hope everyone has a happy cny! :)

new yrs eve was fun, i went down to chinatown with alex to look at the cny goodies. hehe. he also wanted to go take some pictures of the night scene. since my main aim was to go buy cheap new year stuff (yar i know, it's so auntie) so we left at 2330 only, hoping to reach just when the great cny sale starts. i drove and parked at boon keng and we took the train down, which i thought was pretty smart hehe. *smirk*

omg, chinatown was SO crowded. but i think the traffic is much better than last year liao. in some parts there were barricades akin to those in the wisma-taka corridoor so tt we won't have 1 idiot trying to force his way against everyone else. but of course, elsewhere it was terrible. esp the intersections where pple were walking in 4 directions. omgomg. it's really very slow trying to plow your way through..

it was interesting to watch alex snap away with his camera. i thought certain shots he took of children playing with the remnents of the fire crackers turned out to be quite nice. heh. then there was this person who gave him a 1 finger salute. oh well.

i bought alot of snacks! you know those soft marshmallow stuff tt have fillings of green tea/chocolate/strawberry, there was this stall tt was selling you and empty bag for $3 and ask you to fill as much as you can. after i stuffed the bag to full, it weighed about 2kg. good arm training as i discovered later. freaking heavy larh!

everything was on crazy sale. bought liver lat cheong tt i totally adore. one of the foods tt will actually make me step into the kitchen to cook because i so like to eat it. :) then i bought green tea/ rose flavoured melon seeds too, peanuts, chocolates all majorly discounted. talking abt the melon seeds, they were from the gua(1) zi(3) wang(2) stall. by the time i was there they were selling 10 packets of whatever-you-could-find-there for $5. so for $5 i got 3 packs of chocolates, 4 packs of green tea melon seeds, 1 pack of rose melon seeds and 2 SACKS of peanuts.

well, we finally finished shopping/taking photos at 0150. the last train leaving chinatown was at 0200. wah lau, mad rush lar. at first we still thought no problem shoudl be able to catch the train. but when it dawned on us that it was 5 mins more before the train departed and we were still 400m away from the station, we sprinted with all the rubbish we were carrying. haha. i bet alot of pple were looking at these 2 mad boys running.

but i'm sure if they were planning to take the train, they would realise why we were running soon after.

as we were running into the station, the announcement was on, "dear passengers, the LAST train to punggol will be leaving the platform shortly... yadayada" wah lau, i think tt really got us running even faster down the loooooooooong escalator and finally onto the train.

i tell you, it was DAMN exciting. haha, could hear my heart thumping when we finally got onto the train. less than 30 seconds later the last train from chinatown station had left the station.

and we smiled, congratulating ourselves on catching it. haha.

it would have been disastrous if we missed the train. 1)walk home or 2) take cab home, the 2nd option of course negating whatever 'savings' we got from our shopping spree, and the former breaking our legs so tt we wouldn't have been able to go bai(4) nian(2) today.

i enjoyed the little outing on cny eve, though i usually don't like crowds. but the cny crowd is just different, just want to go in to have a look at what's going on and how low the prices can go. :)

happy cny to all! wish you Horse Arrive Work Done, Step Step High Rise, Year Year Got Fish, One Road Smooth Wind, Heart Think Work Done, Dragon Horse Sperm God!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! :)

i woke up this morning and turned on my tv, and guess who was on? the powerpuff girls! haha. haven't watched such a dumb cartoon in some time.

but what this 'dumb' cartoon got me thinking was: why do women always complain about the toilet seat being left up?? for one, you don't hear men complaining about the toilet seat being left DOWN. it'll be so much easier to just lift it up don't you think.













or maybe everyone should install something like that in their homes! since it's neither up nor down no one will have any disputes.

what a nice day! today is nian(2) chu(2) xi(1)! which also means must sleep late to shou(3) sui(4). yar there're alot of customs in this period, like cannot sweep the fllor on 1st day of new year; cannot wear black; when drop things on floor must say some auspicious words.

and of course as i mentioned previously, if want to watch movie in the new year period must watch more than 1, because watch 1 movie in cantonese is yat dou hei, which sounds like having yi(4) du(4) zi(3) qi(4) in mandarin. so want to watch movie must watch at least 2.

haha, or so, according to wl. honestly i haven't heard of this one before.

i realised that i don't believe in these superstitions, but nevertheless follow them year after year. not in the hope that i'ld have good luck the whole year, but rather cause i see it as a part of my cultural heritage. some of the stuff are fun to do as well!! haha, like staying up late at night so tt your parents can live a good long life. the later you stay the longer your parents will live! haha. tt is called shou(3) sui(4) for the uninitiated.

it would be a sad day when boys ate toast with marmalade and butter on 1st day of cny, or didn't have sticky rice cake on cny eve. i guess i'm still close to my chinese customs. i feel there's alot of value and alot to be proud of in these idiosyncrasies. if i have children i would want them to follow and know about all these customs too.

my cny eve is always spent at my aunt's place. both our families will meet and have our reunion dinner together. she stays very near our place, just a 5min walk away. yup, makes things alot easier. i'm glad for the company each year too and the warm hospitality she and her family receives us with. this year also no exception, we're going over later.

after dinner tonight i'll probably be going to chinatown to squeeze! haha. just to buy the cheap goodies tt go almost for free later on. think must go after midnight, about 1230 to 1am liddat. hehe. this year's baseline price of cny goodies is $1 a box!!! it'll definitely drop furthur to 5 for $1? hopefully 10 for $1 when i get there tonight. then i'll buy so much back and eat and eat for the rest of the year. maybe tt's how you get a da(4) fei(2) nian(2)...

yest night was damn fustrating for me. cause i think my comp kena virus or something, so it kept shutting down by itself time and again and again and again. damn sian. i couldn't get any work done (more like i couldn't dota) a single game.

furthurmore, there was something wrong with my internet connection that made me go online/offline faster than a ac current. wasn't able to tok to pple and complete my sentences, in the end i just gave up and went to sleep.

pek cek.

anyway, i'm now typing this from my comp at home. haha, i think the problem has been solved liao. the laptop is not rebooting by itself, and i'm now using a lan cable instead of the wireless connection. phew. such a relief. HAHA. now i can dota.

yesterday dinner was with lihui. passed him back his fruba(which is DAMN NICE) and shamen king(which i didn't like) and he lent me initial D anime(which i can't wait to start watching)!!!!


haha talking abt animes, i'm now watching korean drama full house. :) qich lent it to me. i'm exactly 1/2 way through now. and it's damn nice! haha. han ji en is DAMN CHIO! omgomgomgomg. i think rain's acting is also damn good. haha.

it's a drama tt makes you feel happy/sad also. very emotionally volatile. then again, maybe it's just me since i get easily affected but such soppy stuff more easily than other guys.


haha.

i learnt an interesting lesson of cantonese today from weiliang. he was saying cannot go watch 1 movie during chinese new year. if want then must go watch >=2. you know why??? ans in next post or if you canto powerful drop a comment.

ooo... today an entire toenail (my 4th toe of my R foot) fell off. hehe. actually it has been dangling on an edge ever since it partly became detatched.

of course it didn't come off cause the glue sticking it together became no longer sticky.

after last yr's marathon, i developed blisters everywhere on my toes, a couple of them blood blisters. first blood blisters in my life too. i had a small subungual haematoma too. haha. the haematoma is finally growing out and i think i can cut it out soon.

anyway after the blisters settled, i found tt my toenails on those toes which had blisters were detatched!! and there was this thin layer of nail tt was growing on the nail bed instead.

so exciting!!!

yeah i'm glad the nail finally came out. cause it was getting a bit irritating. when the nail accidently got caught in some stuff (like socks when i was putting them on; blanket when i was covering myself at night) my leg felt funny..

yay, now i'm just waiting for the rest of the nails to fall out. haha, then i'll have new nails for those toes! i'm planning on keeping those detatched nails as part of my marathon 2005 souvenirs. hehe. gross.

i've always wondered who reads this blog. in the past and even now tt i've restarted it. you, yes YOU. so reluctant to comment.

therefore, i've installed a tracker.

beware! for i know your ip.

muahahha.

oh man. today's chp was life-draining. sitting in front of spss, the programme was sucking my life away. i got so pek cek doing the programme but after a while i got the hang of it thanks to jack who although had to rush off offered to help show me some basics.

in fact as he was rushing off, he even asked me to call him if there were any problems.

an offer i found i had to take up later on, which led to probably the biggest embararessment in my life.

sometime into the analysis, i was wondering if iw as doing the right thing by using the first variable as the reference when computing my p-values and my 95% CIs. so i msged jack to ask him to call me back later when he was free so i could confirm this w him. i was wondering is i should be using the variable with the largest n or shoudl i use the first variable tt came along.

hmmm.

after abt 1/2 hr jack called back and this is roughly the conversation tt ensued.

hope: hello jack arr, this is hope arr. you know for the calculation of the p-values... *yadayada* i wanted to ask u if this is correct...
jack: har? hello? who is this?
h: this is jack right?
j: yar. what were u asking just now?
h: erm. i think i may have msged the wrong number, sorry sorry. i'm looking for jack CHAN.
j: yaryar, correct what. i'm jack chan!
h: har? *confused*
j: yar who is this?
h: erm, my name is hope.
j:*bewildered as though he never heard of the name in his life* (he probably hasn't)

anyway you get the point and the conversation still went on for abt 1 min+. by this pt shuwei and weiliang (and also zj) who were sitting around me were bursting around laughing. wl was practically screaming, "you got the wrong no still talk so much crap for wad?"

it didn't help tt i was quite paiseh liao and was really trying to tell the person i got the wrong no and wanted to hang up...

he didn't get the pt it seems.

finally i managed to put down the phone and started kbing abt how he wouldn't put down the phone in a desperate attempt to explain wth i was holding on to the line... wl and shuwei wouldn't stop teasing abt my apparent stupidity.

when i thought things couldn't get worse, 'jack chan' called back again.

h: hello?
j: hey, you were looking for jack chan right? i AM jack chan.
h: yar but i think it's the wrong person. really sorry.
j: har but where got so qiao(3) one??? haha, i think can go buy 4d leh!
h: hurhurhur
k: oh just now you were asking me something about PR?? i know abt PR also leh.
h: har really?? yar i was asking you about PRR (prevelance rate ratios), whether i should use the first variable as the reference value or *yadayada*

i don't know what i was thinking at that time, but i actually thought he REALLY knew what i was talking about. and i really went on explaining to him.

omg wth was i thinking?? i can't believe i was so dumb.

come to think of it, i think he was trying to hint to me that he wanted to PR me!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg... there was this certain sinister chuckle when he said "PR"!!!! and the deafening laughter of the 3 musketeers around me didn't serve to help save my face either.

the awkward silence after i explained clearly what was my problem with the PRRs confirmed the diagnosis of wrong number.

j: oh this line last time is my friend's one leh. her name is cindy. do you know her?
h: erm i don't think so. haha, i think this is REALLY the wrong number. hurhur...
j: anyway where is this arr?
h: oh i'm calling from sch. nus.
j: orh. then i think should be wrong lar. i never stepped into uni before. who is this jack u looking for?
h: oh he's my classmate
j: orh okok..
h: yar sorry sorry.
j: ok bye.

i thought it was amusing how he would call back again. well, i think it certainly made wl and sw (and zj) very happy pple, laughing at me. certainly helped to lighten the mood though.

just 1 min later, i got an sms. sw thought it was 'jack chan' again and exclaimed in glee. honestly i thought so too. until i saw it was andre asking me whether i wanted to do surg electives with him.

*phew*

well, a couple of mysteries here. HOW did i get 'jack chan's' no.??????? and why did he call back?????? well, the first is still unsolved. anyone can help me solve this? 'jack chan' can be contacted at 96788066. i don't know a 2nd jack chan...

the 2nd is a no-brainer. cause my voice is just too melodious. who can resist the temptation of calling back again? just an excuse to hear my sweet voice. oh cunning 'jack chan'... i saw through your ploy..

yest night x asked me abt something. i realised that word does get around easily and i must admit it got me a bit kan cheong.

because i realise that people do talk. and word gets around.

haiz.

i also don't know why i'm so protective and hiding so much. but i think the circumstances don't allow me to divulge too much.. maybe i shouldn't have told y abt it. pengz.

haha. on another note, i was reading em's blog! haha. dun read it often but because she put on her msn nick that she updated it... so i go read lor! hehe. then i saw this pic tt made me feel all quesy. this BIG PIC of WM grinning from ear to ear. well, it probably made emily feel good when the caption was "a smile that keeps me going". haha. so sweet.

i thought tt since it is such a nice pic of wm, i should post it up! grin away!

*a smile tt keeps emily going

haha, i finally discovered why i disconnect sometimes in a dota game. long story though. it's because my router is in my dad's room, and on the same table we have this old comp tt he uses. sometimes the comp switches on by itself (no ghost).

when it switches on i get the unstable connection.

yuan(2) lai(2) ru(2) ci(3)...

it was when qy was telling me abt his own unstable connection problems. he will lag when his heater is turned on. haha. tt got me going to look for appliances tt would generate a magnetic flux.

solution: pull the comp's plug! haha. then can't turn on liao. now i know if i disconnect again, something must be really wrong...

hehe. so happy. now can happily play game, dun lag out.

met for hyq's bdae lunch today at this zi cha restaurant at dhoby ghaut. haha. quite nice the food! hyq was so generous lor wanted to treat us. but we had other plans and ended up treating her instead. :) of course got buy a present lar. we got her a wallet. haha, thanks to huili for buying the present.

HAPPY BDAE HYQ!

haha, though u prob wun read this.

oh man, surg electives i still dunno what to do... sianz. 2 days ago i thought i could do with huili, go back to sgh. but now i realised i got no one to do w. because blur me didn't realise i was doing surg first whilst she was doing med first.

OMG. but anyway it's not entirely my fault too, cause i was referring to the med net timetables, which were WRONG.

oh well.

so now i'm advertising for a surg partner! haha, if no one then i'll do alone lor. i want to do GS/colorect at sgh.

well talking about advertising, cit'll be gd if readers of this blog could check out the advertistments on the right. i get a paltry comission on a per-click basis. like 1cent per unique click i think. yeah. maybe we should start this "buy hope ice-cream" campaign. so what are you waiting for??? click away! yeah thanks. :))))

i'm so tired man... haiz. want to go home to sleep... but still got stoopid chp to do.

aiyoh, analysing the data is crazy. i mean, it seems simple at first glance and i actually tot i had the easiest job to do. haha. apparently not.

the problem with the data analysis is tt there's alot of errors in the entries. i mean, some pple just don't do good surveys, and some can't enter data properly to save their lives...

haiz.

*24 hours later*

haha. i didn't complete the post above, cause i rushed off from chp for lunch etc. was supposed to go to open a bank acc but somehow didn't cause had other stuff to do.

went to cut my hair too btw. aiyoh, they raise prices liao lor. i paid $2 more... $2 means EIGHT ice cream cones. omg.

oh there's a bk sale outside the med LTs, went there to buy baby blues. 3 copies. woohoo~ and also this bk "the god of the little things". hmmm i heard it's quite gd but haven't read it before. maybe i'll get down to it someday.

baby blues used to be my fav comic. haha, until foxtrot came along. but pity they didn't have any foxtrot leh. when i told wl i bought baby blues, he also immediately asked if got foxtrot there. arh, fellow foxtrot lover. in fact, i have foxtrot sent to my email inbox everyday! wahahahah. luckily i subscribed last time when it was still free. i think now they charge for subscription. and it's the new ones they deliver to me, same as the ones in the straits times. v gd for me who never subscribe to straits times and can't read it in the papers.

today going out for dinner w jy. haha, haven't met up with him for dinner since his bdae 2yrs ago when we were in army. hope i enjoy myself later. :)

in comp lab again now... haha. so slack right??? anyway we're supposed to be watching some video of past presentations later, and right now we're all waiting for the casuarina room to open. was supposed to help wl to do some adjustments to the master templete but cannot cause only got 1 copy, and it's not much that 2 people could do that 1 person would.

hmm yea. so i'm slacking.

tml we're not meeting cause most of the work is done already. still got data analysis and writing the report left. well, it may seem like alot of work really, but i think it'll all be over v quickly. 2 wks, and then it's cny, study break and then pros. soon we'll all be in yr 4 liaoz.

yet another yr closer to graduation.

honestly i can't wait for graduation to come. i can't wait for the day when i finally have the authority to prescribe drugs! haha. then i can dun see doctor liao, can self diagnose and self medicate. how exciting! haha. actually that's not the main reason lar, rather i'm looking forward to this mundane life. life as a HO/MO will definitely be more duo(1) zi(1) duo(1) cai(3). more busy. maybe tt'll help us keep our minds off the more fluffy stuff.

alright, i think the video's starting liao. gotta run. tml night might be going zouk w the lt pple. this is only the 3rd time i'm going clubbing and the FIRST time i've been to zouk. haha. feel so sua ku. hope it'll be fun, i dun enjoy dancing anyway and can't too to save my life. =P

today is luke's bdae! haha we went for dinner at yum cha. the food is really quite nice! i purposely made a list of all the foods i ate to bring u'll frontline news. but sorry, no pictures to acompany to whet your appetite. but the dishes really look DAMN NICE and were DAMN TASTY, must go and try yourselves one.. comparable to most hotels food too. the set dinner we had was actually meant for cny, which explains the yu-sheng.

xi(1) dao(1) fish yu-sheng
braised shark's fin soup w fish roe & dried scallop
fried prawns with salted egg sauce
steamed "soon hock" in traditional bean sauce
spring chicken with abalone in herbal sauce
braised sea cucumber with lingzhi mushroom
braised ee fu noodles w crab meat & shredded carrot
honeydew sago

so gd right, now u'll know what's coming out of me in the next few days. sprry if what i last said made u lose all ur appetite liao. but really, you should go try the food someday. sumptous.

something interesting happened though whilst we were going eating (cause the waitress came up to us and asked us if there were any last orders) at about 9.30. well, yumcha closes at 11, so their last order is usually not so early. but then the waitress explained that they were closing early today because they were going to...

SPRAY INSECTICIDE!!!

OMGOMG. haha. anyway we quickly finished up our meal and left the palce. of course no more last orders lar.

after tt we went to chinatown pt to walkwalk and to collect the bdae cake.

chinatown is rather crowded liao even 2wks before cny.. and the goodies there are quite cheap too. :) like i bought this box of soft sweets which cost $1 only. wahahhaha. so nice! :) actually i thought can bring tml then can share, but i think tt's it liao, no more already. haha. i ate 1/2 and still got 1/2 more is all mine!! muahahhaha.

---

anyways, i just went to dota. what a sianz game. my connection dunno why so unstable. in the end i lagged out lor. oh well. it's 1.30am now anyway. tml still got sch lor. dun want to wake up late if not have to wack cab again.. :(

spss in sch

hehe. in sch for data entry today. right now in the com lab. HAHA, slacking lar what else if not can come type blog entry meh...

but i'm slacking only after i keyed in my share of datas mar. high efficiency, hopefully low errors.

my set of data was from wkl. whoever this is... it was so poorly completed man. alot of headache. also dunno what he/she was thinking. sianz. i think prob he/she is not in data entry tt's why give such screwed up data.

cause it'll be hell for the data analysis team who has to identify data with "999" every now and then.

even language interview conducted in is MISSING. respondant's race is MISSING... NONE of the ic nos were filled in, not a singlel address was completed too. no adress, how to analyse??? omg... even date of interview was left BLANK. i mean, can at least put some effort to fill in these info?? super irresponsible. must go find out who it is...

---

alot of pple are going b overseas. hy going b to sch liao, so next time can't play dota w us liaoz... haiz. well, even if he pons sch the immense lag will make everyone drop out. lol. pk is going sweden for exchange. tt's how cool... aiyar. i also want to go sweden. i've never been so far in my life, furthest is yunnan/goldcoast lar. my mum went sweden last time for work, then she bought me this cute mouse (plush toy). it's really DAMN cute lar. well, that was YEARS ago, i think i was p4 when she went. yar. they mouse's name is "speedy", written on the tag attached to its butt. lol. he has this cute jumper tt i can take off. haha!!! PERVERT! but got no anatomically correct stuff there. *sulks* anyway i think speedy is on some shelf somewhere now. i think he's in my room.

oh, the time my mum came b from sweden she also bought this small vial of absolut vodka. haha. i used to sneak sips cause it tasted really damn nice!! haha. tt was prob my first intro to alc. from then on i was just waiting for the day when i could have my own bottle of vodka (i.e. 18YO)

no idea how long today will last... later got meeting with the tutors at 2pm. hopefully all the data entry will be done by then, and from the looks of it it's quite probable. yupz..

an emotionally charged day

wah i just came out of the most exciting game. wah i think it was nice to win for once in a inhouse game. always i'm the liability... :(

anyways, today i think alot of other things happened. went down to finish up 1 more round of chp with qich. and this also officially marks the end of the field work. i am SO relieved. fieldwork though essential is the most sianz thing you can be doing. and going down all the way to tiong bahru just to knock on a couple of doors can be less than fulfilling.

in the literal sense.

just take today for example when we went down just to get 1 more respondant. well, i mean tt 1 more person filled in our survey form. though he didn't havbe UI. 2 respondants if you count the other uncle who shouted at us and chased us away.

all the other people were still uncontactable..

well, actually we sort of expected this sort of scenario, which was why i refused to go down to tiong bahru w/o the car (haha, spoilt brat am i, i do admit). but really, you spend 1.5hrs travelling for a 40mins job. quite dumb really. with the car cuts down travelling time to the as long as the survey would take.

just before i left the house for field work i had the BIGGEST quarrel thus far with a. he har, really needs to grow up. haiz. i think right now my qi4 xiao1 liao lar, but really i think i've not been so angry with anyone for so long liaoz.

in a seperate incident, i think i learnt something from twl today. she was saying she would never look into her bf's hdpn or laptop. i think tt's true to a certain extent. maybe sometimes it's better to not know such stuff.. but otherwise, i had a good time. :)

oh yes! i'm now reading memoirs of a geisha, which was really lent to me by k from 1000000000000yrs ago. oh man, sorry sorry. i'll get through it quickly and pass it b to you. haha.



wah it's quite funny cause qy was asking me if a is ay (our chp grp leader). ay is HOW NICE! lol. so i tot i better put a disclaimer here to say tt a is my family member.

haha, jb showed me this memoirs of a geisha trailer and spoof. it's really damn funny. and of course, the spoof can be found on youtube.com, the coolest place for funny movie clips lol.

click here to view the original movie trailer first.

then click here to view the spoof.

anyway i posted a new profile pic. took this in fox early last year, thought tt it was quite the oxymoron. just like how everyone's unique. hmmm. actually i have been collecting funny pictures of things tt we see around us all this while. maybe i'll photoblog them some day. :)

profilepic

i think everyone's sick of the rain. i know i am.

so you could imagine my joy when i saw the sun shining through my blinds this morning when i woke up. *glee*

past few days doing house-to-house surveys have been quite a chore. i mean, travelling down ALL THE WAY to bukit ho swee just to complete 4 surveys is certainly not fun. today was worse, because we knocked on 11 doors and only got 1 survey completed. each survey takes at most 10mins to fill in. i mean, just to figure how productive time is spent.

today qich and i only met in the afternoon (because morning knock on doors to fill in surveys will kena hoot) and thankfully it didn't rain. well, it DID rain in a sense, cause qich was just gushing abt rain. as in, rain the person. not rain the (recently) irritating weather phenomenon. actually i think he's not bad too when someone sent me the link for his mtv "it's raining". he can dance quite well, and according to all the gushing i've heard today, he can act (damn well), dance (damn well) sing (damn well). lol. multi talented! as cf to byj. hmmm, maybe he'll surpass byj lor someday in the near future.

plsplspls, hope the sun will stay for the next week! i luv u sun!

think recently i've been watching anime. all thanks to lh who lent me fruits basket and shamen king. i think shamen king was dismal... i didn't enjoy it, at all.

FRUBAisDAMNgoodOMGwhyDIDN'TanyoneTELLmeABTitBEFORE?

anyway now tt i got tt off my chest, yes... why didn't anyone tell me abt it? haha. it's amazing because in it's short 26 episodes it has brought me through this whole myraid of emotions. it's truely amazing..

well, not only fruits basket, but a few other animes too which u can actually watch off youtube.com which is this totally cool thing where you can dl movies or short clips from. you can actually watch whole episodes of anime off it. hehe..

another update on my entertainment life is tt i recently listen to more english songs. like OC mix1 and coldplay. it's really quite nice. very soothing. in fact i'm listening to "move on" now. :) brings a smile to the face and a warm feeling to the heart. :)

yesterday night some pple from my ex church visited. well, not tt weird for a vist cause the rest of my family mostly still attends it. so rather, they were visiting them rather than visiting me.

maybe more like visiting my family. something nice tt they do once in a while for everyone, since it's a small church and are a quite closely knit community.

talked abt some stuff, shared and learned. and it was a refreshing experience. went through some stuff abt keeping the faith and 'salvation' of the soul. quite interesting i must say. and learned a few other concepts about christianity. overall, i was glad for the sharing session.

they asked me, why did i leave in the first place. which got me thinking. "because i was not growing and not learning". also because the environment was stifling. i felt that it was easy to feel condemned and shame in that sort of environment where everyone knew you. and i still feel so.

it is a good place though. a plce full of people who love God. but one observation i have is that their life is not focused around grace. to me, grace alone is all that matters.

i have never been able to put together all the reasons why i'm not attending church regularly now. i guess it is a combination of reasons really, more of which are human factors rather than anything. factors involving myself like just being plain lazy, to influences by other christians who just irk me the way they carry themselves and behave. i feel most of them just go play church, nothing more than that. they claim this and that, talk big, and use 'holy lingo' (trust me, NOTHING can put me off more when u use words that u don't mean), putting on a farce and pretence.

sheesh.

anyway, last sun was the first time i've been to church in a loooong time. i think since aug last year. i think i enjoyed the service. glad for jem who literally dragged me down and called me up repeatedly to make sure i was goign down. even jb msged me to remind me to go down after i threatened tt i would not go for service if he didn't go down w me (the boy couldn't go w me thus the sms).

yeah thanks. i know u guys really care and it warms my heart.

today suppposed to go for bs w zj but i'll have to give it a miss. probably going out tonight for some fun.

i think it'll be some time still before i start attending church regularly.