Served in church at Suntec for the first time today. It was really "A New Day". All but the two main cameras were upgraded. Now the cameras each have a super big viewfinder. And the crowd camera I was using this morning have a new tripod. Thank God for all the technology ! We went down to lvl 3 Chinese church to help them tear down and move some equipment. Wow the theater they were using is really posh !

With all these great things coming our way in church, it is easy and convenient for the public, unsaved friends and family members to criticize and comment negatively. We who are in Christ must always forgive them, for they don't know what they did or say. The unsaved are blind to the work of God, so we must give them the benefit of doubt. I see why Pastor kept telling us to choose LOVE.
I don't want to comment on the dollar value we paid to get a location in Suntec for our services, only to say that it was a sensible decision to move. The Expo rent and frequent hall relocations cost us a lot of funds. And the total seat capacities at both JW and Expo were bursting, more especially during big days. Uniting the church at one central spot in the country will put us in a more effective position to serve the multitudes. I believe many members were a little dampened in their spirits when we heard the main hall had to be scaled down significantly due to government space regulations for use of commercial premises for religious activities. I was too. But I also dreamed that one day the rise of big churches in Singapore will eventually pressure the authorities to lift that space restrictions and then we can expand our place in Suntec !

Yes, more travelling time for me to attend service every week, I cannot deny. But I just love the presence of God in the church, the fresh message delivered by Pastor and all the guest speakers every week.

Today I also figured out that one of my cg member's bf is in the same ministry as me! Big wow for me.

Also want to thank God for the progress in my lab report. I also have a hard time doing it every semester. Not because I don't know what is going on in the lab, but because I wanted to streamline the flow of details and the neatness in the work. I'll never allow myself to submit something that I don't even understand(when people usually copy wholesale from senior's report). The professor may or may not see the genuine effort put in by me, but God is not fooled, for whatever the sower sows he reaps also. =)

I have been frequenting the low points of life. Quizzes in school continued to dent my mood. And this semester I kept feeling oddly lonely in school. I am someone who loves being around with people I trust and know very well. But these friends in school don't have exactly the same timetable as me. So most of the time I chose to avoid all the buzz in the school and study at a remote place, or get home after school.

Last Sunday I had a high jump competition in NYP, where i usually trained. I managed to clear 1.65m. It was job done. Exactly what I prayed for. Thank God. I reverted back to the single high arm swing that Staffan (the man in the main picture of my blog) used. I cannot do double arm swing technique because it tends to break up my runup pace very much. This technique that Staffan used, is hard to master because I can't see where the jumping force is coming from. He made it so smooth in his jumps. Admirable !

Exams are about a month away. I do not plan to do jumps at all, but I will be focusing on gym weights and strengthening drills on the track. I last did 45-50-55-60-55-50-45kg half squats and 60-65-70-75-70-65-60kg calf raises. With the main competition IVP in about 6months time, I am giving myself the goal of 1.75m.

Also want to thank God for healing my sprained neck afflicted during the Sunday competition. I think it is related to my curved spinal problem from the past. The condition was so bad that I had a big and firm bump on my right shoulder, while my left shoulder was loose near the neck area. It is obvious that some stress in my spine is pulling the muscles one way from the balance. Now it is fine on both sides and no more neck pain.

This couple of weeks God revealed more of my cracks to me. The things I prayed for, they came true one by one. But after I got each of them, I wanted something better than what I had. Take the Expert Advisors for example. I got my hands on some old versions of EAs that boast immense profitability. But when I actually backtested them, all of them failed terribly. I wanted a profitable EA ! Then it was the university modules this semester. I wanted a lab slot as the same group as my group of friends and I got the exact same index number. But I'm in another sub-group?? It's okay, I tell myself. At least I never tapau any modules and my schedule now is settled without any problems.

Recently I met someone in my course who has the most wrong reason to try to join a particular lab group, or tutorial class. Because there is pretty girl(s) in that group. The way he talked about it, it was like a bee attracted to pollen.

I wonder, if man's nature really had greed wired into it.

Tried the laksa at Quad Cafe in school. It appeared on a campus food hunt before. I give it 7/10. Remember not to queue at the zi char store.
Today my mood in school is probably 3 out of 10. I kept appearing in situations where I heard people chatting about getting very good cumulative GPA grade as compared to mine. *Taking a deep breath and sighing inside* Pastor spoke that I should step out of my tent, and count my stars. I should look further beyond my grades.

It doesn't matter what others say, because if God said it is so, it is so.

These past two days it was terrifying on the road for me. Last night, I was driving around in Gek Poh. I was driving casually and about to drive past a right turn opening in the road. I was in the first lane(right side) of the two-lane road. All in a flash I saw a van pop out from my left passenger window, going way faster than me. It cut sharply across and in front of me into the right adjacent road. The van was driving so fast the driver had to brake while taking that "to death" turn. I thought it was going to flip over anytime soon.

Then this morning on my way to play soccer in Clementi driving went quite wrong for me, but it was my error this time. I was lining up behind a medium sized lorry at the edge of a big junction. That lorry was going to filter right. I wanted to go straight up through the second lane. At that point of time I believed my car was pipping over or on the pedestrian crossing lane already. The lorry went right and the car on my left stopped. And I got stuck in the big junction ! By God's grace I was able to assess the traffic from the filtering-right cars in the opposite direction. And best of all, no red-light cams !

My heart area is hurting real bad right now....I haven't had this feeling for a long time. I am lying down now on my bed, taking very slow and shallow breaths...

At the moment I'm in my 1st semester of year 2 in my university course. Every area of my life is not doing so well.

Let's talk about studies first. I realised i have been going through a similar cycle this academic year. I was really doing well in the first 4 weeks of school. After that i got tired of studying. Then tutorials and lectures started to get ahead more and more. By the way, i scored an A for my thermodynamics quiz and a B for Mechanics of Materials. Quite a feat. Since i've never scored A in uni quizzes before. There only 1 month left to my first exam on Dec 10. I have got alot of ground to cover. If I stop studying, I'll surely drop. Here's my plan. I'll just keep on keeping on, chipping away at the concepts bit by bit.

In my athletic career, I was incepted into the university's track team. The trackers are generally very well mannered and easy to mingle with, but between me and most of them, it's largely unfamiliar. I am still training with Ronnie and will continue to do so until he has a better suggestion of someone better than himself. Another competition (IVP 2010) has gone, and no medals won. Going into the competition, i knew i was no medal hopeful. The last jump session before it, I was struggling to clear anything higher than 1.50m. But in the few days leading to my event day, I watched some videos and managed to alter my technique for better. During the event's warm up time, I managed to clear 1.60m with at least 5cm to spare. But in the actual jumps, I was out by failing to clear the first height of 1.60m. But I sincerely thank those jumper buddies who encouraged me when i went up for my last attempt. Lynn's support was most edifying. I am just going through a journey to greater success and breakthrough. 

Today is Monday the 20th, September 2010. It was a weird monday. I dozed off in my lectures more times in a day than I can remember. 8.30-12.30pm lectures. Then I started off my 4 hour break by napping at the gallery area of the badminton hall in SRC. It was still too hot to do my training at the track.

1.30pm came. I went for my routine warm up and noticed a kiteflyer on the field had her kite stuck over a wall net behind the soccer goal line. I knew I had to help. I tried flying the kite from one side, hoping that it'll take flight high enough to clear the net. But apparently it was assembled wrongly, causing it to swerve left and right while it caught the wind. Then I saw a solution. the kite was connected to the reel by a fishing line connector. It was simple then. I just had to unhook the kite, let the lady reel back the end of the line over the net. Praise the Lord !

But it wasn't my time for training I supposed since it poured while I was midway into my drills. It's alright...Tmr going back there at the SRC stadium to do jumps. I'm just not pleased that the high jump mattress is wrongly placed. 

vertical jump 65cm. Impressive! I never thought I could lift up so much. 

SBJ 243cm. 

The grace of God came the first thing in the morning. I slept through all my alarms, and found myself facing my phone which displayed 8.17am. And I am supposed to get to the church by 8.45am. I didn't even bathed. Just took some precious moments to comb my hair and wheeeee I'm out of the house. I was contemplating taking a cab down, but in view of my plan to save money, I chose to take a bus since it wouldn't hurt to be late. And it seemed God had made the world go according to my time. The bus came right on time, and I blazed through the church gates at 8.45am, with a dozen students rushing in as well. Hallelujah ! I couldn't sleep last night after the WC match between Germany and Spain. Not because of the results, but because the revelations of God and loads of Bible verses were burning into my memory. Maybe the "foundations of our truth" book by Ulf Ekman was too good a read.

I visited the library to get some materials to balance off my spiritual reading. I found some magazines I really liked! I left with one Nat Geo mag on "The Tallest Trees", Sports Fishing, Winning Jumps and Pole Vault, Lewis Hamilton biography.

Other things

-Collect my racket after restring service. A sword bonded with its master again. Muahaha...

-Dental. 

-Free 10mbps 6month contract+modem from Singnet package came earlier. Very very zippy internet. Abit of heaven in the house =D

Today was a beautiful and wonderful day. Although I slept late on the previous night and had a mild blocked nose, but I was absolutely fine in the morning.

Then I left home for SOT with Rev. Mike Connell with us for the third day. He was just like he is known(or feared by some). Rev Mike moved powerfully in the Spirit, and taught us to minister to people on the first day. We learned how to recognise the Spirit of God moving within us, to be familiar with Him. There was massive deliverance for the past 2 days when he started to pray and minister to the SOT students. I would not go into details here for the sake of privacy, but I can tell you the City Harvest Church basement auditorium turned into pandemonium. While I was standing at the front, my tears well up just seeing the fellow students get released from their bondage and feeling the heart of Father God.

But this is not why today's a day like I mentioned.

I got confirmed for a new tuition assignment that would pay $30 /hr for 2hrs each week. This will be my third assignment, but only the second one I'm juggling now.

So in the evening I made my way to NYP for track training after taking a good nap. When I was walking across the Yio Chu Kang stadium I caught a beautiful sight of the sky. It was the most glorious picture of clouds and sunlight I have ever seen. The clouds formed a heavenly corridor from my line of sight. It was an amazing contrast of clouds from the foreground to the background. The sun was beaming onto the clouds at the back. Golden, Glorious ! I had wanted to snap a picture of it but I thought it is better that I keep it inside my memory.

I think I haven't shared this before to anyone. One of my hobbies is to watch cloud formations in the sky. Whenever I look at the fluffy clouds and hues of the sky, it reminds me of God's amazing power and creation. This luxury is free and available anytime in the day. I don't get to travel overseas as much as I would like to, so I don't have the chance to see other magnificent natural work of God. This would be the next best thing.

The training today was fruitful.

I was so much more confident in my back flips because I peeked over my left shoulder before I flipped. The purpose was to mimic the moment when I cross the bar in an actual jump. Good arch motion :)

Ronnie made me do a wide run-up to focus on maintaining a consistent speed at the curve. It paid off really well as I managed to do some seriously big and proper jumps over the bar. I still have the potential inside me! But i need more practice to get the feel during the take-off and bar clearance because I just can't seem to visualise my body going up and rotating over the bar. It's easy looking at videos of how jumpers clear over the bar, but first-person perspective is so different and intimidating.

That's my good Wednesday. =D