No Stress February 29, 2008
Posted by dot in Daily life, God.2 comments
A lot of people are stressed over school work and exams. In pharmacy, everyone’s mugging. And a lot of people, they can only think about what’s left undone, what they haven’t studied or read through. That’s what makes people stressed up. Thinking about what’s not done and what they need to do but haven’t done yet.
Actually, a lot of times, it’s not really what NEEDS to be done, but it’s just simply what would be GOOD to complete, but isn’t really NECESSARY. For example, I might need to complete my lab report which is due next week, but I don’t NEED to study for pharmacology test right now since it’s 2 weeks away, but it would be GOOD to study for it now since everyone’s studying pharmacology now and pharmacy is a super competitive course where everything is graded by a bell curve. So to get good grades, one must score higher than everyone else.
That’s why people stress themselves out because they think that everyone’s trying to get ahead of each other. And really, there’s no way you can FINISH studying. Honestly. There’s always something else to be studied or to be read through again. And there are people who spend their whole lives in this cycle of trying to study as much as possible, get good grades and beat everyone else. It’s a NEVER-ENDING race. And honestly, a lot of times, what you lose is more than what you gain.
ALL THIS, FOR WHAT?
What’s the point in studying and studying all the time when
1. You won’t necessarily get good grades because a lot of times, grades aren’t proportional to the time and effort you put in
2. So what if you get good grades? Lets say you get a CAP of 5. Will that make you the happiest person in the world? Sure you might be happy when you get the result slip, but the excitement dies down, and what’s next? When I got my A level results, I got 4 As, but was I happy? I was nonchalant. Haha good grades won’t bring lasting happiness.
So what is the conclusion of the whole matter? Don’t study? NO! Of course you must study. BUT you must know why you study. It’s all about PRIORITIES. Don’t just do it because everyone else is doing it and you feel pressured to conform. There’s no meaning in that.
Know what is important to you. Don’t just chase after something and find out at the end of the day that you were frantically going in the wrong direction.
When you know your priorities, then you’ll know how to allocate your time wisely. Then you won’t be stressed out by what you THINK you should be doing or what you think others are doing but you’re not.
So it’s really your choice. Whether to let everyone else affect you and BE stressed by it, or just refuse to let everyone affect you and NOT be stressed.
Get your focus right. Run in the RIGHT direction.
So.. what’s the best thing to live for? Something which will last forever right. No point spending your life on things which won’t last. And there’s only One Who’s eternal 
And well.. God will never short-change you. The bible says if you seek FIRST His kingdom, ALL THINGS will be added to you. He’s ALWAYS faithful. It’s just whether you trust Him or not.
Tooth extraction February 26, 2008
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I went to NUH dental clinic this morning to have my wisdom teeth pulled out. Decided to do one side at a time so that it wouldn’t be so agonizing and I can use my other side to eat. The dentist suggested I do my left side first but I told her I wanted to pull the right first because it got inflammed more often.
Well, she injected my gums multiple times with local anaesthetic. Ow. Well, the right side of my face went numb after that. They then put a blanket over me to prevent me from moving and wrapped my face up with blankets to protect me from sharp objects, leaving only my mouth exposed. Hahaha..
The lower wisdom tooth was partially covered by my gums, so a minor surgery had to be done to remove it. The top tooth could just be removed by extraction. They attacked my bottom tooth first. There was a lot of drilling and pulling. The noise was quite loud to me. Scary. Since I couldn’t feel my mouth properly, I felt like they were doing my other teeth. Kept praying that they’ll extract the correct tooth and that there won’t be any pain hahaha. I didn’t even feel the bottom tooth come out. Oh well.
After the bottom, the dentist did the upper tooth. She tugged and tugged at it for a long time. Didn’t know why it was so hard for it to come out. She said normally the top tooth would be easier to extract than the bottom, but for my case, it was the reverse 
Took super long to extract the top tooth. Pull and pull. When it finally came out, she was like, “Wah how come your tooth has 4 roots??” Well, that’s why it took so much effort to get it out. Apparently, most people’s teeth have only 1 or 2 roots. She said it was the first time she’s seen such a case. Hahaha. I’m special Hahaha. Then after the tooth came out, she had to remove the roots individually. A lot of effort for 1 tooth. After the whole process, she was like, “Man, I should charge you for each root!” Quite interesting. Hahaha.
I took a long time at the pharmacy. Saw a conflict management incident. Hahaha. I was given a lot of drugs. Ibuprofen for pain, antibiotics, antibacterial mouthwash, something for swelling and something to protect the stomach. But I only use the first 3 la.
There’s no swelling! Whoooo… Praise the Lord. I asked God to heal me quickly and just believed that there won’t be swelling lor. Hahaha. He’s Jehovah Rapha, my healer!
Came home and took my medicine, then went to bed. Tried to study my monographs today but was so sleepy, I slept through most of the afternoon. Ran a fever too because I was falling sick already last night. Oh well, but no more fever now haha 
Ate porridge for dinner on my left side. Not bad. I can still chew a bit.
I think I’ll reserve my left side til when I start working, if it doesn’t give me problems. Because my siblings said can just go extract tooth if I want an MC. Hahaha
found keys/coincidence February 23, 2008
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What was lost is now found…I found my keys!! I lost them last sunday, and was quite sad because well, I haven’t lost my keys before I think. And my DBS secure device was attached to them. Went online to check and it would’ve cost $20 to replace it Already prepared the letter to send to DBS for a new device, but didn’t want to waste $20, so something told me to just wait for the next weekend to try and find it in church.
So I went for service today after cell. After service, I went to the chorus board box to find the keys because I was serving last week. Asked them if they saw keys and they did! Whooo.. they said it had a DBS device on it, but it didn’t do them any good cos they didn’t know the bank account number anyway Hahaha..Yay praise the Lord I got my keys back
And service was good. It’s Pastor Ulf’s weekend, and today he spoke on fear. He really shines with the life of God and the things he says really captures what being a christian is all about. And he talks about God the way He is. I know in my head how God is like, but it’s good to be reminded who God really is.
And man.. God has a way of making things really coincidental. Haha. The songs we sang in cell group today were both used during service. Plus, the song which was sort of in my head for a while this week was also sung today. Friend of God. It really reminds us of how much God loves us. He thinks about us all the time. And well, the song stuck with me this week because of an audio sermon I listened to on wed, when Ps AR Bernard mentioned it to illustrate our value. So cool…and this is the first time we’re singing it for service. I learnt the song cos it was one of the songs we learnt in the Benny Hinn choir last year.
God reminds me that even though I may not be perfect and still have many many flaws, I’m a work-in-progress and He loves me and even thinks about me all the time! How cool is that.
Oh and nothing is coincidental. God just has a sense of humour sometimes.
faith like a child February 20, 2008
Posted by dot in God.1 comment so far
What is faith? What is faith, like a child?
Well, for the past few months, we had a few sermons on faith. We learnt that faith is confidence. What is faith, really?
When you tell a little kid for the first time, “This is an apple”, he won’t look at you disbelieving and retort “No! You bluff me!” No right.. He’ll just repeat after you “Apple”. He has confidence that you’re not teaching him the wrong things. When you tell him you’re going to bring him to the zoo the next day, he’ll expect to be brought to the zoo the next day. He won’t question whether you’ll break your promise to him or not, that is if you haven’t broken your promise to him before.
God doesn’t break His promises because He is faithful. That is His character and it doesn’t change because God doesn’t change. He’s the only guarantee in the world, the only unchanging thing.
So to have faith that God exists, it’s unquestioning. You just know that you know that you know He exists. It’s a fact. Doesn’t have to be debated for you to believe it because it just is. Just like the computer screen in front of you is real, God is real. Maybe even more real, since He created the computer screen.
Do you believe that God can heal the sick? He’s power is always available to believers, it’s only limited by the faith we have to use it. If a person lays hands on a sick friend and prays, but doesn’t believe that anything will happen, then nothing will happen. Just like brother Jimmy shared when he went for a mission trip. He prayed for a sick person but already created an escape route just in case he doesn’t get healed. So the person didn’t get healed. But the next week, he just believed that another person he prayed for will get healed, and she really did.
Faith releases the power of God. So in an atmosphere of faith, miracles happen.
If you truly believed in something, wouldn’t you act on it?
Faith doesn’t come overnight. When you go through trials and tribulations, everytime you choose to seek God and believe that He’ll make everything alright, faith grows. When you step out to do something God told you to, even though it might be scary, faith grows. When you choose to believe that God is real, He is good, and He loves you, no matter what happens, faith grows.
Faith is a decision. You can choose to believe, or you can choose not to believe. You can choose to place your confidence on something, or you can choose not to.
Faith can be prayed for. And after praying, keep praying and be patient. Haha. Believe that God has a purpose and a specific plan for your life. That everything will be ok, as long as you keep trusting and believing in Him. No matter how tough things may be, just keep going. That’s fortitude. Which is another topic.
Heb 11:1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
fire fighting in the box February 18, 2008
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The chorus board box was a warzone yesterday. 10 minutes before service started, the main laptop hung. It kept hanging whenever they tried to open a file. So they brought another laptop in and swapped it with the main one. I don’t know all the technical terms but well, to cut it short, it was very exciting. When the pastor was on stage already, we still weren’t ready. Good thing they played a longer intro for the first song. We were ready just in time. About 3 seconds or less before they started singing, I went in and did my job haha.
Quite tired. I was out the whole weekend. Actually, it was Thurs to Sun to be exact. The longest rest I got other than sleeping was Wed afternoon only. Zzzz..
prevailing prayer February 10, 2008
Posted by dot in Daily life, God.1 comment so far
I believe that prayer works. Hahaha. Especially for those things which you pray for every day. You know in church, pastor always tells us the power of prayer, and how it can move mountains. But… ya sometimes I just pray once for something and then forget about it.
A few weeks ago, pauline talked about prevailing prayers in cell group. And how the lost are actually birthed into the kingdom of God through these prayers. It’s good to have a healthy gestation period. Then when they’re birthed, they’ll be healthy, committed christians, not those who just come once or twice and stop coming.
There are some people, last time I used to pray for them every night that they’ll be saved, then in the end they got saved. But then last time I didn’t reach out la, because I was scared, so other people got them saved. Hahaha.. Then there was some time when I just stopped repeating what I prayed for, because I thought that God would be bored hearing me say the same things everyday. Hahaha. And I didn’t think a proper conversation should consist of repeated things la. But then, God wants us to be persistent. Hahaha.. Things might not change right away, but if I keep praying, I can see a difference, sometimes slowly bit by bit..
And we can pray for anything actually. Breakthrough in certain areas, good relationships, even for friends. It’s the most powerful tool that we have.. Sometimes I get discouraged when I don’t see things happening right away, or when I pray and things don’t go the way I expected them to.. Need more patience, need to trust God more hahaha.. And cannot be lazy I will get breakthroughs this year!! Whoooo…
If everyone prayed persistently, really there’s nothing that can’t be done. But people need to see the value in this la. Like everything else. Hahaha.
CNY ‘08 February 8, 2008
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Chinese new year is goood… I get to buy new clothes without feeling tooo guilty about it! Yay.. But didn’t buy that many, just two tops haha. Got a new watch too.
The food was good. Not too much, like the past few years. This time, we didn’t have to pack anything back to eat for a few days after reunion dinner hahaha. The pictures below were taken by my cousin. She went trigger happy with my camera phone because she forgot to bring her camera.
Oh and mahjong is fun. A good way to bridge the age divide, because you don’t have to find a topic to talk about. Just play. Hahaha.
This year, I got more hong bao money than before. That’s because my brother’s married, and now, so is my sister! So they both gave me hong baos! Hahaha.. Praise the Lord! Whooo..
Oh and extra time is good. I only had school on monday this week. Whoo.. time is good to sort things out hahaha.
