ansblob.. puddles of life within and beyond…

God is good all the time!

Made the phone call to Fink & Co on Monday morning and was asked to head down for an interview at noon.. Wiso decided to drive us down as we needed frozen food and we reckoned he could go shop at Aldi whilst I was at the office.. Well, another reason he was driving is cos he juz got a new dizzy cap and leads for his car, it’s no longer the long weekend (aka no more double demerits) and it’s a long stretch to Queanbeyan.. =0)

I was 10 mins late for that interview unfortunately as I forgot my resume and had to turn back… Thought it was responsible for me to actually call up and tell them I was going to be late which I did.. Arrived there, met Kim, whom I thought was the receptionist earlier.. In fact, she was also the model maker there… Interesting.. She was really nice and brought me around.. Finally met the boss, Robert.. I later found out that Robert was silversmith trained and started Fink with his wife, Gretel who is trained in marketing.. =0)  Anyway, he was impressed with my designs and portfolio and thought that my design direction is likewise to his.. And yes, I’ve got my work experience placement! Woohoo! One less subject, one year more of ID experience! (www.finkdesign.com)

Anyway, here’s a pic of some pasta Wiso and myself made.. Yummy..

As I type the title of this blog, the song by John Lennon, Happy Christmas, came to mind. For those of you who knows the mood of the song, that is how sappy I am in right now.. For those who don’t, tough!

Ahhhh.. So it is the Lunar New Year right now.. I have called my folks, my grandma and later this evening, Lenca’s parents.. As loud and as western I might seem, respect for the elderly is what my parents have managed to inculcate into me. Hmmm.. I guess it’s also God’s gift to me as a people’s person which also amplifies that further.

I imagine everyone’s laughing, eating and being merry right now.. Why not? If there were lotsa nice food in front of me, people to talk to, I would be merry. However, the current reality is me sitting in my room, in my homer boxers and making this blog entry in a hot summer afternoon home alone.. Please do not think I am lamenting, I think rather, I am just getting impatient..

Soon, my package of a bottle of little spring rolls filled with shrimp, white new year cookies and bah kwa would be arriving from dearies.. (Lance read this: SPECIAL DELIVERY) Not too long after that, school would start.. As school starts, school would end.. As school ends, dearies and parents should arrive.. As they arrive, I would be returning to finish my ns.. As ns ends, I would have gotten my id job.. As I get my job, it would be our big day.. =0) Now you know why I am getting impatient..

Church was good today.. Really felt the Holy spirit moving.. As the church prayed for my parents, I felt His presence there to reassure me; that He is there and He is doing something about everything. After the service, as I as was talking with Lauren and Rebecca.. God impressed upon me to share with them my relationship with Lenca; upon how God can bring 2 very different individuals together yet work things out. Naturally, I also painted the not so easy side of things where the couple has to work at their relationship.. And the response was amazing.. They said that that spoke to them so clearly and directly.. I’m juz glad I am of use today.. And more days to come!

Indeed, it’s when one is put into deeper waters when he learns to rely on God.. I have never quite struggle much in my life before.. Amazingly, it is only here in aussieland when I realize life’s struggle.. The struggle of making money is one such area.. As we all know dearies and myself would be tying the knot sometime end next year, I have taken it upon myself to provide for that, in His strength and providence..

The thing is, as it is, Dad is not giving enough to survive already.. Sometimes when I think about it, I do get very very demoralized.. Every Singaporean I know in aussieland who is studying, has their parent’s support.. Financially, emotionally, practically, etc.. Dad only gives me SGD100 a week as an allowance for everything except for rent and fees.. He still thinks he is overpaying me. He emotionally blackmails me when I call him and starts cursing everyone except himself.. He won’t even bother sending me stuff I need… The last time my fees were due, it was only after 2 months when the money arrived: he said he had to work and didn’t have time to go to the bank..

The bright side of all these is that I get to see the strength of God’s providence! Even as I budge to work each morning, as long as I commit it to Him, God somehow puts joy in my terrible mundane work life. He has allowed me to have good hours at work, so much so that I am actually saving for my marriage. He has opened doors up for me which almost always seem closed; I would be going to Fink Design for an interview for internship sometime this coming week.. It’s good cos that would be one subject less to study and yet I am getting work experience! The grades I am getting now is the best in my life! I have always been a scraper. Barely passing my PSLE and barely making it to TP.. I am flying quite nicely now I’d say.. Thus, indeed, there is always a rainbow in the midst of the rain.. You might be swimming in deeper waters, but His strength is there for you: You still better swim if not you will drown, but somehow, you enjoy the waters more!

Alrighty, think I will continue later, it’s time for cheap fruits at the fresh food markets!

Yesterday was Australian Day.. As mentioned upon sometime back, Wiso and his friends brought me out for a "typical" aussie bbq..

We started out at about noon.. Went over to Bead’s for fresh meat.. We bought a 2 kg bag of snags, 8 pieces of lamb cutlets, 8 huge pieces of pork chops; all for AUD20.. Anyway, we had a ball of a time, drank lotsa booze, ate lotsa meat and played lotsa cricket..=0)

Let the pictures to the talking..

Florian.. yes that’s his name!

Steve and Wiso

The gang..

Me, as usual trying to catch a tan with the lot~

And later that night, Wiso and myself thought we should go out to Mooseheads for a little stress relieving dancing.. Music ain too fantastic but hey, it’s free entry + cheap drinks.. It’s only AUD4 for a jug of house pour~

People always say westerners, specifically aussies, do serve bigger portions then asians.. I didn’t really believe that then..

When I first arrived in aussieland, the meals were normal.. Macker’s biggest meal was the Oz burger meal which didn’t fill me up.. I notice the food courts do fill their food containers fuller but I still could finish it without struggling.. I thought it was juz normal..

That was until recently, when I took a step back at my eating.. Back home, when I have a bowl of pig organ soup (my all time favorite), I usually have 2 and sometimes maybe 3 bowls of rice.. That’s normal.. Yes, I can hear you fatassed people whining about my slender figure already.. =0)

Here in Aussieland when I cook my ba kut teh.. I too have just one bowl of nice nice soup.. But.. I have 2 containers of rice.. Containers aka those microwavable rectangle ones they use to pack food in.. Those 2 inch tall ones.. Scary..

just the other nite, Wiso suggested pancakes and guess what.. I ended having 10 pancakes with ice-cream and choco sauce all over.. The pancakes were burnt (Cos Wiso the wisearse cooked em =0)) approx 10cm in diameter.. Woohoo…I am getting fatassed here man!

I rmber hanging out with Pinky back home; a one footer sub from subway was abit too much for a meal for me back then.. Right now, I have the works with the one footer, with a large drink, 2 cookies and a bag of chips, yet I am still hungry..

Lunch was 1 large domino’s stuff crusted pizza and coke…

Dinner tonight was chinese stirfry with lotsa rice, 6 peaches and ice cream..

Man, isn’t that scary?

Indeed, I was really down in my last post.. It seemed as if my finanical situation then might just collapse unto me. However, praise the Lord! He saw me through..

The thing is, I had sent my phone for a warranty exchange and PalmOne had sent me a replacement unit before me returning mine. Upon receiving my new unit, I have sent the defective one off the very next day. A week has past and I received an email from them that my unit has not arrived and they are only gonna extend grace period for 2 days. I was really worried cos if they don’t get it, I would have gotta fork out AUD900.. And also, I had given Taylor’s credit card number as a guarantor (cos somehow mine didn’t work and I didn’t wanna call dad about it) and I didn’t want to breach that trust. But I thank God that the package finally arrived yesterday at 2100hrs in Sydney.. *phew*

More good news.. I was (and still am abit feverish) really ill yesterday. In fact I was sneezing my head off whilst at the wash yesterday.. Got home with my whole body aching and whatnots.. Watched Narnia and headed to bed.. It was a terrible night but praise the Lord (And dearies who prayed for me), I woke up feeling much better!

Yet more good news.. I went to work only @ 12pm (Cos it was the skies were still gray) and worked till closing. The good thing is that Laurence told me there is always work for me whenever I want. =0) In fact, I realize recently, he’s having me to close up at the end and that usually gives me a little extra time. Yes it’s a little extra time which equates to a little extra money but it is *money*..

Yet yet more good news.. I received a letter today. Letter don’t usually mean good news.. Letters could be bills, bad news, pamphlets (which tempts one to buy more stuff), etc.. Generally no news is good news.. But this time.. The good news is that I’ve got accepted to the Golden Key International Honours Society. It’s a by-invitation only society reserved for the top 15% in universities in countries like Australia, USA, etc.. Frankly, I feel the standard isn’t marked too high (I know of two on my friendster list, maybe more who got invited) and it is definitely achievable. Oh well, I am just happy cos I have never got anything for my studies in my life; I was in the last class almost all my years in primary and secondary school, but this has now changed!

Woohoo~

It is trying times now.. Seems like an uphill struggle. But I will still give thanks and praise the Lord!

It rained today… Fortunately or unfortunately.. When it rains, I don’t work at the wash, that’s because noone washes (Well a rare weird few do actually) their cars in the rain.. That’s good cos I am sick of work, bad because I’ve exceeded my budget for this month already..

Unlike many unforeseen holidays, I suddenly had errands to run.. I left for school to check my mailbox which only had one letter…

Went to enroll for my subjects… The new Calista system the school has recently adopted is set to fail I would say.. Unfortunately, I do know the person who pushed for it and since its early implementation, it has caused only trouble and inconvenience to one and all. This new system is bought in place of an older system which is supposedly abit more buggy. However, the problem is, the older system is fully modifiable and the Calista system isn’t; it’s bought off the shelf. With that, the simple conversation of 4 credit point units to 3 requires students to personally come down to sign the papers, course conveners to approve that papers and an administrator to manually input all that data.. Talk about taking a step back in technology..

After that saga, I went to the uni doctor as my eyelid was still swollen. Apparently, that was not caused by conjunctivitis as I thought. It was something else. He rolled by my lid, incised it and gave me a prescription.. Went to the pharmacy at the mall to fill up that order and man.. 7 capsules and 1 tube of gook caused me AUD33.80.. Dang this ain gonna help that already burn hole in my pocket..

Other little stuff..

Bought myself new thongs after deciding I should juz let my Thai ones rest in peace after resuscitating countless of times… On a side node, orange is fast becoming my favorite color..

Didn’t post this earlier (Cos I wanted to give Dearies a surprise; this is her fav brand and I used its wrapper as a letter to her), Nudie now makes ice pops! Really really nice, in fact it tastes nicer that the drink itself!

My eBay items arrived.. My new Inova torch and Treo Stylus (Sadly without pic yet). This torch is AMAZING… It is a LED torch which runs on just one AA battery but look at it’s focus! LED technology was never there until now!

I cooked Bak Kut Teh with pork, though I’m more famous for Beef Kut Teh.. Oh, I used Lenca’s mom method of boiling the raw meat for 15 mins before cooking.. Really works wonders..

Made jaffles for lunch, which is essentially toasted sandwiches with cheese and tuna fillings.. Yummy and that is native Australian..

Finally, I did this personality test thingy, which I found from Pinky’s blog.. 3 questions and then the results… Short and sweet indeed! And isn’t juz quite so accurate? =0)

***Your Personality Is***
Idealist (NF)

You are a passionate, caring, and unique person.
You are good at expressing yourself and sharing your ideals.

You are the most compassionate of all types and connect with others easily.
Your heart tends to rule you. You can’t make decisions without considering feelings.

You seek out other empathetic people to befriend.
Truth and authenticity matters in your friendships.

In love, you give everything you have to relationships. You fall in love easily.

At work, you crave personal expression and meaning in your career.

With others, you communicate well. You can spend all night talking with someone.

As far as your looks go, you’ve likely taken the time to develop your own personal style.

On weekends, you like to be with others. Charity work is also a favorite pastime of yours.

The Three Question Personality Test
http://www.blogthings.com/threequestionpersonalitytest/

I have been busy at work for these past days.. As much as I am so sick of and dreading work, yet praying for His grace to befall unto me each day, I do understand school would be starting soon and I won’t be able to work that often to supplement my rent/bills/expenditure/etc..

Not too long ago, I got Lance to transact a deal for me; I had him to be the kind soul to help me buy and deliver an ibook to Lenca. It cost me a bomb.. It’s worth two weeks of slogging at the car wash.. It’s probably the most expensive gift I had given in my life, but it was worth it. She was enduring the slow death of her current computer which should be certified dead years ago. And suddenly she had the pleasant surprise of the gift which must have put a smile on her face. And also mine.

Time after work on Friday was spent with Daniel, Scott and Laurel. Four of us attended a Guerrilla Gig held at the Carillon. It was a performance of experimentative music and singing. Imagine flowing fabric as a backdrop, seated among trees swaying to whispering wind under that Prussian blue sky. Deep within, I know I would most definitely enjoy the moment more if Lenca was by my side, as we got serenaded by sappy, wrist slitting, tear jerking exploration of words in melody. Lovely.

After that, we headed down to The Mawson Club near Woden for coffee. It’s there when things got interesting. All of a sudden, it became clear to me that both Scott and Daniel were interested in Laurel. In my face, I realized I was the silent invisible viewer of this love story.

The cast are as follows;

• Scott aka Scotty, a buffed up beefcake, a communication engineer at the RAAF. A character who enjoys times with his mates but also able to turn on his charm to that pretty thing when needed. A smoker, trying to quit by leaving his peripherals in the car, Scotty is currently sitting on the remaining 2 points he has left on his license after being caught drink driving in Queensland.
• Daniel aka Dan but never call him Danny; only his mother does and she is exempted being ignored by him. Another public servant who is in the Australian Civic Service who is currently doing what he is doing so as to leverage a step towards what he really wants to do: To write policies which would truly benefit people who need help. Of German parentage, Dan is very precious with his belongings. It is not uncommon to see him refold his picnic rug once and again to get the creases in place.
• Finally we have Laurel. Little is known of this being. Also, another public servant (that makes 3 of them in a 3 mains soap) whom doesn’t response to anyone who doesn’t call her by her first name. That includes the few kids whom she teaches who calls her Ms Johnson. Unfortunately, that is her current last name.

Anyway, there wasn’t much progress in *that* episode. Everyone left single, except for me, the silent listener whom is still very much attached to my dearies. =0)

The strong silent type himself.

After Friday was Saturday. I was sent home early today as the wash was quiet and I clocked the most hours for the week. Bummer. Evening was spent with Daniel (again???!!), Scott (again???!!), Nicole, Joel and Derrick. Together, we were at Jamison Pool for the water slides and for the Dive in Movies. The slides were boringly slow and unexciting. What’s exciting was I managed to learning how to back flip properly, FINALLY.. =0) Seeing me back flip, this little girl of about 7 years old, dared me to try a front flip. SMACK! There goes my back. Ow..

Anyway, we watched Dukes of Hazzard and it was an alright movie. It was like a drive in, with that crappy screen and muffled sound.. The night which was pretty pleasant was quite a steal at AUD15 for the water slide entry, 1 hotdog with cheese and mustard, 1 small chips, 1 can of coke and the movie..

Finally, here I am right here right now, updating my blog after church. It’s boring and I’ll be going to sleep after this but I would be up again for my grocery shopping with Wiso at approx 1600hrs.

Ciao.

An update from my previous post.. I also remembered that I have found a freak strand of body hair (1 inch long, white) on my lower right back a couple of years back.. =0)

Anyway, Wiso and myself did grocery shopping this past Sunday.. As usual, I was up and about scouting for bargains in veggies and fruits.. We then visited his buddy, Beet, who works in the butchery at Belconnen Fresh Food Markets.. Here an excerpt of our conversation:

Wiso:     Hey Beet, we’re here for some of you meat..

Beet:      Hey mate, shoot, my meat’s all yours to keep..

Wiso:     We’ll have half a kilo of budget mince..

Beet:      1/2 a kilo of premium mince…

Wiso:     1 kilo of snags (frankfurters)

Beet:      1 bag of snags (2kg)

Wiso:     What kinda steak is good for its price? The rumps looks good.. Gimme 2 pieces..

Beet:      4 pieces of T-bones coming right up..

Wiso:     That’s it mate..

Beet:     That’ll be AUD15 please…

Ansley:  WTF??!!!!

FYI, a kilo of T-bone steak already costs AUD17..

Indeed it is a blessing to move in with Wiso.. Actually, so so many blessing.. His family is nice, rent is cheap, we could clique, he washes the toilet, he fixes the stuff, he saves money whenever, etc..

I just thank God for this appointment.. =0)

Anyway, I have been meaning to post this up for some time already but have been procrastinating and also have been kinda busy from being tired from work, formatting my computer (yes, AGAIN), packing up the house, clearing stuff, etc.. So let me stop nagging and here’s my story..

People often complain about having white/grey hair. People often try to counter those with hair dyes, tints, nets, caps, hats, beanies, etc.. Wait, am I only talking about that fluff on your head?

I have noticed that I do have occurrences of hair discoloration on me. And no, I am not talking about me pulling one of my weirder stunts on myself but rather, something which is happening naturally on its own..

So far, I have found single strands of discolored hair in various parts of me. The discoloration ranges from blond to white.. Looking back the years which has gone by, it seemed to only occur once in the different regions of me..

The first occurrence was when I was in secondary school I think, I found a strand of white fringe..

A couple of years later, maybe in Temasek Poly, I found a stand of blond leg hair on my right knee cap..

A few years later still, in LaSalle, Kelvin Au pointed out to me he spotted that blond strand of stubble I’ve got on my chin, thinking I did it on deliberate..

Just a few weeks back, I found a strand of white nasal hair..

Well, in case of those of you who don’t know, I never did need to trim my nasal hair before Police Academy. It was only at guard duty on one occasion when I can’t stop sneezing and felt something tickling me from within.. Low and behold it was when I pulled my right nostril back that I found a strand of nasal hair sticking out. I had to yank it out and it WAS LONG.. It was at least 3cm.. Yup, and since then it’s routine for me, once in a few months to perform that tear jerking procedure.. Guess that’s retribution for laughing at my squad mates who had "spider legs" sticking out of their noses then…

Hmmm.. I wonder where will that blond streak again.. And no, I haven’t spotted any on my pubes… yet.

Anyway, Jan and Russ have officially left for Sale, Victoria. The house is now left to Wiso and myself.. Two guys, both attached, in this bachelor pad! HEhehehe.. We got down to fixing old furniture to fill up the empty space.. Pretty neat I’d say.. Anyway, here’s a couple of pix, I’m too lazy to join em so use some imagination…

Our lounge room…

A lamp we designed and built outta trash from Revolve aka Salvation Army..

Along this week, I also had formal dinner with the committee members of the Canberra Singapore Club for the departure of Singapore’s High Commissioner to Australia, Joseph Koh. As with every other civil service department in Singapore, he is due for his posting after the 3 years he has been here…

And so, we had dinner at the Hyatt and naturally with dinner was small talk.. Naturally with small talk, Van Nguyen’s case was brought up.. Let me spill on 2 little trivia in regards to the case:

1. Apparently Joseph had wrote a statement to ABC whom tried in vain to contact him to vocalize his words over the airwaves.. ABC radio, took liberty to get some random Chinese sounding man to do the voice over, claiming that, that was the HC speaking.. Dodgy ass..
2. Van Nguyen smuggled drugs to help his baby brother tide over his debts? Yeah, true as reported on the press.. But what wasn’t release was the additional profits he stood to gain if he managed to make that transaction.. He smuggled enough drugs to bring in a tidy profit of 90%…

Sigh.. Guess all he managed to profit from his foolishness is the death penalty.. Please, is he foolish or what, being caught at transit in Singapore to Australia when he could have chosen to transit at another country to Australia where the drug laws doesn’t have the death penalty. Dumb.