the possimpible

I dreamt of the same fictitious building in the same spot within concord again. It was a bad dream, again. Except this time, the crowd was completely different but it didn't make it any more pleasant than before.

This week we are meant to be doing community paeds, so we are based around clinics and schools in Stevenage town itself as compared to the hospital. So, early in the morning I left London and headed up north east. After trying to navigate from this imaginary map in my head, I found the elusive healthcare centre (elusive because the main entrance and sign was blocked by this humongous van-lorry contraption). I was directed round some corridors and finally found Tom sitting in this room waiting so I sat down too.

Thing is, it is half term for schools, so basically, there are no schools to visit, half the consultants are on holiday, including the one who we were meant to look for. As a result, the part-time consultant who suddenly had to deal with two medical students was at a loss and threw us in some random clinic which took absolutely forever to settle one patient (read: 1.5 hours for one patient). I dozed off a couple of times only to wake up and see the patient's mom staring at me smiling, and this happened many many times. Tom later told me that he dozed off and found the lady staring and smiling at him many times too.

After 2 patients, the clinic was finally over. Tom and I were secretly glad and were about to sneak off to grab some food when the consultant said "oh here you are, come, join us for this lunchtime meeting before heading off for your lunch." At that completely sleep-inducing meeting, I was super sleepy and just as I was about to doze off, I heard the chairwoman say "..and we have just lost Tom." and I woke up and turned to my right to find Tom just about waking up. Phew, saved by T.Walker.

The neverending meeting finally ended and after grabbing a quick sandwich where we basically were so hungry we wolfed down lunch in less than 2 minutes, I went back to look for stand-in consultant to ask for the timetable for the week. She said she had nothing in mind but suggested a few clinics we could attend in the afternoon. I went back to pass the msg to Tom and after a short 10s discussion, we came to a consensus and decided to escape, so we grabbed our bags and ran (yes, literally RAN) out of the door to the train station.

Tom is so incredibly funny. The only thing that comes to mind when I think of Tom is how we struggle to keep awake in meetings and clinics, especially on Mondays. I'm sorry I said I'd ditch you, I'll try not to! (:

I'll miss you. (:

I did post-natal baby checks this morning and man, it was so much fun! Newborn babies are ridiculously funny. The way Paediatrics has slowly creeped up my likeability scale in the past couple of weeks completely freaked me out yesterday. This wasn't supposed to happen, I was meant to get this 8 weeks of depressing sick screaming children over and done with and never to return again. I am not in love with Paeds, but I might say it is a strong runner-up contender for now. Oh my golly goodness, what on earth is happening.

Also, another thing that has creeped up my likeability scale and recently took an exponential soar - Marshall. (:

Tom and I had to attend a really snoozey perinatal meeting during lunch time and it was the worst thing ever, initially. The first consultant to present was this lady who spoke at an average of about 500 words/min so basically nobody caught what she said and I even saw an SHO sleeping. Then the next dude to present was this dude who spoke at an average of 0.005 words/min and the same SHO was still sleeping. Tom kept awake by eating his sandwich and green banana and I kept awake by reading some posters on the board. Then, the Paeds registrar's bleep goes off.

He comes back, tells one of the SHOs to follow him, looked back, points to Tom and I and told us to follow him too. YAY, rescued from the most soporific meeting ever. Next thing I knew, we were running... to the delivery ward. A pair of 32week old twins were being delivered and we got roped in to receive and prep the baby after birth. I was assigned twin 1 and Tom was assigned twin 2, along with the SHO and reg respectively. It was fun! I got to choose a hat for the baby and tom found a funkier hat than mine :( Anyway, after cleaning, getting bloods, cannulating etc, twin 1 was alright. Twin 2 took a while to get out, she was bigger than T1 and was slightly acidotic, but nothing a little C-pap can't solve and she turned out fine and dandy too. (:
Ah, nothing like a tiny baby (or two) to end a boring day. :D

I guess there's my question answered. Moving swiftly on..

EdWestwick (Chuck!!) is from Stevenage!
Sigh, internet, I've kinda missed you. Actually, not that much, since I have 4 seasons of HIMYM, 2 seasons of TBBT and about 40gig worth of other shows.. you get the drift. Oh, but I am thankful for out-of-hours library (computer) access nonetheless and the fact that I can roll to hospital 5 mins before starting. Sweet. (:

P.S. - I'm also thankful for my HIMYM buddy. (:

I dreamt that my grandmother, my godmother and Guan got in a car from my house in jb and took the car down a straight road that magically brought them KL, Pontian and Singapore respectively. (Geographically impossible coming from my jb house).

Also randomly, I dreamt that Kong became a jar of sweets. -_-

MÖ saves the day (:

The one with sci-fi action

I dreamt that I was in this alternate universe, with a troop of 8 people I don't actually recognise in real time, except for Cheez who was our team leader. We were geared up in startrek-like body suits and were fighters for peace. We were based in this massive field with lucious long green grass that came up to our (my) knees beside a beautiful lake with a wooden cottage in the distance. One of the dudes in the troop was my husband and I don't really remember his face, he was really tall and looked really handsome in my memory (haha). So, what happens is our troop will sit in the fields and enjoy the sun when Cheez will get paged for our assignments, and Cheez will say "Let's go" in his deep cheezy voice and we will head off to this place with giant duffel bags where we will each get into a bag and zip up. The moment the last person zips up, we will get teleported to the fighting place where we will unzip ourselves and start running. I don't actually remember any fight scenes, so I don't know if we fight with hands/guns/lightsabres/whatever. If we win, we will all get back into our bags and when the 8th person zips up, we get teleported back to our home ground where we chill and wait for the next assignment.

However, on one particular mission, I think we were losing quite badly, all I could see on the scene is very long dried grass and burning in the background with horrible smoke causing reduced visibility and we were running towards our duffel bags in retreat. I heard a "UGHHHH" in the distance so I ran forward and found my 'husband' heavily injured and dying. I was a neurotic mess and tried carrying him to safety. Obviously, I wasn't strong enough so I was practically dragging him by his hands towards the duffel bags to be transported to safety. My team mates spotted me and came to help me. We barely made it in time, I zipped him up in his duffel bag, and got into mine, zipped up and was transported back to home ground. After that, we had several missions because we still hadn't achieved world peace. I vaguely remember in the middle of fighting in one of the fields, Cheez and I had coffee in starbucks randomly and then went back to fight. Quite random. Anyway, I think we continued fighting for world peace in random fields for about 2-3 years and when our troop finally achieved world peace, we got out of our duffel bags for the last time, in our home ground field. We were all very tired, a little bit older and it seemed like a very long 2-3 years but world peace was definitely worth it. So all 7 of us got out of our duffel bags and there was one more bag unopened. I unzipped the last bag and found my dead husband in there. -_-

Anyways, I've decided, if I ever get married, I'm so dying first.

New Straits Times, 1 October 2009

State's longest serving pastor retires

Roger Tan
2009/10/01

YESTERDAY saw the retirement of Johor's longest-serving pastor, Reverend Nicholas Yeo, 67, after more than 35 years of faithful service in one of Johor's oldest churches, Holy Light Church (English) (HLCE) at Jalan Gertak Merah, Johor Baru.

Reverend Nicholas Yeo with his wife, Lee Swee Keng, who faithfully supported his ministry for more than 30 years.

Reverend Nicholas Yeo welcoming Colonel Mustaffa Awang for the Boys Brigade Awards Day on March 20, 1976.

The Holy Light Church was founded by a young missionary from the Presbyterian Church of England, Reverend John Cook in 1886. Then, Cook was much assisted by a Scotsman, Datuk James Meldrum, who was the son-in-law of Reverend Benjamin Keasberry, a tutor to Sultan Abu Bakar.

The church grounds in Jalan Gertak Merah were given by the late Sultan.

At the time, the Sunday worship services comprised Chinese (Teochew) and English sessions, and many British civil servants and servicemen based in Johor Baru attended them.

However, when Meldrum passed away in 1908, the English service also came to a halt. It was not until August 1952 that the new resident moderator of the church, Reverend George Hood, revived the English service.

Between 1952 and 1973, foreign missionaries -- Hood, Richard Shad, Robert Elder, Derek Gill, Gilbert Lum, Cecil Gracey, Donald Elliot and Robert Irving -- continued to minister the English-speaking congregation as it was difficult to find an Asian who was prepared to serve as a pastor.

Their prayers for an Asian to take over the ministry were finally answered in December 1973 when Yeo, then 31 years old and a former secondary school teacher who had just graduated from the Singapore Bible College, was inducted as a preacher of the English service.

Hood, 92, who now lives in Scotland, later wrote that when the hopes of getting an Asian pastor were realised, it was like rain falling on dry ground, bringing new life and growth of the seeds that the foreign missionaries had planted.

Then on Aug 31, 1979, Yeo was officially ordained as the church's first Asian minister.

In his more than 30 years of ministry at Holy Light Church (English), the Batu Pahat-born Yeo was ably supported by his wife, Lee Swee Keng, who hailed from Klang, Selangor. Apparently, the couple met in 1969 at a Teachers' Christian Fellowship Conference and soon fell in love and were married on July 29, 1971 in Batu Pahat. In 1977, Swee Keng also gave up her teaching career to assist Yeo in their ministry at HLCE.

Even though he does not undertake aggressive proselytisation, nevertheless the depth and breadth of Yeo's impact on the lives of the many who came to know him is a testimony of the pious life which he leads and a role model which he plays as an exemplary pastor to his colleagues as well as a religious patriarch to his congregation.

Yeo possesses a multiplicity of gifts. He speaks and writes impeccable English, and has a mellifluous voice that always warms the hearts of the congregation whenever he sings.

I find Yeo to be extremely humble despite the many honours and accolades paid him over more than three decades of ministerial service. I still remember how I once informed him that I should write to the authorities to nominate him for a Datukship especially when he was also instrumental in setting up the English Speaking Presbytery (ESP) within the Presbyterian Synod, and was the ESP's first moderator. Yeo declined, for he always seeks to please the God he serves rather than men.

I also remember Yeo as someone who does not retaliate or speak evil of those who disagree or criticise him. Faced with a litany of accusations against him during a church crisis in the 1990s, there was never a single moment when defending himself did Yeo retaliate or attack his accusers -- a virtue of forgiveness which many of our politicians today seriously lack and ought to emulate.

Perhaps his life and service at HLCE are best summed up by Elder Dr Koh Seong Kooi.

"If you look at his life, he is a patient guy. He is kind and does not envy. He is not rude. He is not self-seeking. He is not easily angered," said Dr Koh, 56.

"He does not delight in evil. He rejoices with the truth. He keeps no record of wrongs. He always protects; always trusts; always hopes and perseveres. As a shepherd looking after the flock in Holy Light, we have the best pastor with us."

Paul Juby, 77, a captain of the Johor Baru 1st Company of Boys Brigade in the 1970s and who now lives in England, agrees.

"I well remember when Nicholas came to Johor Baru when I was the Captain of the Boys' Brigade. He gave whole-hearted support to the Boys' Brigade and I know full well that he has been a great pastor for more than 30 years. He is a wonderful man who has done so much for so many people," said Juby.

In his last official sermon to the congregation as their pastor, Yeo reminded them this: "While we move along with change, there are absolutes which we should not let go of. The absolutes are those of God -- do not change His Word which is steadfast as our life manual."

In appreciation of their services, HLCE will hold a special retirement service and appreciation dinner for Yeo and Swee Keng at New York Hotel, Johor Baru, at 5pm on Sunday.

To Pastor and Swee Keng who have been a great inspiration to many as well as my family and I, we thank you and wish you happy retirement and many, many more years of good health and happiness.

http://www1.nst.com.my/Current_News/JohorBuzz/Friday/MyJohor/20091001201652/Article/

儿童节快乐! :D

The one with the super ring

three days ago I dreamt that I had to give siewshin three packets of super ring. -_-