Dear July,

Oh how I love you and dread you at the same time.

It's funny how in the middle of such a packed month, I still felt very inanimate. I still felt I needed a new lease of life.

Yet, in hindsight, I'm very pleased with how much I've grown in my mind and heart.


Something I didn't particular like and found a burden eventually turned out quite fun.

While some people I liked for a long time somehow seemed less likable.

Some things I used to do seemed very inappropriate all of a sudden.



I guess it's true when they say when you've been around for too long, you see the ugly side of things.



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LOUD! seemed fun! Sadly due to my emcee duties I couldn't immerse myself in the atmosphere.

Being emcee had it's own element of fun though, so maybe I shouldn't complain! Haha.

Some pictures!

Steph and me, doing my standard pose of the night.

Foreground: Steph. Background: Me!

Trying to get the crowd excited.



Brave kid, not bad dancer too, did Michael Jackson moves. Was runner up to...

CRAZY DANCER! Jonathan from DJ if I remember correctly.
Just form 3 too!
He's Malaysia's Aiden Davies!

Winner of Pre-LOUD! Blogging Competition: Diong Mei Yih.

Steph and Me acknowledging the people.

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All in all, a very fun and memorable night.

I'd take this advantage to thank a few people.

Firstly, Stephanie Ong for being my co-emcee and bearing with my nonsense!

Secondly, the rest of the Ongs for lending their house to be our practice place.

Not forgetting, Jared Ang and Lydia Ong, who were our tutors and predecessors.

Last but not least, God and my fellow brothers who prayed for me and gave me strength.



Thank you all.

MAI TESITMONY!

Thought it was kinda funny. Or maybe I'm just being narcissistic.

“Eh, why the room no light one? We change room is it?”

I asked my fellow late-comers as we stood bizarrely outside our CG room.

“Duno, go see la.”

That’s how Hau Yon replied as we turned the doorknob.

……

It was a blurred moment as a flurry of projectiles flew towards us. I felt as though I have been warped back into ancient times where bow and arrows were held higher in esteem as I got shot hit after hit. Was this the end for me? Am I going to-

Wait a minute… What am I thinking??? THIS IS MADNESS!!!

“Madness? THIS IS BUD4CG!!!”

I awaken after being hit in the forehead by a pink Fruit Plus. I think it’s strawberry flavoured. Hmm…

I just only realized they shouted “SUPPLIES!” when I stepped into the room. This is weird… What has the room come to!?!?! Gone were the bright white lights of never ending brilliancy. Instead, we were greeted…. By disco lights!?!?!

THIS IS MADNESS!!!! (Refer to the previous lines…)

… *cough* Where was I?

Right, disco lights. And lots and lots of snacks. Candies, chips, drinks… And so we stepped into a new realm… We stepped into… Youth Alpha…

And thus, our adventurous journey in this diverse new world began. It was a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end and we were at the edge of our seats (okay maybe floor) for majority of the time. Thought provoking questions were raised. Answers of unfathomable sophiscated-ness and wisdom were invoked.

The unorthodox presentation made all of us comfortable, as if we’re at our own homes. This factor certainly aided the members to open themselves up to the rest and speak freely.

There were many moments throughout Alpha where certain members were on the verge of tears, through intense discussion and reflection of our past actions and current issues around the globe. The world as it stands, it seems, isn’t ideal at all, or so we think. So many things can be changed, yet so little are taking the initiative to do so. It pains some of us; we feel we want to make a change. Call us ambitious, but that’s how it is.

I personally feel that this program has brought about closely-knit friendship amongst us. With every passing session, our understanding of one another grew, and will continue to do so for years to come…

I’d think that our knowledge about Christianity on a whole has approached a new epoch following the proceedings of Youth Alpha. But of course, the best has yet to come. And the journey is still long… Amen.

“John” Yip Li Qi

P/S: I am still the most hensem member. Sorry.

Easter Eve: DUMC -> SSMC

On to celebration after the eventful cell meeting. Maybe you would want to join our cell? :D It's fun! ;D

Oh right I forgot, we weren't just discussing about our pengetua during that session by the way, we were talking about in general how each race acts. But let's not get into that.




Celebration! Today is Holy Saturday. Yesterday was Good Friday and Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.

Oops, I said it wrongly.


YESTERDAY WAS FFFFRRRRIIIIIDAAAY!!!!! FRIIIDAYY! But today is different, today is SAAATUURDAAAY! And tomorrow will be even better. SUUUNDAAAAAY IS COMING!!!


Yes, that was exactly how the speaker, Pastor Peter spoke.

He had a very powerful westerner-ish slang, but is actually a Singaporean. Quite a funny man too.

When introduced as a friend whom Senior Pastor Daniel grew with (if I'm not mistaken), he jokingly stated this:

"Well, thank you very much Pastor Daniel for introducing me as a bald and fat man."

The crowd (or just me) was stunned. For a moment I thought that a commotion might have happened.

He then broke the silence:

"Well I guess when he said grew, he meant that I was growing sideways and frontwards. And then I needed to make room for more brains, so my hair had to make way."

And that drew some laughter from the crowd.

He spoke about what Easter meant to Christians and all, and what it is all about.

Next he also told us about how a man from America likes to preach in what they call a Black Church.

"...... Black church? As in a Satanic church or something?" That's what I thought.

But my doubts were answered. Apparently, a Black Church refers to a church where most of the residents near it's area are African Americans.

That man that Pastor Peter spoke of, was the only Caucasian man in the whole church. He says, he enjoys being in a Black Church, because the blacks will let you know how you're doing.

When you're doing good, they'd go...

"PREACH IT BROTHER PREACH IT! YEAH THAT'S THE WAY YO!"

Ballistic.

And when you're doing not so well....

"OH JESUS, SPEAK TO HIM PLEASE, SAVE HIM...."

They make it known.

He once again showed his humorous side when he went:

"And if you say that later, I'm not coming back tomorrow."


AND THEN, some time later, when he was preaching, a youth shouted:

"PREACH IT BROTHER!"

No it wasn't me. When I was plotting to do something similar, Jon gave me "The Stare" and said:

"Don't even think about it!"

Heh....

And, Jung Kiang produced a drawing.... which drew.... LOTS AND LOTS OF CHUCKLES.





















Then I added this.
















And he drew yet another.























Lol.

*This depiction is only meant to make people smile, and not to make others feel offended. I apologize beforehand for any unmeant harm caused.




After celebration, me, Koks and Jung dined at KFC and then took a cab to drop off Jung and pick up Huaj, before heading off to Shing's church.

The taxi driver was the most hilarious one I've ever met, I'll cover the conversation in another blog. Never in my life have I spoke to taxi drivers so much. I think I talked more to this taxi driver than all the taxi driver's I've ever met combined.



Yeah, so we reached SSMC, where we were invited to watch a movie by Shing about how an atheist wanted to prove that Jesus Christ was just another conspiracy, but ended up being drawn into Christianity instead. Karyee was there too.

Doesn't really qualify as "movie" but a great documentary nonetheless.

Then me, Koks and Huaj bummed at McD for an hour or so.... Talking lots and lots of crap.

We ejek-ed Huaj and his "muse/s". [He always calls mine "liQi's muse/s" so I'm calling his the same ;D]

We also played the best game of all time.

LianLianKan.

Bet you don't know what it's that.

If you want to, grab my phone.

And I also fixed my bracelet which I broke some time ago. Was tedious.

















Yeah I know it's uneven. I didn't count before I fixed it.

Then we walked back to BU3, and camped at Kok's house.

We played MONOPLY DUELMASTAHZ!

No, seriously, we did.

The lots had... very.... eccentric names.

FIGHTER DUAL FANG!

EMERAL!

CORILE!

UBERDRAGON JAHABAR!

MAR, COMET ELEMENTAL!

VOLCANIC DIPLOSAURUS OR SOMETHING!

Houses were called Card Shops and Hotels, Duelist Centres.

Gay.


In the end it was more of a game of sympathy as we kept letting each other go by after landing on a game-over lot.

Obviously, I won. /gggggggggg

Yeah, with my excellent mathematics and clairvoyance, I managed to predict Huaj's downfall easily.

On average he needed to pay me 5500$ per round, IF the game went on. But he kinda chickened out at the thought of bankruptcy and gave up. So I won. He admitted his loss too~!

You get my point? My EXXCEEELLEEENNTTTT clarity allows me to predict my victory.

[Basically we lost terukly to Huaj, and I made up stories that IF the game went on, he would ened to pay me 5500$ each round ASSUMING he falls on my every land every turn. But of course, with my brilliant clairvoyance abilities, I predicted that he will. But will he?]


Then we played Battleships. I beat Huaj again [not]. Despite handed the weaker of the two sets of ships when we messed it up, I manage to beat him.

I was handed the bigger ships because of careless sorting. Bigger ships are more prone to attacks, thus weaker. But I won. /gg xD

Hahaha, then we sleep.

Cell: Racism.

Lately I've been more or less lazy to blog.... Here's a rare one..

But there's probably more to come. When I blog... I sort of get into a "Rush Mode".

Today I went to church. Was fun, undoubtedly.

We (our cell) talked about society problems and many nonsense arose courtesy of Jung Kiang and his leng chaiz (* leng chaiz here doesn't mean handsome, more like "konco") of lameness.

Such problems included....

- DotA Addiction among teenagers.
Jon dismissed this idea because the person in need of help is not someone else but just Jung Kiang.

-Increasing rate of homosexuality among men and women.
Once again, dismissed, this time by me, because the person in need of help, is of course.... Jung Kiang again.

-Severe incline of intelligence among people nowadays.
.... Need I even say? (*Victim is Jung Kiang*)

Then, we ended up talking about racism and how Ram is the victim. Quite comical.

Soon, racism entered a bigger fray. Not just a joke among friends anymore as it was with Ram.

We were discussing our school's recent ruckus involving the new disliked principle.

We sort of, unanimously agreed she was being biased, and many of her actions were invoking racial tension, instead of harmony.

We raised topics such as the now well-known incident during the PIBG Annual meeting.

This, was the only stage where the parents can effectively converse with the school's officials and sort things out.

This, was the only stage where the parents could speak their thoughts right to her face and ask what was her intention of doing certain things that has created a rift among her and the students.

YET, she amazingly brushed aside all those accusations and LEFT the meeting abruptly with the reason being, "Sorry, I need to pray now."

And she never came back.


*These were told to me by a witness who was present at the meeting. I'm sincerely sorry for any inaccuracies. But there shouldn't be any, unless I wasn't told the whole story.


There are also many other issues which annoyed me to no ends, particularly the infamous STAGED Q&A SESSION.

According to many sources (probably reliable, one of them being the question asker him/herself.), our headmistress gathered students from the school to ask questions that SHE HAS SET on the next Monday in a Q&A session.

No wonder I was left wondering what was with her fluency that she has never shown in answering questions. The reason? IT WAS STAGED AND SHE KNEW THE QUESTIONS BEFOREHAND.

The reason why students were unfazed by the challenge she made to answer EVERY and ANY questions, were because, THEY TOO WERE ALREADY NOTED TO ASK QUESTIONS (*Most of the students are passive and could care less to stand up against her, so it was quite shocking originally).

BUT, she couldn't keep her word.

Some students also said that she brushed aside certain questions that deviated from the original one she set and muttered some gibberish nonsense. Some also said that when another student wanted to come up and ask a question, she ignored it and said "It's over."

Some class she has.


Next was the infamous Chinese New Year Celebration incident.

She notoriously raised eyebrows of many when she pronounced that there would be NO DRUMS OR GONGS DURING THE LION DANCE.

This is..... retarded.

WHAT KIND OF F*CKING LION DANCE HAS NO DRUMS? YOU BLOODY DUMB ARH?

Then she gave probably the most (in)famous quotation in our school's history.

"The drums will attract Malay ghosts."

WTF!?!??!?!?! I MEAN WTF!?!?!??!?! SO NOW YOU'RE BEING A RACIST NOW BY GIVING PRIORITY TO YOUR RELIGIOUS NEEDS WHEN IT'S OUR DAY?

What kind of superstitious BULLSHIT is this? Loud noises attracting Malay ghosts, as she says.
This is the first time in my sixteen years of my life I've ever heard this nonsense.

Even some of the parents could not help but think "KNNCCB!?!?!"

In the end, after immense pressure from teachers and students, she gave in and allowed the drums.

HOWEVER, in what many students deem as an act of defiance, she once again, rose to the stage of fame by wearing the opposite colour of what every other teacher was wearing - Blue.

With every teacher, regardless of race, endorsing the big day of the Chinese by wearing red garments, she wore blue.

She was instantly recognized everywhere she went as "The Blob of Blue" on that day. (*See? Isn't the word instantly recognizable in this sea of red?)

This was a trivial matter though, and I could care less. She might not have even meant it to be an act of defiance. But whatever you think it is, it's up to you.



I would talk about the mandatory prayer every Monday morning, but I think that issue is already well renown enough, I wouldn't need to say anything about it. Just a recap though, for those who don't know and are interested.


Every Monday morning, we are now required to pray.

Not that I have an issue with this.

In her words. "Sekarang, disilakan semua warga Islam untuk angkat tangkat tangan dan berdoa."

Seriously I don't have a problem with this.

But a teacher pointed out. It's because of our carefree attitude that the government are minor-ising our race. We don't give much of a damn even though they're challenging the equality oaths they've sworn.

He/She states (some parts I've changed due to memory inefficiency), "Right now they're asking the Muslims to pray, but not us!? Why is she putting emphasis on the Muslims? That's already an act of inequality. Are we second class citizens to the so called bumiputeras? Just because we are the minority, they're now bullying us around? This is racism."



I couldn't help but agree? Are we second fiddle to the natives just because we aren't the natives? Native or not, we are still human, and why don't we deserve equal rights as you? What have you done to earn that privileges? Nothing, you were born here and spoon-fed with those privileges.


Are there any thoughts on this? Feel free to comment. Any insertion is appreciated.


I'm sorry if I've offended any of you. I was just letting out some thoughts I've welled up in my heart for some time.

Over and out.