Happenings

I know... it's been a while, hasn't it? So, I'm going to write about some things that has happened since my last post.

15-19 December 2009 - IM:pact Camp

First, I'd like to thank '2 Pro 2 Furious' for being such a great group. Very sporting and suhporting. Even though we got last place, we all had an awesome time.

To my Angel... you delivered the items yourself without passing them through someone? And I never guessed it was you. Haha.

I'd say it was a really great camp. Staying in the church for 5 days was well... I got to know a lot of people better. Personally, I thought that this camp was going to be quite uneventful, because we were to be confined to one building for 120 hours... but the camp committee gave us an endless stream of great activities like worship, teaching sessions, volleyball, skits (we got 2nd place for the skit).

25 December 2010 - Christmas

Went to church for the usual Christmas service. There was a quality presentation by the 'Heritage Singers' and then the Christmas message from Pastor Soon Hock. I found the message very interesting.

At night, my family went to Aunt Angeline's place for dinner. Good food and fellowship with my cousins. After we finished our food, my cousins & I took the decorations from the yule log to make a landscape. We made a crater using cream and then filled it with orange juice to create a lake, but it kept on overflowing.

31-1 2009/2010 - Watchnight Service

Went to church after dinner. This Watchnight Service was special because 11 people proclaimed their devotion to Jesus through baptism. After the baptisms, there was uplifting testimonies, then the countdown, then the... supper. I had a burger. Not very tasty, but a burger nonetheless.

1-2 2010 - Trip to the Sungai Klah Hot Springs (Sungkai, Perak) and Gua Tempurung, Ipoh

My family and Aunty Amily's family went to the hot springs where we relaxed in the hot pool. The water was rather murky with algae floating around. After my brother and I got bored, we started throwing algae at each other. If you threw it hard enough, it would actually splat, so it looks kind of... wrong... Later, we became more civilized and started to collect algae to make a big ball. At my suggestion, we played a game of duel... western style... We did the 'walk a few steps, turn around and fire' thing you see on television. I won when I hit him in the arm and the game ended there. However, he quickly gathered up mine & other algae and surprised attacked me in the hip. But, you can't shoot with used bullets, can you?

My brother and I at the hot springs.

Close-up of the algae ball.

We boiled eggs in the hot spring. 5 1/2 minutes, to be exact. They were delicious! I took 3 eggs... THREE. I had already taken 2 in the morning, so that's FIVE eggs in one day.

Spa-boiled eggs.

We spent that night in a 3-star hotel in Ipoh, the Excelsior Hotel. Our rooms were spacious, clean and comfortable.

We had buffet breakfast at the hotel and set off for Gua Tempurung. We went for the Grand Tour which lasted 3 1/2 hours. The first part was quite strenuous but uneventful. We were walking on metal steps, for goodness sake. However, the second part was thrilling and interesting. We had to slide down rocks of steep gradient in dim lights for a distance of about 7 metres, squeeze through a hole and crawl, partially submerged in water, commando style. I was carrying a backpack with my mom's handphone in it...

Entrance to Gua Tempurung.

Part of Gua Tempurung .

Those are about all the major events. Rangers and Impact reopened for 2010 too.

And of course, I have been practising my guitar. I can now play 17 different chords and learning more. 'Give me oil in my lamp' is now so easy to play.

I thank God for a great and eventful 2009 and pray that He will give us all a blessed 2010. Have a good day people!

My First Musical Instrument

Yesterday, I played my first 'quarter song' with a guitar!!!

When I was younger, I never thought I'd live to see this day when I actually would play a musical instrument. I looked at all the chords and hand movements and thought that I would never be able to do it... *sniff sniff*

Oh well, it's not much, but what I have learned to play (although quite roughly) is...

"Give me oil in my lamp
Keep me burning burning burning
Give me oil in my lamp I pray
Give me oil in my lamp
Keep me burning burning burning
Keep me burning 'til the break of day"

I'm still not very good at switching from the 'C chord' to the 'G chord' yet, that's why it's rough... but I still love the music it makes.

Oh yes... and then there are the issue about the fingers...

Please take note that these words are written with bruised left finger tips. This is because of holding down the different chords. They are now harder than my right hand's fingers and have turned slightly black. They also are considerably more red.

Perhaps, months or maybe even years from now, I shall look upon this blog post and say "Oh, what a novice I was back then...", just as my brother looks back upon his old artworks.

Alright, have a good week people! And maybe in the future, I shall post about more landmarks in my experiences. As for now, I shall remember... the 16th of November 2009.

Selangor 7's 21st Anniversary!

On the 27th of September 2009, the Selangor 7 Royal Rangers Outpost celebrated their 21st anniversary...

The Anniversary started off with a big 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' shout from the rangers and commanders.

Then Commander Terence shared about all his experiences with Rangers and how God has been so good to him all these years. After the sharing, he showed us a slide show of this year's event pictures (including the Camporama).

After the slide show came the SKITS!!!

First the Ranger Kids did a skit about the creation story. Lots of costumes, very colourful.

Second the Discovery Rangers did a skit about their compass camp that happened this year.

Third the Adventure Girls did a dance (with Techno music... wasn't expecting that). It was good.

Fourth... the Adventure Boys did their skit. Almost every 10 seconds, the audience would laugh
at us making a fool out of ourselves. Oh well, the Adventure Boys do this kind of skit all the time.

Fifth was the skit made by the Expedition Rangers. It had the most effects and preparation. Flashing lights and all made the skit really dramatic, along with Chris and my brother's 'narrating accents'. It told the story of Samson and Delilah. Short, but very interesting.

Next was the giving and receiving of merits. Ahh, took a lot of work to achieve them, yes sir...

However, before it started, a girl came around passing out party stuff (like whistles and some other noisemakers). These came in handy...

Whenever a person came up to receive his/her merits, the Adventure Boys would blow their whistles as loud as they could (regardless of whether we knew them or not). We comprised of a big percentage of the noise made. And we blared even louder for the people we knew well.

After that, the results for the Adventure Rangers Bible Quiz came out. The girls won...

However for the individual prizes, Ann got third, Sarah got second and... Kok Leong got first!!! Whoo! His prize was RM150 of Canaanland vouchers.

Then... it was time for the Best Ranger results. First they announced the Adventure Ranger Results.

"And the first runner up is... ACKER KWAN!"

Acker walked gloomily to the stage. He wanted to win, and that was it. If he didn't get first, a certain Sarah Chin had a really high chance to. And no girl had gotten first in Best Rangers for a long, long time... Oh well, he got a nice hiking bag...

"And the winner is... SARAH CHIN!"

Sarah jumped up and claimed her shield, along with her prize (good quality camping equipment).

Then they announced the Expedition Rangers winners.

"And the first runner up is... KEDRIC KWAN!"

Kedric came up to redeem his prize.

"And the winner is... LIM WEE YEN!"

Oh well, it was expected. Wee Yen ran to the stage amongst much cheering.

After all the hype, there was a short word by Pastor Simon and then there was the cake cutting.

"Now for the best part of the anniversary!" - Cmdr Debbie
"Yeah! What's a birthday without a Caaaaake!" - Cmdr Rachel

However, the most exciting part of the anniversary (for me) had passed... the best ranger and bible quiz results had already been announced...

It was a good anniversary. I got to know the rangers better and I got my SMA (Silver Medal of Achievement). I thank God that the skit went well (even though we only had about 3 hours of practice). Have a good week!

Preparing for COA (Skit)

This afternoon, I went for Royal Rangers where we practiced the skit we are going to present at the COA (Council of Achievement). We sort of had a meeting yesterday... more like a chat about handphones though, but we DID do something about the skit. Like decide on the topic and a few humorous parts and... and that's about it...

However, today, we had a much more fruitful time. I got myself landed with the job of both narrator (of half of the skit) AND actor... Haha...

We also did watch a few of the other groups do their presentation.

After watching the Expedition Ranger's skit (which has proper light and sound effects), Acker lost all pride and cried out in frustration. Oh well, Commander Wei Sern said that our skit was a 'joke skit' (not BAD, just a different category)...

Alright, that's it for today, have a good week!

Best Ranger Competition

This competition on the 15th August 2009 was tough, stressful and tiring for 3 Adventure Girls, 3 Adventure Boys (including me) and 3 Expedition Rangers. The commanders looked at us sternly, treated us harshly and showed us no mercy. We weren't even allowed to talk to the other rangers throughout the testing. We were on our own for one day...

We met up at Grace Assembly at 7.00 am and left for the campsite where the tests were to be conducted.

We were tested on the following skills:

Firecraft (Cooking your own 'maggi mee' lunch with wood and matches)
Ropecraft (Demonstrate useful knots like the bowline, clove hitch etc.)
Toolcraft (Properly pass a penknife and hand axe, sharpen a penknife and handaxe)
First Aid (Demonstrate proper first aid on a victim (a commander acted as the victim))
Compass (Use a compass to locate things and complete answers on a sheet of paper)
Lashing (Tying sticks together with raffia string to make a signboard which must be sturdy)

I think I did quite well overall...
But I did pretty bad at Compass...

We also had to go through an interview.

The interviewers were Commander Terence and 4 Councilmen; 2 on each side of him. They asked me questions about Christian Service, what I do for my church, my views on politics etc.

I think I did well for my interview. I managed to answer most of the questions they asked me. I said a lot of "Yes sir"s too.

We did a lot of running here and there to collect firewood and get to the different stations for the different tests. I had to do lashing in the miniscule free time that I had which ended my testing.

After dismissal, we returned to Grace Assembly where the boys helped keep some things back in the store room. I then followed Acker and Kedric back to their house. I took a refreshing shower there and then watched Acker play a computer game called 'Sudden Attack'. Something like Counter-Strike. Then, at 7.50 pm, Commander Nat came to pick us up for dinner in a restaurant, Magic Wok.

We had a delicious dinner. Of course, as is the Rangers' 'tradition', the Commanders shared some jokes about the Ranger's flunks during the Competition. I thought one of the funniest was that when James was asked what 'Rapture' is during his interview, he shouted, 'Praise God! I love Rapture!' thinking that Rapture means the casting out of demons.

After dinner, my mum came to pick me up and I went home.

I have learned a lot from this experience. I learned greater independence, coping by myself. Although I studied quite a lot, I still made some flunks. But... oh well, this first time will train me for next year as I now have a better idea on how to prepare for the Competition... if I am chosen again...

On a more humourous note, at the Campsite, there were about 100 other Campers who were so noisy. They were singing songs that I couldn't understand. Their songs were so repetitive that the tension of the Competition was lessened.

Praise the Lord I made it through.

A Not So Ordinary Day In Royal Rangers

Last Sunday, after Sunday Service and Sunday School, I attended Royal Rangers, as usual...

There was a parade, announcements, role calls and a uniform inspection before we dispersed to our respective Outposts.

In my Outpost, the Adventure Boys had the traditional IQ Challenge. We played 'Aunt Mary died last night, did she die?'. We had to observe keenly to discover a pattern or code to decide whether she died or not. The winner gets a 1.5 litre bottle of soft drink. Nobody figured it out.

We did some Ropecraft and had Devotion.

Then, it was games which we always look forward to. This is where the 'Not So' in my post title begins...

We were playing softball... I was pitching to Joshua and Kok Leong was the catcher when some things went awry, very, very awry...

After Joshua hit the ball, he let go the bat... The ball came straight at me. I caught it. Then, I noticed that Joshua wasn't running...

'It's bleeding!' someone exclaimed.

Kok Leong was on the ground saying, 'There's blood! There's blood!'

At first I thought he was semi-joking, but it really freaked me out to see his hands covered in blood. The blood was dripping, forming a small puddle of red liquid.

The commander rushed to Kok Leong, assured him that he was going to be fine, then took him into to the church building where they applied first aid on him.

I asked Joshua what had happened. He suspected that after he swung his bat, had let it go and the bat had hit Kok Leong in the forehead.

After that, everything was fine; it was a small cut. His father took him home. He said he was fine. That was good.

I have never seen so much human blood in one spot before. It was really freaky when I saw his blood stained hands. I just thank God that the bat didn't hit his eye which would have caused more severe injuries...

Cameron Highlands Day 4

I know, I know. It's been 21 days since the 'Cameron Highlands Day 3' post. There seems to be a lot happening recently. Schoolwork, Royal Rangers Merits, Royal Rangers 'Best Ranger' Competition, Royal Rangers Bible Quizzes...

Yep, a lot of Royal Rangers stuff...

Anyway, moving on to the real post...

On Day 4, we woke up, checked out of our lovely apartment and had brunch in Tanah Rata. Then, my mum picked up a dozen scones from T Cafe. She even bought a box of scone mixture so that we can have oven baked fresh scones at home.

After that, we drove home... home... home... HOME...

On the way downhill, my brother and I played some card games. My brother started to feel dizzy. Strangely, I've never got dizzy or carsick. Or maybe I have, mildly, but just didn't notice it...

At Ringlet, we stopped by the lake. It was good to leave the car, inhale fresh air, feel the cool air and enjoy the view.

The serene, calm lake.

A young tree thriving by the side of the lake.

While walking on a boardway by the lake, I found an especially windy spot. I spread out my arms and felt the gale brush against my face. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my brother running at me with his hands in a position set to 'whomp' me in my belly. However, he had started his run from the other end of the boardway. So, when he reached me, he was too tired to fight properly, hehehehe. He still put up quite a good show however...

After the little tiff, we got into another little quarrel when my brother blamed me for my mum behind-the-scenely buying more vegetables from a shop by the lake... which were loaded onto the already overcrowded back seats of the car where my grandma, brother and I sat...

At the foothills of Cameron Highlands, in Tapah, my dad showed the family the SUFES Campsite where my father & I had been a few months ago for a Father & Son Camp. From there, we continued our journey till we reached home sweet home.

This picture concludes all my four posts of my Camerons trip...

It was taken while I was in the car, on the way to Camerons...

I love this shot.