RACHEL SEAH, IF YOU SEE THIS BEFORE I GET TO TALK TO YOU ON MSN, PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR PLAY HAS BEEN POSTPONED BY ONE WEEK. So you have to change your airticket. Sorry ah! Just found out. On the weekend we originally planned it, the Princess of Thailand is going to be cremated, so the authorities are not allowing any activities then. Sozzz. Pls tag if you read this.

But I don't mind it, personally. :) Gives me more time to enjoy our rehearsals. I do so love the people I work with. Today we had a pretty productive practice. It was also quite a lot more comfortable than I thought it would be. Less awkward than I anticipated. ^^^ And a lot of fun! By God's grace, I'm starting to feel that my friendship with Caleb is finally going back to what it was. Or even better, I'd say. Hallelujah. ^^

Man, I was sleepy in sch. We ended anatomy class 8 minutes early so I put my head down to rest. I thought I was still at least half-awake, and was listening out for the bell, but the next thing I knew, Lani was trying to wake me up. "ARIEL! The bell rang already dude!" I'd been out.

Dad was giving me some good ideas for what Student Council can do. Ideas like a prayer corner, or a buddy (mentor) system. Honestly, it's quite pathetic that all we're expected to do is raise funds, organize pep rallies, and the like. There's SO MUCH more we can and should do, and we're gonna do it. Prayerfully, of course. Because unless God wills it, we're gonna be working to create something that'll just fall through.

It's been a good day. Seriously, my life picks up, feels more... alive, when I'm closer to God. I love Him. I just do things better, I'm more optimistic; my words and my thoughts, my actions and my feelings are better guarded against things that could hurt me... yeah. Is it no wonder that when people drift away from God, their lives start becoming less joyful; there's a strange, uncomfortable, fidgety sense of discontentment that's there, and they (including me, as I've done before) go off in other directions, searching for what makes them happy. And when you've drifted a bit too far, then only by God's mercy will you keep your relationship with Him, because once there's that gap between you and Him, the Devil will stick his hands in the gap and try to push you further from the God that loves you and only wants what's best for you. Come back to Him. It's the best you can have.

Schooool again. =)

Took me about 2 hours (counting from when bell rang) to adjust back to being in an international environment. Same's how I took some time to go from being international to Singaporean at the beginning of my Oct break trip. It's having to change my grammar usage, vocabulary, accent, getting used to seeing a whole different type/group of people around, etc. Always an interesting feeling when I go through that transition stage. :P

Drama was great today; Laurie was... very Laurie. He's so funny like that. ^^ Keep it uppppp.
The printed drama posters also came in today. Looks good! If I can get the jpeg file I'll post it here.

I've been watching weird Japanese game show clips on youtube. Go here for a good laugh!! :D (There're many more but I'm too lazy to put all the urls up at once.)

Time to sleep. Man, I wanna use my awesome whopper of an external hard drive. Isn't 320 such a nice chunky number? ^^ Still haven't had time to use it. =( It's feeling neglected.

Tmoz, we'll be working on the LAST SCENE OF OUR PLAY. Whoooooo..... fast, man. Fast. And it's kinda an awkward scene for me... I'll try to find time to blog about what happens then. =P Nite!

My excuse (reason) for not blogging during school days is that I have work to do.

Apparently when I'm on holiday, I'm still too busy to blog neways. :p

I'm back in Bangkok now... Had a wonderful send-off at the airport after church today...
Sarah and Rachel were there, as they always are, if they can make it. (And just because you're always there doesn't mean I appreciate it any less okay? =])
I left church to go airport at around 1 pm. All the youths had been hanging out in church (plus moving boxes out of the room tt's gonna be renovated), and a bunch of them decided to go to the airport as well. I do suppose that some went because their friends were going, and/or they needed somewhere to go makan anyway, but still.
It really was sooo nice to have them there at the airport, getting to chat with them one last time before I left.

Rachel, Sarah, Jia En, Lydia, De Qi, Daphne, Qiu Fang, Ryan, Daniel, Jonathan, Yan Jun, and Alvin. =)

Some other ppl said they wanted to go but couldn't make it. Nvm, I still really appreciate the thought. ^^
Missed some of the J's that weren't there... Jeremy, James, Jason. Heheh. And quite a lot of other ppl whom I didn't get to hang out with during this short trip. Cya guys next time, yeah? :)

Courtesy of Lydia (who, unknowingly... but I guess now she'll know... showed me how to use the macro function, for the first time. Uh.. yeah. I didn't even know that was on there.)

Ryannnn, why you disappear from group photo..... = =

This morning's sermon was good... it was what I needed to hear; been feeling pretty distant from God lately. But the speaker today invited us to open up to God again, and now, after weeks of spiritual dryness, I feel like I've come back to living actively in God's grace again. =)
Interesting incident at the airport: I had a bottle of more than 100ml liquid tt I forgot to put in my luggage, and I only realized when we were abt to go through the hand-carry check. Wanting to exercise my refreshed faith, I prayed, "Dear Lord, um, I'd like to not have to throw it away.. kinda expensive.. I know that if they make me toss it, then yeah it's not a big deal, and it actually is my fault... but still, I'd rather not... I've heard of times when you blinded customs officers to things that missionaries were bringing into countries for Your work... I mean, I know this is nothing like that, but yeah..."
And the scanning-machine person didn't even see it! (And just behind me, my dad kenna his waterbottle thrown away. =P) Talk about direct answers to prayer.

Here's a brief summary of what I did the last few days (Ariel's-blog-style summary ok? Means actually quite long):

Tuesday: Went to Borders bookstore, excited to get this particular book I've been waiting for... got there, looked arnd, finally asked the information counter ppl... said dun have. X_X Haha.
From there I went out with Aarti and Kruti (2 friends who graduated from my highschool last yr and are now in SMU and Laselle.) Pasta Mania for dinner, then also visited Aarti's dorm.



Wednesday: Went, with Mom and Sarah, to our HDB apartment that we're gonna rent out. Set up the cupboards and curtains. In the evening we went to East Coast Beach for a seafood dinner with my godparents. Shiok only man! All the crab... with the huuUUuuuuuge claws, then got the cereal prawn, and otah, etc etc etc. :D

Thursday: Did some homework in the afternoon (AP World Hist, half of JCHL.... ), went to Ikea with mom to pick up furniture for the aparment (had the Swedish meatballs for dinner!), then spent a few solid hours cleaning the apt, assembling furniture, etc.

Friday: Spend the day with Sarah. Accidentally took the VERY LONG route to her house, in the morning. Sigh. = = Went to Tampines for lunch (BURGERKING! :D), went to Funan (met dad there and he bought me a 320GB external harddrive at his friend's shop. Thanks dad!), went to Brahs Basah (Tecman Christian bookstore, and Art Friend). Picked up my new glasses, then went for a talk on Conversational Evangelism. Learned a lot of useful things there.

Saturday: First part of the day, cooked with Sarah. Some fudge-biscuit thingos, as well as Thai-style mango n sticky rice. (And we brought all the food to church with us today for the other ppl to eat.)

Later, went to Orchard to meet 2 friends, David Shim and Jecolia Tong, whom I'm haven't seen in 10 years!! Our parents were all friends at church last time, but since abt P1, none of us 3 have been in contact. (After dinner and stuff around Orchard, we Guitar-Hero-ed at Jeco's house) ^^^^^ Pretty awesome. Hopefully we can hang out again then next time I'm in Sg! (Oh yeah, and bumped into Jeremy too. :))


Which brings us back to today, with it's awesome send-off and everything. I'm so touched. Humbled. =)
Plus it was funny to see you all standing out there waving and waving and waving, while we were in the queue for the passport check.