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MARK!

Hey guys... Apologies for not blogging the past week. Have been busy with you know what. Yup piano. I'm kinda glad that this week was over, cos its been super hectic, stressful and draining. It feels great to have the burden of piano stuff off my back. This week has been a total blessing, and I couldn't have done it without God. Lets start from last Sunday shall we?

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YE
Well Sunday was the the final day our dear pastor Rev Soon was joining us for service. He was transfered to St Hildas. The YE people made a nice card for him, his wife, and his daughter Amanda Soon. Rev Soon is a pretty nice guy. I'll miss him. Can't forget all the discipleship lay reader's training he gave me, and all the times he's talked to me about serving in worship and stuff. He's been a great blessing and encouragement to me...
Fast forward to Thursday... YE gathering for the older guys. Paul, Jon, Kenneth, Gerald and I met up just to have a long chat. We met at some secret venue and ate some secret stuff...



Hmm guess what we're doing and where we are? If you guessed eating dinner, you're right! But eating what exactly? If you guessed a hawker centre in Singapore, you're right! But where exactly?

I'll treat those who guess correctly! Yup but after dinner the guys dropped by my house to disturb my bros (laugh at Daryl's sprained ankle), watch Kung Fu Hustle and play the guitar. A pretty nice way to end the night ain't it? Haha.

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Guitar

Whoosh on to Friday... It marked the beginning of this year's guitar camp! Yup so I was a group leader, and my group name was... Mark! Named after some famous guitarist who I don't know. Hyqel chose the name.

Well, my group consisted of... Woon Seng, Liying, Yeng Yie, Yichen, Song Xia, Yan Min, Jon Chua! All super cool and super enthu people. Well, the first thing we started with was ice breakers... And we all introduced ourselves. I'm quite proud that I knew everyone there beforehand so yay.

But the rest of them got to know each other better, and we started making our group flag. Hmm? Don't have a photo of it though.

We played a couple of games... Monkey, did some literal icebreaking and lastly an ice relay. Mark got pit against Pin's group, which was John, named after the famous guitarist John Petrucci. Yeah but in the ice relay game we beat them woooo!

After that we had dinner (super nice!), and it was on to night games.

Presenting ROFL, the king of the night games. AKA Hyqel. He's hugging my sleeping bag.

Yup so basically everyone in the group except two people (Me and one random person) had to be blindfolded, and the guy who wasn't blindfolded had to lead the rest to various stations around school. Of course I had to order them around. The tough thing about these night games was that all tasks had to be done while blindfolded, but my group did pretty well. Good communication skills! Except at the raffia maze when they totally messed up the station haha.

So the night ended on a high, when everything culminated in one 6 group v 6 group final war game style capture the flag challenge. Though we didn't manage to get additional flags, we managed to retain one. So good job!

All of us split up to play games, bathe and talk, but I slept early, cos the next day I had lots to do...

We started off with PT the next day, and played Captain's Ball at the basketball courts till the basketball girls came and chased us away. After that we had breakfast, which was cereal. At least it was something different from the normal peanut butter and jam bread during typical camps.

And then whilst treasure hunt went on, I left my group in the hands of Chin Heng. On to piano exam!

Wonder what place Mark got at the end of everything? Someone tell me pls! Quite sad that I missed the station games and finale.

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Piano

Reached home, bathed, ate, and mugged piano. Suddenly realised that there wasn't much to mug left. Perhaps only some revision. So started on the journey to the exam venue quite early, and reached early as well.

The exam venue was somewhere near my church, MDIS to be exact. I knew how to walk there, but got my dad to drive just in case. Joined my fellow exam takers Winston, Yan Ming, Velda, Denise, Cheng Ee. Hmm wonder if I spelt some of their names wrongly. But we entered the room and sat at our desks.

Spent the first 20 mins staring at the paper and zoning out haha. At first sight it looked quite tough. But at closer inspection... There were no ornament, transposition, composer questions at all in questions 4 and 5. I was super surprised. Neither was there long open ended questions that needed more interpretation. Completed questions 4 and 5 first...

Questions 1 and 3 were pretty simple. The pattern and motif for q1 was so simple to identify and use, and the theme given for q3 was child's play to work around with. The problem was question 2. No obvious repeated motifs, no obvious cadential structure... = how to do? Well I just filled it in randomly and hoped for the best... I believe I'll pass... But how good I do, is now all up to God!

Finished ultra early, but took the time to sleep. There weren't any other places around with good aircon, a nice desk and a good foot rest to sleep at. So spent the rest of the time re-re-re checking my paper, doodling on the rough paper given, and sleeping.

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S03H

Woo met AAL sometime during my guitar camp, and he passed me this cool thing. It was the COP for the CSI competition we entered the year before, and the cert looked pretty nice. Glad I could enter. Sorry AAL couldn't join you guys for dinner and reflection and stuff. Hope you guys had fun.

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Soccer

FA Cup
Man U 2 Middlesbrough 2
Chelsea 3 Tottenham 3
Plymouth 0 Watford 1
Blackburn 2 Man City 0

Champions League
*Chelsea 2 Porto 1
Lyon 0 *Roma 2
*Liverpool 0 Barcelona 1
*Valencia 0 Inter Milan 0
*AC Milan 1 Celtic 0
*Bayern Munich 2 Real Madrid 1
Arsenal 1 *PSV 1
*Man U 1 Lille 0

* = those who have made it to the quarter finals

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Ahh someone save me... 1 week to exams and I haven't mugged. I'm confident for maths... But the rest... Uh oh. I guess its time to rely on God's strength and not mine. I just hope that I'll cram enough in time for next monday. In you I trust Lord! Whatever may result, I will thank you and look to you always. Ok wow stress is gone, just like that. Those who are feeling the heat, and are experiencing the same thing as me, don't forget to look for the Lord in prayer! It'll help loads.

Especially when you feel that you CMI with your own strength, and everything feels like its impossible in the given time. When you're unhappy with the circumstances you're in (Like me, cos I had piano exam to worry about, and now rock concert and SYF = no mugging time), just relax and believe. Everything will be just fine.

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