Today I joined a few of my colleagues for dinner. It was my very first time eating at an Italian restaurant (La Strada). A little embarrasing but true none the less. I must say that the ambience was pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised I felt pretty comfortable in the midst of my female collagues being the only male. Though it was supposed to be a pretty posh place I think we sort of ruined it with our conversations and laughters.
The food was quite good as well and it did not end up as expensive as I thought it might have been. After that we had ice-cream together. We also had a good chat as well before we made our way home. Overall, I was glad to have joined them. Looking forward to more man. :)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
二胡
When I got home, I passed her her gift and she was pleasantly surprised. At first I thought that it was more of a politeness expression than gratitude. That was until I was done showering and I heard some erhu sounds coming from outside. I opened my door and stood outside to take a peep at what my mum was doing. She was fiddling with the erhu much like a child would play with a new toy just received. It warmed my heart. I know that on her own, it would take forever before she would go out and just get the instrument. She even asked me whether the place I bought the instrument offered courses.
A sense of satisfaction came over me as I returned to my room for my much needed nap. I had gotten her the instrument with the intention that she would have some form of leisure rather than just work and sleep and watch tv the whole time. I anticipated that either she would just chuck it aside totally or wait a long time before she would enrol for any form of lesson. But she actually asked me practically immediately to get brochures so that she could start learning. Great!
So to my neighbours living around me, if they thought that the high pitched sounds they hear regularly from my unit was all there was, wait till they hear the screeching sounds from the erhu as well! But do not dismay, God's word as always offers timely help. I quote you from psalm 91:3 (King James Version) which says:" Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence." (Pun totally intended) :)
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Surrogates
For the rest of the story I will leave you to watch it on your own. The reason I gave the short intro was because of its relation to real life, or at least to my life. I can see why people in the movie would rather live their lives through robots. The robots can look as good as they want to and others will never have to or get to see their "true" self. I think I am somewhat like that as well. When coming in contact with people, I sometimes protray a personality or character that is not really me but what I would like people to see me as. Even with all the face treatments and soon to come laser treatments, I am trying to become what I would like people to see me as and not what I am really. In the event that surrogates become a reality I know that I would definitely choose one which is better looking and hunkier. Haha, it certainly beats having to go to the gym to get that kind of body. :)
Church
Had a great lesson with my brother just now. It was really interesting to find out about the different types of classical music. Hmmm, starting to get more and more cultured man. :) There's really so much about music to learn and explore. I really wanna quit my job and go full time into learning music man. Sigh. So much to learn. So little time and money.
After lesson, we were chatting about church. Actually there has been a lot of stuff going on in church. If you do continue to read this specific blog, please read on till the end cos I wanna give a proper completion to this blog rather than to leave a really bad impression about church. Because my brother has been pretty active in church lately, he has heard a fair bit about the stuff that happens in church. I too, because I was once a youth leader and still am involoved in other ministries have my fair share of hearing bout the stuff that is going on in church.
Because I do not have the full picture (nobody has) I do not want to go into details. But the picture really is not good. There seems to be a fair bit of disputes and disagreements within the management of the church. I suppose there will always be such in any setting but what disappoints me is the way things are handled. From what I noticed (again I emphasize that I do not know the full picture), there has been a lot of good people coming in and leaving church. Also, there is a couple in church who are elders whom I feel have been pretty much ostracized by the leadership (I do not know exactly why). I have heard reasons before that could have contributed to it but if I have to take sides I would stand on their side. I may not have convincing evidence to support my standing by them but there are things in their lives which I see glaringly reflect their heart of service and their character.
Number 1. Despite being ostracized by the leadership, they are still helping out in whichever way they can, big or small. They even help out in taking video during the service. Most would probably left church already. Number 2. They are very approachable and down to earth despite being rich and having been high up in the corperate world. There is another elder who is in church who is rich and high up in the corporate world who gives me the EXACT OPPOSITE impression. As far as I can see, I see them practicing the love walk and being faithful even in the small things. I cannot say that for some others in leadership.
Anyway, God has not called us to take sides. I just felt that I wanted to pen it down. Now for the balance to it. I suppose that in many churches these issues do exist. I suppose that some churches are so big that it does not reach the congregation. In any case, the management and leadership is still made up of humans and that's where all the problems come in. Knowing all the facts that I know now does not help me in any way. In fact it has caused me to be cold to certain issues and people in church. That should not be the way. God has called us to love. And knowing more about the ugly side of man certainly does not facilitate love in any way. And when we see issues like that crop up in church, our first response should be to pray and not to blurt out what we think. We should always bear in mind that we do not have the full picture and probably will never have. Only God knows all that is going on and our first respose should be to look to Him so that negative emotions do not have the chance to creep in and spoil our hearts.
I used to adopt this verse in my former workplace and I am reminded all over again to adopt this for any arena of my life. Proverbs 26:17 says "Like one who takes a dog by the ears Is he who passes by and meddles with strife not belonging to him." We all know what happens when we try to take a dog by the ears right? If you do not know, do try it sometime. Do try it on a big german shepherd or something. Then you will realise what the verse is talking about. I used to hold this verse to my heart a lot cos in my former workplace there will always be a lot of complaints against the boss. So in order for me not to get emotionally involved, I always try to avoid all the complaint sessions regularly held after lunch. I believe that this should be applied to church as well. In order to serve God whole heartedly, I believe that many time we have to just bypass issues that are actually none of our business. Not to mention the fact that many times, we do not have the exact picture, there is no point of getting upset about something that you do not totally know about.
I realise that for now only God truely sees things as they really are so lets leave the judgement to Him. Tough job trying to be God when you are not.......
After lesson, we were chatting about church. Actually there has been a lot of stuff going on in church. If you do continue to read this specific blog, please read on till the end cos I wanna give a proper completion to this blog rather than to leave a really bad impression about church. Because my brother has been pretty active in church lately, he has heard a fair bit about the stuff that happens in church. I too, because I was once a youth leader and still am involoved in other ministries have my fair share of hearing bout the stuff that is going on in church.
Because I do not have the full picture (nobody has) I do not want to go into details. But the picture really is not good. There seems to be a fair bit of disputes and disagreements within the management of the church. I suppose there will always be such in any setting but what disappoints me is the way things are handled. From what I noticed (again I emphasize that I do not know the full picture), there has been a lot of good people coming in and leaving church. Also, there is a couple in church who are elders whom I feel have been pretty much ostracized by the leadership (I do not know exactly why). I have heard reasons before that could have contributed to it but if I have to take sides I would stand on their side. I may not have convincing evidence to support my standing by them but there are things in their lives which I see glaringly reflect their heart of service and their character.
Number 1. Despite being ostracized by the leadership, they are still helping out in whichever way they can, big or small. They even help out in taking video during the service. Most would probably left church already. Number 2. They are very approachable and down to earth despite being rich and having been high up in the corperate world. There is another elder who is in church who is rich and high up in the corporate world who gives me the EXACT OPPOSITE impression. As far as I can see, I see them practicing the love walk and being faithful even in the small things. I cannot say that for some others in leadership.
Anyway, God has not called us to take sides. I just felt that I wanted to pen it down. Now for the balance to it. I suppose that in many churches these issues do exist. I suppose that some churches are so big that it does not reach the congregation. In any case, the management and leadership is still made up of humans and that's where all the problems come in. Knowing all the facts that I know now does not help me in any way. In fact it has caused me to be cold to certain issues and people in church. That should not be the way. God has called us to love. And knowing more about the ugly side of man certainly does not facilitate love in any way. And when we see issues like that crop up in church, our first response should be to pray and not to blurt out what we think. We should always bear in mind that we do not have the full picture and probably will never have. Only God knows all that is going on and our first respose should be to look to Him so that negative emotions do not have the chance to creep in and spoil our hearts.
I used to adopt this verse in my former workplace and I am reminded all over again to adopt this for any arena of my life. Proverbs 26:17 says "Like one who takes a dog by the ears Is he who passes by and meddles with strife not belonging to him." We all know what happens when we try to take a dog by the ears right? If you do not know, do try it sometime. Do try it on a big german shepherd or something. Then you will realise what the verse is talking about. I used to hold this verse to my heart a lot cos in my former workplace there will always be a lot of complaints against the boss. So in order for me not to get emotionally involved, I always try to avoid all the complaint sessions regularly held after lunch. I believe that this should be applied to church as well. In order to serve God whole heartedly, I believe that many time we have to just bypass issues that are actually none of our business. Not to mention the fact that many times, we do not have the exact picture, there is no point of getting upset about something that you do not totally know about.
I realise that for now only God truely sees things as they really are so lets leave the judgement to Him. Tough job trying to be God when you are not.......
Friday, October 2, 2009
Confession
I have a confession to make. It involves my integrity at work. Actually, I did a pair of glasses for someone recently. When the glasses came back from the manufacturer, the specifications were off from what I required. But being too lazy, I decided to keep the glasses anyway. I dispensed it yesterday and today the patient's mum returned to complain. At first I forgot bout the lapse on my part and I spent a lot of time trying to explain away her concerns and that they were unfounded. Then as I looked at the glasses, I realised that it could be the issue that I chose to ignore that could be the problem. Then instead of apologising for my mistake, I still tried to find some excuse to shift away my fault. Starting to feel embarrased talking bout this.
All these problems could have easily been prevented had I bothered to send back the glasses in the first place. And now the patient and his mum had to make extra trips (and the lack of parking space within the hospital certainly does not help) because of me. I felt bad. I told the mum to leave the glasses while I found out what the problem could be. What a hypocrite I was. Later I called her to explain that the manufacturer's fault (which was true) but I twisted it in such a way that it was not totally my fault. I did apologise for overlooking the specifications but not for being lazy and not bothered about the glasses. In fact I did at first tell the mum to force the glasses on the patient (yes I did that!). Thank God that the mum was insistent of not letting the patient wear the glasses. If not, I would have been in even deeper shit. My goodness I am starting to feel bad all over again. Which I should. That would teach me NEVER to do such a dumb thing again.
In fact the mum was commenting as she made the glasses with us that our price was much steeper than the place she went to. It was like 30% more on our side. But she continued to do it with us because she liked us. Ooops, trust misplaced. My goodness, how could I be such a jerk! In any case, I have sent back the glasses to the manufacturers for them to replace the lenses. Learnt a lesson today man.
All these problems could have easily been prevented had I bothered to send back the glasses in the first place. And now the patient and his mum had to make extra trips (and the lack of parking space within the hospital certainly does not help) because of me. I felt bad. I told the mum to leave the glasses while I found out what the problem could be. What a hypocrite I was. Later I called her to explain that the manufacturer's fault (which was true) but I twisted it in such a way that it was not totally my fault. I did apologise for overlooking the specifications but not for being lazy and not bothered about the glasses. In fact I did at first tell the mum to force the glasses on the patient (yes I did that!). Thank God that the mum was insistent of not letting the patient wear the glasses. If not, I would have been in even deeper shit. My goodness I am starting to feel bad all over again. Which I should. That would teach me NEVER to do such a dumb thing again.
In fact the mum was commenting as she made the glasses with us that our price was much steeper than the place she went to. It was like 30% more on our side. But she continued to do it with us because she liked us. Ooops, trust misplaced. My goodness, how could I be such a jerk! In any case, I have sent back the glasses to the manufacturers for them to replace the lenses. Learnt a lesson today man.
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