Let my shadows prove the sunshine
i stepped into the shower yesterday after a crazy kids party last night... and was suddenly filled with overwhelming joy.
i have to say, this week was teetering on the edge of becoming immensely stressful and spinning out of control, but somehow, just somehow... everything moved like clockwork with no glitches and even when there were times i felt quite suffocated by the sheer number of things going on, i managed to find space to breathe and then get back to the matter at hand.
i thank God for holding everything in His hands. i was glad for QT to be so apt, for the recent psalms i've been reading to be all on persevering through all obstacles, waiting on, calling upon and depending on the Lord. throughout the week, i just kept reading about having confidence, not to feel inadequate, to desire to seek Him in all the choices we make, and asking for help. i think i did it. i actually managed to do good work!
originally i had been pretty stressed out by churning out a 97k order of equipment. it's bloody 97k. the order is pretty huge - more than 10 items. i had to go through a long admin process which i thought as going to be incredibly tedious, BUT! i did it! and it's not hard at all, i was just scaring myself, haha! which was quite a huge relief man.
even though the purchase order has bounced back to me, it's not because i filled in the electronic form wrongly... i just have to be LESS DETAILED. woohoo!! of course i can do that. hurhur. when monday comes i'll get that out of the way at once. XD
the malaria conference at ntu was DA BOMB. i enjoyed myself, can you believe it? i was pretty overwhelmed at first; alvin and i kept wow-ing at how all the big shots were super sharp and shot good shit questions at each speaker. but they asked questions that were meant to bring everyone's attention to a problem that we might all face (as researchers) and not to belittle the presenter.
the whole conference was light hearted and especially good for me because i have a constant fear of one of our NTU collaborators (he's incredibly results driven... to the extent you just feel rather jumpy around him) but he was pretty friendly at the conference.
and yes, alvin and i were wearing the EXACT SAME THING. contrary to belief, it was not planned at all. i almost fell off my seat at paya lebar mrt station when i spotted him coming towards me. alvin didn't even realize it until he came close enough for me to protest, 'WAH LAU! WHY YOU WEAR THE SAME THING??!?! we're gonna look so weird at the conference!'
during the poster presentation, we even had Brewerkz come in and serve beer. i bet it's my prof's idea. ahahaha... the poster presentation was pretty darn good as well, we got many suggestions as to how we might be able to improve our data and people were actually interested to see what hits we got! :D
halfway through the conference, i was introduced to one of the VIPs from Novartis *gasp* (maybe i'd like to work there; discussing options with my prof now), and i felt this strong feeling that perhaps i really do belong in malaria studies. i've been grappling with this issue for a long time, and now that i've got a slight prompting... i'll keep on praying about it! i'll see where the coming year takes me. :D
THE MALARIA CONFERENCE ROCKED!!! i've got passion in me for research once more, and so does alvin! the race to publish a paper is really pretty exciting. much better than racing to hand in your honours thesis *YAWN*...
and of course. the switchfoot concert. what can i say, but that it was totally
AWESOME!!! XD
josh, alvin and i rushed down from NTU to expo - cab fare was a whopping $38 bucks, stupid extra 35% peak hour charge and jam on the PIE (oh ho, look, i just unwittingly made a funny, how witty of me).
i was too excited to eat and had a little motion sickness from being in the cab for too long, so we all skipped dinner (i wonder how alvin survived). we picked alanna from the mrt station, and thanks to pete who brought all our barang home with him, we could go into the concert with no baggage at all!
this is a very unflattering photo. alvin is not that fat, his shirt is just extremely lao4-lao3. ANYWAYS! it was already 730 and i hadn't exchanged my pass for a wristband yet - and still taking pictures somemore!! :O
we had orange wristbands; we are allowed into $90 area, but were to be in a separate queue from alanna and josh. we asked, they said yes you can queue in the green wristband queue, so we did, then just before we got in, they stopped us. i pleaded, they relented... AND WE WERE THE ONLY ONES WHO MANAGED TO GET IN. thank God, thank God. they'd wanted us to scram and re-queue. sigh, guys you've GOT to have better communication man.
maybe they relented because they could tell i was about to flare up if they didn't let me in. that other person said can what! don't punish us for your lack of communication. i'm just glad alvin and i didn't have to get angry over this.
we breezed over to the t-shirt counter (the shirts were only $15!!! it's almost $40 to import from US) and alanna and i went mad and bought 2 shirts each. i also got a free tee when i bought firefight's green single. heh.
there was a slightly nasty incident when a group cut queue to get the shirts. i cannot stand for this type of behaviour. i shouted at them and chased them off of course. but they still managed to get like, one shirt. idiots.
but it was pretty funny how alvin and i just glared at them (alvin can look pretty psychotic when he wants to) and shouted to everyone that they were cutting queue. i remember your face guys. do it again and i won't be just standing in the queue and shouting anymore. *mean face*
the firefight kick-started the concert... but the sound was all wrong, and i honestly felt that they had a better performance at the anberlin/copeland concert. oh wells. i still like them anyways coz first impressions count. =)
then there was west grand boulevard, which alanna and alvin hated at first, coz they thought it was still daphne khoo (?) leading, but they totally went bonkers when they realized 'OH IT'S THE ORIGINAL FRONT MAN!!'
halfway through their performance, we shifted around to look for candice... and while alanna and josh refused to squeeze into the crowd, alvin and i delved in and joined pretty much half of the youth worship ministry. we kept making jokes about how odd being in max pavilion, almost like we were in service, how the band wished worship could have crowds like that, how worship this sunday might just feel really surreal to them all etc.
i have to agree, when i stepped into hall 10, it really felt like i was going to service. hahahahahaha.
when switchfoot came onto the stage it was gooooood! i can't remember the full song list, but i think they started with a Meant to Live rift and then went into Oh! Gravity. hahaha... and during stars, i was at the right height for the lights to shine straight into my vision everytime he sang, 'when i look at the stars.... stars!!' *blinded*
the mood was just fantastic man. sigh.
er, i think i was quite 自 high. i thought everyone was jumping along with me... but apparently i was the only one grinning and jumping on the spot. bleh. regardless, i went crazy on my own, yay! it's good to be thick-skinned. hehe.
and besides, i had to jump; i could hardly look past ben's shoulder! :(
the crowd was well behaved; everyone kinda screamed (but no pushing) when jon foreman climbed the railing TWICE, once in the middle and once really close to us. :D
out came the cameras and handphones. the light effects at expo were fantastic (why aren't they used during worship?? hahaha!) especially when they performed 'Stars'... and they sang 24!!! i hugged candice when they started coz apparently, it's both our special song AND WE'RE 24!! yay yay.
ah, i'm getting all excited again. need to relax my cramping fingers. *breathes*
from what alvin and i have pieced together, this should be the setlist: oh! gravity, ammunition, stars, this is your life, we're one tonight mashed with the shadow proves the sunshine (i think i liked this one the best), only hope (yay yay yay :D), learning to breathe, chem 6a (like, 1.5 minutes of it), gone mashed with crazy in love (dedicated especially to beyonce *LOL*), american dream (where they froze suddenly for a full 3-4 minutes and was just totally mind-blowing), ON FIRE!, awakening, meant to live, dirty second hands, encores: twenty four, dare you to move ... yeah i think that's all.
wow that's quite a number of songs.
i love rock concerts, i really do. until bad behaviour happens. there was a mosh pit of a grand total of 4 people (hahahaha sad case) and by moshing i mean they were jumping into people to rile them up. apparently someone did a flying kick at the end of the song which amused alvin to no end. and some %$#$# person threw a CAN which almost hit shujun if she was taller. it hit the guy next to her, a huge impact right at his temple. it totally killed our mood for that point coz all of us near that guy were all so worried for him.
that person who threw the can is an ass. a brainless git. a HUGE schmuck.
but he was okay and didn't bleed, so we continued rocking out. i'm still waiting for alvin and greg's videos. :)
by the time we ended, i couldn't barely walk properly coz i was tiptoeing 95% of the time. my legs were jellified!!
it was really, really good. XD
and then the kids party! it was out of control!! but i'm still thankful coz there were almost 30 children and they enjoyed themselves! yay! first outreach program this year - a minor success. :D
ah... great week of satisfying spiritual work and actual PAID work.
and now! housework! it's spring cleaning time!! have a great weekend ahead, everyone. *grin*
i have to say, this week was teetering on the edge of becoming immensely stressful and spinning out of control, but somehow, just somehow... everything moved like clockwork with no glitches and even when there were times i felt quite suffocated by the sheer number of things going on, i managed to find space to breathe and then get back to the matter at hand.
i thank God for holding everything in His hands. i was glad for QT to be so apt, for the recent psalms i've been reading to be all on persevering through all obstacles, waiting on, calling upon and depending on the Lord. throughout the week, i just kept reading about having confidence, not to feel inadequate, to desire to seek Him in all the choices we make, and asking for help. i think i did it. i actually managed to do good work!
originally i had been pretty stressed out by churning out a 97k order of equipment. it's bloody 97k. the order is pretty huge - more than 10 items. i had to go through a long admin process which i thought as going to be incredibly tedious, BUT! i did it! and it's not hard at all, i was just scaring myself, haha! which was quite a huge relief man.
even though the purchase order has bounced back to me, it's not because i filled in the electronic form wrongly... i just have to be LESS DETAILED. woohoo!! of course i can do that. hurhur. when monday comes i'll get that out of the way at once. XD
the malaria conference at ntu was DA BOMB. i enjoyed myself, can you believe it? i was pretty overwhelmed at first; alvin and i kept wow-ing at how all the big shots were super sharp and shot good shit questions at each speaker. but they asked questions that were meant to bring everyone's attention to a problem that we might all face (as researchers) and not to belittle the presenter.
the whole conference was light hearted and especially good for me because i have a constant fear of one of our NTU collaborators (he's incredibly results driven... to the extent you just feel rather jumpy around him) but he was pretty friendly at the conference.
and yes, alvin and i were wearing the EXACT SAME THING. contrary to belief, it was not planned at all. i almost fell off my seat at paya lebar mrt station when i spotted him coming towards me. alvin didn't even realize it until he came close enough for me to protest, 'WAH LAU! WHY YOU WEAR THE SAME THING??!?! we're gonna look so weird at the conference!'
during the poster presentation, we even had Brewerkz come in and serve beer. i bet it's my prof's idea. ahahaha... the poster presentation was pretty darn good as well, we got many suggestions as to how we might be able to improve our data and people were actually interested to see what hits we got! :D
halfway through the conference, i was introduced to one of the VIPs from Novartis *gasp* (maybe i'd like to work there; discussing options with my prof now), and i felt this strong feeling that perhaps i really do belong in malaria studies. i've been grappling with this issue for a long time, and now that i've got a slight prompting... i'll keep on praying about it! i'll see where the coming year takes me. :D
THE MALARIA CONFERENCE ROCKED!!! i've got passion in me for research once more, and so does alvin! the race to publish a paper is really pretty exciting. much better than racing to hand in your honours thesis *YAWN*...
and of course. the switchfoot concert. what can i say, but that it was totally
AWESOME!!! XD
josh, alvin and i rushed down from NTU to expo - cab fare was a whopping $38 bucks, stupid extra 35% peak hour charge and jam on the PIE (oh ho, look, i just unwittingly made a funny, how witty of me).
i was too excited to eat and had a little motion sickness from being in the cab for too long, so we all skipped dinner (i wonder how alvin survived). we picked alanna from the mrt station, and thanks to pete who brought all our barang home with him, we could go into the concert with no baggage at all!
this is a very unflattering photo. alvin is not that fat, his shirt is just extremely lao4-lao3. ANYWAYS! it was already 730 and i hadn't exchanged my pass for a wristband yet - and still taking pictures somemore!! :O
we had orange wristbands; we are allowed into $90 area, but were to be in a separate queue from alanna and josh. we asked, they said yes you can queue in the green wristband queue, so we did, then just before we got in, they stopped us. i pleaded, they relented... AND WE WERE THE ONLY ONES WHO MANAGED TO GET IN. thank God, thank God. they'd wanted us to scram and re-queue. sigh, guys you've GOT to have better communication man.
maybe they relented because they could tell i was about to flare up if they didn't let me in. that other person said can what! don't punish us for your lack of communication. i'm just glad alvin and i didn't have to get angry over this.
we breezed over to the t-shirt counter (the shirts were only $15!!! it's almost $40 to import from US) and alanna and i went mad and bought 2 shirts each. i also got a free tee when i bought firefight's green single. heh.
there was a slightly nasty incident when a group cut queue to get the shirts. i cannot stand for this type of behaviour. i shouted at them and chased them off of course. but they still managed to get like, one shirt. idiots.
but it was pretty funny how alvin and i just glared at them (alvin can look pretty psychotic when he wants to) and shouted to everyone that they were cutting queue. i remember your face guys. do it again and i won't be just standing in the queue and shouting anymore. *mean face*
the firefight kick-started the concert... but the sound was all wrong, and i honestly felt that they had a better performance at the anberlin/copeland concert. oh wells. i still like them anyways coz first impressions count. =)
then there was west grand boulevard, which alanna and alvin hated at first, coz they thought it was still daphne khoo (?) leading, but they totally went bonkers when they realized 'OH IT'S THE ORIGINAL FRONT MAN!!'
halfway through their performance, we shifted around to look for candice... and while alanna and josh refused to squeeze into the crowd, alvin and i delved in and joined pretty much half of the youth worship ministry. we kept making jokes about how odd being in max pavilion, almost like we were in service, how the band wished worship could have crowds like that, how worship this sunday might just feel really surreal to them all etc.
i have to agree, when i stepped into hall 10, it really felt like i was going to service. hahahahahaha.
when switchfoot came onto the stage it was gooooood! i can't remember the full song list, but i think they started with a Meant to Live rift and then went into Oh! Gravity. hahaha... and during stars, i was at the right height for the lights to shine straight into my vision everytime he sang, 'when i look at the stars.... stars!!' *blinded*
the mood was just fantastic man. sigh.
er, i think i was quite 自 high. i thought everyone was jumping along with me... but apparently i was the only one grinning and jumping on the spot. bleh. regardless, i went crazy on my own, yay! it's good to be thick-skinned. hehe.
and besides, i had to jump; i could hardly look past ben's shoulder! :(
the crowd was well behaved; everyone kinda screamed (but no pushing) when jon foreman climbed the railing TWICE, once in the middle and once really close to us. :D
out came the cameras and handphones. the light effects at expo were fantastic (why aren't they used during worship?? hahaha!) especially when they performed 'Stars'... and they sang 24!!! i hugged candice when they started coz apparently, it's both our special song AND WE'RE 24!! yay yay.
ah, i'm getting all excited again. need to relax my cramping fingers. *breathes*
from what alvin and i have pieced together, this should be the setlist: oh! gravity, ammunition, stars, this is your life, we're one tonight mashed with the shadow proves the sunshine (i think i liked this one the best), only hope (yay yay yay :D), learning to breathe, chem 6a (like, 1.5 minutes of it), gone mashed with crazy in love (dedicated especially to beyonce *LOL*), american dream (where they froze suddenly for a full 3-4 minutes and was just totally mind-blowing), ON FIRE!, awakening, meant to live, dirty second hands, encores: twenty four, dare you to move ... yeah i think that's all.
wow that's quite a number of songs.
i love rock concerts, i really do. until bad behaviour happens. there was a mosh pit of a grand total of 4 people (hahahaha sad case) and by moshing i mean they were jumping into people to rile them up. apparently someone did a flying kick at the end of the song which amused alvin to no end. and some %$#$# person threw a CAN which almost hit shujun if she was taller. it hit the guy next to her, a huge impact right at his temple. it totally killed our mood for that point coz all of us near that guy were all so worried for him.
that person who threw the can is an ass. a brainless git. a HUGE schmuck.
but he was okay and didn't bleed, so we continued rocking out. i'm still waiting for alvin and greg's videos. :)
by the time we ended, i couldn't barely walk properly coz i was tiptoeing 95% of the time. my legs were jellified!!
it was really, really good. XD
and then the kids party! it was out of control!! but i'm still thankful coz there were almost 30 children and they enjoyed themselves! yay! first outreach program this year - a minor success. :D
ah... great week of satisfying spiritual work and actual PAID work.
and now! housework! it's spring cleaning time!! have a great weekend ahead, everyone. *grin*
posted by feline @ 11:35 AM
