awe-strucked

http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=554943

the pen-ultimate level of photo-realism: what you see is what you get, or even better; heck, its so real, your eyes tell you its fake. Alas, I can but 五体投地 in humble adoration.

EE so far: 3000/4800 字 in 2 days. And No, im only about 1/2 way done. I aimed to complete up to 4000 before SM, and thats like tomorrow. Hey its chinese, even BS-ing is hard!!

latest update: oops exceeded by too much!!

been researching

not on EE, but on Batam Harris Resort. Dunno why, but it seems like a habit for me to always google and find out more of places which I have never visited b4 but am visiting soon; ok maybe 26 Dec is not that soon, but hey, no harm to be prepared beforehand :D Well, mainly will just look out for stuffs to do there (considering the amount of free time on the current schedule) and nice sceneries and views to hang out at and 欣赏, obviously not forgetting about photos also lah... Better to go there with some form of direction then be totally clueless and waste time walking around in circles and missing out on the good stuffs!

Some useful (not 100% reliable) info that i've uncovered:
- a surprise welcome!! (if you are lucky, ok maybe its no longer a surprise liao..)
- restaurant food is nice but quite ex (especially the grill 1 at night)
- can always walk nearby outside hotel to eat cheaper food
- largest swimming pool in batam!
- but unswimmable beach!!! lol
- quite far from city area + shopping centre, need take bus/cab (Nagoya Hill)
- A & W!!!!!!!!! (only at nagoya hill...)
- a fair bit of sports and land/water activities there, but with a price of course (eg. beach soccer, cycling, bowling, water polo, gokarting etc...)
- no nice sunset/sunrise so far!!! (judging from pictures)

Have gone through quite a handful of websites, but here are some of the more useful ones: (to my surprise, i find blogs much more informative than those conventional info and/or photo webbies)

http://prissilia.blogspot.com/2008/04/our-batam-trip-harris-resort.html

http://rebeldiamonds.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/batam-14th-may-16th-may-2008/

http://www.yebber.com/review/harris-resort/

a great 4 days

was spent in the recent TJC Pre-Teens camp.

Thank God for allowing me to participate in the camp as a "full-time" helper haha. Mainly met many new faces there, some oddly familiar ones (i.e. almost identical younger bros and sis), and of course those few that I know off. I have to say that the many activities and programmes that were planned revolving around life skills were quite interesting and meaningful, though they can be awfully draining to the bunch of older ones, myself included. Still, it truly was a great time spent there with good fun, food, fellowship, and fotos and I hope that this will not be the last of such an experience for me and most importantly, them.

Well, it is heartening to see many young, vibrant and energetic individuals amongst this lot. The times have indeed and will surely change further and I just hope and pray that they will continue to grow up in the Lord and one day emerge as fellow workers and pillars of the church.

Pics can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/johnyuzx91/TJCPreTeensCamp08

And i just came to the realisation that i effectively have a week now to finish my 4000 word chinese EE before spiritual meeting and theolo and youth outing and 2009; truly a testament of the marvels of church stayovers taking the most heaviest of burdens off your mind. No worries, when theres God, theres always a way =)

its been 2 weeks+

since holidays started. And I have to say that I dont think I wasted too much of it stoning, being bored and all those others stuffs that you will regret at the end of Dec. Apparently, my PMS attitude towards this hols (refer to previous post) is working out quite (thought not as) well. Completed my TOK Essay, did some research on EE, helping out in SJAB training my juniors for next years competition, been reading abit of chinese and malay sini-sana, running, swimming, even getting my first gym membership and straining my biceps during the 1st free physical fitness assessment (lol, the importance of cool-downs). And of course being more ON in church as well by coming for more weekly services.

Well, more excitement coming right up this weekend with a church camp for P6-S1 involving loads of life-skills. Volunteered involuntarily (in the positive sense; oh i just love oxymorons) to organise and help out in the telematch activity and also have to teach First Aid to them. Which is a very difficult thing considering that FA is one of the MOST boring thing that you can ever learn with plenty of stuffs that you have to memorise without it ever occuring and even if something really happens, it never turns out like what it says in the book. BUT hey, you get to save lives and act cool when the moment comes :D (Hopefully) Following that on Tuesday, will be AGAIN teaching FA to a bunch of Intelligent Beings before they fly off for their Overseas CIP trip to Vietnam. And immediately after that, will be joining in on the 2nd day of ACS(I) SJAB Committee Camp where we screw, i mean train up those young budding talents to be future commanding officers of the corp. Hmm, may have class chalet too on the week after but that may just be my imagination hahaha.

An unknown fellow once said, "A more busy holiday means a more meaningful holiday." I just hope he's right =)



Celebrated Azriel's Bday yesterday at Botak Jones right outside cineleisure. For some pics, do visit http://picasaweb.google.com/johnyuzx91/AzrielSBirthday08 for your perusal. This is also my first outing with my D90 but havent really unleashed its full potential yet as its high ISO performance hasnt been tested, but hey at least i took a video with it =) (D90 is the first dslr that can record movies up to HD format) YEAH so do pm me if you are interested in the video, only about 28mb... & pls do forgive the uneven/coloured lighting of the photos, bounced my flash off 1 brown and another dark orange umbrellas that were overlapping so resulted in uneven colour casts...

TOK

"Theory of Knowledge is full of poppycock." (adapted from Yhon Ju, I Be Slacker, 2008) On what grounds and to what extent would you agree with this assertion?

man, if only that was one of the prescribed titles for our TOK final essay. Well, the good news is that after a week of consideration and much extensive critical thinking, I have eliminated 6 out of the 10 questions, leaving me with the remaining fantastic 4. Woohoo. Actually wanted to post some of the more thought-provoking questions here, but the very thought of fellow IB-ians googling for tips and answers and landing up on my blog is horrifying enough to eradicate every notion of doing so. Mehh. Aim to hopefully finish it by the end of this week and start my chinese EE by the following week. With chalet, NTcamp, SJAB committee camp, spiritual meeting and theolo occupying 5 full weeks of this year-end break, time really isnt on my side.

To make things worst, I have to wage wars against commies, cappies and jap techies alike in Red Alert 3. Well frankly speaking, i prefer Westwood Studies(RA2) than EA Games; though the details look better and theres cool online co-op, the colour & graphics to me somehow look too adorable & cartoonish for a game of global domination. Still, i cant go wasting my $60 right?

Alas, at the end of the day,
--jyu. is cutting down on his gaming hours for more important stuffs out there in the world and will strive to have a wonderful PMS year-end holiday.

PMS: Physical, Mental, Spiritual (what else??)

Until then, more Bubles akan datang!!