The Road through my Fucked Up Life.

Road paved on 5:58 PM |

Issues of Debate

Just came back from Singapore, had a great time there. It was fun, yet so exhausting. Things were great, other than the screwed up Singaporean time. I got hooked unto adjudicating, it was fun.

NTU was huge, with plenty of lands around. And the types of debaters we met, awesome. It was tough trying to adjudicate the Koreans and Japs, but they actually had great points which were absolutely cool. And the Filipinos? With all the best speakers being from Filipinos, it was more like a Filipino Tourney than an Asian tourney.

But the main fact remains that we had fun.

Hearrrr, hearrrr... (in the dumb Filipino accent that all of us picked up/tried to imitate/sucked at)

There are 4 main issues I would like to bring up in today's post.
1. The Sunday church service I went to.
2. Guys we met during the tournament.
3. Gays and homosexuality.
4. Misc. happenings, like the dumb Filipino accent.

I know that it's against ethics to post names up on blogs, but hell, everyone knew who went to the tourney, so I see no need to hide behind pseudonyms, so let's have everyone's name up in the open.

IMU A: Sarah Sheena Toyat, Adeline Gong, Tan Hai Liang
IMU B: Song Yee Pei, Richard Gerald Lee, Vasanthakumar
Adjudicators: Elena How, Grace Chew, Abdul Rahman Delan.
Check out blogs for different views of the tourney.


Issue no. 1: Church.
It was a sunday, and the contingent of IMU being made up of 7 Christians, 1 athiest, 1 Muslim had plans for the morning. 3 Catholics went to mass, 4 protestants went to a charismatic church (wont mention name), athiest went on camp with red cross, muslim had nothing to do but follow the protestants to church. That Muslim even had the guts to wear a Tshirt with Osama's face on it. It was just so damn hilarious.

The church was superb. We stood waiting for Hai Liang and Rahman to arrive and saw like 4 buses chartered and filled with people going to church. It was really awesome and for a Christian, a really awe-inspiring thing. We entered the reception hall and saw 4 plasma TVs showing Shark Tales. But background got Christian song playing, so really funny contrast. And when we entered the lift, we saw 8 floors, 4 above ground, 4 below. We came to B4 and walked down this small aisle, through a door and into a hall so big it took 4 levels. State-of -the-art building, it was. There were cameras everywhere, smoke machines, a huge stage and seats enuff to hold 2000 ppl with ease.

Then came the sermons. It was about advancing in your career for God. It was quite boring at first, me and Hai Liang were nodding off (it was like freaking 9 in the morning) cos it was so similar to the sermons we receive in church. But then things took a radical turn, making both of us sit up and listen and actually take notes. It was remarkable.

The sermon opened nicely enough. The verses were Luke 18:35 - 19:10, about Jesus healing the sight of the beggar Bartimaeus and saving the tax-collector Zaccheus. He went on about how people always feel that the poor is worthy to be saved and everyone tries to help them. And everyone feels that the rich is the unworthy one, the sinner and undeserved of any sympathy. But they forget that everyone is the same. Like that is stated in the case of Zaccheus. The pastor is trying to get us to accept the fact that the rich people are also worthy to be saved and we must reach out to these people that.

I can buy that, it was good. And seriously true. But then suddenly radicalism just burst out of nowhere.

I always tot the Bible propagates communism (splitting your properties among your brothers) and but according to that pastor that Sunday, I guess I was wrong. It’s about capitalism. I will proceed to explain through my substantive which are quotes of the pastor, not mine. Just be warned that I mean everything to be in sarcasm.

The sermon continued on to how it was good that the beggar praised and glorified Christ’s name, but then the beggar could not do anything but just praise and be happy. Zaccheus is a different case. This man is powerful, a rich and influential man. He gave away half of his goods and the pastor went on to say that with it, Jericho blossomed. They used the money to build schools, orphanages, medical centres.

Basically the pastor was trying to say that only rich, influential people can change/move/shake the world, he was saying that Bartimaeus was useless but Zaccheus was the better one, because Zaccheus can change the world with all his money. By being rich, you can bring more people to church, build bigger church, have better facilities, be the best in town so everyone can be impressed. He spoke of how all things can only happen when there is money and God blesses his people with wealth.

Luke 19:11-27
The law of the Bible: The rich becomes richer, the poor becomes poorer.
Only by investing in the marketplace, that you can be richer and that is how God wants you to be. And those poor in will, who is unwilling to give for God will only be poorer. Never mind that the poor has nothing to give in the first place. I always thought that this parable was supposed to signify spreading and investing the Good News, but never knew it was translated literally to wealth.

Basically the message here is: Give to God and He will give you back Which is true. I concede. But they went about it… putting emphasis on getting back WEALTH, now, that is what frightens me.

Mark 10:29-30

So Jesus answered and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife[a] or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time--houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions--and in the age to come, eternal life.

But a huge amount of emphasis, nearly all emphasis is being put in "God will return to you hundredfold", and the remaining were left untalked about. Interesting fact, eh.

God likes everyone, but only the rich can shake the world, so everyone has to be rich to make changes. Poor people are useless, they can glorify God till kingdom come, but they can never initiate change.

Jesus was rich as he made money from building. He wore tunics which is equivalent to the business suits of the era. And those tunics were so stylish that the Romans soldiers threw lots for them. Never mind the fact that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, never mind the fact that Jesus was a Galilean who were crude people of the age, never mind that the “Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Andrew and Peter were fishermen, but they owned fleets of boats and had others working for them. Matthew was a rich man, granted that he was a tax collector. He likes to eat and dined at the Ritz Carlton and Hotel Hyatt of that era.


And Sheena had the nerve to ask me if I bought it!! Shit man, how the fuck can anyone buy this bullshit. Oops, I forgot. Maybe the Singaporeans can. Fuck, how much bull can someone bull?!! And guess what? Everyone in that hall - except me and Hai Liang and maybe the rest of our IMU contingent - drank it like water. They totally believed in it, they ate it up, lapped it up from the pastor’s feet.

Oh, forgot, every of this was for the glory of God, but as I would say as an adjudicator: It was too late. It came in the reply speech and only a one liner.

It was scary, terrifying to a point that I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. That whole sermon was catering only to the rich Singaporeans. So much emphasis was put on materialism and prosperity. On how God will shower gold on you if you give out. On how by paying RM10, you get back RM1000. To them, offering to God was like an investment to earn more money.

And people actually buy it. They come to Christ in hope of getting their money worth, in hope of receiving extras. How so typical Singaporean. Kiasu to the max. The pastor gave an example of how this bank who prayed for their clients in hope in miracles and miracles happened and these clients came to Christ. What????

It is not miracles that draw us to receive Christ as our savior. I accept Him because I love Him and needed Him. It may be hypocritical to say it, cos everyone want miracles in their lives, but having miracles happening is not to be the primary thing that drives us to be like Christ.

Grace said it was a prosperity sermon, and guess what? I’m glad I’m a Methodist and not Charismatic if I had to sit through one of those sermons again.

And not ended yet. Still in the sermon, the pastor pleaded for offering for their new ‘state-of-the-art’ building. And this sermon was being broadcasted on the internet.
Pastor: You can send your cheques to XXXX or if we also accept MasterCard, VisaCard, and American Express.

Talk about high-tech. And they have the kiosk called the automatic paying machine, where you just insert your cashcard, punch in the amount you want to offer and then you are done. Scary right…

I’m so regretting not following Sheena to the Catholic church. Damn.

Issued No. 2: Guys we met.

Name: Bobby Benedicto
Rank: Deputy Chief Adjudicator
Varsity: Ateneo de Manila University
Age: 23 (I think)
Nationality: Filipino
Nickname: Nasion.com
Others: He is Gay.

Sheena has a crush on him, not just a crush, an obsession that bothered on compulsive. If she sees him, she enters this blur mode where she just stares and gawks openly. She got to a point where she couldn’t think about anything but him and she needs alcohol to get through her day. She gets depressed and mope around.

YP: So S, do you masturbate about him?

To her, he has this aura of inapproachability and I managed to destroy that aura in a day.

I’ve been stalking him since we first arrived. It was first for Sheena, but then it became something like a tiger hunting a deer.

AiHuey (UKM) : You don’t look anything like a tiger, Elena.
Elena: Okay, cat and mouse game.
Grace: More like mouse chase cat game.

I can feel the adrenaline rush when I try to sneak some shots of him and it feels good when I get a good shot. Once when he caught sight of me with the camera aimed at him, he actually poses. Talk about ego. Then somehow he knew I was stalking him and he told his friends. One time I was sleeping with my head buried in my arms, according to Rahman, he actually looked over at me.

Elena: He’s just looking at you, Rahman. He’s gay.

Sheena was like all over him cos he’s cute and all, but he only looks good at an angle, and not straight on. Maybe cos he has very prominent cheekbones and it makes his face look squarish. Haha. I took so many picture of him, from all angle, and his front profile suck, even a pro cameraman said so.


Then one day I just walked up to him. “Yo Bob, need to ask a question here.”

When I told the rests about my encounter, Sheena just sank into a state of disbelief. The supposedly aura around Bob just disappeared. Bobby Benedicto sounds cool, Bob sounds crude. Then she took it to call him Bob Ben, which sounded like Broadband and we, the IMU contingent officially nicknamed him Nasion.com - supposedly good, but in actual fact, defective.


Name: Stanley Soo
Rank: Official Photographer
Varsity: Nanyang University of Technology
Age: 21 (I think)
Nationality: Singaporean
Nickname: Stan da cameraMan
Others: His camera is sooooo COOL!!!!

Sheena was the first to introduce herself and invited us to sit with him. And somehow, he remembered her as Shari. Mwahahaha!!!! He was the only non-debater in the group of 250++ debaters. Damn kasihan. So he hangs out a lot with us. Like almost every time we are free. And you know why?

Because me, being the camera freak, wanted to use his camera. It’s a bloody SLR, SD1000 for the body and the lens like about 3 times that price. It was just so cool. And with the others emphasizing on how careless I am with things, he had to stay around to make sure I don’t drop it or anything. And he hanged around us so much that most of the pictures he took were of our IMU contingent.

And do not believe anything about what the other debaters say about him and me. He is cute, I have to give him that, but he’s a Singaporean, so that’s a huge minus point. Sorry, Stan, but its true. Tho you are very different from the other Singaporean I’ve met. You are friendlier, and more helpful, not like the other kiasu Singaporeans.

He is so funny, giving us a Styrofoam plate with a message for the IMU contingent as a souvenir. And he taught me so many tricks about that camera that I feel good enough to be termed an amateur semi-pro photographer, haha.


Name: Crysanthus (Yes, he’s a guy. Named after Chrysanthemum)
Rank: 2nd Best Speaker
Varsity: University of Philippines, Manila
Age: 21 (I think)
Nationality: Filipino
Nickname: Bunga boy, the Bunga
Others: Other than there is a scandal between him and Agong, nothing much.

IMU A debated against them and won. Yup, he may had the 2nd Best Speaker award, but our team beat his team. Eat that, Bunga boy. Anyway, I can’t blog about him much, because I only really sit down and talk to him like on the last day of the tournament, when we were waiting for the Finals to start.

But I’ve been the paparazzi on that scandal between him and the Gong since the champion night, when they both had isolated themselves from the crowd and sat aside to talk among themselves. And Agong actually had the nerve to walk off with him, ignoring her teammates.

And thru out the rest of the tourney, Stan and I were always snapping away photos of both of them, creating scandal when there is none, enforcing whatever there is left. It was fun for me and I managed to drag Stan into it. Haha.

But other than that, Crys is a nice guy. He sometimes has a streak of dumbness which he dreads and his teammate will consistently shove down his throat.


Name: Sun (Patela)
Rank: Adjudicator
Varsity: Mahidor University
Age: 21
Nationality: Thai
Nickname: The kneecap
Others: He likes Grace.

We first met this guy while waiting for the debate to start. His major is environmentalist and we managed to get him to talk about the hydroelectric dams of Malaysia. He’s basically a nice guy who likes to talk a lot, so I was wondering to myself why was he an adjudicator and not a debater himself. Then he could talk to kingdom comes. Haha.

Anyway, he hung out a lot with us, going with us on our day trip to esplanade and orchard road. He tells lame jokes which is funny and LAME but he’s an okay guy. Then we realize he hangs out a lot with Grace especially and totally like flirted with her (or vice versa) during Champion’s night.


3rd Issue of the Day: Gays

There were tons of them in the tourney, and it can be generally said that every cute Filipino guy you see are gays (except Bunga boy). And to top it of, they are excellent debaters. Bob was one of them, Jess Lopez (J-Lo) was another who won the Best Speaker award. And Sheena is totally obsessed over that J-Lo.

S: If I have to be a lesbian to be like Jess, I will do it.

The IMU contingent has come up with 3 criterias to name a guy gay.
1. Wear short sleeve tight T-Shirts
2. Wear tight pants (jeans or leather)
3. Wear leather shoes.

And Richard came up with a test to confirm it. It’s called the Mini Gay Test, and it can only be done by a male. He walks up to the test subject (male) and proceed to caress the butt. It the test subject get a hard-on, it’s a positive test. If not, otherwise la.

Vasan fits the first 2 criterias, so he is not a Gay, he is just gay boy. We tried to do the Mini Gay Test on him, but no one volunteered to be the tester. So we can only run on the basis of the 2 criterias. He had been wearing short sleeve T-shirts that are so body- hugging.

Richard: Shows off his nipples

And tight jeans almost everyday. And he also has this walk where you shake your butt as your walk. Basically, he has Bob’s walk, not to mention the ego. Bob’s ego is huge, Vasan’s is huger. This guy is so vain that you can climb over mt everest just by letting his ego boost u up. It was that bad. Haha, sorry monsterous little boy, just can’t resist it. It’s true.

Not to mention he was suddenly the Bimbo of the group, so bimbo-ish that I nearly cried. I lost it once when I shouted at him and Agong to just shut up. Sorry, forsaken angle, lost my cool there for a moment. But it was funny at times, and annoying at times.

Scenario 1: Culture Night
YeeP took the picture and Vasan looked at it to make sure its ok. He looks at his picture, liked it and declared the whole picture okay, just by looking at his OWN picture.

Scenario 2:
Vasan: Like, whatever!!! (in a totally bimbo voice)
Vasan: Speak to the hand bitch
Vasan: Good morning, bi-a-tch..
Rahman: Shut yer trap, bitch.

Scenario 3:
Vasan isolated himself with another guy from another Uni, leaving his contingent behind. The whole day was spent with that guy and we never had a glimpse of his hair till very late in the night. Uh-oh.

And we came up with this new song called Bimbo (sing to the tune of Bingo)
There was a boy who’s named Vasan,
And Bimbo was his name, O
B-I-M-B-O x3
And Bimbo was his name, OThere is more and I’ll get it to post it up when I get it from Rahman. Damn hilarious.

Rahman said that not all Gays are born gays. Some are made. For example, Leslie Lai became gay after a woman he loved died. I wont going into the rumor mill that was churning out rumors bout Bob, but I'll state something that was on my mind. You can't have a female lover, so you take a male lover??? Follow me through as I walk you through this chain of logic:
A man becomes gay after his female love dies. When he is gay, he has a male lover, and when the male lover dies, he becomes a paedophile. And after that little child dies, he takes on bestiality. After that dog dies, he becomes a necrophilia.
*check dictionary.com for meaning of words not known*


Miscellanous things:

1. A new sign language was created.
Rahman was learning sign language and he taught us the sign for BAS and KERETA.


It's a 'L'
It's a 3D 'L'
It's a multi-faceted 'L'


2. We got hooked on to the Filipino accent.
Sheena was the one that got hooked on first and she can revert to that accent so naturally and so unconsciously that it was terrible. She gave her whole reply speech in that accent.

The Filipino accent is such a way that they roll their tongues and their vowels are sounded differently. Take for example 'assuming'. It's not pronounced eh-siu-ming like we do, but ah-sue-ming. Or 'assertion'. In that accent, it's pronounced ah-serrr-shi-on. Strange right? And we the IMU contingent made fun of it all through out the tourney. It was just so hilarious.


3. Hai Liang is just cute.
He may be older than me, but I call him, "Kid."


Okay, that brings me to the end of today's post. I know it's long and it was just so tiring writing it out. I tried my best to shorten it, thus the issues getting shorter and shorter.

Okee, gtg. Need to go for Tai Chi.

It's good that he laughs on stage,
but it's not good to laugh out of context.
- Theatre profile for Mike, Suikoden III

We passed by on 5:58 PM |

Road paved on 6:28 PM |

20052005

Today seemed to be a very special day. Let's see why... hmmm... maybe because its 20-05-2005. That is special enuff. Or maybe because exams over dee and I am finally on HOLIDAY after a non-stop studying period since March.

Actually, it's my blog birthday. So everyone wish my bloggee a nice birthday ok.

Happy Birthday to me blog,
It's my time for me to blog,
About its b'day and b'day cake,
Gonna get it a new template.

Yay!!! My blog's finally grew up. And I was thinking to myself, what the hell... it's time for a change. A total makeover for my blog. But come to think of it, its better said than done. Haha, no time la...

Counted a total of 78 posts, that's an average of 1.5 posts per week. Not bad, considering I blogged for fun only. I read thru most of them, and read thru the comments and tags I received. It certainly is filled with some funny, some critical, some just plain stupid things.

But I had fun. The whole year had been a really eye opening year. I have seen passengers that laughed, passengers that complained, passengers that don't give a fuck, passengers who just come and go. But passengers that cared and cared enough to leave comments are the best passengers ever. Yay!!! I started this blog because I found that it was fun to play around with HTML and Sheena wasn't helping by encouraging me. But I did not go so far as to neglect everything else I have.

So in conjunction of this 1st b'day, I'm going to change the blog template and start off again. And since I have no time to change it properly, I'm going to hurrily just grab one template from the gallery as temporary measures. It'll be awhile before the real thing comes up.

And this blog will be changing management. It won't be known as Elena's Airline anymore. It sounds a little dumb. You guys can help by suggesting names in the Suggestion Box. All suggestions welcomed.

I know that this post is pretty short. The shortest ever, and it is because I have to rush off for a futsal match. Team captain is Grace Chew and I'm up front as striker. And we are the blue team. Wish your captain luck.

The doomed voyage of the Obsessivo-Compulsivo will haunt me forever.
- Edward VanHelgen, Curse of Monkey Island

We passed by on 6:28 PM |

Road paved on 12:58 PM |

Game Wars is ON!!!

I know, I know. This post wasn't planned and I know I must be studying but...oh my God... as I am typing here, I am jumping up and down in my seat. E3 is on... and guess what? So is the Game Wars between Sony and Microsoft. Yep, you guessed it, *salivating* PlayStation 3 is revealed yesterday in Los Angelas, followed by a whole long line of games waiting for it.

*gets up, does a somersault, sits down, stares and drools at picture of PS3, gets up and screams with delight*

Just look at it!!! XBox 360 sucks in comparison!!!



Compare it with


It is so clear cut which design is better. XBox looks like it was made for little kids. Look at PS3... professional to the max. Bill Gates should just quit the video games business, pack up and go back to whatever shithole he came from.

Check HERE for more shots of the lovely PS3. *drool, drool*

And the specs!!! The specs!!! Can't forget the specs!!!

XBox 360 was first to be launched and supposedly awed the AMERICANS (the americans only and everyone knows that they are nothing but morons) with its 'powerful' specs.

XBox 360
- Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
- Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
- VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
- 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
- 1 MB L2 cache

Wanna compare it with PS3?
- 3.2GHz per core, total 8 cores.
- 512KB L2 Cache
- 218 GFLOPS performance total

Not satisfied with the main processor? Check out the graphics processing unit.

PS3
nVidia RSX - 550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance (2X best current PC)
Full HD 1080p x 2 channels (two monitors!)
Resolution of 1080p

XBox 360
10 MB of embedded DRAM
48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
Unified shader architecture
Resolution of 1080i

Or the total system bandwith...

PS3
Main RAM 25.5GB/s
Video RAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s write, 15GB/s read
System Bus 2.5GB/s read/write
Floating Point Performance 2 TFLOPS

XBox360
22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
21.6 GB/s front-side bus
Floating-Point Performance 1 teraflop

But PS3 just doesn't stop there. There is 2 HDTV outlets, meaning some games can be played over 2 TVs. Isn't that freaking cool. Check out the names of PS3 CPU and GPU. You guys know Sony is a sucker for cool names like Emotion Engine and Graphic Synthesizer for the PS2, and guess what, PS3's are The Cell and the Reality Synthesizer. If that's not cool, I don't know what to call it anymore. Microsoft can go eat shit for all I care. The Cell is the child of 3 great minds working together, Sony, Toshiba and IBM while the RSX graphics is by nVidia and can work as powerfully as 2 geForce 6800 Ultra video cards at 1080p (Only very few high-end TVs can accomodate that high resolution, but technolgy progresses). What do you expect from such a powerful console.

Not going to bore you passengers with these, but just check it out. The PS3 and XBox 360. Or check out professional reviews for both consoles and make up your own mind for it. But I stil say, PS3 rocks and XBox sucks!!!


Anyway, got to got study now. Must get A and get PSP so can save money for PS3. *drool drool* PS3, super computer for super entertainment.

PS: FFXI for XBox 360? When FFXI as already been everywhere else? And stupid AMERICANS get all excited about it. DUMB ASSES!!!

I feel something having a powerful effect on the very fabric of time.
- Gaspar, Chrono Trigger

We passed by on 12:58 PM |

Road paved on 2:59 PM |

UiTm Pre-Asians

There is nothing to blog about this... I think. Nothing significant happened. *wink, wink*

So I'll just tell you a tale of someone I met a few days ago. It's about this girl, who is very interesting.

The conversation of the day was independancy. The girl is someone I would term: A girl who doesn't need a guy. And indeed it's true. She said that I must not depend on Richard and seek approval from him all the time.

The truth is, I never seek approval from him at all. I only do that in the areas of studying, because I believe he had put a lot of effort into making me study and its only fair that I do it and hoped for an approval from him about it.

A: But you should be studying for yourself.
E: Don't care la.

But the thing I wanted to blog about is not this but the conversation that soon turned to something funnier and less stressful to think about.

A won't let her husband touch her breasts. Don't ask me why.

E: Isn't sex something to be enjoyed? If he doesn't touch your breasts, how are you going to have sex?
A: Do it without touching la.
E: So you are not going to allow your husband to give you pleasure first before fucking you mindlessly?
A: How you know touching breasts is pleasurable?
E: Well... hmm.... well... the fact remains that you won't let your husband touch your breasts.

To her, SEX is something mechanical and used to make baby only. She even tries not to soap her breasts unless necessary.

That proves it, there is something severely wrong with her. She either hates her breasts because it is too small (trust me, its small. But who am I to judge, hehe) or she had bad memories (don't want to know about it). But she likes to grope other ppl's breasts, so not very sure wat is she thinking at all.

Any psychological help?

But it's rare to get such a 'virgin' girl these time and age. So I've decide to make a survey among the girls. Check out the In-Flight Survey and all female passengers, please kindly answer. Thank you.

I did the short survey among the guys: Do you Masturbate? The first two fellas I asked were... lets say abnormal. They answered 'NO' and meant it. I was devastated... this survey was not going as well as I like. Then I started asking outside of IMU and got "Yes" thru out. I like it how these guys are just so frank. A "Yes" without any snigger or laughter. Just a straight, "Yes" or "Don't all guys?"

Then I was challenged to ask the females. SO I turned to Sheena. "Do you masturbate?"

Sheena: NO! (looking flabbergasted) You can't ask me here. Ask me again later.

Anyway, just to report I lost my thumbdrive again in UiTM. I'm in no position to complain, my friend lost her PDA. Sob sob...

Got to go... PBL to do and then back to studying.

Another report: I may not be able to get my PSP this time. I only left 5 days to finish studying the whole system and I have not been studying because was too busy with many many things.

This blog was just to officiate the poll I'm doing.

Don't forget to answer!!!

You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee.
- Captain Blondebeard, Curse of Monkey Island

We passed by on 2:59 PM |

Road paved on 5:02 PM |

Refreshed, rejuvenated, renewed...

Ahh... came from camp and boy.. now in exhaustion phase. But it was good while it lasted, that spiritual high and the feeling of floating above clouds. Refreshed, rejuvenated, renewed and rejoice!!!!

I've been to last year's camp, but for me, these 2 camps were different as for THIS camp, I went as a committee member. And boy... it was different all right... so different. Being a committee member is exhausting, seriously. You have to be the one to lug things around, make sure everyone is ok with everything, worry about whether ppl enjoy the camp... the lists goes on...

Back in the first camp, I was a participant and I had fun being in a group. Staying up late to discuss for the skit, havin fun in the group... it was fun. But I'll never regret being a committee member. Good fellowship with friends I would never give up on, having the say in almost everything, all the band practices and organising of the game (DEATH LANE!!!)... being a committee member is funner.

Good God, good friends, good life… what else can I want?


Day 1:
Left on the bus at precisely 6.30pm. IMU students are always INfamous for bein late for everything, so it was like God's miracle that we left on schedule. We had 2 buses, which equals to 80 seats, but somehow, we couldn't find seats for the seniors and had to move some things. Strange...

The journey up was okay. Got caught in the jam and arrived 5 minutes late. Not bad at all... Even though it was so late, everyone was hyped up about the camp. Even the committee who were tired. I knew I was, and had to prepare myself to stay awake for the session (which I first thought would be boring). But it turned out, it was fun. The pastor was fun... he was always cracking jokes and he made it an interactive session. Cooool. I usually fall asleep after 10 minutes of lecture, but boy was I surprised to find myself still awake after 1 and half hour of the session.

Must talk about the worship. There was also another camp going on at the same place, and they were singing hymns next to the room we had. And how was our worship? With drums and electric guitars and very loud voices. So different that I can't help but laugh at it.

The icebreaker was lagi fun. There are 8 groups in all:-
Florentina
Plum Blossom
Cutie Soft
Royal Gold
Scottex
Kleenex
Scott Deluxe
Premier
Just in case you haven't realise, yes... they are all names of tissue paper. Long story why.

All groups were given an egg and the aim of the game was to buy things with the limited money we have and use those things to build something to prevent the egg from breaking when dropped from a certain height. The things are sold in an auction and the catch is you won't know how the thing looks like until it is sold.

Like take for example the first thing sold that night: A handkerchief. Thus began the whole thing of auctioning for the handkerchief. And it was terrible, people yelling to and fro and finally the handkerchief was sold for RM90. And the handkerchief... hmm... as a hole in it. Strange...

A satay stick was sold for RM150, ONE satay stick. A hanger sold for RM40, a cup.. those used to collect urine, sold for RM200, straws for RM170, glue for RM220... the price were just exhorbit... it was madness. So through the night, all the way to midnight, there was only chaos in the seminar room. Some ppl from the other camp had to come down and tell us to turn it down and you know what... we did, for 20 minutes or so.

The games finally ended like 1 o'clock in the morning and people trooped off for supper!!! And it was funny seeing guardian angels asking people to send things to their mortals and some mortals grumbling of not getting anything. Haha, sucker!!! Then it was off to bed while the committee members converged to the seminar rooms to talk about the day. And to my dismay almost all the female members had already taken their bath.

Sheena to me: Let's bath together la.
That sounded so wrong...

I'm nocturnal kid. I get hyper at night. And I went into insulting mode that night, insulting almost every girl in my dorm. Elaine was wearing this cute fluffy pink night gown and I just can't help but insult her. "I think those who wear pink are bimbos" right in her face. To those I insulted, I apologise, and you must forgive me... cos I'm just too cute for my own good. MWAHAHAHA!!!! just joking!!!

PS: Elaine? Pink still don't look good on you.

And me being a nocturnal child, I couldn't sleep... so I decided to go for a walk with Evelyn and found TJ also unable to sleep. And because it was raining, we three sat in lobby and just talk. TJ is such an adorable kid. I said so and EV said it's like a kid calling another kid adorable. The thing is, I don't mind being a kid. I like being a kid, I want to remain a kid forever!!!


Day 2:
Slept at 3.30, alarm woke me up at 5.30. Forgot that I set it so I could catch the sunrise. I was still hyper, strange... Took my camera and tripod and the moment I stepped out of the lobby, I realised that I had short sleeves shirt and shorts on only... and the wind was so bitingly chilly that I fled back to the comfort of my blanket and sleep. Brrr.... became human icicle for a moment. So failed my first attempt to get the sunrise.

Devotion is like 7.30 in the morning and I had to take a hot shower to wake me up. Nothing better than a hot shower on a cold freezing morning. Then it was off to devotion with Kleenex. Talking about why Jesus came down the earth. A really touching story was told, about a farmer and sparrows trying to get into the warmth.

"A farmer was sitting by the fire when he realised that there were some sparrows hurling themselves on the window to get to the warmth. So being kind hearted, he opened the door for them, but they were fearful of this strange huge being. He tried his best to chase them into the house: by laying breadcrumbs on the ground, by going behind them to chase them into the house... to no avail. Then he wished that he was a sparrow, so he can fly among them and tell them to get into the house...

He has just realised the reason Jesus came down to earth."

Quite touching story and made me think a little. But it was strange as I was the one who edited it as I was in charge of booklet.


Then after that was another long session of talk. Questions were asked and answered. And surprisingly, very chim chim questions came from the non-christians.

Shiva: Who caused the tsunami?
Sheena: Technically, no one caused the tsunami.
Richard: *explain the tetonic plates, and the movements and the faults...*
Sheena: We live in a dying world... tsunami is the proof of it. The question is more of Why God let Tsunami happen.
Hmmm...

After that mind, thought-provoking session... it is time for GAMES!!!! And it started to RAIN!!!! The ppl in charge began to panic... seriously panic. Our games had to be shifted indoors and suddenly came the other campers demanding usage of the hall which WE have booked earlier. And person-in-charge Adeline, just gave away the portion of the hall away. Agong, agong... I never knew a gong could be so dumb... but nevermind...

They wanted to cancel the outdoor games, but I look at the sky and told them "Just get ready la... the rain will stop when the time comes"... but no... everyone still panicked, yelling orders, losing tempers... it was bad...

And guess what? The rain really stopped. Praise the Lord. That teaches us something that we found really profound when we talked about it later that night. But before I digress, the games went full blast. There were photo hunts and photo shots that were damn hilarious. The Jonah and the Fish were the best. As for me? I was incharge of the telematch and there is where the Death Lane came in.

We were to prepare 4 lanes filled with numbers from 1 to 8 and the objective of this game was for the groups to build boats from 1 to 8. There is a FAKE 8 and a real 8 and there are forks so choices can be made. Each group that arrive chooses a lane and off they go. But before that happened, I, Sheena and the juniors began to design the lane. I was in charge of Lane 1 and 3 and these were the Death Lanes, esp Lane 3 where the numbers are from one end of the lane to the other.

Sheena: Aiyo, Elena... this is too much la. Too much!!

And as God arranged it, the first group that arrived chose the Death Lane 3, the most difficult lane of all. Mwahaha!!!

But before that, remember the other camp that was having the other part of the hall. They have kids, small irritating maggots, and these brats were ruining our effort. They run about, ducking under the strings we tied up to separate the lanes.

So what did I do? I lowered the strings in attempt to catch the small kids unaware. And then came this little bitch who ran straight into the strings. It was low enuff to catch her around the neck. She fell down and began to cry while I stood before her, gazing at her coldly. The thought running through my mind: "If it was only thin wire, then it would have cut through her neck and the world will be saved from another irritating bitch growing up." And I wanted to lower the strings so more, so it will catch around the knees and the kid will fall flat on the face. Now that would be a sight.

Sheena: Elena, you are not borned, you are spawned. You are a demon child

So what? Sheena was no better, she was screaming at the kids.

Anyway, the games were fun, and it irritate some ppl, but the committee members had fun in the end. There was the F1 race and the Sem2s dared to challenge us the Sem4s to a race. That fellas ain't no see the real world yet.

Elena to Hai Liang: You very dumb la, Hai Liang. Up there small, down there also small.
Ouch.


Anyway, everyone had fun and they returned to dinner, happy and satisfied. After that, there was high praise, led by almost everyone in the band, that is everyone took turns leading. Sheena moved from bass to lead to keyboard to backup in all different songs. Would have moved to drums too if we hadn't stop her. That girl... too much!!! Too much!!!

We had everyone jumping up and down and it felt good, just dancing and jumping as we worshipped Him. And the conclusion was superb... we all left the hall renewed and faced with more choices. And since the pastor would be leaving soon, there was a long queue of ppl waiting to talk to him.

I had a talk with him too... about some of my insecurities and realise I'm being too hard on myself. He told me that as long as I meant it, it would be all right and to hell with all that complacency thing that was being stuffed down my throat. God is good, He will bless me forever.

Oh forgot the good news. We have a new brother in Christ. Sushi finally chose to become a Sashimi!!!

That night, when the committee members began to gather round to talk about the day, we had to agree on one thing: We make plans, God makes it happen. Amen.

That night, the committee members went to bed early, it had beeen a long day for us (except me). The other teams were still up, preparing for the skit the next day. I took a walk round the grounds and find ppl singing their school songs at attention. Wahlaueh, a bit problem right?


Day 3:
The day passed in a blur. There was rush to get things done, to pack the bags. It's the last day of camp and the biggest event was the skits.

Memorable moments:

Kleenex:
The skit is about the choices Peter made.

Peter and Andrew fishing. Fished Jesus out of the water.
Peter: Why are you in the water?
Jesus: You saved me from drowning. I was practicing to walk on water, but have not reach the level yet.
Jesus: I'm giving you a choice. *refers to Bible* Matthew 4-19: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men and not fish.

The scene reverts to Jesus and Peter sitting down and facing each other. Do You want to be a Millionaire music playing in the background.
Jesus: Soalan Sejuta ringgit. Adakah anda akan mengikut Jesus pergi memancing orang? A-Ya, B-Tidak, C-Ya, D-Ya.



Cutie Soft:
The skit is about the choices Jonah made.

What if Jonah was a she...
God: Jonah, I need you to go to Niveneh to preach.
She-Jonah: Cannot!!! I need to wash the clothes, clean the house, cook dinner, sweep the floor, mop the floor...

A demon and an angel trying to get Jonah to make the choice.
Demon: God screwed you man.
Angel: God don't screw anyone.
Demon: I'm speechless.
PS. All words are impromptu.

Demon: Your God very sadist.


Plum Blossom:
The skit is about the choices Adam made.

Adam comes out, bearing the sign: I Am Supposed to be Naked.
Eve comes out, bearing the sign: Me, Too.

Satan: Ah Hock, Ah Seng, Ah Beng! We need to have a Conclave of Devils.

Ah Hock's plan:
Extract juice from Fruit of Knowledge and put into burger and sell in front of Eden.
Adam: Sorry, I am vegetarian.

Ah Seng's plan:
Sell VCD to Adam, causing him to sin.
Ah Seng: Eh, Adam... new VCD from Japan. Look at it. Count the X. Too many right? You know what it means... means got a lot of naked people walking around.
Adam looks at the sign he was holding, looks at Eve's sign.
Adam: In my world, everyone is naked.

Ah Beng's plan:
Get Adam and Eve to go clubbing. Plan worked.

But what if... Adam and Eve din go clubbing but go lecture instead? Lecture is about treating symptoms and causative agents.
Eve: Adam, that tree is starting to bug me.
Adam: Me, too. Remember what the lecturer says about treating the causative agents?
Proceed to cut the Tree of Knowledge down.


Actually, there is more, but a bit too much to write, so will jump straight to going home. In the end... apa conclusinya?

The Camp was great. It was fun, God moved among us. Camp was great. And to those who did not go... YOUR LOSS!!!

I don't want to regret not having done something later.
- Cid Highwind, Final Fantasy VII

We passed by on 5:02 PM |

Road paved on 6:10 PM |

May...

Medical school screwed me upside down and inside out. Shucks... I went home after the horrible Repro exams and found out that I'm outdated in almost everything. My comics, the latest Volume is V14 and I only have V8. My games, new games are out and I had not a single knowledge of them being ever planned to be produced. That is how screwed up I am. Sucks!!!

Well, new month, new system. May is one exciting month for me this year. Lemme see... what am I looking forward to...

1. 6 - 8 May -- CF Camp
2. 11 - 13 May -- UiTM Pre-Asians Debate
3. 18 - 20 May -- Electronic Entertainment Expo
4. 20 May -- Birthday of me Blog!!!
5. 24 - 29 May -- Asians University Debate Championship
6. 31 May -- Nominees for Game Critics Award

Grace just peeped in and said "Exam..." Look up and you see the words: "what am I LOOKING FORWARD to..."!!! And exams is NOT something I'm looking forward to.

Before going into details about the above 5 subjects... let me just say something about a conversation between me and Richard 4 days before Repro exams, and the effect it had on me.

Richard: If you get A for Repro, I'll get you a PSP.
Elena: Really??? Hey wait... repro is like 4 days away. Not enuff time to catch up la.
Richard: Ok, I give you chance. A PSP if you get A for any of the systems coming up.
Elena: Yay!!! Now THAT is a reason to study. Mwahaha!!!! I can't wait for my PSP. I'll get A for CNS for you.
Richard: Haha... you get A for CNS, I will buy the games for you also. Promise.

Now there are a few things to be briefly clarified before going further.

PSP: For those people buried under drifts of books, PSP is the latest fad in the video game world. The Playstation Portable is so cool... way way better than N-gage or Gameboy.

Weight: 280g (including battery)
Main Memory: 32MB
Embeded DRAM : 4MB
Screen : 4.3 inch, 16:9 Wide screen TFT LCD
Display : 480 x 272 pixel, 16.77 million colors
Main Input/Output : IEEE 802.11b (Wi-Fi), USB 2.0 (mini-B), Memory Stick Duo™ Infrared Port, UMD Disk Drive
Price: estimated RM1500
Price of Games: RM200 per game

As you can see, PSP is so much more cooler than any other handhelds. The Gameboy DS can only display a meager 260,000 colors and resolution of 256x192 pixel (which is just so pathetic). And with such a cool console came the cool price.

Systems coming up : Now being in the ending part of my second year as Medic student, the toughest systems are all rolling down. Systems to come are Renal System, Musculoskeletal and Central Nervous System.

CNS: The toughest system ever, Central Nervous System encompasses almost everything that has to do with nerves. It has a mind-blowing curriculum that would probably kill me if I'm to delve into it. *shiver*

So now that I've clarified the three most impt things, the question now is... what has the above conversation done to me.

I've always wanted a PSP ever since it came out. But then I weighed on the fact that PS3 is coming out next year. And I would wonder izzit worth it to get a PSP as they cannot play pirated games.

But then this conversation came out and I saw my chance of owning a PSP and get a PS3 too. But the first thing that came to my mind was: Shit, if this conversation has happened earlier... like maybe in CVS or Endocrine (the 2 easiest system, hehe). But no time for regret and more time to study. Seeing that CNS and MS is going to be killers... but at least score in Renal exam which is on May 20th.

But looking at my schedule of May... it could be quite a daunting quest. May is the busiest month for me. This whole week will be taken up by CF Camp. The next of whole week there is Uitm Pre-Asians... leaving me only 1 week to study. FUCK!!!!

Richard said that is a way to get me to study. Hmm... strange way. But it indeed instill the drive to study in me. But looking from another perspective, it seemed like Richard is really looking down on me. Hrmph. I will show him. I will score. I have a history of getting whatever I wanted by hook or crook. So Richard... better start saving money. RM1800 is a huge sum indeed.

Elena: Richard, don have to belanja me la. Save money for the PSP.


Now to the highlights of the month of May briefly.

1: CF Camp -- 6-8 May
The Sem4s (us) are in charge of the camp and we planned to make it the coolest ever (at least try). It is held in Peace Haven, Genting and the fees is only RM65. The theme this year is Choices and looks really professional. Yours truly is in the committee and we've been through many hardships during the organizing. It's just so damnit tough to plan a 3 days things. So many things to take care of: Games, Music, Food, Games, Speaker... Games... (Agong, tsk tsk)
But by God's so precious grace, we made it. And everyone says Hallelujah!!! And the number of ppl going to camp, especially form M2/03 was unexpected. My fellow IMU passengers, I know all of you are going right? You better or I'll send you a curse through this blog. MWAHAHAHA!!! GO FOR THE CAMP!!!

2. UiTM Pre-Asians Debate Tournament
The training grounds for us going to AUDC. It's a three days thing, meaning no school for 3 days, YAY!!! And going to UiTM and staying there too. Heard it was a horrible place. Must see for myself.

3. Electronic Entertainment Expo
Held in Los Angelos again, this will have a post for itself. Take a look here for my last year post about the E3 last year. This year's look promising with many new games, hehe... drool drool... GAMES!!!

4. My Blog's birthday
Of course this one gets its own post. Look out for it.

5. Asian University Debating Championship
Going to be one fun week of nothing but fun while watching fellow debaters slave and slug their way through the debates. Mwahaha!!! Will definitely blog about this, if possible a day to day journal. Singapore, here I come!!!

6. Nominees of Game Critics Award
The GCA is back and another round of bettings. Hope can earn a little this year after the massive loss last year. Can't wait for it. Raymond, Teck Zee... just wait. I'll slaughter all of you guys this year. MWAHAHA!!!


So MAY... a busy month indeed. Hopefully everything will be fine. Just keep a sharp lookout for the above posts. May... the sun is shining, weather prediction says HOT HOT HOT which means more time spent indoors. Not a really bad thing anyway. Well, time to finish up my PS2 games... tmr will have to start studying. Need to score A in renal remember? Wish me luck guys... and keep me in your prayers. If I get A, I'll lend u guys my PSP for a while ok? Haha!!!


PS: Something happened today. A received a phone call bout something I posted a few posts ago. To that guy... I'm deeply truly sorry and I hope it doesn't jeopardise whatever that is going on between you and that other fella. I did not mean to do anything. It was just to put a point across... so *kowtow* I'm sorry, Sashimi. I'll pray that nothing happens.

...Sigurd... I think you need to rethink your method of disciplining...
- Dr. Citan Uzuki (as they are attacked by a Bart missile), Xenogears

We passed by on 6:10 PM |