have been coughing a whole lot, with small episodes of nosebleed for the last 2 days. woke up in bed today curled up and “immobilised”. body felt so hot but my hands and feet were cold. and there was something in my forehead and it ached to even raise my eyelids. throat felt hot and sore and slight aches in the joints. now i’m sniffling and coughing in the office, spreading the love germs around…

why have i been falling sick so often!

the title has always been stuck in my head since sir tim rice mentioned it on top gear during the “star in a reasonably priced car” segment. today, @woosheryl mentioned on twitter her near-suffocation incident during yoga (as her about it, not me), and was one of those moments where you start wondering about how you’d die.

so here’s the poem “let me die a young man’s death” by Roger McGough.

Let me die a youngman’s death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I’m 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I’m 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber’s chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I’m 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman’s death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
‘what a nice way to go’ death

how would you like to die?

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants. —Luke 15:19

If you’re like me, you love a good deal. Not just bargain shopping, but when you manage to cut a great deal for yourself without giving anything up in return. So if you can identify with these kinds of deals, you’ll understand the prodigal son’s scheme when he decided to return home.

There were three kinds of servants in those days: day workers who were paid on a day-to-day basis; hired servants who worked long hours on the estate but lived in town with their independence intact; or bond servants who lived on the estate and gave all of themselves to serving the family.

When the prodigal son hit rock bottom, it’s interesting that his planned apology involved asking if he could be like a hired servant. Why not a grateful bond servant? Some commentators suggest that perhaps he was trying to negotiate a deal—a way to get a paycheck and keep his independence as well.

Often we approach God like, “I’ll serve You but You can’t take away my freedom.” It may seem like a good deal at the time, but God’s deal is so much better. Just like the boy’s father, His arms are ready and willing to receive repentant sinners as part of His family. There could be no better deal and no better way to serve Him!

Lord, take my life and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride;
I now surrender, Lord—in me abide. —Orr

True freedom is found in surrender to Christ.

well nothing sensational has happened recently, apart from getting into my job, painting my kitchen, figuring out how best to wire up my cable tv box to the av receiver and get lacklustre 6 channel stereo (the new HD hubstation now looks very enticing)…

so like how we’re used to do this, here’s a quick (point form) run down of what’s been happening. ha!

1. new job – so far so good. quite like what i do, the people from the agency, the bosses, and the massive 17″ laptop that they let me use for the million and one things that i’m looking after. ok la. not million, but still quite a few. i’m on the IT team, so that keeps me happy. it may seem dull to most people (huh? i can do my work on a cloud?) but i guess it’s alright for me…
2. cw and i are doing fine. we’ve booked a holiday at the start of october (think it’s a good time to get out and have a break before we crash from work). quite excited because i’ve never been there, and it’s great for shopping. now, just where am i going to find the money to do all the shopping i want to…
3. muffin was quite sick about 2 weeks ago. had some blood parasites and was hospitalised for 2 days. we were all worried sick and made sure that he got well. the doctors were all very nice and he’s now back to his normal self.
4. health-wise has been ok… only had 1 massive gastric attack couple of weeks back because of some major stress issues. back to the usual morning sinus thingies. i guess i may need to research on sleeping habits and circulation in my bedroom. that’s my only guess as to why it’s happening. my feet aches everyday even though i’m sitting down most of the time, and i even proper shoes + support doesn’t seem to help. and i need to start exercising again…
5. i love the av receiver even though the remote seems to be konking out somewhat. oh well…
6. i’ve signed up or notification with all 3 telcos for the iphone 4. i’m swaying between switching to M1 or Starhub. Stinktel sucks!

so yea… that’s all for now i guess.

so chengwei and her friends all got tickets. we were seated in the yellow sector. everyone had something yellow to wear except me. i wore grey

FLAME ON!

god of fortune came by to give out sweets… what a cheapo

there was a dragon dance troupe from china that had firecrackers on the dragon and on the sides. the whole place was filled with smoke and deafening noise of the firecrackers. everything was covered in ash and probably everyone was half deaf by the time the performance was over. not to mention the major roadsweeping required after…

confetti!

my friend nicole was in the parade! that’s her in the first row of the “butterfly lovers” segment, second from the left.

the japanese folks… think they’re from the japanese association… i wonder if they’re like mitsui bankers or sumitomo corporation execs…

little nonyas!

another proof of how different chengwei and i are… she liked the float but i tot this float was the most unattractive and odd… it’s by the tote board and had some kids doing martial arts on top (that’s fine) and some water feature/fountain (that’s fine too)… it also had a row of people sitting inside dominoes swaying back and forth! no idea what that meant…

the largest trash net… i mean dream catcher…

cosplayers! my favourite kurosaki ichigo is in there too!

the 501st legion was there… along with R2D2 and the smallest bobba fett ever

i spotted this auntie in the parade… she was carrying her large dior bag underneath her vest! no rest area to keep your bag meh? got gold bars inside…

and here’s chengwei’s teacher’s teacher – piano virtuoso ong lip tat performing “yellow river”…

and here’s my favourite float of the evening… the universal studios float! it had kungfu panda, shrek, the madagascar animals, anubis, marilyn monroe, woody woodpecker… the most awesome float!

more photos below…

ANYWAY… chinese new year was nice and quiet. visited the usual relatives, but had chengwei in tow to meet the relatives. rave reviews so far!

muffin waiting for dinner…

the little family + muffin having reunion dinner

down at the bukit timah HQ… mum trying to talk to our little TV star, with dad by the side…

in bumblebee mode! he actually transforms as well

he decides to try his hand on photography with my sis’ diana and my e-p1… took this picture of his mum

the kids eating some pre-dinner pizza

while the mums are a-busying in the kitchen making curry and dumplings

we went for a walk around the neighbourhood after dinner and met up with a local. he kept purring the whole time we were there. extremely affectionate but he was very skinny. hope he’s ok.

2nd day… went to visit 3rd grandaunt

and my xiao gu ma in TPY (who commented that chengwei was so fair… like china girl)

then we headed over to dinner at bali thai in ION…

tomyum soup FTW!

the humongous nutmeg and mum

i’m sure they’ll get along fine

then mum tries her hand at the e-p1 as well…

on the 3rd day we went to chengwei’s friend, sue ann’s house for a gathering, and also celebrated her friend siqi’s birthday in advance. plenty of good food (and lo eh #4), then wine and cakes. was a nice little gathering.

here’s the first part of the photos from the E-P1… the lubitel shots will have to wait a couple of days (hopefully they’ll all turn out nice)…

now before we get into the rest of the photos, this image was cropped from one of my favourite and made into a 1280×800 wallpaper… click on it for the larger version…

this picture is just for LOLs… hehe

and now the people…

and now that’s zongxian/marcus, aron and me… we were schoolmates in secondary… now that’s a good 14 years ago… a reunion

and here’s almost all the cameras that we’ve brought along. i brought 2 cameras only. i think that table had about more than $30K worth of cameras on it. can you find my E-P1 and Lubitel?