Global Leadership Summit 2008

October 27 - 28, 2008

Everywhere around the world, seminars are organised, summits are held ...all in honour of those who want to better themselves. Well known motivational speakers are invited to speak, to motivate, encourage and inspire high profile people who'd take a day or two off from their normal routine, to attend such seminars.

Very often, after a day or two or intense drilling, I'd ask myself - have I learned anything at all? Or was it a waste of precious time? Will I apply what I've heard into my daily life? Will I be a better person?

I must admit that at times, seminars can be really boring and I, for one, can't sit tight in a place for too long. I tend to nod off quite often. My attention span is 30 minutes maximum.

Having said that, I'd always try to take back something from any seminar, to apply in my daily life - sometimes consciously, sometimes not.

I must confess that this year, I really didn't feel like attending the GLS held in Agape, Seremban. In fact, truth to be told, I sorta dreaded it. I got all ready to be bored. Also, the night before the 1st day, I slept less than 5 hours!!! And I was really tired the next day.

Thank God for wonderful speakers. Despite my reluctance to attend this GLS, I was blessed by every one of the speakers.

From Bill Hybers, I learned that to make a good decision, a leader goes through 4 processes:-

1 - What does the Bible say about it?
2 - What would a smart advisor advise me to do?

3 - The pain, gain and Experience question

4 - Is the Spirit prompting me?

From Gary Haugen and Catherine Rohr, community work. Their call to serve and help those who do not have hope, whose future seemed bleak ... and to give them hope.

From Craig Groeschel, to discard things that drag you down and to focus on what's really important.

From Efrem Smith, God loves everyone, no matter what background we come from or what colour our skins are. We have to look beyond the person's facade, and see him as ... a person, a person whom God loves. Over here in Malaysia, there's not much issue of racism in church, but more of a social class. Do we give the same kind of handshake to ...say ... a well known preacher, as we would to a person from the street who just walked into church for the very first time? Would we sit next to someone who is a transvestite or gay? The list goes on.

From Brad Anderson, treating his employees well.

From Bill George, the importance of building a support team around me, so that when I have problems, I can depend and lean on them for support.

Every message is the same ... at the end of the day, it's our relationship with God and our neighbours. Church is all about people.

Christmas Musical 2008 (His Story) - 1st Combined Practice

We had our 1st combined (choir and drama) practice today.

Practice started at 12.30pm but I only got there at 2pm .... just in time to see them practise the 2nd part of the Musical. Well, I must say, even though there seemed to be so many people on the stage, and sometimes it looked kelang-kabut, the practice went surprisingly well.

This year, many young people got involved in drama. And the older ones .... well ... I guess some of them decided to take a break this year. Having said that, I'm glad that my parents and an uncle are involved in the drama team! Bravo!

During one of the short breaks, Jenny had to speak to the really young children (below 12 years of age) to behave themselves and not to run around too much.

Winning Poem

We always enjoyed the 1st part of our cell meeting - Ice breaker.

In a youth cell, ice breakers tend to be unpredictable, weird, confusing, active and funny.

Today, our ice breaker was Poem in a Name.

Basically, we write our names vertically on a piece of paper, start the first line with one of the letters and pass it on to the next person to write the next line. Now, we all know that we're no TS Elliot or W. Shakespeare but we try our best anyway.

Some of the poems came out making no sense at all. Others were so funny. Mine was the winning one, although it really made no sense.

The poem goes like this:-

Rainy days are always fun
Apples are always red
Carrots tend to be overdone
He shall never be dead
Everlasting life He has
LOL, the poem ended

The Promised Gift

It was exactly a week after En's actual birthday that we got her her birthday present. We promised to take her to a book shop to buy a book.

Esther and I had things to do in Jusco and left En with Rajen in Popular Bookstore. About 20 minutes later, after I was done with my shopping, they were still there. I met up with them and saw that En had an Oxford Dictionary in hand. That was the extra non-negotiable gift that Rajen bought her as he was getting a little tired of helping her spell when he "proof read" her mini stories.

Rajen left En in my charge while he freed me from being laden with shopping bags and placing them in the car.

I could see the indecisive look in En's eyes as she moved from one shelf to another, trying to see if she prefers big books with lots of coloured drawings or plain Enid Blyton books with lots of words.

She had 3 other books to choose (one from Rajen, one from Eunice and another from me).

When Rajen came back empty handed, she still had yet to decide ... until Rajen told her that she needed to hurry up as he was hungry. She picked up 3 thick Enid Blyton books and sort of reluctantly put back the big book with lots of coloured pictures.

Rajen made her queue to purchase her books. :)

We went to MacDonalds and she, being influenced by her mum and aunties, took out one of the books and began to read. By the end of the meal, she was on page 67!!!! Gosh! She's really a fast reader.

Raya Meal

I've always loved Malay food, expecially chicken rendang and nasi impit with kuah kacang.

This year, two of my colleagues cooked a meal specially for me. It was supposed to be for breakfast only but they made so much, and because it was super delicious, I had it for lunch too.

Ram made mee goreng and kuah kacang while Linda made nasi impit and chicken rendang.

Yummy!!!

The New Lake Gardens

We have been going to Bkt Kepayang so often that I didn't know they had removed the hoarding at the lake gardens. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw how beautiful it has become and it was definitely worth the long wait for the renovations to be completed.

The whole area now looks like a park from another country! The landscaping and pavements were done up so nicely and the lake was filled with lotus leaves, no longer dirty and smelly. Hopefully this would last a loooong time!

Lightings

The Drama Team called the Lights Team for a (supposedly) short discussion on the coming Christmas Musical and for the first time since being in the Lights department, I was astounded by the many decisions that we had to make.

For example, scene 1 - Where will it be? Lights to be focused on X number of people. The tone and setting of that scene to decide if the lights should be red? orange? yellow? blue? To dim or not to dim? To use the par can or moving head? ... or spot light? How many par cans to the 3rd tier? Or the second tier? Or the 1st tier?

I learned the usage for par cans and moving heads and the difference between the both of them. While moving heads are flexible, they are only 575w each. Par cans on the other hand, are fixed to certain spots but are more powerful as each is 1000w. So the decision must be made to determine which scene is important and what colour to use for that scene.

There are still a lot more for me to learn. Like for example ... how many par cans do we use for a 12' X 8' area?

Here, on this white board, is a rough sketch on where we're going to focus our lights on. It's still not finalised yet, though.

Cupcakes

Yesterday, after celebrating my niece's birthday at my mum's place, we met up with the J family in Curry Leaf. They were there with some friends.

Earlier, Bern told Rajen that her mum made something for our anniversary. When we met them at the restaurant, they gave us this container with 4 really cute cupcakes with our initials and the date of our anniversary.

It's really so sweet of them to not only remember, but made us something for our anniversary. :)

The Squashed Water Container

I was peacefully driving to work this morning, keeping to the speed limit (I hope!), listening to the radio, when suddenly, there was this weird sound coming from one of the tires of my car. It sounded like I skidded on sand but the road seemed perfectly fine. The man on the motorcycle in front of me looked back at the weird sound.

I was at a stretch where I couldn't stop to check. So I went about 500m before I saw a small place to pull over. By then, the noise got louder and I was worried that my tire was punctured. I got down, checked all the tires .... all were fine. So I went back into the car and continued driving. The sound was louder this time and once again, I pulled over.

I began looking deeper, searching for things (like nails, or anything sticking out of the tire) that I might've missed earlier.... and then I saw it. Wedged between the tire and the upper rim was a 5.5 liter water container which was empty. I tugged at it but it didn't really budge. So I pulled it with all my strength. It moved a little. I was begining to fear that I might not be strong enough to get it out. I gritted my teeth and pulled harder. I tried to flatten the container and pulled some more...... and lo and behold, it came off.

The drive was so much smoother after that. :) I thank God it was nothing major.

Another Drop in Petrol Price

Yesterday, on the way back home, the petrol gauge of my car showed a blinking last bar sign. And because I'd normally fill up in the morning on the way to work, I decided to ignore it.

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This morning, I drove into the Shell Petrol Station and to my delight, the cost of petrol was reduced by 15 cents. Yeh! It's now RM2.30 per litre. I'm hoping that it would drop much further.

Farewell, Cat City

I woke up at 5.30am .... coughed a little and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't. In fact, I was very much wide awake. I decided to go online - Thank God for the Internet!

At 9.15am, we went to the Coffee House for breakfast. I wasn't feeling great and didn't overeat.

After breakfast, we went room touring. Ever since we heard about "the largest suite in the hotel" 10 years ago, we were curious about it. The largest suite, also known as "the Pinnacle", is also a duplex and has 3 rooms. According to one of the staff, our former PM stayed there before.

Gretel, the front office assistant manager, was kind enough to show us around. We saw "The Pinnacle" (it's super huge!) and the rack rate for that is RM3K a night. She also showed us some of her other smaller suites.

Ours, The Mulu Suite, is actually the second largest suite in the hotel. The built-up of the suite is 4,000 sq. ft. Wow!!! It is said that this suite is the best looking suite in the hotel and I totally agree with that statement.

By the time we got back to our suite, it was 10.30am.

Lunch was with BobC and June, who took us to a local restaurant where Sarawak Laksa was served. I had some plain noodle which tasted bland. Rajen had the laksa and claimed that it's really yummy!!! I had actually thought of eating laksa, too but was afraid that my cough would get worse.

After lunch, Bob took us to a kampung called Kg Podam in Bau, which is about 45 minutes from the city. He showed us his 6th building project. No .. he's not a contractor. He's actually the co-ordinator of church building projects. He's not a Christian either. It all began when his friend asked him to help out with one church building project. Money was scarce and there were very few resources. From the first project to the current one (7th project), money was always the main problem. Bob is responsible for looking for funds (sometimes it could be selling durians or ice cream.... or even asking for donation), getting the team together to build the church and sourcing for materials - be it new or 2nd hand.

So ... we were at this church called Holy Family Church and Bob was proudly showing us what his team had done.

Because of time constraint, we were there for only 1/2 hour.

When we got back to the hotel, we started packing. The place was so huge, we had to look for our stuff in so many different places! Thankfully, mine was confined to only the bedroom and 2nd hall area.

I managed to rush out to the bazaar (which is about 15 minutes of brisk walk from the hotel) to get some souvenirs for my colleagues. During that time, I took some pictures of the waterfront.

We checked out at 5.30pm. Soli (not sure of the spelling) came to take us to the airport. It was a pleasant drive - no traffic jam, no speeding, etc.

When we checked in at the airport, we were told that the flight will be delayed for 1/2 hour because the flight from KLIA came in late, reason being that there were technical problems. Gulp!!!

The extra time provided us an opportunity to relax longer at the business lounge.

The plane was an airbuss (wide body) and when we saw our seats, we went "wow!" - so much space. Rajen could stretch his legs and they didn't even reach the seats in front of him.

We were given a choice of beef, chicken and vegetarian lasagna. I chose the lasagna and it was simply delicious because of the cheese.

Well... that's it! My Kuching trip has come to an end!

10th Anniversary in Cat City

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary today :)

It's hard to believe that we've come "this" far in our marriage. Thank God for the many years He kept us together, through thick and thin, good times and bad times ... blah, blah, blah.

We started our day late. We met Lee Eng Beng and his wife, Mee Lin at the lobby of our hotel. About 4 years ago, we went on a tour to Kunming, Yunan, China and they were our interpreter - since yours truly doesn't speak Mandarin at all and Rajen ... well, he doesn't speak the language either.

Now, 4 years later, they still looked the same! Can't say the same for Rajen and I. :(

They brought us to a place called .. I think it's Mary Park or something like that. We went to a food court. It's actually two corner shops with side roofs adjoining to form a covered walk way in the middle, which was turned into the eating area. Cool idea!

We ate foo chow food. Really different from our normal mundane breakfast. Hmm... I can't even remember all the names of the food now. I guess the picture will tell you a little of what we ate just now.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel, where we made them eat some of our cake and at the same time, hear their "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" about how luxurious the suite was. Because we didn't have proper drinks for them, we went down to the lounge club where we helped ourselves (literally - it was self service) to coffee and tea.

Mee Lin had to work so they left at 12.30pm.

At 2pm, Jeffrey, a Bidayuh, came in a Mercedes to take us on a tour.

We went to Semonggok to see the Orang Utans. There were 6-7 of them ranging from 6 days old to 28 years old. Delima, whom we heard so much about from Gad, (one of the staff there) was known to be a trouble maker and had once strip a French lady naked because they were "playing" tug of war with the lady's handbag.

Gad explained about the Orang Utans under his care and the many facts about this huge mammal. We saw how Nora ripped the coconut open and drank the water in it. We saw them hanging from ropes and playing with each other. Some were chasing each other.

45 minutes later, we were on our way to a pottery place but alas! we were too late and couldn't watch the process of making pots out of clay. Feeling only a tinge of disappointment, we proceeded to look around their shop outlet and bought some souvenirs back.

I saw a very nice, antique-like jar which is perfect for the coming Christmas Musical. I thought of getting two of them but didn't. Rajen was looking unhappy at the big bulky box that we had to cart back. In the end, I only bought one jar. Sigh! I gotta scour round Seremban to see if they have one with a similar design.

After that, we headed to Sinpiao to get some of our souvenirs.

We were back at the hotel at 5pm. By then , we were quite tired. We skipped lunch altogether. In fact, we have forgotten all about lunch.

Rajen was quite exhausted and hit the bed the moment we walked into our suite. Me? I was still feeling restless and decided to go to Parkson, which is adjacent to the hotel - how convenient!!!

When I came back from my little shopping, the doorbell rang and someone gave flowers. Mr WongBC and Mr PatrickN gave Rajen and I flowers for our anniversary - how thoughtful of them.

In the evening, we walked over to Hilton to have our dinner at the steakhouse restaurant. We took a 3 course dinner - starter, main course, dessert.

I had mushroom soup while Rajen had pumpkin soup. Mine was simply delicious!! Yummy!

And because I was still coughing like crazy, I decided to have Vegetarian Spaghetti, which turned out to be even more yummy. There was a lot of garlic in it. The helping was a huge one and I didn't finish it, even though I really wanted to.

Rajen had beef steak which he claimed was great but I wouldn't know it cause I didn't eat any of it.

Dessert was some pineapple souffle ... which I didn't finish because I was stuffed! Rajen had crepe suzette. I stole some of his dessert and I really liked it.

So, there we were, sitting in a dimly lit restaurant with great ambience and Rajen was feeling sleepy. Sigh! I told him that to the waitresses there, I might be a boring company to be with and he looked as though he was trying his best to endure the whole dinner with me. What's more, I was paying for dinner (part of my anniversary gift to him) and it really did look as though I was some lonely person who wanted company desperate enough, I was willing to pay for dinner. :)

The short walk back to the hotel helped digest our food a little. I wasn't really feeling tired but when I got back to the hotel and was working on the pictures, I felt so sleepy. I told Rajen that I'd only sleep for a short while but.......

Cat City, Here We Come!

I haven't been to Kuching (malay word for cat, though the name of this city actually derives from the Mandarin word "Wu Qing" which means old well) ever since we came here for our honeymoon 10 years ago.

Ten years ago - 1998 - Asia was facing a financial crisis. KLSE went as low as 270 points earlier that year. We just purchased a house which is RM40K more than our budget. And we got married!

About 2 months before the wedding, we still weren't sure where we will go for our honeymoon. Money seemed to be running so quickly and Rajen was worried about the cost of the wedding dinner.

I was walking around in town when I came upon this bridal magazine and in there were two contests. That night, I sat Rajen down at KFC in Tasik Jaya and made him write the slogans. I put his name down for one contest and mine for the other contest. That way, the judges wouldn't suspect that we are the same couple (hehe!!!) While Rajen was quite skeptical over it, I was confident that we'd win at least 1 of the contests.

A few days later, even before the deadline of the contest was over, I got a phone call. I won the 1st out of 3 prizes for a 4 nights 5 days stay in one of the resorts in Langkawi (I've forgotten the name of the resort but it boasts of having the longest swimming pool in Malaysia)

I called Rajen and in surprise, he told me that he had just received a phone call from the bridal magazine informing him that he had won the other contest, which is the only prize for an all paid for trip to Sarawak (1 night in Kuching and 2 nights in Damai beach)

Wow!!!

Rajen felt guilty because we're actually one couple winning two contests and he made me call the bridal magazine to tell them that. Mum overheard my conversation and asked if the prize could be transferable. Ha!

I called them up and they told me that we won fair and square.

To cut a long story short, we went to Kuching first. Flew via MAS and was picked up by a limo from the hotel. We checked into the Crown Plaza Hotel and the moment we opened the door of our suite, our jaws dropped (almost to the ground). It is NOT a room at all!!! It's a duplex apartment with one bedroom. The built-up was was bigger than the piece of property we had just purchased back in Peninsular Malaysia. Out of curiousity, we asked the front desk staff the cost of staying in this suite for a night. "RM1,600", came their reply. Gosh! That was even more than what we're paying for our house mortgage a month.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay there, more so because we were treated like royalty.

Now, 10 years later, we decided to come back to Kuching, to the same suite - but sadly, this time, we had to pay for everything!!! :(

This idea came about when I saw in the papers that MAS was giving out 5000 seats of free flights but alas, the dates that I wanted was not available. Rajen then decided that we should travel in style and booked the both of us into the business class flight.

The travel to Kuching was great. We had breakfast at the Golden Club Lounge in KLIA. We only had 15 minutes to gobble down our breakfast because I got stuck at the place where they scan our belongings for sharp or dangerous stuff. The scanning showed that my camera backpack had a fork and knife in it but after a thorough check and rescanning, I was clear. I think they were still puzzled at the missing fork and knife.

The flight was pleasant. Food was great, though the fruits went to waste because I didn't dare take any cold stuff for fear that I cough would get worse.

We were picked up by a limo from the hotel at 10.30am and were brought to the hotel. Thank God we were allowed to check in early because we were super tired, having to wake up so early this morning (4.45am).

There were minor changes made to the suite. The kitchen an open concept style (previously, we had to go through a door to get into the kitchen) and they swapped the position of the sofa set and the dining set. Electrical appliances in the kitchen were added too.

Like young children, we walked (err.. not run) around the suite to check out every nook and corner. After so many years, we were still amazed at the vastness of the suite. They gave us a fruit basket with far too many fruits for us to consume, white chocolate with strawberry filling, some biscuits .... and an anniversary cake!

We finally settled down, unpacked and rested for a while.

In the evening, we met up with one of my Skype friends, Bob, and his girlfriend, June. After 3 years of chatting online, we finally met each other for the first time.

He brought us to a western restaurant called The Junk (there were all sorts of "junk" in the restaurant collected from places around the world. Bob said that the owners had a few other restaurants splatted around Kuching and one of them is called "blah blah blah" which served fusion food).

Because of my prolonged cough, I chose Spaghetti Cabonara. Rajen had lamb shank. It was a huge portion and I could only finish half of it.

Bob spoke of his experiences in building churches - literally building them - and the challenges he faced in completing a project. He's on to his 7th project.

After dinner, we adjourned to the Sarawak Club where we had another round of conversation. We left the club at 11.40pm.

The Cough That Lingers

I've always been susceptible to sore throat which eventually turn to cough. My being lazy to drink water does not help at all. On normal healthy days, my normal intake of water per day ranges from 1-2 cups.

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About 4 weeks ago, in the midst of recovering from food poisoning, my throat started to sore. I was in Singapore at that time and my Redoxon Vitamin C was 4 hours away. To make matters worse, I was at a concert and I was so thirsty, my 500ml water bottle didn't last long. I made the mistake of eating one sugar free sweet. Next thing I knew, my throat got worse and my voice changed.

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Two days later, the cough began. Argh!

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I was intermittenly conscious on keeping a strict diet so that my cough doesn't get way out of hand. Ten days later, it finally showed signs of improvement and I started to be laxed in my diet. I ate fried chicken and lots of chilli.

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Big mistake.

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Within 2 days, my cough got worse.... I think the morning walk up Kepayang Hill on the 1st day of Raya played a part in aggravating the itchiness in my throat.

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I was coughing so badly. Being my normal stubborn self, I refused to see the doctor, after all, I don't normally make it a point to see a doctor for normal sickness like cough and flu.

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Lots of advice were thrown at me:-

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"You must drink pure honey"

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"Pei Pa Kou is good" (but unfortunately, I heard from someone that it contains a certain amount of drugs)

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"Boil some rock sugar and ginger"

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"Rub Vicks on the soles of your feet and cover them with socks when you sleep at night"

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"Rub Vicks on your throat"

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"Boil one yellow pear for 40 minutes. Drink the water and eat the pear"

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"You must take 3000mg of Vitamin C (Redoxon) a day"

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"Go see the doctor"

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Now, two bottles of Tiga Kaki cough mixture, 1 bottle of Woods Peppermint Cure, 1/2 bottle of Vicks, 4 boiled pears later, I'm finally feeling a little better. The cough is still there but I don't cough as voilently as before. I used to cough till my head hurt. I guess my very strict diet helped too. I had rice porridge and bread on most days and avoided chicken and chilli like the plague.

Mock-up Stage

Making the mock-up stage this time was a little easier. What I did was to trace out the mock-up from 2006 and copy it onto a piece of card board. And because this year's stage would be similar to the one we did in 2006, I literally copied everything.

But then, as with all musicals, there's bound to be some adjustments that needed to be done.

I talked to Jenny and realised that there were so many scenes that needed to be portrayed. If we raised the left mezzanine to 8 ft from the ground, we needed steps all the way to the top. And this is only for one scene!!! I decided to drop it to only 4 ft from the ground so that we can have more scenes there.

Another change which I did was to "flatten" the left side of the building so that it will not block those sitting on that side of the sanctuary.

And this (below) is the end result of it:-