FACE YOUR GIANTS!

Questions:

1. Do you feel small and insignificant in some point in your life or you are feeling that way right now?

2. Are you up against "giants" in your life? "Giants" such as an overwhelming sense of insecurity over the future, fear of the unknown, money, relationship woes etc. Crushing waves that are threatening to engulf you and bad things seem to happen all at the same time.

3. Are you not right with God?

Just feel that I have to share this awesome movie with you. And that movie is...

Facing Giants. (inspired by true events) http://www.facingthegiants.com/

It's a September 2006 production by a church in Albany, Georgia. It is not a summer blockbuster nor a big budget production. Nowhere close. Yet the story itself packs so much meaning and truth we so need to have in our ever so often busy lives.

The storyline centers around an American footbal team from a local christian highschool. After six consecutive losing and below average seasons, the team coach believes things cannot get any worse. With so much fear and failure both in his personal and professional life, the downtrodden coach and husband turns to God in desperation. Trusting that God can somehow do the impossible to turn the situation around for the boys and himself. And they soon discover that faith can indeed do wonders.

As the plot unfolds, lives and circumstances improves and things are not the same anymore.

The movie and the storyline taught me many things on faith. Faith in doing the impossible with God at the helm of our lives.

By the way, the cast are not made up of professional actors (A, B or even C list actors/actresses). They were all members of the church right from the church executive pastors down to the childrens' director. And the acting is incredible, so real as if every scene comes from real life and real experience.

"Just hand the reins over to Him and He will guide you"
" Praise Him when we win. Praise Him also, when we lose"
" I serve a Big God and there's nothing, absolutely nothing He cannot do"
"What are you fighting for? Life is worth more than winning. Winning that trophy and the prize money doesn't make anyone of you heros and true winners. The trophy will be forgotten and it will collect dust over the years, the money will be spent and gone."

The power of faith and prayers to deal with life's daunting problems.

With God, All things are possible.

******

I have the dvd. I will gladly lend to whoever wants to borrow it. Warning: Get ready a box of Kleenex. I cried all the way from the 30 minute mark of the movie. Actually, before I watched the movie, I had conjunctivitis in both eyes (contagious sore red eyes;super bloodshot). I woke up to find both my eyes bloodshot. Well anyway, crying that much should have made it much more swollen but thankfully, after the movie, my eyes weren't that bloodshot and scary anymore.

Movie List for the next month...

Struck off:

HAIRSPRAY!

It was such fun watching Hairspray with my dad, mum and sis. We had a good time laughing at John Travolta as a Size 60 woman dancing and vibrating his/her huge butt. Christopher Walken is great; I like his quirky acting and this line for this wife (John Travolta), " My heart only beats for a Size 60" Aw, Size does matter. How sweet to know being fat does not equate to being not beautiful. =)

To watch:

Ratatouille (rat-ta-tou-ee)

No Reservations

Purely for Aaron Eckhart's lopsided yet so endearing smile. -Melts-

Hah, and...

Evan Almighty

(I watched the trailer on the big screen like for the 4th time and the humour really grows on you. The first time, I thought it was really tacky and the effects of the great flood looks unconvincing. But I found myself laughing along to the lead character's exasperated and desperate situation.) And I like the tagline, "A comedy with biblical proportion" Lol.

A "Modern" Noah with a twist.

Ok, a thriller to end it off.

Just for Nicole Kidman (my favourite actress, I try to watch her movies most of the time)

Final Year Woes

As I say farewell to my final summer holidays of '07, I can't help but feel kinda old since I'm on my way to my final senior year in SMU (actually I'm there alway, SHEESH, its already my final year. What on earth am I talking about?). Going back to school feels different as a senior.

Oh well, its all in the mind, I kept telling myself its my senior year and this year in school marks the end of my Singaporean education. Perhaps, that's the reason why I feel old-er suddenly.

I joined Facebook (this is really random but i'll find a way to link it back to being a senior in SMU, you'll see.)

Ok, Back to the point about joining Facebook. I came across this really funny and amusing group called: "When I joined SMU, MS was called QM and B Pluses were above average"

Those were the days when MS (Management Science, which is a statistics related module) was known as Quantitative Management. And yes, B pluses were really above average when I was a freshmen. Now, when a student in SMU said he/she didn't do well, most probably he/she got only a B+.

B+ is the new F.

Yeah, we are ridiculously competitive. I can't stand it most times. I say most because, I'm guilty of that as well. Sucked into the whole competitive culture, I guess.

******

And I feel like going for some fashion show or something when I stepped into school this afternoon. I tell you, the standard of looking good is getting higher with each incoming batch of students. Dressing up takes on a whole different perspective now. Skirts getting shorter, heels get taller.

I'm getting nostaglic all over again.

A Walk Down Memory Lane.

Freshmen Year '04 - the year of the beginning of a new chapter in life, first college friends and short skirts.

Orientation camp '04 on Bukit Timah Campus, fondly known as the Old Campus.

The infamous SMU Jump. We tried jumping as a group but it was quite a vain attempt, our feet were barely off the ground. Ha

The mousetrap game where there were plenty of screams. If I remembered correctly, we were paired, one partner has to be blindfolded, the other give directions to dismantle the mousetrap without activating it. Loads of painful snaps. Thankfully, I was the one who was giving directions.

I have no idea what this is about.





Untying the knot

I love the gingerbread man's house float we did. The last day of orientation camp was a chin gay style float parade whereby we had to make our own group's float to parade round the school. Haha, it sounded tacky initially but looking back, it was so much fun decorating and making the float from scratch with the scrap material the organisers gave us. We even had to decorate our own teeshirts to wear on the day. Yeah, it was great fun; the laughters, the paint on our faces (deliberate attempts to sabo each other) and the communal eating and sleeping.

Group 1 Friends, My first classmates in SMU - we were all from different disciplines.


Our first X'mas party together.

Pizza Party at a random GSR in the Old Campus (it can never beat City Campus). It is good that the final year of students have the best of both worlds. The tranquility of the old campus and the hustle and bustle of the new one. I would prefer the old campus; the memories of nice crispy waffle fries, the zebra crossing, the brit colonial like buildings, Adam Road Chicken wings, walking to Serene centre for coffee and ice cream and the afternoon after class picnics in Botanical gardens. Aww, it was good times, really. We worked really hard (my friends, not me, I was slacking most of the time) and played hard as well.

Biking at East Coast Park; the first summer holidays of 2005

Business Government Society Project - the slackest project to date. I was in the same group as Jax's best sec school buddy, Duan. A small world indeed. It seems like most of our friends are inter-linked or has a form of connection.

Leadership and Team Building (fondly known in SMU, as LTB). The best group dynamics. It was the height of role playing and video making at that time. It was a whole different level of presentation. Haha, it was funny and hilarious, dressing up and role playing for a presentation. I remembered we had to present on the difficulties of working in a huge team, blending our different working styles, communicating and surviving first year together. Since it was in the topic of surviving first year together, we decided to present in a Survivor talk show style; hence we made video of us (think of the opening credits of the survivor show complete with the original music and sounds) and brought the fire sticks usually present at the voting sessions, to class that day. It was crazy but we did really well. All for the effort, it was worth it; the hours spent on brainstorming. The ending video of the friendship forged in the team made me teared. A good way to start year one in college, a new chapter in life.

Our role playing for a video. For another presentation. Long story. Haha, but we had truckloads of fun and laughing till I had snitches.

Not to forget my other friends from other classes I took, through other friends, or rather randomly. I like the variety and the good mix.

Ah well, good times end somehow or other. Thank God I had wonderful friends throughout my university life. It was a stage of growing up, learning to rely on each other during difficult times of stress and work, striking a balance between working real hard and playing real hard as well. A stage of moulding our characters (sound rather cliche) and attaining maturity in thoughts.

I would say, the days spent studying is like no other. I remember griping about studying back in sec sch days but ironically, when I have one more year before entering the working world, I would rather study a bit more. Haha, ain't it such an irony.

Leftover Pictures & Memories of Shenzhen

25th July 2007 - QBR & the week, Jax came for a visit.

Quarterly Business Review (QBR); Company Dinner with the top management and management stuff

Standing in front of the company's logo in the main lobby

Alaska and I waiting for dinner (& red wine) to be served

Potent Chinese Wine - Moutai

This 500 ml bottle of chinese wine packs more power than a full bottle of Vodka.

Think the oriental Absinthe. 53% alcoholic content. Gin and vodka is only 40%. The highest alcoholic content ever is 70%. Strong stuff. Every year, the manufacturer only produce 100,000 bottles of this chinese wine in the entire country (we're talking about China here). I tell you, it is the most horrid drink I've ever drank in my life. I took a tiny sip of it and it burns my tongue and throat. One shot is really enough to get all of us feeling tipsy. Ha, but it was fun to down the entire shot with everyone else. We were like, bottoms up and even donna (whom I've never seen drink a bottle of beer with us) downed it like a pro. Yes, another completely new experience. The ability to hold your liquor well in China is a must. 90% of the managers there at the dinner are well seasoned drinkers. The VP drank half the bottle of Moutai and he's still pretty much sober. =X

Donna with her empty Moutai cup.

LM PHUA. The VP. Youie's uncle in law. Haha a small world.

The VP's friendly secretary who went around jostling everyone to bottoms up. Haha, she's the "one on one" lady. *inside joke* Lol, she's a damn hilarious person.

Halfway through dinner, it was pretty obvious we are getting tipsy. More nonsensical chatter and tomato faces.

Tipsy faces:

Qiuxin (she's the best female drinker amongst all of us)

Chel

Zhongwei

Don

Alaska loves her Moutai. She's tipsy, fancy posing with the half-finished bottle of Moutai. One shot is seriously enough to make you pretty much woozy.
It's time we head for home. A group shot to commemorate QBR of 2007. A taste of chinese socialization dinner in China. Loads of red wine, moutai and gan bai-ing.

Going home after the QBR dinner. A picture with the tipsy managers.

A picture with Charles, our favorite manager and Fernando, the expat from Philippines. He couldn't walk straight and was talking gibberish with Adrian. Can't help but snigger because gibberish coming from a manager don't come by every day.

My alcohol threshold has increased tremendously. Other than not walking in a straight line and talking more nonsense than I ought to, I was doing alright. And I didn't throw up after drinking that one shot of Moutai and 5 glasses (I think) of red wine. I returned home to a bored Jax who was left alone at the apartment waiting for us to return. Oops. We let him try a sip of Moutai and he was like, "woah, this is seriously strong stuff".

I've found out, in China, drinking is far more important than the meal. People get drunk and tipsy halfway through the meal. Managers are easy targets (the higher the rank, the more prone to getting wasted if you do not have a high threshold)

Lesson: Drinking for socialization purposes is a must working in China.

Other random pictures taken with Jax's cammie when he came to visit.

No idea why we chose to pose with the flowers.

She wants to devour them.

We went to Japan Fusion (again!)

"China" girl with a "Malay'' boy (HAHA) I look Fat!

Eating at this random place.

Where Jax was accused of giving a fake 10 RMB note. Haha, the waitress said it was a fake note. Oh well, apparently even money can be counterfeit in China. Come to think of it, I'm glad I do not have to check my 20 and 50 dollar notes to verify it authenticity. By the way, I was cheated once with a fake 20 dollar note. From then on, I knew better; to double check notes that were given to me esp from road side stall vendors.

Steamboat at this place, our dear tiger van driver, zhang recommended us.

Donna's family came to visit and gave us a treat at this restaurant where everything inside is gold in colour. Interesting. They were so nice even to treat Jax as well.

At the entrance of the restaurant.

Group picture. If you look closely, Jax's hair colour kinda blends in really well with the background. Haha, he went to colour his hair at the salon near the apartment. The first thing I said was, "Ang Moh AH BENG!" =\ anyway, he got along really well with my friends in shenzhen. =)

See what I mean. haha interesting with the gold decor and portraits lining the walls.

Dimsum early in the morning. No time even for make up =\

=)

I miss our drinking sessions !

I miss getting'drunk' with this group of people! I miss playing the lame ass games; Hai Dai, Nai Chai and not to mention, Dai Di! If my dai di skills have seen marked improvement, I owe it to these people! Especially Adrian who decided to impart his part of his art of playing dai di to me. LOL, to him, playing dai di is an art of strategizing. Sheesh.

My room with the name plate given by Marie! Thanks babe!

I miss watching chinese MTV in this living room. The girls and I will tune in to MTV every morning before going to work. Now I know all the recent songs by May Day, Wang Lee Hom (he's damn hot and talented!), Stef Sun and Jay Chou. To think this day will come whereby I know a hell lot more of Chinese songs. Ask me out for KTV and I sing them for you! (hurhur) just kidding.

Sigh, I miss life in Shenzhen.