From the New York Times magazine. It reminds me of what a lot of us do at times, and also reminds me of what not to do. God forgive us for being like the crowd. That is probably also why the Good Samaritan is one of the stars in the Bible, never the crowd. Log on to Christian websites like World Vision and you'll see how much help is needed all over the world. The need is always there, but who is willing to stop and help?

Yesterday, at a show called 'Bersamamu' (translated 'WIth You') was aired at TV3. They were featuring a poor Chinese family, whereby the father aged 60 something had to wake up at 6am every morning for support his family of 3. His wife is wheelchair-bound since an accident took place years back, while out of his 3 daughters, 2 are mentally-disabled from birth, and one is physically disabled, suffering from epilepsy. The documentary showed him cycling alone to the local wet market and sifting through vegetables to buy, since he couldn't afford to buy anything other than that. TV3 was urging people to donate through SMS and so having been touched by their plight, I SMSed them. You see, the money that I donated wasn't much but they may not think that. That's the thing that we need to know, that sometimes a little does go a long way. I know God is teaching me something about having compassion in a world that is becoming increasingly numbed to the things of God.

"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them.."
- Matthew 14:14 [KJV]

" Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."
- Colossians 3:12 [NIV]

This is an interesting read I found at New York Times today. It documents the journey of the author, Frank Bruni, who travelled all over the US of A to find the best fast food outlets around the nation. The same nation that gave us Big Macs and the Colonel that have never failed to put a smile on the faces of kids all over the world, (or a frown on their parents). The almost-Super-Size-Me feat was accomplished in 9 days, 42 stops and 3,650 miles. It's interesting to note also that this article appeared on the New York Time's Dining and Wine section, which is kinda like featuring Protons on a Porsche website. I said, kind of. I was once a Proton driver too, but yeah, once.. haha :P

So, there you go; the article. And here's my favourite excerpt of the really enjoyable article. I mean, bear in mind that this is the writing and opinion of a white guy but for me, as the Asian guy couldn't agree more.

"The major (fast food) chains love to throw around foreign-sounding terms, like ciabatta and frescata, which is the name of a selection of tasteless deli-style sandwiches at Wendy's, where the best bet remains the economical, healthy chili.

Or they just bluntly declare an item to be ethnic, ipso fatso. McDonald's puts slices of white meat, snow peas and mandarin orange sections on iceberg lettuce and calls it an Asian chicken salad, a few bites of which rightly prompted Alessandra, blond and blue-eyed, to say, "It's about as Asian as I am."

I noted, for the sake of argument, that it had what tasted vaguely like Russian dressing and that the eastern expanse of Russia fell in the designated continent.

"O.K.," she said, "it's a Eurasian chicken salad."

- Life in the Fast Food Lane, Frank Bruni, New York Times.

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

- Matthew 11:12 (KJV)

Thoughts running through my head on a Monday morning:

1. Where shall I have lunch with S k y e?
2. What was it again that I had to do today?
3. Wonder what will dinner be tonight...
4. X-men opening this Thursday.
5. CG - hmm, how to get there?
6. Should I install Firefox Bon Echo Alpha 2?
7. Its been a long time, I should blog.
8. MCCC? hmm...
9. tumpang design, someone, something, pls inspire me.
10. It'll be awesome, if I have a soft bed, with soft pillows and a duvet now.

Me: You should start working now.
Me: *half shrugs* yeah, I think that will be a good idea...

It was our 11th month together yesterday. Sometimes, the appearance of the number doesn't do enough justice to the time and the journey that we've travelled so far. I thank God from the bottom of my heart and I can say I wanna praise Him with all my spirit, soul and strength, for all the wonderful things that He has done in my life. Yes, there were times when it was rough and hard. Yes, it wasn't a bed of roses all through the way. But there were times when God blew my mind right out of my window seat. The times when He displayed His glory and speak to me through the miracles reaffirming that He is Lord. For that, I thank You.

I was planning some type of a date for my love, since it's our 11th month since we've been together. So, I searched high and low on the Net to see if there's a place that worth trying out. Something nice, something out of the usual and just something that I hope she will enjoy. Not before long, I came across a restaurant at Sri Hartamas called Nak Won Korean BBQ Restaurant. I did a lil research of how to go, 'cause I haven't even been there before! haha.

After work, we drove there and I was praying silently that He will direct me there (since it's supposed to be a lil surprise for her). Thankfully, after going around the place in an attempt to find a park for 2 times, I spotted the place! :) We went in, it's a quiet Korean restaurant, we ordered a Marinated Beef Ribs BBQ and a Kim Chi Soup with Rice. Right after that, a waiter came with 15 small plates of side dishes and a small pot of ember for cooking the barbeque. The food was great, especially the barbequed beef ribs. The service was awesome too, with them standing by, cooking the beef in front of you and cutting it into smaller pieces to serve it on your bowl. After that, the dessert came, and that's were the hilarious part comes. You see, there were 2 desserts that were served; one was cut watermelon and two, there was this bowl of white-greyish soup/water that came. We looked at each other and S k y e read my mind instantly, when I said "Do you think this is for washing hands of it's a type of Korean dessert?" We would have guessed it right the first time if it didn't look so suspect, 'cause it came with these tiny ice cubes that looked exactly like soap suds! In a desperate attempt not to look embarrassed, we did a series of 'tests' to see if it's a dessert of water for hand-wash. haha! Eventually, I think we caught the waiters' attention by laughing and being overly amused by a mere bowl of dessert. In the end, S k y e managed to ask the waiter what it was and we drank it down, just like a Korean food connoisseur. haha! :P

It was definitely a great night and I would have loved to make it even more special for her the next time around, which is our 1st year anniversary :)

Thank You, God for everything that You've done and thank You for blessing this relationship in these 11 months. Thank You for taking us through 3 countries and continually leading us into our future that You've given us. Bless us this day and be with us evermore. We love You, Dad!

:)

It's the last day of the week today. Praise God!

Yesterday, S k y e and I had the best durian cheesecake in the whole known universe! Where? Right in a cg we visited! Praise the Lord God Almighty! It was so unreal you got to eat it to know how it feels like to have divine intervention from the Most High. Ahhh.... Tell you more about it when I have the time.

It was an awesome time in cg yesterday, although there were no sharing. There was a long worship session though, and it was a wonderful time of meeting God and having His presence right there in the house. After that, there was an Australian couple who celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary. The guy wanted to surprise his wife of 47 years, so he informed everyone in the cg and asked everyone to dress nicely. They were an old couple, but oh, it was just so sweet. The guy bought themselves a new wedding ring and they exchanged vows and rings again. After that, they kissed and danced, with a lady playing piano in the background and the cg leader sang a song, which I can't recall the title (maybe dear you can help me with that). The reason the guy bought a new set of ring is because he was saying that when he married his wife then, he wasn't very well-to-do, hence he bought a ring worth 5 British Pounds. And since then, she has never taken it off till yesterday, when they celebrated 47 years of being together. They stood before us, read the marriage vows again, and exchange their new rings. The woman was walking slowly and her hands shook as she stood and read the vows, but when they were dancing, wow... they seem to be floating on air and everything just seems so natural. It was beautiful. Me? I was trying to hold back my tears as I held the hand of my loved one :)

The guy said something that grabbed my attention, and reminded me about how precious this life is. He said that at first he planned to buy the new rings when they are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, but he was saying that what an idiot he is to think of that, because who knows if they may that long? Instead, he says that he value whatever time left they have together and he just wanted to give the best to his wife while they are still around. Even if he did not say those in words, we could all see it in his actions.

It was a night to remember for me.

As for me, I want that for my relationship with S k y e. That we will never take anything for granted. Not this life, not our relationship, not the time we had and have and certainly not each other. I want to cherish her and make her feel special for all the days of my life. And having written all these down, I want to also keep myself accountable that I want to see this come to past in my life so that one day, my children will see how their parents love each other, and how they love their Father in heaven and say "I want to be like my mom and dad."

I love you S k y e, and I only want to love you more.

For now, teach me how to be more like You, Dad.

Spotted on the way to work:



















hahah! Not really actually. Click here and you'll know what I mean :)

I'll be going to my second cell group meeting with my one and only tonight :) Am looking forward to it, it's nice having a fellowship like this together, esp with this one being a young working adults cell. It'll be a great night. For now, thank God for lovely Fridays like this. Next Friday, holiday! Long weekend beckons again. Don't you just love multi-culturalism? hehe! :D

Can I hear you say yumm?

Generate your biscuity fonts here :)

It's back-to-work May 2nd.

But before that, a recap of the long weekend :) It was a 28th April on a Friday when I ended work at about 6.25pm because we (Reapfield Technology) had a meeting with some Swedish folks from an IT company. No, they're not really in the furniture business, neither are they very interested in it, I suppose. I drove home with my dearie, and dropped a mail at BU before we made our way home for dinner. As I was almost reaching home, I a n Chong, my long-time buddy from DUMC called me and asked me if I wanted to visit the cell group he's attending at Pantai Hillpark that night. I hesitated for a bit, before saying "OK.. I'll try to make my way there.." hahah :P Well, right after dinner, we got prepared and we shot straight to the Andalusia Condo (which I didn't know where is it) Thankfully, we did find our way there a little after 8.30pm. Cell group was greattt! We talked, laughed, shared, played some ice-breakers, and chatted even more after that. The people was great, the atmosphere was really good. It made me think about the time when I gad urbanlife back in Melbourne, but more than that, it made me really glad that we're there together. It meant a lot to us that S k ye and I are there to attend a cell group and to worship God together. It was awesome.

Saturday was nice. Both of us went for a haircut at Uptown. I reckon we were really glad that we had that much-needed haircut, I know I did. My dearie looked gorgeous without a doubt. We went to a furniture shop at SS2 and not before long, S k y e bought a bed at a very good value! 1-Utama was next on the list as we had to buy some other things for the apartment. So, we headed there just to find the whole of PJ's population there! We parked so at the open-space parking right in between 1-Utama and The Curve! Yes, it was really far. We had a good shopping time there and we lugged back loads of stuff from Jusco and another smaller furniture from Giant. By then, the car was full of stuff! We drove home, rested, then we went to church at night. DUMC had a missions weekend and it was great just seeing real people give their lives to the cause of the lost in rural parts of the world like Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, China, Thailand and even the Orang Asli in Malaysia. After church, we had dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant and we went home.

Come Sunday, we initially planned to have dim sum in the morning, but we later decided not too. We drove to the Carrefour in Subang Jaya instead and it was a really fruitful trip as we got a lot of stuff done and my baby settled much of her household things too. Later, we went for a nice lunch at Jack's Place :) The food was good, but it looked like a lot of people had the same idea too. So, we waited for about 20 minutes before we got a seat. My darling shopped for a few things at her usual spots in 1U, and she was a happy shopper by the end of it. haha. We walked around for a bit after that, and proceeded to head home after. Before evening came, my folks suggested that we go Midvalley for a while, so we did! Mom did some shopping and my baby and I sure did a lot of window shopping, at the same time, nursing our aching feet :P We went to Carrefour after that, and before we know it, it was another trolley-full of stuff. By then, we were properly working up an appetite to eat and so we went to the Selera Makan in SS2, where we had a good and simple dinner.

On Monday, which was also the last day of the long weekend, we had to clean the apartment up. It was awesome because I reckon, we really had a good time sprucing the place up. We talked, laughed and we really enjoyed ourselves, well.. cleaning up the apartment! :) We finished in about 3 hours, properly tired. We went home, cleaned up, and drove out again to have something light to eat. We went to Chow Yang for ho fun, and thought that the electrical shop was open, but nope.. everything's closed. We went to Cash Converters instead, to check if there's a good deal on certain furniture, there was nothing much, but we found RM19 on the street though.. haha! Ikea was next, so we drove there. S k y e bought some stuff for her apartment and we went home for dinner. On the way back, we dropped by at Centrepoint to see if there's a keymaker, but nope.. nothing! Instead, we took a part of the RM19 and bought a slice of the yummylicious Chocolate Banana cake from Secret Recipe home. We went home, had dinner, rested, dismantled the study table, ate the durians that my folks bought, then we ate the cake! mmm... We ate lots! :P

It's back to work today, and I'm still blogging at 10.04am. In a few hours, I'll be meeting my darling downstairs for lunch. Nice ain't it? :) It's all good. God's amazing! And I speak in faith that this will be an awesome week of work and before long, it'll be the glorious weekend! haha :)

Thank You, Dad for everything!

Love Ya! :)