About The Author

By the grace of God, I bring to you my world of thoughts, my humbled self. These are my ramblings which go on as the time flees, with love that stays.

Wednesday, 19 January 2011

Presents? Yeah, Presents...

Just a quickie: Would you cherish a gift more because it is more expensive? Or because it's from the person who cares for you?

I was browsing random blogs just now and here's a statement which brings me to the attention of the importance of presents...

"I’ll go find a decent and useful gift for that, let’s just hope I won’t be getting yet another WWJD plaque. Come on now, there’s nothing godly in being a cheapskate."

I received presents for various occasions throughout the years... and one of my cherished items is a pewter pin stated Jn 3:16. I am trying my best to not judging what kind of person who would state such things openly but it really caused me to think back of what gifts I give to people. I wonder if this person's friends would be hurt by statement as: "there's nothing godly in being a cheapskate". My impression on the statement is WWJD plaque as gift is a way of being cheapskate. Maybe I misunderstood the writer's opinion...

Then my next question is... "What kind of gifts is considered decent?" I used to love giving people gift cards with bible verses or bookmarks. So does that mean I am a cheapskate? NO. We evangelize to people around us in our own ways. God did not teach us to splurge and spend money not according to how much we earn. So my stand is it doesn't matter how much is the price of the present, but how much love was there when the giver chose the gifts.

So my friends who read my blog, even if you have that bit of hurtful feelings after reading it, remember to choose gifts with your heart and not with your brain inside the wallet/purse.

Love, as if never been hurt (사랑하라, 한번도 상처받지 않은 것처럼)

춤추라, 아무도 바라보고 있지 않은 것처럼
사랑하라, 한번도 상처받지 않은 것처럼
노래하라, 아무도 듣고 있지 않은 것처럼
일하라, 돈이 필요하지 않은 것처럼
살라,오늘이 마지막 날인 것처럼

~알프드 디 수자 ~

Translation into English:

Dance, as if nobody is watching you
Love, as if never been hurt
Sing, as if no one is listening
Work, like you do not need the money
Live, as if today is the last day

~Alfred D' Souza~

This is the title poem of the book I was given by a cherished friend, Kwon Ho-keun, in 2005 when I left GIST after my internship in Gwangju. I never found out what he meant until I used Google Translate tonight to finally get the poem translated. There are so many more to go... But these are quotes of famous people translated to Korean language. I am blessed to have met a friend who wants me to live my life well.

I hope he does well in his future undertakings too.

Wednesday, 5 January 2011

270th Post

I haven't been blogging... For I have too much on my mind which are too dark to share. For this I apologise to my readers.

This is the 270th Post since I started this blog. I will try my best to write more often. Hopefully soon I can achieve 300 entries..

May this new year 2011 brings new hope, new life, new love into your lives. God bless.

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Christmas 2010: THE PERFECT GIFT



Christmas Production by SIB Likas. Interesting viewpoint of the story of Epiphany...

Monday, 20 December 2010

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Just Another 30 Days to 2011

It's been a LONG time again since my last post, and thousands of apologies to those who look forward to reading my rambles. Life's been UP and DOWN, as usual, though not as "dramatized" as it used to be. Thank God!

I have some plans for next year, but it is not the right time to disclose what exact plans are they, but it is definitely a step, or maybe steps, forward. I really hope my plans are according to His great plan for me. Now I'm taking things step-by-step, hoping that all will fall into the right places at the right time.

It is the 2nd week of my school holidays, as a teacher, but I'm still craving for a time of rest. It had been a whirlwind even before the school year ended two weeks ago. There were school graduation night, meetings for Protem Committee of Learning Center, minutes of meetings, various odds and ends to tie up before the school year ends (and I still have stuffs to do tomorrow at school!!!), planning for Youth Alpha "crash" sessions (to fit the schedule, due to bad planning!! :( my bad!), executing my steps to the life-changing plan in 2011, etc. In between I had movie outings, dinner outings... Umm... The whole October, I was outstation practically every weekend (I realized that I love my lazy weekends!!) for spiritual retreats. Come to think of it now, I wouldn't be able to go through all these without Him supporting me all the way. My God is awesome!

I've been missing daily masses (apologetically...) and I wish I can spend more time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, at least when I attend daily mass. With the holiday season, and all the activities, it is definitely a challenge for me to drive to church for mass every evening. I have to make my list of priorities!!!

Well, food and movies have been a constant companion to me, as usual, and I have a new group of friends to eat with. Thank God for the companionship He provides me with. Sometimes I do miss hanging out alone. Crazy, but true. I guess I'm heading towards singlehood with a better perspective these days. Thank and praise God!! And yeah, I'm still learning to balance between quality time spent alone and quality time spent with friends... I am still swinging from one extreme to the other, like a pendulum. Haha.

One good thing that is going to happen is a paid vacation to Northern Vietnam with my mom this coming mid-December. I heard about the winter (without snow!), and the need for warm clothings. I had been hardworking in researching the weather and all... Hopefully the trip will be fun, fun and more fun!!

I'm excited to let the whole world know that the Youth Alpha in BM that we are running in Youth Prep Centre Alamesra just passed the Holy Spirit sessions (a benchmark that we are finishing this first round) today. It went on great. Though there are only 7 youth joining the YA in BM sessions this school holiday, we're very happy for them that they received the Holy Spirit during prayer ministry. Praise God for His good works. We do hope to run more rounds of YA in BM in YPC Alamesra in future to come!

Photos will follow after my trip when I have time to edit them. Oh yeah, I got myself a Casio Exilim Z90 recently. Pretty decent compact digital camera!

Time for a clay mask and beauty sleep.

May the love of Christ be with you always. Amen.

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

THANK YOUs

Thank you to all who remembered my birthday and sent me wishes via text messages and also Facebook. My birthday was a great one, though not a blast in the sense of the world. I was away for a spiritual retreat deep in the mountains with some teachers from our sister school of the complex and it was a wonderful experience to know them and to love them all (Fenny, Clare, Bian and Boo). The ladies are considered my new friends, while the men have been my friends since 2006. The bonding was awesome. Though there was no mobile reception there in the retreat center, it was totally alright for me.

The best experience was the individual blessing by the priest with the Blessed Sacrament. The moment Jesus was nearing to where I was sitting in the chapel, I was in awe of Him, totally. I wonder with amazement how could Jesus, the Son of God, came down on earth, and now, right in front of me, wanting to know me, love me, be with me, forever. The highlight was when the priest blessed me with the Blessed Sacrament, I was filled with bliss of being at the feet of my beloved Christ. That is "the moment".

I got home about 4 something in the afternoon, played with my neighbour's Snowy and Browny (the pups) and then dropped down to sleep until choir practice. After practice, I had a simple dinner at Upperstar while waiting for John, my friend, to meet me up. Yesh... the nearest to birthday cake was Coffee Bean's cheese cakes. LOL.


After All Saints' Day mass yesterday evening, we went to Sailors' Cafe in Grand Millenium. It was awesome, the food was great and the company was even better...

Jason and Jeremy had a number of dishes, ranging from soup of the day to meatballs of the size of a golf ball, salad, chicken wings. Fabian had NZ lamb shoulder while Tity had creamy pasta. I had fish and chips. The deco was lovely too; I like the black wall with chalk writings and photos from the places the owner visited in the past. Here are some photos taken there...

Jason's soup of the day


Bian's NZ lamb shoulder


My fish and chips

Tity's creamy spaghetti

Meatballs