When I heard news that Michael Jackson has passed away, I stopped my tracks and took a double take at the TV screen which was reporting it.

Michael Jackson aka Wacko Jacko (for his eccentric ways including bleaching himself white and touching little children in his fairyland-inspired house) died?!!

Whoa. So now he is gone. Do you think he can be a legend? After all, he popularised the moonwalk, garnered so many die-hard fans/copycats and sang the very touching song, "Heal The World".

Probably his death is for good.
People are kinder to dead people, for some strange reason, and I think his skeletons will be stashed quietly in the closet during his funeral wake.

Let's not remember the times when he was sued in court for his paedophilic actions or when his crooked nose began to disintegrate before our eyes.

I prefer to remember a person with good memories.

Then again, I think I will forget about him 5 days later.
He is not Mother Theresa.

True legends are those who personally change someone's life with his/her lives, just like Mother Theresa.

It's not a new thing to many people when we talk about father-daughter tensions.

There's always this image of a strict Asian father, together with this hot-headed liberal daughter, struggling to upkeep their strained relationship due to different perspectives.

I have my fair share of father-daughter tensions but my version doesn't fit the stereotypical image.
For me, my dad is not a strict father but a sure hot-headed one, whereas I was the "5%rebellious-95% good" daughter. There were never really overt conflicts between me and him.

However, the occasional fiery and unreasonable outbursts from my hot-tempered dad are enough to make me feel detached from and angry with him, hence our tension.
I don't understand why he always make a big fuss out of something small. In the end, the family will become his outlet of anger release.

I remember when I was younger, if we quarrelled, I would not greet him when I enter the house (which I usually do) and would slam my bedroom door hard just so to spite him. When I was in my bedroom, I would lament about my dad.
Why can't he be a nice dad like everybody else's? Why can't he change?!!

When I was in primary school, I would write inspirational quotes on nice papers and paste them on my cupboard. One of them goes like this:
Everybody thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself

Only when I was older, probably in upper secondary/JC, did I realise the value of this quote.

So I decided, if God is in me, I should be full of love and thankfully God did fill me with more love. I decided to change my attitude towards him instead of want him to change.
I would try to calm him down if his tempers began to flare. I wanted to be a good and loving daughter so if we were to quarrel, I would take the initiative to talk to him first.

After years of attitudinal change towards him, in recent times, he really became better!
He would not flare up so often and he would sometimes initiate to ask about my day. You can say that age has mellowed him but I believe that our family's patience and prayers helped as well.

Perhaps, your father is not like that but I write this so that we can quit trying to make a person you want to change, change.

Instead, we ought to look at how we can adjust our attitude towards him/her. We never know, we may see that person changing for the better.

Today, my sis and I bought him a brand new electronic shaver as his belated father's day present. Definitely not a norm, but both of us decided to be different this year.

His reaction?
Both his grin and gratitude were huge (:

Happy Belated Father's Day, dad.

I have been pretty packed this holiday.

Busy busy busy. Have been leaving home early and returning late for many many days.
It's like having one-night stands with my house.
I sleep and then leave quickly the next day.

Imagine, when finally, I can sleep till 11am today, I was so happy!

You know, sometimes, happiness is not about having loads of moolah.
The simplest things in life can make you so happy and satisfied, and they don't involve money.

Here I have a list of simple things that make me really happy.

1) To be able to sleep in late without having to worry what to do next
2) To be able to sleep in late, in an airconditioned room.
(FYI, my aircon has gone berserk so now, I'm sleeping with just the fan every night, without a single hour of aircon. Usually, I switch on the aircon for a couple of hours before switching it off before I sleep)
3) Sorry if I am a bit crude here, but every time I can pee comfortably, I feel happy!
4) When I learn of new perspectives from the Bible and I can apply them in my life
5) When I look at the pictures of my childhood
6) When I reminisce of the good old times of childhood with my friends
7) When I can spend time with Mommy after not seeing her AWAKE (definition: when both her eyes are open) for a long, long time
8) When I am able to play the piano beyond my limitations
9) When I hear my p6 girls, discipleship girls and previous cell girls share their lives with me
10) When I receive an sms from long-lost friends (which I just did. Gosh. It is divine intervention!)

I look at the most basic things in life (even from the toilet) and I feel that having happiness can be so easy.
We just have to be more aware and learn to be appreciative.

Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are really phenomenal new social media that have changed the face of networking and communication..

I've read somewhere in 8 Days mag that someone is expecting a much newer social media, which will be the combination of these 3 powerful ones.

It'll be called YouTwitFace.

*ROFL*

It feels like eons since I last saw my mom even though I was only away for 4 days 3 nights for my church's youth camp. But anyway, glad to see my mom once again when I came home. Even my dad seems to be in good spirits when I stepped into my own house today. Maybe he misses my presence? Hahaha...

The camp in one short sentence?
It is total awesomeness!

I miss my comfortable bed at home.

But I'm so extremely inspired and refreshed in spirit during this camp, so much so that I don't care if I had to tolerate those 3 nights of sleeping on the floor.

For the first time in my life, our youth ministry worshipped our Lord until 1.10am. It happened last night. Some younger ones didn't believe that it was so late becuase we had such an awesome time, that time seemed so short.

I've witnessed youths and teens opening up with their hopes and fears. Tears flowed. Healing came. Faith poured.

Before this camp, I told myself that if we expect to see a revival of passion and faith in our youth ministry, we have to get ready.

Was I ready for a huge number of youths desiring to serve God? Does our youth ministry have enough leaders to groom them all into passionate, influential and dynamic youths, be it in church or in their schools?

This is when faith comes in.

There was a drought in the land.
And two farmers were desperate for rain so that they may prepare for the harvest of crops.
God then told the two of them, "I'll send rain in due's time".
One farmer began to patiently wait at home.
One the other hand, the other farmer went quickly to prepare his fields for the rain.

Which farmer had more faith?

Faith without action is dead.

For me, I can't wait to be the farmer who is going to prepare for rain.
Renewal Youth Ministry is going to be awesome for God! Yay!

Got miss me?

I miss blogging.
But I simply didn't have the time to spare to go to update you guys.

I'm considering having a Twitter board here but I shall see... because I feel Twittering is damaging our ability to express ourselves in beautiful sentences.
Then again, I want to update my friends quickly, especially if you don't have a Facebook account to keep updated about my whereabouts (ahem, Yue, it's you. Hahaha).

Anyway, I'm back from my Hong Kong trip.
See the picture below? Remember the Youtube clip about this Chinese lady kicking up a ruckus when she missed her flight?
Ahhh...I almost ended up like that.

Because of my carelessness, I failed to check my boarding pass and the lady typed my name wrongly. They typed CHIN WEN, instead of CHIN WEI. Although I would like my name to be 静文, I would so not want it at a time like this! So, when I was at the custom, the dude didn't allow me to go in.
The one of the perils of budget airlines is the lack of convenience.

So I had to go and change my name at the boarding pass... when I only had 20 minutes left before the gate closes. Thing is, Jetstar's counter was at Terminal 1 and I was at Terminal 2's customs.

With swift legs and without hesitation, I ran. From Terminal 2 at HK International Airport to Terminal 1. It's no joke. Then the people at Jetstar were so flustered when I told them my problem, they sent someone to quickly change the name on my boarding pass and to run with me to the customs at Terminal 1.

BUT WAIT! My bags are at Terminal 2 because Uncle Wai Loon was patiently waiting for me to return to enter the customs together. The guys tell me I have to check in there because I would miss the flight if I ran back to Terminal 2. BUT I HAVE TO RUN BACK, DUDE! MY BAGS ARE AT TERMINAL 2 and Uncle Wai Loon is waiting for meeeee!

So, I did. I ran back again. It was 10.45am when I was at Terminal 1. I had to run back to Terminal 1 within FIVE FREAKING minutes. The gates would close at 10.50am!

As I ran, I prayed. I was so scared. My legs were turning jello and my shoes were slipping as my feet muscles no longer have the strength to grip my shoes.

Okay, I flew there. Now imagine. It's Jetstar. Budget.
You think the gates are soooooo near to the customs? You have to walk a long, long way before you can get to the gates. And at the gates, you need to take a bus to get to airplane.

It's crazy. So poor Uncle Wai Loon had to race with me, whilst pulling his luggage bag and carrying my heavy 5.5kg backpack (It's BUDGET! So we cannot check in our luggage and had to hand-carry) to get to the gate which was very far. I was panting like I ran 34920km.

My God's grace, we made it. 2 people were even later than us... WHAT THE.

When I boarded the plane, I heaved a big, big sigh of relief.

I was soooo thirsty after all the running across terminals at the HK International Airport.

Alas, it's BUDGET airline! I had to buy a small bottled drink at HKD$20 (which is around S$4)and sweet, sweet Uncle Wai Loon bought it for me. I was so shocked. He didn't complain about having to run crazy routes with me, and he even bought me the drink when I complained I was thirsty and panting like crazy.

I really saw in Uncle Wai Loon a humble and sincere kindness. He's my God-sent angel throughout my Hong Kong trip too. I shall share more about my amazingly inspiring HK trip soon.

For now, I just thank God for sending me back to Singapore safely. He listened to my prayers! Uncle Wai Loon is really my kind angel! His wife is sooo blessed to have him (:

If not for him, I could have ended up in a Youtube clip entitled, "Singaporean lady goes crazy over a missed flight"!