this and that

In the mood for randomness so do bear with me...

Firstly, here's a couple of pics:


This was taken at last week's rooftop cg. We had a time of reflection on the sem past and then sharing with one another on those reflections. This is coming in very delayed, but well it took that reflection time for me to realize what a great blessing the cg has been for me not only this past sem, but ever since year one. Especially since i came back though. I guess that the fact that my sorta unique church situation has translated into a lack of any real permanence and rootedness for me with regards to church min at least up till this point has meant that the community that i've in cf and especially so in thursday cg becomes all the more important for me. Yup and if i've ever needed such a community before, i sure needed (and still need) it when i came back cos i was (and still am) rather disorientated and disjointed from S'pore and all the stuff that came along with it, and the cg has given back in ways that i never had fully appreciated (and perhaps still don't)... God's faithfulness to me through the cg has just been so wonderful - it's so humbling and tear-inducing come to think of it...


Um, ok so this is on a totally different subject - was just walking along engin bridge (btw engin bridge seems to be some kind of biodiverse hotspot by nus standards since on top of these cats i also found the giant spider - which is still there btw - over there) the other day when i came across this cat and its three kittens - and it was so cool cos although these are probably just common stray/feral cats it at that moment felt as though i was on some Serengeti expedition and before me was some rare species of small wild feline. So of course out came my camera and voila... Reminded me a bit of my UNC days when the mere sight of a squirrel would coax my camera out before i could say, erm well, "squirrel!". That of course was until i realized that there were squirrels everywhere over in the US, compared to S'pore when i spot one like once a year or so high up some tree... Not enough nuts in S'pore maybe...

As each day goes by, i've become more and more keen on staying on campus next year. It's a combination methinks of being spoilt last sem at UNC when both classes and downtown were a two-minute walk away from my room; honours year coming up which promises to be really busy, and tv mobile getting increasingly on my nerves by the second. Things should work out eventually i hope - nearly screwed up my application cos i keyed in an invalid email address - maybe it's a freudian slip that i attached my nus userid to the usual UNC email. Thankfully the relevant people got back to me so was able to rectify that...

I don't recall having started on revision proper more than a week before my first paper ever before. Somehow i ended up choosing classes that have their deadlines rather early, so actually had nothing else school-related to do but revise from as early as Wed (which i did, and am doing, but very slowly - but hey it's a start right...) That being said, as i've expressed to some random people, i'm prepared to see my grades drop somewhat this sem owing to various complicated reasons, but i know that whatever happens the Lord has been ever-faithful - and i'm thankful no matter what lah (Job 1:21 - "Blessed be Your Name" - comes to mind but i'd hardly think that in Job's situation i'd be as unflinching - was already sad when i lost my old nalgene...)

Will it stop raining here everyday already?

It seems that facebook is starting to catch on here eh - seems really different though from the good old days, so to speak, when i was still over there. And it makes me more sentimental for how things were like last time in a way - for me the primary reason why i have fb (and aim too, for that matter) when i eschew just about everything else is that it helps me to keep in touch with friends outside of S'pore, especially those back at Carolina... But, still i suppose that at the end of the day; plus ça change, c’est la même chose, n'est ce pas?