World Kickoff in Africa

The 4 years cycle since Germany has ended and now the biggest competition in football descends upon the southern tip of the African continent. By far, this seems to be the most controversial venue for the World Cup in recent years with issues of security, crime, terrorism, safety and management issues coming to the forefront. A few major stars will be missing through injury, most notably peeps like Ferdinand, Ballack and Essien. Others are major dropouts such as Ronaldinho.

As usual, I'll be rooting for my favourite national teams Nederland and Deutschland but I don't think they stand a very good tournament though, especially for Deutschland. They'll probably make it to the quarters or even semis, but I think they'll fall short to go to the final. If there's no upset going on, I'll predict that Brazil and Spain will most probably make it to the final. The other team which I think may have a good chance is Argentina with their arrays of good attackers but given the nature of the draw, it's either Spain or Argentina that's gonna make it to the final since both will also most probably meet at the semis.

In Malaysia, the mamak and tomyam stalls shall be flooded with patrons unless of course, you have Astro in the comfort of your own home. But nothing beats the atmosphere of a few bunch of people coming together screaming and shouting for their teams..haha. Since I'll be in conference this weekend, I may need to miss the first few group matches. It's gonna be a football mania month with late nights at 2.30am in the morning..haha

Anyways, Cut the talk. Bring on the football =D

Direction Instincts

I'm currently at Ipoh and frankly, I'm quite surprised that I could find my way in the area around despite some mishaps with Google Map. For starters, I was supposed to meet up with Lerdie at her aunty's place since there's no one at her old place. Her aunty's address and taman did not come up at the Google Map search at all and she herself was not very sure of the route too. I asked Grace's mother but she too could only give me some small bits of hints and there. So, the clues I had to work with was Jalan Tasek, industrial area and Jalan Kuala Kangsar. It looks like its gonna be a long search with lots of hit and runs in between. No GPS for me because I don't own such sophiscated device in my arsenal of electronics..lol. Of course, there's always the option of asking around but this time I wanna see how much my instinct can measure up.

I started my journey pretty late, around 1pm from KL and along the way, I stopped by at Tapah to have food. This is my first time entering Ipoh town and probably my second time travelling long distance without anyone accompanying me. Hmmmmm..travelling alone on the highway seems to be quite adventurous and the notion seems to be even more adventurous with me going into unchartered territories with the possibility of ending up really lost in some unknown area. Of course, my top 3 guidelines when venturing into unknown territories are 1. know how to trace ur steps back, 2. take note of destination names and 3. determine your destination's border markers and limits so as to confine your search area

As I entered into Ipoh, I breathed heavily, hoping that everything will go alright. It's beginning to feel like a suicide mission because I have no clear directions at all. I checked out the signboard, hopefully that I can have something easy to start off with. The first few km was good until I was accidentally forced to make a turn into a wrong place. I made a u-turn and proceeded on with instinct that I would reach somewhere near soon when I followed the direction to Tasek. True enough, I reached the town area but the challenging thing is, which housing estate and road and it could be anyplace. That, I fear, was the most daunting task. After determining the border limits of Tasek, I turned back and started to penetrate randomly a few housing estates to see if I'm in the correct road. I took note of the postcode, and that proved useful in determining the housing estate roads. Finally, by God's grace, I guessed correctly within the 2nd try of another housing estate. I was excited when I spotted the correct road but wrong street number. Ahhh..just a little more and within 5 minutes, I reached my destination and spotted Hamster. Rawr! Mission accomplished. Man instinct over GPS :)

After this experience, Stan feels like he's a taxi driver..lol. Perhaps he should write a book too on the Hitchhiker's Guide to Malaysian Towns. xD

Travelling here and there

Just an update on what I have been doing for the past week or so after camp. On the weekend after camp, we had a really long overdue CG outing. It’s our dear Charles’ CG..haha. Back then when I was still a junior in CF with me, Lerdie and Karen in his CG. Since quite a number like Kelvin, Alvin and Jessica are abroad, the rest who were present other than the 3 of us were Timothy and Meng Suan. We were rather clueless on what to do but in the end we settled for eating at Farmhouse and lepak-ing around Sunway Pyramid.

Then on last Wednesday, I made a trip back to Nilai to have a look at the CF’s first official opening. To some extent, I’m curious to see how many of the newcomers would be there. The items for dinner were bigger than our time – they had Dominos Pizza in addition to the fried rice and noodles! It’s great to see a couple of the newcomers during our time had taken the initiative to help out on that day itself in terms of registration and ushering. When it was time to introduce the newcomers, it was then only did everyone realised that the amount of newcomers overpowered the old ones. Another interesting thing is that the new tenant taking over my hostel room came for the opening meeting too. Lol, I never thought that I would have the opportunity to meet him. Overall, it was well done and yups, I wish Justin and the new committee all the best for their upcoming events.

Friday was supposed to be Bible Study with DNA but pastor couldn’t come last minute because of an emergency. So the ones who were present like me, Lerdie, Grace, Mike, Jon and Isaac went for Haagen Daaz at Mount Kiara after our dinner. We had a lame joke conversation over the table too..haha. Sunday was church outing day at Cyberjaya Park. I did a couple of activities down there such as playing futsal and had a pool game. The futsal court is laid with carpet grass and I had a great time running around it barefooted and sliding for the ball has never been so fun.

Hmmmm..today I went to subscribe DIgi Internet since there’ll be no more Streamyx in Grace’s house. There is no contract length for it, so this means that I can cut it off anytime I want without incurring any penalty. I figured out that mobile broadband would be good for me during this period of time too since I’m moving around alot like a nomad and it would enable me to have some form of internet access even if I were to be at Taiping to settle some banking stuff with Mama. My next stop would be the Psalmist Generation Worship Conference at Ipoh from 11th to the 13th.

Awesome 3 weeks Camp Cameron 2010!

Three weeks of my life. Three weeks of life-fulfilling lessons. Three weeks of fellowships forged. Three weeks of listening to God. Three weeks of reflecting 21 years of existence.

I was kinda anticpating eagerly for this 3 weeks Camp Cameron because I just had a feeling that it'll be one major milestones in my life. At the same time, I'm kinda nervy because I was picked to be the group leader and it would mean that I would have extra responsibilities in the camp. Hmmmm..but as I mentioned later, it turns out to be a good experience. I won't be going to narrate day by day on what happens since the photos at my facebook will explain..lol. So, I'm gonna give an overall account of my experience after going it through it.

The place were staying at was at Habu, Lutheran Lakeview Chalets. My chalet was a little different in the sense that we were separated from the main campsite since the main campsite could not accomodate all 81 people together. So, for every session or activity, we either have to walk 10 minutes down to the main campsite or take a car ride if it's too late or dark at night. We are however compensated with our own kitchen, eating utensils, fridge, a large hall and dining table for ourselves. Foodwise, we had lots of vegetables for each meal and meat do not always appear in every meal. So, we had quite a healthy diet there except that our grandparents and uncle tend to 'spoil' us by buying us goodies like maggi mee, ice-cream and even KFC! Lights out is at 12am and we get up early at 6.30am every morning.

The camp had various main segments to it, the first being Lectio Divina, then Chronicles of God and His Kingdom (CGK), Wordylicious Investigators (WI) and Redeeming Relationships. Lectio Divina was something new that I encountered in camp which requires me to be really silent and let the Word speak to me instead as it is being read out. I love CGK session in the morning although it is quite taxing for some of them becaus it reminded me of all the Bible stories that I learn in Sunday School only that this time, I am mature enough to dwell deeper into the meanings of the passages. WI was something which we already did at ICF during CG time, and I get to witness first hand on how it should be conducted to its full potential. Of course, it requires the participants to take initiative in the first place to ask questions and be curious about the passage they are investigating. In between the time to night sessions, we have rotation of things such as leisure, games and outing day on Wednesdays. The first Wednesday was Boh Tea Plantation while the second one is going to Tanah Rata. The third one is up to each and every chalet to plan and mine decided to stay back and cook up a feast instead..lol.

The night sessions were called Redeeming Relationships and it involves 3 stages. 1st week was with God, next with the people around us like friends and family and finally was with the world. Basically the idea is that we learn how to get our relationship right with God first and then patch up any broken relationships that we may have with those surrounding us. The most emotional one was on family because many of us came from challenging situations. Grandma Annette did a fantastic job in presenting us the second week of redeeming relationships session where we get to confront critical issues such as gender differences and courtship. I love the last session too with Sivin Kit who reminded us that our role as Christians should translate to the community where we should operate as agents of change to make our country and community a better place to live in. The main focus of all these sessions point back to the fact that God is our Yahweh Elohim, which means our personal God who will travel with us in our personal odyssey.

I made lots of good friends over there and Malaysia seems to be quite small out a sudden when I got to know that a few of them there knew some of my campus friends..haha. The moments of Yeaaaaaahhh! and BKB were really memorable and the fellowship I had with my D'Villa family is fantastic. I think we are craziest and loudest chalet lots especially with Richard and Enoch running around. We are blessed indeed to have both Grandma Wan Ling and Annette with us. Annette herself has already attended 22 years worth of Camp Cameron and this would be her last one since she would be going international. We are priviledged to be her last grandchildren and to have the opportunity to have a share of her wealth of experience..haha.

For me personally, when we go up Cameron Highlands, it reminded me of Moses' journey up to Mount Sinai to speak with God. Many of us left the familiar things that we know and away from distractions to have this very rare opportunity to focus fully on God and reallign ourselves to Him. The question next is then what will we be doing with the message once we return back to the people below. There's alot of time for self-examination up in Camp Cameron and I get to organise my thoughts on my life properly and to have an even clearer direction on what to do with my life down the road. It's a period of rededication of my life to God, make firm decisions and also to renew my committment vows with God. God keeps His covenant with His people afterall :)

Next year, there won't be a Camp Cameron since the FES is taking a break. I really recommend for any young undergraduate who wants to get serious with God to at least take the opportunity to attend Camp Cameron when the opportunity comes. There's alot of things that God will speak within that 3 weeks. I am honoured to have the chance to listen :)

Away at Cameron Camp

If you don't hear from Stan for 3 weeks already or so, don't panic. He ain't dead in some ditch. It's just him being at Cameron Camp from 9th May to 29th May and he would most probably have no Internet connection over there. He has no idea how he's going to survive being cut off from his basic neccessities of communication but he's hoping that there would at least be wi-fi up in the mountains or his phone would prove to be a useful modem in the end. In any case, here's adieu and will catch up with everyone 3 weeks later

Title almost Blue?

As the Premier League decider goes down to the last match, the title looks set to be in Chelsea hands. Liverpool was given the task to stop the Blues and they had the best chance and capability to do it in the remaining matches and they failed miserably with Gerrard gifting the match to Chelski with a boo boo. It was a rollercoaster ride of a season. United found themselves in a leading position at the starting months of the year only to undone it with a miserable streak starting from the Bayern loss. A promising season looks to be a disastrous one as many of the decisions seemed to be fatefully unfavourable to United and although there were moments of brilliance from the attackers, they were still undone by mistakes and unfortunate moments of absent-mindedness, be it referees or United's very own defenders.

At one point of view, it can be said that United was the architect of their own doom by committing grievous crimes such as losing to Burnley at the start of the season and struggling to a goalless draw against Blackburn. If all those had been rectified earlier, United would not need to be dependent on a very high impossible level of Chelsea slipping up at Stamford Bridge against the likes of Wigan eventhough the Latics are pretty famaous for their giant-slaying technique. As Gary Neville had said, leaving it to the hands of others will be costly.

Still hoping for a miracle though..haha.

Camps and more camps

Another torrent of activities occupied my time after my trip downsouth as I made preparations and plannings for the CF camp during the last days of April. There was little time to slack around and so by 30th April or so, all things were more or less prepared with the baits and goodies in place. Since some had their exams ending late, the camp bus can only leave at about 7.30pm. I had planned to drive there since there's quite a handful of camp games equipment to carry. Alas, just as I was going to leave, I discovered to my dismay that my tyres were flat and had to be replaced immediately. That delayed some time for the bus departure too since it needed to wait for me to follow.

We reached the campsite just in time for dinner and to settle down. The pathway to the farm is just plain ulu, with pitch darkness and rocky terrain which makes my Proton seemed to be rather inadequate in handling the bumpy ride. Thankfully, the remaining tyres are alright. Maddie and I got everyone started with the ice-breaking games and distributed them to their respective groups using the cartooon theme song. It's rather amusing to see the cheers that they can come out with. The next day was heavy-going for the activities planner as we had to organize a tresure-hunt like game called Cabin Clue. It did get some people on their nerves as even we the facilitators forgot where we threw the items..lol. Night time was also spent with another set of games. As a facilitator, I feel drunk with power with the bag of points and a Santa too. With an evil set of mind, it's interesting to see the stuff that people will do in camera for some extra points..lol. But, I would have to say it's worth it to grind for the points because the goodies that we offer for exchange are really really good stuff with a black market in place. The last day's pencil game was super hillarious as we get some rather funny photo moments.

I would have to say that the food at camp is really fantastic. It's homecooked on the spot and there's ice for every meal session with fruits and dessert. It's easily one of the best camp meals I've tasted. Although the sleeping areas are kinda cramped with open air, there's still a good night's sleep. We were back by Sunday evening and on the next day, after saying farewell to Emily and Karen, I packed my stuff and prepared to go to the southern island once more to pack the stuff in my room. Once I'm back on Wednesday evening, it was a straight trip to Damansara where it'll be my lodging base until I fly off in mid-September. Looking at the schedule ahead, there'll be helping out at the committee retreat, the 3 weeks Cameron camp, family holidays and a road-trip up ahead. Ahhhh..it seems that I won't be staying stationary in one area for long. I felt like an experienced nomad out of a sudden..lol.