SAT woes

i've been steadily scoring poorer and poorer in my mock SAT tests. in fact, in my last test, i only scored like 600 for maths. i had 10 consecutive qns wrong for identifying sentence errors, and my essay is getting nowhere. to make things worse, next week is my actual SAT, and i'm aiming for stanford. hmmm, wonder if i can still make it...

~shakes head and sighs~

anywayz, here's a quik quiz.. very obvious one. answer all the qns first b4 looking at the answers:

Qns:
1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?
2) Which country makes Panama hats?
3) From which animal do we get catgut?
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7) What was King George VI's first name?
8) What color is a purple finch?
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?







eh.. dun cheat!!!





Ans:
1) 116 years, from 1337 to 1453
2) Ecuador
3) From sheep and horses
4) November. The Russian calendar was 13 days behind ours
5) Squirrel fir
6) The Latin name was Insularia Canaria - Island of the Dogs
7) Albert. When he became king in 1936, he respected the wish of Queen Victoria that no future king should ever be called Albert
8) Distinctively crimson
9) New Zealand
10) Orange

~oops not so straightforward yeah?~

screwed up overtime

yup that's wat happened lah... my branch had to stay back for some prep with our bosses to prepare for an upcoming audit. prior to this day, we've been doing lots of drawing and tracing. wah do so much until my eyeball gonna pop out liao.

so on this fateful night, we worked hard and toiled on until 10.30pm.. cuz of this, i failed to see ms goon off at the airport. could sense the sadness in her voice when i called her to tell her that i would not be able to make it. yeah understand the feeling. zheng books out on sat night, chork on overseas training, vanessa overseas, bernie with an upset stomach.. so think i was her 'last hope'.. gasp!!

haiz wat to do leh.. anyway, hope ms goon wil enjoy herself at cambridge. haha must send back some photos of your blonde classmates yeah? haha

just so blessed

wow wow wee yea... went to DON at tanglin mall for dinner with popo and yeye.. had taht korean bulgogi beef rice thingey... ummm... damn shiok and nice. filling too... the nice sunny side-up egg on the top adds to the stickiness of the rice, just the way i like it.

did a bit of window shopping after dinner. walked past 'that cd shop' and heard those kind of familiar tunes that you usually hear on 90.5 and on tv ads, but never knew the title. (oh yeah, for those who didn't know, i'm an oldie fan. lol) walked in and.. JACKPOT. the whole album had all those popular songs that have lasted through the ages and have been used countless times on tv... like 'music to watch girls by' (interestingly, that's the title of the album by high society) just heard a few of the songs and went "wow! must really get this album"

then the big heart-stabber came when i saw the price tag. bleh... 36 bucks!!! hmmm gotta consider.. but then, quite suddenly, popo just took one album of the rack, asked me if i liked it, and immediately ran to the cashier to pay for it. i was like "woah! that's fast!" and the album was mine... wow, how deep is their love for me

you know, i must be really blessed... did some reflection just now, thinking how good the Good Lord has been to me, even though i've been disobedient and simply a wretched person. He's given me such great parents who love and support me all the way; loving grandparents to shower even more love on me; good health, a house to live in; great pals in camp too... what more can i ask...

yeah wat more can i ask, except for the Good Lord to continue to draw me close to Him...

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ONE DAY

More than I could hope or dream of,

You want to pour your favour on me.

One day in the house of God is,

better than a thousand days in the world.

CHORUS:

So blessed I can't contain it.

So much I gotta give it away.

Your love has taught me to live now.

You are more than enough for me.

something's missing

yeah.. feeling the pinch once again for not persevering.

the other sgts were teaching their guys some stuff, something that i would have liked to do. but well, guess i'll never have the chance to do it, since i don't have my own men to look after.

still, i was able to walk around after lunch to kaypoh at their coy line. taught the guys some wrong stuff which i later corrected. (prob its a good thing i didn't teach them anything) haha so much for being a TO... lol

Happy Birthday Pappy!!!

Gee, Dad is really getting old. yi4 zhuan2 yan3 (in a flash of an eye), he's 49, and having lots of white hair. haha must be the stress at work that he goes through each day. he's been complaining a bit about work and wants to get out of it. oh well, he calls it a mid-life change (something to that extent lah) .. as a good son, i just accept it as his wish, since its his life. yup...

so today, to celebrate, we went out with popo and yeye to colbar, near temasek club. apparantly, this place was an officer's mess in some camp last time. then with the construction of the semi-expressway near aye, they shifted there lor. haha the chinese food there was really good, better than chin chin to be precise. price was a bit steep, but well, now with gst going up, inflation is settiling in.

on a side note, think we were the only table eating chinese food; everyone else was going western, so yup think that's what we'll do next week =)

on a separate note, at bs today, got to share a bit of my heart with jonas about my throwing in the towel early problem. oh wll, at least feel better that yup, can share it with someone lah...

you know, though i've confessed that i may have been disobedient, and i know that the good Lord has forgiven me, i still feel unworthy of Him. honestly, i feel that He's still somehow pissed at me. maybe it's just me thinking too much, but hey, when your friend pissed you off, won't you still remain grouchy about it for a few days, even though you may have forgiven him?

Nah, i don't think God's like that... Thank God for that

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11Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' 20So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.[b]'
22"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

-Luke 15:11-24 (NIV)

35So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

36You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

37For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay.

38But my righteous one[f] will live by faith.

And if he shrinks back,

I will not be pleased with him."[g]

39But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed,

but of those who believe and are saved.

Split away suddenly

FINALLY, got a chance to see the physiotherapist. wah she quite pretty and young one leh... haha... quite nice also.. think she was able to diagnos my problem more accurately then the other specialists i've seen so far.

yeah, now just me and my buddy, together with the others in my branch. Gee i miss the time we new commanders could just be together in the bunk, talking cock with each other, comparing how screwed up our lives are, or just supporting each other, either through prayer or just waking each other up on time...

so yup, both of us will be the boss of our bunk now... gotta go clean up the bunk too. so freakin dusty...

well, gonna miss the good ol' times... but err come to think of it, its only just 3 weeks together
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haha i like this m1 ad... heard it was the indian restaurant owner who thought out the whole idea.. real smartz..



LOL

choices and stubborness

hey yo... its great being able to just blog here without anyone disturbing you. haha

so yup, i'm out of sispec and now at my home unit, the place where i'll be for the next 1 year and two more months. its an infantry unit by the way, and well, that means more chionging all the way.

anyway, went to see a specialist about my knee. interestingly he didn't ask me to go for an x-ray to see if my condition got worse. But oh well, after a few leg 'tests', he recommended 6 weeks rmj to go rest the poor knee before flying off to brunei.

Pretty thankful for that, cuz well, at least i get the rest from all the rushing that i thought i would have to face in the unit (just like bmtc and sispec). Interestingly enough, unit life really isn't so bad after all. On the contrary, there's quite a fair bit of free time, so haha not that bad after all.

More interestingly, into the first week of unit life, my RSM told me that cuz of my condition, I might get posted to be an int spec. Haha guess the amount of joy I felt after that. whee at last a chance to try something different and new.

however, my posting still wasn't confirmed yet, until further into the month when everyone else was slotted in nicely. so I did have the worry that, hey, i may not get what i want.

so what did i do about it? just persisted in prayer for that whole week, pleading with God that He would grant me my dream post. and in fact, that was the first thing on my list each night.

you may say i may be a very pious, religious person, but hey, that's where i think i crashed and burned badly. cuz in my prayers, i was just stubbornly praying that i would get what i want, instead of praying, "Oh Lord, let Your will be done' Worse still, i kept pleading for my request to be fulfilled, knowing full well that what i was doing was wrong. i mean, i did ponder to myself that by just letting God decide where i go to, i may get a better deal in the long run. but, i guess i just chose to throw in the towel along the way, and quit the path of faithfulness towards my God.

I feel ashamed... ashamed at cutting down my own cross

Well, i've gotten what i want now, but i'm beginning to feel the pains (and regrets) of stubbornly choosing my own path. I'm now separated from my pals who came here together with me from hotel platoon 3. and well, i really treasure these guys (bk, meng hwee, weijun, jar-min), but gotta let go of them now as they trudge out their own paths in their own company. also, i have no section to lead. wonder if it is a good thing or not, but well, guess i missed the essence of being in an unit.

thankfully, God still never forgot my fear of loneliness; Joel also got posted along with me. well, at least someone else I can talk to, but well, 2 guys tend to get familiar with each other too quickly, and then we realise that there's nothing else left to talk about. that's when the coldness sets in again. sigh... hope it stays wrong between us...

do hope my pals are having a great time together with their company and each other.

~Oh God, don't abandon me~


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8 "Hear, O my people, and I will warn you— if you would but listen to me, O Israel
9 You shall have no foreign god among you;

you shall not bow down to an alien god.
10 I am the LORD your God,

who brought you up out of Egypt.

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
11 "But my people would not listen to me;

Israel would not submit to me.
12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
13 "If my people would but listen to me,

if Israel would follow my ways,
14 how quickly would I subdue their enemies

and turn my hand against their foes!
15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him,

and their punishment would last forever.
16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat;

with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

-Psalm 81: 8-16