Physical and spiritual training

Since I started my new job early this year in February, I signed up at the fitness centre near my place, TrueFitness (and I purposely stick the words together so they have less chance of googling this and find me crapping about them a bit. Hehe.). Which was kinda funny coz' before that when the place was new and somehow they got my number (you know how they get members to give their friends contacts so they can call people up and bug them to join the gym), so of course they were calling me a few times to bug me to join too, to the point where I got sick of getting their calls and saved their number as TrueFatness on my phone, so I would know when they're calling and not pick up. And get a good laugh at the same time. But anyway, since my new office is now super near my house, and I no longer waste precious time sitting around in traffic jams, I decided to join the place after all.

Few months after I joined, I got approached by one of their fitness trainers, his name is Danny, who noticed I was wearing knee support on my right knee. I wear it due to my taekwondo accident some time ago, and I explained that to him, so he was went on to suggest that I needed some personal training (PT) coz' of my knee problem, blablabla, and also since I'm a little on the prosperous side, more blablabla.... :P To cut the boring story short, I ended up signing up for some PT sessions and also some kickboxing sessions (supposedly good for burning off extra prosperity), a bit against my better judgement coz' it's pretty pricey.

Thankfully, I haven't really regretted it coz' Danny really knows what he doing (I've heard stories from a friend who took PT but got a back injury coz' of it. Lousy trainer!). He's really professional but fun at the same time, we've gotten along very well. Signing up for PT has since turned me into a gym freak... now I go almost every day (even when I have no session with him) just coz' I want to make the most of the money I spent. Haha! And though in the initial sessions I was feeling some sore muscles here and there, I've pushed myself so far now that I can pretty much take whatever torture he dishes out to me, and he's had to be more creative with me. And he even recently said I'm his strongest client, and mentioned that he shares stories of my progress with other clients as an example. Woo hoo! I'm so proud of myself! :D I think he pretty much considers me his pet project now, and if he can get me to lose quite a few pounds, he will be very proud of himself too. Unfortunately I'm still not dropping as much weight as I hoped, and I can only presume that my fats are as stubborn as I am. Bleh.

But even more importantly is that Danny, although from a Buddhist family and supposedly being a a Buddhist, he told me he's interested in learning more about Christianity and even asked me to help teach him more about it. And since I've started training under him, he's been visiting his friend's church and also reading a bible borrowed to him by a friend. I also lent him my New Living Translation version of the New Testament, which he said he likes better than the old one his friend lent him (easier to understand). He told me he's actually finished reading the whole book of John and finishing the book of Matthew (probably already finished it by now), and even I'm inspired by his desire to read the Word of God. I don't really get much chance to really sit down and share with him coz' other than our sessions together, where he's too busy torturing me for me to really teach him anything about my faith, he's usually busy with other clients. But I tell him whatever I can and have given him Christian booklets and music CDs to encourage him along. As much as he would like to see me to shed the pounds, I think I would like even more to see him come to know Christ. So he's kinda like my pet project too now. Haha! I'm actually glad now that I signed up for the pricey training, since because of this, I have more chance to share my faith with him. Which I'm really bad at doing most of the time coz' I can be quite antisocial and don't really make the effort to spend time with people anyway. Bad of me, baaaad.

To my fellow Christian buddies, do keep Danny in prayer. And while you're at it, you can pray that I lose more weight and become a hot hoochie mama. ;-)

A good week...2 weeks ago :P

Another overdue post! Yargh! But only by a week or so. Just wanted to thank God for one pretty good week (which started 2 weeks ago) coz' of a few things:

1) 2 Sundays ago, my mum, who all my life calls herself Christian but has never really believed in God (and this is due to some bad experience with Christians and people in general, so can't blame her) actually came back to Christ. She had been attending my church services for a few weeks, and that Sunday, she came up to me after church and said she wanted to talk to my pastor. So I went and stole my pastor away from whoever he was talking to, to see my mum, and she told him she wanted to come back to God. So my pastor did the whole Sinner's Prayer with her, and she was crying and all, and I was there with her pretty happy and kinda like "Whoa!" all at the same time.

So now she's an 'official' believer, which is great!... but of course that's only the first step and she need to be discipled as a new Christian and all. And since I'm pretty much the only Christian in the same house as her, that discipling role probably falls on me, and unfortunately life has still been the same since and I'm not quite sure how to about it. As in, I know the technicalities and what I should be doing... but you know, it's my MUM, and though I appreciate her being my mum and all, honestly I'm not super close to her, soooo taking up the role of a Christian mentor is kinda weird for me. I did get her a nice new devotional Bible for women (it's in pink, what s surprise) and gave her one of my old learning guides... it's the just sitting with her and going through all this stuff part that I feel weird about. Trying to get

Anyhow, the fact that she has taken that first step is a great thing already. Now I just need to work on my part. heh. Pray, people. Praaaaay for me. And my mum too. Yeah.

2) At work, I was pretty happy about two things that week, one is that I got a request from a potential client asking to do a project in Thailand, which is the project I really wanted as it would be a great learning experience for me, and upon completion, it would really help to put my company on the radar for the area I'm specializing in, since now we're pretty new in it and my company isn't getting many requests for the area I'm handling. Though the project is not confirmed yet and I have to come with a proposal to get the project, I'm pretty excited about and reeeeaaallly hope we get it. Chances are pretty good, I think.

Another good thing is that I've passed my probation period and recently been confirmed! Woo hoo!!! And better part is that my pay goes up a bit too! DOUBLE woo hoo!!! I'm tempted to say "Up yours" to my ex-boss for not confirming me for dumb reasons.... buuut I won't.... although technically I just did, but that doesn't count coz' I said I wouldn't. Haha.

3) That same week, I also attended my church's monthly prayer meeting, where there was a guest speaker for that night (whose name I can't remember now, but it's some black dude, I think. :P). Anyway, I actually didn't really feel like going for the prayer meeting coz' that day I was feeling really crappy with myself and thinking that I probably wouldn't be able to honestly pray anything good in that kind of mood. But last minute decided to go, and listen to this guy... and one of the first things he said during his message was that by the time we all would leave church that night, we would be filled with joy. And when I heard that I was kinda like "Yeah, right!". Yeah, I was feeling that crappy. Also didn't really help that the same dude spoke so excitedly that he would be yelling instead of speaking more of his message, in this rather high-pitched and grating voice that was getting to me quite a bit. I mean, it's great to be excited for God and all, but yelling about 80% of the time was... em... a bit much. Honestly, I was considering leaving the church, but wasn't a nice thing to do.

Somehow or another I managed to ignore the yelling after a while and listen to what he was saying underneath all the yelling, and what he said was actually good and encouraging. And in the end, he went around praying for quite a number of people in our church individually, still in the same gung ho spirit. And it was an awesome session, where a lot of people who got prayed for by him were so filled with joy and Holy Spirit that they fell over on the floor and was just enjoying the joyfulness. And I was one of them! Yeesh, if I had to choose between feeling crappy and having God's joy, then the option is kinda 'duh'! And since then, I've been feeling much better, and I think a lot of other people there were blessed too.

So yay, thanks God for a good week... two weeks ago. :P

Reflections on the D-word

Today's blog post was inspired by...


A dead rat.

... as well as other things in between, but mainly the dead rat. I saw in a rather contemplative mood today for some reason, and after coming back from the fitness centre nearby, I was just sitting in my car for a while in a dark alone and talking to God about stuff, which I haven't really been doing in a while. So when I got out of my car, I noticed this dead little bugger lying smack in the middle of the road at my apartment's basement. Poor thing probably got roadkilled by a passing car, and even though I realize it's a pest that can cause all sorts of diseases, I still have some sympathy for rodents considering I keep a gerbil family of my own.

Anyhow, it just reminded me about a few recent conversations I've had with friends about... well... death. Yeah I know, not exactly cool dinner topic, but seriously it's the only other thing certain in life asides from taxes, so I find it rather funny how some people just totally skirt the topic, preferring to pretend like it will never happen to them. I know someone whom every time I or anyone else says something along the lines of "You should do (so-and-so) just in case next time you pass on...", he'll get all fidgety and ask us not to say it like that. So we have to be creative and say "...when you're not around anymore..." or something like that. Or even better, just pretend that it will never happen at all. -_O?

I suppose it's a typical reaction of people who are afraid of death... and the only reason to be afraid of death is because they don't know what happens to them afterwards, if anything at all, so they'd just rather not think about it. Which to me is kinda weird, coz' thinking about the possibilities of what could happen to you in the afterlife is a VERY important thing, especially if there is a chance your spirit will continue existing for a long time (like FORVER) after you die.

I, on the other hand, as well as most people of my generation who are less bogged down by the mental and cultural taboos of just mentioning anything pertaining to death, have few qualms talking about it. In fact, I will happily tell you that when I die, I hope that all my reusable organs will be harvested and given to people who really need them, coz' I certainly won't need them anymore, and you all know I'm into recycling, so why waste a perfectly good organ? I just haven't gotten round to signing myself up as an organ donor yet. Dum de dum...

There was also this quote I heard on the radio once, supposedly from some famous dude (I *think* it was Ronan Keating), who said that he's not afraid of death but was afraid of dying. And the radio dj who mentioned that was like "Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" but I was thinking that that makes perfect sense. To be afraid of dying, I figure, means to be afraid HOW you would die. Like I'm totally freaked out at the possibility of going though a slow and painful death, like if I got into a really bad accident and most of my bones broken but still not dead, or if I came down with some debilitating disease and was stuck in a hospital for months or years, or if I was being eaten alive by a lion... well, you get the idea. But I'm not afraid of what will happen to me AFTER I die, just coz' as a believer in Christ, I have a pretty good idea of what's going to me happen to me after death. Therefore the fear of the unknown of the afterlife does not apply to me, as it would to most people who have no such reassurance and might be worried about whether their spirit ends up in some form of limbo-land after death... or whether they've done enough 'good' in their lifetime to earn a place in heaven or to avoid being reincarnated as a cockroach... or whatever their belief system is. I don't mean to sound like one of those pompous Christian pricks (unfortunately, there are some) who think they are better than everyone else coz' we going to heaven... Christians (myself included) are really just about as screwed up as the next person, and we don't get into heaven through anything we did particularly better than anyone else, but only coz' God is just too good to us. But anyhow, the explanation of that is another long story, which I would be happy to share if you asked, but I won't go into here.

One interesting question posed to me recently is "What would you do if you only had 24 hours to live?". Frankly, I really don't like these kind of questions where you won't have the answer to it unless you are actually in that situation. Like seriously, who the heck would actually know what they would do if they had 24 hours left? But there's another aspect of this question that makes it even more interesting... Whatever it is that you would do in the last 24 hours of your life, why aren't you doing it now?

Ooh, bugger.

The friends I were talking to both felt the need to accomplish something worthy within those 24 hours. But I think that in that situation, if you haven't accomplished anything worthy before that, doing so in your last 24 hours is kind of a bit too late. So what I would do is most likely be tying loose ends... writing letters to family and friends to clear up any bad feelings and give them final encouragement, going up to that dude I like and maybe try to weasel a smooch out of him... and THEN once all that's settled, I'd go bungee jumping coz' I've never tried that before and really want to. And THEN I would die in peace. Har har.

And then I think about the question I brought up earlier, which is "Why aren't I doing these things now?". After all, you never know when you're going to die anyway. I could get mowed down by a truck tomorrow. Unfortunately, answering this is much harder than the first question, coz' truth be told, I and probably 80% of the world hold off doing stuff that is important to us for reason that are pretty lame.

So yeah, that's just my few random and rather directionless reflections on death. Cheerio!

The money-spinning blog

I went for Barcamp KL at Inti College over the weekend, which is an event for young entrepreneurs to get together and share business ideas. Basically people come together, whoever wants to talk about something is free to book a slot and present his/her stuff during that slot to whoever wants to listen, and whoever gets bored can just leave and move to another room to hear another speaker. Lots of interesting topics were flying around, from 'How to Date a Japanese Girl' (apparently by a Japanese Girl), to 'Sex and Business' (needless to say, this one was interesting, but nothing to do with porn, people!) to a swing dance lesson from a group called KL Swing.

One talk I particularly liked was about making money from honest blogging. As in, you don't need to blog 'slanderous' stuff that's interesting to make money, but bloggers who write their own uncoierced opinions about things, without being paid off by companies to write something 'good' about their company/products, for example, can actually make a pretty good living off it. Example of this dude I'd never heard of before called Liew C F who actually makes a more-than-decent living just sitting at home in his underpants (or maybe less) blogging away! Of course, his blog is sponsored, but apparently they don't sponsor him to write good stuff about them. He's sponsored just coz' lots of people are interested to read his crap and it's a good place to advertise. Apperently he recently bought a very nice new Honda using his blogging income. How cool is that?

So yeah, I figured since before Barcamp that I would probably make a sucky enterpreneuer/ business person just coz' I don't like the risks associated with starting my own business, I don't have the passion for it and starting businesses involves good networking which I totally suck at as well. Like I didn't really bother to chat much with anyone new at Barcamp, just mainly hung out with the people I already knew. Which defeats part of the purpose of attending it. But one thing I can and do enjoy doing is exactly what I'm doing now, which is BLOGGING. And yeah, I heard of the idea of making money from blogs before, but I didn't really take it seriously til I went for that talk. So after getting that inspiration, I decided to get into the bandwagon of turning my blog into a money spinner. Woo hoo! Well, I'll probably earn a miserable amount from it, if anything at all, but hey, doesn't hurt to try. :P

However, my money spinning blog isn't going to be this one... just coz' if I'm going to get a high influx of unknown readers, I'd rather keep my personal life more private. Thus, I'm saving this blog for blogging more on personal stuff, ie. anything involving family, relationship issues, work, etc. And my 2nd blog shall be all the other stuff...except politics, but I explained that on my first post on my other blog. You can check out my new blog here. As you might expect, it's also in RED. Hehe. I wanted to named it The Red Blog, but that URL and practically every variation of that name was taken, mostly by people who only posted one or two posts like 5 years ago, which is highly annoying. I was tempted to email them and tick them off for using up cool blog URL's for nothing. *Ahem*, anyway, my new blog background looks even cooler than my current one, so I'm pretty stoked. :)

Ode to Australia, Japan, Selina, Gavin, Wai Keet & everything in between...

For those who were at the party: No explanation required. Just enjoy the vid. :)

For those who weren't: Here's a little diddly I wrote and performed with Sonia for my good buddies from church, Sel and Gav who are migrating to Australia, and Wai Keet who's going to Japan to study Japanese, and performed it at their farewell party. I somehow managed to throw this song together in about 4 days (after working hours, of course), and it came out pretty good, so I'm pretty stoked. :) By the way, Wai Keet loves to cosplay (that's Costume-Play ie. dress up in costumes, mainly for Anime fans) while Selina loves pink, so our party's theme was 'Costumes/All Pink'!!



Just to give credit where it's due and for those who are curious, some lyrics were ripped off the following songs:

1) The Australian National Anthem, though in all honesty, I think Adam Hill's version is MUCH better!
2)"I Come From The Land Down Under" by Men at Work. Makes me think videos in the 80's were so much more entertaining than the half-naked-people-prancing-around vids they make these days... though I wonder why there are electricity poles in the middle of a desert at the end of the vid??
3)"Sukiyaki" by 4PM, though originally it was a Japanese song sung by Kyu Sakamoto with lyrics of totally different meaning, and apparently that song has been remade a gazaillion times, but I guess most people, like me, would know the 4pm version. :P
4) "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. This song is classic and some punk rock band seriously needs to remake this!!!
5) The Doraemon Theme Song. And no, I have no idea what the lyrics mean. But that didn't make singing it any less fun! XD

I have photos!!!!