success in finance...v2 of side 2

Version 2 of side 2, for a clearer map. Thanks, Dutt! ^^

success in finance...updated version of side 2

The updated version of side two. Many thanks to Ai Mei and Uncle Ram for the info and feedbacks. Really appreciate it! :)

Success in finance...final?

Front and back of the 52.5 x 73.5 mm flyer for YAF. Do have your say...

success in finance...by YAF

What say u?

Don Chan

My housemate, Don and I. This is the best pic taken of us. And it being the only one ever taken to date, it can't possibly be the worst! Haha! It was taken yesterday when the YAF cell group made a visit to Klang EFC where Don lead in worship while Jimmy spoke on the Christian family unit. The fellowship was country-like and simple.

Back to Don. Our affiliation as housemates would be till the age where this photo turns 7 days old. For then it would be the month of May, and Don would be living luxuriously in his Condo commanding some prominent bird’s-eye view over the once mining area of Puchong. Still, he could perhaps be, one of my nearest neighbour that I know considering where Putra Heights is…

Well, let’s write something more about you, Don, since I’m out of ideas for a proper post now…haha! One day the term of a blog victim might just arise, be coined, and you can have the honour to be it’s very first!

To be frank, Don’t probably the best housemate anyone could ever ask for. He can talk about any topic or subject under the sun, he’s devoid of any peculiarities, always level-headed about things, a good and reliable companion to have and a very responsible friend. He’s been very instrumental in helping me integrate into EFCGC too, attaching names to faces and their relationships for me.

And he’s a good vocal drill partner who can go up to an incredible A steadily, an octave above the middle C! Yeah, and if you’re a fan of manga or have a penchant for anything screened on the silver screens and listen to hard rockers Cinderella, walla! You could just claim him as your twin brother! Still remember the time where my car battery went flat and he patiently took the trouble to jump-start my vehicle risking being late for a course dinner, having to pick someone up and having sweat and dirt over his fresh evening outfit. All because I left my headlights on the whole rainy afternoon and wanted to go for a game of badminton! Thanks, bro!

Okay, lunch break’s about over for me now. I shan’t embarrass you with too many praises here, and do get your feet back to the ground! ‘coz I still owe you a meal…somehow. Anyway, a dinner would be nice, as it would be quite rare an occasion to come by now... Have a good day and thanks for all the memories…4 months it may only be, but, good times. God bless, bro!

Sketches of a week gone by...

I need to write something here. Well, I want to write something here before I plunge into the weekends! The weekends! Yeah, here finally! Err… almost.

Ok, for a start, the ID people are back. That’s a good thing. Smell the coffee, hear the laughter, see faces of boredom and stress, and it’s confirmed. They’re here again…although I don’t know for how long… Office was a little somber in their absence…you getting me a McD for this, Michelle? Haha!

Next was the confirmation to my position here on Tuesday as a graduate architect. Well, praise God for that! It also marks 3 months that I’ve gaped at this monitor drawing endless lines. Maybe some call that architecture…for some unknown reason…I’m still hungry, starving to behold a real piece of sound architecture before my eyes! Have to be contended to engage those moments only in magazines and archi journals for now…

I met a Uni mate online yesterday. James So Chien Boon. Well, for short I just call him ye-ye (grandpa), as somehow, that’s what he’s known as in Tasmania. He was a quick friend whom I knew at the airport where we took the same flight from KLIA all the way to Launceston. Apparently, he was also my college-mate, a junior whom I’ve never met. Then he moved into one of Graham’s house and became my housemate. Quite a good cook who has little qualms as to what goes into the pan! Nothing short of a good friend, save for…well, his unpredictable mood swings which lasts for…months! Haha! He took the trouble to come pay me a visit with Sing Hai too, whilst I was still in Malacca when he came down to KL for a break. You’ve just got to bear with this in English, ye-ye! Haha!

I was out with Chien Terk last night. We were supposed to fulfill our obligation as good citizens by giving back to Caesar what belongs to him….but the office was closed. So we roamed around Giant instead.

Lunch break’s about over now. I’m not feeling too well at the moment. Lack of sleep, maybe. Anyway, the weekends are….almost…here. Almost... Have a pleasant weekend! :)

Impressionism

A tribute to Claude Monet's Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise) . A nice impressionist picture which always brings the music of Debussy and sometimes, Ravel to mind. The orangey-red sun seems to deliciously bring the whole atmosphere to life! The mood is misty, almost frosty where water, land and sky seem to be undefined. And one could almost hear clair de lune rippling among the languid waves... Well, enough said. I actually ripped this picture off one of the many websites dedicated to the French painter as a piece of decoration to my black-themed blog! It’s the closest to having one of his paintings hanging somewhere in some space where I share some sense of ownership and belonging to! Haha!

The server in my office was down for 2 days. Two very important, or shall I say significantly eventful days where one contrasted the other in such a stark way in terms of joy and its opposite. I guess I shan’t write what those two days were about, but yesterday was a day of pure blessing. Well, I have to leave this place now. Will share further if I have the mood to. It’s Impression, soleil levant for me now. A composition of moods in orange, blues and grays…BUT, with a sun far more promising than that of Monet’s! :)

my office...

Here's a picture of a wall to the left as one enters CKChua Architect. So what about this picture? It's in black and white...yea..it is. The original pictures are taken in black and white, but the wall's a warm yellow. I've de-saturated the whole pic and heightened the contrast to show the stains left behind...tape marks surrounding the 6 remaining faces to what was once an interestingly arresting collage of photographs. That was 3 months ago...almost exactly 3 months, save for 1 day! 10 colleagues have left since...casualties of war…haha!

A picture of You

A canvas I took and stretched to frame,
And mixed a palette of colours to name;
I stand before with You in mind,
What can I paint, what colour’s Divine?

How can I paint of time and space,
Or muster a stroke to show Your grace?
What lines are they that draw Your face,
Of love, of sorrow, of faultless days?

The paint starts dripping from brush to floor,
The canvas’ white, my heart’s in awe;
In acrylic, watercolour, oil, or coal?
No, my life, in me, my whole!

Paint You, Oh Lord, in me, my life,
Of colours from the Tree of Life;
Hues blue and yellow, and red and white,
May they depict Your truth, Your Light.

A canvas I stand before Your throne,
Before Your cross, with You alone;
Artist Divine, oh paint in me,
That I may be,
A picture of You.

~ h u i c h u a n ~

a little brother-sister outing at the Pyramids

And so it was, that on the 11th April 2006, there were 2 and a half pairs of brothers and sisters who made it to the Pyramids at Sunway for an outing unique to, well, brothers and sisters only.

A brainchild of the ingenious Dutt Way, the origin of the idea for this outing was conceived after 2 hours of badminton, a plate of fried chicken rice, a huge mug of fresh watermelon juice, an alarm ringing at 9.32pm, and a wrong turning heading towards 1-U. It does just make one wonder if this was all there was to the formula of such a plan deemed brilliant!

The evening started at 4pm, where pairs of siblings in black anonymously layered themselves within the social fabric of the holidaying public at the mall. 6 hours were spent on 99 cents ice-cream, a visit to Psalm gifts, a browse at MPH, a short presence at TGV access foyer, and some games at the station with moments of stories and laughter over chicken indulgence prior at Hartz.

And so, it was so, that on the 11th April 2006, there were 2 and a half pairs of brothers and sisters who made it to the Pyramids at Sunway for an outing unique to, well, brothers and sisters only. Thanks Dutt, Pek Mei, Jon and sis for the evening. Cheers! :)

20 April 1999

Another 10 days would mark the 7th year since the unimaginable took place at Columbine High. These would be just 10 calendar days to mark 7 years of the solar system where for many, the horror isn't just about time, space and place. It lives long after lives are gone. Brutally, mercilessly, and unquestionably, why?

In a movie screened last Saturday as part of the Youth Connection’s program, Darrell Scott, Rachael Joy Scott’s father brought us down the aisle of emotional anguish into the presence of Hope. Rachael, 17, knew beyond April 20, 1999 that there was a God. Irrationally incomprehensible-sounding as it may seem, there is a God. And that God is good. Rachael knew it, and wrote about it in her diaries with drawings of things that were to come.

Matt 7:9-11;

Is there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

“how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

Letting this verse echo in anyone’s mind with his/her eyes fixed to a coffin in front of them with the still body of their loved ones would certainly render them a doubt as to what good gifts are. Or more, the reconciliation of a heavenly Father who allows death to someone we won’t even hurt, and are further made to swallow down the notion that it is we who are evil!

Picking up the pieces of his daughter, in his thoughts, in her writings, and through much counseling, Darrell Scott puts it this way; ‘we’ve got to look through the stone to see the bread.’ And that was what he did, after trying hard to, to see through things and situations, not at them. And behold, there was life through the casket.

80 minutes of sharing, testimonies and clips of the massacre didn’t decry the hideousness of cold-blooded murder. Neither was it sufficient time to unveil its atrocities. But in Rachael’s case, it painted such a beautiful picture of a life lived to the fullest, to the glory of God. What was God thinking when He saw the bullet going through Rachael’s body? Darrell answers, the same as what He would have, when He saw the nails going through His Son’s own body.

Looking at the circumstances surrounding her funeral, the outcome and its continuing impact, as Darrell says, it wasn’t a stone after all. It wasn’t something he would have asked for either. But it was given, life eternal. It has been given. It was because His Son had first died, and rose again, which made the apparent stone, a bread.

M! The Opera

30 March 2006. It has been a week since. And since 7 days have gone by since the 12 of us were ushered into the capricious world of petite Sepi, I shall only offer an impression of the Opera. (7 days is too long a time to retain details of such a large production....unless it managed to engrave itself in memory...)

Basically, it is a story of an enigmatic fashion designer going through the motions of life laden with love, rivalry, success, choices and ultimately, death. He sews his name seamlessly into the garments of the fashion world, has a half-brother as a rival, marries his childhood friend, gets poisoned by jealousy and dies! But that's not the whole story. Nope, we didn't fork out such a sum for such a tale as this! There was the singing, the exquisite blend of live music (a fusion of oriental and western musical language and structure), interesting dance moves and choreography, and the costumes!

Never mind if we didn't quite catch the whole story, there was enough of other unwritten plots to glean excitement and enjoyment from. The characters were, on the whole interesting, but inconsistent. Maybe 3 hours wasn't enough time to fully portray the many facets of each character...Sepi was the hardest to grasp, morphing from a mythical childhood friend, to a muse, to an inspiration, to an object of jealousy, and finally to lover and bride. I didn’t quite get the part ‘what’s the time Mr. Wolf?’ as she made her entrance into the scene as an adult, and how it ties to the haunting wolf howl as M dies. Was she a wolf? And who on earth was Madame Ling Song? She made a few appearances without causing even a ripple to the story line.

Among the cast, Kerabat seemed to garner enough command onstage to leave the audience with a flavour akin to the prodigal son for contrast, Jacob and Esau where sibling discontentment is concerned, and the murderous ending of Cain and Abel.

Musically, it was interesting too. Haha! For lack of a better word, it just is interesting. I don’t remember hearing strings though…The piano held the baton, setting the pulse to the whole musical performance. In a way, it did conjure a feel of a musical instead.

On the whole, it was a mix bag full of entertainment. Maybe the term ‘Opera’ raised much expectations on the vocal prowess, something which Doreen executed superbly! Un-Wagnerian, but still, superb! Haha! No, didn't say that because I had too....

My impression on the whole? Well, I wouldn't mind watching it again!
Three cheers to M! The Opera! :)


Here's a quote from cuz Cindy today:
'True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost'
Charles Caleb Colton

Time on my hands

Alright, I am at the edge of tedium, monotony, dullness, tediousness, ennui, world-weariness or simply, bore·dom [ báwrdem ]. Work for today (in the absence of my boss and senior), is done. And I've about an hour more of time before I can officially clock-out.

Apart from David, my boss, we have 3 other architects including me, and a draughtsman. 2 other architects have left to fulfill family obligations and 2 other draughtspersons, for career opportunities in foreign turf. Arabia, to be exact. Workload has since doubled for the remaining 4. However, today's a great exception. And a very pleasant one too! :)

The colour of newness

I'm now in the Klang Valley. Yup! :)

I was born in Malacca, and did all things Malaccan for 18 years before embarking on a college student life in Cheras, KL. It was for two years that I had to thrive in a Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking environment. After my diploma, I returned to Malacca for a 7 month working stint before writing myself in the glittering pages of the ivory tower in Tasmania. For those 3 years sealed the Australian Chapter of my life, the most colourful and exciting part of my student life which earned me 2 degrees and many treasured friends.

The cycle brought me back to Malacca. Familiar, beloved, monotonous Malacca. Well, happy as I was to be back, I got a job 2 days after returning and started work on 2 Jan, 2004, a week after farewells were said Down Under.

Life was different. Friends were scattered. New friendships were made (most notably, the Headstart group), and old ones, rekindled (with the help of Ellyna, we organised a reunion for 6 Biru, 13 years after we left SRKJDP). Malacca - familiar, beloved, monotonous. But it is home. Yet, I was dreaming for colours of different shades, different hues, different accents. I needed colours.

14 Jan 2006. The Klang Valley.

This moment in time...

I'm sitting in front of my com. in the the office. Nothing really unusual...apart from pitch darkness outside and the extra quietness inside where the phone does not ring. Time's ticking away...and there might be better things to do right at this moment. This night ain't gonna come again...this exact moment here and now will not return. Well, only in memory does it live. But for now, a warm shower with water floowing down my head would be great.

Then again, what difference would it make if I was back at home, on the piano this instance, reading a book, in a forest camping with close friends, or just being online? The seconds are still ticking. I'm still in the office. Maybe the only difference would be the meaning and the beauty of the manner in which I allow these seconds to pass me by. I have my Lord beside me. It probably matters not whether I'm enjoying the place that I have to be now, I'll enjoy HIS presence...He's the Lord of time...the seconds going by...it matters not. I have eternity with HIM. Time cannot measure that...the clock ticks mechanically...meaninglessly.

foot paths

Upon life's journey I walk. I tread with eyes wide open, sometimes half closed, but often...as wide as they may be, I see not the road ahead. Miles and miles I walk, miles and miles I have treaded...across states, across international boarders, across the ocean. My foot prints have been all over, with many other sets of footprints. Their patterns are sometimes jig-like, sometimes parallel, sometimes overlapping and at other times, distinctly apart. I see them now just over my shoulders. Some I can recognize, some I have loved, some bring back sweet memories, while some others I decipher not. Nonetheless, they are there, were there and I feel grateful each time I see all the different pairs of footprints all around my own set of footprints. Still, I walk the path before me. Ahead, still with eyes wide open, I see not the road...