Another year has passed!

 I want to avoid the statement, "as one door closes, another opens". Life is a journey, a marathon, a continuation. Yes, there are beginnings and endings, but collectively, the events/milestones/relationships we experience contribute to developing our identity and who we are as people. This year, I have stepped out of my comfort zone, overcame challenges, developed new relationships, nurtured old ones, reaffirmed my faith, and learned what it means to be other-person centered. I look back and can confidently say that I am filled with a sense of contentment for another wonderful year that God has blessed me with. 

On a random note, this year, the babies born in the year 2000 are 13-yrs-old! I remember being in assembly in primary school where they handed us out medallions encased in plastic to commemorate the beginning of a millennium. How time flies! :) 

This year, a bunch of friends went to Chibi's house to hang out on NYE. I'm so thankful for this group of people and just some time to chillax before the climatic 12:00. We had some snacks, played singstar, watched the boys play tekken, had a chat on the balcony and watched dodgeball. 

Countdown to 2014!!

We have our fair share of arguments, misunderstandings and conflicts (NYE was no exception), but he is so special to me. I hope that together, we can learn to be more loving, patient, sacrificial and accepting in 2014. :) 

Unique God

In this world, there are many different religions whose members claim to worship the one true god.  As a Christian, I believe that the true God, the One I worship has three major characteristics. Let me expand on this. God is all-loving, which means that he will have our best interests in mind and will do what is beneficial to us. As an all-powerful God, He is capable of making anything happen when he wills it. He is also all-knowing, so He is not only smarter and wiser than anyone who ever existed, but He is aware of every thought, action and status of everything of this universe - past, present and future. 

Here is a hypothetical situation: A child is about to be hit by a car and God is present in this situation.
I hope this makes sense.. here goes!
1. God is all-loving, but is not all-powerful and all-knowing.
This basically makes God ... well not a God. Humans are capable of loving. We love our parents, siblings, spouses, friends, yet we are not gods. If God is not all-powerful and not all-knowing, then what makes Him any different from us? It certainly makes Him a petty God. He will try to stop the child from being hit by the car (because letting the child die is not in the child's best interests), but He won't be able to stop the event from happening. Therefore, the outcome for the child is death.

2. God is all-powerful and all-knowing but not all-loving.
This makes God a dictator - with us as His minions. We worship Him out of fear. If something goes wrong, it's because we displeased Him or made Him angry *shudders at the thought*. This is not a God who I would willingly worship. I would feel obliged to worship Him so that He can bless me or keep bad things from happening, and not because He is a good God. In the hypothetical situation, God has the power to stop the child's death, knows the child is going to die, but doesn't care for the child and just lets him die.

3. God is all-loving, all-powerful but not all-knowing.
Yes, He will do what is in our best interests, and yes He can make things happen, but if God is like this, He will operate under our ethical code. If present in the situation, us humans will do what is possible to save the child from the car. Why? Because we don't know the future. What if the child is Adolf Hitler? Saving one life will result in the death of many, many more people. But a God who is all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful will do what is for the greater good and probably let the child die, even if He has the power to stop the child's death.

In conclusion, the combination of being all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing results in a God who has got our backs and will do the best for us because He knows what's up basically. We can firmly put our trust in Him because as limited beings, we don't know what's going to happen, we don't have the power to change outcomes, and we don't know what's best for ourselves (despite thinking we do most of the time). With this in mind, I WANT to worship God, and I want to place my life in His hands.This is what makes Him unique.

Photo drama

I'm a sentimental person. That means I like to record details of my life by taking lots of photos, writing blogs and keeping journals. If I don't do these things, I feel like I'm letting precious memories slip away. Today, I decided to drag Jeffy to the local photobooth in the CBD to capture our first year of dating. My plan is to do this each year and see how time has passed. Our photobooth experience didn't go too well due to our noobness. The whole thing was very rushed (silly time limit) and confusing. 

A couple of things went wrong: 

1. I only selected three photos to publish (we took six). 
2. We spent so much time decorating one photo each, that we neglected the decoration of a whole photo D:
3. We chose photos with small boxes to print out (we should've printed the photos bigger and shared them)

But ah well it's probably going to be something nice to laugh at when we look back :) NEC YEAR WE'LL GET IT RIGHT!!! :) 

Festivities

So I have finally gathered enough motivation to post another entry (that took a while)! This year has FLOWN by and Christmas has arrived and passed already. It's been a whirlwind of events and get-togethers with friends and family. That's one of the things I really like about Christmas. Everybody gets into the spirit of things. But ultimately, Christmas is about remembering the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and his amazing love for us.

Christmas Party

Each year, a group of us go to Huldah's house to celebrate Christmas. Reflecting back, it doesn't feel like such a long time ago when we had the party last year. Time DOES fly. This year Fergus organised Secret Santa - our presents are placed under the tree. I got a ice-cream set. It came with bowls, a scoop and some sprinkles. The presents are meant to be unisex but I got a particularly girly present haha. Jeff got a batman cup - perfect because his old cup broke. 

After Secret Santa, we headed off to the kitchen bench to have some dessert a few of us prepared! There were cake pops, a chocolate and strawberry tart, jellies and mango pudding! We were all looking forward to taking photos and eating these aesthetic little things.

To finish the night - photos :) Last year on this occasion I took my first polaroid. Just quietly reminiscing... oh and these five girls are my favourite. God has put us into our lives to be a blessing to each other, and for that I am extremely grateful. We grew up together, and I hope we will grow old together <3

Lights

This is Borthi (school) and my tradition every year - to look at Christmas lights. Last year we did South Brisbane, so this year we decided to go East. Each location greeted us with an array of lights, and quite often the whole street would participate, so it was nice to just park the car and have a walk. We went only a couple of days before Christmas, so the place was PACKED. Good old Borthi stalled a few times and we listened to Christmas songs in the car to get ourselves into the Christmas spirit. 

Macaron Making

Borthi wanted to make some macarons for her relatives/fam members as Christmas presents, so we got the almond meal and sugar out and got cracking. We decided to make them a combination of pink and green (Christmas colours) with a milo filling. Determined to get things right, we attended to every detail (great and small). They came out quite nice but not perfect, but that's alright I'LL KEEP TRYING! 

Date Night 

Most of the week was filled with family events for me and Jeff being away to the beach with his family for the weekend, so this night was really enjoyable - us time hehe ^_^ We were planning to go to Wagaya to celebrate Jeffy's belated birthday dinner, but it was closed so we decided to go to Vapiano instead to celebrate MY belated birthday dinner.

I love the fact that you can watch people cook here! It's so interactive and cool. We ordered a funghi pasta and diavlo pizza. Topped off with a lemon lime bitters, I can safely say that the meal was amazing (and romantic). 

Tonight we were planning to go to the north side to look at a few more christmas lights, but I had the thought that the lights might not actually be on (since the brochure said it goes until the 24th). We decided to play it safe and go to the south side instead of risking driving for two hours without seeing any of the stuff. We still had a really amazing time :)

Christmas Day 

WOO! I woke up and thought to myself: "It's really Christmas" 

The morning was kickstarted with a Christmas service at church, followed by a luncheon. I had received my fish eye and wide angle attachable iphone lens in the mail the previous day so I used it a in quite a few photos on Christmas day. 

At Jeffy's house, we wrapped presents together. Jeffy was really slow and it was pretty cute. I'm glad he puts an effort into writing cards, giving people presents and wrapping presents though. I know lots of guys can't be bothered. He had made an effort to get my parents, brother, me, his dad, mum and sister each a present (I chose most of them haha). 

I made most of the Christmas dinner in the afternoon. The star of the meal was my turkey (bought from the frozen section haha) and roasted veges. I made an effort to add extra olive oil, herbs and garlic salt to make it extra yummy :D We also had salmon sashimi from another night when family friends came over and a mango mousse cake that my mum baked - it was delicious.

This is our Christmas tree this year, it talks :P (literally). It senses movement and starts singing. It's got eyes and a mouth too. We came back from Melbourne not long ago, so we couldn't be bothered putting up our usual big tree. We broke tradition and opened the presents Christmas night because my brother didn't want to wait and nagged my parents to do so. 

I got my dad juggling balls from an online shop and he really likes them. He practices everyday and can do three balls now! I gave my mum a birthday cake cookbook and one pot cookbook and a very glamorous necklace from Lovisa (that she chose). I bought a cup for my brother (one from Chadstone). It's green and has a emoticon face on it. I think he likes it (I'm making him use it). 

I was spoilt silly by mostly my friends (shopping in Melbourne was my Christmas present from my parents) who were very thoughtful in the presents they got me. I can certainly tell that they didn't just get anything for me at random, but paid attention to my likes and little comments that I have made in the past. For that I am very touched :') 

Boxing Day

I went to Koorong Christian bookstore for a 20% off all items in store. I bought this book (I have been borrowing this from the church library and have had to pay overdue fee several times) so that I can have a permanent copy, because I think it is worth reading. I do admire Tim Keller (he looks like Professor X from X-Men) who is a pastor of Redeemer church in New York. He offers great insight and uses his intellect wisely. In addition, he does not promote the charismatic style some churches like Hillsong displays. 

Recently, Jeff and I have grown tired of crappy radio music, so I purchased these CDs to put in his car. I am liking Christian music these days. :) :) 

As one door closes, another opens

On the 6th of December, 2013, Jeffy graduated from University with a Bachelor of Regional and Town Planning. I'm so proud of him! <3 Here are some photos: