a day to remember

I had a most special 24th birthday. It’s my first spent overseas, and I got to spend it at a relaxing church retreat at an ulu part of Melb. Yep, so ulu there was no mobile coverage!

I was glad for the retreat, I really felt like I got away from it all. Doing lotsa stuff that I enjoy deeply – being with friends, being close to nature, being on a camp with other Christians (even though I don’t know the majority… cuz it’s not my own church), learning from God’s word, making new friends from various cultures, etc. It’s like the best of everything.

Dear dear Anni – the sweet gal! – had a homemade moist choc cake in the shape of a heart baked specially for me! It was totally yummylicious. Nothing beats a homemade cake! And not only that, she got the whole camp to sing an aussie-style happy birthday to me too, complete with the ‘hip hip hooray’ at the end. And I don’t even know most of the people there! But of cuz, they are all my brothers and sisters in Christ, as we were so reminded of during the talks. So yeah, it was indeed a special birthday celebration. Haha.

The campfire at night was really good. I finally got a chance to make and taste damper. Aussie-style bread cooked over a fire, simply from flour, salt and water, and… get this… cooked on a twig!!! We roasted marshmallows on a twig too and that was juz so cool.

Activities aside, we learnt about the church as a family. God’s family. I must admit that although I sometimes think to myself that this is like… oh I’ve heard all this stuff before, etc… I am humbled by how much I still need to learn and most imptly, remember that I still don’t live in obedience to God’s word many times. Like how many times have I forgotten that I am commanded to love my family in Christ? How many times have I chosen to only love those who are easy to love, and then conveniently not extend that same love to others who are just not as lovable?

Sigh. And then… at the end of the retreat, I was reminded quite clearly - Major lesson #1: do not judge, do not judge, do not judge. Major lesson #2: do not lean on my own efforts, the Holy Spirit is the one who convicts, not me. This part doesn’t sound like much to do with the God’s family part? Hmm… well it is lah… just that it’s a long story to explain, but I’ll juz leave the above here as that to remind myself.

Matthew 5:46-48 "If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

c'wealth games etc

It's been a week of ups and downs, no less. I probably felt the most homesick I've ever did so far... juz earlier in the week. Really dunno why! It juz hit hard suddenly. But my Art Therapy and Group therapy electives were actually very helpful in providing myself with much needed therapeutic interactions and reflections and expressions of my feelings. As always, I enjoy my electives the most, haha.

Wednesday night when the C'wealth Games opened, I watched it with frens over at my place. Never had such a real real slumber party before, heehee. Put 3 gals together and u get a lot of pigging out too. lolz. Well it wasn't a party party... we didn't even sleep that late, i think we're all too old to stay up really late. haha. The ceremony was a really big thing. Seeing the city erupt in a massive city-wide fireworks show and seeing all the touristy happening shots of melb made me feel proud of melb as my 2nd home (for now). Melb's really a cool place, and yeah, I'm grateful to be here, in spite of the down times when i still miss sg dearly.

And ooh... the peripheral FREE artsy festival is so darn good. Wish I could go catch all the performances every nite. Feel like staying in city juz to catch them!! haha. but ok tt's a silly idea. Well it's just Melb at its best I've seen it. Everyone out just soaking in the atmosphere (city is really packed!) and enjoying openair concerts in aircon-y temperature.

Then yest was the day I felt like a housewife. Clean house, do laundry, go market, cook soup, clean toilet, water garden, etc etc etc. Domesticated Saturday, lol.

What a week.

Go sg go in your c'wealth Games endeavours. I found our 'national fish' along the Yarra river! A giant model of... *drumroll*... a guppy! wahahaha.

I'm ready to continue my art journalling again. Couldn't do that for quite a few days cuz it depressed me further to find myself subconsciously doodling my reflections on missing home. But yup... i'm ready to do again. =)

That's also why i'm ready to blog again.

9deg, oh dear me!

It's 9degrees!!! arrgh. and it's only 3wks into autumn. Day temps are still nice and aircon-y, but nites are like... brrr. Brr brr brrr.

The OTs-for-missions brekkie gathering was phenomenal! It was so awesome to meet other OTs excited for God and his kingdom. I am refreshed once again by a renewed excitement for how I am uniquely blessed by my profession and in my profession to be in a position of service and ministry to people.

looks like i dun really have arachnophobia

There was a big black spider the size of my palm in my room yesterday. WAH PIANG... I was alone in the house and I nearly freaked out. it's the biggest spider I've ever seen in my entire life. Really quick-moving too. Anyway, the dog was extremely excited about her new plaything and was chasing it around under my bed. I don't know if she ate it in the end, or what... But I'm assured that it's not poisonous, so... i'm being quite brave and trusting in the safety of my room still. Haha. What an eventful night! I'm pretty impressed with myself in the end. I didn't scream, I didn't actually freak out, like i was quite calm abt the whole thing. Hmm. But if I was back at home in sg, i would have flooded the place with baygone. lolz.

I promised my dearest synapses that i'd put this up>> Well... don't have to get me anything lah. So inconvenient when i'm over here right. However, if u all really want to, you can go to http://www.tear.org.au/giftcatalogue/. Self-explanatory. =) My heart is for education, and Asia.

bored

Feeling sudden pangs of loneliness and isolation. It's probably a bit hard on myself to have to adapt to both a new-and-further-away suburb PLUS to cut away my unlimited broadband access at the same time. But... the whole point was to cure myself of my internet addiction right? Let's see how it goes...

I want to jalan jalan more leh. jio me out. or skype with me. (found out tt skype works pretty well on dialup too! yeah!)

Maybe it's also due to the fact that I juz realised that I'm not going back in mid June but end June or early July. Mixed feelings towards that.

essential encouragement

enable - to make able
ensure - to make sure
envision - to come up with a vision, to visualise

etc etc etc

And so, what does it mean to encourage?

e n / c o u r a g e

To put courage into.

I've never actually thought about it that way. Cool eh? This is what I'm gonna learn more about in the next 6 weeks at Monday Night Trainings at CU. All about encouragement!! Awesome stuff.

2 Chronicles 32:6-8 - Hezekiah encouraged the people to be strong and courageous. Essentially what his encouragement comprised of was simply to remind the people of the truth - that God is on our side.

Empty encouragement might mean telling pple 'everything will be fine' or 'don't worry, it'll work itself out'. Is that really gonna be helpful? or does it just sound nice to everyone's ears?

I want to learn to be a godly encourager!

new this, new that

Back in melb. I love the weather now. woohoo! It's quite a different life I'm leading now from last semester. I can wear normal clothes - i.e. tee and cropped jeans. I can go lotsa places without freezing midway. I no longer live 5min away from school but I actually have a travel time not unlike the time when I was at NYP. There's a supercute dog as my playmate where I live now. I dun have unlimited access broadband anymore. And I can't go home alone late at night.

phew. Lotsa changes right? In summary, I'm enjoying the different experience now, and hope to:

1) hibernate less this time. get walking! (home's 45min walk from sch, or at least 20min bus/train)

2) explore more places! including my new suburb.

3) cure my internet addiction! And realise that my quality of life doesn't depend on a 24h online status. Not that it's necessarily bad in itself... but I want to learn to use my time to read more, pray more, etc.

Progress with reading LOTR is going much better than it was in S'pore, haha. That's proof enough of how many things i can get done if i'm not perpetually surfing the web, eh?

My prayer of thanksgiving over the last week:- Thank you God for providing all these new arrangements/experiences for me. Having to fit so many different experiences in 2 semester can be overwhelming. But You've provided friends and familiar things to help me along.