clean linen

(Just to be clear that I've given all credits where they are due, let me state at the outset that this is the link where I copied this from:  http://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/slw/headlinesnews/25851-it-took-four-years-to-learn-im-no-lawyer.html?utm_source=email+subscription&utm_medium=email#.Ua1fu6el8Fw.email ) I really like this article, written by Oo Gin Lee, published in Straits Times yesterday (2/6/13): "My heart skipped a beat when my hand grasped air instead of wood. Then I realised that the next rung on the wooden ladder I was climbing to board a ship had given way. I was only 24, one year into my work as a lawyer, and facing a real prospect of tragedy at sea. I had come to arrest the ship which my client had a claim against, which meant making my way to the ship's bridge and sticking the court papers on its windscreen. To this day, I still believe that nothing short of divine intervention helped me to pull myself up and board the ship. Before I became...

Eugene's friend got us 2 free tickets to the Aerosmith concert because he was a SAFRA member, each ticket worth about $160.  I was excited about it because attending a concert like that was a completely new experience for me. At the same time, I wondered how much I would enjoy it because my idea of a concert like that is to stand up, wave your hands high up in the air, singing along very loudly with the band. But I only knew one song by Aerosmith, "I don't want to miss a thing", the theme song of the Armageddon movie. Even then, I only knew the tune but not the lyrics, so I could not have sung along with them. So I did entertain the silly thought of studying Aerosmith's songs so that at least I could be a more worthy concert-attendee. But I didn't do any studying. I just went. And it was still great! Thank God it didn't rain and the ground was dry. Eugene's friend also remembered to bring a groundsheet that was big enough to seat the group...

On Vesak Day public holiday, I had McDonald's breakfast and stayed at home in the morning. At about 2pm, I left the house to catch the train down to Bayfront MRT station to meet the rest of my cell group. They had lunch at Joel's ramen place before going down. But I didn't feel up to ramen so I didn't join them for lunch. Anyway, we went to the ArtScience Museum at MBS to check out the Lego exhibition. It has been open for awhile now, and I think we went for this exhibition on the last week of its stint here. Each ticket cost $11.30. One lego sculpture that I was quite impressed with was this sculpture below of a guy swimming. It was completely made out of lego, as with the rest of the portraits and sculptures in this exhibition. I walked past this comment from the person who did all these lego art pieces, and discovered that he was a lawyer! I don't think I will ever realise that I am more comfortable sitting on the floor creating sculptures... I can...

I just put this picture as my desktop wallpaper at work... I mark this day as the day I start putting in effort to learn the Korean language so that I can try to contribute with my knowledge of the language during our family holiday to Korea in October.

The family sans Edmund went to Pontini for dinner. Pontini is an Italian fine dining restaurant at Grand Copthorne Waterfront hotel. We went back there just to spend a $100 voucher that was to expiry this 31st May. The last time we went there with the intention of spending this same $100 voucher, the restaurant staff applied a different discount instead, which was probably a trick to make us come back a second time to spend WAY more than the value of the voucher... But anyway. This time round, on my father's encouragement, I tried ordering a carbonara, which is not in the menu. I found it a little bit too salty because there was bacon EVERYWHERE, and it was the bacon that made it very very salty. Some people may have found it a tad too creamy, but my brother seemed to like it.  I think it's nothing to shout about. Except for the fact that it actually cost $38. My title says "before Philippines" because my parents, brother and sister were all going to the Phi...

I think the weekend that just passed was the longest ever for me. LSBC was one of the hosting venues for Global Day of Prayer (GDOP) on 19 May. This was on top of the youth service and 2 main services where I was also rostered to play the keyboard. Due to the additional songs for GDOP, worship practice started at 11am on Saturday, instead of the usual 1pm. The plan was to practice all the way till 3pm, then rest for an hour before playing for youth service. However, we practiced all the way till 3:30pm and we were still left with a few songs to practice. When the youths went off for their cell discussion time, I was SO tired I gave up on the idea of sitting in with one of my sec 3 cell groups. I walked straight home and slept until 7:45pm, when cell group starts at 8pm. I was late for cell group, but the nap did wonders. I don't know how I would have lasted through cell group if not for the wondrous nap. I quickly left cell group at about 10:30pm and got into bed a...

I look at my calendar for this weekend and the next 2 weekends, and I appreciate the one free weekend I had last week.  Now when I say "free", it's not that I had absolutely nothing on and I had the chance to just wile the time away at home with my dog for company. No, there was still the usual youth service and cell group to attend on Saturday. But at least I could wake up for a swim without worrying about practicing the keyboard, and I didn't need to spend the entire afternoon in church because of worship practice. Instead, I had a long leisurely brunch with my fabulous friends (and cell leaders), Boon Yeow and Faith. Then I could actually take my time to head back home and take a 2-hour nap all the way till Youth Service. SHIOK. So anyway, they picked me up and we made our way to 112 Katong. We had a delicious brunch at this Italian place called Baci. I ordered the Breakfast in Europe (or something like that... Can't remember the exact name now)....