2 Mar
EW16
Welcome to EW16, my cell group (CG).
It's a place where we come together every week, grab our pillows and find our spots in the living room, take icebreakers very seriously, share honest conversations and pray with/for one another, have too much food to finish at the house but head out for mamak after that and more importantly, roast each other on a regular (in love, of course).
We have been growing, not only in numbers, even though a handful of us are spread out across continents, but also in our relationships with one another and with God. I have gone to bed on Friday nights every week thinking about how blessed I am to have this group of people to call my second family.
Some of us may be a little (too) loud, some of us may be a little too competitive when it comes to games, some of us may talk too much or talk too little, some of us may be little weird, and some of us are not even a little, just downright annoying, but I will never trade them for the world.
5 Mar
I spent two whole days redoing the layout of my blog with the new templates that Blogger has launched. It took me awhile, trying to learn why some of my links/buttons weren't working and why my fonts don't turn out the way that I wanted them to, but I managed to Google my way through and fix missing HTML codes and all that. It may not seem like much, but I am happy with the way that it looks.
6 Mar
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| Instant noodles with wine chicken from Taiwan. |
We bought back so many packs of these noodles from our trip to Taiwan after falling in love with them under Sara's recommendation. Wanting to finish the inventory, Jie and I decided to prepare dinner for the family. Let's just say that we put in one too many packets.
8 Mar
Eggcidents
Jie, Marc and I were helping Mama to bring out the groceries from her car. My brother and I were in the kitchen with the first few rounds of groceries when we heard a loud gasp and an "Oh no!" from outside. We went to check it out and we couldn't stop laughing.
Mama tried to avoid the leaves of a plant in the patio that were in her face while she held a carton of eggs, obviously only carrying out one of the two succesfully. The young(er) ones then had to wash the eggs off the floor with lots of water and lots of scrubbing with the broom while Mama walked in and out, taking pictures as we cleaned up her mess.
10 Mar
GENesis
Welcome to GENesis, another CG of mine. What's different for this CG is that these kids are under the care of Daniel, Sara (not forgetting Ashton) and I, and have been for four years counting. I have been calling them my babies ever since day one and I will never stop calling them my babies.
It hasn't been the easiest of journeys, having to learn how to love each of them differently the way they need to be loved and having to deal with the frustrations and the concerns that come along with journeying alongside growing teenagers (I do realise that I make it sound like I'm super old but a 5-year age gap is still a big difference). But it has been a journey made easier with the laughs that they bring every week and with the love and care that Daniel and Sara have poured out to them as well.
My prayer for each of them, the same since the day that I stepped in to lead them, is that by God's grace and God's grace alone may they learn to know who He is for themselves and so live lives in response to that.
11 Mar
Board Games Night meeting
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| One of the most fun meetings of my life because we needed to play boardgames. |
I looked up as I stopped at a traffic light. O little me stared at the sky that was split into two by a line of clouds, wondering if anyone else in the cars around me found the wonder of it all as marvelling as I did.
15 Mar
Sushi Mentai @ Kota Damansara
Yoong Shen and I had lunch here and boy, it still amazes me how we managed to find parking right in front of Sushi Mentai at lunch hour on a weekday in KD!
I mentioned Yoong Shen before in January and our conversations that we have over meals. This meal was the same, but different in its own way and I'm thankful. What made this meal as noteworthy as that conversation is also me finding out the glorious, glorious goodness of the warm, freshly prepared Dashimaki Tamago.
16 Mar
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| Made my own no-cream carbonara just because I felt like it. |
17 Mar
NextGen had our Leadership Development Process (LDP) Preview on this Saturday morning. It was made even more special for me because we had four of our GENesis members join us as potential leaders! All of them felt very welcomed by the family of leadership within NextGen.
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| A glimpse of what it's like when you're in a musician's car. |
18 Mar
Meat in Claypot @ Centrepoint
20 Mar
DIY
DIY
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| I finished this past midnight of the 20th that's why the date of this photo is recorded as the 21st. |
Have you ever had an assignment/project that is due in a week, but then also decide that the time used in preparing for that assignment/project would be better spent in cleaning your room or in watching videos on how chameleons actually don't change colour to camouflage with their surroundings but in actual fact change colour in response to temperature and mood?
I am that person, 24/7.
If you look closely at my 'due dates' note next to my calendar, you will realise that I'm not exaggerating because I did actually have an assignment due along with a quiz in a week's time at the time this photo was taken.
So in response to the building stress and anxiety, I redid my notice board, which really is just a piece of styrofoam board that I got from a stationery shop, and put up my timetable, calendar and photos.
I guess this is one of the ways for me to destress because it declutters my workspace and my mind so that it gives me the time and space to sit down and visualise what needs to be done, which helps me realise that it's not as bad as it seems.
In other words, it makes me feel more adult than I actually am.
21 Mar
Say hello to Brianna, a little girl who knowingly saw me take out my phone to take this photo and gave me this face anyway. It's been a while since I last went out with her, but for every time I do take her for brunches or lunches or fries or mamaks, she speaks into my life as much as she says I speak into hers.
23 Mar
PUBG Bonding
This was what I saw when I walked downstairs from my room: Marc and Jie sitting on the living room couch with their phones held in landscape mode, asking each other where the shots were coming from and where to go next.
"Faster go download and join," they both said without looking up from their phones. And so download and join, I did.
24 Mar
Board Games Night
NextGen's first ever! The turnout that night was way beyond expected and we're so thankful that everything went well. Even though I didn't get the chance to play any games with my CG members, I had the honour and the privilege to be able to go around, meet new faces and play new games with new friends as one of the game facilitators that night.
25 Mar
Warning: this gets emotional.
The story behind the photo got too long and I think, pretty personal. So, if that's something that you'd rather not see then you can scroll along, but if you do want to read it, head on over here.
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| I made myself some yoghurt with strawberries, blueberries and peanuts. I had another serving after that with bananas, too! |
29 Mar
4fingers @ Sunway Pyramid
Fatyn and I were supposed to have a quick lunch because she needed to finish the journalism assignment due the next day. On the way to nasi kandar at Nadayu, I told her about how amazing the KFC Zinger Cheesezilla was and so we headed to Pyramid. When we got to KFC in Pyramid, it was under renovation. So, we decided to go to Wendy's but couldn't find it anywhere (did it close?) and thus, we ended up at 4fingers.
It was amazing and I loved every bite of it. Fatyn did say that these were one of their better days, so I don't know if it'll be the same the next time I go back (yes, I do plan to return).
We also found out that we were made for each other because she likes drumsticks and I like wings. Perfect. Just like fried chicken.
30 Mar
Jing Xuan @ Damansara Jaya
We were going back to Gopeng that afternoon to celebrate my Ah Ma's birthday and also for Cheng Beng. Papa, Mama and Lu were on leave and Jie hasn't started college yet and so the vacant Friday morning beckoned us to get sum dimsum.
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| Hello there, plastic bottle that is trying to escape. |
31 Mar
Kampar
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| Look at the mountain range! |
For every time we head back to Gopeng, I always make it a point to get my hair washed by the hairdressers right outside my Ah Ma's house.
The part I look forward to the most is when they give you a massage after they've washed your hair; the part when they don't get my parting right or make my hair look flatter than it actually is, not as much. But who can complain when the hairwash was only RM14?
I always wondered though, do hairdressers prefer if their customers make conversations with them, or do they prefer customers who just sit there and do their own thing while the hairdressers do their own. What do you think?
The part I look forward to the most is when they give you a massage after they've washed your hair; the part when they don't get my parting right or make my hair look flatter than it actually is, not as much. But who can complain when the hairwash was only RM14?
I always wondered though, do hairdressers prefer if their customers make conversations with them, or do they prefer customers who just sit there and do their own thing while the hairdressers do their own. What do you think?
April will be a long, crazy month of work and work, week after week, but there are plenty of adventures and exciting things every now and then, too. I'm excited.
See you then!
