Sae Hae Pakmani Padeusyeyo!

Yeah with my attempt on broken Korean, I wrote the title for this post. So if any of you are Korean, hopefully you're not offended. I'm trying to say, Happy New Year, hehehe... *lame laugh* I thought I want to give it a twist instead of just saying Gong Xi Fa Cai...

I've told some of my Singaporean friends that Chinese Indonesians don't really celebrate Chinese New Year... with the exception of the much hungbao (Do I even spell it correctly? :P ) anticipation of course. So yeah, here we are 4 Chinese Indonesian chicks... One from Los Angeles and 2 from Jakarta and me (duh?!). But we all knew each other when we're all in States. It's just interesting how I have to explain about why we don't really celebrate Chinese New Year. Many of us don't even know how to speak Chinese to begin with. Perhaps now in Indonesia we can celebrate it, but at least around my time when I was there, there's no such thing. We only celebrated it quietly (if we celebrate it at all), no lion dance on the street or the likes. Just went out in some Chinese restaurant or whatever restaurant and eat, which was of course nothing out of the ordinary. So on the other hand I thought that it's kinda weird that in Singapore, churches were closed in observant of the Chinese New Year. I'm learning something new again in this place.

Yesterday, as I walked through the quiet Orchard road, if I saw any Chinese looking faces, they would most likely speak Indonesian... and of course we had the regular tourists like the Japanese and the Koreans. The Chinese Indonesians came in for the holiday, while the Singaporeans and the Chinese Malaysians are supposedly home or visiting somewhere. How funny... And of course the Indonesian churches were open per usual.

Talking about churches, I went to 3 services this week alone. And talking about anticipating Chinese New year in churches... on Wednesday I went to City Harvest Church and meet with some of my friends there and we got this goodie bag filled with oranges and hungbao envelopes. I thought the design on the envelope was quite nice, it includes a verse from Psalm 63:11 "You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance." Very appropriate. Hehehe... And then on Friday, I was blessed by my Hope Church crew, tho I got a little lost on my way home... (Not again! Hehehe...) and then of course to complete my week of Church goings, on Sunday I went to me mom's church (I think it's called: Blessing In The Spirit Church) and guess what, I actually got hungbaos! Yay! Since most of them were parents, my friend Marleen and I were considered to be kids. Ah forever young! Marleen also received the blessing for coming with me, hehehe... 'Tis a good thing to be my friend, hehehe... So with all the stores closed, we got to get money instead of spending them :P

Home Sweet Home

I'm missing my house in Portland, OR (USA). The place where I practically spent half of my life. Some of my happiest days were experienced there. All the birthday cakes, the Christmas trees, the spring blooms, the neighbor's horses, the tears and laughters... and most of all my family!

And here are some of the view of the house...

The view of my front yard... with my cat, Fuzzy, posing for me. I miss my Fuzz-poo also :(







And this is the kitchen view, where we eat our meals everyday... All those mess... That's what's make it feels like home, hehehe... I still remember our well-stocked kitchen cabinet also. We're never in want of food... Or shall I emphasize, junk food!!!



The other rooms: The formal dining room, family room, my bathroom (hehehe...) and my safe haven... my bedroom (can you tell that I'm in the process of moving, hehehe), of course. And the pic of my baby (which gave me more trouble lately), Duchess.

So that's my crib, people. Hope you like my amateur attempt as tourguide to casa @ Jamieson Road.

Euphoria… Definition:

I was on my way to a job interview last Friday. But now I know how you feel when you’re feeling, “This is the day that the Lord has made.” I was in a euphoric mode. Woke up earlier, not feeling anything but joy, I read my bible and just do anything else that I need to do. I was feeling the favor of God yesterday. In my heart, I just know, whatever happens for the rest of the day, I knew that I’m having a ‘date’ with my God. When you’re with someone that loves you, everything seemed to be wonderful and nothing can deviate that feelings.

On the way to the train station, I listened to an Indonesian praise and worship by “Giving My Best” Crew. And I thought I’m going to have an ‘altar call’ in the bus. It was just wonderful.

I guess it depends on how people want to view their life. As I was waiting for the train at City Hall MRT station, I stopped in front of one of the doors. There was this faded sticker that somebody pasted on the glass window. It said, “Stressed is Desserts spelled backwards.” And I learned that God speaks through little things, even something as insignificant as a faded sticker. Do you see your life as half full or half empty, as people would say. You can worry your life away or you choose to live your life with full expectation of great things. Stressed about your life or just walked your life with the hope in God that everything will be sweet and beautiful (I’m writing all these so that I myself can re-read when things don’t go my way. God give us such days like these so that we can remember.) Wow… the things that you learned...the things that God use to encourage us. Even in such a public place like an MRT station.

Nothing can steal my joy that day. I mean, I got lost in Tampines station trying to look for a bus, I was late for the interview, and I was alone. But God was with me all the time. The interview was not hard, and although I still have to wait for the result, I was still elated. The people there were friendly and although I don’t have my full PR status yet, they let me register with them, unlike the other agency that I went to. When I was on my way to go to a care-cell meeting that night, the bus that I rode was quite full although there were some seats left. The bus had some leaking problem. Although I still got some water dripped on me, but it’s not as bad as was said by the lady who told me earlier not to sit there. The water dripped more to a sit in front of me, who happened to be empty. I was also blessed later on when I joined my friends from Hope Church for a good fun and sharing the word of God that night.

It was overall a great and awesome day…

Again... the beginning...

This is my second attempt on blogging. My other one was truncated by the server (not this one) and I have a bad habit on keep on changing diaries... *ahem* when I was little of course. One reason was because 'somebody' had some nice habit to read my deepest thoughts which is very annoying. So I sporadically changing my diaries to hide my tracts, and of course because of the allure of nicely designed quality papers, hehehe... Oh well, nuf of that. And no, I'm not going to include any mention of my crushes (*the crowds displeased* :P) unless that crush and I have some agreement to promote him in this blog... Hahahaha... yeah right.

I thought since my new life here in Singapore, I should start a new blog with a new perspective on life and everything. My life has been changed for the better since last year and I believe that it's going to be even better this year. That doesn't mean that last year was free of heart aches, disappointments and pain. But through everything, I'm trying and I managed to see that there's always silver lining to everything. And that in everything there is a reason.

I'm still in the middle of looking for a job and I just got a call that my interview for tomorrow will be delayed a bit. Tis okay, said I... For some reason nothing seem to be bothering me now, considering I was just being turned down... Again... First and foremost reason... Me no speak no Chinese. Oh well... Makes me feel interested to join the audition for Singapore Idol. So I can scream my heads out, hehehe... Just kidding. I wonder if I do join the audition and got the part, would anybody vote for me... Hmmm... Maybe if I faced with Simon Cowell, I will be more thick skinned. Too bad he's not judging here :P

Err... Just in case anybody want to backtrack and read my previous attempts in diary writing or what you peeps nowadays call it blogging, here is za link:

http://shopgirl7.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/