Really intense!

Had my first good night's sleeps since the start of the year last night. Been up till late every night since the start of the school year. Prayer works wonders. 

Well, have harsh decisions to make in the next few months. As it is, I've already clocked up a lot of "extra-curricular activities". 

It's been terribly exciting so far.  I really wonder what else can be thrown my way this year. 

Baptism of fire

Well, that's what I was thinking this afternoon. Not by chance that another teacher said exactly the same thing to me later in the day. Got a big decision to make in the next few days; a tough one that will affect me much in the next few years. 

Hard to imagine a year ago I was preparing for practicum. Harder to imagine it was just one and a half years ago when I started my NIE training and wrote that post about rediscovering the call. Sometimes its good to read old posts, to remind yourself of your purpose in this life. 

"It's a different burden", that's what one of the Senior Teachers at TMS told those first few days. He was referring to producing all the As. But yes, reading that old post was a good reminder that it is a different burden. 

The point of difference. That was my post just as I left practicum. I wrote, "I will be praying that I will remember why I do this and that I will never lose that call to be the difference". Yeah, that's what I need to be praying about. 

I've only ever been for one AnnTIC. That was a traumatic event for me. It was the wilderness experience. I wrote that in my practicum journal, coming out from the wilderness and (literally) to the mountain top. Reading that was a good reminder as well. 

It's been a baptism of fire the past few days. There is an instinctive need in me to be different, yet there is a need to balance and temper that with tough love. Its a struggle (on both sides of the classroom) that I wish for no one. 

So Lord, open my eyes that I may see the work of Your hands. 

Strange...

It's strange how you appreciate something only when it is gone. Like how my former Form Class has suddenly changed their nicks to be so similar on MSN.

1st day...

Been warned by the more experienced teachers that your voice really needs to warm up. True enough, had a tough time projecting my voice today; totally not warmed up. Now I know why they tell me that you'd get a sore throat every time a new semester starts. 

Just came back from TRACkers opening service. Felt really refreshed myself after that. I think I must somehow try wake up at 4.30am and go cycling again. 

2008 - here it begins

Wanted to update this yesterday before 2007 ended, but internet was just jammed up so badly I couldn't even view my blog. Anyway, you would have noticed that my previous USA posts have been erased. Reason being that my Flickr was getting a little disorganised, so I did a Marvin thing and erased all the pictures and re-uploaded them. Took a solid 7 hours. By which time it was 10pm.

So, here is a combined long post to start the new year. With pictures in chronological order.

Me and my mom at LA International Airport. This was after a (in the words of my brother) 15-hour ass-breaking flight. After the 15 hours, we still had a six hour transit at the airport (yes, we sat at that spot for about 4 hours) and after that another 4.5 hours flight to the other side of USA.


My brother's new sax. Cost as much as my Taylor. He is somehow oblivious to the cold.


My brother's dog shaped cushion. The shot below is how big it actually is, relative to me. It was heavy!!!!!




There is even a table tennis table in his apartment?!?!


Outside my brother's apartment. Nice place.


That amount of food there was for 3 people. 4 of us could not finish it.


At the Science museum; something like the Science centre. That's me in front of a mobius strip; topology was the subject of my Honours Thesis.


At one of the Christmas tress at Quincy market on Sunday. We went there for dinner before heading to church.


Good chinese food to get your bowels moving again after all the junk stuff.


It snowed after dinner. This was the next morning (of our 4th day in US), the car was covered in snow, had to brush it off first. We were on the way to the airport for a trip back to LA on the other side of the States. This one was a 6 hour horror of a flight.


Later that same morning in Hollywood. This is in front of the famous Chinese Theatre. As you can tell, the weather is a lot better.


The next day at the Taylor factory gift shop. =D Spent quite a bit here.


The Taylor secret stash of wood. Some of the colouring of the wood here was out of this world! But I guess most of the really great stuff would now be at R Taylor now.


My brother with a new Taylor solidbody blank. I wonder who it's eventual owner might be!


Rows of guitars! The factory has become like a Mecca for guitar freaks around the world. Sure was good to be there.


After the tour, we headed down to Buffalo Brothers. Taylor's biggest dealer stateside and probably in the world.


This was the next day in Las Vegas! That's New York, New York; a hotel. Everything in Vegas is just BIG!


We stayed in the Venetian. That's the toilet. Its as big as my room.


At the Grand Canal. It's really very small, unlike what all the TV documentaries show.


The MASSIVE Fountains of Bellagio.


The Sphinx at the Luxore.


In Disneyland!






Six Flags at Magic Mountain. This place is crazy!


The Dejavu. You see the two towers in the background, they basically raise the carraige up one tower and drop you and you ride through the whole course facing foward till you get to the 2nd tower. There, they raise you up backwards and drop you back through the same course but in reverse order. Confused? You'd feel that way after riding it.


The big treat at the end of the trip was this. I visited the Luthier who is building my new guitar, and I got to see it in person. AMAZING! More than that, tried one of the guitars he made. The sound was out of this world!!!!


Well, that was my USA sojourn.

A new year begins; let's see what happens in 2008!