September Ends

Aaaahhh, this is crazy. How did time fly by so fast?

When you want more time, it seems like the clock purposefully ticks faster. September ends in two more days!!!

Yesterday was Selangor 7’s last Royal Rangers’ meeting for the year. We had a jolly time of food, games, and snapping pictures. I really, really wish that I can join my awesome friends in rangers next year! But of course, everyone knows that I’ll be off to Kanga-land in Novemberrr. Gah, four more weeks to go!

I wish I can stay for a longer time. Things are just starting to warm up, and I’m only beginning to get to know some of you better. Even in such a short time, my sisters and I are making such good friends already. It’s a pity that we have to go so soon!

Yet despite the short time, I still really, really thank God that I have crossed paths with all of you! It’s amazing that God has led us to cross paths at this intersection in our lives. I’m so glad for the opportunity to meet you all. Some more, some less – but hey, it’s not by chance. I ask God, why so little time? But it’s not my right to ask why. God sees the bigger picture.

So as a family and individually, we are trusting God with all our hearts to lead us as we open a new chapter to our lives and make our transit to Aussieland. But of course, we will not forget all the precious memories of our years here. Some of you have made your marks in my heart and my memory. You have left your footsteps in my life. And I hope I have made a difference in your life, too. ;)

And now, for the pictures taken yesterday. :)

Carmen Chang, me, and Claudia. I followed my aunt May to her church yesterday.

My sisters and I are staying over at our cousins Jon and Ben's house till Friday. My parents have gone on another getaway to Manado, Indonesia for their last tropical waters dive before we head to Australia. Can't wait to see my dad's underwater pictures. :D

Janna and the girls.

We'll be seeing them again this Wednesday for ice-skating. :D

After makan-ing with the Expedition rangers (we had A LOT of food yesterday!) I went to the Uth Hall to snap some shots with the Adventure bunch. I'm glad I did! It'll be the last time we take pictures in uniform!

Haha, Acker seems to be admiring Jon's medals. :P

With the few Adventure girls. :) Okay, so I wasn't wearing a uniform. xD Only the Adventure bunch was wearing uniform cause' they had their own COA. I managed to buy the 20th Anniversary T-shirt.

Me, Deb Ting, Ash, Janna, Raquel, Sarah Chin, Anusha, Abby Chung, and Shin Yiing. :D

Sweet :) I love Sarah Chin's eyes. Sometimes it makes her look evil when she's not smiling. :P

With the drama-queen siblings! Anusha and Richard. Haha, you have no idea how good a drama-queen Anusha gets when she starts. :P

Through Josh's lenses. Hahaha. Josh had a funny idea to put his specs in front of the camera lens. Too bad his power not that high, otherwise we might look magnified. Haha.

Shin Yiing, Raquel (looking very nice :P), Abby, Deb, and I posing for a milo advert. (Pooh!)

Haha, it wasn't supposed to be like that!

Janna, Ash, and Rosanne

I've finally gotten a picture with Abby! :D

Sometimes it's nice to take close-up's. :)

Only the three of us were wearing the 20th Anniversary shirt! :)

The back of the shirt is just too fabulous!

The Boy who always had his cap on.

Sarah Chin's lovable and cute brother, Elijah! I dunno who snapped this though. Either Josh or Raquel. Haha, Elijah had his cap covering his face the whole time. Funny lil' kid. :P

After snapping pictures with the Adventure guys, I went back up to join the Expedition playing some bang-bang game. Haha, they were wondering where I disappeared to.

This four goofs got penalized. They had to dance four counts of the anniversary dance! Haha.

But as you can see, they kept laughing. So they weren't groovy enough.

After joining the Expedition, I went to check out Jirene with her Discovery rangers friends. Here's a shot of her with the Discov. commanders and the girls.

Yeah, I am also my sisters' hired photographer. Before the events, they had already reminded me to take pictures for them with their friends. ._.

Group hug for the girl who's leaving for Kangaland!

Hannah, Jirene, Jen Yee, Joy, and Debbie.

Haha, Esther and Hannah gave me a lil' group hug when they saw me.

Veronica and I. She has a cute, subtle smile.

Haha, so sweet. :)

Esther and Jirene.

After Rangers, we went to the Curve and to the Bentley music store with Shavonne and Felicia's family. Man, it was a neat place, indeed! There were all sorts of cool instruments. Jon wanted to buy a combined acoustic and electric guitar.

Janna, Shavonne, Felicia, and Jirene jamming on the different pianos and keyboards.

Haha, and me too. That keyboard piano cost about 14 K! Crazee.

The electric guitars looked really cool. I wished I could play them.

The music store was huge. There was another big section for all sorts of drum parts and cymbals.

There was another big area that displayed all sorts of cool-looking tom-toms, too! I like the bold, checkered one.

Jeremy Ng trying out an acoustic guitar. They had all sorts hanging on every wall.

Then later we had dinner at Just Dessert.

Felicia, Janna, and Shavonne.

I was super full from the feast at Rangers, so I only had some iced mango dessert.

Haha, I like Shavonne, she's beyond cute. :P

Yeah, you know what we're up to. Again.

Discussing our next pose. :P

Ha, I told you! Shavonne is BEYOND cute! HAHA. :)

Till then, have a fun week of holidays! :)

8 Years Later

Guess what, after 8 long years, I found my old friend on Facebook!

And just the other day, my dad was telling me that he found an old, old friend on Facebook, too. It has been more than 20 years since they contacted each other.

For me and my friend, it’s only been 8 years since we’ve lost contact. Nothing compared to a good, long 20 years, huh? But still, I was very pleased when I somehow managed to contact her.

8 years ago, we were kiddies running around in school during recess playing “catching”. We used to pass letters to each other and to our other “best friends” at class. And would you believe it, I still keep some of them!!! Haha.

You know, time works wonders. (Or maybe in most cases it doesn’t.) Haha. Just a few minutes ago my friend and I were chatting about all the normal stuff that has been going on in our lives the past 8 years. It was a brief chat. She saw the pictures on my blog and exclaimed that I look so different now. And, she did mention that I looked very tall in the pictures.

HAHA. Do I? :P

Do I???

Okay never mind, maybe I do. Yes, time works wonders. :P Ahahaha.

After our chat, I stopped a while to just daydream (or rather, midnight dream – its 2 am now) about the past 8 years. Everything swirled in a big blur. I remember snippets here and there. Some moments are meaningful, some less. It’s funny to think that for the past 8 years, we have both been living our separate lives. Growing taller, chubbier, or less chubbier, making new best friends, seeing the world through different lenses…

And now, we finally find out that we live actually so near each other!

Ha ha. How funny. How very funny.

Jen & Jan. :D I think we both look very different now compared to what memories we have of each other's kiddy faces. Maybe we will meet up before I go off in November. :)

Our Next Adventure

Phew, the past few posts have been full of pictures! And now finally, I can settle down and type a snippet of what the past few months has been like for me and my family, as we anticipate our big move to Australia. Wahoo. :D

When my parents told me that we would be going to Melbourne in November, I was purely stunned. My first reaction was, “What, we’re leaving so fast?! I thought we still have two more years here!”

Really, all of us thought that we still had a lot of time before “the big move”. But somehow, in a turn of events, our time was cut short and the entry date turned out to be the 3rd of November! So yes, we have only 5 more weeks in Malaysia…

Do I sound cool about it?

Aaahh, FIVE MORE WEEKS!!!

Golly, it’s pretty scary. But by God’s grace we are still keeping our cool and praying hard for His guidance. Most people will gawk at us in disbelieve when we tell them that none of us have ever been to Melbourne before. Yes, we have never step foot in Melbourne. All I can IMAGINE of what life would be there are my memories of our visit to Perth 5 years back.

When we received the confirmation in April, all of us were excited. But the news didn’t really sink in. November seemed distant and I thought it would be many more days before we would say our last goodbyes. Even now, with 5 weeks to go, the thought hasn’t fully sunk in!

But really, I can’t escape the nudging thought that we’re going to live there. Make a home out of wherever we’re going to stay. Study there. Make new friends. Adjust to the lifestyle and the people. Now I’ll know what it feels like to leave all that’s so very familiar – everything that makes this place home.

But hey, I do think that it’s going to be heaps of fun there. I can’t wait! I’m gonna’ take lots of pictures and whenever I can, I’ll update you guys on our new chapter of life. I think we’re gonna’ love the weather. And the food. And traveling there. Maybe once we settle down we’ll buy a caravan and travel to the different parts of Australia. Man, it’s gonna’ be one long and adventurous holiday!

We are probably too adventurous for our own good. But God has led us thus far, and I believe He’ll continue to direct our paths and lead us to our next destination. For now, we’re packing up and doing whatever we can to prepare for our “big move”.

Wahoo. :D

Sel 7’s 20th Anniversary

Wahoo, I’ve finally arranged and posted the pictures of last week’s 20th Anniversary celebration for our Selangor 7 Royal Rangers!

Last Saturday we all had a council fire night in Bukit Cahaya, Shah Alam, for the anniversary celebration. Instead of having it in church, they decided to do something different and have the anniversary outdoors this year. The weather was splendid. God answered our prayers, and it didn’t rain!

After the council fire night, quite a bunch of us stayed over in pitched tents at Bukit Cahaya. So it was really quite fun. :D It was a good chance for me to hang out with my friends before I leave for Australia. I took a lot of pictures this time (okay, I guess I take a lot of pictures every time…). Haha. It was my last camp with my awesome Ranger pals. But oh well, I’m really, really glad that we managed to snap quite alotta’ fun pictures together. What beautiful memories. :D

Anyway, I guess I’ll narrate through the picture captions! ;) Enjoy.

A shot of Rosanne, Esther, and I. The expedition rangers went to the camp site at about 11 to help out with the decoration and practices. Here's the expedition and adventure rangers chalet. We decorated the chalet with banners and pictures like a lil' "museum" for the parents to tour later on.

Posing at the window.

Esther and I.

After a few poses, we noticed the sunlight streaming in through the window and we started creating cool shadows with our hands!

Sweet. :)

Credits to Rosanne. Although Esther and I had to squat there for quite a long time before Roz snapped the perfect shot... HAHA. :P

The old banners were hung everywhere!

Cmdr Theresa in deep thought. :P

We had tin-foil cooking before dinner for the rangers and parents.

Abigail Ho and I

June Chong and I =)

Charlene and I

Me and Shaina posing for a shot before the whole council fire began. She was in her dance costume.

Superposers. :D

Hahaa. ;)

The Sel #1 rangers came over, too! I only had a shot with Su Ling and Penny after dinner!

The starting of the council fire.

The dance team.

Our three awesome puppet emcees! (Shin Yiing, Brian Tan, and Josh Chin.) They were really good -- with a tad bit of accent. HAHA.

The KL 1# guys were present, too. Here's a shot with Kah Yun and Hansel.

A candid shot of the Expedition bunch! :D Shawna, Zack, me, Wee Yen, Diane, Yu Tjin, Charlene, Jeff Goh, and Renee.

Haha, they were all eyes on Shawna. Diane's expression is classic. :P

Expedition girls :)

Sally the puppet, Shin Yiing and I

Ashley, Serena, and Janna

Esther Ooi, Debbie, and Jirene in their tent.

Shaina and I chilling out by the campfire after the council fire.

Jirene and her pajama party friends. :P Discovery girls posing. :) Jirene, Joy, Deb, Danica, and Isabelle.

Isabelle and I.

Hahaha, what's with the "look" Shai? :P

With Isabelle the cutie pie.

About nine of us (all Adventure fellas except for Janice and I) scrambled out of the tent at 5. 30 am to play mafia by the pool. HAHA.

Some of them got Colgated and smothered with flour and FACIAL FOAM in the middle of the night by the Expedition rascals. :P This poor fella was still in deep sleep. HAHA.

After two rounds of mafia, Jon and his gang attempted to dunk Josh into the pool at 6 in the morning. Crazee fellas. Haha.

Zoe chipped in, too. :P

Hanging out at the poolside. Me, Raquel, Shin Yiing, Debra, and Janice.

This is a nice shot. :)

The guys taking a turn to dunk Zoe in the pool. Haha.

Deb, Jirene, and Danica.

Ash, Serena, and Janna.

Haha, Debra, Raquel, ShinYiing, Janice, and I posing again. On some dead tree stumps!

Aww, this is precious. :)

Super girls.

Janice and I were tent-mates for the night with Trixie. We didn't sleep the whole night! Haha. We were talking non-stop wei. So the guys had no chance to colgate us. :P

Before leaving, we had some really cool shots snapped in the tent!

So sweet. :) I love this! Janice, Zoe, Me, and Shaina.

Haha. :D

HAHA, Shaina's looks as if she's pointing the bad finger. Lol. (Nolah, don't worry, she's a good girl alrighttt. :P)

Beaaautifulll. I'm so glad I managed to snap these tent shots with you girls! ;)

Whee :D

I'll really treasure all the awesome memories and pictures captured with you all! You've all been so much fun. ;)