happiness

i wish i could be completely happy, without this nagging thought that my happiness is but a very temporary and completely undeserved thing. gosh this semester is such an anomaly in my life...

in other news, i have successfully done a black slope WITHOUT FALLING. granted it is the easiest black slope at Greek Peak and probably not counted as a black slope elsewhere, but still! now all i need to do is to not be overconfident and start injuring myself before our whiteface trip. but this is so awesome man. anyway someone just told me that snowboarding/skiing is a very antisocial activity, cos the only times you socialize are 1. on the lift; 2. a few minutes at the top of the slope; 3. a few minutes at the bottom. so essentially the actual snowboarding is done absolutely alone. well...hmm... but then why do people watch movies? movies are pretty antisocial as well right? (ok yeah i know sometimes they can be veeerrryy social but that's not the point) but anyway, i found out on saturday that what made me really happy wasn't the fact that i did a black slope, but the fact that i accompanied a friend to a green/blue slope for most of the day when everyone else went to the blacks. he totally enjoyed it, had a wonderful day and told me that now he's much more confident about his snowboarding. THAT really made me happy.

aww so sweet! adorable little m&m's for my housemate!

fcs hearts everyone

mountain of cookies omg how to deliver all these??

qoo dudes

marvin trying very hard to keep his tongue in his mouth

samseng!

awesome origami skills

i want to snowboard everyday pls pls pls

accident on the slopes!

wah i'm addicted to snowboarding man. i want to go everyday! just came home from boarding again, and unfortunately sheryl twisted her ankle on her skis so she will be out of action for a long time *sob*... it was quite interesting though, having the medic snowboard down to save us and then the snowmobile coming up the snow with its bright lights... me and ian had to keep watch to make sure people didn't ski into the snowmobile... wah the Trojan slope is quite a killer man... last time i also injured my tailbone there, really quite scary. But thank God i'm safe! hope that sheryl's injury is not that serious, so next time she can learn snowboarding with us. haha so much more fun than skiing lor!

OH NO 1 more day till fcs and i haven't practised my songs....

the net is down.

are you kidding me!? well that's what the internet guy said when i called up. "it's not our fault, the whole net is having problems now." omg. the whole net? that's not possible we're in USA not siberia where got such thing!? no pls pls pls i can't survive without internet or even with laggy laggy internet... how can i play scrabulous? how can i maintain my warbook kingdom (btw it's really a problem cos everyone is attacking me now)? but at least i can still msn which is really phew man. it's so scary... the last time i had an internet problem i seriously had withdrawal -- i was prancing around the house reading magazines repeatedly and eating everything cos i didn't know what else i could do! so now at least it's not so bad cos i have msn, but still... i'm getting muscle twitches now already.

come back dear internet connection please don't abandon us!

choices

to go to the blue slopes or to stay at the greens? to have dinner at haihong or 909? so many important life choices in one day! well, the sad thing about having to make choices is that you never get to find out what would happen otherwise. thankfully though, both were great! omg i can do blue slopes liao! of course i fell down several times but at least they weren't those completely-wipe-out-until-lose-body-parts kind. thank you frank for making all of us go to blue with you! i also tried jumps but failed miserably. nvm next time ok canuf.

wah haihong peking duck is so awesome. juicy and tender and omg the skin.... turns out that simian has also tried it too, which i found out when i was gushing about it to him. but wah.... i didn't know that ithaca actually has such gems... but of course not all their dishes are gems la the dim sum is way at the other end of the omg spectrum....

so anyway, being an infp/infj person, i didn't think i would do so well at a 30-person party and so i decided that haihong was a much safer bet for an enjoyable night. and it was woohoo! oh turns out that the owners of haihong were refused entry to singapore and malaysia back in 1978... dammit man we are horrible people they should charge us extra!

pics:

wah i cannot look at this...

me being an artist

no need photoshop to do motion blur! i also can!

free 团圆饭!

so yesterday we had our reunion dinner at imperial kitchen buffet, and i won myself a free dinner! this is what happened. we decided to play a game -- each of us would put 1 credit card into a bag, and then we'll remove the cards one by one, like a lucky draw. the one with the last card in the bag would not have to pay for his/her meal. and it was me! shiok. nice that i was with a bunch of pple who take betting and such activities very seriously, so there wasn't any real opportunity for me to say "no lah nvm i pay". yay!

and today wah.... snow snow snow... i finally think i've gotten back my snowboarding skilz! hope simian recovers though.... he's like the biggest casualty today! ratchat and i went up to the green slopes, and phew the snow was much better than last week. my poor board needs a tune up though, the bottom's all scratched! maybe i'll wax it before spring break, so i can feel cool and pro when i go to gore/whiteface. WHY are people pulling out of the ski trip left right and center! hmph. fun wat! not fun meh!!!???

ok eye pain need sleep. nite.

cannot play guitar liao!

die. downstairs complain that i play guitar too loud. how how how!? pls lor who ask VP to build houses with like 1 inch floors? like that how i practice for fcs? hmm maybe i can build a soundproof box for myself, or i can practice in katie's car. must remember to ask her for keys man....sigh...

aiyah these people downstairs also! if i disturb you then you don't come home lah! stay somewhere else mah right, why you want to purposely sleep in your room if you know you're going to get disturbed? hmph. this world is so unfair man...

软糖！

i love my grandma because she gives me 软糖！ well, kind of lah. i love my grandma cos to her i'm always the same little boy who is her 大孙子 and whom she really loves! and that's why she gives me the same 软糖 every time i go back to cornell, and everytime i eat it i remember what a wonderful grandma i have. 软糖 never fails to cheer me up on a gloomy day! which is like, everyday, considering i'm where i am.

in completely unrelated news... are you kidding me... very pathetic can. and if really good looking still nevermind....

i heart quiznos! and lotsa other things

so much meat so much meat... when you go to quiznos, it's as if all the cows in the world died suddenly and they didn't know what else to do with the dead cows so they just dumped everything into your sandwich. this time i couldn't finish the bread even though it was fantastic but nvm lah. it won't be my last time! and it's so cute, their little sandwich trays are shaped like Q's! with the tail of the Q as the handle. there's also this guy there who is really friendly and whom everyone loves but i didn't get to take his picture.


before quiznos though was church, which was great! promised joy that i would look for her and i did, which made her happy! these days i really look forward to going for church, even though when i wake up there's still the 5 minutes of OMG why can't church be after lunch.....

this time we had reverend joe askins (hopefully correct spelling) come to talk to us about our inheritance in Christ, and it was pretty good although i cannot remember everything he said. what stuck in my mind though was a very very small part about Christ calling us to get out of the boat and walk to Him -- that if we fixed our eyes on Him we will never sink!

i really believe that in every sermon, whether the pastor is eloquent or not, whether the message makes sense or not, there's always something that is for each of us. and as long as we hunger for the Word, we will always leave the service having learned something. really hope that some of my friends in PPCC will realize that, instead of always complaining about the preaching!

cherie and yankai beaming

big ralph! went to quiznos with us too... ahhh so cute so cute

THE pastor chip.

Saera is back! managed to have a nice little reunion with her and robert (my thesis team) and it just reminded me that we are all going to start work soon... sigh adults already, so fast! hope one day i can go korea and visit her man. AND SNOWBOARD! wah awesomeness. anyway so among the three of us, she's probably the only person who's really going to be an architect. i'm going to be working for a developer and robert's going to be a game designer... cool huh. spreading out to conquer the world!

2/3 of the Revolutionary Duffield Group

Level Up!

no more trembling at the top of alpha slope and wondering if i'm ever going to make it down! woohoo! today i went up to Karyatis, one of the green slopes and i actually did it a few times without falling! shiok man. still a little unsteady on my toe position but i can really feel my snowboarding lessons coming back to me. just give me 2 weeks and i'll be doing jumps! haha i wish.

joseph looking triumphant

guess my expression

i have eyes at the back of my head

heidi junchen(?) and joel. one big happy family

another big happy family + yaoming

PraiseAlive Feb 2008 instead of CNY Dinner 2008

oh what a night of incredible power and glory and joy. throughout the entire duration of praisealive, not once did i wonder what was happening at the cny dinner, or whether i missed anything. while we were worshipping, God opened my heart so that His love could flow through me into the heart of someone who was experiencing great loneliness. and it's so amazing, cos when i was sitting beside this old lady, i felt an immense sense of comfort and happiness, and i really wanted to tell her that... and when i did, i also discovered that her name is actually Joy! what struck me more was that those few words that i said to her, something that i couldn't imagine myself doing, really really touched her heart, and i knew then and there that i had become a vessel for God's greatness to shine through. what a wonderful evening. and i know God has healed me already.

horticulture 102

wah so cool... first time in my life i did a flower arrangement! look look look....

who is prettier?

ok lah not very professional... but aiyah got effort points lah! the class is seriously fun, even tho today it was kinda hampered by the ridiculous amt of slush i had to slush through to get to the horticulture lab. riding bike in hail is NOT a good idea. so anyway, i think i'll be taking this course now! hope i get to do more fun stuff that i wouldn't have been able to do if i hadn't finished my thesis 1 sem early!

ok more pics:



oh and they gave us edible flowers to eat! no one really wanted to eat, i think, but have to give face so we each took one and gulped it down... horrible. disgusting. many other negative words. why would people want to do such things to themselves?!!? but the lavender cookie was damn good lah, so it averages out i guess!




as you can see, it wasn't a wonderful experience.

played badminton today too, and got thrashed by Ronald, so sad. last time i can still ALMOST win...but today it was just....sad. oh well! time to exercise more and buck up!

OUCH

that is the word in all four of our minds tonight. wah... not easy to remember how to snowboard when you haven't done it for 2 whole years! plus the ice (yes ice not snow) was SO HARD! simian was probably the most injured, and was groaning in the car all the way home. tomorrow no need to sit down liao. as for me, i fell down (of all places) at the getting-off point of the ski-lift cos me and ratchat kinda crashed into each other and my chest kinda landed on my fist. so now there's a hole in my chest....ouchouchouch....

BUT. it was so fun! wish i could stay longer today, then i would have been able to really remember how to snowboard, but wah, the feeling of wind whooshing past your face and the white snow and the people flying past.... and then your board catching on something, launching you into the air.... and your body thrown mercilessly into the packed snow...priceless.

:D tired and happy!

Bootstrap Bills!

Simian looking cool and blurry

Fortune Teller Says...

that thursday's snowboarding trip will be a complete disaster! why? because i am SO excited to go.... and whenever i'm super excited, something will inevitably go wrong. but still, i can't help my feelings right?

please please let it be a wonderful day..... :)

fcs retreat!

i love my new camera. so shiok to be able to take pics without lugging big camera around! of course i still love my canon but at least now i can take pictures everyday, anywhere! so we went to chuck and ann's house for our fcs mini retreat, which was wonderful even tho it's just 6 of us! turned out to be an all-guy's retreat too, cos cherie was sick. but then again, it wasn't really all-guy, cos we had the cutest little girl around! gabriella! she was adopted by chuck and ann, from a dysfunctional family, and she's just so so cute. apparently tho, she has Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) which causes her to mutate into a ferocious biting animal at times but still. so cuteeee!

and yankai had his 3rd birthday celebration, which was a total surprise. chuck and ann are so sweet! anyway, the retreat was very welcome for me, cos i had a lot on my mind and i really needed to go somewhere where i could just rest, be happy, and lift up all my worries and troubles to Jesus! and so nice to be able to worship the Lord with friends. thanks joseph for being the chief organizer, without whom this could never never have happened. :) 辛苦你了。

joshua and gabriella making music

too cute liao

delicious looking fake fruits

marvin is defeated by foot long sandwich

happy birthday again and again!

taopok!

january babies!

i don't think i've ever hosted a birthday party at my house. until now! and it was 5 birthday parties in one night! cool huh. ok lah, more like 1 birthday party for 5 people... but it was fantastic, from the buying of the birthday prezzies (especially the part when i realized i left everything in singapore) to the cooking, to the jamming session and finally the absolutely side-splitting Telephone Pictionary game we played at the end. so fun. but of course, as with all birthdays i witness in cornell now, it only served to remind me how um... mature *ahem* i am. 25.5 years old! all the young pple around me makes me feel so ancient... the freshies are 6 yrs younger than me! OMG.

people usually pose in the snow...but ok lah

evil lin's banana walnut lovey dovey muffins!

chairman mao and evil lin

joshua's cheesecake with strawberry mountain

heidi attacking cake

cheesecake avalanche

yankai's prezzie on fire!

singaporean goodies omg RAISIN

sigh yankai more macho than me....

cornell students are so smart 1

cornell students are so smart 2

dunno what to take

i think i'm showing signs that i've been in cornell for too long:

1. dunno what courses to take anymore
2. just want the easy professors
3. dread seeing snow in the morning
4. want to be a part time student, not to save money, but just to be a part time student.

die liao. i'm sure when i start work i'd wish i did more during my time in cornell, but now i just wish i was back in singapore! quick somebody slap me and make me get my ass out of bed and do something constructive with my life!!!!

no need to take humanities!

wahhh. so happy -- just went to check things out at the registrar's office, and it turns out that my Japanese Society through Film class is counted as a humanities course, even though last sem they rejected my petition to count it! yay. this means i don't have to take the Christianity in Africa course that i enrolled for this sem, which is pretty interesting but potentially killer, with like 150 pages of readings every week. siao.

so now i hope they didn't make a mistake and make me happy for nothing. in fact, if they tell me in the middle of the semester that they made a mistake, then i dun need to graduate liao.

我的幸福

it's been less than a week, and my pineapple tarts are already vanishing! just as i was savouring one of them, i suddenly realized that i was so blessed, to have a wonderful family that cares for me and a wonderful grandma too! feels so nice to be loved.

woohoo back to skoo!

this is the 2nd day of my very last semester in cornell, assuming i don't fail anything. as usual, ithaca welcomes us with a bout of cold weather that hit -17degC yesterday. ugh. found out some trivia from google too! apparently warmer temperatures cause snow to form, and not vice versa. therefore, when it's super cold, we actually get sunny skies! how weird hor.

still shopping around for courses -- going to try out this "christianity in africa" course for my humanities requirement... man i hate humanities! as a result i have put off taking the humanities requirement until my last semester, and now i finally can't push it back any further. hope it's interesting man. and easy. i need easy courses pls pls pls!

so tired of studying. just got a mail from Pisit (Keppel Land) asking me when i'll be graduating, cos they are restructuring their resources. yay they make space for me! even before i make my decision about whether to join keppel. so nice hor. i can only hope that they will continue to be nice AFTER i join.

oh and, stopped by at DFS in Narita to buy cigarettes for Tom (name changed to ensure anonymity). why do i do these things! against my principles man. but nmind, i will nag him non stop! day after day until he quits or until i'm not his friend anymore haha. quit man! smoking KILLS!

rrrrr.

so hard to fall

i'm walking, walking
through the night
away from the world
toward a new light

and i'm walking, walking
without a fight
on a path of surrender
that's paved in pure white

and i see your face
for it shines in the darkest place

though the journey is long
and there's no end in sight
i know i'll never be lost
when you are walking beside

though my bones are weary
and my body is weak
but it's so hard to fall
when you're with me

and i'm running home again
though the roads they are marked with pain
but as long as i'm found in you
i know that each day
brings me closer still

though the journey is long
and there's no end in sight
i know i'll never be lost
when you are walking beside

though the daylight fades
and i can barely see
but it's so hard to fall
when you're with me