Cell Retreat!

Just got back from the 2-day Cell Retreat at Charmaine's house. Praise the Lord for allowing the whole thing to run smoothly and that everyone enjoyed themselves.

Highlights:
-Studying the book of Daniel (half of it) on faithfulness to God and how to apply it in our lives.
-Touch up on my mahjong skills.
-Cooking. I can now add pizza to my culinary CV.
-Getting the kicks from Jenkin's shirt which says:"I caught crabs in Queensland".
-Playing N64.
-Playing the board game Risk.
-Relaxing with everyone in general.

Lowlights:
-Woke up with a runny nose this morning that stayed around the whole day.





more photos at:
http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jkfkam/my_photos

Mad Monday

So much has happened in the past 24 hours I don't really know what to call this post...

Woke up at 9 yesterday morning, a record for days I don't have uni. Did a bit of signal processing study and then went to Alberts' for Sunday School 'Games Day'. That guy has a mad house! Pool (though the water is a bit murky at the moment), pool table, ping-pong table, PS2, Dreamcast, he has it all. I can only dream of having these at my place! But yeah, I got beaten by these kids in Virtual Tennis and pool so I can be pretty poor when it comes to games :(

Last night was David's birthday gathering at his place. For dessert, apart from cake and fruit salad, there were also Krispy Kremes and well...I had one and thus ended my 4-month hiatus on KK (see article).

This morning I went to the Post Office to get my passport renewed (and for the last time, I'm not going anywhere but I wish I am. Don't feel like studying anymore). No dramas there except I was surprised the woman measured the size of my head in the passport photo 3 times before checking out the rest of the application form. It's only a passport photo right?

Next I went to Acer's HQ at Homebush Bay to sort out some admin stuff regarding the laptop. After that was done, popped over to DFO and did a quick round of browsing. I wasn't planning to get anything but ended up buying a stripe shirt and two pairs of pants from Giordano. The temptation was too much - only $45 for the three items. Score.

A picture is worth 1000 words...

Don't you just love those pics where people use Adobe Photoshop and manipulate the original photograph? Here's a site with a very large collection:

Worth1000.com

From the 'If pimps ruled' section:



'If hackers ruled' section:



'Mate a movie' section:

Mid Session Break

There you have it, the first few hours marking the start of a week long mid-session break was spent watching movies (Reservoir Dogs and Office Space) on my PC...how sad. Oh well, here's the plan for next week:

Saturday - Go to Epping Club and check out the function room for my 21st. Also, Serena's 21st birthday party is on...somewhere in Burwood (Now where did I put my invite??)

Sunday - Church in the morning and gym in the afternoon.

Monday - Nothing planned.

Tuesday - Getting my passport renewed.

Wednesday - Cell Group retreat.

Thursday - Cell Group retreat.

Friday - Nothing planned.

Saturday - Nothing planned.

Sunday - Church in the morning and gym in the afternoon.

Monday - Nothing planned.

Tuesday - Back to uni again. What a drag...

Send a message across the network

C:\>net send [computer name] [message]

eg. net send Captain All your base are belong to us



And that's all Gan and I did during signal processing lab today, sending Fight Club quotes to each other. No wonder we were the last ones to finish.

How wise are you?

Continuing on from the book of Ecclesiastes, the title of today's sermon was How to be wise in an unwise world (Eccl 7:7-29). The following verses are taken from NIV.

Extortion turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.(v7)

Corruption is so rife in the world today that even if you think you are wise, you are not immune to it. One can look no further than former South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje. Here was the man so many people admired and respected but when it was discovered he was involved in the largest match fixing scandal in the history of the sport, not only was his reputation tarnished but his life also went downhill. And this guy was a devout Christian too.

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.(v9)

Just before I left for church this morning, I was very angry with someone and as always, muttered expletives under my breath. What do you know, God heard me and taught me a lesson. Must still need self-control...

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.(v14)

I guess no one will argue about the first part of this verse. We crave for good times and can't get enough it. But when things turn awry, we can't seem to come to terms with it. Well only God knows so just accept it and get on with life.

There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.(v20)

Pretty self explanatory. If you say otherwise, I wanna meet this person :-) The fact is, we are all sinners. It doesn't matter whether you are a Christian or non-Christian. What we see or think as 'right' is probably sin in God's eyes. There's no magnitude in sin either. Just because you have committed less sin than the person next to you, you are not really wiser than him/her.

This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.(v29)

We have made a mockery of our lives. We stuffed up.

Cleaned up by two Aces...

The time:
About the 2nd or 3rd hand of the night.

The situation:

My two 'hole cards' - Ace, Ace

Flop - some number card (the 10 that stuffed me up?), King, King

Me Vs 'Chronic'

Surely by this stage, you have to be pretty confident about your chances. I went all in (about $8? $9?), thinking I got 'Chronic' covered (Paul, nice work for tempting me).

Caveat Emptor, pal.(from Rounders)

When it was time to reveal, I turned over my 'Bullets' and said in confidence: "Two pairs". But then the dreaded F-word I didn't want to hear that finished my involvement for the night: "Flush".

Ooooooouuuuccccchhh!!

First person out after just 10 mins, not to mention the $15 gone. I was more disappointed that it took such a short time to get cleaned out rather than losing the 15 bucks. Oh well...lesson learnt (What? Fold with two Aces in your hand? hahaha).

In the end, Jono won the game and left the place $75 richer. Now I'm going to write up a dossier on his style of play after watching him play out his hands...just kidding :P

Afterwards we went to Maisys for coffee and food before going home. Apart from the blemish, it was a fun night and I certainly enjoyed it.

When you can't contain your anger anymore...

Sports mad son killed

A mother angry at her son for playing too much sport beat him to death with his own tennis racquet, Cambodian police said today.

She then tried unsuccessfully to take her own life.

Meanchey district deputy police chief Koy Noul said Ka Bopha, 47, had repeatedly warned her son Nop Tongdiyanith, 23, that his obsession with playing sports would destroy his family and his life.

On Saturday, after finding him at local snooker hall, she become enraged and attacked him on the spot, beating him severely on the head with his tennis racquet. He died 15 hours later in hospital.

"Ka Bopha did not set out to fatally beat her son," Koy Noul said.

"She just wanted to educate him, but she accidentally beat him to death. She was angry because he did not look after his wife and daughter, but instead played games and gambled."

He said Ka Bopha had then tried to hang herself three times while in police custody.

"The mother who killed her son felt disappointed with her overreaction and wanted to die," Koy Noul said.

"This is a very difficult case because it is a family matter so I cannot say what the court will decide."

The woman was expected to face court this week.

Is beating your children really the proper way of educating them?

New Shoes

Darn, woke up late again today! 1pm! I can be such a sleepy head sometimes...hehe...So what did I get up to? Well, I bought a pair of bLEND Two-Tone from Williams Top Ryde this afternoon. They have a sale on right now so I got it for $50. Given that, I'm thankful that God gave me the money to make the purchase (not to mention it was the last pair of size 13 US - my size). My old pair of Gravis will now act as gardening (something I haven't done for a loonnnggg time) shoes.

I also worked on the ELEC3017 drawing assignment at the local library. Yes, I'm doing an assignment that's not due for another two weeks. Amazing isn't it? But seriously, it's only tech drawing and I enjoyed that subject in high school so it's all good.

Ok, gonna mix some music, listen to the soccer on BBC (now that SBS is not showing the Premier League anymore. WHY?????) and hopefully get enough sleep so I don't drift off during the sermon tomorrow.

How to read more than one SMH article without registering

Ok, this is very unethical but I'm sick of having the 'one free article' rule imposed by Sydney Morning Herald.

Go to bugmenot, follow the very simple instruction and you are set. Now you don't have to choose whether to read George W Bush's mediocre military record or Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins' new slip-up.

Braindead

Grrr...The electromag mid session was so do-able and I messed it up! Ok, maybe I wasn't gonna get 15/15 anyway but it was definitely a test that was passable if you had enough time memorising the equations. I guess trying to squeeze 10,000 formulas about electric field, skin depth, intrinsic impedance, impedance matching and the like inside three days when your brain is hardly functioning makes the task near impossible. The mid-session break can't come soon enough...

I also went to DIS}{CONNECT to get the VPN client installed on my laptop today. Basically this means I now have access to Uniwide, the UNSW campus wireless network that offers wireless access to the University Wide Network and Internet while on campus. Awesome!!

Snowy Father's Day

Haha, ok, maybe not quite snow but hail definitely bucketed down this afternoon (and again about an hour ago). Praise the Lord for the rain we've been getting over the weekend!

This coming week is going to be absolute crap. Electromag mid session test on Tuesday (and I don't have a single clue about the course), signal processing lab on Wednesday and then a mid session test for the same subject on Thursday. At least I have a day off tomorrow but I doubt I'll put it to good use.

Man Utd's £27 million Red Devil

In Aussie money, that's $69 million *VERY loud cash register noise*