Blueprint Review

With so many activities and traveling going on for the past few days, I've finally the time to sit down to write about the camp.

At the beginning, there was lots of transportation of things to be done as we shifted the instruments and the amps using my car. The bus that was chartered turns out to be the newly designed one, and since it's only 22 folks, we get a lot of space in the bus. We managed to set off in time and throughout the journey, we played cards and bluff to keep ourselves occupied. Lol, we had great laughs doing that since we actually played the more pressurising version where we can't pass our turn.

I heard from Eric that our campsite will be a mansion, but I didn't expect it to be so well equipped! It's a bungalow with hot water, milo packets, air-conditioners, kitchen, fridge and even football for the field and a basketball court. Wow, I feel so pampered already!..hahahaha. The rooms that we get were 4 double decker beds in one with air-con. Funnily, there's a sink in the middle of the room, so we could do our brushing of teeth right there before we go to sleep. The amounts of flies in the campsite were plenty eventhough the area is clean. It's interesting to see those flies that were trapped by the glue. And apparently, some of them were quite noob at avoiding the hand smack too. So, a couple of them were easily smashed while we were at the main hall.

The games in the game were "evil" to the core. We had to carry wet sponges with our butts, eat raw eggs and wasabi with peanut butter, mints, cucumber, menthos, bread and coke. And they call it tea time! Next is picking sweets from the watery tray where it starts getting infested by everyone's saliva and pulling out the bananas from the flour which is mixed with salt and sugar. The taste is just...wacky. Alvin Tan's game is another sicko one. It's using the banana that is dangling from the tied string around the waist to pull or push the bottle to its destination. Given the way we had to move our waist, it's needless to say that the actions were "suggestive" and the girls would perhaps get to feel a little how it is to be a boy?..hahaha. The best one was we get to round up all the fun with a water balloon fight. I had managed to splash Kelvin with the water before he could react..haha. Then, at the last part, Erwin was the one who ended up splashing me with the water from the pail. Ben was more pro though, he smacked Eric directly and Eric ended up dropping his ammunition..lol. The indoor games consisted of detective work and building a roller coaster ride with straws. Haha, ours is the wild ride with no 100% guarantee that the "riders" will reach their destination. The other group's was more safer but not as adventurous.

The speaker for the camp was Pastor Caleb and he's actually a Cantonese from Penang, just like my father's side. Not only that, he entered USM at around the same time as my mother. His messages were really inspiring and I believe all of us benefited in some way another after listening to him. He made it a point to minister and pray for us individually, and yea, I received something from God on that day. He saw the vision of a paintbrush in me. Pastor Caleb also spoke on relationship matters and I felt that many of it were accurate. Especially part on whether we are going into a relationship based on selfish ambitions or whether we actually placed God first before going in.

I had a great time learning and having fellowship in the camp. Although the numbers were not as many as we had expected, there was still good bonding time between the 22 folks in the camp. I get to know a few people more in detail and yea, it was overall a fantastic time. The camp committee did a great job in organising it and hopefully, we get am evem bigger number for next year's camp..haha

Controversial Comeback

Howard Webb tells the Spurs players to talk to his finger as they mob him

Comebacks are usually spectacular to watch, especially when one team overcomes a big deficit. But comebacks can turn into a philosophical debate especially if the referee happens to be 'involved' in it. Spurs bulldozed through to a 2-0 lead in the first half to the amazement of the Old Trafford crowd. Darrent Bent and Modric finished off their goals in style as the United defence was left to ponder once again, their deficiencies in marking out the Spurs strikers. Ahhhh..the Anfield half must have been delighted over the predicament that the United players were in. They have done their part in disposing Hull and now, it looks like United cannot match up the win.

Fergie made change in halftime as he decided to unleash Tevez over the somewhat ineffective Nani. In the 56th minute, Webb awarded a penalty to United after witnessing what appears to be Carrick being clattered to the ground by Gomes. However, TV replays have shown that Gomes actually did make some contact with the ball and this was shown in evidence by the the change of direction of the ball after the collision. Some even pointed out that it was a very major obvious mistake made by England's best referee. Spurs were furious coz first it was the Carroll nonsense a couple of years back and now this! Ronaldo converted the penalty and with one goal back in, it unwittingly sparked a rampage by Man Utd as they overpower Spurs amazingly with another 4 goals in 12 minutes. Wayne equalised first in the 67th minute and this was followed by a superb thumping diving header by Ronaldo in the 68th to put United in the lead. His joy was evident as he wheels away and flung his shirt away. There was some pushing and scramble in the 4th goal but the referee confirmed that it has passed the line and gave Wayne the goal. 5th goal was similar nature too but Berbatov was there to slot it pass Gomes.

The stretch of 12 minutes was truly the Man Utd that everyone once knew as they played through ball after through ball and all the waltzy runs were brilliant to watch. The combination of all 4 attackers proved to be an effective deadly gamble. By having Tevez upfront, this freed Wayne for the job at wide midfield as he provides better defensive cover for Evra as compared to Nani.

The match ended in a emphatic 5-3 win for Man Utd and it propelled them into prime position once again above Liverpool. Chelsea had apparently lost the title race plot when they drew with Fulham before their match with West Ham. So, it can be said that it's now a race between Man Utd and Liverpool. Looking back at the match, there was a debate on too what extend has Howard Webb's decision changed the course of the game. United fans may take solace that their team managed to overturn the 2 goal deficit but many would have argued that the comeback was only possible because of the wrong penalty. Some would even cheekily term it as a "super assist". My personal opinion is that yes, it did change the course of the game to some extent given that Man Utd have been known to play pretty badly when they are down for extended periods. But I belief that it was not 100% Webb's fault that Spurs lost the plot. It was a combination of other factors too such as the removal of Nani to put Tevez inside. Most importantly, Spurs still had one goal to lead even after the penalty. They could have held on to that if they had maintained focus. It was theirs to lose if they defended badly. In other words, Spurs had the chance to make amends. Credit have to be given to United for putting 4 goals up in 12 minutes. It may have been sparked by the decision, but how many teams could match up in putting up 4 goals in 12 minutes even if the penalty had been given in their favour? To place the entire blame on Webb is just like saying that World War 1 was started by a single bullet or that Gravillo Princip's mother was the person responsible for the war. I can see that there's a claim of causation somewhere there but this is just not the way to apply it. If Webb's decision had changed it from a 0-1 to a 1-1 or a 1-1 to a 2-1, it's valid to say that it's the referee's problem. But a change to 1-2 is still a lot to play for and it's just Spurs lack of initiative to hold on that caused their downfall. It's tacky to say this but I think Man Utd more or less deserved their win and comeback.

Not long to go now. Just 4 more matches or so. As long as Man Utd keep winning the remaining matches before the Arsenal match, the fate of the title won't depend on that match since it would be won by then. The Gooners have shown themselves to be formidable foes recently with the emergence of Arshavin. They showed that they are not shy to bang in the goals even in Fortress Anfield. Arshavin himself single-handedly pumped in 4 goals. This is a worrying threat for the upcoming 2 matches considering that Old Trafford is no longer the invincible place that it once was. Any team like Spurs or Hull can pump in the goals. The upcoming Champions League between Man Utd and Arsenal will be most interesting to watch. But I won't see the home fixture as advantage to United considering the forms the Gooners are in now.

Away for camp

Stan will be away from the webbie once again as he travels to Gopeng for ICF camp! Updates will only be done in the weekend :)

Old boys return to haunt

Howard shows his former teammate how a penalty should be saved

Chelsea have reached the FA Cup final and it's up to this second semi-final match-up to decide who will be joining them. On paper, it looks like its gonna be another Chelsea vs. Man Utd final. But the prospect of that looks dwindled when the team sheet was revealed. Eyebrows were definitely raised at Fergie's choice of the first eleven for a major semi-final. Mind you, this is is not Carling Cup..it's FA Cup. But Fergie looked more like providing a squad for Carling Cup. Not even Wenger would have the audacity to do such a thing. There's Ben Foster, Rafael, Fabio (twins played together in the first team for the first time), Gibson, Welbeck, Macheda. Looks like a team straight from Reserves. This was also the youngest ever squad that Fergie had placed at this stage of the competition. These lads have impressed at some stage during the season but getting them to play together for a result? With such a gamble, I would say the match can go either way given that most of Everton's regulars are there with the exception of Arteta who is injured. Three ex-United players are there, with Phil Nevile, Saha and Tim Howard all starting.

At the 20th minute, there was nearly some boo-boo goalkeeping from Foster who dangerously dallied the ball in front of former-Red Saha. It was a Barthez moment as he tried to swivel the ball around with his legs. Well, fortunately, he grabbed hold of the ball before it turned into a disaster. The 90 minutes were a tug-and-war game with neither side gaining any sort of mileage. Some attributed it to the condition of the pitch which limits the way the two teams played. There was one incident in the game where Fergie burst into an incensed rage together with his assistant Mike Phelan for Mike Riley's failure to award a penalty after Welbeck was brought crashing down by Jagielka. When it was clear that the match is going to extra time, Fergie subbed in Dimi in hope that he could create something with his technical abilities. 3o minutes come and gone and still nothing to separate them. It goes to the penalty shootout yet again for United.

Tim Cahill was the first and when he blasted the ball over the post, there was a feeling that Man Utd will do it again because of the incompetence of their opponents in shootout, just as how Portsmouth and Spurs had shown. However, Dimi just had to put out a wuss shot to put the whole United team under pressure. The second to take for United was Rio and I already had a bad feeling that that slacker will have his shot saved by his former team-mate..and Howard did save it. Only Vidic and Anderson managed to score for United's penalty. By then, the Evertonians were already jubilant. The so-called quadruple bid was squashed. Fergie insists that his selection was justified but he has to admit that with such a selection it has every chance of having a loss. Anyways, it's over and the important thing is for Man Utd to pick themselves up and proceed on with the Premier League and Champions League.

Semester break starts

The 2-weeks semester holidays has started and it's great to get some rest after the crazy hectic final exams. However, this break doesn't feel as slack as the previous ones since there are heaps of things to be settled even at the start of the semester. The good side is that this break won't contain any coursework or revision, so I do have the time to settle the important stuff. I'll be looking forward to CF camp, which is coming in around 2 days time. Haha..can't wait to have an exciting time over there with the CF folks! ^^ The only unfortunate thing is that the JPA people won't be able to join us since their camp clashes with the CF camp and their camp actually starts today already. Oh well, hopefully for the next camp, there won't be such clashes.

The weekend was refreshing, although I was feeling drowsy as a result of Saturday night activities..haha. A bunch of us from CF together with JPA friends of Maddie and Jia Lerd played some funny and wacky social games. We played Mafia first, and we had great bursting laughter trying to guess each other. And Jia Lerd always get booted off at every round until she became quite stress from playing..hehe =p

Then after that we tried out bluff, but we were quite docile in playing that coz only one or two regular "liars" were trying out their skills..lol. Then around midnight, the group became smaller since some had to pack off to go Redang while some wanna go back to sleep. The rest that are left there then played tai dee and try out some poker..lol. We played until like 3am plus before going off. Haha..and in a few hours time, there was church. So, I managed to sleep only like 3 hours or so. After service, Sherene, Eric and me made a trip down to Seremban to meet up with Lynne to shop for the camp stuff. We made a short stop too at Jusco 2 where I managed to get some salmon sushi to munch. Mhhhhmmm..it's been some time since I savoured it. We hanged out at Lynne's home for a while to settle the camp booklet. For dinner, we headed to a cozy corner at Seremban where they serve delicious pork burger. The restaurant's decoration is truly epic..wahahaha. They have all the retro stuffs from the 70s and 80s plus I think the owner's big fan of guitars since he's hanging all of them at the restaurant walls. The salad and the meal was great but the drinks were too little and expensive to go with them! I finished my drink even before the food came..haha.

Today was quite dull considering that most people have already gone back to their hometowns. I've managed to settle a few stuff just now like returning the library books and handing back the original hostel key back to AO. Nothing much to ponder except that I need to complete a few important editorial task before heading out for camp since I won't be bringing my lappie there.

Awesome Twenty

Stan is back and it's an auspicious day to return..haha ^^

What a fantastic day to end the exams, although I had to slog my brains the day before. I did not think much when the final paper ended at 11am. Maybe a thing or two on what wrong stuff I could end up writing in my paper. All I was thinking was the sweet liberation from exam week and how I'm going to begin my slacking 2 weeks..lol. A couple of things also immediately occupied me after the paper since I need to discuss with my lecturer on the funding of the magazine and it seems that I had to draft out a progress report on what has been done already. Then, I saw Eric loitering around and I was thinking of eating lunch with him. So, as I was going off, he asked me whether I'm going out of the hall already. And I told him 'yea'. So, once I step out, I saw Michael waiting outside. I thought he went back already coz I was spending quite some time talking to my lecturer at the hall. Of course, we started to discuss a bit of the paper as we walked down the stairs. Then, I saw Ben. I was wondering what he was doing down there and he asked me where was Eric. I was thinking that he was probably there because of exams or he wanna discuss something with Eric. Before I could turn back to point to him that Eric was behind, somebody shove and push me to the front and....OH GOSH, to my massive shock and SURPRISE, I saw a cake and a bunch of CF people that I recognized who then started singing! Totally Speechless and stunned!! LOL!!!

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO MADE THE BIRTHDAY SURPRISE FOR MY SPECIAL DAY!

These are the "conspirators" who made it possible..hehehe - Rhenita, Valerie, Eric, Ben, Jia Lerd, Daniel Cheng, Alvin Victor, Alvin Ting, Sally, Sherene, Shu Jin and Zhu Weeeeeee

Thank you so much for taking the effort to plan this. I really appreciated it very much. God bless all of you :)

I really didn't suspect anything from seeing Eric staying in the hall or bumping into Ben whom I thought was just asking a usual question. It's gotta be the timing..haha. This was the timing that I've expected least to happen. Honestly, I was thinking that there was no way anyone could surprise me because I've gone through all the tricks of the book and having been there myself as the participant in crime for all the surprises of Pastor Vic's and Shu Jin's birthdays and Johnny's farewell dinner. Apparently, the AO interception was Plan C. I heard that Plan A or B was actually to kidnap me to somewhere at 11 pm yesterday with the pretext of Ben asking me to pass him something and have me dunk with water..lol. But they stopped short of the plan coz they were worried that I may be too traumatised to do my final paper today..haha. I would seriously love to kena Plan A or B! lol xD

A big thank you to all those that had sent the Facebook and SMS birthday greetings. And thanks also to a few of my classmates too who spend time with me in dinner and gave me a drawing. God bless all of you too :)

Stan is twenteen...ooopsss..twenty now. I'm feeling old indeed, with me coming to the big TWO-OHs now.

Hiatus

Stan will be taking a break from blogging till he settles his irritating and inconvenient 1st year final exams. Feel free to look around the past entries meanwhile :)

Wonder debutant nicks it for United

Macheda introduces himself as the next wonderkid in Man Utd

Remember the number: 41. Remember the name: Federico Macheda. Because if Man Utd do win the title for the 08-09 season, they will have this 17 year-old boy to thank.

It was not the best of starts for Man Utd as they were continuously being pressured by Aston Villa from the beginning. It was clear once again that United had trouble shrugging off their poor form. Villa were not shy to show their attacking intent with a general flow of attacking football from Ashley Young, Agbolanhor and Carew. On the other hand, United were struggling to even get a shot against the Villa goalpost. Tevez was totally ineffective as a lone striker. Nani no doubt could run into opposition area but he's not making any useful passes. At times, he's just firing ridiculous shots from outside the box. The continuous chain of Villa pressure was only broken when Friedel did a boo boo blunder in using his hands to handle Milner's back pass. The result was an inside the box free kick and from that kind of range, there was little chance that Ronaldo will miss. The Portugese winger displayed his scoring prowness once again as he send the ball to the far right beyond the reach of Friedel.

Giggs could have the chance to put the game beyond doubt with two goals up but he missed. A 1-0 lead should settle the home team's nerves but it wasn't to be as Villa persistently knocked on United's goal door. Their moment of equaliser came when some slack defending and ball watching moment from Neville allowed Carew to freely head in the ball past van der Sar. The nature of United's defence allowed Villa to capitalise on one apparent weakness - challenging for high balls and heading them away. Neville and Evra are shorties, O Shea is a gentle giant while Evans is just not experienced enough to deal with them. So, it was not surprising that Carew could equalise on that count with his heading and natural height.

It was deja vu once again when Agbonlahor rose to give Villa 2-1 lead. At that point of time, I was really wondering if Man Utd became the new "Newcastle United". Three losses in a row is EPIC FAIL seriously. And 2 of them are home matches. The plight of United's available substitutes were evident when Macheda was introduced to the game in place of Nani. I guess he had enough of Nani wasting shots already. One of Macheda's early "contribution" was to whine like a baby when he was brought down at the penalty box. One of the Villa defenders carry him up to the laughter of all who were watching the game. Ronaldo managed to get the equalizer for United this time when he succeeded in squeezing a shot just past Friedel. At that point of time, I was contended to just draw the game.

Tevez was finally replaced in the 88th minute by Welbeck and can somebody tell me the rationale behind Welbeck making a bigger threat at Villa's goal within a minute into the game than Carlos' 80+ minutes? The United fans would love Carlos to stay but he has to show them and the managing board that he's worth the 30 million that they are investing in him. All these incessant ball chasing and lack of proper shots are doing him no good at all.

With two minutes left in time, Macheda became the instant hero at Old Trafford when he beat the Villa defender with a 180 body twist and smashing in a superb curling kick that was unstoppable by Friedel. It was a perfect gift to Old Trafford by the 17 year old debutant. Fergie's gamble had paid off. Perhaps it could be right to say that United don't deserve to win this game given the way that they play. But a late 3-2 win is still 3 points in the bag. The win placed United back at the top with one game in hand. Looks like Man Utd lives to fight another day, with the leeway of losing one game still intact at the end of the day.

Farewell

It was a fantastic Friday yesterday as I had two outings, one for lunch and one for dinner. Following traditions from every semester, our Friday CG group held our last gathering at Pizza Hut. Haha..it's the last time we'll have Charles as our CG leader since this is his last semester. Thank God we had sufficient transport to get everyone there as Charles, Mark and me were the drivers. Extra drivers are good especially for those that need to go back early for the 2pm class. Lol..this semester, I'm super free after 11am since I have no more class! This was unlike last semester when I had to rushed back for the 2pm class..hur hur. Since we had around 11 people, we ordered two six-person's meal. Our side of the table get to eat extra..hehe..but we still do remember Valerie of course! We spent so much time experimenting with the DSL camera that we almost lost track of the time. Some of those who had class at 2pm were still munching pizzas and slurping soup at 1.45..lol. At the end, me and Alvin Victor were the last ones to leave as we slowly savour and finish the remnants of our meal.

Then in the evening, the GFS gang from Inti took the classic public transport route from campus to Mid-Valley for a surprise farewell dinner for Johnny. We decided not to use cars becoz the area over there would be too jammed and I'm not too familiar with the area also. Haha..it was quite funny at the KTM station because I was taking my own sweet time to feed the machine with RM1 notes when the train arrived. I quickly stuffed in a RM5, get the change and make a dash for it. Fortunately, I managed to get inside the train in time..lol.

We went to Nandos where we've already booked the tables there. Grace and the others had reached there earlier to confirm our booking there. I think we had 20 plus people at the table including Pastor Vic. In any case, we all have to arrive earlier than Johnny for the surprise to work. Haha..and Johnny was really stunned and surprised to see all of us there. He was expecting a small group of 4 people to eat with him but he didn't noticed that the long stretch of table of 20 people in front him contained faces that are familiar to him. We duly alerted to his attention by singing a "happy birthday" song and the whole restaurant was staring at us! haha..The food was good with unlimited flows of ice lemon tea. The chicken was marinated well and the spiciness was super but delicious. Thankfully, the free flows were there to cool the mouth..lol.

Jia Lerd's mama came to fetch the girls while the boys went back through KTM. When we reached the Nilai bus terminal, there were no more buses and the weird thing is that there were no more taxis too except for one or two. So, to save cost, me and Jason went back through one taxi and we returned back to the bus terminal with our cars to fetch the rest. Haha..Jason also get to fetch 3 extra girls from Inti that we don't know since being good uni mates, it's not nice to leave them stranded there.

Since I called 1/2 chicken at Nandos, my bill came to about RM31. Woah, yesterday's lunch and dinner = RM 43. Plus KTM fees of Rm 9 +. Easily more than RM 50 yesterday. I'm definitely going for a lunch fast today..lol. Bank-busting prices for the meals but the fellowship and company of friends were great. Anyways, all the camera sessions were really hilarious. There's Spongebob, Patrick and Mr Krabs, guys wearing couple shirt, people receiving "awards" and people having sumpit (blowpipe) wars all over the place. I bet there's gonna be a FFA Facebook comment flood soon. You can probably imagine the amount of sakai-ness that is going through during dinner xD

Ascension

A generation has passed and another new generation takes over its place. Hard to imagine how Inti Christian Fellowship will be like without Rhenita, Vincent, Sherene, Shu Jin, Charles (yes..he's leaving for real after 10,000 years in CF..haha), Kelvin and Alvin. Those folks are like the pillars of CF and whenever there is CF meetings and stuff, they'll always be there. The old committee did a great job and I must say I enjoyed their leadership for the past one year. Lol, when I first joined CF in May 2008, they were just newbies in their leadership posts. I'm really impressed with how they've run CF from the first meeting I've attended. I know the first moment when I've joined CF that it's the place and company I want to be in.

Hmmm..I just felt that CF will never be the same again because to some extent, the old committee defines what it's all about. In a way, they have left a long lasting legacy on the remaining members in CF. As part of the new generation, I really do hope we will produce the same impact as our seniors for the new incoming members.

I'm really grateful to God for giving me an opportunity to serve in the CF committee as the secretary. I'm also thankful to the old committee for having faith in me in nominating me for that position. It's an honour to commit my talents and time into the service of the Lord. After stepping back and looking at all the incidents that had transpired in my life for the past year, I can see that many of them had a reason in happening. It's all part of God's plan..haha. I pray that the Lord will give the new committee the same wisdom as our predecessors as we lead the CF next semester :)