It starts from my toes, and I wrinkle my nose

Tuesday, June 13, 2006 IM BACK PEOPLE!!! BACK TO THE WORLD. after being isolated from all kinds of media for 4 days i feel kinda out suddenly haha. we didnt watch any tv, including world cup, didnt touch the newspaper except for destroying it during the games and had no computer as well. the only thing that linked us to the outside world was our trusty hps. but I didnt use it that much also, except for asking zoey to find ppl to join our team, chua telling that shes in the newspaper and Norman telling me that ENGLAND WON 1-0!!! hahaha. he was efficient man, smsing me so fast. i thought he would tell me like the next day or something haha but after evaluation i got his sms already. yipee go england!!

the retreat was really a fufilling experience. ok i'll do day by day.

Friday
Jacob messaged me to ask if i could be 2nd i/c for a group. was kinda last minute considering that i was heading off to the retreat but i accepted. my dad sent jane, crystal, florence, norman and me all the way to changi ferry point chalet 4. signed in dumped my bag at 2nd level realised that there was no girls my age. went back down, wandered into the living room saw youing and sarah. ok dinner, practiced for worship, lead worship, sermon by pst henry. oh oh. he cheated. haha. not really but he used exactly the same sermon, same slides as to the previous sunday to preach. gabriel and i were trying to figure out why it sounded so familiar till he said some particular phrase then we were "ok its the same its exactly the same". hahaha. yepp. then had evaluation, supper, milo made by team 2 tasted by norman...so sweet.as in the milo. haha. then all i/cs and 2nd i/cs met up with the comm to discuss abt the day's happenings. went to wash up, lay out my sleeping bag yadayada.

saturday
5Bx was kinda fun, breakfast, quiet time. i had the opportunity to lead two girls and i guess it gave me an idea how it would be to have bs contacts. yeah. then we had a workshop, lunched then activities! we had to make like bookmarks that had feet or shoes on them to remind us about isaiah 52:7. really fun, and seeing how mark and gabriel put so much effort into designing the guys shoes especially for albert. lol. pink with high socks. hahah. totally metro. and albert asked "why no leg hair?!" gross. heh. then we had games. had to make water bombs. matthias was soo desperate that he used the toilet bowl water la! everybody was grossed out. but at least he only filled one or two bags. haha. then the whole grp trooped down to the field. the plan was to attack the whole of grp 5 -randy's grp-then play normally after they were kicked out then later save some for jacob. specially for him. evil laugh. but we didnt expect the unexpected. they made us handicapped! james and gabriel's legs were tied together, mark was handcuffed behind his back, I WAS BLINDFOLDED, joanna and i cant remember who was tied together at the hands and i think dionne's legs were tied oegether loosely so that she couldnt run fast. i think im seriously the worst. i couldnt see anything that was happening and couldnt enjoy the stupid antics la! and they wanted me to defend our bombs. like how am i suppose to when i dont know where they are coming from. halfway through the game i got fed up with the blindfold so i took it off haha. fun fun. debrief, then took turns showering. dinner worship then workshop. haha we had a debate, blog writing and graph interpretation by three different groups. the talking grp, story tellers and mathematically incline ppl. enjoyed the lesson then evaluation and so on.

sunday
best day. haha. we had time alone with God for 3 hrs which i realise wasnt enough. then we had to prepare our team's special item for the night. I LOVE TEAM 4!!! THANK GOD FOR BLESSING US WITH THE LYRICS AND NOTES TO COMPOSE THE SONG. yes we composed our own song and i love it! maybe we'll put it in the CD at the end of the year. yay!!! haha mark, gabriel and I are so happy with it. im really really happy that we could make our own song and im like kinda hooked onto it already. I even have the original papers that we composed on. scraps of paper. haha. after getting the song done, practiced a few times everybody slowly started carrying out their duties. suddenly denise came running to me "do you know the comm members are gone?! the first floor is EMPTY and the CHURCH VAN IS GONE!" i seriously thought she was having me on so i just laughed "yeah right" "NO REALLY REALLY! they left a menu for us to cook and now everybody's trying to follow the instructions!" then a rather harrassed ian walked by and complained that it was kinda havoc in the kitchen. hahaha. but its the fun kind of havoc. so i rushed down to the living room to check out the happenings, saw nicholas cutting the carrots and radishes, trying hard to follow the sample sixe by measuring them! along came randy and both had a competition to see who could cut faster. tsk. randy was so impatient with nicholas but thankfuly nicholas was wise enough to ignore his tauntings and carry on cutting. then i moved to the kitchen. that was where the fun, peace and messiness was. there were ppl keeping time of the water boiling, the carrots and potatoes cooking.

terence poured HALF A PACKET OF SALT into the pot so he had to scoop out the salt solution ladle by ladle while matthias waited to fill the pot with clean water again. terence was rather pissed with himself hahaha. suddenly we heard a shout from Jairus. "WHO NEVER ON THE RICE COOKER?!" soon everybody was surrounding the rice cooker and talking at the same time. haha but of course we managed to cook 2 pots so yeah. then the people at the stove started panicking cause the fire on the stove went out. rahhh the gas ran out. OF ALL TIMES!!! heh. the guys thus had to do the dangerous job of changing the tank which they had no idea how to do but tried their luck. by the time it was changed the whole area smelled of gas.

aileen had difficulty in peeling her potatoes hahaha. and managed to do 2 with A LOT OF HELP. from the 2nd level we heard somebody's voice booming into the mic. "DINNER READY ALREADY NOT?! WE'RE HUNGRY LEI! HURRY UP COOK!" but of course they were just kidding. finally after everything, washing up and so on the whole sf could sit down and eat the meal we cooked ourselves without aunty deborah's help! hahaah. the cooks were passing on to some of us "sam go to the kitchen after you get your rice. just go" in the end it was because that particular pot of curry in the kitchen was the best tasting pot. the other 2 were too diluted. hahaha.

worship, testimonies, exaltation all done by SFers. then came the item presentation. each skit was hilarious in its own special way. the team 1 was using X MEN to show how they help out in church, team 2 was abt a functional and dis-functional family and a bangla maid and a man that needs to pee, team 3 abt a couple getting married, TEAM 4 WITH OUR SONG! and team 5 with SFS-SMELLY FEET SOCIETY. hahaha. yeah. it all revolved round how we could serve in different aspects like sf, church, family and strangers. yepp. really a good time of fellowship. after debrief our curfew was changed from 11 to 1am. so we had extended prayer and praise lead by marcus, pianist-jonathan guitarist-mark. then denise leon and i stayed up to practice the following day's worship. i was playing the guitar and got kinda cranky already cause i was tired. heh.

monday
normal routine, plus packing up and cleaning of the house. then we had mass evaluation and time to take photos! yay! so everybody gathered for a whole SF group photo then team photos. after that we had i/c and 2nd i/c photo with matthias missing and the addition of terence and desmond, but the plan is to photoshop matt in haha. then we the lor ah soo clan plus a few others walked down to the bus stop to get on the bus to changi village for lunch. more talking, and eating, went to the playground for a grp photo again. boy the playground was smelly. cat shit. ughh. the photo is nice! most of us were wearing matching colours. wheee.

then we waited for our different buses, took to tampiness (is that how you spell it?) interchange, waited for bus 22 then dropped off at the busstop near the overhead bridge. during the bus ride we were talking about how could a certain somebody misfire while shitting. well you cant blame him cause he's only a pri 5 boy, the youngest and has to follow everywhere since his parents are in the committee. everybody couldnt stop laughing and even the strangers that were sitting near us were trying to conceal their laughter. hahaha.

well thats really all for now. much more if i have the time. need to start studying after all the fun i've had.