Thanks to our scholarship sponsor, JPA, we have the rare chance to experience what starvation is.
We thought that we would receive our January allowance around 18 of January, so we budgeted just enough with hardly any to spare.
BUT according to the information I just received, we'll be getting our January's allowance around the first week of February.
So my housemates and I had the experience of eating oiless fried rice, plain porridge, pineapple porridge, plain rice with chicken-less curry and much more.....
Thanks to that and the cold weather these few days, I'm feeling sick all around. Malnutrition. I'm so tired I slept for 12 hours today and am feeling tired even right now....
If the money doesn't come any sooner I might become a skeleton lying beside the main road....
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Salt vs Sea Water
A way to look at things:
Which is saltier: salt or sea water?
Which ever your answer may be, the point here is that some sea water can taste so salty that we chock at it.
But the truth is, even the saltiest Dead Sea contains no more than 8% of Sodium Chloride(table salt).
Such a small amount of salt when dissolved in sea water can produce such amazing result!
We as Christians are the salt of this world. Shouldn't we be able to produce great impact towards the society around us?
Yet according to this, the world percentage of Christian is dropping.....
Which is saltier: salt or sea water?
Which ever your answer may be, the point here is that some sea water can taste so salty that we chock at it.
But the truth is, even the saltiest Dead Sea contains no more than 8% of Sodium Chloride(table salt).
Such a small amount of salt when dissolved in sea water can produce such amazing result!
We as Christians are the salt of this world. Shouldn't we be able to produce great impact towards the society around us?
Yet according to this, the world percentage of Christian is dropping.....
Friday, January 28, 2005
Wasted Time
I used to like holidays a lot, but now I think that holidays are more of a life wasting than fun thing.
I'm coming to the end of my week-long holiday. I actually had a lot planned before the holidays: revising my Level 2 Korean, doing some preparation for Level 3, finish Odyssey by Homer, wake up early and exercise at the park near the place I'm staying....
But in the end I only manage to learn some basic typing...with a hopeless speed of 60+ per minute. I can type faster using just two fingers.
One week...so much that I could have accomplished....
I'm coming to the end of my week-long holiday. I actually had a lot planned before the holidays: revising my Level 2 Korean, doing some preparation for Level 3, finish Odyssey by Homer, wake up early and exercise at the park near the place I'm staying....
But in the end I only manage to learn some basic typing...with a hopeless speed of 60+ per minute. I can type faster using just two fingers.
One week...so much that I could have accomplished....
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Incheon: Korea Open Badminton Championships & China Town
Went to Incheon to watch the Daekyo Noonnoppi Korea Open Badminton Open Championships Incheon 2005.
There were all in all about 30 students who went. I, for one, am not so keen about badminton, but just to give support to our own Malaysian players, which we were not able to wait till their turn to show up.
Anyway, we met a Malaysian couch who's couching the Korean national team. He told us that most of the interesting matches with Malaysian players will be on Thursday and asked us to come back again on Thursday.
Still haven't made up my mind whether as to go or not this Thursday, but we'll see.....
So about 3pm, we decided to go to the beach, since we were already at Incheon. The idea was quite tempting, as none of us have been to the sea since our arrival in Korea.
As one of the tourist guide book told us that we could reach the sea at the next station, which is the second last station before Incheon station, we decided to save 800won and walk there instead.
So off we went, and the whole journey to the sea actually took us more than 2 hours, because there were no beach or sea at Tong Incheon station and we had to walk further down to Incheon station.
The view at the seaside was...erm....not bad, BUT the air pollution there is horrible. You can literally fell the dust sticking on your face.
We took a walk around, then went back to China Town, the only China Town in the whole of Korea.
As it was near dinner time, we decided to have our meals there. While the others wanted to try the Ajumma restaurant, those typical Korean food stall,my friend Weng Joe and I insisted that we try some Chinese food since we were in China Town.
So after much debate the rest gave in and we went to a Chinese restaurant. At first we had only Jajang Noodle in mind, which is about 2000won. But after entering the restaurant and looking at the menu, we ordered set dishes for 6-7 people, which cost about 10.000won per head.
And so the 12 of us Chinese celebrated our Chinese New Year's Eve dinner way in advance^^
There were all in all about 30 students who went. I, for one, am not so keen about badminton, but just to give support to our own Malaysian players, which we were not able to wait till their turn to show up.
Anyway, we met a Malaysian couch who's couching the Korean national team. He told us that most of the interesting matches with Malaysian players will be on Thursday and asked us to come back again on Thursday.
Still haven't made up my mind whether as to go or not this Thursday, but we'll see.....
So about 3pm, we decided to go to the beach, since we were already at Incheon. The idea was quite tempting, as none of us have been to the sea since our arrival in Korea.
As one of the tourist guide book told us that we could reach the sea at the next station, which is the second last station before Incheon station, we decided to save 800won and walk there instead.
So off we went, and the whole journey to the sea actually took us more than 2 hours, because there were no beach or sea at Tong Incheon station and we had to walk further down to Incheon station.
The view at the seaside was...erm....not bad, BUT the air pollution there is horrible. You can literally fell the dust sticking on your face.
We took a walk around, then went back to China Town, the only China Town in the whole of Korea.
As it was near dinner time, we decided to have our meals there. While the others wanted to try the Ajumma restaurant, those typical Korean food stall,my friend Weng Joe and I insisted that we try some Chinese food since we were in China Town.
So after much debate the rest gave in and we went to a Chinese restaurant. At first we had only Jajang Noodle in mind, which is about 2000won. But after entering the restaurant and looking at the menu, we ordered set dishes for 6-7 people, which cost about 10.000won per head.
And so the 12 of us Chinese celebrated our Chinese New Year's Eve dinner way in advance^^
Monday, January 24, 2005
End of Level 2
Sat for my Level 2 Korean Language test last week and officially ended my Beginner's Level of Korean class.
I dropped slightly on my writing, but improved on my oral, so still got the same result as I did in Level 1, 97%. Glory to God.
So I'll be having a week-long holiday, with lots of stuff to prepare: computer test coming up, Chinese character tests, Korean Language Proficiency Test by the Korean government and so on.
I'll be starting my Intermediate Korean lesson next week, Level 3, which we heard there's a field trip going to Jejudo Island planned for us. Can't wait for it.
But the most depressing thing came up yesterday when I was in church. The preacher was using Psalms 23 as reference, which I knew quite well and thought I'll understand the message easily.
But to my disappointment it was one of the hardest compared to the ones I've heard this year. And considering I just finished LEVEL 2!!
Well, maybe the problem is with me not having enough patience, but it's not easy being the one who sits there blankly when everyone else is laughing like they just heard the funniest joke on earth.
I dropped slightly on my writing, but improved on my oral, so still got the same result as I did in Level 1, 97%. Glory to God.
So I'll be having a week-long holiday, with lots of stuff to prepare: computer test coming up, Chinese character tests, Korean Language Proficiency Test by the Korean government and so on.
I'll be starting my Intermediate Korean lesson next week, Level 3, which we heard there's a field trip going to Jejudo Island planned for us. Can't wait for it.
But the most depressing thing came up yesterday when I was in church. The preacher was using Psalms 23 as reference, which I knew quite well and thought I'll understand the message easily.
But to my disappointment it was one of the hardest compared to the ones I've heard this year. And considering I just finished LEVEL 2!!
Well, maybe the problem is with me not having enough patience, but it's not easy being the one who sits there blankly when everyone else is laughing like they just heard the funniest joke on earth.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Good Habits
The pastor was preaching about the importance of good habits, quoting from Luke 22 on Sunday. Though I could hardly catch most of what he was talking about, but I believe the 1% that I so happen to understood was the main point: the combination of all the small habits that we have produces our character, thus a person who has lots of good habits will have a good character.
But even after looking into the mirror I went away without doing anything. But I did share some of my thoughts with a friend. And his reply was that he's always had the habit of waking up late and going to class late(something which the pastor touched specifically (Koreans?)), and so the next day he decided to wake up early and start his day doing better stuff.
Well, that's a quality I don not have. The reason is simple, because I think that even if I changed for the coming weeks, I'll eventually fall back to the same situation again.
There are numerous times where I said I want to change but look and me right now. All the New Year resolution down the drain!
But anyway, I took his words as a challenge and decided to do likewise. So since yesterday morning I've manage to wakeup earlier and do my devotion (which is actually part of my New Year's resolution...)
I guess it's in my genes that I need some challenges to move on. I am the type who likes competing with others.
So please do pray for me....
But even after looking into the mirror I went away without doing anything. But I did share some of my thoughts with a friend. And his reply was that he's always had the habit of waking up late and going to class late(something which the pastor touched specifically (Koreans?)), and so the next day he decided to wake up early and start his day doing better stuff.
Well, that's a quality I don not have. The reason is simple, because I think that even if I changed for the coming weeks, I'll eventually fall back to the same situation again.
There are numerous times where I said I want to change but look and me right now. All the New Year resolution down the drain!
But anyway, I took his words as a challenge and decided to do likewise. So since yesterday morning I've manage to wakeup earlier and do my devotion (which is actually part of my New Year's resolution...)
I guess it's in my genes that I need some challenges to move on. I am the type who likes competing with others.
So please do pray for me....
House Warming
Went to the house of a women who's learning piano at the same place where I am last Saturday.
She just moved into this new apartment recently and invited our piano teacher and us 4 Malaysian students over to her place.
The apartment is situated quite near where I'm staying, about 5-7 minutes by bus.
We arrived at her place around 1pm.
As this lady wasn't so used to cooking, she catered some Chinese style Korean food, which includes something like butter prawns, some black sauce (oyster sauce?) noodle, wanton and seafood noodle. Yum! yum!
And after the meals, we had lots of fruits as dessert: bananas, strawberries, kiwi, tangerine, pear and also some tidbits.
That's the best thing I like about house warming, the endless amount of food:)
She just moved into this new apartment recently and invited our piano teacher and us 4 Malaysian students over to her place.
The apartment is situated quite near where I'm staying, about 5-7 minutes by bus.
We arrived at her place around 1pm.
As this lady wasn't so used to cooking, she catered some Chinese style Korean food, which includes something like butter prawns, some black sauce (oyster sauce?) noodle, wanton and seafood noodle. Yum! yum!
And after the meals, we had lots of fruits as dessert: bananas, strawberries, kiwi, tangerine, pear and also some tidbits.
That's the best thing I like about house warming, the endless amount of food:)
Friday, January 14, 2005
Scolded
Celebrated my friend's birthday yesterday night. It's unbelievable how long we've managed to survive in this hostile world despite all the natural disasters and accidents all around.
Finally we've come to the final year of out teen-age years.
It seems that I've not been replying to my mails as of late. Got a phone call from my aunt yesterday, was quite surprise actually.
I used to do my e-mail checking and writing in the afternoon before going to piano lessons, but ever since the piano class was changed to the afternoon due to the winter vacation I've not been able to do so.
Will try to work on it....
On the other hand, my culinary skills are improving by the day. Been cooking quite a lot at home since I'm now free in the evening.
Among the most successful one was the spicy squid rice, which was even spicier than the Malay's food. My housemates had stomachache after eating it.
Studies have been quite ok. We learned the plain form this week. At least now we know why we were SCOLDED by one of the 아줌마(Mak cik/ middle age women) as if we murdered her puppy few days ago.
This plain form is a form of speech used among close friends and by a person with a higher status(seniors etc) to a lower status (juniors etc), or by an older person to a much younger person, and between some other types of relationships.
It's considered very rude when a younger/lower status/juniors use it with older/higher status/seniors.
Well, still trying to get use to it so I that won't run into trouble gain next time.
Finally we've come to the final year of out teen-age years.
It seems that I've not been replying to my mails as of late. Got a phone call from my aunt yesterday, was quite surprise actually.
I used to do my e-mail checking and writing in the afternoon before going to piano lessons, but ever since the piano class was changed to the afternoon due to the winter vacation I've not been able to do so.
Will try to work on it....
On the other hand, my culinary skills are improving by the day. Been cooking quite a lot at home since I'm now free in the evening.
Among the most successful one was the spicy squid rice, which was even spicier than the Malay's food. My housemates had stomachache after eating it.
Studies have been quite ok. We learned the plain form this week. At least now we know why we were SCOLDED by one of the 아줌마(Mak cik/ middle age women) as if we murdered her puppy few days ago.
This plain form is a form of speech used among close friends and by a person with a higher status(seniors etc) to a lower status (juniors etc), or by an older person to a much younger person, and between some other types of relationships.
It's considered very rude when a younger/lower status/juniors use it with older/higher status/seniors.
Well, still trying to get use to it so I that won't run into trouble gain next time.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Happy 2005
My first post for 2005.
It's the third day of this new year yet everything seems like last year except the change of date and calendar.
Well, frankly I didn't think of making any new year resolution, given my past record of not archiving/continuing most of them till the end of the year.
But looking at my current state, I really need to make some resolution, even if I only stick to them for the first few weeks of the year.
So here goes:
a) First and foremost is my devotion. Been neglecting it quite a lot, though I've come up with "reasonable" excuses, it shocked me when I realized that I haven't finish The Purpose Driven Life after more than 100days since I first started reading it in October.
Will try to sleep earlier so I can wake up earlier and start my day with some quiet time.
b) Academically I've been doing quite a lot of last minutes lately. Think I should at least complete all the work and extra exercises so that my intellectual mind doesn't go rusty.
Will also try to start on Matriculation/STPM/A-Level Science subjects by my own. I'm hoping to enter university after my language course(that is if the JPA allows) rather than doing my diploma in a college first.
Well, I guess that's all...And ya, might try to go through the Bible in Korean if possible,well, at least the New Testament =)
It's the third day of this new year yet everything seems like last year except the change of date and calendar.
Well, frankly I didn't think of making any new year resolution, given my past record of not archiving/continuing most of them till the end of the year.
But looking at my current state, I really need to make some resolution, even if I only stick to them for the first few weeks of the year.
So here goes:
a) First and foremost is my devotion. Been neglecting it quite a lot, though I've come up with "reasonable" excuses, it shocked me when I realized that I haven't finish The Purpose Driven Life after more than 100days since I first started reading it in October.
Will try to sleep earlier so I can wake up earlier and start my day with some quiet time.
b) Academically I've been doing quite a lot of last minutes lately. Think I should at least complete all the work and extra exercises so that my intellectual mind doesn't go rusty.
Will also try to start on Matriculation/STPM/A-Level Science subjects by my own. I'm hoping to enter university after my language course(that is if the JPA allows) rather than doing my diploma in a college first.
Well, I guess that's all...And ya, might try to go through the Bible in Korean if possible,well, at least the New Testament =)
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