Blading

OK, just an update, i have picked up roller-blading as another of my new hobbies.

Have been blading regularly for the last 4 weeks and i now can do T-brakes and skate backwards!

In any case, i decided to make an investment in the sport, hence i present to you..... drum roll....

K2 FrontMan Freestyle Skates

Or more simply in layman terms, a pair of $400 skates. Hopefully, this helps me blade like a pro in a year's time, or else, well... ... yeah.

On hindsight, i have too many hobbies, or rather, short time hobbies... ... i hope to be able to do something really well for once. No more jack of all trades, master of none!!!

Fingers crossed.

Cooking Dinner!

Its been some time sinced i cooked so after work me and the wife went to buy some groceries.

Then when i saw the salmon, i decided what the hey, so whipped up a meal for the both of us that night.

And after eating it, i got t say that it tasted pretty good!

Portobello mushrooms are now my fav ingredient now, hahah. Maybe i should think up a menu for Christmas?

More importantly, the wife liked the food. heh

QT

After Rollerblading, i decided to go for dinner by myself, after which, i ordered beer to end of the meal.

I came to 1 conclusion, drinking beer alone sucks. I rather drink tea alone.

On a more serious note, i think being alone gives me time to think, but also, it makes me prone to emo-ness.

Was thinking abt life, food, God, family and i realise that whenever i pray to God and do my QT, my mind tends to go on rabbit trails. I start of speaking to God, and as i continue on, i end up talking abt to myself.

I shall try to do my QT by writing to God. By far much better. Slower, but better.

Its been ages since i blogged, so even as i'm typing, i wonder who is going to read this post?

As i dust off cobwebs on this blog, i remember again why i blog, well at least why i used to blog.

Blogging used to give me a release, to let the world know who i really am.  I guess in this world, no one can truly be genuine, at least thats what the world teaches you. If you are genuine, if you let your feelings show, if you wear your heart on your sleeve, you are just asking to be used or to get hurt.

But i don't want to be that kind of person, to be guarded, to always have to be political. 

THATS JUST NOT ME! But ppl tell me, that i'm just being naive, that i'm just being childish.

But this blog allows me to let my mind roam, to let my verbal diaorreah have an outlet through the written word.

I feel like i'm losing my friends. I have let myself go and in the proces, i think i also have let go of my friends. Too many years of hurt has made me much more weary of relationships, of ppl, of church, of Christians, and even at times God. But thats not what these hurts are meant to do to me. Its not to make me more callaoused a person, it is not to make me more jaded a person. I'm supposed to learn the correct lessons and to be a comfort to others who go thru the same things that i had gone through. But even so, i feel so powerless to do so.

I'm waiting for the victory, i'm waiting for the power to be changed, i'm waiting for the love, i'm waiting for the acceptance. I really want to ask God, have i become an outcast in your family? sigh. I hate being alone. 

But i think, i make myself the outcast. I shy away from opening my heart. I lament abt how i don't feel loved and cared for by the community, but then, how much time and effort to i make to get back to my community? Its a dilema for me. I want rejoin the community, to make contact, to make meaningful connections, but at the same time, i feel tired and jaded to do so. Some may say its a spiritual attack, and at this point i may be inclined to agree.

Work doesn't help either. But one thing God is reminding me. Be faithful with the little things, only after that can i be entrusted with the big things.

I need to stay faithful, but more so, at this point with so much OT, ministry, family commitments, i'm burning out. I need to stay sane. I need to stay sane....

Pics from Sweden

Hi all.

I'm currently in Sweden, Karlskrona. Nice small town. At first i thought that there would really be very little to do, but well, it seems that there is a nice small town charm here. And especially the naval, maritime tradition here is amazing!

Karlskrona is a city in south eastern Sweden and it is host to Sweden's only remaining naval base.

Usually, my blog is hardly a photo log, but i guess cos i think only words can describe whats happening here, you'll see lots of pics!






Its currently spring and the weather has just turned warmer. Its now 8 degrees, and all the plants are growing back!

This is the old fort. As previously mentioned, Karlskrona was a huge naval/ maritime port, and defences lined the whole shore line.
Looking from the cannons. Wonderful view!

Was at the Maritime museum. Its a MUST VISIT PLACE!!! Shows the entire naval heritage of sweden! I'm taking a picture with the Sjöormen class. Its the same submarine that Singapore is using!


Periscopes!!!! Yeah, the engineer in me is excited! This is a working periscope system, that means you can see outside of the building from this system! But this system is really old. =(
The view from outside the museum. I heard that women suntan topless here in the summer. =p

Wanted to buy this for me and the wife, AHHAHA, but decided that she won't wear it. heh
These are the sculptures that are put in front of swedish ships during the old days. The left one is persus with the gorgan medusa in his right hand. Forgot who the one on the right is though.


Swedish torpedos!!!
This is the Vastorgotland class. The one that we are working on now. You can get this info from Wikipedia.


More exhibits in the museum.


An old submarine outside of the museum.

Yata!!!!

Beside an old anchor
Flowers at the town square. Every morning, you kinda have a pasar malam of sorts in the town square. You can get flowers and fruits and vegetables here. Not cheap though.

People holding a demonstration in the city square.
Was walking to meet a friend to visit the naval museum, but interestingly, i saw a huge group of people waking along the streets with all these signs. Was a peaceful demonstration, but i felt totally unfamiliar with the concept. HAHA. Was thinking of joining them to shout and walk, but well, decided against it cos i don't think we need an international incident on our hands. HEH =p.

The old submarine.
Home to pigeons now. This is the torpedo tube of the submarine!

Night view of the town


Me by the the window of my hotel room


Outside my hotel.



Went to visit a friend who is stationed here. His new apartment.
Oh, ate the most amazing European meal in my whole life!!! Amazing stuff!!! This is to die for! Hoping to go there again before i leave. Costs a bomb though. =(

Just for info, the above is lamb, and they give potato dishes, different types and really, its divine. And the soup... OmG!!!! Beats luzanne's father's soup flat!!! And luzanne's Father's soups are REALLY GOOD!!!

Before entering the resturant.
Voted best restaurant before. Just to let you know, this place is called "2 rooms and a kitchen" and we found this place by a recommendation on a travel guide.


ok, thats enough pics and info for now.

Yawn, sleepy.

Main thing. This post is dedicated to my wife. Dear, wish you were here. I hope to bring you here one day soon!

From Sweden

Hiho!

I'm now in Sweden for a course. 2 whole weeks!!!

I guess many of you might think, WOW! Glenn gets to travel!!!

And honestly, i really thank God for this blessing, but on the other hand, i really am torn. I miss home teribly. At the moment, i'm kinda living like a field mouse. The cheapest decent meal (read: Macdonald's ) will set me back S$12, and thats just for a small meal. Unless i live on fruits and hotdogs for the rest of the 2 weeks, i dunno, i'm kinda feeling pretty bummed out by it.

On the other hand, it does help me save money and lose weight. Hmmm...

Oh, since i'm on the topic of losing weight, i just finished a jog just now. Up hill and down hill. I feel pretty good about myself. The jogging sessions with my collegues have toughened me up and now i can jog much better now. I'm still as slow as a snail, or perhaps a snail may be faster, but i digress. The point is, that i'm fitter now and hopefully, losing weight.

Downside is this: The temp here is 4 degrees!!! Argh. I certainly didn't bring the attire for running in such temp. And the air is so cold and dry, that when i breathe, my airways hurt and now i'm getting a terrible dry cough and abit of asthma symtoms. (don't tell my mom, she'll freak out)

Even so, i think i'll try again tmr, maybe my body will get accustomed to it? Just that this time i gotta bring my asthma inhaler. Just in case. * dry cough*

Everything here in Sweden is slow, and the ppl are really friendly and did i mention that a good 70% of the ladies here are DROP DEAD GEORGOUS??? My goodness, i feel like i'm on a hollywood set whenever i walk around here. But nah, although they do catch my eye, my heart really misses the Wife.

And thats the crux of the post.

I miss the Wife. Sheesh. Sounds sappy, i know, but really, this place would really be so much better with her by my side. She really is my soulmate, and its uncanny that i miss her this much. To be honest, Sweden is kinda wasted on me. I would never appreciate this beautiful country as much as she will, and i really wish that she was here.

On a good note, i'm learning and appreciating my job alot more now and at least the internet here is getting less wonky. Hope it stays this way.

More pics when i post again, assuming that i actually have the bandwidth here to do it.

Baobei, i miss you and just want you to know that i love you very much. x

As for the rest, please do bear with the mushiness. It comes because of a 20,000 mile seperation.

Cheers!

Oh, pls pray for my cough and asthma, feels terrible. Thanks! *dry cough*

Life is more than just a job

Been thinking about work and about my relationships.

Came across this article. Kinda sums up what i think about life, well, somewhat at least.
Picture by Rongjie

Means even more, now that i'm married and working. Don't want o sell my life to a job.

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

============================

I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in

your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids? eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again.It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.

Random thoughts

Hi,
Finally posting again.

Been enjoying married life quite a fair bit. It always is a joy and sweet blessing to be able to wake up to someone you love dearly every morning. And to tell her fact to face how much you love her before we sleep a night. It is a sweet sweet blessing.

Our wedding rings and the bridal hand bouquet that i chose and made.

Work has been alright. Crisis of self belief and motivation is the staple of the day at work. Am I good enough? Am I popular? Who are my friends? Who are the hostile ones? What is actually behind that smile I see?
As work piles up, I really wonder how the bosses and the peers see me? Sigh, as much as I hate to admit it, these things do affect me, and they affect me a lot. I would love to boldly say, that my identity in Christ and the fact that I am a beloved of God is enough affirmation that I need to stand tall and confident and happy, but that just isn’t the case.

I’m working towards it and at the moment, being in this company is a blessing. I feel good that I actually know how to carry out my job somewhat competently, and that I have enough to spend, time to do ministry, and to have chances to travel. But end of the day, I want to be competent and confident I Christ and in my work.
Irony now is that of all the places that I’m serving, I’m serving in COS now after leaving it for 4 years. Helping out Chris in a Friday night cell group. It really is a satisfying experience. Best part of it is, all the teens I’m meeting up with now, are actually kids that I used to talk to and interact with when they were young. Man, how fast time flies. With or without the fun.

Gripping with the concept of death.

Morbid huh?

But yeah, I’ve been getting the shivers whenever the thought of death pops into my head, how would I die? How would it feel? I’m scared of pain. Would God accept me or would he say that He never knew me? How would I live if luzanne actually died? Drowning really is a sickening way to die isn’t it?
Yeah, I get the shivers. I know, Death has lost its sting after Christ died on the Cross for all of us, but really, I look at my life and I ask myself, am I really saved? I know the scriptures, I know the theory, but the instinct in me says, there must be more than what I have. I don’t hear God strongly, I don’t feel God strongly, I still have much of my past hurts to deal with. All I know is that I sincerely want Jesus in my life, but I’m torn with sin on the other side.

I guess at this point, Romans kinda makes a comforting thought. That despite our struggle with sin, that we do what we do not want to do and that which we want to do we do not do, a wretched existence, but then even so, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus, because when we accept Jesus, we have the Spirit of Life in us.
There is hope, just that my reality and theology don’t mesh at the moment. I need faith. More of it.

But much more, I need transformation.

A lot more things to say, but that’ll do for now.

Oh, if anyone wants to subscribe to a magazine, I highly recommend "Christianity Today".

Reading about Christian Masculinity and Sexual Addiction in the Church. Gripping and thought provoking stuff.

Lamentations

Father, i don't want to be labeled as a backslider. Its more painful than being an actual backslider.

Where is the bride you are have chosen? Where is the love? The encouragement? Is talk and spiritual pride all that is left in your church?

Is there a place for me in your church Lord!!!!????
If all there is in your church are rules and standards, pride and just talk with no power that is tempered in love... ... i feel cheated!

Defend me God please. Defend me from slander and lies, protect me from labels and discouragements. Take away the bias, take away the judgments.

Let me hide in you, let me hide in your tribe that really shows love and acceptance. I am just a man, if anything, one of the most imperfect of men. But Lord, all these years of being misunderstood and labeled, being made to feel insignificant has been too much to bear. Help please. Let me be loved and let me show love.

Significance

Significance.

Been reflecting alot on this word lately.

I have come to realise that in this world, all of us are finding for significance. I guess it boils down to us fighting to make sense of our lives.

We can't stand that we have no eternal meaning in our lives, that when we die, whatever we have done,it is meaningless, because, when we die, what is there?

How does one live through his life feeling insignificant? Its a sad life.

People try and earn more money, so that maybe, by having more wealth, there would be more significance in his life.

People try to be popular, also for the same reason, to feel that they are significant

Others get married or find a partner.

Some do charity and good works... ... all in a bid to make themselves feel that their existence in this life has significance.

I'm learning that it is impt to let ppl around us know that they are significant. A praise, a smile, a call. I want others to know that they are significant. More so, because everyone is God's creation, made in His image, that they are significant, to God and therefore to me.

I have trouble feeling significant very often. Call it low self esteem, but i think we don't let others know that they are significant very often.

Like when a parent berates a child, or when people are ostracized.

Just thoughts...