Another year, another SYC, another blog series! Summer Youth Camp (SYC) is run by Cabramatta Anglican Church and St Georges' Anglican Church Hurstville and a bunch of other leaders we have connections with, and Christians seem to have a lot of connections.
I probably explained back in last years SYC blog series but I'll quickly explain it again.
SYC is a camp for high schoolers, it is primarily an evangelistic camp, meaning you're gonna hear about Jesus and what He did for you, secondarily, it is a fun camp designed to tire out the youth and leaders both physically (youth) and mentally (leaders). It runs for a week, Monday to Friday and this is just my little blog series remembering all that happened from my perspective, giving you a behind the scenes look too of what a leader does for all you youth reading this so without further ado/adieu/achoo lets try and remember...
Day 0 - 4th January 2009 Sunday - My Drive Up
On Sunday the leaders usually head up to the campsite first, to set things up and get a headstart before the highschoolers come. Out meetup point is Cabramatta Anglican Church for half of the leaders. I got to church sometime between 5:30 and 6:00pm to see a few of the leaders there rushing to get the SYC booklets together, people folding, stapling and chatting.
We had to wait until evening service finished at around 6:30 before we could go and grab sound equipment, drum kit and cables to take to SYC, so we waited and waited, chatted to other leaders.
Soon enough we got to load up our cars, I had less luggage this year compared to last year so I didn't have that much to tetris into the car like last year, I had to take the drum kit, pretty much all the microphone stands, cable leads and of course people's luggage.
I'm not sure what time we left, but it was pretty late, either 7pm or sometime past that, we drove to Heathcote McDonalds for dinner, then continued towards the campsite. The theory that after eating food, you often feel sleepy is pretty true I'd say because driving after Macca's I got pretty sleepy and wanted to just nod off, so I had to keep myself up somehow, and I did so by talking to the people in my car, which always helps, to keep my mind buzzing with stuff other than the mundane long stretch of road ahead of me.
Eventually we reach the campsite, the potholes were still there like the year before and the urge to drive onto the grass utilizing my 4WD capabilities was still there like the year before but I resisted, given the darkness and not knowing when a ditch would suprise attack me. All our cars were covered in dust and dirt (mainly dirt), so people proceeded to write on each other's cars, I had DUNG written on my back window, which I left because I was too tired to clean it off. For those who don't know Dung is a sort of nickname I was given, derived from the first letter of my first name and the surname, it also has the same name as a form of feces, unfortunate I know but I've gotten used to it, new people however, aren't used to it, which produces amusing reactions when people see friends calling me "Dung", and I respond casually like its all good.
But I digress, we unloaded our cars, paid our leaders fee, mingled, then had a meeting to get things officially started, we broke up into our groups, be that evening games (games we play in the evening), wide games (games we play during the day), concert night team, music team and I think that was it. I was in the evening games team, and was allocated a "get to know you" game with another leader, trivia night and glow stick game, of which I'll write about as they happen on the corresponding days. Each year we try and play different games and this year was no different, so we had to test some of them, which we did tonight. Some of the leaders played around with straws and paddle pop sticks to protect an egg, Victor (our Evening Games leader) became our balloon sumo and took damage for our entertainment (I'll try get a video of that up when I can, inbetween working on the SYC DVD).
Afterwards, we had music practice for Monday's music, which I used to make the powerpoint for the Monday, I would've made it before but I didn't know the what the projector would be like, and where "screen" would be, but making the powerpoint was fairly quick anyway.
Eventually it got really late, and it was time for sleep, all the leaders had the boys side of the cabins to sleep in, and we could pick any room which is always fun as its the one time we can sleep with the other leaders before the youth invade...anyways, I don't know about the other leaders but the cabra boys stayed up, chatted, got to know each other better, got to know who were the scaredy cats (lame term I know) screaming at the non-ghost, talking about ministry and random stuff when we realise we should really get to sleep, our wake up time was 8am, we slept sometime past 2am...
Note: From here on out, they're gonna get longer, and I'll probably take a long time to get them all done, meaning I'll eventually forget a few more things, so apologies in advance to all those that care.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
My Baptism
On the 14th of December 2008, last year now, Cabramatta Anglican Church had their combined Baptism and Confirmation Service. Combined being both the Chinese and English services combining together.
Anyways, on that day I got Baptised and Confirmed, something that probably should've happened years earlier but I never felt compelled to do, or found the time to do so due to impromptu powerpoint commitments or laziness or I didn't want to do it alone or something silly.
But this year, I took the plunge and did it, albeit I notified the proper people a little late and almost didn't get baptised, but I think being at the church and a Christian for years helped in allowing me to being baptised given the late notice.
Baptism is a Sacrement, or a outward sign that a Christian does to show their faith in Jesus Christ, so baptism is just one of the sacrements that Christians do, but we only need to do it once. People are baptised in different ways, depending on your church, some like to do the full body dunk, others just sprinkle a bit of water on your head. In my case, I got the the head sprinkle, which was fine with me because I wasn't dressed to be drenched.
I never saw baptism as necessary for a Christian to do, as once you believe that Jesus died for your sins and commit your life to him and ruler you have been baptised by the Holy Spirit, so thats a spiritual baptism, as opposed to a physical baptism. That was my main reason for putting off my baptism I think, but then I saw that being baptised for all to see was a good thing to do. I'm a Christian and should not be ashamed to publically declare it, and being baptised was a good way to show not only the people at church but my friends as well that I'm a Christian, a person who doesn't just live a good life, but a Godly life, there's a difference there, a big difference.
So that will be a day for me to remember, as I honestly can't remember the day I became a Christian except that it was years and years ago, but I now can remember the day I got baptised.
Anyways, on that day I got Baptised and Confirmed, something that probably should've happened years earlier but I never felt compelled to do, or found the time to do so due to impromptu powerpoint commitments or laziness or I didn't want to do it alone or something silly.
But this year, I took the plunge and did it, albeit I notified the proper people a little late and almost didn't get baptised, but I think being at the church and a Christian for years helped in allowing me to being baptised given the late notice.
Baptism is a Sacrement, or a outward sign that a Christian does to show their faith in Jesus Christ, so baptism is just one of the sacrements that Christians do, but we only need to do it once. People are baptised in different ways, depending on your church, some like to do the full body dunk, others just sprinkle a bit of water on your head. In my case, I got the the head sprinkle, which was fine with me because I wasn't dressed to be drenched.
I never saw baptism as necessary for a Christian to do, as once you believe that Jesus died for your sins and commit your life to him and ruler you have been baptised by the Holy Spirit, so thats a spiritual baptism, as opposed to a physical baptism. That was my main reason for putting off my baptism I think, but then I saw that being baptised for all to see was a good thing to do. I'm a Christian and should not be ashamed to publically declare it, and being baptised was a good way to show not only the people at church but my friends as well that I'm a Christian, a person who doesn't just live a good life, but a Godly life, there's a difference there, a big difference.
So that will be a day for me to remember, as I honestly can't remember the day I became a Christian except that it was years and years ago, but I now can remember the day I got baptised.
Friday, November 28, 2008
My Mistaken Mail
Well, it's been over two weeks now and I still haven't been called in for work. Me thinks I'm out of a job, which is okay, it lasted a bit longer than I thought it would. Four weeks to be exact, from October 22nd to November 12th, 2008...that is, unless I get called in, but the chances of that are pretty nil.
But enough about my unemployment. During my employment I encountered a lot of mail, thousands a day actually and when dealing with that much mail, you're bound to stumble upon interesting letters here and there. One type of mail we sorted through were the Return To Sender (RTS) mail, basically the mail that doesn't get delivered, and winds up back to us. We usually sort through RTS when we're done with proper mail, so RTS became our work when work was done work, and I usually took my time to do it, looking at names and such when I felt like it and the inner childish boy within me had a giggle with some of the names, which I tried to take photos of, but they all came out blurry, such is the pain of a bad camera on a phone! So I'll just type down the names I happened to see.
Mrs Joanne Lisa Fullalove
Julie Gay Styles
Fleur Laninazzo (It just sounds cool)
Chika Maree Emeach (Bully's would have a field day with Chika)
William Whitehead
Mahadevan Venkataraman & Kalyani Venkataraman (Those aren't even names)
Mr Robert Freak (Freak-out!)
Most of the RTS we got were from Australia, but some of them were from overseas, which must've taken quite a bit of effort to return them. There was mail from London, Hong Kong, Japan, America, and Netherlands. Then there are cheques that we send out, but become RTS. Those are fun to look at to see how much money people aren't getting. Most of the cheques are for a few hundred dollars but these are the two extremes that I've seen.
The paper for this cheque costs more than this guy is not getting!
I also saw cheques for 5 cents and 2 cents even, can you imagine the excitement someone would get when they open the mail to see a cheque for them only for it to be made to the sum of $0.02.
Just incase its too blurry for you, thats $10,557! This guy will definitely want to call up to fix his address because thats a lot of money to miss out on!
Lastly there's the mail that we aren't supposed to get, as they've been delivered to the wrong place. We just put them in a seperate tray for it to be re-delivered, hopefully to the right location. On my second day at work, I didn't realise this and proceeded to open the letter, and discovered an iTunes gift card for $40 I think it was, suffice to say I was told off for opening mail that didn't belong to us. So I learnt from that mistake. However, when we use machines to cut up the envelopes, they usually cut them open irregardless of whether they're for us or not, and therefore we get to have a peek inside. One particular letter that provided amusement was addressed to this person...
How it wound up here I don't know, but I'm glad it did, because it was hilarious. Especially when we looked inside...
A wish list! A kid who wants Miley Cyrus stuff and a kid who wants books, generic books with no specific name! I should've taken a picture of it too but right under the Santa colouring was written "I love you Santa very much!", I'd like my kids to be able to do the same, except replace Santa with Daddy, Mummy or Jesus.
I'm assuming this note was meant for us, which was nice, and we left it on the table side for people to look at as they walked past. Ironically, this note came on the day that I was told I didn't need to come in anymore because the workload had died down. So it was a great day, in a bittersweet kind of way.
But enough about my unemployment. During my employment I encountered a lot of mail, thousands a day actually and when dealing with that much mail, you're bound to stumble upon interesting letters here and there. One type of mail we sorted through were the Return To Sender (RTS) mail, basically the mail that doesn't get delivered, and winds up back to us. We usually sort through RTS when we're done with proper mail, so RTS became our work when work was done work, and I usually took my time to do it, looking at names and such when I felt like it and the inner childish boy within me had a giggle with some of the names, which I tried to take photos of, but they all came out blurry, such is the pain of a bad camera on a phone! So I'll just type down the names I happened to see.
Mrs Joanne Lisa Fullalove
Julie Gay Styles
Fleur Laninazzo (It just sounds cool)
Chika Maree Emeach (Bully's would have a field day with Chika)
William Whitehead
Mahadevan Venkataraman & Kalyani Venkataraman (Those aren't even names)
Mr Robert Freak (Freak-out!)
Most of the RTS we got were from Australia, but some of them were from overseas, which must've taken quite a bit of effort to return them. There was mail from London, Hong Kong, Japan, America, and Netherlands. Then there are cheques that we send out, but become RTS. Those are fun to look at to see how much money people aren't getting. Most of the cheques are for a few hundred dollars but these are the two extremes that I've seen.
The paper for this cheque costs more than this guy is not getting!
I also saw cheques for 5 cents and 2 cents even, can you imagine the excitement someone would get when they open the mail to see a cheque for them only for it to be made to the sum of $0.02.
Just incase its too blurry for you, thats $10,557! This guy will definitely want to call up to fix his address because thats a lot of money to miss out on!
Lastly there's the mail that we aren't supposed to get, as they've been delivered to the wrong place. We just put them in a seperate tray for it to be re-delivered, hopefully to the right location. On my second day at work, I didn't realise this and proceeded to open the letter, and discovered an iTunes gift card for $40 I think it was, suffice to say I was told off for opening mail that didn't belong to us. So I learnt from that mistake. However, when we use machines to cut up the envelopes, they usually cut them open irregardless of whether they're for us or not, and therefore we get to have a peek inside. One particular letter that provided amusement was addressed to this person...
How it wound up here I don't know, but I'm glad it did, because it was hilarious. Especially when we looked inside...
A wish list! A kid who wants Miley Cyrus stuff and a kid who wants books, generic books with no specific name! I should've taken a picture of it too but right under the Santa colouring was written "I love you Santa very much!", I'd like my kids to be able to do the same, except replace Santa with Daddy, Mummy or Jesus.
I'm assuming this note was meant for us, which was nice, and we left it on the table side for people to look at as they walked past. Ironically, this note came on the day that I was told I didn't need to come in anymore because the workload had died down. So it was a great day, in a bittersweet kind of way.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
My Second Job
You're probably wondering why I haven't blogged in a while, well wonder no more because I have the answer to that question! The answer is in the title, I've got a job now and thats been taking a bunch of my time, more than half of my day actually, which is ludicrous, so I'm just going to go on a riff now. *tunes guitar*
My last post about my unfortunate work mishap, but the next week on the Tuesday (day of Passion) I got a call from work asking if I could start the next day, which I said I could. It didn't help that Passion ended at 11pm and I arrived home at 1am, needing to wake up at 5am, giving me 4 hours sleep, so I didn't look too great for my first day at work.
Basically the job at Link Market Services involves opening up mail for our shareholder clients and sorting them into trays for our companies. So its a very repetitive, pretty much mindless job and I'm alright with that because its a temporary job, lasting a few weeks. How many weeks exactly is unknown at this point, it seems that it'll end when a bulk of the mail stops coming in, as this time of year is apparently busy with mail, hence the need for casuals.
Now to break up observations by points, for easier reading because I write too much.
My last post about my unfortunate work mishap, but the next week on the Tuesday (day of Passion) I got a call from work asking if I could start the next day, which I said I could. It didn't help that Passion ended at 11pm and I arrived home at 1am, needing to wake up at 5am, giving me 4 hours sleep, so I didn't look too great for my first day at work.
Basically the job at Link Market Services involves opening up mail for our shareholder clients and sorting them into trays for our companies. So its a very repetitive, pretty much mindless job and I'm alright with that because its a temporary job, lasting a few weeks. How many weeks exactly is unknown at this point, it seems that it'll end when a bulk of the mail stops coming in, as this time of year is apparently busy with mail, hence the need for casuals.
Now to break up observations by points, for easier reading because I write too much.
- When I applied for my job at Datacom I didn't know I would be working for Telstra, so it was a suprise that when working for Link Market Services I started off opening mail for Telstra.
- I work from 7am till 5pm, with a 15 break at 8:30am, then lunch at 12:30pm, so in a day I get paid for 9.5 hours of work, if I take a 30 minute lunch break. Money is good, so I usually aim for 30 minute breaks.
- Waking up at 5am, then getting home at around 6pm means more than half my day is dedicated to work, whether its actual work or travel.
- Unlike most people who just go home, I still have (BJJ, Kickboxing) training after work, so I don't go home after work, I head straight to training and then get home at 9pm, shower, eat then sleep, so I'm not getting very much sleep at all. My panda eyes are going to become permanent at this rate.
- At work we have cool letter opening machines, I'll need to grab videos of them in action at some point.
- Most of the people at work are Filipino, so that's all I hear all day, with a bit of Cantonese and Mandarin thrown in, then there's English too.
- We work in a distribution centre which is despite being on level 8, is still underground, so I don't see sunlight until lunch time, and if I've brought my lunch I don't see sunlight until I finish work. I feel like a vampire.
- If I'm opening letters and not sorting them then I can close my eyes and do it for a while, gotta get as much shut eye as possible!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
My Fight With Andrew Ha
As requested by Dewey Griffin
On the 12th of September, over a month ago now, I engaged in a friendly fight with my friend Andrew Ha, to those who don't know him, he's 2-3 years younger than me, weighs something around 20 kgs heavier than me, and is built like a tank. To those that know me, I'm skinny, lightweight and built like a twig. So agreeing to a fight like this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but in the spirit of fun I decided to take the fight, knowing I'd lose eventually, it was just a matter of when and how.
Being so long ago I don't remember the fight from start to finish in immense detail but I'll point out what I remember in a hindsight kind of way. Just incase you didn't know, I lost. (OMGOSH SPOILER)
In hindsight I should've warmed up a bit before fighting, if only to get my body ready for a beating, but I didn't, but I don't think Andrew did much either.
Our fight had the rules of no headshots, no elbows and to go 100% because thats what Andrew wanted, and we wore MMA gloves, which are smaller than boxing gloves, and thus would hurt a bit more. We started off standing, trading shots with Andrew getting the better of me, despite my long arms, I'm still hesisitant to close the distance to get my shots in, something that will come to me more so if I keep sparring, which I rarely do these days.
At some point I get taken down, so I pull guard, wrapping my legs around Andrew, to keep him from raining down punches on me, but he still managed to do so, and in the heat of the moment punched me in the face. In hindsight, I should've wore my mouthguard, but silly me I believed in the no headshot rule, but didn't forsee accidental shots occuring. So we paused for a minute so my face could heal a bit, and I could regain composure before starting in the same position again. Prior to Andrew's punching of my face he was trying to break my legs by standing up, so I knew that he would go for it again when we started back in the same position. I used this to my advantage and swept him by pulling his legs causing him to fall on his bottom, and I tried to get on top to gain a better position, however we scrambled and he got back up and we were standing again.
Once again standing, Andrew got the better of me, pulling off a good combo, getting me in the shoulder and body with his very hard shots. Each time he came at me with a flurry of punches I'd end up retreating, bumping up against his fence at his home. Eventually this bumping up against the fence worked against me even more so, slipping and thus lowering my body one of Andrew's punches got me in the face again. Not feeling too good at all, copping two headshots I felt like stopping, as my head was spinning a bit, and my mouth was quite sore. But I kept persisting, seemingly wanting to lose properly. After my break we punched on again, trying some kicks at some point but to no avail, I eventually get taken down again, but fail to pull guard, finding myself in side control, and eventually mounted by Andrew. I instantly try to bridge and roll him over, but that didn't work, then kept holding him down, so he couldn't punch me anymore, but being much stronger than me I could only hold him for so long before he broke my grip and started punching again. I then held him down again, by this time I was very tired and wanted to give up, so I decided to hold on until he broke my grip and started punching me to then say "I give up". In hindsight I should've tried to bridge and roll him over or attempt an elbow escape on more time but I was too tired, and all the odds seem to go against me. I realised throughout the whole fight I wasn't going 100% like Andrew wanted, I'm never a person to punch someone 100% without a good reason to, so while Andrew's punches to me were painful thuds, my punches to him would've felt quite light I imagine, thats just how I fight I suppose.
After giving up I realised my lip was bleeding, so that wasn't great, but wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before. I had a minor bump under my eye, that was quite unnoticeable unless you stared at me, and bruises on my body from the body shots courtesy of Andrew Ha. That brings my unnofficial fight record to 1-1, and it looks like it'll stay that way for a long while.
A few months of solid kickboxing training should help my form and confidence in attacking, rather than trying to counter punch. They say you always learn after a loss, and if anything I've confirmed what I've pretty much known before but suprised myself in a few ways.
On the 12th of September, over a month ago now, I engaged in a friendly fight with my friend Andrew Ha, to those who don't know him, he's 2-3 years younger than me, weighs something around 20 kgs heavier than me, and is built like a tank. To those that know me, I'm skinny, lightweight and built like a twig. So agreeing to a fight like this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but in the spirit of fun I decided to take the fight, knowing I'd lose eventually, it was just a matter of when and how.
Being so long ago I don't remember the fight from start to finish in immense detail but I'll point out what I remember in a hindsight kind of way. Just incase you didn't know, I lost. (OMGOSH SPOILER)
In hindsight I should've warmed up a bit before fighting, if only to get my body ready for a beating, but I didn't, but I don't think Andrew did much either.
Our fight had the rules of no headshots, no elbows and to go 100% because thats what Andrew wanted, and we wore MMA gloves, which are smaller than boxing gloves, and thus would hurt a bit more. We started off standing, trading shots with Andrew getting the better of me, despite my long arms, I'm still hesisitant to close the distance to get my shots in, something that will come to me more so if I keep sparring, which I rarely do these days.
At some point I get taken down, so I pull guard, wrapping my legs around Andrew, to keep him from raining down punches on me, but he still managed to do so, and in the heat of the moment punched me in the face. In hindsight, I should've wore my mouthguard, but silly me I believed in the no headshot rule, but didn't forsee accidental shots occuring. So we paused for a minute so my face could heal a bit, and I could regain composure before starting in the same position again. Prior to Andrew's punching of my face he was trying to break my legs by standing up, so I knew that he would go for it again when we started back in the same position. I used this to my advantage and swept him by pulling his legs causing him to fall on his bottom, and I tried to get on top to gain a better position, however we scrambled and he got back up and we were standing again.
Once again standing, Andrew got the better of me, pulling off a good combo, getting me in the shoulder and body with his very hard shots. Each time he came at me with a flurry of punches I'd end up retreating, bumping up against his fence at his home. Eventually this bumping up against the fence worked against me even more so, slipping and thus lowering my body one of Andrew's punches got me in the face again. Not feeling too good at all, copping two headshots I felt like stopping, as my head was spinning a bit, and my mouth was quite sore. But I kept persisting, seemingly wanting to lose properly. After my break we punched on again, trying some kicks at some point but to no avail, I eventually get taken down again, but fail to pull guard, finding myself in side control, and eventually mounted by Andrew. I instantly try to bridge and roll him over, but that didn't work, then kept holding him down, so he couldn't punch me anymore, but being much stronger than me I could only hold him for so long before he broke my grip and started punching again. I then held him down again, by this time I was very tired and wanted to give up, so I decided to hold on until he broke my grip and started punching me to then say "I give up". In hindsight I should've tried to bridge and roll him over or attempt an elbow escape on more time but I was too tired, and all the odds seem to go against me. I realised throughout the whole fight I wasn't going 100% like Andrew wanted, I'm never a person to punch someone 100% without a good reason to, so while Andrew's punches to me were painful thuds, my punches to him would've felt quite light I imagine, thats just how I fight I suppose.
After giving up I realised my lip was bleeding, so that wasn't great, but wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before. I had a minor bump under my eye, that was quite unnoticeable unless you stared at me, and bruises on my body from the body shots courtesy of Andrew Ha. That brings my unnofficial fight record to 1-1, and it looks like it'll stay that way for a long while.
A few months of solid kickboxing training should help my form and confidence in attacking, rather than trying to counter punch. They say you always learn after a loss, and if anything I've confirmed what I've pretty much known before but suprised myself in a few ways.
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