God, You are my God

Yes, I realize I left the Cambodia post a little hanging.Here are some pictures(courtesy of Joaann Foo)

below: The team in LCCT waiting for our flight to Phnom Penh

Concert night at FGA cambodia child care centre

.

Games on the last day.
Mealtimes were such a joy because there was pork everywhere.It's the cheapest meat. Rice is the staple diet. Rice for breakfast, rice 4 lunch and rice 4 dinner. Hidup beras!

Molly is soooo happy because she doesn't have to chow down veggies.

A shaky, almost falling apart bridge near the Kampong Speu killing field.

Teaching English class to the high schoolers.

The Kampong Speu market where everybody shops. There are no malls or shopping centres in the provinces(Kampong=daerah in Khmer language), only in the capital Phnom Penh.

Peace! this is Pert again.

The most important thing that came out of this trip was the structure God gave to the vision He put in my head at the start of the year, when I began to have a deep desire to use my life to do something for underpriviledged children. Now I know what I want to do with my life. All I need is the courage to break with tradition and fly off.

So far I've shared my plans with Flo Lee, and the rest of the TSF leadership.

I'm going back next year, and we'll see how much of this project plan can be done.

Emptying a desire, by default

A Charm Invests A Face
by Emily Dickinson


A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld.
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies,
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.


Just something from my favourite poet.

Cambodia: A first look

I'm back from a week long mission trip to FGA child care Centre in Cambodia. Here are some pictures.





At this point, I don't feel much like writing everything down because I miss the kids there and am suffering from post-mission trip depression. It's difficult to get back to normal life once you've seen everything I've seen in Cambodia, the poverty, the brokenness, the loss. Once I've recovered, I promise to write more. Right now I'm in the process of compiling a scrapbook of this experience, so that I don't forget all the important things I've learnt there. This trip was a real life-changing experience.





This first picture is of the missions team, Marcus, Jeremy,Joaann, me, Molly, Lydia and Ah Cha(Mrs Marcus). Yes...Marcus is trying to be a genie...but I don't think he'll be able to fit into a bottle or a lamp anytime soon.






























Top: Dawn at FGA Cambodia child care centre

Bottom: Sniffy-nose, one of the piglets that the kids at the Centre raise.















Some of the children in the Centre. The little girl is Pic (pronounced 'perc'), she's the youngest and cutest member there and just entered the centre a few months before we came.

Have problems, go nutty..

I've been having some problems logging onto blogger, for some reason or another these past few months, hence explaining the silence. However, to all the faithful reader-friends, I'm still very much alive and kicking-butt.Lotsa stuff going on in life.



Firstly, studies..

My experiments have only just begun about 2 weeks ago. I have to contend with a lot of inter-personal relationship problems because I have to conduct part of my research in this new lab where the people are not too welcoming or friendly. very cold. Basically now, my research is done simultaneously in two labs. Both are on the 2nd floor of adjacent buildings. So, I am like running between 2 mountains *pant* *puff**wheeze*. I'm also attending more lectures this semester, Tissue Culture techniques and Protein purification techniques. Both of which will help with conducting experiments later. Owing to the fact that my biochemistry as an undergrad was sorta minimal, this classes really help. There's this PhD student from Nepal in protein class, called Mr. Ram, and he has written several Nepali textbooks on chemistry(he's quite senior in age, not old, dun wanna call him old). Sooooo amazing..sooooo genius...you know he can just scribble any compound on the board during presentation. Including long chain fatty acids and their complexes, amino acid derivatives, you name it. The rest of us feel sooo inadequate. I personally am this lazy human being who can't recall any chemistry drawings after a course. Just give them back to the lecturer.



Now, ministry and church,

Since my last post, Dr. Koh Eng Kiat, co-founder and elder of FGA has gone home to be with the Lord. I was priviledged to attend one of the memorial services as well as his funeral at Nilai Memorial Park. His passing coincided with UPM CG's project day 1 , so that weekend was completely hectic. FYI, Project day 1 is where some of us seniors go in on the first day of registration to help the lost first years.

Actually, ever since the juniors came in, things have been hectic.

There was TSF UPM CG's welcoming night at my apartment building, ,near the pool ( not in the apartment unit) where 80 freshies turned up.
The week that just passed was TSF annual camp at PeaceHaven Genting Highlands. This year's theme: Plug-In. Don't really have the energy to give a full account of evrything that happened there. Suffice to say it was great. Refreshing.
And I came home with a bad fever from getting soaked in the rain preparing one game station on Saturday afternoon. Misty, cold, hungry. ke-lian.
Anyway i just wanna thank my team-mates from Steamy Iron (Wand Teng, Patricia, Anna, Columbus, Alison and Kassie)who shared the 2nd prize that they won ( i say they because I didn't participate in games with them) with me, which means I got a free movie ticket coupon from GSC, which I'm using to go watch transformers with appa, amma, amy and curly this Friday.

Did I mention, I'm going to Cambodia for a mission trip end of this month? Err... I guess I just did.

Labour Day

My first semester as a grad student in UPM has come to an end. It is now time to move on. Sooooo much has happened in this semester alone, that I cannot possibly remember and record them all. It seems like in this one sem, I've had more activities than my entire life put together. I thank God for more friends than I can visit,which is a luxury.

Anyway, my scholarship money finally, finallycame in on 20th April, and I can eat like a normal person once again. It came in just when my bank account was drying up to zero, and so now my debt to my family is also cleared.

I have promised my brother and mum to go back to Melaka before Mother's day next week, and I plan to make a sushi cake.

Things in the lab are going slowly, with my chemicals and specimens ordered but not arrived. Today , sadly, most of the TSF juniors are already home or are going home tomorrow.
So tonight, I am alone, because Amy is back in Taiping and Jasmine is working late.
I am alone for the first time in days. Actually, what a relief. I just need the rest after whats been going on this whole week.

On Monday, it was the outing to Hoi Toing steamboat and barbeque with the UPMers,who are leaving soon, where we discovered that Guna can eat ice cream like MPSJ truck can swallow rubbish.Also, UPMers are crazy cooks who try to to fry Or-chean on a tiny space of hot stone and some other stuff I won't mention. Next morning, a lot of us had hang-over from consuming too much butter.The next day was labour day.

Labour day for me was literally that, labour day. Because some 30+ of us from TSF were volunteering for FGA family sports carnival in Shah Alam. There was a million and one things going on. I was mainly manning the storeroom counter(which doubled as TSF volunteers hang-out place/information counter/discount voucher hand-out booth/makan table/place to look for volunteers to do hard labour)During my break time, I managed to eat something from the African Fellowship's foodstall, called 'moi-moi' which is crushed and steamed beans with meat/fish. Tasted something like 'otak-otak'. Also manages to play some game-stalls, pay a visit to the Youth Church(YC) body art booth(where I got an orchid painted onto my arm for RM2),
buy some readers' digest for real cheap(3 for RM1) and some glassware for the house. Also managed to try some Durian flavoured jelly and homemade peach yogurt. All the 90+ home fellowships in FGA each set up food stalls, game stalls or jumble sale stalls. Really loads of stuff going on. Once i managed to poke my head(actually my whole self) into the foyer to watch the African fellowship live worship-lead and they all danced at the same time, all 50+ of them. We Malaysians mostly stood at the side and clapped, but there were a few sporting ones who joined in the dancing. Guess its not in our culture. Nevertheless, it was a culturally enriching experience. I also manged to squeeze into the indoor stadium to watch the semi-finals and finals of the inter-HF futsal games. Violent and testosterone pumped, man. Everyone seemed to be sweeping everyone off their feet, literally. I think at one point fighting almost broke out.
Anyway, at the end of the day, everyone made-up and all worshipped together at the final prize giving. I am in regret because I missed the swimming event, and tennis. There were many other games as well, can't remember all. Oh... and I missed the dunking pool sessions where they were dunking the pastoral staff one by one. Anyway, when going back, somehow the TSF volunteers managed to get a whole 44 seater bus to ourselves. "Ourselves" here refers to 12 of us including elder Chan, who was the only guy. So what do 12 TSFers do when they get a 44 seater air-cond bus with microphone for a 1/2 hour trip back to church? they sing karaoke of course! Even the bus driver uncle was very gung-ho and kept on requesting more. haha.All in all, we volunteers spent 14 hours at the carnival site.

Yesterday was movie marathon day at Cheng Eu-Jynn's house, but before that we(me,Eu-jynn, Adrian Chan, Wendy n Amelia) stopped by TIMES bookstore warehouse sale in PJ near the Colgate -palmolive factory . Managed to buy 2 book for RM23. And at the same floor was a Guardian's stock clearance sale. !Cheap!Cheap!Cheap! Finally only managed to watch 2 and a half movies. For dinner, went to Tesco Damansara to grab Pita bread, roast chicken, sardines and 10 other things, sat down on floor and eat as though we were in "lord of the Rings"(as Eu-Jynn put it). so, that was yesterday. Really take my hats off to Wendy for having a nose for bargains.

Thats it. I type this already I feel tired out.Plus I never mention the stuff that happened before Monday.
Ciao.

Currently watching: Nothin. Too busy running around with friends.

Hey, That's Fast

The UPM semester is ending, and I haven't even started on experiments yet. *sigh*Sooo.... the useless person. I can't really remember all the things that happened since the last post , for they are too numerous. The ones I remember I will write-lah.

1) I'm taking Exegesis and Hermeneutics classes in Royal Priesthood Bible College FGA this semester. Yes, that legally means that I'm attending 2 institutions of learning, but who's counting? I'm just happy I passed History of the Church last sem. This time for Hermeneutics, Ps. Dorai Manikam is teaching, and he's really brilliant.Problem is, he expects us to be really brilliant as well, and therefore assignments are extremely heavy.Most of the time, I am 'tikam-ing' my way through the weekly assignments. I'm terrible at scripture outlining and recognition of literary relations.*sigh*.

2) Just finished project proposal presentation on the 29th of March, and passed.

3) Today is the last day of Colloquium in Plant Protection class, and we had a pot-luck type party, with everyone bringing something native from their country. There was Sudanese, Iraqi/Arabic, Persian and Burmese food.My favourite was San Win's Mohing-ge from Myanmar( which was rice-noodle with fish gravy). On the Malaysian side there was ayam goreng kunyit, vadeh, taufoofa and vegetable salad(ok..I know thats not Malaysian per se, but we neeeded the vitamin source).

4) Went to watch Disney on Ice's Finding Nemo in Stadium Putra Bukit Jalil last saturday morning 7/3/07 with wendy tan,amy yong, yee leng, gloria aha aha and jasmine. We were at the topmost tier, but it was a bit of a dissapointment in the first half because the audio was garbled.

5) Went for a mission trip to Broga, Belihoi ang Jeram Kedah, which are Orang Asli settlements in Negeri Sembilan on 4/3/07 (sunday) with Flo Lee, Choong Soon Yen, Yee Chin, Soo Haw, Terence, Anna Teoh and Sabrina.

6) Patrick Chin has left for London. Adrian is lonely.

7) Experienced way too much gloria-ness last weekend, since Glo came and stayed (with Wendy) at our place. Its either she leaves something behind or takes something extra with her. One time, she almost followed my neighbour home.

8) Went to William's mamak 2 more times.The first time with Amy, jasmine and Yune(who food blogs for The Star's R.Age section). The second with a bigger group from TSF. New stuff I tried were Antipesto, seafood chowder, and chicken cheese pasta, amongst others.

9) The oil palms for my experiment are taking soooooo long to arrive. God bless them-lar.

Currently watching: Russell Peters

"Bee a mayn,
Do the right thing"

"....because they are of the gay, and you are in the entertainment business."

"Somebody going to get hurt real bad.......somebody......I'm not saying who........but I think you know him"

Silence -Not my fault

Is the fault of the internet cable damage nonsense from Taiwan's earthquake in December. Hmph!
Aah.. what the heck, it's back anyway.
Thank you God.
Lets see,
I am tired, but happy. I don't feel like celebrating chinese new year because of the workload. Dang!
January has been crazy, I haven't even handed in my proposal yet(that's project proposal for you, dun think-think so much).Still need to nominate my supervisory comittee. Seems like everybody wants the proteomics professors, so they have enough students of their own to worry about. Nobody wants this anak tiri *sob*sob*.

Uum, had lotsa weddings to go to, Xiao Wen and Judah Cheah, Ah Cha and Marky-boy.
Before that, Xiao and Charlenes' Hens party, where we trashed the brides by making them walk around in pajamas collecting signatures at Nathan's Corner(OUG). The waiters were more exited than us.
Joseph's father passed away. Appa,Our hearts are with you always.
First time I attended an all Tamil funeral.First time to Ipoh and back in one day. First time to William's western food joint in PJ. (To die for)
What else...........Jasmine has moved in for good.Amy almost. Yesterday, 18 UPMers crammed into our apartment for pre-CNY steamboat.Miracle.
Uhm... I went for a medical check-up at pusat kesihatan today(for my scholarship).Doctor said I went down 0.5kg from Dec. Yay! must be all that belly dancing finally producing results.
Err... you want details? What details?
The important thing is, I'm happy.
Maybe if I had a boyfriend I'll be more emo and can write emo posts. But until then,
I'm happy.

Currently watching: Saiunkoku Monogatari(Land of the 8 coloured clouds)
Final Fantasy XII
Which star are you from.

Between Phases

I'm in between life chapters right now. The whole fresh-grad thingee is over.The whole working in church thingee is (going to be) over. Now is the penniless-grad student phase.

Welcome Baby Tiffany!

A very warm welcome to baby Tiffany Kathryna Lee Hendricks, daughter and first child of Jeremy & Nic, who came into the world on Tuesday, Oct 30th 2006.
Congrats to the proud parents.

I was wondering.

Is it okay to complain to You when the burden gets too much?
Recently, some past rejections have come back to haunt me, and remind me once again how i had to struggle as a teenager for acceptance amongst some dissappointing friends.(I also wonder if they count as friends,)I guess nothing has changed in their camp-lar. Everyone has grown up, except them.

Yes. This is a kutuk-mengutuk entry.
I claim the right to it.
It's frustrating after being excluded from their events for like the 1000th and 1 time since i joined them. Suckers.
I just thought they'd learn how to behave themselves after all these years. Guess I'm wrong-lah
God, some people can be sooo peevish.
There, said it, now it's all out. what would You do?
You would forgive them, right?
so I realize, I have to do the same-lah.It's not going to be easy. Maybe I'll have to take some time. Is that okay?
God, this is so unfair. Unfair.How come they get to easily forget me, but I get to suffer when I remember them, then after suffering, I get to struggle with forgiving them.

That's why I was wondering, is it OK if I complain to you when the going gets tough?

Farhnees

I have a wisdon tooth growing out now that hurts like mad.People say laughter makes the pain go away.

Aaron G and Esther's Wedding

In the middle of last month, two of our TSF senior leaders, Aaron Gajain and Esther had the chance to get married(to each other-lah) in Penang , so the rest of the leaders also had a chance to go and lend them our (moral) support.
We gathered in FGA KL about 6.30am Saturday morning, all bleary eyed & misty headed, and had to make 3 stops before we actually left the klang Valley for good. First stop: Breakfast, Second stop: Petrol Station, Third Stop: Ps. Daniel's house because Flo Lee left her toiletries there.
After a boring 5 hour journey,with no sign of civilisation, we finally arrived at the Juru Toll (Morris of Kenya was driving part way, Jacky of KL the other part)

Me, Morris and Elder Chan.

Next, Melody and Lake, natives of Penang, came and lead us to lunch at Bukit Mertajam

The food was real good, just too bad that I wasn't a fan of piggy spare parts. Thank God there was Pasembor to save the day.Some people just stayed away from all that

and had Pork Mee instead.

This is esther ooi licking elder chan, everyone else got a free show(too bad got no pole).

After lunch, everyone went for cendol and then to jerome's house to chill.

Middle of the afternoon, we checked into Travel Lodge, Butterworth, which was just beside the wedding dinner hall. I got a bit of spare time to bathe, rest and watch Flo curl her hair with an electric heat roller. An hour and a half before the dinner, it was time to tie sarees.We made it a kampung gotong -royong thing with Eunice leaving her husband alone and coming to the girls' room to help us tie. Since there were no Indians around(Sally was still in the Island with Ps. Baii), we did it 'made in China' style, means we goreng with what we know. Eunice did her"Just- try-first-and-see" method. Thankfully it worked.Tying sarees is a headache for beginners.It took the whole hour and a half to tie mine.Fortunately, not all the girls wore saree, so we still made it on time to the dinner.

This is us with Esther the bride(in light blue saree), left to right are Charlene, Eunice(esther's sister and my amma), me, Xiao Wen, Melody, Sabrina and Esther Ooi.

This pix with Sally, Soon Yen,Qarlene and Florence(in a stunning dress) makes all the girls who were there in butterworth. Yee Leng and Amy couldn't make it as they were Convo-ing.

Also, not forgetting the guys(l-r) Judah(Youth pastor and Xiao's fiancee),YohenMorris, Lake, Jacky, Ps. Baii and Adrian.

-Marcus is taking the picture.

The Wedding dinner was revolutionary, firstly because some dunno-wat band hired to entertain sang "why does the sun go on shining, why does the sea rush to shore, Don't they know it's the end of the world, cos you dun love me anymore......." as their opening song.After that, it was a medley of Pre-war Tamil songs and badly sung chinese songs. The PA was so loud, nobody could communicate.
We tried to get away from the wedding dinner asap............so that we could go to Penang Island by Ferry. (of course we changed out of the formal wear first-lah, duh!)

Batu Feringgi was the next stop, and it was faster to go over water than the bridge.

This was my first ferry ride,

Unfortunately for me, the whole front of the ferry had ppl(read: xiao and judah) doing titanic stunts, so didn't get a real good view of anything.Had to constantly peep over ppl's(read: xiao and judah) heads.

After Batu Feringghi, next stop was supper.

On the right is my current boss, Ps Baii Daniel Singh. Yes, He's usually this scary, sometimes worse.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 2.00am, so we slept until 10 the next morning.

Aaron G took us to this really fantastic place selling asam gravy chicken rice for lunch before we left.

On the journey back, we convinced Jacky to stop at the Tapah rest area so that we could get seedless guava. That place is happening , so I bought some Dunkin Donuts as well.

This is the end of Michelle's report. All piccies courtesy of Morris the Kenyan.

P/s-Congrats to Florence Toh, Amy and YeeLeng "curly Long" who graduated around the time of this wedding.

How I Spent Merdeka Day

Aha, Public holiday, Cun-ted,
During public holidays, Malaysians are divided into 2 categories: those who go to Mid-valley Megamall, and those who don't.So, during the recent Merdeka day, it was high time to fall into the former category...........

.........with ai lyn, chili chung and siew leng(all Maths people who can't count money) 


First stop: Chili's for lunch

Everything is bigger in Texas. Tortillas, chicken salad and triple play.(sounds like a porno movie)

After the food, there was some minor shopping, I bought a saree (with blouse and underskirt)from Kamdar for velly-belly cheap.

Next: Baskin-Robbins , where a paranoid/freaky aunty tried to grab a chair from us for her kids.You wouldn't believe the amount of ppl there. More ppl than stuff .After ice-cream, went to TESCO to get raw chicken for ai lyn..........
........to cook dinner. At this time, Oscar joined us.Mostly, we were half dead, but ai lyn pushed through anyway, and produced chicken curry with broccoli side dish.

Selamat Hari Merdeka.Kepada Tuan-tuan dan Puan-Puan Sekalian.

Sekian, terlima-kaseeh.Kam-sia.dan sebagainya.