Jerseys are here!

Youthopea designed some jerseys for us to wear when we have Youth Cup Games. We waited and waited... and waited... and they have finally arrived (2 days ago). They looked great and as an added bonus we can share the gospel with our jersey.

The jersey has 4 colours: black, red, gold and white.

Black: signifies the sin of mankind
Red: represents the blood of Jesus
Gold: because of Jesus' death we can be made righteous as pure gold
White: through righteousness we are made holy

Let it snow..

With the snow season around the corner our youth group is going to have our unofficial annual snow trip. This is going to be the first time I've gone with them, previously I had uni and other reasons so I couldn't go. This year I am definitely going. I've already bought snow pants, snow jacket and gloves. Winter sports is pretty expensive.

It's so cold this year, I think there's going to be plenty of snow!

Hope Within Reach will be having their first training session tomorrow. The session is called "Online" and it is (very) basic IT training. I spent this evening setting up the computers, hopefully they'll be ok for tomorrow.

The 4 letter word

Everyone wants to be loved, but do you know what is true love? Love is more than just a feeling. Love is spelt T-I-M-E. Giving your time is one of the main ways to love someone. If you think about it, if you loved someone or something, then you would probably want to spend most of your time in doing that thing. Why is time so important? When you give your time, you are essentially giving a part of your L-I-F-E. Those 2 hours you just spent hanging out with your friends you can never take back.

It's all about making sacrifices. Jesus showed what true love meant, when He died for our sins on the cross. He gave his whole L-I-F-E for all of us and the whole T-I-M-E He was on Earth it was for our sake.

That is true LOVE!

Youthopea has been doing community surveys the past couple of weeks. It was awesome to be able to go out there in the Parramatta community to be able to talk to people and get them become aware of Youthopea.

Choir practices are back on again! We're learning a new song, it's called "Magnificent and Holy" you can listen to it from the album 'Real' by Israel.

My bosses are back from holidays now. I've been working on my own the last 2 weeks, it was an interesting experience. I definitely learnt alot. I hope they let me go to the snow on the 18th July.

We have Soccer this saturday for YCG and Youthopea are getting new jerseys. Woohoo! It looks awesome!

I've been playing guitar for Homecell, you can read about the testimony in the Church newsletter, next edition should be coming out soon!

Stay tuned for more...^^

Count your blessings

I finally got to wash my car today, although it rained straight after I finished. Oh well.. at least it's been washed. Now my car is quite old, it's a 1988 (I think) Honda Civic. So it's not the greatest car in the world, but thank God for blessing me with a car, when there are so many people out there who don't even have a car.

There are so many other blessings I could thank God for:
- My Powerbook G4 (that I'm using to type this up)
- Shelter over my head and a bed to sleep in
- Finances that has always met my needs
- My mobile phone
- An incredible church (check out links section)
- Wonderful friends
- Loving family
- A JOB!
- Supportive pastors, leaders and brothers and sisters in Christ
- A brain
- A healthy body
- My whole life

the list could go on and on...

So why don't you count your blessings today and think about what God has blessed you with.

Giving to Receive

The Pearl Necklace
Author: Unknown

The cheerful girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them: a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box.

"Oh please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please!"

Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face. "A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma."

As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.

Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere ~ Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.

Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night when he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"

"Oh yes, Daddy. You know that I love you."

"Then give me your pearls."

"Oh, Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess ~ the white horse from my collection. The one with the pink tail. Remember, Daddy? The one you gave me. She's my favorite."

"That's okay, Honey. Daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss. About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"

"Daddy, you know I love you."

"Then give me your pearls."

"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my babydoll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is so beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."

"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one. Daddy loves you." And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.

A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian-style. As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek. "What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"

Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver,she finally said, "Here, Daddy. It's for you."

With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's kind daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny. He had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her genuine treasure. So like our heavenly Father. What are you hanging on to?

Shopping Spree

Today I've set a new record for the most amount of money I've spent when going shopping - just under $350. Today I went to Westfield (one of the shopping centres we have here in Sydney) and walked around for about 2 hours. I came out with 2 business shirts, a pair of dress shoes, a woollen coat and a long sleeved T-shirt (which I got for free with the coat).

Come to think of it, I just spent almost $350 in 2 hours...wow...that can't be very healthy (for my bank account anyway). I've justified my spending with the fact that I haven't gone shopping since late last year (or early this year).

Anyway, I'm going to need to pack my bags since I'm heading to Adelaide tomorrow afternoon. Yet another business trip. Hopefully I won't have to to work too hard.

John 3:16

A little boy was selling newspapers on the corner, the people were in and out of the cold. The little boy was so cold that he wasn't trying to sell many papers.

He walked up to a policeman and said, "Mister, you wouldn't happen to know where a poor boy could find a warm place to sleep tonight would you? You see, I sleep in a box up around the corner there and down the alley and it's awfully cold in there for tonight. Sure would be nice to have a warm place to stay."

The policeman looked down at the little boy and said, "You go down the street to that big white house and you knock on the door. When they come out the door you just say John 3:16, and they will let you in."

So he did. He walked up the steps and knocked on the door, and a lady answered. He looked up and said, "John 3:16." The lady said, "Come on in, Son."

She took him in and she sat him down in a split bottom rocker in front of a great big old fireplace, and she went off. The boy sat there for a while and thought to himself: John 3:16...I don't understand it, but it sure makes a cold boy warm.

Later she came back and asked him "Are you hungry?"
He said, "Well, just a little. I haven't eaten in a couple of days, and I guess I could stand a little bit of food."

The lady took him in the kitchen and sat him down to a table full of wonderful food. He ate and ate until he couldn't eat any more. Then he thought to himself: John 3:16...Boy, I sure don't understand it but it sure makes a hungry boy full.

She took him upstairs to a bathroom to a huge bathtub filled with warm water, and he sat there and soaked for a while. As he soaked, he thought to himself: John 3:16...I sure don't understand it, but it sure makes a dirty boy clean. You know, I've not had a bath, a real bath, in my whole life. The only bath I ever had was when I stood in front of that big old fire hydrant as they flushed it out. The lady came in and got him. She took him to a room, tucked him into a big old feather bed, pulled the covers up around his neck, kissed him goodnight and turned out the lights. As he lay in the darkness and looked out the window at the snow coming down on that cold night, he thought to himself: John 3:16...I don't understand it but it sure makes a tired boy rested.

The next morning the lady came back up and took him down again to that same big table full of food. After he ate, she took him back to that same big old split bottom rocker in front of the fireplace and picked up a big old Bible.

She sat down in front of him and looked into his young face. "Do you understand John 3:16?" she asked gently. He replied, "No, Ma'am, I don't. The first time I ever heard it was last night when the policeman told me to use it." She opened the Bible to John 3:16 and began to explain
to him about Jesus. Right there, in front of that big old fireplace, he gave his heart and life to Jesus. He sat there and thought: John 3:16 - don't understand it, but it sure
makes a lost boy feel safe.

You know, I have to confess I don't understand it either, how God was willing to send His Son to die for me, and how Jesus would agree to do such a thing. I don't understand the agony of the Father and every angel in heaven as they watched Jesus suffer and die. I don't understand the intense love for ME that kept Jesus on the cross till the end. I don't understand it, but it sure does make life worth living.

John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Moving Mountains

Everyone has their own problems in life - myself included. Even the richest person on earth has problems, even mother Theresa would have had problems. However when we claim victory in Jesus Christ, He will cause your mountains to tremble and get you through your problems.

This can only happen if you believe and receive it for yourself. We will never have the strength to move our mountains (problems) on our own, but our faith should be in the Lord that He will move the mountains in our lives.

Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; - Isaiah 40:4

On the other hand sometimes God causes these obstacles to be present in our lives. Why? because they will build and refine you as a person. Your character is built up through circumstances.

And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. - Romans 5:3-4

Remember that the problems will always be temporary and that there is a great reward on the other side of the mountain.

God bless

Communicating the right way

When people think about communication the first thing that would most likely come up is talking. Communicating is not all about talking, but the most important part is listening. You may or may not have heard this before, but God created us to have two ears and one mouth. So in essence we need to listen twice as much as we speak. Unfortunately most of us don't listen anywhere near enough.

If you think God doesn't speak to you, well you're wrong. The truth is, He does, all the time. The only reason you don't hear Him is because you're not listening! You either refuse to believe what He is saying to you, you ignore Him or you lack the knowledge. God speaks in many different ways, but it's not much use if you don't listen. If God can speak to you, so can the devil. So becareful that you're not listening to the wrong voice. The devil may sound all good and righteous, but since when does He care whether you are a good person or not. The only thing He's interested in, is getting you as far away from God as possible.

A friend of mine said that the reason why guys have selective hearing when it comes to women, is because women's voices are of a higher frequency. These higher frequencies are more prone to filtering, thus making women harder to listen to. Interesting theory indeed.

More Godly Wisdom

Got my last 2 wisdom teeth taken out today. So now I have no more wisdom teeth, which means no more teeth to be pulled out..YAY! This time the post-surgery pain seemed to be worse than the first time. More nausea and headaches, but I'm sure that in a couple of days I should be ok.

Now that I have less (human) wisdom, BUT more room for Godly wisdom - quote from Chim.

But Nevertheless...

...not what I will, but as You will and desire. Matthew 26:39 (AMP)

There is no secret to living life to it's fullest. This can only be achieved when we are abiding by the will of God. He has an awesome and marvelous plan for ALL of YOU - Jeremiah 29:11. Sometimes we are too stubborn to let His will to be done in our lives, we keep praying to God, to have this and that. You have to realise however that God's plan is much, much better. We may not understand it, because God's mind is above ours, but it takes faith.

If a family member is dying, we would naturally pray that he/she would get better, but can we trust God enough for His will to be done? Even though that means he/she would die. God knows the big picture, He doesn't make mistakes. So next time you pray try to always include those two words - "but nevertheless" not what I will, but as You will.

When we begin to follow in His will, God will also grant your heart's desires - Psalm 37:4, how awesome is that? So how do we know what is His will? First you need to have faith and believe in Jesus and by reading the Bible, God will show you everything that you need to know. It may not be straight away but He will in due time.

JESUS is RISEN indeed

Do you know what Easter is all about? It's not about eating lots chocolate eggs, it's not about rabbits, it's not even about seeing your relatives. Easter is all about Jesus! The one that died a horrendous death, after being mocked and tortured. He did all that for YOU!

Jesus was not obligated to do it, He chose to do it out of His compassion and love for us. God could have easily wiped the whole earth and started all over again with better people, but He chose not to. When Jesus died, He knew that there would be people that would still reject Him, but He took a chance anyway.

So the work by Jesus is done. It is now up to YOU. Jesus' death has now given you three choices - will you:

• Mock Him
• Ignore Him
• Believe Him
  

My prayer is that you will choose to believe Him, because once you do, only then will you find a life worth living for. Not only that, God's promised that you will live a life to its FULLEST and that he has plans not to harm you BUT to prosper you. And what did you have to do? NOTHING...nada...zilch...the only thing that you need to do is to believe and accept Jesus as your Lord and personal saviour.

Good Friday indeed

Corny joke for today:
What is a computer man's (one that works in the computer industry) least favourite game?
Tips (or tag) because he is always the IT man =)

Anyhow, thank you Jesus for dying for ALL our sins (big and small).
Thank You for the cross Lord,
Thank You for the nail pierced hands,
Bearing all my sin and shame,
In love You came and gave amazing grace.

Thank you Jesus that we also get a holiday! No work today, except of course house work. Did alot of cleaning today. Spent the day from 10am to almost 3pm just on cleaning the house. After that I got invited to go to my friend's church for their Good Friday service. It was great, had a little trouble singing the Indo songs because I don't really know them, but it was an awesome time of praise and worship and prayer (turned out to be more like a prayer meeting).

Afterwards we _happened_ to run into some photo sticker place and it's amazing how much people would pay for just a few little stickers. One booth was $15 for 4 photos. Now to any ordinary guy that is not cheap at all. Yet people would gladly pay that kind of money. Only after having experienced myself, I realised that it's not just about taking a photo, it's about the fun in taking a photo and also being able to _decorate_ your photos with _stuff_. So you could be taking for photos for 5 mins and spend over half an hour just _decorating_ your photos with hearts, stars, bunny ears, etc. Of course the more people you get into the photo the merrier (and cheaper because you can split the money).

You may wonder why do people (girls especially) like taking sticker photos. Apart from the fun of doing it, I realise that everyone's face in the sticker photo is clean! So the photo actually makes them look better, by not showing pimples or any other blemishes. Well that's my _photo-sticker_ theory.

Learning to drive again

I've started driving the manual car recently - it feels like as if I'm learning to drive all over again (but not as bad). Just need to get used to changing gears and coordinating my hands. It can be pretty fun sometimes and sometimes it can be quite tiring. So far I haven't been stalling too much and I'm getting better the more I drive it. So hopefully in about a week or two it should be a piece of cake.

Falling With Style

Last saturday during the basketball game at YCG (Youth Cup Games), I was "flying" or in the words of Woody - "falling with style". How did it happen? you say. Well it was all because I jumped up for a shot block, but it was mistimed and the shooter bumped right into me while I was mid air and knocked me even higher. At which point my body flipped until it was horizontal to the floor. By now gravity had caught up and I could see the floor right under me. I thought - "uh oh" - and before you know it, I was rolling on the floor.

I thought I was going to break some bones, but praise God all I got were some bruises. I sat out the rest of the game but we won anyway so it was all good.

This week I've also got the office to myself for Wednesday and Thursday. You might think that - "cool, you can do whatever you like man" - no you're wrong. I think it was probably worse than having my boss there in the office, because I had to take all the phone calls and other office duties. Plus I had my own work to do as well. It's a good experience, but I wouldn't want to do it for a prolonged period of time. Hopefully we can get more employees so I won't be by myself. Anyone interested in doing Palm OS programming?

This is gonna be a relatively long post because I've lost my Internet connection for a while now.

Choir is back again after a very very long break. We're doing a performance for Easter special. Everyone is invited!! So come!! Contact me for more info or visit the Hope Mission Centre website.

Musician To Be

Yes that's right! I am a musician to be, I've always wanted to play an instrument ever since I was about 15. Now, 7 years down the track, I've finally got my act together to spend some time learning the guitar. Well it's been 3 weeks now, and I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to play at least one song.

OBS (Online Bible Study) just got a whole new look. To subscribe to the daily devotionals go here and type your email in the subscribe form. You can also read the content from the website itself.

Are you calling me fat?

This was brought up by one of my friends, it's a very catchy statement. Always gets another person's attention. Just recently I've noticed that I actually gained some weight - just a little bit. This has never happened before, I'm usually always around the same weight. So this is quite strange for me. It's probably due to the fact that since I started to do full time work, I'm just sitting in the office all day, whereas at uni I would be walking around the uni to get to classes.

I should really be exercising more to keep fit. Discipline is lacking at the moment...

Cool weather

It's finally getting cooler, woohoo! I think the summer just went on for way too long. It's already in the second half of March and we are just starting to feel the cold. Praise God that we have seasons, because I'd hate to be stuck in the heat all year round.

There is a season for everything

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace" - Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Say NO! to piracy

Had a nice debate today over ethics of software with my bosses. I used to be like most people out there downloading whatever software I could so that I wouldn't have to buy anything (yes, c'mon admit it, we've all done it in some form or another - intentionally and unintentionally). When I talk to friends telling them that they should buy things legitimately their excuse is usually it's because they don't have the money to spend and they think that people who make money from it are already rich enough.

Well they didn't get rich by stealing did they? They worked hard and earned their money. So who are we (the ones that don't do the hard work) to say that they are ripping us off. A lot of time and effort is spent in computer software, it may look like it would be easy for developers to just make something. Trust me it's not, there are plenty of things that happen in the background.

God's principle is that we reap what we sow. So if you want to sow, piracy/theft in your life, then that is what you will reap later on. Sow good things in your life and you will reap good things later on.

Wisdom teeth not so wise

This must be a new record for me - I haven't blogged in over 2 weeks. Well I'm finally back, I just had a surgery yesterday on my wisdom teeth (2 on the right side - top and bottom). I went to the surgery sat on the chair and a couple of hours later came out of surgery. Didn't remember a thing while I was in there, I guess that's the point of it. The doctor explained to me what he would do though.

You've probably guessed why I needed to get my wisdom teeth taken out. Well if you haven't it's because my teeth were on its side rather than going straight up - so much for teeth that is supposed to be wisdom teeth, it can't even grow straight. So to avoid complications later on the doctor had to remove them. From what I was told prior to the surgery he would remove each tooth by opening up the gum and cutting each tooth in four pieces and then taking them out one at a time. Afterwards he would stitch up the gum and voila! All done. Sounds easy right? Well easy for the doctor, but I have to put up with the pain and not being able to eat normally for about a week or so.

Thank you to all the people who prayed for me, I really appreciate it. Praise God that I was able to get through it ok. Now after just having surgery yesterday, I am able to go back to work (not that I really want to) but my boss would like me to go back and I believe God has given me the strength to do so.

One more thing: UniCell for UTS (University of Technology Sydney) and UNSW (University of New South Wales) starts this week. (UniCell UTS has already had theirs yesterday). The details are:

UTS: Tuesday [ 12:30-1:30pm ] @ The Loft
UNSW: Thursday [ 1:00-2-00pm ] @ The Library

For more details, let me know.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." - James 1:5

God bless!

Why did the bird cross the road?

Today is yet another busy - but nevertheless good - day in the life of Victor. In the morning while driving to work, I saw something that was so cool. I saw a bird, it flew down from the trees onto the side road. It started to walk to get to the other side of the road, then as I drove closer it sensed or saw or heard the car coming and it just stopped, maybe a metre from where the cars were driving. Now usually birds would fly because they'd get frightened that they might get hit. This one just stood there. I was amazed at the bravery of this little bird, it stood there as if it were a person waiting for the car to pass. Once I had passed, it scampered across the road to the other side. I thought that was cool, then again I thought, why didn't the bird just fly across? it would have been safer.

So the question still stands. Why did the bird cross the road? Maybe the bird was too lazy to fly, who knows.

Run forest! Run!

Well today I finally started doing my morning jog again, put my new shoes to use. I didn't feel too tired after it, even though I haven't done it for at least 3-4 months. Right now, I'm just doing 1 lap around the block, but later on hopefully I'll be able to do more.

At work I was by myself most of the day, because the other people (my bosses) had to go see some clients. So I had the whole office to myself. The only thing was, I had no idea what to do, because we had done alot of the work already before, so there wasn't that much work to do. Except of course more programming work, but I needed more info on what I had to do. So in the end I just tried doing bits and pieces here and there. Tried to not waste time, oh and I made use of the time to arrange things - like going to my friend's youth - but in the end it didn't work out anyway. Oh well, maybe next time.

I got a surprise from my bosses when they got back, which was nice. They bought me Simon Johnson hand made chocolate truffles. Actually I haven't even tried it yet, just took it out of my bag now. I'm sure they're very nice though.

Ok one of my fans is getting abit impatient so I'll write more later. =)

New shoes

I finally bought my new shoes today! I think the last time I bought a shoe was at least 1.5 years ago. I didn't think that was that bad until a friend of mine told me how she buys on average one every few months. I don't know what's with girls and shoes and handbags... it's a mystery...I guess I know there are shoes for different occasions but only one pair for each is enough, I guess the problem there is that they have to match with outfits whereas with guys we pretty much have similar outfits everytime...hmmm starting to make sense.. hehe

Now that I got proper sport shoes, I think I'm going to start doing my morning runs (NOT the toilet one) again. I still need to get new dress shoes though, probably buy them sometime this coming week. The ones I have now are the same ones I've had since my year 12 formal, and it's not looking that great. I don't want to spend money, but I guess when you have to, you got no choice...

Time is of the essence

I've been really slack in regards to blogging, and maybe other things too. I guess it was timely that this week HomeCell was about challenges in doing both school/work and ministry. I need to make the most of my time and the best way to do ministry is to involve God in every aspect of our lives (which includes outside of church/youth).

Work has been quite interesting lately, because I've been doing alot of more practical work (rather than documentation) and also interacted with clients. Praise God also that I don't really have to buy a car, since we found a really cheap car for $500 and so we'll be using that for at least a year. Next year I believe God will provide me the finances to buy a new car.

"Whatever you've received from the Lord, you are able to give to others" - Matthew 10:8

God bless

THE Will

Work seems to be getting abit less directed now, because we have so much to do and I don't know where to begin. I feel bad when I keep bothering my boss asking him what i should do. I guess I just have to try to find things to do and do them. Then again I don't want to be doing the wrong things.

The first official home cell of the year was today. It was a combined home cell, we will be having combined home cell for the month of February. I found out I am no longer in my old cell group but I've been moved to another one. I trust there must be a good reason for doing so, not really sure what that is. I guess now I don't have to travel as far, which is good!

I'll share abit about what we learnt at home cell.

I've never received a will before but I bet it would be pretty exciting being able to inherit wealth or property. However God's will is even better! Since God owns everything when we as children of God inherit his kingdom how much would we have? well...to say the least...HEAPS! How cool is that? God's will is always to bless us because when we are His children, just like how a good earthly father would, but even more. An earthly father is still human and is prone to mistakes. God is a perfect God and has a perfect plan for His children.

"For I know the plans I have for you, plans not to harm you but to prosper you and to give you a hope and a future" - Jeremiah 29:11

God bless

Just for fun

Had a great time today chilling at home. Thanks to my friends for coming over and hanging with me. This kind of stuff doesn't normally happen at my place, usually at other people's place, so yea it was nice to be at home for a change. Good thing is, I don't have to go anywhere haha. We should have it at my place more often ^^

It's been a while since I blogged huh... well I was at Melbourne most of last week so I'll blame it on that. Melbourne was alot of fun though, but at the same time alot of hard work. I was "working" over 12 hours each day. So because of that I didn't get to watch the tennis matches I wanted to watch and we didn't have much time to go shopping or go around Melbourne at all. It's all good though, after all I didn't pay a single cent while I was there.

Work, work, work

Hey guys and girls, so It's been 2 days here in Melbourne. A quick recap of what's happened so far.

Wed 18th - arrived in Melbourne around 9am and got something to eat and after that we pretty much went straight to see a client - Get Fresh - (haven't even checked in to the apartment). We stayed with that client until about 5.30pm since we had another meeting to see a "potential" client. Then we went back to Get Fresh to sort out some problems they were having, so we ended up leaving Get Fresh around 9.30pm.

Thu 19th - today - another very long day. Got up at 8.00 am and left the apartment at 8.30am to have breakfast. Went to the exhibition centre at 10am to help clients setup their stands. Stayed there ALL day and worked the whole time (didn't even have lunch). We finally finished at around 7.30pm and went straight to dinner. Dinner was really nice though, I had scallops for entree and a Flounder for main course. Topped up with Tiramisu for dessert....

I expect tmr will be another long day... but it's all good... learning things as I go. Hopefully I'll get time to look around Melbourne.

From Superman to Iron Chef

A friend had his bucks party on Saturday. Oh man... I certainly would not want to be in his shoes at the time. The guys made him dress up as Superman and got him to run around Darling Harbour (for those who don't know, ALOT of people are always at Darling Harbour). So here he is making a fool of himself in front of hundreds of people, running around in a Superman suit. Then he was made to get as many people to take photos WITH him and also ASK for donations so that he could buy a child a movie ticket. Eventually he did it, raising $13 for the ticket. He did very well, go Superman!!

The next day it was the battle of the Iron Chef, and the venue - Youthopea. 6 Iron Chefs battle it out, it was great to see people bring out their cooking talents. The food was brilliant to say the least. I feel like cooking now, or at least try (since I'm not very good...)

Well next week should be more fun, but sadly I won't be there since I will be going to Melbourne for a business/work trip. This is my first time travelling for work - well I only did start a couple of months ago. I'm excited and nervous at the same time, but I think it should be ok. Hopefully the clients will be cooperative...

You may hear from me while I'm down there. I'll be gone for about 8 days. If not you'll hear from me when I get back =)

God bless!

A New Generation

The big announcement today. Apple has unveiled their first intel based Macs. The specs look sweet. I want one now! Problem is I need to buy a phone and then buy a car first. So I guess it'll have to wait till later on. Hopefully Apple will release another revision to fix any bugs in this release.

If you haven't noticed I've also introduced something new. The title is "Divine Thoughts..." not "Wandering Thoughts..." I figured it's time to stop wandering around and actually start heading somewhere. Where are we going? You'll just have to wait and see =)

Burning ... for God

What a weekend! On saturday about ten of us went to Wattamolla beach. That was cool, I haven't been there for over 6 years. It's a really nice place because it's not only a beach, but it has a fresh water inland lagoon - quite shallow mostly so it's good to play around in. On the downside I realised that night that I got burnt because I didn't put sunscreen on...bummer...and it kills!

Sundays are always heaps of fun. First up is church then we go have lunch together and then back to church for Youthopea. This week we had a games night so that was fun! Afterwards we have dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. That was yummy and then to top it off, we had Max Brenner for dessert, that was even yummier! Chocolates galore! Unfortunately my back was still burning and hurting...

Today it's time to go back to work. The day didn't turn out so bad, cos I managed to do a few things and learnt some things along the way. Ate quite a lot today, since I bought my own lunch and then my boss makes fruit salad so I had some. For dinner went to the Pastor's house (since we have Monday night prayer meeting) and we had a Singaporean dish. When you eat there, you eat until you are full. Thanks to God for all the blessings.

To top it all off, on the way home I wanted to fill up petrol. I saw one service station had it for 115 cents/litre - which is quite expensive compared to normal on Mondays. So I was hoping it would be cheaper at the place I normally go to (Shell). On the way there I pass a different Shell gas station (same company but different location). I looked and saw that they were selling at 116 cents/litre. I was not happy at all, so I say (exact words) "The other Shell will have petrol for 114 cents/litre, in Jesus name". 5 mins later I get there and guess what? They had it for 114 cents/litre. I was just reminded... I should have asked for more... sometimes we limit to what God can do, but God can do ALL things!

Yes, I'm still burning, it's hurting, but I'm going to continue burning (until my sunburn heals) and of course after that I'll keep burning for God no matter how painful.

Back to work

Got a good workout yesterday, carrying tonnes and tonnes of soil, pebbles and sand. My hands are still hurting from carrying all those bucket loads.

Today is back to work day, for me anyway (most people were already back to work yesterday). So I got an extra day, YAY! Well it's good to know that I'm going to be getting money again, I so need some right now, after all the stuff I bought for Christmas. Then I got other stuff I need to buy right now as well.

DotCom is back on again, DotCom stands for Discipling OThers for the COMmission. Basically it's where we learn the bible in a one on one situation. So at the moment I am a disciple of my DotCOM leader. Later once I have gone through it I will be able to discple others too, so in essence we are trying to teach the bible to as many as possible. DotCOM is run by Hope Mission Centre.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone! I hope you all have a blessed 2006. How awesome was today, today was incredibly HOT... we had an awesome church service held at midnight and in the morning some of us went to the beach to see the first sunrise of 2006. Today was HOT weatherwise as well as the temperatures reached up to 45 degrees celsius (113 degrees fahrenheit). Whenever we'd step out into the sun, it felt as if we were being poked by a scorching iron rod.

Again lack of sleep got to us again. I think I'm going to have another early night tonight.

Prawning

We (some friends from church and I) endeavoured to the south with the objective to catch 5kg of prawns. Unfortunately because of a few delays we did not leave as planned, but we were eventually on the road. Leaving at about 12am we arrived at Primbee at almost 2am in the morning. Straight away we headed to the waters and our hunt for prawns began. We were going in quite a good pace until we ran out of time. In the end we didn't manage to get as much as we would have liked, in fact we didn't catch that many at all - roughly 0.5 kg (about 1 lbs). It was fun nonetheless, the girls did well spotting prawns and the guys were great at scooping them up with the nets.

Afterwards we headed to the beach to relax and most of us managed to get some sleep. We also cooked our catch (prawns and some fish) on the barbeque and had them for lunch. Great outing, even though there were countless mosquitoes (I personally have over 20 bites on me).

Lately the days have been going comparatively slower, I think due to staying home all day. I guess it's good to be able to relax and take things abit easier. Can't wait for NYE though. It's going to be a blast, we're having our Sunday service at 12.05am. It's going to be a first (for us anyway), very exciting indeed.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! Don't forget the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus is the reason for the season. Today was the debut performance of the Hope Church Choir and Drama team together. It turned out ok, I think we could have done better though, but in the end I think the most important thing was that the people enjoyed it (I hope).

This week has been filled with lots of eating, fun and laughter. On Thursday, my work had our Christmas lunch at Kobe Jones, which is a Japanese restaurant in Darling Harbour (City). The food was quite nice, however it was quite expensive.

Friday was the first day of Christmas holiday, so I spent the day cleaning the house and did some Christmas shopping. At night did some more eating since one of my uni friends had a birthday.

Saturday had a Christmas Eve special service at the Pastor's house, and yet some more eating and lots of fun too. Played a game called Balderdash. If you haven't played it, try it! (It's a boardgame)

Today was awesome! Christmas service really hit it off at Hope Church. Great to see alot of people turning up for it. Afterwards went to the beach, but I didn't swim. Just stayed on the sand playing othello with my friend and just talked for most of the time. Finally did some more eating at the place of a guy from church, he had a barbecue going, the food was totally superb.

Blessed

I'm baaaack... CAMP was absolutely incredible! Man I was so blessed just to be there. We learn't heaps about Revelation and the second coming of Christ. Hearing about all those terrible things (even terrible is an understatement) that's going to happen to the people who are not Christians. I hope I can get all my family and friends saved so that they won't have to go through the pain and agony. It will be so bad that people will want to die but they can't even kill themselves..... if you're reading this right now, I hope you will seriously think about where you stand right now. I pray that you will make the right decision, because I don't want to see anyone go through the eternal agony that will happen on this earth... and later in hell...

For those that have chosen to have Christ in their life, you can be assured that you will not go through the tribulation, but you must be faithful to the end... or it will mean nothing...

We had awards for a number of things and my team (ALPHA.. go ALPHA!) shared the best SWG (Serving With Gladness) team award. Which means the best team in serving others through doing stuff like encouraging, doing favours like getting food for them, drinks, etc.

Camp was so much fun! I can't wait for the next one =)

On another note, I went back to work today. Spent most of the day trying to figure out a problem one of the clients had with their printing. So I received quite a few phone calls and made quite a few as well. It's all good, at least it wasn't boring.

Church CAMP!

Leaving for camp in less than 12 hours! Woohoo! I'll be away for a few days...don't miss me too much haha... doesn't seem like many people will anyway... ciao!

On the third day of work...

...my true love came to me....NOT! hehe

I missed writing about the second day >< well the second day wasn't too exciting, except as I was about to go home I got a scare. I actually filled up my car with petrol and it cost about $25. I had no cash on me and I thought I had about $30 in the bank and so I could use my bankcard to pay. So I went up to the counter to pay and what happens.... "Transaction declined!"... I tried it again and the same thing happened... So I go to the ATM there to check my balance, and it turns out I only had $19 in my account. Then I started freaking (but not really, since I'm usually a calm person). I remembered that I had some coins in the car. I went back to the car to get the coins and there were $9 worth of coins..phew..
In the end I managed to pay it with my $9 of coins and the rest of it using my bankcard. Just today I received my pay (from my old job) so everything is ok now.

Earlier in the day I was given the "special" task of researching good notebooks (laptops) I would like for myself. It sounded awesome, but man it's hard work.

Today I started learning about Satellite Forms - the development tool to create the programs on Palm devices. It was pretty cool, I made a few small programs to try it out. So I'll be doing more of that later on.

2 more sleeps till camp... I can't wait.

First day

Had my first day of work at the new job. Nothing exiting really, spent half the day trying to install programs into my laptop (that they gave me). Since it was so slow, they might be giving me a better one. Then only did some actual work towards the last few hours where I started doing some evaluations on the scanXpress application.

Today I learnt what cous cous are. I've never eaten them before, but today I had it for lunch, it was pretty nice. If you don't know what they are, they are kinda like a rice replacement. Looks like small yellow grains, and it's actually made of wheat I think.

Trivia night a success

Trivia night was a big success overall and also for our team, being the winners and all hehe. Our home-made buzzers worked well, which was encouraging to see. The questions were very well thought out and nice to see some variety in the questions as well. I think the whole Trivia organising committee did an awesome job!

Hope Church Camp is coming up this Friday, it's stilll not too late to register. Get the registration form from http://www.hopemissioncentre.com. I can' t wait for camp, it is going to be AWESOME! We've got people from overseas registered in the camp. So register NOW and don't miss out...

Feeling hot hot hot

Man last few days has been pretty hot, a couple of days ago it reached 40 degrees celcius (I think that would be 104 degrees fahrenheit). Definitely was not a good day to be going out. As soon as I stepped outside, I would start sweating. That was the worst it got so far anyway, lately it's cooled abit. Still hot nonetheless. I'd do winter over summer anyday I think... but my favourite is spring, not too cold and not too hot, it's just right.

Stayed at home today, for most of the time anyway. Feels like I haven't stayed home for a while, always been going out either to run errands or out with friends. It was good to stay home today I guess, gave me some time to take time out and relax. Took an afternoon nap, which I have probably never done in quite some time now. Finally got my room cleaned up abit, so the days didn't turn out so bad after all.

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Youthopean of the year

Function-Y was on today, we had so much fun. This was our last "official" Youthopea (our youth group) meeting. I won the Youthopean of the year award, which is pretty cool. Totally unexpected, but praise God for everything He's done in my life. There were other awards as well like: best dressed, humble, helpful, encouraging and dedicated. They were won by others Youthopeans. Next week we're having trivia, so if you want to find out more check out the Youthopea website.

I got a second interview for the Amazon.com job I applied for. Again totally unexpected because I didn't think the first interview went too well. Since I already got a job I'll just do the interview but I might not be able to accept the job. After all the job will be based in Seattle...

Moving on

Well I guess it's time to move on. Praise God! I got a new job at IDFX (http://www.idfx.com.au) and I'll be starting next week. IDFX is a small IT company, and because it's only a small company, I'll be doing a little bit of everything, from development to customer service. Some of the good things to look forward to is that I'll get to travel around (Australia) for now. This is mainly because IDFX has clients which are based around Australia.

The location of the job is not very public-transport-friendly so that means I'm gonna have to get a car so I can drive to work. Pray that I will get a car and not just an ordinary one, but a good one.

Shurely good

Bought the Shure e3c sound isolating earphones today! It's great! At first it was ordinary, but the more you use it (known as burning in) the better the sound is becoming. Because it goes right inside the ear, it was somewhat uncomfortable at first, but the more you wear it the more you get used to it. I've been wearing it for only a few hours and it's much more comfortable almost to the point that I can barely feel it.

Well as they always say, you get what you pay for. I'm definitely getting what I paid for - it wasn't cheap that's for shure .. hehe

ALL done

Finally finished marking! yay! Been working heaps this week. On Tuesday I worked for 11 hrs (10 am - 8pm), Wednesday - 7.5 hrs (9.30 am - 5 pm), Thursday - 6.5 hrs (1.30 pm - 8 pm) and Today I'm gonna be working for 9 hrs (9 am - 6 pm). Well I'll be looking forward to the next pay day =D

On Wednesday night I went to the CCC (Christian City Church conference/event) at the Superdome. They had Bishop TD Jakes come to speak for 3 nights (Wed - Fri) and it was AWESOME! Guy Sebastian guest appeared and sung "Angels brought me here", I thought he was going to sing some worship songs. So I was a little bit dissappointed but nevertheless he was great. God really spoke to me that night, I'll write up a UniCell teaching about it.

Finally to top it off, the Socceroos were playing against Uruguay at Telstra stadium (which is right next to the Superdome). So after the service with Bishop TD Jakes ended, we caught the last part of the game and Australia were 1-0 up and they went into extra time! I was pretty shocked, but I hoped that Australia would win, because the Uruguayans were so self-righteous. So we stayed around to watch the game on the BIG screen. Because Uruguay had beat them previously 1-0, the socceroos needed to win by 2 goals to qualify for the 2007 World Cup in Germany.

After 30 minutes of extra time (sudden death), the scores were still 1 (Australia) - 0 (Uruguay). So effectively the scores were 1-1, and it was time for the penalty shootout. Apparently Uruguay have lost the last 3 or 4 penalty shootouts they've been in, so in that sense we had a pretty good chance I thought. Kewell was first up, and give Australia a 1-0 lead, the Uruguayan shot was taken next and Schwarz blocked it! The place was going crazy! It was 2-1 when Viduka was given the shot. To everyone's surprise, he missed! So the scores levelled at 2-2 and then an Australian shot puts them to 3-2. Shwarz the hero showed what a team the Australians are by blocking the next shot from Uruguay. So another goal to Australia meant that they would win. Aloisi did not dissappoint with his well placed shot. Australia had WON!!

YIPEEE!

WOW! I never really thought about the significance of today until now. I was like, hmmm ok what do I need to do now... wait a second... I have no more study to do!!! Woohooo!! Well I can relax for a little while. Actually I still have some marking to do, which I shall endeavour to do tomorrow. Right now, I think I'm just gonna relax for a little bit.

The end of another schooling milestone, and yet another beginning. The beginning of working life, for a while at least. I'm actually planning to do a Masters/PhD later on... yes more study =P but it won't be for a while I guess. Now that uni is done, I've got a whole heap of stuff lined up to do for the summer break. The main ones involving setting up the church database and UniCell preparations for next year.

Lanyard

I finally got the iPod lanyard. Now I'm wearing my iPod pretty much everywhere I go. It's great because I can listen to it anytime, without having to fiddle around with the headphone cord - very nice and neat.

Started holiday mode a little early, gotta get back to study mode now. =P

More study???

Well that's one of the things I've been considering lately... doing a postgraduate degree. Finishing my thesis was awesome, but I love it so much right now, that I'm still working on it. It reminds me of the time when I first learnt to program in QBASIC (it was coool..), now I've got a new toy, it's called Cocoa.

I had my demo yesterday, it went well, my assessor seemed pleased with what I've done. (pray for HD! hehe) I told him that I even worked on the application some more and he is interested to see what I've done and so told me that I could send him another page to add to my thesis. Fully praise God, because half-way through my thesis I would never have thought it would turn out this good.

YCG (http://www.youthcupgames.com/) was on today. It was the first round of volleyball or I like to call it V-ball =) We played two games and won one game and lost the other. That's ok we'll win them all next round ^^

World Usability Day

Yes today is World Usability Day. Held in over 70 cities and over 30 countries participating in this worldwide event. I was one of the privilidged to be able to show off my (thesis) work today. There were a few people from outside of the university. I was especially encouraged by the amount of interest some people had for my application.

I'm VREEEEEEE

Yessss I've finally finished the "all-important" thesis. Got it handed in about 6.5 hrs ago, feel so relieved that it's all over...haven't had much sleep in the last few days particularly last night. I stayed up practically the whole night and went to uni. So that means I've been awake for the past 35 hrs or so....wow....well I've heard stories that are worse.... but that's bad enough for me.

Thanks for the "encouraging" words to get me posting again hehe.

Now I can finally do all the other stuff on my to do list...

Busy Vee

I haven't updated my blog in almost a week...if you still don't get it from the title...I am a VERY BUSY person and going to be that way for the next week at least...since my thesis is going to be due in a week's time...

Gotta get cracking...if you don't hear from me anytime soon...see you all on the other side =P

SA...KA...TA!

Yes we had SAKATA today! For those of you that don't know what the heck I'm talking about, SAKATA is a brand of rice crackers. I brought some for today's UniCell meeting. What I did was I bought two different flavours, and I opened them and switched them around. So that they would be in the wrong packaging.

The point of this was to show that sometimes people label themselves as Christians but they don't really act like one. So it's like having a packet of Pizza flavoured rice crackers, but tasting like cream cheese.

So for those of you that have experienced this, i.e. known a Christian who didn't act like one. We're not all like that, but I guess just be mindful that we are human and thus we're not perfect either.

So the point is to LIVE out what you SAY. i.e. if you're a Christian, then act like one.

Dieu te benir (that's French for God bless =D)

Boy-Girl Relationships

This started out as a comment for Warton's blog, and all of sudden it turned out to be a full on post. So here it is.

We talked about this subject for a month at youth. Note: I am saying all this in a Christian's perspective.

The list we all make is almost never satisfied. Why? because we only think about the physical...so in that sense there can never be a "perfect" partner. However God does has a perfect partner for you (unless He has called you to celibacy) and that perfect partner will have Godly qualities. They may not be perfect (as nobody is perfect) but over time both you and your partner will be able to grow to be more and more like Him.

Now when you look at things that way, instead of things getting uglier as time goes on (things get saggy, wrinkles, etc.) When you look at things in God's eyes, as time goes on that person would be getting more and more beautiful.

As for girls making the first move. Generally I think it's better for the guy to make the first move (I'm a guy....yes it's hard...even though I've never done it...I can imagine it =P). The reason why the guy should make the first move is because the guy should be taking charge of the relationship. The bible says that the man is the head of the household. Of course there would be cases when the girl is the one that initiates the conversation and that would be ok, but it's still the guy's job to initiate the relationship.

Finally as for marrying young. Divorce rates are increasing. This is because people rely on their feelings too much, they might get married and then a few years down the track they don't feel like being married anymore. So personally I wouldn't be getting into any personal relationships until I am ready, i.e. I can provide for my partner and also I am spiritually mature among other factors.

Go the WALLABIES!!

We went to Hurricanes for dinner today and guess who we saw there?? The Wallabies were there! I'm talking about the Australian rugby union team. I saw Gregan, Rogers, Tuquiri, etc. they were all there. It was pretty cool since this is the first time I've seen them in person (I've always watched them play on TV).

Afterwards we went bowling, it was pretty good. One of my bowls hit the gutter and then popped out and hit the pins. Now that's skill.. ^^

I WON!!

Praise GOD! I'm soo happy as you can imagine after you've just won something. I didn't even know I won it until the prizes actually got delivered. I came home today and I saw a box on the table with my name on it. At first I thought it was just an old parcel box. However after closer inspection I saw that it was actually sealed. So then I got a little excited of course. Inside I found a DVD and a CD. WOW! Thanks to FreshRadio, listen to them online - http://www.freshradio.net.

The DVD: Planetshakers: Evermore
*

The CD: Olivia The Band (self-titled)
*

They are awesome, I recommend it to everyone =)

I bought my friend her birthday present today. I feel kinda bad that I didn't look hard enough, well I hope she likes it. I also bought 2 shirts for myself, it's about time I got some new clothes...

* Pictures taken from http://www.koorong.com.au

One in a million

All my life I've caught the buses and never have I been in a defected bus. I've been on broken down trains, but never buses. Well today (yesterday) was the day, the bus was somehow possessed because every few seconds or so the back door would just open. It went on for some time until the bus driver got everyone out and told us to go to the nearest bus stop to catch another bus to uni.

So in the end I ended up being late for my lecture...not that it really matters anyway because I didn't pay attention half the time, mainly because I didn't get a chance to print out the lecture notes. Besides I prefer to read the textbook.

Family or career

I was supposed to post this yesterday but anyway...

My friends (mostly girls) and I were having a discussion on whether we should pursue a PhD/Career or be able to stay home to nurture the kids. The dilemma faced by one of my friends was that she wanted to be a relatively young mum (i.e. no more than 25 yrs). The problem is that she would also like to pursue a PhD which means she won't finish until she's around 26.

The problem is that if she does decide to pursue a PhD then she will have to hold off getting a kid until later (which she doesn't want to do). However if she decides to have the kid then she won't be able to pursue a PhD/Career, because she wants to be able to look after the kid herself until at least the kid has grown up.

What would you do?

Hot and Cold

Today is a public holiday for people in NSW, Australia. So everyone (or most people anyway) had a day off (school, work, uni, etc.) It was a pretty nice day, sunny, warm, a typical day for the beach. But nooo I had to go to uni to do my assignment. I heard it was soo HOT outside, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I was inside the computer labs most of the day and it was soo COLD inside.

On the way home from uni, one of the traffic lights in the city seemed to have got a bug. The light stayed on red (even though there were no cars going the other way), for over 10 minutes! I think it got caught in an infinite loop because my friends and I stayed there in the corner waiting for it to go green, but it didn't. We walked for another block and still it was red. The cars were piling up, drivers were wondering what was going on...eventually people who were daring decided to just run the red light.

I didn't stay long enough to know what happened...so I guess you can just use your imagination ^_-

YES!

Due to popular demand (hehe), yes I am still posting. Been having a break from uni, but don't let that fool you. I've got an assignment that is due this break. My todo list is getting bigger and bigger...

YES! for the fact that I've finally finished marking assignment 1 for HCI. Hopefully I didn't make any mistakes..ugh..

Had an awesome time at HomeCell. We had a "cooking" night, we brought food and things to cook. I bought stuff to make tacos - mind you this is the first time I've ever made tacos. Well maybe it's the seconds time counting the time I made them during the Food tech subject in high school.

Anyway it turned out pretty good, chicken tacos it was. After eating we spent a couple of hours playing Singstar (Playstation 2 game). Pretty fun, I'm starting to get into this karaoke thing now. Now the problem is there's only 30 songs in the game. Gets boring once you play it a few times.

Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to get the other Singstar games later so we can have more songs.

If people are wondering my iPod nano is just fine. Heard about how people managed to crack their screens and stuff - pretty scary. Mine's still good though =)

Good news and bad news

The good news is that I finally got my iPod Nano. My very first MP3 player, very happy with it so far.

The bad news is that today was the last lesson for Latin Dance. We all received a certificate, but I guess now if I don't practise I'm going to forget it. Well it was fun while it lasted, hopefully I'll be able to make it next week at the "graduation party".

Combined

Our bible study group was combined (UNSW and UTS) it was awesome. We all went into our cozy little study room in the library. Had an awesome time talking about prayer, and at the end we spent some time praying for each other and the univeristies as well.

My nano came today!! but no one was home to take the package...grrrr...ok God I'll be patient...

Heard about the new Nintendo Revolution controller? It's soo cool, I want to get one now. Well it's not released yet. So I'll get it next year when it comes out.

Got a job interview tomorrow, downside is I gotta get up early, and also the fact that I won't be home for the nano delivery (again). The good thing is that I have a good feeling about this interview. Just gotta trust God and do my best I guess, and He'll do the rest.

I know a few people that are not feeling too well, so I'll be praying that you all get better soon.

Take care ya'll, God bless.

iPod Nano

Yes that's right, the brand new iPod Nano is coming into my hands soon hehe =P The wait has been worth it, it's exactly what I've been waiting for (shuffle with a screen). Not only is it what I want, but it's beyond my expectations.

For more info check out: http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/ (I know you'll want one)

Today was the second last dance class for this semester. Today we were taught to do the jive, I still can't do it properly ... probably because I was late for class... so I had no idea what was going on.

Spoons

We played a game called "spoons" at the UniCell meeting today. For those that don't know how to play it's quite simple. You need a deck of playing cards and some spoons equal to the number of people playing minus one, i.e. if you have 5 people playing then you'll need 4 spoons.

Before you start the game you need to sort out the cards so that you pick out 4 of a kind for a particular card, e.g. all four kings. You need to do this for each person that is playing. So if there are 5 people playing you need to pick out 5 of these 4 of a kind, it doesn't matter which one you pick. So if there are 5 people you should have 20 cards.

Place the spoons in the middle of the table or the centre of the circle. The dealer then deals the cards to each player and each player should have 4 cards. The aim of the game is to get the same four cards, it can be any value. To do this each player must pick a card he/she doesn't want and pass it to the left. Keep doing this until someone gets 4 of a kind. When that happens, the person that got the 4 of a kind picks up a spoon. Now all the other players must also try to get a spoon and the one that did not get a spoon loses. Usually there's some form of punishment, but I'll leave that up to you.

So yea, that was quite fun. We talked about how playing spoons is similar to how we manage our time. We need to be careful what we keep and what we throw away. So in a way we need to be careful of how we prioritise different things in our lives.

Cafe-cell

We were homeless for Wednesday night home cell. So instead we had Cafe-cell...hehe. Basically we had our meeting at a Gloria Jeans (similar to Starbucks). It was good, we ended up spending most of the time reading magazines, but it was all good.

Here's a joke:
Q: What does a mathematician do when he gets constipated?
A: He works it out with a pencil.

I've got a quiz tomorrow for computer architecture. Soo...better get back to studying -_-''

A God day

A good day indeed. Had our first university cell group meeting. It was awesome, had an awesome word from Proverbs 6:6-8 (which I shared). There were 4 of us at the bible study, more should be coming next week.

Got some "significant" progress happening with my thesis project (according to my supervisor anyway) so I'm pretty happy with that. Now I need to keep this going.

Unreal!

WOW! is all I can say, there are no words to describe God's goodness. To think that I have come as far as I have now. Ten years ago I would never have dreamed to come this far. When I was in school growing up, I was just an ordinary kid, I didn't do that well at school, just barely passing.

Ten years later... I'm attending one of the top universities in Australia (UNSW). Now not only am I a student, I am also employed as a casual tutor and lab demonstrator in one of my favourite subjects (Human Computer Interaction).

Then I started to think, how much I'm actually doing these days. I'm doing my thesis, working as an IT Service Desk Analyst, doing casual tutoring and very soon I will be leading a cell (bible study) group at uni. I would never have imagined to be where I am right now.

God is awesome, He is truly the way, the truth and the life. Keep persevering, only God can turn the 'unreal' to something 'real'.

God bless you all =)

First time

The first time I had ever heard of a "food date". Well I had "lunch" (which was mainly coffee and she brought some breakfast bars for us to eat) with my friend, and so it was our so called "food date". I thought it was pretty funny =P

The first time I've been to karaoke. Can you believe it? I'm like almost 22 and I've never been to karaoke! Well it's about time and it was lots of fun too. I can't wait for the next time we go. I so want to get the singstar game (Playstation) but then I gotta think about how much time I'll have to play it...

Well you've probably noticed there's no tagboard, well..that's because the one I was using broke...this is the second time now, so I'm reluctant to putting another one up, unless people really want it, hook me up with some reliable tagboards, and it HAS to be FREE.

Not this time

Me and my friend was planning on taking the ballroom class today. I called up this morning to see if there was any room, and yes there was, 2 spots left...so yay...but then when I asked if there would be enough girls (my friend being a guy) the guy told me that there was already a 50/50 split, i.e. 19 guys and 19 girls. The class size is capped at 40, and so if we were to join it would be 21 guys and 19 girls, meaning 2 guys would miss out...so we decided not to take it this time. It's strange to see so many guys joining the dance class, in the latin dance class it was like 7 guys to about 12-14 girls. So that was good, for the guys haha... oh well I guess I'll have to do ballroom another time...

Man I'm starting to realise how little work I'm doing on my thesis. I haven't met up with my supervisor for weeks, he's not gonna be happy :\ ok time to get into gear and get some work done ...

Me dance???

Well you probably don't believe but yes I've started taking dance classes. Today was the first class (Latin dance) and we learnt how to do the salsa and samba. It was pretty good, I had heaps of fun, the lesson seemed really short...I feel like dancing some more haha

UNSW Cell coming soon...

That's right we will be opening a new (cell) group in the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. So whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian we would love for you to join us. More details to come ..

Happy 6th Anniversary for Hope Church.

Training at church

Sometimes people ask, why do you have to go to church? Isn't it enough to be a Christian and as long as you don't do the wrong thing?

Well there are many reasons, but one of them is training.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

Isaiah 2:3

When we train for anything, whether it be sports, a skill for a job, there would always be someone there to teach us. It could be a coach, mentor, teacher, etc. If we wanted to get better we wouldn't be able to do it without meeting our teacher. So it's the same as Christians, we need to continually meet our teacher, Jesus Christ, because He is the one that knows all about us. After all God is the one that created us.

This is just one of the many reasons there are for going to church. Just because it seems like a lot of work, don't be discouraged. I hope you all will be able to enjoy going to church as much as I do, maybe even more =)

God bless

Foreigner

Well I just realised I haven't posted for over a week! yikes...sorry peoples, I've been pretty slack with my blog lately. Well just a quick run down on what's happened the past week.

- Went to SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineering) convention at Darling Harbour, Sydney. The highlight of that was probably the magician. Good thinking for the people trying to sell the cameras, because he did manage to get quite a few people to go to his stall.

- Found out that I'm going to be tutoring at Uni. Which is gonna be pretty cool I think. It should be fun being the teacher for a change =P

- We're hosting a Japanese student (on exchange). Despite the fact that I'm giving up my room for him, it's been pretty cool. I can practise my Japanese on him =P We took him out to the city, saw the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge and then went to Darling Harbour and we took a look at the Sydney Aquarium (which I've been to .... I'm not sure how many times, I've lost count).

Today we supposedly had choir practice but it was cancelled because our teacher wasn't feeling well. Just tonight we went to Double Bay for ice cream...yumm. The place is called French Riviera, it's famous for the huge ice cream towers. We had the biggest one, called "Maxi" and I'm guessing it would be at least 20 scoops of ice cream, stacked up in a bowl. Had 7 people eating it, and so yea we managed to finish it. Afterwards we were soo cold though, especially since it's winter here.

Until another day...

Jaa mata (means cya later in Japanese)

Funeral

I went to a ceremony tonight...it was a Buddhist ceremony...with lots and lots of incense the room was filled with soo much smoke...oh man our eyes were hurting. It was interesting to experience it though. When someone has died, do you think it makes any difference what happens to them in the way we do things here. Well during the ceremony it seemed like they were trying to "please" the buddha by praying and bowing to him and offering gifts, so that the deceased would go to heaven. I don't know about you, but it doesn't make sense to me. Where you go surely depends on the person. There is nothing we can do that will affect it. It's like begging God so they can go to heaven.

The only way we can go to heaven is clear: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish BUT have everlasting life" - John 3:16

In other words we need to accept and believe that Jesus died for our sins so that we can be made clean again. In heaven there can be no sin. There is no way we or anyone can clean us of our sins, but God gave us a second chance through His son Jesus Christ. I pray that people would make the right decision before it's too late.

God bless

Sickness go away and don't come back another day

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I hate being sick =(

Please pray for me so I will get better really soon...like tomorrow because I need to work..

Luna Park

Today I was actually planning on staying home to do some uni work (I am soo behind). Instead my sister (older) asked me if I wanted to go to Luna Park. For those who have no idea what is Luna Park, it is an amusement park. So since my sister offered to pay for the ticket, I thought I may as well go, after all what have I got to lose...

So I ended up going, a friend of mine wanted to go as well, so she came and brought her little brother along. We got to the park at about 2pm and so we had 4 hours to go on as many rides as we can (since the park closes at 6pm). Even though we had 4 hours, I knew it was never going to be enough. I don't think we even covered half of the things that were there, and some of the rides were also closed, so that was a shame.

Some of the things we rode on were Wild Mouse (a rollercoaster type ride), Flying saucer (similar to a gravitron where they spin you really fast, but it also spins vertically), Dodgem cars (always a favourite), Spider (another one of those spinning rides, which was surprisingly fun). The only regret I had that day was going on the Ranger ride (which is like a pirate ship ride, where it spins you upside down). After that ride, I started getting sick and feeling light headed. Not long after that I went on another ride that spun you around and around, which did not help at all. I felt so sick I vomitted afterwards (in the toilet of course).

Apart from getting sick, it was a really fun day. I got to meet my friend's little brother, which was cool.

Fantastic 4

A fantastic day capped off with a fantastic night of watching Fantastic 4. The movie lived up to my expectations more or less. The characters were well done, the visual effects were stunning. Although I would've liked to see a little bit more action, I think this movie sets the platform for a great sequel, which would be nice to see.

The story revolves around a group of scientists (and friends and family) trying to conduct an experiment which could result in saving many lives. Of course things did not go as planned. I won't say anymore in case I accidentally reveal anything.

My rating: 7.5/10

What a week...

What an awesome week it has been, mostly because of the Hillsong conference night rallies. The first night I went we were a little late, so we only managed to get into the overflow, which meant we had to watch the proceedings on a big screen rather than live. The next night was better, we managed to get in and see it all live. We saw Cece Winans lead us in a time of worship - it was really good, except it would have been better if we knew her songs.

On Wednesday night Seven Hills homecell (bible study group) had Chocolacicous Night. We played games, ate chocolate, trivia, ate more chocolate, more games and more chocolate. It was great, and I even got myself a CD, which was really cool.

On Thursday night it was Hillsong again, and this time there was a few more of my friends there. It was soo amazing, praising and worshipping God with Michael W Smith leading us. Sometimes I tend to be more conservative when praising and worshipping God. That night was totally the opposite, I was jumping up and down, singing my heart out until I started to lose my voice. Nevertheless with some water I was back at it. Maybe it was just the atmosphere that made me be able to do that, but that's what I want to do. To be able to praise and worship God without having to think about what others might think. That is the start of true worship.

On Friday I would've liked to go to Hillsong again, but work mates had a dinner to say goodbye to our former manager. Even though I don't know him that much, it was nice to socialize with the group. I kinda regret not having tried at least 1 cocktail (since they were half-price), oh well maybe next time.

To cap it off I got to work today which was great, because I've spent quite a bit this week, on CD's, books, food, petrol, etc. So at least I'll be getting some extra money next time I get paid. You know what, the sowing principle does work, I actually gave up one of my shifts next week for a friend who forgot to put in his availabilities and I ended up getting the saturday shift as well. Also just recently another one offered me their shift for next week (on a different day). So in giving up one day's work, I got back 150% as much (1 and a 1/2 days).

How awesome is God!!! Praise God, forever and ever!!

Current Mood: jubilant

Tim Tam

For those that are thinking - what the heck are Tim Tams??

Tim Tam is an australian snack (made by Arnotts). It is basically a chocolate biscuit, filled with chocolate center and covered in more delicious chocolate =D

Here's some more info on Tim Tams and a picture:
Wikipedia: Tim Tam

Current Mood: hungry

Tim Tam + Milk = YummY

A friend of mine told me this neat trick.

Get Tim Tams and some milk. What you need to do is bite the ends of the Tim Tam, and use it like a straw to drink the milk. It's very cool. As you drink the milk the chocolate in the Tim Tam will slowly melt and get softer.

Try it yourself!

Current Mood: amused

Soccer

YCG didn't turn out as we planned. Only managed to play half a game, but Youthopea (that's my team) would have won anyway =)

We couldn't play because the grounds were closed due to the wet weather the past few days leading up to the games. Instead we went to watch Batman Begins. The movie wasn't too bad, but because I had such a high expectation for it, it was a little disappointing. Some of the scenes could have been done better, and sometimes the movie just seemed to drag on and on.

Well at least the day wasn't wasted...

Current Mood: content

Holi-days!

Exams are finally over! woohoo...that wasn't so bad now was it? hehe. Actually it was much better than I would have imagined. The first exam I had (Wednesday) was for User Interface Design and Construction, I didn't study that much because most of it you can't really study for. Praise God he helped me get through that exam, it wasn't too bad. Next (and last) came the one subject dreaded by most CSE students, Operating Systems (Thursday). In the past people have said how easy the final exam was, and good thing they were right. I studied quite a bit for it and I'm glad how it turned out. Of course I couldn't have done it without God, he gives me what wisdom I have today.

After my last exam on Thursday, it was raining that day so we couldn't really do much. So me and a couple of my friends decided to go to Eastgardens and watch a movie. We decided on War of the Worlds, in the end, we kinda regretted watching that movie. I think you get the point. I realised that it was the last day of the financial year and the sales are ending soon, but because of the rain, I couldn't be bothered going to the city.

Pray that it doesn't rain tomorrow for YCG (http://ycg.hopemissioncentre.com/).

Current Mood: pleased

Church choir

Well we got put into our vocal groups today. I was in the baritone group, so that's like the mid-range for the males. Not too low and not too high, it's juust right =P
We had our first practice run as a 3 piece choir and it was awesome! No Amanda it didn't rain =)
Praise God for that, even though we're doing pretty well, we have only just begun, and there is still plenty to practice and learn.

Exams are closing in on me ... nooo!! it only felt like a few days ago that I still had 3 weeks, but now the gap has closed to 3 days!! No more slacking off now ...

All the best! for all you people that still have exams and for those who don't ... you don't need to rub it in -_-''

Current Mood: busy

Home sweet home

came home today from uni, hallelujah, praise GOD!....now you're probably thinking why am I so glad to be home...well today I had to go home today by myself and the last bus was at 9.28, but I got to the station at 9.50 (ish) soo...I ended up walking home...in the dark and all, which reminded me of this verse:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." - Psalms 23:4

So praise God for getting me home safely =)

Current Mood: thankful

Lazy

Was planning on doing some work at uni today, but ended up bludging all day at work (not surprisingly). I never get anything done in there. I better get this assignment done before I get in trouble, my lecturer's already given way too much of an extension.

All day I was feeling pretty ok, and just when I'm about to do some serious work, I get a headache...great...now it's time to sleep =P

Current Mood: worried

Answered prayer

Firstly praise God for the rain, because I did ask for rain. Rain means fresh air, which is good since there are heaps of sick people.

Got a haircut today, the usual short stuff ...

The pastor from my old church had a birthday party, so we had dinner there. The desert was sooo good. It was trifle, if you don't know what it is, well it's a layered mixture. There's a layer of soft spongy cake, then a layer of rich creamy custard, next there's a layer of fresh juicy fruits and finally topped off with sweet cream ... mmmmm ... andmost importantly it's all made with low fat stuff so there you go ^_-

Current Mood: full

Testing mood script

If you can see the picture then it's working...didn't quite get it to work. If you're wondering, I was trying to make a script so that I can easily call the pictures from the current mood (found at livejournal.com). Guess I'll try again later....

But it seems the URL for them is almost the same so may as well put that in the post template and just change the filename when I need to..

Current Mood: geeky

As sick as a dog

Headache, body ache, major nasal congestion, fever and to top it off, my nose bled twice today...and that pretty much sums up most of the day...

On a more positive note, I got some work done on my assignment, now my drawing app can print and I've got preferences to change the background colour. Also finished the UML class diagram for it (well I hope it's right).

On the bus to central one of the people I helped while working (at IT Service Desk) remembered me, because I was helping her to get on to UniWide. So we chatted until Central, about stuff. That was unexpected, but I guess at those times, makes you feel good that you're working at IT Service Desk.

I'm going to sleep before 12 tonight...well trying to, this would be the first time I've slept before 12 since December I think...

Other news:
Apple announced that they will be using Intel chips, exciting stuff!!

Close but no cigar

Just got home from Uni, doing the OS assignment, well you know what, we managed to pass the "huge" test (we passed the 2nd test) but that was in a way just a coincidence because we didn't implement everything yet. So by the looks of it we should be close to finishing, let's hope that the past few days of staying late at uni is going to pay off.

A few of my friends have OO projects due tomorrow (and some are also doing OS ..), so hope they can make it. Amanda has 2 exams tomorrow as well. Will be praying for all of you. God bless.

Things are looking up..

for OS anyway, finally got some part of the assignment done (and working, i.e. haven't broken it so far =P )
still got the hard part to do

can't wait for holidays, albeit I'll most probably be doing my thesis, web stuff and maybe practice my singing (since I joined the church choir now...yes I know...Victor sing?? what the??). I'm leaving it up to God, nothing is impossible with God, even getting me to sing =P

Strange dreams

been getting them lately. 2 nights ago I had a dream that this girl (who I don't personally know) calls me up out of nowhere. Then I had a dream that I was leaving to go somewhere, me and one of my friends (who also happens to be a work mate) started this game where we call each other bad things and then eventually cried and hugged...because I was leaving...strange because that's not like me...I don't think...

Last night I had another dream where another friend of mine doing a similar course asked me to play something, and he showed me this thing that could "cleanse" you (rectally)...weird...because the thing is you're meant to lie down (without clothes of course) with legs apart and hold this thing that looks like a hose...I still don't get it...

Do these things mean anything? we'll just have to see....

Blogging via email

I hope this works, trying this post by email function.

Had our first (church) choir meeting today, man I
reckon we're gonna have such a blast. I still need to
practice heaps though I reckon...

Man OS is hardd -_-

It's all over..

for now anyway...now I need to get the other 2 assignments done and then study for exams. This cycle just keeps repeating every semester...

If you're interested I've made a blog specifically for my thesis
http://victorthesis.blogspot.com

So fullll

Had Hurricanes for dinner, man I am so full (ate half a chicken and half a rack of ribs).
Presentation tomorrow, I need more practice too, gonna practice now before sleeping.

Thanks Amanda =)

Snazzy

Having fun with Keynote, making my presentation look good :)
Well gotta make sure I say the right things though...

Just a little over a day to go...

Procrastination

Phew...Uniwide installs can really take it out of you. Trying to think of a name for my browser, so far the names I've thought up are:
- Hawk
- vBrowse
- CHIBA (Computer Human Interaction Browsing Analyst)

Stil not sure which name to give it, CHIBA seems the most original, but I might think of some other names later. Got until Wednesday to decide I guess...I really should get going with this seminar, so I can do other work as well ¬_¬

Money

That's what it all comes down to everytime...
Had a conversation today with my brother in-law and it brought to my attention that everything we do now, all the development, might make our lives easier in some ways, but it also makes it harder in ways such as food, more and more people are heading toward the city life where all the MONEY is and there are less and less workers at the farms. So inevitably the prices for food will increase. Well it doesn't help if all we're using our money for is food..
So why can't we do anything? because we are not the creators of those plants and animals, we can't improve it, only God can. We can try to help things along, but that's about it. The only other way is to do things artificially...which I am not going to support at all.

So it is inevitable, after all this is the fate that all humans must realise because of our own disobedience.

"To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
[Genesis 3:17-19]

Cleaning

That's what I did for most of today. Which is good, now my room seems bigger. Haven't alot of sleep lateley due to thesis and assignments, and I'm starting to feel a fever coming on, probably the reason why I got nosebleeds last 2 days.

1 down 2 to go

Thesis A report is finished!! The report ended up being 40 pages long, it doesn't seem like I did much work though. 2 more things left to do, user interface assignment and thesis seminar (next week).

Thesis..

progressing ever so slightly. Introduction is almost done..I think..still much to write..still yet to finish the first usability test review...found some things that I did not find while doing an expert review, and for the next usability test, we're going to try MyBrowser. Just going to use the Run log to keep track of things, couldn't get poseAsClass to work, probably just end up doing a copy paste of the Run log..

busy busy busy

Mouse events...

Got a few mouse events to work with my MyBrowser. I used a number of delegate methods to do this.

OS Assignment is taking way too much of my time. Only today I finally got it to work properly (with some help) -_-'

It's almost 10.30pm and I'm still in the labs...I'm hungry as well...time to go home I guess

I've got the power!! ... I think..

I finally got Office today. I also got iWork and a 512 stick, which means I've got 1GB of ram now, so hopefully don't have to worry about running out of ram anymore. Didn't get much work done at all today, cept we got Ethics done, I think. Just when I'm about to do work I get a throbbing headache, and now that I'm tired and need to sleep, the headache is gone...

So weird....