Hiya folks! Sorry it’s been such a long time since I last blogged. Reason is cos of Twitter. Yup. Blame Mr Twit. Discovered that I too have fallen into the Twitter trap and tweeted more than I blogged. Afterall, Twitter is a micro blogging thing, right? Anyway, I’ve privatised my Twitter account after finding one of my tweets on some website somewhere. Wasn’t a bad thing, just reminded me that I’m pretty outspoken on Twitter and I’ve gotta be more careful. So, it’s been privatised and only those who follow me and are approved by me can read it.

So, because it’s been such a long time, I don’t really remember all the details of what’s happened so this post might be a bit random. Biggest thing I think is the Parish Missions. For those who aren’t from St Stephen’s, we had been conducting this thing called the Parish Missions for the past few months(?) or so. A team of priests from the Redemptorists at the Novena came down every week and did mass – that was freaking awesome, by the way. First time in a long time that I wasn’t bored to tears in mass. And they did house to house rounds, The main aim was to foster a better sense of community and to draw people back who have lapsed from the church. Not much use when Fr Jacob came to our place. We’re all freaking involved in the church already. Although, he seemed pretty impressed with Ah Ku’s work in St Mary’s. Practically did a kowtow. Anyway, the choir was involved in quite a few of the special mission masses. It was interesting. I attended one of the group masses. It was supposed to be a consolidation of the house visits. It was pretty different. Held in the smaller chapel at the back, it was quite a cosy little thing. The ‘homily’ bit was more of a discussion/brainstorming session where we could get together and talk about how to make the parish more vibrant and welcoming. Bernard’s little boy was quite precocious and enthusiastic about it. Then there was the end of the Parish Missions which was a nine night Novena, Preached Mission Masses. We were in charge of 2 nights, including the youth mass. There was dress codes for these masses based on colour theme. It was really cool to see the whole congregation decked out in yellows, or greens etc. Huge turnout, by the way. We combined with Margaret’s choir for the Grand Finale. Zac and Na did the Praise and Worship session before the mass. It was fun. At the end, the recessional song was “Christ be our Light” and they dimmed the lights in the church and we used torchlight to procession out. The Redemptorist priests were continuing with their ‘theme’ of construction workers and had those flashing lights they put at construction sites, in addition to their construction worker vests and helmets. Very fun and lively. I’m really going to miss it all.

Then there’s my job hunt, as usual. Still no luck. Went for an interview with an enrichment centre to be their librarian. It was a good post but I think the pay was freaking low for a grad, even if I didn’t have the degree they wanted. So I turned it down. I’ll probably be regretting it in the near future but seriously, it wasn’t worth it as a permanent job. Going for a writing test with a news publishing place later next week. At least, I hope so. I called them back to confirm my time slot and they said they’d email me but so far, nothing. Talking about that, another publishing house I wrote to still hasn’t gotten back to me. I’m really starting to get  worried now. Like DJ said, if this kind of thing also can’t get in, then what the hell is our degree good for?? I mean, publishing/editorial work is a perfect match for an English Language degree, isn’t it? Who else is well versed in grammar and syntax and sentence structures and how language is supposed to be used and written? It’s depressing. Seriously. I really don’t know what to do at the moment. I’m still resisting teaching as much as I possibly can. Even though I know that I’ll probably be accepted to MOE with open arms, I think my personality is against me teaching in the long term. No point lah.

Talking about teaching, I did a music theory session with the choir a few weeks back. That was very interesting. If I want to be a teacher, I want to be a music teacher, not an English teacher. Teach something that I love rather than just any other subject. I impressed myself, if I might say so. Hopefully the choir folks remembered what I taught them. But I think I did extremely well. I suppose I should thank Lazar and her session where we were forced to do individual presentation that lasted for an hour.

Talking about Lazar, she would have liked one of those Redemptorist priests, think his name’s Fr Simon. He was very politically correct in his prayers. Like when there was the word ‘men’, he inserted ‘and women’ too. In other words, removing the sexist and patriarchal slant that prayers tend to have. Lazar mentioned once that she and her family used to do that in mass. So think she’d like this priest. It was pretty amusing to me who picked up this nuance of speech.

What else? Been watching shows that star Vincent Perez lately. My latest celebrity crush is Vincent Perez, by the way, in case anyone didn’t see my tweet about it. I think he’s really cute in a quiet, elegant sort of way. Unfortunately he’s old enough to be my father (I think). And he’s Swiss French. Which means most of his films are done in French, which I don’t speak or understand. Thank god for subtitles. Anyway, first saw him in Queen of the Damned, acting as Marius. Thought he was quite cool. Went on to watch quite a few others – Le Libertin, Swept from the Sea, I Dreamed of Africa, Indochine, La Reine Margot, The Crow, Fanfan La Tulipe. Ok, that’s a lot. Haha! Shameless. Too much time on my hands I think. A strange trend I noticed, most of these shows, his character ends up dead. Seriously! In The Crow and QotD, his character was dead to begin with, so I suppose that counts as being dead. Wonder why. I particularly enjoyed Le Libertin. Lol!! It’s one of those things that SG will NEVER show here. Why? It has nudity! Lots and lots of nudity! (spits out ‘nudity’ like Sam the Eagle) Imagine the really hot Vincent Perez completely naked (frontal, by the way, and running through the garden on one of his character’s shenanigans). Hehe!! Dirty mind. And it was hilarious! I loved it. Enjoyed Fanfan la Tulipe too, although I had to watch that on Tudou and the video quality was quite crap. That reminded me a lot of Captain Jack Sparrow, the way he got into scrapes and tried to get himself out of it. Very Captain Jack Sparrow.

Anyway, so what’s been keeping me busy? Gone to the library and gotten books. I really like thrillers these days. Those kind that have the hero running all over the place, racing against time to find and solve clues to save the world before the bad guys blow it up or whatever. You know. Then, yesterday, I decided to pick up Anne Rice’s “Christ The Lord” series. Had been resisting it for a while because I really enjoyed her vampire series, I didn’t know if these sudden religious themed books would be as good. Read the first one yesterday subtitled “Out of Egypt”. Was a bit boring at first, even though Rice talked about Jesus’ childhood years and even threw in some of the legends – like him accidentally killing his friend and raising him from the dead. It picked up somewhere near the middle of the book. I don’t know. I feel like I have a block or something on reading anything religious. We’ll see. I’m not done with it yet.

Been doing writing too. As of last night, I hit my 68,000 word mark. Very happy about that. Proud of myself. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written. Unfortunately I’m at the point now where I’m a bit lost about how to continue. I mean, I know what I want to write but I don’t know how to get from where I am to where I need to be. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be participating in Nanowrimo this year cos of this story. I’m gonna be focusing on this and there’s no way (at the moment that I foresee) that I can squeeze out another 50,000 words. Although it might be possible. We’ll see. Can’t quite cheat and enter this story in, can I? Hehe!

K, what else? Complaints about technology. Firefox is going wonky on me. It keeps hanging and crashing and having to relaunch itself. I have no idea why. But it’s very extremely annoying. Especially when I’m looking up stuff. Hope it’s not anything to do with my Macbook in general. I love my macbook. Anyway, noticed that problems started cropping up after I upgraded my Firefox to the current version. Sigh. Hope it fixes itself soon. I don’t enjoy using Safari. No reason why. I just prefer Firefox. And, talking about technology, there’s been rumours going around about an Apple Tablet coming into the market next year. Seen a picture. Well, a picture that’s posted on the net which I’m not sure if it’s a real picture or a photoshop or what. Looks really pretty. I want one when it comes out. Been thinking about getting a Kindle but supposedly the Apple Tablet can do the same thing. So, I’d rather go for Apple. Read an article the other day and there was a line which said: Mac users are more covetous of gadgetry. That is, they tend to have more gadgets and want more gadgets when new ones come out. So true! Haha!

Remembered what I wanted to talk about. Don’t know if it’s a coincidence or a sign or whatever, but yesterday, after I picked up the “Christ the Lord” series, my uncle said he was thinking of getting me to accompany my grandmother on pilgrimage to the Holy Land next month. I was shocked. And in a dilemma. You know me. How can I turn down a chance to travel? On the other hand, I really need to find a job and going overseas right now is the worse possible time. Brings back sad reminders of what could have been if I had not mentioned the Hangzhou trip at that very first job interview… Anyway, another thing that’s out of the question is me going alone with Ah Ma in a group where I know no one. My grandmother is a HUGE handful all by herself, thank you very much. And it’s not like we’re going to London or somewhere easy. This is the Holy Land. Middle East, Israel. Mum’s trying to see if can get an aunty to go instead.

Anyway, that issue above sparked off what I’ve been doing so far today. Mum was saying, we plan our own ‘pilgrimage’ tour for next year and bring the grandmother along. So, guess who’s stuck with preparing a proposed itinerary? Me. Not that I’m complaining. It’s really fun. I’ve got France in mind. Oh man. I miss Europe. Unfortunately, this morning, I researched airfares and almost fainted. I had to remind myself time and again that we’re talking about Europe and a group of 5 adults. I really need a job so I can help fund the trip. Although I don’t think it’ll be very nice for me to just swan off so soon after I start working. (The trip’s planned for the 2^nd week of June next year). Anyway, the sad thing is, if this all turns out just like all the other times I’ve tried to plan a trip then I shouldn’t worry. It’ll all probably get called off yet again. Thinking back on that aborted Thailand trip a few years back. I worked hard on planning that one too and it got called off. Oh well. It’s fun planning anyway.

Oh, almost forgot. Been discovering quite a bit of stuff on iTunes. First is this application that I downloaded a while back but never got the chance to try out. It’s a virtual violin. I’ve always wanted to learn the violin. Now I can sort of play it on my Touch. It’s not too bad. Unfortunately, I think it’s done something to my wrist cos the Touch is not quite the same size as an actual violin so I hold it differently. So, my wrist really hurts when I try to bend it too far. L And, I discovered this thing called iTunes U. It’s open podcasts of lectures and talks from various universities and stuff. Very interesting. Currently listening to an intro to psychology class from MIT. Previously was listening to a lecture on Old English and a lecture on Tolkien and languages. Tolkien was a lexicographer, did you know, when he was in Oxford? He helped to write the OED. How cool is that? I wonder if Tolkien taught classes. Would have loved to be in his class. It sounds so cool.

Right, I think that’s a long enough post for now. Back to planning and dreaming about holidays. I really should have fought for that travel agency job. Maybe it would have been helpful when I’m trying to organise things like this. Oh, by the way, tempted to go take up a tourism diploma or something. Then I can open a travel agency and do things like this that I enjoy.