SFAS after blues

Little wonder why Hollywood stars and actors on broadway turn to drugs or burn out, the life of a performer is a tough one. I speak from experience as a veteran on the stage. Being a member of the choir has trained me well. I now can smile and hold it there for a good one minute. I am also now proficient in the ways of the ninja with pretty lame dance moves to boot.

I got to say that with the aftermath that was SFAS, i felt kinda sad-ish the next few days. I sorta missed the whole experience. Maybe it was the bow tie made of paper, using how to use an eyelash curler, putting on glitter eyeshadow, constantly telling eunice to stop messaging her boyfriend, or maybe even Ivan the man who asked me for permission to use the toilet, but i do miss the choir. Funnily enough, this was my swan song and i have since retired from the choir. Next year, Team JLA will take to the stage in a very conceptual performance with art in the background, lights and lots of smoke from the smoke machine. I do hope all yous enjoyed the show. I do have to remind you that there was a strict policy of no photos allowed during the choir segment and if you guys did take any photos, I am happy to say that i will be on site on friday to collect any negatives, or USBs.  One comment that i do have to make though it is rather harsh, i still feel that superman should have worked out abit before doning the suit. 

I apologize also for any confusion over some alleged party after SFAS. Clearly, it was never in my intention to cheat anybody's feelings about a party. But word from the grapevine is that people are interested in hearing Linzie sing live and works are in progress for a live performance by Team JLA. We will be doing a half an hour session of popular covers. Venue will most probably be somewhere outdoorsy like matilda bay or eunice teo's balcony. Of course, there will be no cost and light refreshments will even be provided. There will be a bowl for people who wish to donate to the cause that is JLA. Please note that this is quite serious and Im really trying to make this happen haha. Third time lucky fingers crossed.

Abit of information for those of you who didn't attend tennis on sunday. Teo face and friends are truly horrific when it comes to tennis. Jacq kept hitting the ball so well that Weiping had no way to return the balls. Although that might have been because the court she was hitting to  was on a totally different court from which they were playing at. Aletheia kept getting distracted and so had no way to play properly. Teo just is a sucks so wasn't really her fault. In all fairness to weiping, the racket was too big for her and so she too could not play. On a brighter note, Garreth is pretty good and so is Isaiah. 

And Im rambling now so i leave you with this thought i picked up from reading the newpaper today. Australian Egalitarianism? Love it or hate it. I thought it weird that we would never have this problem in Singapore where we love elitism. Australians are sure weird.

Anyways, i hope you guys have a great week ahead, ill be praying for all of you, even those of you that Im not particularly fond of

XOXO

JT

thank you for the music

so its been an interesting week so far for most kiwis in general. Aletheia turned 22, Eunice Wong returned to tavern duty, jia li went back to china, and oonice (not technically a kiwi i dont know why we allow her to be on this blog) cooked us quite a spectacular looking dinner with "pro" steak. 

This write had a pretty interesting week and decided that it be best if his thoughts were written down. We understand however, that a certain someone, of the canningvale variety has issues with the length of the posts so far and hence i shall try to keep this to a minimal length. We start the post with the very interesting visit to the magistrate court on monday. Nothing of much interest actually took place except for a case where the accused was charged with unlawful wounding. Clearly, this man was very frustrated that his case had not been sent to trial yet. Anyway, the lesson i took from this visit was the whole holistic approach taken to criminal justice in our state. Apparently our system practices therapeutic jurisprudence where we incarceration is the last option and the system tries to make sure the offender doesn't reoffend again. In laymans terms, the system is more interested in the process rather than by the outcome.

I thought about certain churches in general and this is not a lets slam so and so church post. Sometimes, we do seem to put a greater focus on the numbers, the result where success is measured by the number of new comers, the amount of money in the offering, rather than the process. Of course, I feel really blessed that in Zion, much emphasis is placed on the process of discipleship, nurturing and accountability. Sorry for that rather serious trend, thought it would help Jiali ( and all those other doubters) understand that i do have a brain and i do think lol.

So choir was a laugh today. We posed like tyra banks on the catwalk, "little" henry got hit, Eunice teo kept messaging her boyfriend and we all lost abit of our manhood. Also, our gang of troopers took abit of a trek to canningvale and i finally got to say hello to Aletheia's uber cool aunty! In all honesty though, this choir experience has made me realize that I look really good with glitter on my face. Also, jia huei has quite an incredible voice, and strong arms which hit hard. Well cell details will be out soon and it seems the general consensus is for us to have cell on friday at 5pm. Jerry jerry will be doing the word. I think right, and i haven actually run this pass eunice yet, SFAS rehearsals end at 915pm. So i thought that we could have a quick cell, then those of us who do not have choir can maybe hang out for abit, trash eunice's house, chill, smoke some dope, then wait till 915pm and we can all go and eat something. I mean, what do we stand for if not for eating. and the word of god also of course. So please let us know what you think of this brilliant idea of mine and look forward to seeing glitter on my face

you know you miss me

XOXO

linzie fan club

as the manager of the JLA band, it is my responsibility to ensure consistent publicity of the band. thus the following 2 videos. enjoy it guys..


this is the scientist by coldplay


and this one, is everything i do, by bryan adams.. one of linzie's personal favourites *fans note*

do hope u guys enjoyed the videos.. and pls pls study hard k?? lets all ace our midsems, assignments, presentations etc!!!

study break

hey guys.. how has your study break been?? busy studying? or enjoying yourself?? heh.. i hope all of you got some rest during this break...

anyhow, this is what our cell outing went today.. we had an awesome lunch.. and cos d rain was such a disturbance, we did this (see the video).. yupyup.. juz for your entertainment to see.. [apologies for those who din get to go.. esp our fellow curtin n ecu n canning members who r still in sch. we support u in spirit as we went out] we're also starting up this new thing called "song request" tag whatever song u wan k.. n we'll try our very best to upload it.. do enjoy the video too.. she seems to be "uwa zone's jiahuei" just incase u guys dunno who jiahuei is, she is some super geng singer from curtin zone.. also one of the choir in-charge..



yupyup. hope u guys enjoyed that.. for this week's cell, the theme for refreshments is ITALIAN... inspired by i do not know what. (ask lijin if u're interested. heh.) yupyup.. so some ideas below.. shout out what u'll b doing yea..

- pasta
- pizza
- garlic bread w/bruschetta
- mushroom soup
- meatballs
- salad (w/italian twist)
- tiramisu

and cell dis wk wld b 7.30 at jeremy's place yea... so stay tuned for updates from us yea...

yupyup.. enjoy d rest of d holidays yea.. hehe.. meanwhile.. take care!

Spring holidays, the chateau and a tribute

Hey friends, i have missed you all dearly since our last meeting. Clearly, it has been too long since we have seen each others beautiful faces. (last year wednesday if im not wrong?) As such, a reunion is in order. As most of us are having some sort of holidays this week, we should take a day to catch up with old friends. Im sure all of you are dying to know whos doing what now, whos with who now, and most importantly, whos earning the most now. So here are the plans for wednesday:

There are two options. We may have lunch at this pasta place in Subiaco, then go to kingspark and cam whore. Or, we may go to kingspark and cam whore, then go eat at Subi.

I know, the activity sounds rather drab. But but, do note that eunice teo will be there. Yes eunice teo. If you struggle to rememeber who she is because we haven seen her in so long, eunice teo was the champion legendary woman who allowed us to have a BBQ in her house. She will be doing most of the photo taking and most of the pasta eating as well. So please, rsvp your attendance to Jiali, yes the chinese lady who has turned out quite well after all these years and we shall meet again on wednesday. I am so excited! 

Sorry for that big of rubbish above,

The tribute:

A couple of weeks back, we were in cell and I was introducing everyone. I apologise for that crappy introduction and so i decided to do a proper one, less formal from previous blog posts, befitting of the kiwis on here. So lets throw up our gang sign and read on...

Eunice teo: She is really quite a remarkable young woman. Eunice has been a real blessing to all of us this semester haha. While at times abit boring with the crappy games and the loserish refreshment themes, Eunice has shown her care to all of us in incredible ways. Plus, she works at subway in her spare time and still fits uni around all of that. Im willing to bet that if she had a car, we would be seeing alot more of her in the week. More to be said but yea, we'll leave that for cell leaders appreciation. 

Jiali:

Im sure most of you will agree that the indomitable spirit of this lady is frightening at times. However,  i respect jiali for her loyalty to her country. She is also incredibly in love with the lord jesus christ and seems to like to make food that takes ages to cook. One momenet i remember about her is during the road trip we had last semester, she told me how her brothers shoot her with toy guns. The facial expression was priceless. So i hope Jiali continues to make us laugh in cell. Perhaps maybe not hitting me so much too.

Kenny Chan: Words cannot describe how much i respect this man. Seriously, sometimes during sharing, im like, dude, thats some dope wisdom. Hes sharing has really impacted me and like just the way he does car trips and sends people home as well is pretty thought provoking, in a good way.

Gloria Tan: Another powerful woman. Loves the odd wash and makes mad dog good egg tarts. In all seriousness, very sincere and caring person too. Very entertaining at times and seems to have grown fond of the word apparently. One moment i remember of gloria is on the second day of the road trip and she was fortunate to join our car, the big willy! yea anyways, we had a good chat, cause she was sleepy. Hopefully our prized dish washer doesnt leave us next year.

Eunice wong: Wong face is just too funny. I view her with suspicion because she's always getting me into trouble. For example, on the first day of uni in semester one, i was rather unfortunate to meet her while walking to uni and we both got lost as she insisted that her way was the right way. We ended up at some weird place. Good thing Max came and saved us. But in all seriousness, Eunice wong has a really good heart and she does love to help people. Case in example, shes going to South america at the end of the year to help the less fortunate.

Linzie: Now most people will think that linzie is just the quiet little girl who smiles alot and looks very cute. But Linzie is actually quite the pro at university. Honestly, i have never seen her skip a single lecture. She is also really kind to everyone. Big thanks to linzy for giving me a jason mraz cd and introducing his music to me. We will definitely bring you to a concert one day even though you live so freaking far haha.

Janice: Well, i haven known Janice for a very long time. Most days, she does enjoy seeing me in discomfort and pain. However, i have come to realise that she is quite a nice person deep down (haha its true). She serves in the ushering ministry which plays a big part in the church and just has this huge grin on her face all the time. I remember the last time we played for cell worship together and it was my bad that she didnt get the chords right but she didn't even complain and still played on. Too good she was. She is also a great contributor in sharings, clearly, she is also very wise. (must be an age thing i swear haha).Also, she has a fondness for drawing on my feet for some reason.

Alethiea (is this spelt right): The other half of the dynamic superhero team of team jeremy. Alethiea says she pretty much sucks at everything. Guitar, piano, cooking etc etc. Haven known her for the longest time too and when i first met her, i thought that she didnt speak english. (cause you didnt speak much at all). After a few weeks of chilling at Eunice's house early before cell and moaning that we should be doing our assignments, I've come to realise that she is anything but quiet. She obviously is quite pro at the piano and obviously should give up learning how to play the guitar. One thing that i remember distinctly about her is last week at cell when we were talking about expanding team jeremy to a three piece and she laughed even though it wasn't really that funny. Too good, hope you have a good birthday soon, even though you are the second oldest person in our cell.

Lin: Another new one to my friends list. Like me, she is a fellow northie who lives in the whoop whoop of joondalup. Lin is quite possibly the most cheerful person ever. She just smiles alot for some reason. Some times i thinks its cause shes taking some pills. Jokes aside, Lin is another of those girls who wash alot of dishes during cell. I am eternally grateful to her and also very grateful that i have some one to talk to on the long ride to joondalup. She just had her birthday not long and we wish her a happy year ahead.

Lijin: And now we have the nerd (sorry ben see calls you that). A great buddy of mine ( we go all the way back to primary school), we had this one session in the law library where Ben, Lijin and myself attempted to study. Wasn't the most productive session there was. Lijin is the mentee of gloria and might soon take over her as cell dishwasher. She does this all however, with a cheerful heart. Lijin also has some mad massaging skills and i do urge you all to ask her for a quick one before cell. We are so glad we stole her from Benny's cell.

Ly: A new young fledging to the cell, we welcomed her two weeks ago when she came for a quick visit. I do hope that this introduction is more helpful to you ly. You are quite the eager learner i realise lol.

Apologies if this seems rather rush but i promise a more well written and thought out one will be written for the cell appreciation. While it is sad that we only have a few more weeks left with each other, i do hope we can grow as tight as we can and i mean, with such a cool gang sign like ours, whats not to like. Peace to all of you and we'll be praying for you. (especially for gloria cause shes quite stressed lol)

Refreshments and Cell stuff

Whew, what a week. I shall attempt the world this week in a few sentences. Rodger federer won the US open. We had a hung vote in the state election. I joined the choir and owned it. Fun times at the convocation. Tts only wednesday thats why not much as happened but a certain cell member who was tasked the job of choosing the theme for refreshments has chosen a rather controversial theme. This could arguably be the best or the worst refreshments we will have.

And now, straight from the horse's mouth...

" Spring clean, just when you think winter's got you cornered, strike back. This week, we will be indulging in food that you know is good for you but you never knew it tastes so *cat*(edit because it was not edifying) good. Go low in fat but keep the full on flavour. Lets get a little nurition into our system and get into the mood for spring"

Pretty impressive theme i must say. For those of you who didn't quite catch it, i think what mysterious person ( we shall code her G LOrea because she didn't want to be known, hint her name starts with G and rhymes with diarhoea) wanted to say is we will be eating healthy food. Before we go all alfafa sprouts and tofu and organic everything, i want to emphasize the full on flavour comment. I guess we can start working towards the abs and glutes that we need for that beach trip in summer. I dont know, but for me, spring was always the nasty season of flu, fever and the occasional syphilis. So friends, tag away and decide what to bring. Yours truly might be cooking for the first time and its not going to be mi goreng.

And now for the serious matter of "GUESS WHO". The beautiful boy is ME of course. Clearly, at a young age, i was destined for great things. My taste in socks and clothes were questionable but it was the 90s, we loved to be ugly. Oh and just in case anybody wanted to know, the other kid was eunice teo. Please also read the why do we fall bruce and rate it out of 10. Or you can give it a star if you think its that good.

Anyways, to make this more personal, im going to say i miss you all, love you all, and that im praying for some of you. Those that i can remember of course. Nah im kidding, all of yous.

peace

note from eunice: i was thinking of making mooncake after cell.. wad say u guys? cos we r gg for mooncake festival celebration on sat aft service.. taking over dinner time hehe...

guess who?!?

hey guys.. how was service this week??? weren't the testimonies and sermon and video just awesome??? for those of you who want to watch the full video, u guys can go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=flRvsO8m_KI its about another 5 minutes more than what was shown during service.. but yeap. shall we all take the effort to give our dad's a call to just say 'hi' or do something to appreciate them this week yea.. and like for the men in the house, maybe go give dad a hug or sth. hehehe..


anyway.. i thought it'll b fun if i left some "GUESS WHO?!?" game for u guys to play.. i've taken 2 pictures of our cell members. when they were still young. and put it up.. give a guess to who they are k.. [for those of you who know it in advance, keep quiet.. shhhh...]

first up, we have....

picture 1

who do u think that looks like??? hehe.. drop a tag with your guesses k.. hehehe.. and next up... we have

picture 2

yupyup.. now guys. put your votes in.. everyone must comment k... dun waste all my effort in digging up all the sources from different people. hehe.. kekeke.. results will be revealed in the wednesday entry for cell updates k...


meanwhile, i hope all of u had a good time relaxing looking and laughing at the pics. enjoy studying guys.. last week before we get a break... keep pressing on guys.. we'll have some great fun during the break.. just to keep u guys motivated. here are a list of activities we can do while wong is away in singapore n we are all on break..
- sea kayaking @ rottnest island on tuesday
- go out to the beach
- bbq @ jem's place for cell [tot mayb better to push it forwards. since ppl wld b free]
- THEN, girls nite out @ my palce aft cell


all these are rough plans k? we'll get der in terms of organizing it. but most importantly, keep studying guys!!!


have a great week ahead!! remember to keep God priority even in busy times k..

Why do we fall bruce?

Why do we fall bruce?


I realise i am being rather narcissistic here writing post after post about fairly rather pointless material mainly about myself.

So I thought, with all the whingeing that Jiali has poured out over the last couple of weeks about uni course preferences, i thought ill help her out by sharing some experiences about uni and what to expect from the courses most of us undertake. So Jiali, pen and paper, and lets start this epic journey of learning.


Of course, it would be ideal that you start studying quite hard for your college exams. When it comes to preferences, it is preferable that and we do prefer that you get a high mark. Students armed with a high grade average can pretty much do any course they prefer and are not just stuck with a choice between arts and going to curtin (please do not hate me janice and other kids from curtin, im just trying to illustrate a point). Now heres a short list of the courses that fellow kiwis are studying at the moment

1) Commerce
The quintessential course for the asian who loves his rice and and being late for everything. With commerce, you can expect to have mostly average and sometimes rubbish lecturers for your first few semesters. Leading the list of all time failures at the moment is Gopalan ( yes that is he's name) of stats fame and Vincent " i am boring and from malaysia" Chong. Of course, there are benefits to studying commerce. You would have an abundance of friends in every lecture, you get to lecture mostly in the uber convenient locations of social science and arts (maybe not next year when that infernal building gets completed), you would be able to scab notes off your seniors and you actually have so few contact hours that you could easily shop at harbour town. Of course, the content of commerce gets a bit harder as you progress but theres certainly money to be made on a finance, accounting or banking major. And if you decide you just wanna party at uni, marketing and management always welcomes you with open arms.

2) Bio Medical
As the name suggests, this course is mostly about Biology and Medical stuff. The biology part kinda dry. The medical part, pretty dry too. From a completely unbiased view, i objectively think that Bio Medical is pretty dry. But, on the plus side, you get to do biology stuff, and if you're really lucky, they throw in some medical stuff at the end of the day. To summarise all that has been said about this course, the content is mainly biology and medical issues. (if you think about it, why not just study medicine, its bio med, without the biology).

3) Psychology
My learned friend from singapore once extolled to me the virtues of a psych major. The list of greats from this field are numerous but i will list some of the prominent ones. Carl Jung, the intellectual who shared the view that man loved science and logic over spirituality. Sigmund Freud, whom which freudian slips are named after. He too had a bushy beard. This fellow also might have studied the idea of repression in the mind and was said to have had a super ego. Michael Foucault, arguably not a psychologist but was weird enough to be grouped with the super brainacs. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, and there are many more great persons. Bringing it all together, by choosing to study this course, perhaps one might figure out the reasons we pee in our beds at night.

4) Human Movement
Once known as sports science, or just sports, this course has the unlucky distinction of having the building at the "end" of the university. For the longest time, the human movement building was like a legend, nay a myth that seniors told to us freshies. It is some what like the lochness monster. You hear about it alot and it intrigues you, but you don't really want to see it because it would be too much of a discomfort. Enrolling in this course will make you very knowledgeable in the art of nutrition and other very active stuff. Of course, do not enroll in this unit if you do not like sitting in a lecture room that spells like sweat. Also, note that you will be doing alot of active stuff.

5) Law
This is the course with the best faculty club. The blackstone society does make sure its members are fully integrated into the student community. But why study law? Firstly, you will probably make tons of cash, maybe not as much as the investment bankers in the commerce faculty, but enough to get the new model audi tt roadster and maybe a lunch at broadway everynow and then. There will be probably alot of reading to do, more so than you ever thought possible. Also, do not be fooled by movies such as Legally blonde and ally mcbeal. We do not wear copious amounts of pink and or wear ferragamos and carry gucci clutches. We also do not bring midget dogs to the class. We do often however, forget to do assignments. To quote elle woods from a not so famous movie " Sorry sir, i wasn't aware that we had an assignment". At the end of semester, you would be able to name at the top of your head 3 people that make you want to throw things when they raise their hands in class. In summary, law school promises a fun adventure for those who are willing to learn, and read. And i promise, we do not do biology or medical stuff.


Conclusion:
Obviously uni life will be very different from life in canning college. But do take comfort in the fact that you will have alot of friends at UWA. ( again sorry to the curtin readers/ friends?) But whatever course you may choose to take, remember that we all strive to do our best here at this fine institution and that we have bright futures even if we do choose to do biology and medical stuff.
so see you when i see you
xoxo


"so we can learn to pick ourselves up"

Refreshments and other boring but useful information

And he stood, at the pass of thermopylae, surveying the vast invading army that seemed to be uncountable. Leonidas, a man of courage and truth raised his sword. With his other free hand, he formed a fist and beat his chest, " For sparta!" he cried and a resounding battle cry was raised throughout the 300 that were present...

Gotta love that epic story of the battle at the pass of thermopylae. Truly a symbol of hope and courage to our generation. Anyways, i hope everyone in our band of "brothers" (sisters too of course but it would have sounded weird if i had gone band of sisters) have been keeping well. Let us all hold to the maxim of good sleep and a good diet equals happy times.

This week for cell, the theme for refreshments is stuff you can put on a stick and grill. Fondly remembering the joy ( and slight pandemonium) that was the tuckshop boys at foodfest, i thought, why not recreate the wonderful moments. So of course, i will be bringing my grill and lots of butter.

Stuff that taste good on the grill

1) Fishballs

2) Sausages

3) Crabsticsk

4) Bacon

5) Mushrooms

Pretty much anything goes here so yea, just bring whatever you fancy. Remember the point of all this is not just to feed ourselves, but to make eunice's house smell like grilled butter. Mmh, tasty. Going off topic for a while, i remember i once saw an add for BBQ perfume. What the?!

Also Eunice Wong will be doing worship this week. I shall comment no futher.

Lastly, I do apologize for this hasty post. Rather dismal in the style and writing, and all round boring too but I promise the next post will entertain.

Cheerio

[please check previous post for disclaimer added]-eunicet