Thing I am Thankful to God For

This morning before Canaanland Celebration started, worship leader Rebecca Tai told everyone to mention something in particular to be thankful to God for since today is the last Sunday of the year.

The first and foremost thought that came to my mind and which I am forever thankful and grateful to God for; and which I give thanks to God for each morning when I wake up is ‘I am still alive’. The fact is we would not be here forever. So to be able to spend another day on this earth is indeed a gift from God.

I Chose the Correct Major

WHAT MAJOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Accounting/Finance/Marketing You should strongly consider majoring (or minoring) in Accounting, Finance, Economics, Marketing, or related majors (e.g., Computer/Management Information Systems (CIS or MIS), Entrepreneurship, International Business, Operations Management, Public Administration, Real Estate, Risk Management, Sports Management). It is possible that the best major for you is your 2nd, 3rd, or even 5th listed category, so be sure to consider ALL majors in your OTHER high scoring categories (below). You may score high in a category you didnt think you would--it is possible that a great major for you is something you once dismissed as not for you. The right major for you will be something 1) you love and enjoy and 2) are really great at it. Consider adding a minor or double majoring to make yourself standout and to combine your interests. Please post your results in your myspace/blog/journal. Accounting/Finance/Marketing 88% Education/Counseling 88% Religion/Theology 75% Mathematics/Statistics 69% PoliticalScience/Philosophy 69% HR/BusinessManagement 63% English/Journalism/Comm 63% Psychology/Sociology 56% Visual&PerformingArts 56% Physics/Engineering/Computer 38% French/Spanish/OtherLanguage 38% History/Anthropology/LiberalArts 31% Nursing/AthleticTraining/Health 25% Biology/Chemistry/Geology 19%

Giant Kolombong Foodcourt

I haven’t been to eat at Giant Kolombong Foodcourt for a few weeks now until two days ago.

(My lunchtime has been changed from 1-2p.m. to noon-1p.m. since end of October if I am going out for lunch. But if I stay in the office, then I will have my lunch at 1-2p.m. and have the food delivered right to the doorstep by a Filipino worker from a coffee shop nearby.

Most of the time I do not feel like going out because the weather is simply too hot and I usually have migraine even before I step my foot out in the sun. Plus the food offer by the coffee shop nearby is not bad at all. I can get economy rice consisting of one meat dish and one veges dish for RM3. Or fried rice, fried noodles, chicken rice all for RM4)

When I went to Giant Kolombong Foodcourt this time round, the ‘Nasi Padang’ stall had disappeared and has been replaced by ‘Japanese Bento’. (I did not go and check out what the ‘Japanese Bento’ has to offer). The ‘Fish Chap’ stall still has the same name but it is operated by different people now. Curry laksa used to cost RM3.70 while noodles with ‘fish chap’ used to cost RM4.00 are now RM4.50 each.

I decided to have the ‘Mongolian Chicken Rice’. As usual, the lady boss gave me the wing and nearby parts (as I told her long time ago when I started eating the chicken rice that I preferred the bones part and not the meat part). But this time the chicken and soup did not taste as good as before. I even suspected the chicken was from overnight and not fresh on the day.

Work Attitudes

A few days ago, my boss and a colleague were having meeting with other Consultants in our office.

I told another colleague to attend a weekly site meeting on the project that he’s in-charge of. But he totally ignored me. This same colleague called in sick one time and took a half day off to go and wash his car another time just to avoid attending the meeting. After my boss finished his meeting, he commented to my colleague that he did not attend the meeting. My colleague just laughed it off! I was totally stunned.

A few weeks ago when my boss told me to tell an Assistant Engineer to attend the meeting, she told me to tell another colleague to attend simply because it was raining at the time. Two weeks ago, my boss also told this same person to attend the meeting and said that he will meet her at the site meeting once his meeting at another place ended. After my boss left for his meeting, this Assistant Engineer was making loud noises. I was busy and did not have time to find out what was going on. Five minutes later, she threw a leave form in front of my face and left. She applied for two days off. One of my other colleagues heard her saying the word ‘sh*t’ so many times and she wrote on a piece of paper ‘bulls**t’.

Well, this is the kind of things I have to contend with at work among all other stuff. Working relationship is so complicated when people do not think what they are employed for.

I mean when I was asked to go to Customs Department to give explanations or attending seminars organised by the Inland Revenue Department and Social Security Organization, I wished I could stay in the office to continue with my work but I had to go to these places because it is within my scope of work and therefore it is my responsibility to be there.

If we shirk our responsibility simply because we do not want to face something, aren’t we acting as if we are even in a higher position than the bosses? The mind boggles!

Diaries

Both these diaries were given to me by my ING Insurance Agent, Mr. David Wong. (Mr. David Wong also sent me a Christmas card a few days before Christmas)

By comparing the diaries, I prefer the 2007 than the 2008. 2008 diary looks a bit too sporty to me.

I have been using the 2007 diary to write my sermon notes each Sunday and I could continue using it for 2008 since there are still some empty pages inside it.

Christmas 2007

I could not sleep until 3.15a.m. on early Christmas morning and woke up after 9a.m.

I sent sms to a lot of people with the message ‘Jesus brings hope. That is the reason for this day. Know Jesus, know hope. No Jesus, no hope.’

The reply from Sharon Lai really woke me up asking about the catering for our Canaanland Christmas party on Christmas night. Because of miscommunication, Andrew and I thought that she ordered the food for the party and she thought that the organising team was doing that.

Anyway, a big thank you to Sharon for the sms because without it, there would not be any solid food for the Christmas party except roast beef. To cut the story short, even with such a short notice, Mr. Pang (whom our Canaanland celebration caters food from one Sunday a month for lunch) promised to get some simple dishes ready for 55 people by 7p.m.

When I arrived before 6.30p.m., Sharon along with Johnny and Martina (workers employed as gardener and cleaner respectively) had already set up the tables for the food, fruits, cakes, desserts and drinks. Mr. & Mrs. Pang had already delivered the simple food. By one look of the food, I did not think it was enough for 55 people. Sharon suggested that we takeaway some noodles (mee and meehoon). Andrew Tai went to Lotus Restaurant to takeaway after he arrived.

My invited guest Irene Yong came slightly after 7p.m. and I introduced her to some people. I was really glad that she came.

There were a lot of people who came whose names were not counted on the list. We had to go to KFC to takeaway some more food and only after some people had KFC then their stomach was full.

Since we started having dinner late, we could not play the two games planned. Ivy Voon was the songleader. Caleb Lee played the keyboard while Paul Chin played the drums. I did not join in the worship part because I was helping out in cleaning up. Monica Leong and Tuang Pei Yun were gracious enough to help look after Irene by sitting beside her. Thank you to both of you.

The highlight of the evening was the testimony given in Mandarin by our invited guest Mr. Chong Choong. Mr. Chong’s son Jin Min was my former colleague. Mr. Chong was formerly a staunch Buddhist and he shared about his conversion.

The night continued with desserts of fruits, Christmas cake and trifle being served.

Eventhough there were some hiccups in the food, I believe if we knew the exact number of people coming, catering food would be easier and there won’t be any lack. Anyway, it did not turn out as bad as I was thinking in the morning.

Praise and thank God for a memorable Christmas 2007! To Him be the glory forever and forever! Amen!

Christmas Eve 2007

I went to work on Christmas Eve. In the morning, there were four of us working. By 1130a.m. only three left. Bosses came in before 11a.m. and stayed for about an hour. Before they left, we were given a present each and told to work until 3p.m. and go home after that. Yeah!

I came home, rested and had dinner before driving out to Likas Court to park at Monica Leong’s carpark while I joined her in her car with her neighbour Ai Lee to go to church for the Christmas Eve celebration. Unlike last year, when we arrived in church, to my surprise, traffic was smooth all the way and there was no problem in finding a parking space.

At first I was sitting with Monica and Ai Lee. After Sophia Tsen arrived, I went to sit next to her since she was sitting alone.

The celebration started off with welcome words and bible reading by our Chairman Mr. Thomas Chin and followed by singing by the Trio consisted of Dr. Michael Heng, Dr. Mandy Chong and Mr. James Wong.

The worship was led by Dr. Michael Heng. The Eklektos Youth did a meaningful play/skit and the main actor was Ronald Foo, cousin Anna Chong’s eldest son. Ronald acted very well.

Rev. Lee Tak Vui preached the sermon entitled “Jesus is our hope”. Indeed He is our hope and He came to this world to give us hope.

At the end we took some photos and I went home quite early this year to rest.

Christmas 2007 (Photo)

Canaanland Celebration 23 December 2007

This morning when I entered into church, there were beautiful Christmas decorations all over the place.

Christmas decorations, Santa Claus, eating turkeys, giving presents, etc do not mean anything if we do not know the real reason for Christmas.

Jesus Christ came to the world and subsequently died on the cross to bring salvation to all of mankind. He is the reason for this season. We are commemorating his birthday on Christmas day.

Today is ‘Tung’ Festival in the Chinese Calendar (Photo)

Today is ‘Tung’ Festival in the Chinese Calendar

Every year ‘Tung’ Festival is celebrated on the same day (three days before Christmas).

(Today is also my cousin and a KL friend’s birthday, so Happy Birthday to both of you).

I heard ‘Tung’ Festival is supposed to be more important than Chinese New Year. It is celebrated to signal the beginning of the Northern winter. Usually as a tradition, Chinese eat glutinous rice ball (tong yuan) on this day.

As usual mum cooked all the delicious food for all of us except my brother in law cooked the frogs. There were too much food and lots of leftovers. I think I should have invited some friends over to join us. Haha

Lunch at Usagi Japanese Restaurant

Gyuniku Shiogayaki

Kodomo Bento Set

After work today, I had lunch at Usagi Japanese Restaurant, Karamunsing Complex with Audrey Kamijan. I haven’t had lunch with her since 7 July this year, which is more than five months.

We sat at the table where we ordered our food online. Kinda cool but we were thinking if we are not computer savvy, we would probably have to sit somewhere else where the waitress would have to take our order.

I ordered Audrey’s Gyuniku Shiogayaki (Beef in Sukiyaki Sauce) Set and our hot Ocha (Japanese Green Tea) first. I was taking my sweet time in ordering my food and one thing I do not like ordering via online was that there is no description of some of the items on the menu, only photos. Well, sometimes pictures do not speak a thousand words!

After clicking for more than five minutes, I ordered a Kodomo Bento Set (came with one yakult drink (which I brought home for Chloe), fried chicken pieces with tartar sauce, sushis, tempura prawns and fruits, the same thing I had the first time I went to this restaurant with Lily Tan, Monica Leong and Sophia Tsen.

The first time I ordered my food, no confirmation of order appeared on the screen. So I clicked again. I confirmed with the waitress whether my order went through and she said it did and that it will appear soon.

Anyway, after Audrey started on her food, to my horror, two waitresses came with the same Set I ordered to our table. They looked at our table and there were only two of us, how could we eat three Sets. Luckily I did not have to eat the second Set nor do I have to pay for two Sets of the same thing. But I pity the person if he or she order the same Set as I did and ended up having to eat a pre-cooked Set.

We enjoyed our lunch very much and as usual there were so much to catch up on. We spent more than two hours there and the waitress kept on refilling our hot Ocha.

We went to Salvation to buy some Christmas gifts before I drove Audrey home.

Christmas Decorations at Karamunsing Complex

Desk at Work

This is my desk. Sometimes I wish I have a bigger desk, especially when I am dealing with AO size Plan.

Today I was the only one working and I do treasure the peace and quiet. Eventhough there was no current from 830 – 1115a.m., I still managed to do some work.

A contractor who did not know that my colleagues were on leave dropped by wanting to see one of them. He told me I should go home since no one else was working. I told him I can still work eventhough there was no current.

Fish Tank at Work

My bosses have a fish tank inside their office.

Sometimes when my bosses are not in the office and in order for me to relief stress, I would look at the fishes. Kinda therapeutic.

Water Tank at Work

My company is located on the First Floor of a two-storey building.

Since beginning of this year, a new water pump was installed so that water can be pumped up from the Ground Floor to our office water tank.

With quite a lot of rain falling during this month, there should be no problem in pumping water up but this is not the case.

There is a big green bucket near the toilet to store water for emergency and this can be exhausted when there is not a single drop coming from the tap.

The last few days when I switched on the water pump, there was no water sound at all. I felt so dejected.

But this morning water was gushing out into the water tank as soon I switched on the water pump. Yeah!

Ice cream at Veda Blu on 20 December 2007

After dinner at Diamond Restaurant, we adjourned to have ice cream at Veda Blue in City Mall.

We had peppermint, chocolate and durian flavours. Yum yum

Gaya Christmas Celebration on 20 December 2007 (Photos)

Gaya Christmas Celebration on 20 December 2007

Chloe Chong and Alistair Ng were singing in the choir for The Cross & The Star event of the night presented by The Combined Anglican Church Children Ministry.

Alistair looked so cute all dressed up in his red shirt with blue pants, makeup on his face and hair gel on his hair. He was the youngest and all the girls singing in the choir were swarming to him like bees to honey. He was singing all through the performance and moving his body to the beat of the music. He looked so cute and adorable on stage.

At one part, Chloe was singing solo and there were so many photographers who went to the front of the stage to take her photo.

Both of them did us proud!

Before we left, Mervis Chong (Chloe’s dad) and I brought Chloe and Alistair to walk around Gaya Street.

The atmosphere was quite nice, with choirs singing and lights everywhere.

We adjourned to have supper at Diamond Restaurant.

Hari Raya Qurban (Sacrifice)/Hari Raya Haji 2007

Living in a multi racial society like Malaysia, we observe a lot of public holidays as compared to many other countries. There are fourteen public holidays nationally and Sabah as a State has another four days for namely Good Friday, Harvest Festival (2 days) and TYT’s birthday/Malaysia Day. Altogether as Sabahan Malaysians we have eighteen days of public holidays per year.

This year I still have 15.5 days of annual leave but I won’t be taking any for the Christmas/New Year period. In 2008 I will be entitled to 21 days of annual leave.

Today I woke up around 10am. I haven’t woken up at that hour for a long time. But then I went to dreamland at almost 2am which meant I only slept for eight hours.

I did not go anywhere and decided to relax at home today. The weather has been cooling without much sun and now the rain has come down. Such a nice and cooling day for a change.

Eventhough I enjoy buffet spread, I can eat simply as well. For brunch, I opened a small can of Yeo’s Mutton Curry with Potatoes (recommended to me by Sharon Lai a few months ago) with the leftover fried meehoon from yesterday. For afternoon tea, I had an egg tart (which is also grannie’s favourite). (Maybe another thing to eat more of and live longer life :))

Tonight Chloe Chong and Alistair Ng are going to perform at the Gaya Christmas Celebration organised by the Sabah Council of Churches and Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu (KK City Hall), an annual event third time running.

Read more about the Gaya Christmas Celebration 2007 here
http://www.eventmalaysia.net/gxc

Snack

This is one of my favourite snack. It is called Hokaido Shredded Squid (also known as cuttlefish).

Before my uncle Peter Lee came from Hong Kong a few months back to celebrate grannie’s 102 birthday, I specially requested him to get this for me.

It is available here but the price is very expensive. It’s a bit cheaper in Hong Kong compared to here.

Love and Forgiveness

As a Christian, I have been struggling with these two topics for many years.

How can I love (agape) and forgive those people who have done the following things to me?

1) Leave a deep hurt and scar in my heart
2) Said things that unkind or unnecessary
a) I had been accused of having an affair with a colleague.
b) I had been told I acted like a boss eventhough I was only acting out my
responsibility.
c) And so many others.
3) Etc.

But God’s words in Matthew 6:14-15 ‘For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins’.

When Rev. James Wong spoke in Canaanland Celebration on 18 November 2007, he mentioned something like ‘If you have not been hurt, how would you know how to love deeply? If you have not been totally forgiven, how would you know what forgiveness is’.

Again the Lord reminded from the Lord’s Prayer ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors’ (Matthew 6:12). Moreover Christ left us an example to follow in Luke 23:34, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’ when He was crucified for not doing anything wrong.

Since I have been wrong by people, I would be the one who have to suffer the consequences if I do not forgive. Isn’t it kind of unfair that I am the one who have been hurt and I am the one who has to do something about it?

Living a victorious Christian life is indeed difficult but we have the grace and strength of God to help us to overcome our weaknesses. Apostle Paul in his letter to the Church in Corinth ‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”… For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). God’s divine power enables us to overcome our weaknesses.

The best thing to do is to forgive and commit everything to God, who is Omniscience. I believe God is a fair God and He knows what He’s doing. He has allowed all these things to happen to us for a reason and I believe we can only grow from glory to glory through all these hardships. Otherwise, if our life is smooth sailing all the time, where will be our character molding to be like Christ come from?

Isn’t he cute?

This is Isaac Tai, born on 4 April 2007 to Andrew and Rebecca Tai.

Isaac is a joyful toddler and likes to smile a lot.

Yicks what are those?

Those are white hairs! And they don’t belong to either grannie or mum.
They are mine. Yes, I have white hairs for 20 years. Believe it or not?

I have a bad habit of pulling any one I can lay my sight on. This can get tedious and time consuming since they are everywhere on my head. I hold a mirror on one hand and a tweezer on the other.

Fridge Magnets

These are my collection of fridge magnets.

Secret of Long Life

If you want to live a long life, eat this fruit.

Why do I say that?

Grannie is 102y.o. and this is her favourite fruit – ‘hung mo’ (English skin) lychee. Need I say more?

That and drink at least one glass of beer every nite. :)

(Postscript: Inspiration at 1.30am: 'hung mo' lychee is called custard apple in English. We have a custard apple tree at the backyard to cater for grannie's demand)

Gift Boxes (Photo)

Gift Boxes

Last night as I was writing my blog regarding the dinner I had at Grace Point with Sharon Lai and Monica Leong on 16 November 2007, I suddenly remembered Monica’s request last Sunday.

She asked if I know where she could get small gift boxes to put lollies/candies inside for each of her eight invited guests for the Celebration of Hope programme.

I told her I had some and the size I can give her. She indicated that it was the right size she’s thinking of.

I vetted through my collection last night and I found I had exactly eight different flowery designs.

Well, you might ask where did I get all the gift boxes from?

Hehe I brought in all the way back from Down Under when I came back in 1994! I was working in a gift cards/boxes/ribbons, etc production company and all the boxes were considered ‘rejects’. Only we who worked in the factory will know which one to discard and bring home for our collection. And we were allowed to bring them home.

Warisan Square Christmas Gift Vouchers (Photo)