Great Savior
Friday, August 31, 2007
I don't know what it is, but it's just that I'm in the thinking mode now, setting aside the fact that I'm feeling sleepy cause I have yet to have a full payback of the number of hours of sleep which I'm deprived of.
In the thinking mode; I have to admit something and that is, these past few weeks, there's this song stuck in my head. Everywhere I go, people will hum the tune when I'm around, not intentionally, but casually. It's not just one person who did that, but many and on different occasions. Some did it when I was studying, while some did it when we were slacking, just like what happened today when I was resting in the Gallery when Terence who lied down beside me did the same thing.
I came home, and I could have watched an action movie or a comedy, but I didn't. I watched "Amazing Grace" over and over again.
It's a movie about the abolition of the Slave Trade and also, the Grace of God.
There are so many sources on the internet which you can search and look up on it, to learn about what happened but actually the movie has summarised it all well.
A guy who is in the world, but not of the world. A guy who was called to do God's work in the world, hanging on to the conviction in his heart and never gave up till the very day he succeeded. All these events then led to a famous Christian hymn being born which speaks about the Grace of God and the goodness of His mercy.
Amazing Grace
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!
Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.
Who would have thought that the lyrics of this famous Christian hymn was written by a Preacher, his personal own reflection on 1 Chronicles 17:16-17. It was first told to the people during his sermon on New Year's Day in 1773.
John Newton; the man who campaigned in the abolition of the slave trade, when he was once a captain of a slave ship.
Non-Christians mostly like this song because of it's meaning, and it gives peace. This song is more significant to me than any other thing, for this song expresses exactly what I feel when it comes to talking about the Lord.
Non-Christians mock at us when they see Christians worshiping God and they remained skeptical, for it's difficult for them to believe that Christ is very much alive and they think we're just worshiping an unknown god. When I sing my praises to the Highest, they think that I'm mentally crazy for I'm singing to no one.
You don't have to force yourself to believe in what Christians say; You would find God knocking on the door of your heart one day. When people get saved, most of them would express their joy for they have found God.
Instead, God found me. Who would have expected my destiny's to be a sound man? God would for He planned it. Who would expect a kid at the age of 8 to think beyond kids of that age, where the teacher would ask what are the things you like in your favourite song and most of them would say the lyrics, the singer's voice, while I said "the bass".
I didn't find God. God found me. His Presence only falls when a true believer worships Him, that's why non-Christians do not experience Christ, especially when their heart is hard and has no belief at all.
"Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly. I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior"- John Newton
Labels: Revelation
posted by Rod @ 4:11 PM,
It's Ober. OVER
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Haha, it's so over.
All the tolls and sleepless nights, it has finally come to an end. Well, almost to an end if not for the theory paper.
Thanks to those who helped me and encouraged me along the way. I would not have done it without you people.
It's is very heart-warming to know that there are many people out there whom I can rely on, may it be in small ways or big ways. Thanks so much!
It has taken to much of my time that now I lagged behind in terms of relationships with people around me, having to spend more time doing my project rather than catching up with people I know and knowing more about them as each day passes.
Now that it's over, I can finally take a breather.
Labels: Daily rant
posted by Rod @ 11:47 PM,
Moments: Friends
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Who would have expected a simple lunch which was arranged the day before to turn out a surprise?
Sometimes, I think to myself that friends are people around me whom God has arranged me to meet them, and help, guide and see through all the way, well, hopefully for a long time and that was what my whole life I thought it was all about.
I didn't expect anything in return and a smile is actually sufficient enough as a return, for money can't buy a smile, a true sincere smile.
I thank God for all the people around me, especially close ones and it's always a joy in my heart to see them around and hopefully too, for the numerous years to come.
Prelims starting next week, followed by the study break and here comes the Os. Grad Night and bye bye till February next year when we get our results. Laughter or disappointment, everyone's gonna go their separate ways and only successfully organised outings will bring everyone back together again.
Everyone's got to move on, but the stubborn me don't wanna. 4 years in TK is memorable, well, not the school but the people that I have met in this place. All the joy and laughter during lessons, silly things that we do during lessons and after school, all the staying-back and complaining. I can't just forget all that.
I have thought about it through and let me share with you.
I'm gonna dedicate a room to all my friends in my future home, when I get a place of my own, and in this room will be portraits of you guys, may it be a solo portrait or group photos. I'm gonna do it like the picture below.
These is just a preview on how it would look like. I'm gonna hang all the photographs of you guys on all 4 walls and in the middle of the room will be an iMac or Mac Pro on a computer table. All the photos that I have taken and the videos that I have filmed would all be there and for viewing pleasure.
I will have a spotlight each for every portrait on the wall and will be controlled by a light console and I'll be sitting on a roller chair. Last but not least, this room will have the best home sound system in that time and it will have all the songs which will remind me of the days which are taking place now.
Damien Rice's songs would definitely be on my playlist.
Some people will just laugh their heads off because all these costs money and well, I have none on me yet. If Pastor How had a vision of the church's stage being a cross three years ago and it has now come to pass, I'm sure God will do the same for me too.
Going from Believing to Expecting.
Rachel and Amirul would be one of the few that I have decided whose portraits will be up on my wall. 4 years of strong friendship and still growing stronger, what else can I say? Even with the change of class didn't stop us from interacting and still going into each others' life.
Thanks for the present and it's the best belated birthday celebration I ever had. The effort that both of you put in, the vanguard from Rachel and the shirt from Amirul, now I feel so guilty that what I have done is so totally not enough.
Our beautiful creation for the day.
Damien Rice, the ultimate song-composer and singer. Thanks to Amirul who introduced me to him and from that day onwards I've been listening and listening so his songs daily and all of his songs has their own story to it.
Labels: Moments
posted by Rod @ 11:33 PM,
Moments: D&T
Friday, August 24, 2007
I'm gonna start a new section of my posts and they would labeled as "Moments". Haha, instead of Daily Rant all the time. I know that my blog has yet to have a section at the Navigation Bar which allows you viewers to read my posts based on the labels. Just to tell you, I have yet to label all my posts that have been archived since the day I started blogging. So, they won't be any navigation for that yet.
Okay, I shall start with D&T. Well, it's only just a subject which many people think that gives people mores stress cause we have to do an artefact a folio which needs to be submitted for O Level marking and that carries like half the percentage in deciding our overall grade for this subject.
But still, many things to highlight what's so great about this subject is:
1) We have the freedom to walk around during lessons.
2) Our lessons do not involve the study of machines like what Geog or Lit students do with their own materials.
3) We get to interact and talk openly during lessons, instead of being railed at to shut up.
You know, things like that. It has never been a regret of mine to take up this subject although I get screwed by teachers all the time, got criticised of my lousy work and my dumb drawings, which no one, including the teacher could understand and in the end, failed the criteria of the marking process, under Communication.
If Miss Seah's reading this, I bet she'll laugh at me like mad, she predicted that I'll be the only person in the history of all 4Cs who take D&T that doesn't achieve an A1 for O Level. I guess so, even by looking at my own work, I can vomit on it. Submission's just 3 days away.
So little time, yet so much to do. Hasn't life always been this way?
Enough of all the emo stuff that I have to say. Let me bring you to a switch in atmosphere and show you materials which I'm proud to showcase.
The Journey!
This is just only a few photos of I took. There's still a chunk and a bulk of it in my folders and I have no time to upload all.
Charging your mobile phone (Handphone/cellphone can't be used in Compos) during lessons. How cool is that. Haha.
Till next time!
Labels: Moments
posted by Rod @ 11:00 PM,
Sharp
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Singaporeans are the best in picking out the bad things, but still not smart enough to take advantage of good things.
Labels: Daily rant
posted by Rod @ 11:06 PM,
Relating
Monday, August 20, 2007
3 am in the morning and I'm at my laptop blogging.
I don't feel guilty about it cause I slept throughout the night, and hey, you have to compensate your study hours right? Chemistry test today and you sleep throughout the night, not waking up to study? You must be out of your mind.
I was just on Youtube watching a video on Damien Rice, a live version of "Cheer's Darlin' " one of his songs and he explained the story behind it. Now, it makes more sense and you can relate to the song better with background info.
Listening, listening, browsing through the pictures that I have in my folders (isn't a complete compilation cause I lost my data weeks back) and I found a neoprint. Okay, don't go asking me why I took neoprints. Some guys will go, "Eee, why you take neoprint? So gay." I will kill you if you say that in front of me.
Okay, back to what I have to say, yes a neoprint, a scanned one sent to me by my gorgeous and wonderful mum, Rachel. Haha, it brought back memories and FYI, I was dragged into the neoprint machine. And here's the catch: I was branded "Freak" by them and it was written with a thick yellow brush tool. And on my head went a crown, so that makes me the Champion and the King of all freaks.
I'm not going to post that picture up cause you will download it for various reasons:
1. Because Rachel is gorgeous.
2. Because Wei Ting is gorgeous.
3. Because you want to laugh at the freak in the picture.
The term, Freak, was pretty much suitable for me THEN. You've got a guy in the picture who has anger management issues and a short temper, needless to emphasise on these points or add in more, the term could already be used.
Talk about extreme makeover, I am an example and it can only be done with grace and mercy of God.
I still have many pictures in my folders that I can't explain why they are with me, I got Sophia's family picture taken during Chinese New Year, a class photo of Chung Cheng High Main, wallpapers of this character Mr Boombastic. Those that I can explain would be wallpapers of the comic character The Punisher, as well as it's famous icon, the skull on him.
After more than 2 years, Ghost Rider look much cooler to the extend that sometimes I wish I have that kind of powers. Have your body in flames and night shots would be damn cool. Imagine standing on the Shear's Bridge with the Esplanade at the back, and your whole body in flames showing the skeleton only. Lifting people up and throwing them against the wall, and go, "Look into my eyes! Your soul is stained with the blood of the innocent!"
The bad guy dies with charred eyeballs. Haha.
All these fantasies get hooked onto your mind and you dream about having those powers. Bad Hollywood, naughty naughty Hollywood.
From the existent C5, to a breakdown and transfer to C7. Ghee, wonder how the future's gonna be like. I admit of having visions that C5 would one day grow so big and all of us now would rise up as leaders to lead, but now that I'm in C7, I really don't know what the future's gonna be like. Well, I'm prepared to be blown away. (:
Labels: Daily rant
posted by Rod @ 3:01 AM,
Da Bomb
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Woohoo, the new iMac.
Sexy.
Labels: Daily rant
posted by Rod @ 10:45 PM,
A Mistake?
Many things happened during these few days: O Level Chinese results, O Level English Oral, DPA results.
For all these, I can only thank my Heavenly Father who brought me through all these and the glory goes out to him. Haha, it's about time that I show the world; mainly my parents that I can excel in my studies and be committed in church at the same time.
Parents will never be satisfied with their children, something which is common in all families. My mum just went " Work harder. " when I told her about my results. I guess the point wasn't brought forward to her. She just expects too much of me.
I'm filled with mixed feelings now. I was faith-filled and I prayed for my DPA, hoping that I get accepted into Temasek cause it's like in the East and how easy it is to travel to Singpost, although it's a half an hour's bus ride. When Miss Seah heard about it today, she laughed at me.
Instead of being happy or any other kind of reaction, she had to laugh. Well, she had her reasons for doing so.
Main reason: Mechatronics was a dumb course, well, to her. And at that point of time I got so worried that when a person of engineering qualifications and experience laughs at you, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to tell you that something is wrong.
Now, 3 days after the results was out on the web, my mum started going gaga cause Mechatronics wasn't the course that I was suppose to put as my first choice.
[ What a comment when she agreed after I discussed with her in the first place. ]
What do you do during times like these? I can only trust God to turn things around for a good cause. If He allowed me to enter TP, there is a cause for it and I believe that He has plans for me to carry out in that campus.
These are the times when you cannot rely on being real to turn things around. There are limited things we human beings, mortals can do. Lifting the situation up to the Most High One will there be a change in the situation.
Labels: Daily rant
posted by Rod @ 8:48 PM,
Experiments
Friday, August 10, 2007
Introducing Adobe Lightroom 1.1:
Haha, cool program that works well when you have both that and Adobe Photoshop. Although Lightroom is targeted at professional photographers, a casual one like me uses it as well. Haha. Go download it if you're interested.
I'm still in the process of editing the photos and I hooked up Lightroom, so I'm in the midst of experimenting the program. I will send them out when I've reached a level of satisfaction which will be real soon. Haha, thanks for the patience.
Tomorrow will be the grand opening of Singpost and I've already seen quite a number of people walking into the place even before today. So it's like a handful of them have already seen the interior of it. Sigh, I wish I was one of them. Haha, but it wouldn't be a big deal at the Grand Opening if I did so. Different point of views I guess.
Photos of Grand Opening will be mine tomorrow!
Labels: Daily rant
posted by Rod @ 12:11 AM,
Always been here.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
It's been quite a while since I last post, I'm not people like Amirul who updates his blog on a regular basis and and the same time come out with posts that has substance. Different life schedules I guess. People have different deadlines to meet and goals to achieve.
Many of the regular bloggers have already celebrated their 500th posts and beyond, that doesn't apply me for though. I still have a long way to go, despite blogging for 2 years already. What does that say about me? I'm still not a full-time committed blogger.
Still, just start off this post with a funny local picture spotted by Mr Brown:
Wah, not bad ah. They can read the papers upside down. Haha. That shows how dumb advertisements can be at times. Even though you have put the message across to the people, you must also make sure it's realistic too.
Sometimes it irritates me when bloggers strip materials out from another blogger's website and then post it as their own. I mean, I give credit to whom I got the pictures etc. from. There's like no honesty and you're just enjoying someone else's glory and honour when you do that. It's really irritating. This is just something purely random: my thoughts.
*
Sorry guys, the pictures are still not up yet. Give me some time to edit them before sending the pictures to you all. Haha, today's really a great day.
Great day in school, great night pigging out with my fellow classmates at Seoul Garden. Haha, really had my fill eating that buffet. Haha, food was good but still can be improved. I can't expect much out of it also, it's not like as though it's a Five-Star restaurant, but it serves like almost anything you would love to eat under the sun. Almost. Haha, don't wanna give you high hopes.
Great day in school: It's not about the National Day celebrations, all that was fun only at the last part where people started standing up to sing National Day songs and everyone started getting hyped up. I'm sure that the elderly were bored, cause like they probably didn't understand a single word that was said during the event. Everyone spoke in English, sang in English and cheered in English.
What I'm refering to are personal thoughts. Pastor Sy Rogers shared on the last session of his seminar that he went many places that were awful; drugs, prostitution and he started asking God, " Where are you? Where are you in the midst of all these? "
He got the answer every time he asked that and God would always reveal to Him that He has always been around, in the midst of the fallen people and moving among them.
I got my answer today.
Although I'm not allowed to reveal or else I will get skinned alive, Haha, but still..
I'm guilty of having thoughts and this place would just be like the other schools, having people with bad influence and then students being affected by the pop culture of this world and their actions would sometimes lead to their own suffering of consequences. No matter how head you can try to turn that around, all of us are students and our age doesn't matter much; No one's going to listen to you anyway. Why would any teenager listen to you when now they don't even listen to the adults? What makes you think you have capacity to influence compared to today's pop culture? I can try my best to influence those around me with positive and morally correct ways, there's only a handful.
Where's God when all these mess is going on and they don't seem to change or improve for the better?
He has always been here.
He has already planned and sent out His people into the world.
I'm just the younger generation to realise that another generation before me has always been doing the Work of God which they have been sent to do.
I realise that all thanks to a simple decision to stay longer for a while. This " a little while more " of time, had become a personal revelation of mine.
I no longer question like before, I got my answer today.
Labels: Daily rant, Revelation
posted by Rod @ 11:55 PM,
