. I have eaten kangaroo, ostrich, emu, crocodile.
2. I have been stranded in the middle of a desert.
3. I have broken bones in my four limbs from aggressive inline skating in my youth.

Three PHYSICAL Things about the Opposite Sex that Appeal to You
1. eyes
2. smooth chest
3. strong shoulders

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. tennis
2. reading
3. travelling

Three Things You want to do right now
1. hang out with my friends
2. play in the sun
3. play with my band at the concert.

Three places you want to go
1. European castles, cathedrals, buildings.
2. Driving holiday in New Zealand in summer.
3. a sunny white tropical beach!

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die
1. live in Europe.
2. live in a 3rd-world/developing country.
3. bring someone to christ.

Three Ways that you are stereotypically a Girl (this one is tough)
1. I have long hair.
2. I like kids (most of the time).
3. I can drive, I like to drive but I don't drive. I get driven around most of the time. Does that count?

Three Things that annoy you
1. lies
2. shallowness
3. stubbornness

SPRING ROLLS around

Personally, the last few months have tended to feel a bit stale, except for some parts. It's like the zing got zapped out of life. This is a recurrence just about every winter. The Doldrums. And life gets better again as spring rolls around. It's warmer. It's more fun to be outside. You spend more time with people, you're not in a rush to go somewhere warm.

But why does all that add zing?

I've been thinking about how in the last few months I try to turn to studying God's word to bring back some of that life. A great thing, I learn tons from it, but it doesn't always mean anything to me at that time. But when I think about the times in the last few months, that the word did come alive for me and made me excited about life in him, I realize it was when I went out and interacted with people that God's word was made alive. That is when I am challenged to apply the theory and principals I've learnt in my head through application and vice versa, when my ideas get challenged by what it means to turn those principles into actions and deeds.

But, finally spring has rolled around. Yesterday was one beautiful day. A warm day to go out and do things, meet people and interact. So irresistable was the weather, we made to the hills for some x-trailing.


Dave riding the skinny-orange, my hyrbrid MTB and his Huffy BMX.

At the top!

Audio: More Than Life (Live) by Hillsongs United.
Biblio: Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller.
Cerebrio: Heard a great podcast interview with Pastor Craig Gross from XXXCHURCH.COM, the #1 Christian Porn Site. They do good things for the kingdom there. I pray that I can be changed and used like that.

I AM A JOURNLER

My kids say:We totally love school but it's the start of spring break! Yeaah!

There have been a few additions to my iBook to fully harness its power and efficiency. A few days ago I getting excited about automating FlickR and blogging from widgets. Now Quicksilver is changing the way I use my machine. I'm getting used to not having to open Finder and just launch any file or application or send an email right off the hot-key. Get it I tell you.

The latest addition to penning down my thoughts is Journler. I've been journalling online for a little more than 10 years now. Back then, before there was blogging, the www was all DOS, entries were not automated, no infrastructure like PHP existed and everything on html was fairly public access. And, if i had fallen short on my payments *ahem*, I could (and would) lose everything on the server, along with all the years of hard work. So, being textually oriented, it gradually evolved that I would have to have a .txt/.doc/.cwk journal sitting in my HDD and all my thoughts would sit in a document that just grew and grew with each entry. That made more sense than opening up a new document for even the smallest snippet of my brain.

So, I've been checking out various word processors which would make my life simpler; Microsoft Word, Appleworks, Pages, Write. And, what if it could do both? Organize my entries that sit on my HDD and post them online too? I was quite dissapointed that iWeb was good uptil the point when you either had to upload to .mac or to your own FTP server. What if you didn't have either? I still don't think .mac is worth paying for, it doesn't do anything I can't do and Blogger and FlickR host all my entries and photos nicely for me without a price.

Welcome Journler. The daily notebook designed to organize your thoughts, comes with integrated Blogger, LiveJournal and metaWeblog support for posting and uploading. This entry written and uploaded from Journler.

Audio: Show Me Your Glory by Third Day.
Biblio: Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller.
Cerebrio: There is an overwhelming dissapointment in man(kind) that comes from knowing that we fail so easily despite our very best intentions.

手まきすし

I make a mean 手まきすし

Every monday night we hang out together for some great food and talk about our URP. I officially O.D. on 手まきすし (temaki-sushi) today.

Audio: Relight My Fire by Take That.
Biblio: -/-
Cerebrio: 4 days to Spring Break!

WHAT IS RELEVANT?

It was a beautiful early spring day yesterday. Today, its back to the cold front. Blah. But I thank God for yesterday's warmth. Spring is exciting, its like the air is just buzzing with life about to burst forth. 

:: Relevant ::
A few weeks ago I found a good helpful christian-thinking webzine. What I like about it is that it doesn't seem to shy away from the more liberal points of view of current christian spirituality. I like that term the way I heard Donald Miller used it in Blue Like Jazz, rather than "christian" or "christianity" which tends to point toward a religion, an institute and school of thought with a set of rules about God and Jesus.

While Jesus did leave us a set of commandments to follow, he was all about the heart's condition toward God. It does sound rather po-mo; not all liberal is good but the point is that it keeps testing how I am making my URP (Universal Reference Point, kudos DaveJ), that is my belief in God and His Son, Jesus Christ, a reality in my life now. 

This is a big point of thought for me nowadays as I start to think how it is I will decide to express my christian spirituality, what I believe and what I have learnt so far when I move to Singapore. The city itself tends toward rules and regulations and I have yet to make sense of the whole conservative-liberal paradigm that exists in the church within my altered perspective. 

Audio: Interview with Donald Miller on Relevant podcast.
Biblio: -/-
Cerebrio: I'm also thinking about not getting caught up in my leaving and still being relevant in living in Japan.

I WAS MADE FOR GOD'S GLORY

We went to Itami Insect Museum today; the wet-weather plan if it rained out on our Zoo trip. I didn't think it would be that much fun for the kids but they totally loved it. I particularly loved the Butterfly Conservatory.

Audio: -/-
Biblio: God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus is a broken world by Greg Paul.
Cerebrio: ...

LOTS OF GOD'S GOOD TIMING

And so he did come through for me in favour and in timing. Boss even got red-eyed and sentimental when I broke the news. But the timing for everyone seems almost like a masterpiece at work. E.g. the sketchy plan was to fly out 24th May which is kind of an odd timing (middle of the week, 3rd week of the month) rather than say beginning/end of the month but as it turns out, our salaries are calculated on the 20th's which will be my last teaching day and just enough time for the money to come through in the bank over the weekend. 

There is a lot of newsbreaking to be done and so far my quick plead prayers for their timing have come through. 

Audio: OMG. A silent classroom!
Biblio: God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus is a broken world by Greg Paul.
Cerebrio: I believe God will orchestrate it all beautifully...

TIME TO TIE UP THE LOOSE-ENDS

Well, it was really good to be home. It was a great weekend that flew by at a whiz. The interview went smoothly, positively and quickly! I hope to hear from them in about two weeks. 

This weekend helped me make some firm decisions about moving to Singapore.  I think there are a few exciting opportunities available there so regardless of the outcome of the interview, I have decided to move back in May.

I can't believe this is already happening. I'm back in Japan with the next few months to tie up the loose-ends. 

Audio: Children playing in the school yard.
Biblio: God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus is a broken world by Greg Paul.
Cerebrio: God, give me the timing and the tact to break the news...  

KIX IS WIRELESS

This may not be news to some but KIX (Kansai International Airport) is wireless! I usually have a book in tow when I fly to keep away the boredom bugs, but now I take my iBook with me instead. 

Kobe is a 8 degrees celcius. Singapore is 32. OMG. 4x as hot! 

Audio: Airport pipe-in-music.
Biblio: iBook.
Cerebrio: Hot! Hot! Hot!