Journey mercies

I haven't finished reading it yet, but I will already highly recommend anyone to read this book!

The author has strong writing skills, and the imagery he creates with his words is better than watching a film because it also captures raw emotions.

It's a bracing story that makes you want to finish the book in one sitting.

It shakes the typical religious stereotypes and if it doesn't make you to consider who you think God is, I don't know what will.

Apparently, there's something about the story that people who have read it won't talk about it unless you read it for yourself, like there's some kind of big surprise. Kinda like the Six Sense movie. I met a church elder some months back who highly recommended I read this book, so when I saw the store had discounts on it, I bought it.

I'm halfway through it and it's already well worth the money spent.

And you know what, I don't think the story is fictional. When you know someone so well, you can recognise immediately the tiny habits they have, the way they talk, the kind of humour they have. This book is gobsmack full of the God I know! I read it feeling like God was right beside me grinning.

I love spring and summer in the UK. Months of darkness and bare and leafless trees makes you acutely appreciative when bright green shoots appear everywhere and colourful flowers burst forth celebrating the sun.

And best of all... it's still cool enough for you to enjoy the sun without sweating and needing to change your clothes every hour.

This week weather is a little crappier, being colder and rainy.

And if you're wondering why suddenly there's lots of pictures on my blog, it's because I got a new Sony Ericsson phone which has much better picture quality than my old Motorola phone and a lot more easier to transfer files from phone to laptop.

For some reason I felt like making something special on Friday evening, and as I was at Sainsbury shopping for grocery, decided on the spur of the moment to try and make sushi.

So I bought all I thought I needed to make sushi since I knew how it should look like. I didn't bother looking up for a recipe and decided to just wing it. After all, how hard can it be?

I "lucked" out as well, as I found out I had someone to guide and give me tips when I got home. When I admitted I have never made sushi before, I was instructed in the basic steps by an authoritative figure - 7 year old HyeonMin, who decided her experience watching and listening to her mother made her far better an expert than me.


"You have to put the rice on the seaweed with your hands!"

"Nooooo... put the cucumber BESIDE the salmon!!!"

"Noooo, you have to role it up this way first!!!"

"Seeee, I told you!"


Brat. -_-

But I really had no idea how to make sushi so had no grounds on challenging her. She did give me some pretty good tips though, like how you're supposed to wait for the rice to cool before you start making the sushi. Thank God her mom called her to go to bed at some point because boy, can that girl be bossy. Hehe.

They say you have to be careful who you hang out with. Bad people have bad influences. Lately I've had a lot of virtual cross-country hang out people.

Sarah chan is a veryyyyy bad influence. I've picked up some of her bad habits like her addiction to watch Gokusen over Veoh.

Good thing dowan to teach me, bad thing only teach.

I usually have backup "lazy food" ie when I just can't be bothered to prepare anything and need something to fill my tummy. It's usually soup. A couple of tin soups hidden in my cupboard is always a good thing. When I need something slightly healthier lazy food, I'll go for more posh soup like Covent Garden soup, which are usually really good.

It wasn't that I was lazy today, but I got back at half past six and didn't have much time before I had the youth work at 7pm. It was the first day back after two weeks Easter break.

One thing I'll give to the British folks. They have proper breaks during the year, ie when the kids have their holiday breaks, even adult activities take a break. It reminds adults that they are not super human machines and they need to pace themselves with proper rests in between. It feels so completely different to the Asian workworkwork mentality.

Having four different seasons in a year also reminds you that an individual can go through different seasons in their lives, to be sensitive to those seasons and respond to them accordingly.

Anyway, I think secretly, a lot of the leaders were mentally bracing themselves to welcome back the kids. A certain lad, S, in particular. We had banned him for a month or so due to discipline issues.

I was actually not expecting to see him, and to my surprise, he was there early and ready to get with the program. If I was him, a young, proud and ignorant teenager who got chased away by the church on numerous occasions, I would have turned my nose up at the church and say I don't want to be here anyway.

But no matter how many times the church has sent him away, and how his friends and even family members who stay away from the church and would be happy he did too, he keeps coming back. And he was in good behaviour too.

Most of the kids were. We were pleasantly surprised at the good behaviour when there have been days when we want to pull all our hair out.

Naomi L remains as my favourite girl. She's gentle, shy, well mannered, beautiful and generous. When the leaders were gently teasing her about something, her face glowed and her eyes shone with happiness and she makes you believe that the tighter you embrace her, the more she'll grow and burst into flowers and sunshine.

If children are the future of tomorrow, I'll be willing to put all my money into her.

I'm still amazed at the fact I've been so stuck in with the young people who connect with the church in some way or the other. It's different being the adult looking after younger kids.

On the way home from work today, I bumped into one of the younger boys, Charlie after I got off the bus. I said hello to him and he said


"Hello miss."


Hello miss?!

Made me feel like a schoolteacher. But I guess I should count my blessings. If he was Malaysian he would be saying


"Hello aunty."


I'll start wearing big sneakers, jeans and caps all day long if that happened.

Last week was extremely busy week for me as there was a very big proposal that had to be finished in the office.

It was the busiest I had ever been ever since I started working here in the UK about a year and a half ago. I always was a healthy kid but dang. Too much stress and being burnt out does exact an effect on the physical health. When I waved goodbye to the Account Manager who whizzed out of the office to deliver the proposals with less than an hour to spare, I felt the adrenaline drain out of me and the tiredness from late nights sweep over me. Saturday morning I was out for the count with a cold.

But looking back at the time spent and the chance to get to know different colleagues as I worked with them on this proposal, I feel a sense of satisfaction. Though I'll admit the quality of the output could have been better, I don't doubt my efforts.

I was asked to read a passage from the Bible in service this morning. Couldn't help but feel this morning that I was doing some PR work for the church. Slap up a minority face up there and you've got a diversity-friendly church. But only because I was the one who suggested that in the first place though not in those words.

Met an Egyptian couple this morning, who were born in Christian families and we exchanged notes on the challenges of living in Muslim-controlled governments. Quite similar situations actually... even same idiotic challenges we had 4 years ago. What a coincidence eh? Similar uncreative mistakes. What were the chances?

Some weeks back, I was teaching the kids in the youth club on Philippians 2:1-5, and we were going through what some of the words and concepts meant.

I asked the kids what does the word "humility" mean.

Interestingly, both the younger and older group (split into 2 different sessions for easier management) defined the word humility as humiliation.

That's quite telling innit?

Humility is seen as something ridiculous and undesirable by children.

I don't think I'm too cynical when I say that this country has its work cut out for them. Spiritually speaking that is.

Mom went back yesterday and as Monday is a public holiday because of Easter, I spent today with quality me-time.

What did I do. Considering the fact I've been spending a lot of time sleeping the last few days, I was quite surprised that I didn't have a restful sleep last night because I was dreaming of a small black, and I mean black, woman chasing after me. So I woke up early.

I exercised. Cooked up a nice hearty breakfast. Spent time reading the Bible and praying (not too common a thing for some weeks already). Hung my laundry. Put in a fresh batch of laundry. Hung the second batch of laundry. Played on my xBox. Watched TVB dramas. Kept my laundry. Played the piano.

And I was ready to bang my head on the wall out of boredom.

-_-"

If I was in KL, I would have called somebody up and demanded to go "Yum Char!"

Or go jalan-jalan by myself in a shopping mall or something. Ask me go and dress up, walk to bus stop, take bus to tube station, take tube to central London and walk outside in the cold by myself dowan le. I'll pass.

Some more most people are away for Easter and some people are in Italy who messaged me yesterday about how much fun they are having. Pfft.

Hai.

Lucky got my xBox if not really hit my head on the wall d.

Ooooop... going to get to my next exciting activity for the day... ironing!!

A lot of my English friends aren't very technologically dependent, a very sharp difference to Asian people. I look around my room and I wonder how anyone could survive without a PC/laptop, fast broadband, iPod, iPod speaker, and I've re-accustomed back to having a telly in my room and reunited with my xBox. Nothing beats watching a good movie while you're tucked comfortably in bed I'm afraid.

Having mom around means having a fresh supply of all things Asian, food, DVD and CD materials. So much so, the other day on the bus, as I turned to look at the driver in the car beside me, I had actually expected to see a Chinese man driving the car and was just a little surprised to find a Caucasian man instead.

Blog's been looking a little bare eh. Haven't taken pictures lately at all.

Over a year ago, when I first came to the UK, I had a conversation with JingFeng that went along the lines of:


JF: Eh. I'm thinking of going to London.

Me: Come lah! Come visit me!

JF: Eh can... but if I go there might as well visit Europe also right since it'll be cheaper.

Me: Yeah, we can go Paris or Venice or Barcelona...

JF: Let's go Vienna lah. Go to the mountains where they did Sound of Music. Then we can run around the hills and sing The Hills Are Alive...

Me: -_-

JF: We can have a picnic and then you can feed me strawberries.

Me: -_-" I think I'll throw strawberries at your head instead.

JF: Eh, like this you better not go and visit any of the famous places in London until I go. Because it's more shiok when you see everything for the first time. So you wait until I go then we can enjoy everything for the first time together lah.

Me: -_-"" Walau... then what if you don't come?!?

JF: I will one... wait lah.


And all because of this JingFeng I ended up never visiting the more famous places in London during the course of the next 1 year plus. Everybody kept asking if I went to see this, or that, and each time I would say no. Lazy also lah. Everytime got visitor come have to accompany them to see the same things quite susah also.

But good thing JingFeng finally kept to his promise. He finally came. But we didn't go to Vienna to sing Sound of Music in the hills as originally planned due to lack of time, finances and planning. So we compensated and went to...





With JingFeng's great research skills, we actually managed to get cheap tickets for some pretty good seats too.





It was fantastic seats actually. A really good view of the stage - front second row of the upper balcony. Except...






the dude in front of me with big afro head blocking part of my view. I insisted on taking a picture of his head to blog about it, but forgot to switch the flash off. So when I tried to 'discreetly' take a picture of his head, the flash went off and the guy turned slightly to see why I was taking a picture of his head but I quickly pretended to be 'testing' the camera.

Head so big how can... they have to restrict the size of hairpiece for other people's sake.



I like the theaters in London. Very antiquated, elaborated in furnishing and just feels posh and grand.