Thursday, August 31, 2006
Okay, so I watched my first episode of Singapore Idol. Given that I’ve been away, I think it’s pretty excusable that I’ve only started this late.
Any here’s a run down of the contestants and my first impressions of them.
Hady, Hmm most likely to win I suppose even his vocal talent it’s almost expected that he’d make it, at least to the top three. Then again vocal talent isn’t everything. Plus I think (know) there are better singers out there. Out of all the contestants I’ve seen (five so far) he seems the dullest, lacking in X factor charm.
Jasmine, Ah the COS person, you know I’m torn between loyal out of association and supporting the strongest vocalist. I think she typically a sweetie, and with her sort of voice it would seem that she should stick to singing soft soppy ballads. I heard her rendition of Aretha Franklin’s "Think"and I thought it abit of a travesty to have her perform it. Aretha’s songs have always featured a decent load of power in them. Jasmine just doesn’t seem to have that. Or at the very least the TV doesn’t portray her as having that power. On the other hand I sure am proud that a COS member can get that far in the competition. Then again I do wonder how, Charles or Chris would have faired if they had joined.
Jonathan Leong, I suppose he has the looks to sell the albums, but by George his vibrato is all over the place. Vibrato can either be invisibly there enhancing the song or in your face. In this instance Vibrato stuck an umbrella up my noses, opened it and starting twirling that umbrella around. Rather disturbing. None the less I suppose he’ll be in the top three.
Joakim, pretty boy. Looks abit like my old camp mate Eugene… hmm… Eugene was a nice person he always gave my extra soup. I like soup.
Paul Twohill. The first thought that ran through my head when I first saw him on the screen was; why on earth does he have his face covering his eyes? Then of course I saw his eyes and it was like ohhhhhh. I’m sorry if this sounds nasty but the collective features of that boy is just… unnatural.
You could almost feature him in a 50’s black and white horror movie. Think about it, a secretary heads home late from work after been grilled by the boss, she’s cornered in an alley by a suspicious looking figure dressed in a white shirt and pants. That figure approaches her with his head bent low brandishing some odd shaped object, mumbling to himself. She fumbles through her handbag looking for something to defend herself with. The figure lunges towards her. Just then in the flickering street light we see, another person enter this alley he lifts his countenance it’s Twohill. Twohill flicks his hair to reveal his eyes to given both of them a friendly grin followed shortly by a concerned look. Both secretary and Jehoveh’s witness scream for unholy terror and dash out of the alley, running pass Twohill knocking into him and twirling him one-eighty. The camera pans out with Twohill smiling and then start walking in the direction which the mis- matched couples fled. Scary isn’t it?
Regarding my work life, after being tossed about for the last two weeks, I’ve finally come to settle in my old camp. Of course as with any ORD personnel, I really really don’t want to have to show up at work. I consider my previous work done accomplishment and effort enough. Indeed more that a good number of individuals that I’ve met in the organization. Now in the winter of my service duration, I just want to settle into my old life and pursue a number of interests that I have. Not to mention I really don’t want to do ground work. It’s not so much that I don’t want to do it, as much as it is doing my work in THAT place is ridiculously frustrating.
So to achieve the aforementioned lifestyle, I have for the first two initial weeks succumbed to the temptation of manipulation. Which is not surprising of me, considering that I am by nature and habit a manipulative person. Something I understand the Lord doesn’t approve of. Of course this manipulative nature can also be used for good, namely in planning. But I digress. So for the last two weeks I’ve been putting in a fair amount of effort into wiggling out of company functions, getting half day offs and finding every conceivable medical appointments to get out of working. As with my manipulation of situations it has been met with some success, for instance I have yet to do a full day’s work since my return. But the Lord doesn’t like me to manipulate situations in my life like that, mostly because it shows fear and lack of trust in him. After all it is so much easier for me to trust in my planning which I CAN see, rather than in his planning which I can’t see. Though my actions fails by Christian logic, because the Lord can see EVERYTHING that goes on, where as I don’t, that in addition to him having my best interests at heart proves to be a more convincing case. That and his given track record in having planned the inner workings of ALL creation does seem to point him out as a better candidate in planning my life.
Case and point yesterday I went to the poly clinic to get a referral to get my wisdom teeth extracted. Which as it stood was sort of the ace up my sleeve to skip at least two weeks of work. But as it transpired the dentist informed me that I DIDN’T have wisdom teeth and that I never had any wisdom teeth. Which is abit surprising to me considering before my placement away from Singapore, I had one wisdom tooth extracted AND the dentist asked me if I wanted to remove the other three. Either it’s a miraculous sign that the Lord doesn’t want me to be manipulating my circumstance or I must have been seriously drugged for that portion of my service. Either way the dentist was puzzled too, so she wrote me a referral letter to A.H to help sort this out. Whilst I intended to go the hospital to settle my curiosity, I knew that it was very unlikely that I would get my wisdom teeth “discovered”, realizing that my ability to manipulate has reached it’s limit. I committed the whole situation back to the Lord.
Lo and behold the next day, I was informed that I could be a clerk in the office, in fact as one of the officers said “we badly need clerks in the office”. What sort of clerk? Why LAD of course! My area of expertise, I realized that when you stop struggling and let the Lord handle your situations life turns out a lot easier. Also I realized that much as I like ground work I was abit jittery with handling the bigger vehicles, which this camp tends to deal with around this time of year. That was also most likely the reason I went into manipulative mode the apprehension of spending more energy learning about new vehicles 10 working days before I clear leave. This demonstrates to me that the Lord deals with the ISSUES as well as the SITUATION.
I suppose this issue of manipulation seems to be a reoccurring theme through out my term of service. Hmm lemme think about first before I decide what my stand on this matter is.
Until then.
That is all
Jon™
Today’s Jonathan’s Gem. “ Hmm I want you to imagine that you AND your wife were married”…
Any here’s a run down of the contestants and my first impressions of them.
Hady, Hmm most likely to win I suppose even his vocal talent it’s almost expected that he’d make it, at least to the top three. Then again vocal talent isn’t everything. Plus I think (know) there are better singers out there. Out of all the contestants I’ve seen (five so far) he seems the dullest, lacking in X factor charm.
Jasmine, Ah the COS person, you know I’m torn between loyal out of association and supporting the strongest vocalist. I think she typically a sweetie, and with her sort of voice it would seem that she should stick to singing soft soppy ballads. I heard her rendition of Aretha Franklin’s "Think"and I thought it abit of a travesty to have her perform it. Aretha’s songs have always featured a decent load of power in them. Jasmine just doesn’t seem to have that. Or at the very least the TV doesn’t portray her as having that power. On the other hand I sure am proud that a COS member can get that far in the competition. Then again I do wonder how, Charles or Chris would have faired if they had joined.
Jonathan Leong, I suppose he has the looks to sell the albums, but by George his vibrato is all over the place. Vibrato can either be invisibly there enhancing the song or in your face. In this instance Vibrato stuck an umbrella up my noses, opened it and starting twirling that umbrella around. Rather disturbing. None the less I suppose he’ll be in the top three.
Joakim, pretty boy. Looks abit like my old camp mate Eugene… hmm… Eugene was a nice person he always gave my extra soup. I like soup.
Paul Twohill. The first thought that ran through my head when I first saw him on the screen was; why on earth does he have his face covering his eyes? Then of course I saw his eyes and it was like ohhhhhh. I’m sorry if this sounds nasty but the collective features of that boy is just… unnatural.
You could almost feature him in a 50’s black and white horror movie. Think about it, a secretary heads home late from work after been grilled by the boss, she’s cornered in an alley by a suspicious looking figure dressed in a white shirt and pants. That figure approaches her with his head bent low brandishing some odd shaped object, mumbling to himself. She fumbles through her handbag looking for something to defend herself with. The figure lunges towards her. Just then in the flickering street light we see, another person enter this alley he lifts his countenance it’s Twohill. Twohill flicks his hair to reveal his eyes to given both of them a friendly grin followed shortly by a concerned look. Both secretary and Jehoveh’s witness scream for unholy terror and dash out of the alley, running pass Twohill knocking into him and twirling him one-eighty. The camera pans out with Twohill smiling and then start walking in the direction which the mis- matched couples fled. Scary isn’t it?
Regarding my work life, after being tossed about for the last two weeks, I’ve finally come to settle in my old camp. Of course as with any ORD personnel, I really really don’t want to have to show up at work. I consider my previous work done accomplishment and effort enough. Indeed more that a good number of individuals that I’ve met in the organization. Now in the winter of my service duration, I just want to settle into my old life and pursue a number of interests that I have. Not to mention I really don’t want to do ground work. It’s not so much that I don’t want to do it, as much as it is doing my work in THAT place is ridiculously frustrating.
So to achieve the aforementioned lifestyle, I have for the first two initial weeks succumbed to the temptation of manipulation. Which is not surprising of me, considering that I am by nature and habit a manipulative person. Something I understand the Lord doesn’t approve of. Of course this manipulative nature can also be used for good, namely in planning. But I digress. So for the last two weeks I’ve been putting in a fair amount of effort into wiggling out of company functions, getting half day offs and finding every conceivable medical appointments to get out of working. As with my manipulation of situations it has been met with some success, for instance I have yet to do a full day’s work since my return. But the Lord doesn’t like me to manipulate situations in my life like that, mostly because it shows fear and lack of trust in him. After all it is so much easier for me to trust in my planning which I CAN see, rather than in his planning which I can’t see. Though my actions fails by Christian logic, because the Lord can see EVERYTHING that goes on, where as I don’t, that in addition to him having my best interests at heart proves to be a more convincing case. That and his given track record in having planned the inner workings of ALL creation does seem to point him out as a better candidate in planning my life.
Case and point yesterday I went to the poly clinic to get a referral to get my wisdom teeth extracted. Which as it stood was sort of the ace up my sleeve to skip at least two weeks of work. But as it transpired the dentist informed me that I DIDN’T have wisdom teeth and that I never had any wisdom teeth. Which is abit surprising to me considering before my placement away from Singapore, I had one wisdom tooth extracted AND the dentist asked me if I wanted to remove the other three. Either it’s a miraculous sign that the Lord doesn’t want me to be manipulating my circumstance or I must have been seriously drugged for that portion of my service. Either way the dentist was puzzled too, so she wrote me a referral letter to A.H to help sort this out. Whilst I intended to go the hospital to settle my curiosity, I knew that it was very unlikely that I would get my wisdom teeth “discovered”, realizing that my ability to manipulate has reached it’s limit. I committed the whole situation back to the Lord.
Lo and behold the next day, I was informed that I could be a clerk in the office, in fact as one of the officers said “we badly need clerks in the office”. What sort of clerk? Why LAD of course! My area of expertise, I realized that when you stop struggling and let the Lord handle your situations life turns out a lot easier. Also I realized that much as I like ground work I was abit jittery with handling the bigger vehicles, which this camp tends to deal with around this time of year. That was also most likely the reason I went into manipulative mode the apprehension of spending more energy learning about new vehicles 10 working days before I clear leave. This demonstrates to me that the Lord deals with the ISSUES as well as the SITUATION.
I suppose this issue of manipulation seems to be a reoccurring theme through out my term of service. Hmm lemme think about first before I decide what my stand on this matter is.
Until then.
That is all
Jon™
Today’s Jonathan’s Gem. “ Hmm I want you to imagine that you AND your wife were married”…
Sunday, August 20, 2006
For those of you who don't already know, I'm back in Sg. I miss my Taiwan work place like crazy as well the people there. Yes the people there, it's hard not to like them especially since since I've been sleeping with them for the past 11 months. But yes with great joy and a little trepidation ( I have to see S1 on wed for my posting), I'm glad to be back.
I came back with BIOC (Basic intelligence O..... Course). The flight back was okay but the collection of my baggage was a nightmare. I hung around the belt waiting for my trolley bag to show up, but nothing. After around 20 minutes I was a little nervous seeing as there were only like 2 bags left. So i asked the security guards for assistance and they directed me to baggage... ... who directed me to lost and found... ... who directed me to contact my unit that I traveled with. Having just come back from TW with a training frame, I informed them that I didn't as yet have a confirmed unit to contact. To which they informed me yet again to contact my unit. Naturally frustrated, I huffed about of the Lost and Found office, and after being asked about the situation by my friend, I proceeded to declare how useless, ineffective and lazy they were.
I decided to take matters into my own hands, i returned to the belt, and there were those same two pieces of luggage still on the belt. Considering that one of the bags looks suspiciously like mine, i guessed some genius must have taken mine by mistake. Fortunately for me the bags on the belt both belonged to the same owner and both still had ID tags on. So I called the guy and to cut a long story short, he's a sucker for rank and a stubborn git. Even when I got the staff to call him, he still maintained that he had the right luggage ( the assistant crushed the piece of paper she was holding). Basic intelligence indeed.
Anyhow the second thing that has been happening is that I've recently come into a personal word of prophecy during my most recently ypm service. I don't remember it to it's fullest but the most important portion that affected me most was that with my success ( I did pretty well in TW) there is the danger of pride. Pride of attributing my success and achievement with my own efforts and not who the Lord is.
A point noted.
here were other points which came up. But I won't mention them either because they are yet to happen or because I feel they aren't that accurate or because i fear it may come across exaggerated.
Today's Jonathan's Gem: Leviticus 3:16 taken out of context "... ... All the fat belongs to the Lord."
Words to live by.
That is all.
Jon.P™
P.S ypm has a very bad habit of not recording down prophecies.
I came back with BIOC (Basic intelligence O..... Course). The flight back was okay but the collection of my baggage was a nightmare. I hung around the belt waiting for my trolley bag to show up, but nothing. After around 20 minutes I was a little nervous seeing as there were only like 2 bags left. So i asked the security guards for assistance and they directed me to baggage... ... who directed me to lost and found... ... who directed me to contact my unit that I traveled with. Having just come back from TW with a training frame, I informed them that I didn't as yet have a confirmed unit to contact. To which they informed me yet again to contact my unit. Naturally frustrated, I huffed about of the Lost and Found office, and after being asked about the situation by my friend, I proceeded to declare how useless, ineffective and lazy they were.
I decided to take matters into my own hands, i returned to the belt, and there were those same two pieces of luggage still on the belt. Considering that one of the bags looks suspiciously like mine, i guessed some genius must have taken mine by mistake. Fortunately for me the bags on the belt both belonged to the same owner and both still had ID tags on. So I called the guy and to cut a long story short, he's a sucker for rank and a stubborn git. Even when I got the staff to call him, he still maintained that he had the right luggage ( the assistant crushed the piece of paper she was holding). Basic intelligence indeed.
Anyhow the second thing that has been happening is that I've recently come into a personal word of prophecy during my most recently ypm service. I don't remember it to it's fullest but the most important portion that affected me most was that with my success ( I did pretty well in TW) there is the danger of pride. Pride of attributing my success and achievement with my own efforts and not who the Lord is.
A point noted.
here were other points which came up. But I won't mention them either because they are yet to happen or because I feel they aren't that accurate or because i fear it may come across exaggerated.
Today's Jonathan's Gem: Leviticus 3:16 taken out of context "... ... All the fat belongs to the Lord."
Words to live by.
That is all.
Jon.P™
P.S ypm has a very bad habit of not recording down prophecies.
Monday, August 14, 2006
| Your Scholastic Strength Is Inspiring Others |
 You should major in: CounselingEnvironmental studiesLawSocial workPolitical scienceNursing |
What Should You Major In?
Sunday, August 13, 2006
So, I'm coming back soon. Before I touch on that. Let's go a little further back. Seeing as how I haven't blogged for a while now. There are a few things that have happened since the last post.
I've recently gotten a new hair cut. What does it look like? Well, let's just say it is a temptation of any avid golfer tee off from the flat of my head. Yes there have been numerous jabs and jives from my camp mates regarding my new carpet grass hairstyle, all of which have been quickly silenced by a quick jab or jive into rather sensitive areas of their anatomy.
But enough of that. My last trip to Taipei was a nice one. Expensive, but nice.
I've finally gone to a spa, not the seedy or naked sort (for reasons regarding please refer to previous posts) but the normal kind that requires swimming trunks. They've got various pools for various ailments nice place to be in, ranging from losing weight around your tummy to closing your pores, pity i didn't have enough time.
I've gone to the palace museum. A real brain drainer, loads of art work and ceramics. I've since learned the difference between Ching and Ming dynasty vases and outstanding bits of both. What's underglaze, overglaze. What were the propelling and influential factors the contributed to the production of these works. VERY interesting.
I've gone to a tea plantation. learning the fine art of brewing tea the tradition Chinese method. learning the difference between the Chinese, Jap and Korean methods of making tea.
I've also spent a whooping load of money on food. Famous restaurants as well as an assortment of buffets. I am to announce that at this point of time after the trip I have put on 2 kg couple that with the addition 2 kg i gained from my home leave that puts me in the very unhealthy range of x+4.
Another obscene amount of money on clothes, anime figurines and loads of instant noodles for my family and friends (about 10 cartons). Yes, I intend to take steps to ensure that my entire family is bald; just in case I start balding.
I'm now two hours away from my EOT function. There's bound to be hedonistic indulgence of alcohol and in vast quantities at that. Pray that I do not have to suffer that much...
I've been spending the last few days mentally preparing myself for my departure. It's a lovely experience to be here and for that matter i doubt there are many that get to come here. So on hind sight, I'm really blessed to get to come here, a very good camp, come to think of it there's no other way I would rather spend my this period of my life. More on this bit later I guess.
Well then I think that's about all I have for now. I'll see you all in abit.
For those of you who still haven't gotten it yet. I'm coming back on the 16th/17th August BR1225 0105
That is all
Jon.P™
I've recently gotten a new hair cut. What does it look like? Well, let's just say it is a temptation of any avid golfer tee off from the flat of my head. Yes there have been numerous jabs and jives from my camp mates regarding my new carpet grass hairstyle, all of which have been quickly silenced by a quick jab or jive into rather sensitive areas of their anatomy.
But enough of that. My last trip to Taipei was a nice one. Expensive, but nice.
I've finally gone to a spa, not the seedy or naked sort (for reasons regarding please refer to previous posts) but the normal kind that requires swimming trunks. They've got various pools for various ailments nice place to be in, ranging from losing weight around your tummy to closing your pores, pity i didn't have enough time.
I've gone to the palace museum. A real brain drainer, loads of art work and ceramics. I've since learned the difference between Ching and Ming dynasty vases and outstanding bits of both. What's underglaze, overglaze. What were the propelling and influential factors the contributed to the production of these works. VERY interesting.
I've gone to a tea plantation. learning the fine art of brewing tea the tradition Chinese method. learning the difference between the Chinese, Jap and Korean methods of making tea.
I've also spent a whooping load of money on food. Famous restaurants as well as an assortment of buffets. I am to announce that at this point of time after the trip I have put on 2 kg couple that with the addition 2 kg i gained from my home leave that puts me in the very unhealthy range of x+4.
Another obscene amount of money on clothes, anime figurines and loads of instant noodles for my family and friends (about 10 cartons). Yes, I intend to take steps to ensure that my entire family is bald; just in case I start balding.
I'm now two hours away from my EOT function. There's bound to be hedonistic indulgence of alcohol and in vast quantities at that. Pray that I do not have to suffer that much...
I've been spending the last few days mentally preparing myself for my departure. It's a lovely experience to be here and for that matter i doubt there are many that get to come here. So on hind sight, I'm really blessed to get to come here, a very good camp, come to think of it there's no other way I would rather spend my this period of my life. More on this bit later I guess.
Well then I think that's about all I have for now. I'll see you all in abit.
For those of you who still haven't gotten it yet. I'm coming back on the 16th/17th August BR1225 0105
That is all
Jon.P™
Thursday, August 10, 2006
HE is here. The last sign indicating that my time here is up.
That is all
Jon.P™
That is all
Jon.P™
