Day +1790 : Full focus on writing today

I am fine today.

I have read and gathered enough material to write the article :-) I will have my full focus on writing today, and get the article ready by hook or by crook.

See you next post :-)

Day +1789 : Final lapse

I am fine today.

I will be writing an article regarding the First Crusade as a course requirement for the subject of church history. This is the last assignment for this semester and the deadline is on Wednesday. The length of the article is 6000 words; the longest one so far :-(

I couldn't write the article out of nothing, and thus, I have to spend quite an amount of effort to read about the subject. Though I can submit it on Wednesday, I need to complete it tomorrow as I will be going to Awana Kijal Resort in Trengganu for a 4 days 3 nights vacation with my family early Wednesday morning.

I will gather and read all the necessary material today, and write the article tomorrow. This plan must work; else I won't be able to go for the vacation.

See you next post :-)

Day +1788 : Preparing for a badminton tournament

I am fine today.

The youths of our church play badminton on the evening of every Sunday, and now they are organizing a badminton tournament that composed of two teams: the youths and the middle-aged group. The youth are strong and well prepared while the middle-aged are once strong and prepared but not so now. However, we still take up the challenge to have a "fight" :-)

I played with the group this evening. They were indeed strong as expected. However, that didn't undermine our spirit to compete :-)

I brought my wife and children there as well - a family business :-)
See you next post :-)

Day +1787 : Dinner with my wife at Wings Musicafe

I am fine today.

I brought my wife for a dinner yesterday at Wings Musicafe (回音石), Bandar Puteri Puchong. I first visited the cafe two weeks ago. I wrote about that on "Day +1773 : Another surprise celeberation".

The main purpose of visiting the cafe was not so much on food, but because of the live singing session which started at 9:00pm. Customers can request the singers to sing any songs free of charge while enjoying the food. The business was good, leading me to think that, why not we set up a cafe based on the similar concept, but singing Christian songs.

Let me know if you are interested to invest, and also let me know if you want to perform :-)

The restaurant

My wife and me
Set meal consist of mushroom soup, drink, ice cream and a main dish cost around RM20 to RM28 depends what you choose for your main dish




Singers - with guitar accompaniment only
See you next post :-)

Day +1786 : Already, but not yet

I am fine today.

I attended the seminary first semester closing ceremony this morning. This ceremony marked the end of the semester officially. We would have four weeks break after this; two weeks longer than the school holiday :-) I am very glad that I have now completed 1/6 of my study.

I managed to complete the article of systematic theology just before I left the seminary in the afternoon. However, I have yet started to work on the church history article. So though the holiday is coming, due to the uncompleted article, it seems like it is not coming yet. This situation, borrowing the term of Kingdom Theology, is called "already, but not yet" :-)

Chairman of the ceremony - Dr. Leow (left) - with Dr. Doris Hoo as translator; translation was needed because the service was attended by both English and Chinese department students

The topic of the sermon - end time disaster and the gospel opportunity
Our principal, Dr. Jason Lim, was delivering the sermon
See you next post :-)

Day +1785 : Not need to study but score well?

I am fine today.

"It seems so easy to you. You don't need to study but score so well," a student commented on me a few days ago.

But I tell you that I am no different from any other students. I worked hard to to score well. My roommate, Kah Kiong, can be the witness. In fact, not even a single exam that I sat I had the confidence of scoring well before the exam. I just tried to prepare myself the best as I could before the exam; whether I scored or not was not my main concern.

"I studied hard," was the answer.

See you next post :-)

Day +1784 : Exam is over! Let's celebrate!

I am fine today.

The first year students were having a dinner at Restoran Ng Kim Yap (金业海鲜饭店) in Kundang New Village yesterday. There was no special purpose mentioned for the dinner, but I believe, down in everyone's heart, the dinner was a way to celebrate that the exam was finally over :-)

However, for me, there are more challenges ahead after enjoying the delicious dinner - writing an article on systematic theology (3000 words), and another one on the church history (6000 words), with deadline fixed on 27 May and 1 June respectively :-( Therefore, I have to continue staying in the seminary until Friday, hoping that I could at least beat the deadline for the systematic theology article.

The restaurant
The delicacies - 8 dishes including rice and tea cost RM230

Mantis shrimp (瀨尿蝦、蝦菇)
Yam basket
Bean curd - 招牌豆腐
Mongolian spare rib - the best of the best :-)
Seafood combination
Vegetable
Nonya steam Tilapia(非洲鱼) - RM25 kg; considered very cheap :-) And it is very delicious.
Squid rings
Happy diners :-)





See you next post :-)

Day +1783 : The exam is over!

I am fine today.

The exam for the system theology this morning lasted for 2 hours. Most of the topics that I studied and memorized came out in the exam :-)

Now I can concentrate my effort to complete the last two papers that I need to submit this Friday and next Wednesday, for the subject of systematic theology and the church history respectively. I will continue my stay in the seminary until this Friday, and I wish I can complete at least one paper before I go home this Friday.

See you next post :-)

Day +1782 : Full throttle preparing systematic theology exam

I am fine today.

I am back to the seminary this afternoon, preparing for the systematic theology exam which will be held tomorrow. And this will be the last exam for this semester.

Memorizing the course content of systematic theology is harder than memorizing the content of any other subjects, as we need to understand the concept which sometime can be difficult master. So though the content of course is not much, the progress is turtle slow, and it certainly requires patience and persistent effort to due with.

Again, I try to do my best; guessing the topics that would be asked and then memorize them according to lecture note, and of course, pray that the topic would come out in the exam :-) A typical life of a student, isn't it?

See you next post :-)

Day +1781 : New badminton racket - RSL Diamond X5

I am fine today.

I purchased a new badminton racket - RSL Diamond X5 White - last Friday. The racket cost RM250, including the string and grip. The other shop nearby was selling at RM299 but including a bag. I don't need a bag as I already have it, so the cheaper one suites me very well :-)

I haven't use the new racket yet. I hope that I can win more with the new racket :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +1780 : Sport stacking

I am fine today.

My wife purchased sport stacks for our children. It is a game that involves stacking specialized plastic cups in specific sequences in as little time as possible. The set including the cups and an electronic timer cost RM225. More information about the game is available here.

There are many benefits to play the game, and I quote from Wikipedia the following benefits:

Proponents of the sport say participants learn cooperation, ambidexterity and hand-eye coordination. Scientific research actually confirmed these claims:

• A university study by Dr. Brian Udermann, currently at the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse, confirms that stacking improves hand-eye coordination and reaction time by up to 30 percent. (published in the scientific Journal "Perceptual and Motor Skills" in 2004 ^[12]
• An EEG-study by Melanie A. Hart, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Health, Exercise and Sport Sciences at the Texas Tech University support the claim that cup stacking does utilize both sides of the brain. During the left-hand condition, activity in the right hemisphere was larger than the left, while for the right-hand task, the left hemisphere was greater than the right. Their scientific poster on that topic got awarded by the AAHPERD ^[13][14] On the other hand, Hart could not get the same results as Udermann when studying improvement on reaction time.^[15]
• A third group (Gibbons, E., Hendrick, J. L., & Bauer, J. State University of New York, Cortland) studied the effects on the reaction time and confirmed Udermann rather than Hart, stating "that the results agreed with the claims made by Speed Stacks, in which practicing cup stacking can improve reaction time." ^[16] They also state "Even 60 minutes of cup stacking practice can improve reaction time in young adults."
• The Department of Kinesiology of the Towson University, Towson, MD studied the influence of participation in a 6-week bimanual coordination program on Grade 5 students' reading achievement with Sport Stacking being the bimanual activity. A significant increase was found for the experimental group on Comprehension skills, proving that Sport Stacking may improve students' reading comprehension skills, regardless of sex. Published June 2007.^[17]
• In 2007 Cupstacking itself got a scientific test in a study at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.^[18

There are plenty of videos on youtube that shows how the game is played, and I choose one of them here for your reference.

See you next post :-)

Day +1779 : Would next term this moment be better?

I am fine today.

My coursemate, Kah Kiong, and I are having a very challenging time to cope with our assignments. This is because we have no "heart" to study and this causes us to do our assignments only at the very last minute. When it comes to doing assignment, it seems that there are so many other things to do, that after finishing all those unimportant but interesting things, we make no progress on our uninteresting but important assignments. So it is in fact an attitude problem; something identical to what our children are facing :-(

We talked about completing our assignments earlier in our next term of study, and enjoying life at the end of the term.

"We would be a lot more relaxed next term this time," Kah Kiong told me.

"No, it would be the same or perhaps even worst than now," I responded.

Unless we change our attitude, doing important but uninteresting things first; else the history would repeat itself - struggling and moaning at the end of the term :-(

See you next post :-)

Day +1778 : Losing 3 marks

I am fine today.

The lecturer for the subject of "Introduction to New Testament" is incredible fast in marking the exam paper. I got my final exam paper back this afternoon, and the result is beyond my expectation - getting 72 out of 75 marks (scaled to the overall evaluation mark equivalent to 24 out of 25 marks). May be I guessed well in the objective questions :-) However, the last paper that I have to sit next week for the subject of "Systematic Theology" consists of subjective questions only, so not much I can guess. But anyway, I hope I can have a better preparation this time.

See you next post :-)

Day +1777 : Sitting for the exam - Introduction to New Testament

I am fine today.

I woke up 4:00am this morning to prepare for the exam, and I should said that I went for the exam not well prepared :-( In fact, there is no way to squeeze half a term of course content into the brain in such a short time, but anyway, I had tried my best.

Now the exam is over and I have completed all course requirement of this subject :-) I didn't do too badly and didn't do too well, but I am happy about it.

And the next challenge is to write a paper for the subject of "Systematic Theology" and sit for its exam next Tuesday.

See you next post :-)

Day +1776 : It's no holiday today :-(

I am fine today.

I am working very hard today in the seminary while most of you are enjoying Wesak Holiday. In the morning, I was preparing a paper that needs to be submitted tomorrow as part of the requirement of the of the subject of "Introduction to New Testament". I wrote about the theme and message of the book of Galatians. Since it is an academic paper, I needed to refer many reference material, and wrote proper footnotes, and that slowed down the whole writing process. However, I managed to complete the writing which consist of about 3500 words in the morning, and as usual, I felt relieved after completing it.

Unfortunately, the relief is no way sustainable in a time like this. I have to sit for a final exam for the same subject at 8:30am tomorrow morning, and I have yet prepared for it. We were given 150 New Testament verses to remember, and during the exam, we need to point out which book does a given verse belong to. This part constitutes 20 out of 55 questions of the whole exam paper.

I devised a method to memory the sources of all the 150 verses but that took me a few hours of hard work to complete. After that, I got not much time to read and memorize the rest of the material :-(

This is how I do it :-) Click on the image to get a larger view.

See you next post :-)

Day +1775 : The tension is mounting

I am fine today.

While I am working hard to finish the last two weeks of the first term of the seminary course, the tension is mounting. Although this week is study week, I have to sit for an exam on Wednesday.

In fact I am not worried too much about the exam. Something more challenging to me is the assignments and I still haveto submit before the end of the term :-(

In order to focus more on my study, I checked in to the seminary this afternoon.

See you next post :-)

Day +1774 : Visiting Rawang Christian Church

I am fine today.

I visited Rawang Christian Church (万挠基督教会) this morning together with my lecturer Dr. Francis Lai and three other students. This is the second time I represented the seminary to visit a church. The first visit was on 27 March 2011 which I wrote on "Day +1725 : Visiting Christian Fellowship Centre
".

Having breakfast under a tree - from right: Dr. Francis Lai, David, Pastor Fung, Patricia Lee, and Evelyn Ting


The church - corner lot




Dr. Rev. Lai
A hymn presentation
Patricia sharing his calling testimony
Evelyn introducing student life in the seminary
Business hour...

Looking for something nice to eat after the hard work in the morning and our target is Desa Park City
The restaurant
Korean food - not too expensive but very nice, something worth to try :-)



+

And the eating continue after the lunch - enjoying a slice of durian cake at Secret Recipe :-)
Free coffee worth RM5.5 - only applicable 3:00pm onwards
See you next post :-)