Part Two ....?

It sure seems shocking to me when i was invited by Seng Liang to go to Novena Church to take part in some Youth programme. Well, he was persistent and so i together with Zun Kit decided to follow him.

We went to have a slight tea break first by enjoying a plate of sausage and egg. It was not a pleasant sight to see Seng Liang fiddling with a Banana. It looked as if some pornographic trailer was being filmed. Both Kaly and myself were facing the opposite the direction away from Seng Liang disgustedly. After that grossed up session, we decided to drop by the Sports Complex to do some pull ups and then headed towards "Novena Church". Along the way to Dover MRT, Seng Liang suggested dropping by Doulby Ghaut to purchase some present for Felicia a.k.a. Zao Min. The discussion was not fruitful as i was not giving very intelligent answers. ( As what Mrs. Wong Mei Shan may say)

We alighted at our destination and headed towards breadtalk because Seng Liang wish to purchase some bread. Zun Kit and i headed to TS VideoCD stall to take a look at the new range of VCDs/ DVDs available. A phone call was receieved and we met up together outside Poh Kim stealing glances from the currently aired movie "I Not Stupid Too".

I felt something was wrong through out the entire journey. But i chose not to look into the matter. Lol! Seng Liang wanted breadsticks from Pizza Hut and that struck me! (WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD ONE BUY BREADSTICKS AT PIZZA HUT) Shocked? I was surprise to see Sandy, Patricia, Trey, Boss there. The dining and sudden celebration was great! Stefanie suddenly turned up too with hands tied in a ribbon! (Cute!) Thank you guys and gals! ^_^ More t-shirts received from my classmates. Lol! Well Well!!! Cheerios!

DBF1A2005/2006 Rox ^_-!! We Rock On!

Patrician Spirit ( A Sudden Batch Gathering)

I guess it all started with Azzad (Ex-Classmate) who came from Temasek Polytechnic (TP) all the way to Dover MRT to meet up with Sanatana and Shafeez (Ex- Classmates). I went over to say hello and spoke to them. I told them I was going to St. Patrick's School to settle some administration and they too suddenly wanted to come along with the intention to look for teachers. Lol!

And so the journey began with the four of us travelling on the train to Bedok Interchange. It was queer that Sanatana had to mention about meeting up with other Patricians and about going to St. Patrick's School (SPS) together. As we were exiting the station, we met up with Jeremy Chua, Ex- Patrician who was heading back home from National Service. It was such coincidence that brought us together. From that point onwards, there was five of us in the fellowship.

Upon reaching the Bedok Bus Interchange, we were deciding on which bus would bring us back the fastest to our former school. At that moment, service 197 was leaving and thus we decided to take that bus. It was more then a coincidence or some what when we met another ex-patrician Adil. How cool was that! So the six of us went towards SPS to not only visit the teachers but to tour around the school. We Patricians Rock!

Happy Birthday To Me ...

RLS Xiao Long Bao Lunch!

Yea! Birthday Cake! Lol!

Photographer Daryl Shooting at the right angle!

My prize present from my friends!!

3/4 Eaten Beautiful Cake bought by the group today who surprised me ^_^

Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To Rey, Happy Birthday To You. Its my 19th birthday and i am feeling very old. Lol! Thank you for all those who sent me those sms greetings, friendster testimonials, phone call and one to one wishes. I really appreaciated it. ^_^ For my darling Stefanie, thank you for the surprise. I never really had a birthday party before. ^_^ Yup! Besides having dinner at restuarant, this felt like the biggest party/ surprise i ever had in my past 19th years. ( I sound so deprived). RLS!!

For Daryl, Marcus and Romeo thank you for the trophy which meant so much to me. I had made a prayer ever before asking God to allow me to win a trophy or medal. It was not from any race or whatsoever but from my friendship with you guys. It reads:

Star Scout Award ( For Our Wonderful Friend, The Enthusiastic Scout Who Gives
His Best To His Friends & Contributes His All To The Scouts - Ho Rey

Thank you guys. ^_-!!

For my best friend JC ^_^ thank you so much for turning up at the surprise party! Congratulations on your practical driving. Yup and thanks for the present! My first ever mambo shirt! Thank you!!!!

Can you feel the rush...

Its week one of the school calendar and the demands of the lecturers on our attitude and work are of very high standards. Especially so in this Banking course which i am going to embark. The pressure gets bigger and heavier each day. This is thanks to its biggest contributer, the groupings for projects. The groups are finalized for most of the modules and they are as follows:

MA I
Zun Kit
Rishi
Lovelle
Sophia

BFI
Sophia
Patricia
Sandy
Zun Kit

ECM
Patricia
Sin Ling
Bradley

RWPS
Sophia
Mark
Wilson

CRM
Not Confirmed

UCCD
Not Confirmed

Well, it seems like me, myself is also not sure of my grouping. Lol! Will update this then! Must hit GPA 3.5< !!!!

School Sweet School .....

Hmm its day 4 of school and stress seems to be building up. What a wonderful feeling to get to begin Year Two Semester One. Well groupings are very important and it seems to be a stressful thing for us in Class DBF2A01. I guess i will post my groupings once its all finalized. ^_^ Ta Ta! Turning in!

An interesting finding from a quiz

St. Bernard
No bones about it, you're a dedicated, trustworthy St. Bernard. Loyal and good-hearted, you're as reliable as they come. Your naturally protective personality is reflected in the way you treat people close to you. Sheltering your nearest and dearest from harm (or bad news, for that matter) is high on your priority list. That attitude earns you lots of gold stars, not to mention respect. People admire your strong morals — and how well you stick to them! Focused, steadfast, and determined, you always aim to please. It's a breed like yours that makes the world a better place — woof!

Laugh out loud!
If your interested to take the quiz checkout the link below. =)
Quiz and search for What Breed of Dog Are You.

An Eventful First Day of School....

Sigh. So many things happened on the first day of school. What a way to start of the second year. Let me begin. I overslept in the morning by thirty minutes and thus was late by five minutes together with an empty stomach. Through the grace of God, i guess all went smooth in school later on. I did not intend to begin this semester being the class representative. There are many responsibilities and i simply wish to concentrate in my studies. I hope someone would step out to volunteer for it. Meanwhile, i will stick to it i guess.^_^ So i begin speaking to my class by collecting cash from them. What a way to start the year!

Anyway if your interested, my class consist of Sandy Ong, Patricia Neo, Rishi, Wan Zun Kit, Alice, Lovelle, Sophia Lim, Kun Jun, Sek Leong, Felicia Tay, Kee Kien, Siti & Sin Ling who were previously in DBF1A/B22. I would like to welcome Bradley, Sandy Wong, Mark & Jun Da. ^__-!! There seems to be another two students who i am not sure of who would be joining my class for Understanding Cross Cultural Diversity Module(UCCD).

So its the first day and my money is almost drained due to the course notes we students must purchase. Terrible!

For lunch, we decided to have some class lunch at Cafe Cartel Marina Square. In there i decided to buy a lunch set meal which was not entered in the receipt. Thank goodness i checked it out! So when i wanted to make my purchase (which was already fifthteen minutes later), They told me its sold out! How great! So i make do with some grilled chicken dish where Zun Kit actually recommended. Lovely! Nice!

Now the most saddest thing of all that happened to me was when i was showing Zun Kit my Sim Card when my dumb phone died on me. IT DIED ON ME! *Sob* Well so being myself i went to the Service Centre at Goldhill. WOW! Its no longer there. I guess i need to make travel arrangements to Wisma Atria to get the phone fix. I hope the contacts would not be erased! I have not transferred to my organiser yet. Sigh!

*Yawn*

Easter Sunday

Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To RCIA J51, Happy Birthday To You. Today marks the first birthday of our baptism since Easter Vigil in 2005. It's so great to see so many of my fellow brothers and sisters continuing and sharing the faith.^_-! We just renewed our Baptism vows today at the Vigil. Congratulations to RCIA J53 for making this far! Laugh Out Loud! I know how terrible it is to journey that long because I was in that same journey before.

Anyway Happy Easter to all of you out there! It is through his Resurrection that we are saved! May all those who have been Baptised before be reborn again as you have renewed your Baptism vows. For those who did not, its okay! Lol! Just be faithful to the Word and Creed! God bless you all!

Very Happy Mood!! =)

Food for thought by Father Luke OLPS ^_-!!

April 2006
Life is an Adventure
Updated 10.04.06. Posted by Fr. Luke

Life is certainly an adventure, because adventures are exciting, and all adventures have something to teach us about ourselves and the world.

I find it rather easy to reflect about life in the many ordinary things that I encounter, and some of them may even sound strange. In this opening reflection, I want to share with you all a spiritual moment that I had in the gym. Yes, you read right. Gym.

In one of my visits to the gym, I went on the treadmill and cranked the speed up till I managed a good sweat. Right in front of me was a series of television screens that were tuned to different channels. I can’t for the life of me understand why the gym would want to have pictures without sound, but it does give those on the treadmill some visual distraction while our bodies pound away on the machines.

As I was running on the spot keeping to my heart rate, I glanced up and looked at what kind of programmes they were screening. One was an ESPN channel that featured some kind of European Games with various events. There were women sprinters, long jumpers, tri-athletes, long distance runners etc.

On the screen next to that one, a food show was being screened. Two Australian chefs were trussing up a leg of lamb, marinating it with Rosemary, spices and from time to time, it was being checked if it was cooked through. A very rich sauce was being prepared, and so was a very delicious serving of what looked like extremely smooth mashed potatoes.

All this was happening while I was running on the treadmill, and I realized that when my eyes were looking at the ESPN screen, when I watched those trained athletes running their best, I found myself running better, feeling more energetic and enthused about my exercise.

And when I looked at the screen featuring the rich food being prepared, I felt like slowing down the speed, decreasing the gradient, with thoughts of “won’t all this running just go to ‘waist’ if I consume a meal like this after my run?”

Then it hit me.

Life is like this.

You see, our aim in life, our final aim in life must be eternal union with God.

And this life as we know it is our ‘training ground’ to live out God’s love, to get us ready for a life with God.

In front of our eyes, are not just two TV screens, but hundreds of different screens, each showing different things to us.

Those are life screens. And what we train our eyes to focus on will help us in our journey towards a life of God, or serve to distract us in our quest for holiness and wholeness.

If we concentrate on the positives of life; emphasizing on the goodness of life, people and things that help us to accentuate the positive, to do what ‘Jesus would want me to do’, we will feel that life is worth living, and that each step can bring us closer to God.

We won’t feel lethargic and lackadaisical in life. It would be like looking at the ESPN channel while on the treadmill.

But if we are only focusing on the negatives in life, where we harbour resentment and grudges, doubt the need for love and forgiveness, and prefer to contribute to talk of negativity and doubt, we will not want to move forward, and we will feel lethargy in the ‘soles’ of our souls. We will begin to find life a drag. It will be like looking at the Food Channel while on the treadmill.

So, dear youth, it’s really something that we must make an active decision in life -- this choice for God and his goodness.

It’s far too easy to say that there are too many distractions towards holiness in life. It’s what we train our eyes on in life that will help us in our determination towards holiness.

Life of the Saints, inspirational lives and stories, encounters with people who are lights in the darkened world are what we need to make our lives daringly different from the many youths out there who build their lives on angst and negativity.

And of course, a firm belief in the unconditional love of God for each of us will help us make the right choices in life as well.

I hope this contribution to the column helps you to make baby steps towards a life of holiness. After all, that is the constant invitation of God our Father – to live a life that is full of love, generosity and solidarity with one another.

That kind of life cannot but be a life of adventure – adventure in God’s love.

Father Luke .


Updated 10.04.06. Posted by Fr. Luke

Religious Three Days.....

Its the period of Easter Tridium and today is Good Friday! I have yet to go for mass. Yesterday's Maundy Thursday mass was a reminder to love one another through even the most simplest of things. That would sum up the whole idea of washing the feet of your fellow brothers.

Hmm, later that day i headed to Guilin View to bunk at my cousins place for Friday Morning Qin Min Jie prayers. Its been a long time since i went there and not much have change. So we slept for about three hours and started heading there at 4am. The whole morning felt fresh with the cold chilling winds and the brightly litted Moon covering the whole stretch of open field. So we went on to the prayer part and then after all is done, we headed to Pek Kio market to have breakfast. Lol!

After breakfast, i went home to sleep till 1.45pm. I would be getting ready for Good Friday Mass now. Some meditation would be necessary to prepare for the coming Easter Vigil. God is Great! ^_-!!

Running Thoughts.....

Its a Wednesday and many things have happened. Let me touch them by sub headings. ^_-!!

Scouts
It seems that the Assitant Scout Leaders and Rovers will be doing alot of planning. One of such planning would be the Katong District Competition themed Katong Intra District(K.I.D.) Games, Rover Squire investiture to Rover Scouts, Saturday fornight training 30 week plan and as for myself, an added Sea Scout Proposal for my Scout Troop. The list for scouting will never die out will it? ^_^ I am just loving it.

Youth Mentors
The washing of hands even though a simple and interesting gesture brought about many thoughts like becoming a servant leader for Christ and for humanity. I really love the reflection and sharing!

RLS
Well the overwhelming sadness and pain i felt last night was probably caused because of your sadness. Sigh! Have I really became insensitive? Whatever it is, time does not decrease my love for you.

Brotherhood of the Open Air and Service. Be Prepared. Potest Qui Vult. Pajigwad.

Orienteering Session

Today's orienteering session was different from any other session that i taught before as my students were guides. I guess i was not very sure of myself too stumbling a few times in speech. All i did today was to ensure that they have a proper understanding of what is expected of them. The thing is, i am not sure what is expected of them. My only fear would be if i have over taught. In terms of asking them to calibrate their pacing, i gave them autonomy to do themselves. I was not very sure if it was the right thing to do. Anyway as i was going back from Damai Secondary School, i suddenly remembered that what i have thought with regards to bearings was wrong. I called the CL and rectify the problem. I hope this does not distort their understanding. Sigh! A trainer that lacks confidence. A possible excuse would be rusty!

Penitential Service

All the broken souls that sought healing today at OLPS church. One by one queueing up as though the lines would not shortened. Although i felt rushed into, I guess everyone was given ample time for reconciliation. It was a new experience for me for i have not went for such services before. Healed and graceful souls ready for Easter! The Paschal Mystery to which i have waited for six weeks is finally coming. The season of Lent is going to be taken over by the season of Easter. ^_-!! Great!

Disappointed....

My stupid entry got wiped out. Anyway to summarise the other entry, I am very disappointed with some secondary 4s scouts. Especially when they are the Executive Committee of the Scout Troop. This is because of their actions that they displayed yesteday at the stepping up ceremony. Such audacity!

Another point would be i feel that the Secondary 3s are finally being groomed to become appointment holders of the troop. It seems as though, they were looking forward to this particular stage in their lives. Besides the fact that they tend to overlook safety, they are ready to run the show. This is provided they get assistance from the dedicated secondary 4 ExCo member and the guidiance from the Scout Leaders of the troop.

Next, i would personally disallow any scout to continue joining the scout troop or even gain a scout name if it was within my reach.
To enlighten how one person would be eligible for it would be as follows as of 2006:

• He or She during his Scout Section life should attain at least a 1st Class Scout Award or higher
• He or She is called forward by a Scout Leader with a Scout Name to earn the name either after long and dedicated service, to serve in the Scout Troop as a Scout Leader of any appointment or have contributed to the troop to a large extend that during his or her time in scouting, it became a milestone.

The decision however still lies overall with the Scout Leaders who have attained the Scout Name.

Last and not least, i would like to bring across to those scouts who are getting tired that they are doing something they do not like to do. A woodbadger used to tell me,

there are two groups of scouts. First being those who sailed with the wind and second , those who sailed against the wind.

Let me explain. The first group of scouts would be those who would never get burned out because they believe in what they do and their Passion/ Scouting light would never extinguish. As for the second, they are scouts who just force themselves to commit to scouting even though it is against their own will. They are those who will get tired, burned and eventually die out.

NYAA Silver & Bronze Ceremony 2006

There you have it, the ceremony our scouts have been looking forward too after two long years of delay. A pity only the three of us have earned it. Daryl, Hideo and myself. Actually if everything would have turn out well and that patricians are organised enough to finish up administrative work, a large number of us would have gotten it.
Well i realised i have made a mistake by getting the operating authority for my Gold award to be Singapore Polytechnic. I do not intend to give them the prestidge of producing such Gold awardees. Lol! It depends actually.
Anyway, i hope that we as the representatives of St. Patrick's School may produce more awardees in the bronze, silver and even gold section in the NYAA. Pitiful to see only 3 graduated patricians receiving the awards in honour for their previous school.

Cheers!
Proud Patrician ^_^

Rica's 6th Birthday. =)

My Sister. =)

Frank Cooper Sands Award

Congratulations to the Venture Scout Crew of Pajigwad for maintaining a Silver. ^_^ That is a great news. Something which the Ventures of this year can look forward to either maintain or improved. For some reasons, i am rather worried. Not sure if that is possible. Let's see how would the next leadership be for the Venture Scouts.

As for the Scout Section, Congratulations for hitting a Gold Award. Many thanks to the PLC of 2004/05. The Assitant Scout Leaders will in turn do our best to ensure that standards are kept as the Scout Troop progresses. So would the Rover scouts of 2006. I am very happy.

Scouting Rocks!

6th Day of RMS

Well I over here am panicky right at this moment. My bracelet is still at laguna park estate. Sigh will be taking a cab there and after that probably i will be heading over to changi airport after that. Pissed now! Mum being so pessimistic. Should not even have brought that dumb thing out. Alright, i will be bathing andbe heading over there now.