Which road shall I take?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Political blogging

I never thought I'd blog much about political things. My friend Siying does quite frequently and passionately. One can check out her blog at here. However,since God seems to be leading me back to Asia for season, I've been reading different articles and talking to my parents about the current political scene in Malaysia.

Religious intolerance, extremism, injustice to the minority races, poor managments of funds,unfair education advantages, the terrible use of the ISA:internal security act...These are the issues that have been plaguing Malaysia.

My country is a good one. It is quite peaceful. It is developing quite well among the South East Asian countries. However, there is so much more potential in Malaysia. The character, talent, the capabilities of the people here are definitely not lacking. But these issues have prevented the right people from being in the positions of power and decision making. So many resources are being wasted. So much resentment is being built up.

I'll be blogging more on individual issues later.

Just hope they won't put me in the ISA as they have been putting other people who are fighting for human rights, equality for all races and the betterment of this country's government.

There is still a chance for the 71,849 single men

I opened my facebook profile and LO and BEHOLD, I saw a string of comments, wall comments and msgs in my inbox congratulating me about my 'not-single anymore status'.

Why?

Because I decided to remove the 'single' listing on my Facebook profile. I merely didn't want to post it up anymore. A whim that resulted in...

HILARIOUSNESS!

Here are a couple of samples:

"Charis has been woozy since thursday, is it luvvve??"

"huh? o_O? is there something i don't know??"

"so when u going to belanja us all makan??? >.<"

"heh.... really!?....there are 71,849 single men in brisbane who will be very dissapointed... very.."

"is this for real .. if so, congrats charis :-)"

"Hey great news to hear, Congrats loh! By the way who is the lucky Guy?"

"Hey. No longer single? Share some news. ;)"

Man o man!

The Pros and Cons of my hometown

I come from a small town called Alor Star. It only has about 400,000 ppl.
I've been reflecting on the pros and cons of living in this town.

Let's start with the cons. Best to start with the bad news.

• The lack of cultural activities and entertainment. The movies that reach Alor Star cinemas areusually kungfu or horror movies. Visiting artistes hardly ever come up here [the north of Malaysia]. No ballets, no orchestras, and hardly any exposure to art.
• Customer service is usually very poor. Sleepy cashiers, grumpy restaurant waiters etc.[today was an exception at KFC though. There was a nice malay man who served us]
• No reliable public transport system
• Lack of international food choices. No proper Greek, Italian, Korean food.
• Dairy porducts are expensive. Pork products like bacon are more difficult to obtain.

The pros

• Cheap cheap Malaysian food at anytime of the day or night. It's usually delicious and tasty. Seafood is served in abundance!
• KFC and Maccas taste better in Malaysia and in my hometown. Better tasting burgers and chicken and even mashed potato.
• You can drive anyway in this town within half an hour and there are rarely any traffic jams. Dad gets to work in 5minutes, we get to church in 12 minutes, we shop 10 minutes away from home, Dorcas goes for piano lessons within our housing complex, ballet lessons are 5 mins away...you catch my drift
• The groceries are delivered right to your doorstep by the grocery man. How convenient is that!
• Plenty of shopping malls around the place though the town is small.
• Lots of markets and night markets for cheap food and clothes

More to come next time:)

The family holiday

Phoebe and Dorcas at Coot-tha

Movie-World for Dorcas and Liz

Whole family at Byron Bay

Liz and Dorcas [outback spectacular]

Phoebe doing strange things at Surfers

I'm back in my hometown Alor Star again. I arrived early yesterday morning. Thank God my parents have finally applied for Broadband and upgraded all the PC's. It's such a relief to have fast reliable technology:)

Good old Alor Star. I'll blog about the pros and cons of my home town later.

My family was in Brissy and the Coast for a short holiday. in 6 short days,they managed to visit the Outback Spectacular,Byron Bay, Surfers,Movieworld,Tandalooma Island, Brisbane sights like Mt. Coot-tha, Kanagaroop [I didn't know COOTTHA had 2 T's till I had to enter it into Dad's GPS. Haha. You learn something new everyday].

Thanks to all the helpful facebookers who suggested lots of of tourist spots in reply to my status .Hehe.

I think my family had a good time. Dorcas, my little sister especially. She was estatic about movieworld and the beaches. However, Dad was a bit stressed with driving in a new area.And I was stressed about the itinerary and money. I tried to look for cheap deals and use the entertainment book lots. This brings me to the effect money has on me.

I've struggled with finances so long these past 3 years that even now, my financial state tends to affect me a lot. I really desire to be found faithful with money. I desire to be a succesful steward. I desire to have abundance. I desire to be independant and I desire to be generous.

But I stress too easily about it.Need to learn to hold such things lightly...

Emptying the vacuum dust bag...

....is one of the household chores I dread, but I had to do it today because the dustbag was full. I was fully tearing and my nose was running, and the heat was terrible [doing it in the backyard with the sun scorching down on me]

Argh...

The only comfort was the 'In everything you do, do it as unto the Lord' verse. I was muttering to God under to my breath, saying 'well, this is unto you. I'm trying to do it cheerfully but it's not really working here! But I'm trying. This is unto you. Maybe I'll have a reward for it someday:)

Anyway, Mom and Dad are in the Gold Coast. I shall see them tonight. And yes, I was cleaning the house for their arrival with all my 3 sisters.

Ciao

I thank God for...

I thank God for:

• Being able to teach my cute little students violin. I never thought I'd teach violin and I quite enjoy it. My students are making good progress and I'm quite proud of them.
• Private clients who insist on overpaying you and being really kind. And inviting you over to swim in their family pool. Who smile, laugh, encourage and never demean. Who always tell you you're doing such a great job and they appreciate you.
• For being able to make and eat lovely chicken tenderloins rolled in yoghurt and almonds, oven-baked to perfection. I sound like an 'AH MCCAIN, YOU'VE DONE IT AGAIN' ad.
• For Andy Stanley's podcasts again. Sorely convicted. Might blog about it later.
• Ps Lance's great sermon on Sunday. Also very convicted and also very encouraged. It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set me free. I don't want to be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.
• For the gorgeous twilight sky God painted today that was yellow, orange and dark blue. The Jupiter and Venus eyes and smiling moon perfectly cut out. The faintly glimmering stars dotted all over the canvas.