'All good things come to an end?'

I got my ass down to JB today!!
Thai got there in his full glory of gadgets, of which every one proved useful.

I travelled heaps with Thai today.
The magnitude of funny-ess of Thai seems to be directly proportional to the amount of time I spend with him..
I saw Thai the nerd, Thai the boy about to be punished, Thai the excited child running around in his playground...

Then there was Jason whom we dragged out of work.
He was in his bright red shirt which matched his cargo pants which were lined with bright red zippers, all complete with his red pair of Nikes.
Lucky for him or I'd be feeling so extremely lost in Malaysia.
And his shirts definitely helped with spotting him (although I think he saw me first...)!

Wilian was so busy preparing for his New Year's Eve celebrations but he still took the time to come out with us.
And the taught me to shoot robots on the Xbox.

We got back late for dinner with the rest of the Cosdu bunch.
(Oops)
My day out ended with myself picking on Adrian's yummy ice cream cake at Holland Village while laughing at Dennis' horse jokes.

I came home on cloud nine today.
I wish I stayed longer on that fluffy white cloud.

'Excuse me, but I definitely did not want that bubble burst.'

+ Flisha spoke @ 12:35 am

+-+-+-+-+

Christmas 2004

Remember how I said Christmas worked out for me even though the days that led up to it were screwed up?
Here's how it worked out -

If Christmas is the time for get-togethers,
The people I love most didn't let me say no to meeting up with them although I've been dead tired.
Will still be catching up with people, all in the name of Christmas.
After all, Lionel did remind me, that there ARE 12 days of Christmas!
*grin grin*

If Christmas is the season for giving,
I daresay I accomplished that.
I gave my time, my smiles, and my tiles.

If Christmas is the time for Christ,
I looked forward to going to church on Saturday morning.
I was happy before mass, during mass, and for a long time after mass.

Betty and I worked on CHRISTMAS DAY.
And Betty and I had the best dinner one can have at Terminal 1 of Singapore Changi Airport (jealous?).
Wonderful Macdonalds (it's fast food!).
Heavenly MacCafe (hazelnuts, chocolate, cheesecake... yum.........).
Beautiful view (of planes, runway, endless patches of grass).
Hilarious entertainment (Betty).

Thank you Betty for making Christmas especially memorable this year.

+ Flisha spoke @ 12:17 am

+-+-+-+-+

0 Days to Christmas

My job from hell started on 9th December 2004.
I spend 6 days a week from 3 to 11pm in the middle of the airport building where I do not get to see any of the magnificent planes, let alone ANY sunlight - AT ALL.

If Christmas is the time for get-togethers,
I had not been spending time with my family.
And I had hardly any time for my friends.

If Christmas was the season for giving,
I had absolutely no time to go shopping for presents.

If Christmas was the time for Christ,
I haven't felt so far away from Him for a long long time.
I've been for ONE weekday mass since work started,
AND I even skipped a Sunday mass.

There was drama at work (it's ongoing).
And I'm tired practically everyday.

So I haven't been in a particularly good mood.

And just as I was beginning to dread Christmas, it arrived.

But because I'm so loved and things ALWAYS eventually work out for me, Christmas turned out just as I think all Christmases should.

I'll tell ya about Christmas when I've got more brains, because Christmas deserves nothing less.

For now,
thank you,
Betty, Melissa, Xiao Jun, Yiyang, Gengyan, Tim, Rosemary, Sharon, Ezan, for your delightful company this Christmastime.

And thank you,
Alison, Bernice, Dennis, Diane, Edmond, Jason, Jared, Joanne, Justin, Kenneth, Lionel, Mandy, Noel, Ping Zhi, ShuXian,
Rui Hong and Mei^2,
For you love.

+ Flisha spoke @ 1:35 am

+-+-+-+-+

Something common in them all...

I woke up at 10.30am.
Looked at my mobile phone inbox and there were 5 messages.
All from different people.
But it was the weirdest combination of people.

Like.. What are the chances??!!

Note:
This was just for the record too.
You probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

I might tell ya if you ask me.

+ Flisha spoke @ 8:54 am

+-+-+-+-+

Just for the record

10th December:

Events of the day
1. Bumped into Lester who came back from Germany.
2. The dude tries to carry the basket with 2 bottles of liquor in it and one of the handles got 'dislocated'.
He feigns little boy sadness and whines 'the basket has failed me'. :-(


9th December:
'Any duty free drinks for you sir?'
'No I'm fine.'
(5 mins and a goofy grin later,)
'Actually, yes'

+ Flisha spoke @ 2:44 am

+-+-+-+-+

Regrets? - NAAHH!

'If there is one thing in life you would do differently, what would it be?'

I think I'm re-living my life between Sec 3 and Sec 4.
Suddenly, the my surroundings just feel like what it was then.
My thoughts, my friends, my relationships with my family...
How weird is that?

Over the weekend, I sorted out a few misunderstandings which have happened between that time and now.
I said some sorries, I received a few.
So if I negate the misunderstandings which have been cleared up...

It is as though I've been given a second lease in life from that time!
With 3 more years of maturity and experience.

What more can anybody ask for?!

But what would I change?
I've been thinking... and I think I'd not change anything.

I've got no regrets.
Because everything that happened is the best thing that could ever happen to me.

You are the best thing that happened to me.

+ Flisha spoke @ 2:08 pm

+-+-+-+-+

Camp Banyan (entry 2 of 2)

When I was 16, things were happy and simple.
God was everywhere from the trees on the roads, to the people I met.
And I daresay He was also living in me.

In the midst of all the other things to deal with being far away from home, I had forgotten all of that.

Throughout the 29th of Nov and the 3rd of Dec 2004, I experienced part of the happiness and simplicity that I had forgotten.
I experienced unconditional friendship from utter strangers who were ever willing to smile at and laugh with me.
People I didn't know who were truly concerned.
Friends were quickly and easily made.

It was simply amazing.
Thank you, Camp Banyan, for reminding me that the beautiful fact, of God living in other people, still exists.

Thank you,
Noel, Peddie, Fran, Gabz, John, Lynette, Faizal, Iggy, Mark, Alison, Amanda, Wayne, Candice, Dawn, Manny...

Thank you, God, for them.

+ Flisha spoke @ 10:50 am

+-+-+-+-+

Camp Banyan (entry 1 of 2)

'Awesome' would be an understatement to describe my experience at Camp Banyan.

Confession: I didn't want to go for camp.
I was homesick to begin with.
And without getting enough of my beautiful house, room and bed, I reluctantly uprooted myself and dragged my ass to camp.

Day 1: The 'Amazing Race'

In that 8 hours of finding our way to the final destination we
1. Strolled around Singapore like a bunch of slackers
2. Got off at several 'wrong' bus stops
3. Went round in BIG circles
4. Took a big fat break at Ping Zhi's (thanks babe!)

In the midst of all that, I realized what a wonderful group I had landed in.
As Gabriel so nicely accurately puts it, all of us had our different talents.
Peddie - our wonderfully efficient leader who had all the contacts. Who needs the bus guide and the street directory when you know people huh :D
Lynette - solves puzzles amazingly fast.
Francesca - is super slack and keeps the cool of our group.
Faizal - is the joker who entertains us with his crappy jokes (on gorillas and caterpillars)
John - our quiet friend who was silently behind us all the way
And of course Gabriel - who talked the most, and in many ways was the driving force of our group.

We got to our destination.
First.
On a group level, we were One Body and Many Parts.
We put the best parts of ourselves together in the problem solvings.
We led when we could, and followed a other times. We cooperated with each other.
We stood by each other. Never once did we put another down, even when anyone made any major mistakes. Instead, we came up with optimistic justifications and 'comfort-ourselves' to almost convince the one who made the mistake that it was not a mistake after all.

Day 2:
I thought from my waking moment 'I want to go home'.
Was miserable the entire morning.
When I made the decision to do just that, I was so comforted I promptly got into the mood of camp and enjoyed myself till the end of the day just before debrief.
Manny and Noel took me home.
That's a chapter of its own. But in that little chapter of my camp story, I got to know Manny a whole heap better.

Day 3:
I got back to camp after lunch in time to slack with Austin's and my group, which were paired up to be one big group.
Mark told me a very disturbing piece of history which made me think...

Day 4:
Wrote the little notes to people in the wee hours of the morning.
Near Elbow - I made a new laughing record, all thanks to Michael.
I laughed so hard tears were just flowing I felt like a bawling baby.

Noel tucked me into bed at 5am.
Woke up at 7 to begin the final day of camp.

Adrian conducted the session of camp that touched me the most.
Reflection.
3 things we learnt at camp.
2 things we wanted to change about ourselves.
1 thing we would do to bring God's affirmation to others.

I have jumbled thoughts which I will straighten out another day when I'm more awake because they are too important to me to do shabbily now for the sake of putting it up.

Thank you all for being part of my camp experience.

+ Flisha spoke @ 2:27 am

+-+-+-+-+