Tear Down the Walls: Across the Earth

NOW LISTENING: Hillsong United - Tear Down the Walls: Across the Earth

That's right, dear avid readers, visitors, friends & family, etc... If you guys are fans of Hillsong United, this album is yet another jewel from the youths of Hillsong church. Released on the 26th of this month, it is only 5 days old and already it's selling fast like hotcakes!

I've always been a fan of their music, and who wouldn't? With previous hits like Hosanna, Mighty to Save, From the Inside Out, and Saviour King, among others, their music is not only a joy to the ears, but the meaningful lyrics accompanying most of their songs make them a global phenomenon to many believers out there, all Across the Earth! I totally enjoyed their concert last year where they came to Glad Tidings Church, PJ and performed songs from their The I Heart Revolution: With Hearts as One album, which was more a compilation of previous hits than a totally fresh album. Sadly, it is almost certain that Hillsong United will not be visiting Kuala Lumpur this year unlike last year. :( However, for those crazy enough to go down to Singapore, they will be there on the 25th of July @ The Zone Youth Conference! I might go for it, but then I'd have to skip a few days of classes... who knows? :p

Quoting a reviewer of the album who wishes not to be named, "Hillsong United is called for this purpose to sing, glorifying God, glorifying Jesus, across the whole earth. Great album, slightly different style from previous albums and it's great. Keep listening. God bless Hillsong, Hillsong United. Your Ministry is reaching amazing number of people all across the earth. I am blessed!"

So if you have not purchased this album, what are you waiting for? Time and tide waits for no man! Hope all of you had a great weekend! I know I did! :)

~Tim~

X-er-CISE!

The sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive...

Your heart pumps double or triple its normal rate...

Sweat trickles down your face...

Your face starts to flush...

Your muscles begin to tire...

The anaerobic respiratory pathway takes precedence over the aerobic one...

Lactic acid starts to build up inside your body...

Lactic acidosis leads to respiratory acidosis...

I could go on and on about what goes on during intensive physical exercise, but what's the point? Some of you already know the facts and figures. My point is, you've gotta experience it for yourself to really appreciate the wonders of the human body, especially when it has to utilise its compensatory mechanisms to continue supporting life during exercise, stress, etc...

Homeostasis.

Exercise makes you feel good, even if it means spending about half to one hour of your life per day to do it. No pain, no gain.

Newaez, so the story goes... I went jogging today with a couple of fellow CF-ers... or more specifically, the Aquarium Fishes. Yin & I went for Cell but left earlier as we wanted to jog before it got too dark. After changing in Sunway Campus, we set off at our own pace. The other CF-ers were already jogging. We set our Mp3 players, did our warm-ups and juz ran like nobody's business. Loved the feeling of wind blowing in my face and the Lord knows I needed this. =D Gotta work on my jogging technique more though, as it helps in building my stamina and overall endurance. Perhaps I did not do as much running and jogging before this due to time constraints, lack of motivation, etc. =) Being a medical student means I'm learning a lot more about primary healthcare (prevention before disease(s) set in), and one of the key factors is exercise.

I almost left out the fact that I also did do my home workout too yesterday. Thankfully, it's routine, even though I've toned down a somewhat since I entered into med school. Basically, the regime focuses on building strength, rather than endurance. Currently, I'm training using weights for my biceps, triceps, forearm muscles, shoulder muscles and upper chest. Additionally, there are the norms: sit-ups for abdominal muscles, push-ups, chest stretches, arm rolls, etc.

That being physical exercise, I also had some spiritual exercise too! We had a really good cell meeting earlier before the jog. At first, I thought we would juz be celebrating Aaron's b'day, who turned 21 today (and thus being a member of Club 21 instantaneously!) However, with our 365 Youth pastors there, things turned out a lil' bit differently. Ps. Louisa decided that we should take turns praying for one another, and this was done with someone being in the centre sharing their most significant prayer request and everyone laying his or her hand on the person, hearing God speak, and sharing it in prayerful words to him or her. It was really good... not only was everyone prayed for, but everyone who really listened to God speaking to them was able to impart words of encouragement and wisdom to the person in the centre. (p.s. I requested for good time management)

Don't get me started on mental exercise, please! The reason: I kinda juz realised that over the next 2 days, I'm gonna have 14 lectures!! Arrgghh, only time will tell if I 'die' of boredom, restlessness, chronic neurolecturitis, or all of the above!

For all those perfectionist all-rounders who's been taking note on what I've been sayin, there's always the emotional exercise included too in the full round-up of exercise variants. Well, the people who know me best know I'm usually very emotionally stable. Recently, however, some people have really got me thinking about certain things e.g. aspects in my life, among others. The positive ones I shall try to maintain, the negative ones I shall improve on... hopefully. Unfortunately, no details for now, guyz. Period. =>

Is this the calm before the storm to come? Newaez, over these 2 days, I felt good... About myself, about the people I love and cherish a.k.a. family & friends, about life as a whole. That's all that counts... that's all that matters. Cheerz ppl! =D

~Tim~

21 is a Big Number !!!

Well, as you know, yours truly juz turned 21 yesterday!! And needless to say, as alwayz when there's a major event in my life, there will alwayz be pictures to back em up, as well as credits, captions and thank yous! :D Today being Labour Day all around the world, there's no uni to attend (obviously) and this post was made possible despite the voice in my head telling me to do otherwise and study. I'm not procrastinating, I'm just chilling out!

As you will notice from the pix below, I had not one, not two, but THREE celebrations, all at different times within 24 hours!! Funny how I noticed that 2 + 1 = 3... Kudos to those who got what I meant by that equation! For those who failed to, don't fret as there's always room for improvement! :p

First and foremost, I'd like to thank each and every single person who made my 21st a very special one indeed! I kinda lost count as to the exact number of people who wished me, whether via SMS, phone calls, Facebook, face-to-face, and last but not least, by being there for me! I'm pretty sure it amounted to more than 10 dozen though. Also like to thank those who gave me gifts and cards, I will treasure them, definitely! Before I move on, I'd juz like to clarify that although I took more pix than the ones below, I decided to select a few and not bombard this b'day post with too many pix.. yeah so for the rest of them, you'll juz have to wait for me or the others to upload them onto Facebook... which seems to be the website-of-choice nowadays.

Newaez, without further ado, let's move on to the pix that supposedly say a thousand words, each!!

1st B'day Celebration: Monash Cell & FGT!

This is the 1st 21st b'day celebration... and it was hosted at my Youth Pastors' home @ USJ on Wednesday (the 29th of April) evening... somewhat like a pre-b'day celebration in some sense. It was attended by friends from my church, FGT... and everyone who was there was treated with a scrumptious array of good food: shepherd's pie, lasagna, Domino's pizza, KFC, garlic bread, etc. Dessert was 3 kinds of ice cream in tubs + a British delicacy called 'trifle'! Great food! Makes me wish that my b'day falls on every day! =) Btw, love what the cake says! ;D

With my dear friend Suyin :) Have fun in Malacca!

We decided to do the "my-head-balances-yours" co-op pose for the sake of posing!

Wui Jia and I, who more or less organised the intrinsic details of this celebration! Thx WJ! *hugs*

Posing with Aung Htet, the dude from Myanmar who will soon be shipped back there some time this month.

Meet my youth pastor, Ps. Richard Evans from the UK!

And meet my OTHER youth pastor, Ps. Louisa Evans, who more or less did most of the wonderful cooking! Who says we need to get 4th place in the Treasure Hunt to enjoy a good home-cooked meal? Juz be born at the right time or know the ppl who are born at the right time!

2nd B'day Celebration: PCL Group C 2009!

This was with my PCL group (of this sem... and hopefully next sem as well!) and took place after the main PCL for that day, the next day... roughly about 4 p.m. Wasn't really a surprise as Yu Xiang & Meor kinda gave it away the day before. Haha! But thankz anyway, dudes and dudettes... Lurve ya all da same! XD

The cake was really awesome.. coz it was a combo of a few flavours, namely hazelnut, mint, coffee and chocolate among others. It tasted good even though we took an awfully long time gather around to take the previous photo and the wax and chocolate had melted somewhat onto the cake! Thx Gim Ling for choosing the cake, awesome taste buds you have! After making my wishes for the 2nd time, I huffed out the candles. Notice that there were 21 candles on this one! Thankfully, I managed to blow them ALL out in ONE breath! And I'm even more thankful that my PCL mates did not ask me to take out each one of them with my mouth, just one!

Our PCL tutor wanted a shot with the ladies.

L-R: Gim Ling, Evonne, Dr. Cheong, Pui Yi, Ameerah

3rd B'day Celebration: Fellow Meddies + SP!

For those who don't know the fella in this pic, it's none other than Patty Ho! Oops.. sorry, I meant Patrik Ho, who has got his mouth stuffed with food from Manhattan Fish Market, where I celebrated the first-half of Thursday night. The reason: he was competing to see whether he and Grace combined could eat faster than Nick and Rachel combined. Lolz and LASHES! To add to that, they were also competing to see who finished more bottomless drinks. In this particular pic, I think he was pointing at Grace, but I kinda forgot the reason behind it. Anyway, I enjoyed my New Zealand cod fish, which btw, was on the house as it was my b'day! Very kind of the manager there! And I didn't have to worry about competition!

The delicious complimentary mud pie! Oh btw, Peter came around the time when it was served.. haha!

And they even took the trouble to get me ice-cream from Baskin Robbins and stuff 2 big candles and a small one inside. I made my wishes again for the 3rd time! :D After the dinner, the 2nd half of the night was spent watching one of the blockbusters this year: WOLVERINE! Most of us really enjoyed the show, even though I know some of my friends were wondering what was going on, and someone even slept! *glances at TLHY* Anyway, with avid X-men fans like Nick and yours truly, we managed to clarify a lot of the stuff that was goin on in the movie to Sarah, Grace and Rachel... who from what I heard enjoyed the show as well! Glad for them too! Cheers! :)

A very contented group of medical students (and not forgetting Peter, our SP) after the Wolverine movie! Thanx to all my meddie frenz who planned this double celebration (dinner + movie combo) namely Jun Yet & Grace! Really treasure this friendship of ours of more than a year now and I pray for many more great years of friendship as we embrace and survive medical school life together! We rawk... and we don't need any1 to tell us otherwise!! :D

Yup, so that's about it from my side of the story, for now! Phew, quite a long post for a 2nd year medical student, I would say! Newaez, here's to hoping that those who took the rest of the pix for any of the 3 celebrations will upload them asap! Till then, thank you all for making my day... literally.

~Tim~