The sunday school teachers teaching the youths have a small sharing and prayer session once in a month. Last sunday we had our sharing and prayer session, and Mao told us a story that she had read on her way to church that morning.

The story talked about a a spindly little sparrow who was lying on her back in the middle of the road. A horseman came by, dismounted, and asked the sparrow what on earth she was doing lying there in the middle of the road with her feet up in the air. “I heard the heavens were going to fall today,” said the sparrow. “Oh,” said the horseman, “I suppose you think that your puny little legs can hold up the heavens?” “One does what one can,” said the sparrow. “One does what one can.”

If the sky really fell, the little sparrow would most certainly have been crushed. Yet despite that, she still did what she could. Perhaps sometimes in life, we feel that we’re in a hopeless situation, or a situation far to big for us to handle. Do we give up, or be like the little sparrow, who still does what she can?

The s15 girls are going out for dinner tonight, but I can’t join them because I somehow caught a cold last night. I slept the morning and half of the afternoon away, and even though I feel better now, I don’t want to make the cold worsen, so I’m staying home. The whole dustbin is filled with all my used tissue. =/ I wish it’d stop raining every day.

I spent the last 15 minutes trying to find my glasses.

I decided to go and lie down on the bed for a while before I go out later, and I clearly remember taking of my glasses when I was on the bed. A while later I got up, tried to find my glasses, but they were simply not there! I was searching through the whole room, lifting up and pillows and blankets, and even looking on the floor to see if I had dropped my glasses somewhere. But it was nowhere to be found. Glasses don’t just disappear like that right? And they shouldn’t be too difficult to find either, since they’re not exactly that small. But mine seemed to have vanished into thin air!

And so I continued searching, until I saw that there was a buldge on the pillow. And lo and behold, when I stuck my hand into the pillow case, there were my glasses! I have absolutely no idea how it ended up getting stuck in there, but I’m just glad that I managed to find it, so I won’t be walking around like a blind bat. And I feel so silly about the whole thing. :blush:

常听说世界爱没长久，
哪里会有爱无尽头？
尘俗的爱只在乎曾拥有，
一刻灿烂，便要走！

而我却相信爱是恒久，
碰到了祢已无别求；
无从解释，不可说明的爱，
千秋过后仍长存不朽！

谁人受痛苦被悬挂在木头，
至高的爱尽见于刺穿的手；
看！血在流反映爱没保留，
持续不死的爱到万世不休！

唯求奉上生命全归主所有，
要将一切尽献于我主的手；
我已决定今生再没所求，
唯望得主称赞已足够！

Here’s a flash MV that plays the song in the background. English lyrics are below, but in the case I think the Chinese lyrics (or rather, Cantonese) work better.

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Saw an article in The Straits Times this morning, about how Indonesia didn’t act on the tsunami warnings. Since The Straits Times interactive doesn’t allow you to access their articles unless you suscribe, here’s a similar article from elsewhere:

Indonesia received warnings from two regional agencies that Monday’s earthquake had the potential to trigger a tsunami, but did not attempt to pass them on to threatened communities, a government minister said.

Science and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman said Indonesia received bulletins from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre and Japan’s Meteorological Agency after the quake, but “we did not announce them”.

“If it (the tsunami) did not occur, what would have happened?” he said to reporters in Jakarta. He did not elaborate.

The warnings were sent around 45 minutes before the tsunami struck. Without an automated system in place to pass them on to villagers via loudspeakers on beaches or mobile phone text messages, the evacuation of significant numbers of people would have been unlikely.

At least 340 people were killed in the disaster, officials said yesterday, with more than 600 injured. Nearly 230 others were missing.

Source

Seriously, how could they have not sent out a warning to the people “just in case the tsunami didn’t happen”?! Sending out a warning might have caused inconvenience to the people as they had to evacuate, but there’s always a possibility that there might really be a tsunami, and isn’t it always better that the people are informed so that they can evacuate, just in case? It’s lives that we’re talking about here.

I’m not sure how they would have sent out the warnings to the people in the affected areas, and how many people would end up receiving the warnings if the officials had decide to do so, but in any case, if the warning was sent, I’m sure that fewer lives would have been lost.

I think that this would be a lesson to the officials to not take these warnings to lightly in the future. But the lesson is an extremely painful one. The price that was paid is just so high.

Met up with the rest of the girls at Linda’s place today! For the past few times that we were out there was always someone missing, but everyone managed to meet up this time. Just before Linda flies back to Australia a few days later.

The people who have returned from overseas are slowly leaving one by one, as their school terms draw nearer… some will be back again at the end of the year, when there’s another relatively long holiday, but there are others whom I have no idea when they will be back again after they leave this time.

Back in the younger days, your friends were just around most of the time. But as the years pass, some go overseas for their studies, some work during the holidays, and there are those with other committments as well. It just gets harder to meet up, and it seems that the time spent together gets reduced as well. I guess that’s what happens naturally as you grow up.

Anyway, I came home to find that the scans of Fruits Basket chapter 130 have been released! The magazine containing it is actually only due to hit the news stands tomorrow. 130 is such a heartbreakingly beautiful chapter. I don’t usually read manga and all that, but I really love the plot of Fruits Basket. Takaya sensei is an amazing story teller! The plot is something that has depth while having its comedic moments, and the characters are those that people will come to love over time, as there’s bound to be certain traits in these characters that others can identify themselves with. I can really feel for some of the characters when I read the manga. I watch the Honey and Clover II anime too (as well as read the few chapters of the manga that have been translated), but so far the story hasn’t been able to make me feel the way that Fruits Basket does. I’m glad that 130 isn’t the last chapter, like what it was rumoured to be!

Singapore Idol was showing on tv just now, and my dad was commenting that the singing was bad. I don’t really watch the show, but I can hear the singing from the study room whenever the show is on. And I must say that generally speaking, the standard isn’t very high at all. Though there are a few better ones among the finalists. I don’t know if it’s the singing, the tv or my ears, but on a number of occasions I just felt that the singing didn’t go with the music. As in it just sounded as though both were separate and not in harmony. And from the way some of the singing sounds, it seems as though they’re choosing songs that end up controlling them instead of the other way round. But I don’t care for the show nor the contestants anyway.

Things that need to be done this week:
- Website for 40 Days of Purpose
- Think of what to share in church this sunday! I don’t know if I’m the one supposed to share this week since the previous one (to be done by Wanxin, I think) was cancelled due to the 40th anniversary celebrations. But I guess I should prepare just in case, and I can learn something from it while doing so as well, even if I don’t end up doing the sharing this sunday. The topic is “Jesus came to save the sinners”, and I still am not very sure what I’ll be touching on yet…