The past two weeks have been extremely busy, apart from my own self-practices at home, but it's been hella fulfilling.
My Sundays especially, have been extra tiring..
SEPTEMBER 10 - 12
Stayed over at the cousins' on the night before Elections Day. Their parents were at home so it was kinda chill watching TV till late at night with them. Hanging out with them make me miss my younger step-brother sometimes.. Hope he's doing well. (Okay I just dropped the kid a text)
Woke up early on the day of the Elections to go looking for my grandmother.. but we ended up meeting back at my cousin's place, sigh. I could've slept in that little bit more, communication is very, very important.
That crowd tho.
My grandpa and Auntie Ai Hao helping me out with cutting down bamboo sticks for the mooncake festival. It was a good sweat out.
Also chopped some for us to chew on, hehe.
And then they all went to take a nap while I chopped them into pieces. It was such a good way to destress though.
SEPTEMBER 13
Couldn't stay in Malaysia till Sunday because there was an EGM to attend in church.. But the youths who could vote ended up helping the other youths to clean up our temporary classroom because the meetings were always so boring.
The rest of the adults who weren't members started prepping up our new room for service the next week. It was so exciting to finally have a bigger place for worship! No more cramming together.
The choir performing on our last day having worship on the 6th floor.
So glad to leave this classroom, this was probably the worst we had, it was so crammed.
Dr Pui Wai drove us all to Eion's place for Ukulele practice again. It was kind of rushed because I was supposed to meet Luwei to buy props at Art Friend, then bring Jiajia out to the Art Science Museum to visit the Dreamworks Exhibition, as a sort of tidbit before she starts her PSLE.
But in the end our timings clashed, so we ended up going for the exhibition only. Asked SY along too, and she agreed. Thank goodness she did because handling Jiajia alone would be terrible.
Such an annoying kid this girl!
That age gap.
Luwei had to rush over to Queenstown to help Auntie Jingjing with her bookstore, so SY and I brought JJ out to have dinner at Macs.
SEPTEMBER 15
Session that day was a bit heavy but it went quite well tbh. Thank you so much for accompanying me bestfriend, really can't express enough how much it means to me.
SEPTEMBER 17
Rushed over to Aljunied to meet Luwei for the site visit. But.. dinner is more important.
Thank goodness we visited the site early.. Because we had to replan everything.
Anddd, trying to learn the songs for Mooncake Festival's Songleading.
SEPTEMBER 18
Took full day leave that day, and it was lucky that I did because I ended up being so busy from morning till night. Woke up early to finalise our decoration plans, saved everything in a thumbdrive, then rushed over to Bugis to meet Luwei to buy all our props.
But.. lunch first ya. Also, we were still discussing our decos because we barely have anytime to plan anything, and everything we decided was decided on the spot.
We ended up not following through this plan as well.
And then she was all like, omg let's buy an easel. Even though we were going down to the gospel rally right after our shopping. No chill. (Although it was a very good idea)
Me being so done with her after loooong hours of shopping....
We ended up cabbing to Indoor Stadium because we would probably receive death threats carrying the easel and all our barang barang on the train.
Eion and I were completely clueless about our job scope because we were late to the previous meeting (when we last skated... oops). We wern't even in the same group.
I was so bored on the first day tbh because I knew nobody from my group, Huixin didn't go on the first day and I didn't see Qing Ann anywhere, and they were the only two people I knew.
We get ugly shirts while the choir team get Nike jackets......
My little gems.
We literally met up so that we could run to the vending machines together, to get Eion his M&M and me my drink, that couldn't be opened, and eventually had to be thrown into the bin because we went in from the main entrance where there were security guards.....
SEPTEMBER 19
Second day was even more tiring, I think I walked even more. Woke up to have brunch with Novy at Bedok's Hawker, and the amount of food we ordered...
At this point, she literally said, "I'm quite full already.."
...
We went to SIM's open house all the way in Clementi and it felt very weird to be in a tertiary classroom after so long.. Went to get her brows threaded at Little India too, and then her ear pierced. It was a very fast and furious day, HAHA. But time spent with my best mate is always time well spent.
Rushed over to the Indoor Stadium from Bras Basah because the counselors were short on man-power during the Children's Gospel Rally because apparently the response was overwhelming.
Didn't make it in time anyway, oops.
Our entrance for the 3 days @ the loading / unloading bay.
Huixin Jieeeeeeee, with this guy we made friends with, whom Shanna was enamored with.
Maybe if I ever get better I might consider serving in church as a Christian Counselor, HAHA. SL said I had the makings of one ok.
Listened to the choir perform Lord I Lift Your Name On High.. And our youth fellowship is supposed to be performing that song during the church dedication....... Confidence level completely dipped.
Only managed to record a small portion but.. Wow.. Our performance is going to look like shit compared to this LOL.
Everyone was in such a hurry to go back after Rev Tong did the 呼召 thing because we had church the next day. Yeesyuen was rushing me so much, I literally dumped my dedication cards to my leader and ran off to meet her.
We were all mad tired that night, our goodnights on Whatsapp were noticeably dreary and worn out.
SEPTEMBER 20
Last day! Everyone was in a little state of panic the night before because there were so many things clashing on that Sunday. There were guitar rehearsals, ukulele rehearsals, site visits, meetings, and classes to attend. And we were supposed to squeeze all of that in 5 hours.
Thankfully we cancelled many things, if not I think we would've reached the stadium like zombies.
Went to church an hour earlier that day for practice. It was supposed to be just the 3 of us, but Eion came and was like "hey guys, if you need help you can always look for me". So we ended up roping him in, and then Luwei got roped in too because it didn't make sense to have 3 guitarists and 1 singer.
New shoes (also trying to distract ourselves from the cold)
The new place was reaaaaaaaally cold though, like I was so unprepared for it, I only had a cardigan and I was already on the verge of falling sick, and people were wrapped up in big warm jackets.
SL, being the kind big sister she was loaned me her choir jacket for a bit before she had to take it back because she was about to freeze her extremities off.
Too lazy to dress up for church....
Always complaining that we don't include her in our pictures when she's hella busy all the time, meh.
Had lunch in church, before the guitarists and the song leaders practiced again. We only worked together for such a limited amount of time but the time we took to bond was incredibly fast :')
Shiquan had to stop practice early because the Mooncake Commitee people were having a meeting, so Uncle Hanwu went through the chords with me while I waited for them to be done.
SL, SY and 师母 decided to come over my place to freshen up for a bit because they all stay too far away from the Stadium. Was sooooo thankful Pastor Nelson sent us to Eion's to drop the props, then send us back to Bedok because it saved us so much time.
Had some food to eat (because dinner at the rallies always sucked) at Bedok Mall before they came over my place to crash.
Practiced my guitar / ukulele with SY for a bit while SL and 师母 totally crashed on my bed. Was super thankful for the help though because I was so unfamiliar with the last song....
Look at SL being so lazy.
And then they had to 开声 before the performance so they practiced SL's favourite Hallelujah and Gloria in excelsis Deo in my room. Sigh, that angelic voice. Makes me want to melt into my bed forever and ever. (Even though that song annoys me to no end because SL sings it every week)
We ended up cabbing to the stadium because we were so lazy and tired... That day, we realised that 师母's evangelism skills really quite up there. SL was doing her whole teacher thing as well. Win liao.
Met up with Eion, Shanna, grabbed food, then went up to the choir's seats to look for the rest of the RBPC people because it was our last day and I think we were all feeling pretty sentimental.
Wei Guo and his super cheeky face every time I try to take a candid shot.
The choir people had to do their warm ups so Eion, Shanna and I decided to go grab food and drinks from the malls nearby because we were bored.
My homies.
Always a big fan of BK's cheap floats.
Went back up to wish the choir people luck, and also to take pictures of the view, HAHA.
Crowd starting to fill in.
Ended up being so late because I kept hanging out with them, and lost my counselor seat to the audience, sigh. Thankfully Huixin had an empty spot next to her, so at least I didn't spend my last day alone.
The turnout that day was maaasssive. This is the crowd standing up while the choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus because it was a tradition started by King George II, and it has been a tradition for at least 200 years.Well, you learn something new everyday.
(Rush job I did for SL because I only had a voice recording)
This portion of the testimony was hella touching. I could literally see SL in the choir stands wiping her tears, me with my myopia, LOL. (I texted her to confirm it was her, it really was her)
They are a group of former drug addicts who came together to write a song about the agony they went through during their addiction days, and none of them had music background, and their singing was meh at best. But you could hear the pain in their voice, it really was something new.
The last and final 呼召. Praise be to the Lord :')
A closing prayer by Rev Tong for the helpers.
(Picture credit: SL)
Trudged to the MRT with SL, YS, SY, Tianhui and Shiquan, and that was where we met the kid who wept. Kid's only 16 but he looks a lot older than us, and apparently he's a 5th generation Christian from China. And I thought I was a rare 3rd gen....
He was church hopping so we invited him to our Mooncake Festival celebration and he did go, hooray.
Okay I can't believe I spent 2 hours on this post, I'm going to continue in a separate post because this is tooooooo long.
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