Monday 22/12 to Saturday 27/12
Monday morning to afternoon, finished preparing all the christmas presents and cards for my caregroup.
Tuesday morning, i went to work at 11am. WWS is planning to organise Amazing EnviroRace, Singapore's version of Amazing Race for environment awareness. Anyone can take part. Postgraduates, corporate members and students. So Kenji and I had to cycle around to look for places where we can set up stations for our amazing race. How exciting! Detour, road block and fast forward. All these have to be thought of thoroughly. Haha just like the real Amazing Race. Also, there were visitors from Singapore Polytechnic that day, so some of us had to go on bike patrol with them. Apparently, they claimed that the visitors were a bit weird. Then, i left work early and went to Subra's house at Jurong for a so-called class gathering, actually his parents want to see us haha. We gave Anil a prank call, Robert Lau calling from SMU law faculty, asking all sorts of questions about him. Haha Ben and Justin, they came up with the script before we called Anil. So it was foolproof. Nick 's voice managed to trick Anil into believing him. We had a good time after that, talking about random stuffs like our 2 years school life and we ate the Indian food Subra's parents cooked. Left at 10.30pm.
Wednesday afternoon. It was the day of Christmas eve celebration. I met the friends i invited for my church celebration for lunch. Subra, Nazri, Justin, Zong Xing and Kenji. Nick and Han Wei came later. I was like a Santa Claus, carrying a big bag of gifts. Except that my bag looked like a bag stored with bombs. The christmas eve church celebration was not bad. Performances, testimonial sharing and service. It was my first time experiencing Christmas as a Christian. It's definitely more meaningful celebrating Christmas this time because now i know the real reason for celebrating. Not for the superficial gifts but to honour and give thanks to God and Jesus Christ for sacrificing so much for our good. It definitely will not matter how much you spend on gifts for your friends. It is the thought that counts. Writing a letter to assure people and encourage his or her spiritual life will be the best gift. However, i still think that the best way to bring joy to caregroup friends and encourage them to enjoy their spiritual life is to buy them presents. Presents like chocolates, shirts and toys. After all, who wouldn't want them? So i gave them Christmas cards and gifts. Spent around 120 dollars in total. After that, the unit, VJC TJC TPJC MJC DHS, went to Chia Ling's house at Serangoon to have our unit Christmas party. Food and drink were scarce. Lucky i ate at Subway before that. Then we went carolling at the houses nearby. It was an enjoyable experience, my first ever one. We were split into 2 groups. 30 plus of us. We asked the owners if they wanted us to carol for them. Some were quite enthusiatic about it. We were invited into the house to sing Christmas songs for them. After singing, some house owners gave us packet drinks while others gave us chocolates. One of the house owner even invited one of our group into the house to have Bee Hoon. Not my group unfortunately haha. We did carolling mainly to help spread the joy in this Christmas festive period. Some of the house owners even paid us but the money will go to church of course. After carolling, which lasted for 2 hours, we had an individual year review, running through in your mind all the things that you will give thanks to God in 2008. God has really changed my life. From a selfish and prideful person who always think about personal success to a more thoughtful one, even though not perfectly thoughful at times haha. We had some sort of a countdown to Christmas. Reached home at around 2am. Slept at 3am after opening all the presents and reading all the cards i received.
Thursday, my skin started to peel. After all the sun-burn, i can virtually tear out my skin now. Went shopping with family at Orchard. Apparently, it was not as crowded as i had expected. Bought a long pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. In the evening, went to East Coast Park. My sister rode the bike, i went on the rollar blades while my dad jogged. Dinner was also at ECP.
Friday morning, went Kallang Cage to play soccer as early as 7am. Played with my classmates and some other friends. Had fun except that it was quite tiring, having not trained for so many weeks. I wore my old soccer boots and it was causing a lot of injuries to others. Then in the afternoon, went shopping for sneakers with Matt Foo and Wee Leong. Bought a brown Everlast shoe for 50 dollars after discount. At night, went to watch soccer at Paradix with Nick and Nazri. Man U won one nil at Stoke City! After the match, it was 11pm. We decided to catch a movie and take the night rider home. Watched Bedtime Stories at 11.20pm to 1am. The movie was quite funny. About a guy, who's bedtime stories to his niece and nephew came true. Reached home at 1.30am because my dad came to fetch me, thankfully haha.
Saturday morning, went to WWS. Kenji and i rode the bikes to Marina Barrage. Wanted to check the route there so that we can make it the Fast Forward for the Amazing EnviroRace WWS is organising. After that, had a meeting for upcoming NS church guys like me. They told us that we will be transferring out of our current caregroup near our enlistment date. There will be a lot of challenges that we will be encountering for our spiritual life. Different temptations will come. So it will be hard work remaining committed but we must have faith! Then, it was church new year service. There were a few performances put up. After service, there was a meeting to tell J3s like me about pioneering, where we will be sent to TJC or MJC to try to set up a caregroup because theirs are dying. All sorts of things that we may do are to do surveys on people, crash their orientation, etc. It will be quite a learning experience. Then had dinner at a Hong Kong Restaurant at Tanjong Katong. My dad met a friend, who decided to pay for our meal before we even know. In the end, we paid 70 cents for an extra bowl of rice.