bunny tales

Turning 23 on 23. Well, I guess it IS a once in a life time thingy. Yep! I am 23 now. It definately doesn’t feel like it. (Laughs) The best thing about it, I think, I only spent 2 hours and 30 minutes of sleep that entire 24 hours! The birthday "celebrations" started with a phone call ushering me into the exact begining of the day. I was online till daybreak. Well, I wanted watch sunrise, but a little miscalculation made it only possible to see the wonderful changes of color in the sky as it clowly lit up. I went to bed around 6 and then got up VERY soon after to prepare myself to go out.

Generally, I spent the entire day quietly with only close friends. I travelled down to Shin Nee-san’s place with Rajiv around 10 for lunch. It took us almost an hour to get there. Shin Nee-san is the only other Malaysian who I know here for the 3 years I have been here. She is a very nice lady, very Malaysian who Rajiv introduced to me from his church. She character reminds me a lot of mom and her looks like my god-ma. We sat down and caught up. Rajiv and I helped her to prepare lunch a little by chopping up garlic and onions, and she made us a great lunch. We had steamed fish, sauteed prawns, avocado salad, and the best of all, sze-chuan soup! Shin Nee-san even got this delicious cheese-cake and we enjoyed the meal together.

I rushed back to campus soon after we had dessert, trying to be on time for Ruth’s siging at the Mission Part we had on campus. The Mission Part was something like a evangelistic rally organized by the students of our school to share the gospel to the nearby community, schools, and universities. This was the 3rd one in TCU history. The first happend in 2000, the next during my first year in Japan, and yesterday. They always have it on Autumnal Equinox Day as it is a public holiday. Yep! I am truly special here as my birthday falls on a holiday! Anyways, back to the story… I rushed back and zoomed past a few birthday-well-wishers as I cycled back to campus. I made it in time and saw Ruth’s debut singing publicly on campus with Samuel. They were really good. We dubbed her rockstar! Samuel is a very talented singer too, he has his own albums. Good looking guy who was one among the others who gave me birthday hugs too! (Winks)

Later, we had a little "cake thingy" at the lounge of my dorm. Mark baked me a cake! Yup! Ruth gave him a hard time teasing that he didn’t even bake one for her. He went out buying the ingredients and utensils for the ocassion. The cake that turned up was good for a guy’s effort. It was a chocolate cake with frosting. I made them sing me happy birthday, the rock version teasing Ruth as the "rockstar" with hawaji-imam with vocal and body percussions, Sang with his rap, Rajiv hitting on the punching bag, and Mark singing the usual way. It was fantastic! We had the cake and soon after, I rushed off to prepare for a movie.

On the way out, I met Yuka and she passed me a gift. I was in a rush and we decided (later in the night) that we will spend the next day together. Oh yeah, talking about gifts… Well, I had my fill of cakes for the day. Shin Nee-san’s bought cheese cake, Mark’s chocolate cake, Yanagisawa-sensei baked me mini pound cakes to share with my room mates, and then dessert after dinner with Rajiv.  Yup! Hang the diet and bring on the food!

Rajiv and I went for a movie at the new cinema that opened in summer near our place, around 20 minutes by bicycle. We watched "Cinderella Man." Yeah, I still think Ron Howard is the tops at directing good movies. We then cycled back to the station area to have dinner at Cappriciozza, the official birthday Itallian restaurant that we always go to. This year, it was just the both of us, as I think Mervin was busy. (Well, I think he forgot as he didn’t even message or called!) We had our fill of good food.

I guess I managed to do all the things I wanted on my birthday. I got my birthday picture taken, my birthday "purikura" taken too! It was a quiet day, no wild parties or anything big… just the way I like it, with close friends and ‘family’. I will be heading off to the Kobayashi-home for dinner on Satuday, with me Yuka to have a small celebration there too.

I guess turning 23 is no big deal; but one thing I know for sure, is that I am truly loved. God has given me so many blessings through the people He has sent me. Love and grace, something trully experienced and learned on this day. Cheers, Suemae… to another good year of great health and happiness!

Happy Belated Mid Autumn! Well, it might be for us Chinese who celebrate according to the lunar calender, but Autumn reaches its height on the Autumnal Equinox Day on Friday. Time to switch your watches syncronizing it with the day light saving time for those applicable. I do hope you had the time and opportunity to admire the fullness of the moon in its beauty for the past few nights. I know I did on my evening walks.

School is running its 3rd week of classes this week. Technically, I think I am settling into its rhythm soon. There is loads to do. Adding to the schedule I mentioned the last time, I have loads of reading to be done, book reports and a weekly meeting to discuss my graduation thesis with Dr. Franklin.

Let’s not talk about my busy life. As promised, I would like to share about the current ACTS-es Program. Well, as most of you should have known by now, ACTS-es is the name of my course (Asian Christian Theological Studies for English Speakers). we had our first batch of graudates in July. Since then, we have been missing the presence of Mervin, Felimon, Christian, Rathieshan, and Niroshan.

This year we have a huge batch of new students, and they represent the world in a whole pretty well. We have 1 from the European continent, 3 Africans, 2 Indians, 1 Nepali, and 1 American. We are also having with us 2 exchange students on campus. Jacob is a movie major from BIOLA (the Bible Institute of Los Angeles), he will be with us for a semester, and Ben who is from Kentucky Christian University. Ben will be with us for a year. So, back to the ACTS-es Freshmen. We are going to have a welcome party for them thrown by the Welcoming Committee of the Student Council this evening, so, allow me to recap and give you a short introduction about these people.

Matthias Sebastian Krammel is from Germany. I met him once before in March this year during my intensive coure with Dr. Gustafson. We even had lunch together then, with Mervin and Rajiv. Matthias is interested in becoming a missionary in Japan and his requirement to do so was to be sent to us.

John Ekpangi Ewule and George Nya are from Cameroon, and Hawaji-imam Raphael Hart is from Nigeria. John is a kind guy about the age of 35 and his fellow countryman, George, on the other hand is super passionate about soccer. Hawaji-imam is 1.97m tall and his name means "God is love." Cool, eh?

Theim Ngaih Lhing Gangte aka BoiNu and Shilsila Devi Pukhram are from the Northeastern part of India. (yeah, I know our body of ACTS-es students has many students from that area and adding to the TCU population of South Asians). Boinu’s actual name sound pretty Chinese- Theim Ngaih Lhing… She and I were assigned to the same church. She is very interesting and sporting. Both of us are built quite the same. yay! I am not the biggest sized ACTS-es gal now. I have competition in height from her too. Shilsila, on the other hand, has a small frame and is very soft-spoken. One word to describe her, CUTE!

Sunil Pradan is from Nepal. An interesting character I must say. I wonder whether all Nepalis are that fun.

William Matthew Johnson is from America. All i can say about this guy is that he is very very well brought up, and he loves to cook!

Well, I know the descriptions that I gave are not very helpful. I will try to be more sociable and find out more about them. We had a photo taking session 2 Fridays ago for the new ACTS-es brouchure. I must say that we are an interesting group. We had tonnes of fun having our pictures taken and some of us even had dun taking pictures of the photographer in his poses and positions to take the best pictures of us. We had a blast.

As for the rest of the ACTS-es students, a brief summary is as follows.

Sophomores (2nd Years)-
Mark Christopher Beling [Sri Lanka], Seth Mbrego [Zimbabwe], Joey and Ching Boi [Northeast India]

Juniors (3rd Years)
Ashesh Acharya [Nepal], Sang, Rebecca Tombing, AnnDee [Northeast India], and Ruth Bobbie Karunia [Indonesia]

Seniors (4th Years)
Rajiv Mattu Kumar [Punjab, North India], Rose Mary Puro, Lalmasawma and Jewel [Northeast India], Eugene Watanabe [USA] and yours truly.

I am trying to upload some pictures online that you may have a look to match the faces to the names that I mention ever so often. It is still under progress but do have a look if you have the time. You can check them out on my blog photo album. Well, that’s all for now. I will write again soon. Till then, stay in the pink of health and be good.

Greetings. I hope this mail finds you in the pink of health, wherever you are all that everything is well on your side.  (written on September 2. Apologies for the "not-very-organized" postings    m(_ _)m   )

I first wish to extend my feelings of gratitude and appreciation to all who have made my summer holidays a great one. Thank you for your prayers and support in everyway. I managed to spend time with family and friends, eat my favorite food, and most of all, rest and refreshed myself in all ways. My only regret was not being able to spend as much time with you as I wished.

I am currently back on campus at TCU, Japan. I arrived safely on Monday morning and was welcomed by the humming and buzzing sounds of the cicadas, marking the end of summer. The large numbers of dragonflies in the air shows that autumn is already here. I just finished my intensive course on Cultural Anthropology that started on Wednesday (postponed). The academic buildings look brand new with the new coat of paint. A friend of mine commented that this place looks more like a mental institution now. After campus cleaning today, the place look really good. It was “return to dorms day” yesterday and I managed to meet up with my buddies and new faces of the new students of my course. What made this week back in Japan best was that I was able to meet few of my favorite professors again; Dr. Gustafson who was running the intensive course, Sugitani-sensei my psychology professor, Mr. Poulshock and many others. Wow! It indeed was refreshing.

Thank you for all your prayers in supporting me through the last semester. Thank God I am able to return as a Senior this semester. As you know, last semester was a tough one for me. I got my grade report for my Junior(3rd year) today. Well, I shouldn’t put any blame on others but thank God for the grades that I have. I am a little disappointed but I guess it is part and parcel of troubled times. I guess my Bs received for Dr. Franklin’s class on “Reformation and Evangelicalism” was for the lack of preparation in the presentation paper I was assigned on Postmodernism, Fujiwara-sensei might not have liked my presentation and book report on his subject of “Religion and Society,” and I guess I should have practiced more and had a clear mind when I sat for my piano exam. Nonetheless, everything else was fine and I managed to maintain the rest of my grade.

A new school year and a new semester will be difficult to settle down at first. I will be assigned to a new church this Sunday, have to play my role and take up responsibility of being a good Senior to my juniors. I will write again soon.

Ok. I know I deserved to be slapped for having this blog for such a long time now and have yet to post anything since the very first one months ago. I can come up with all the excuses in the world, but that will not be of much help either… so, I have decided until I can actually find the time to write my thoughts down, I will use this blog as a bulletin log of all my general mails to people… updating you with what is going on in my life over here. Stuff about my thoughts will (hopefully) come in later… please be patient with me and enjoy the read!

School officially started for me on Monday, September 5th. I must say that it IS different being senior. All the familiar faces of the graduates of the past term/school year, especially Mervin’s is well missed. I am in Senior year now, that means wrapping up all the classes and credits required for graduation and writing my graduation thesis.

This semester, my time table on campus is as follows:
Monday-
Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) [2nd period], library part-time job
Tuesday-
Voice Lesson [lunch break], Homiletics (a fancy word for the study of preaching) [3rd period], student council meeting
Wednesday-
Dishwashing [breakfast], Linguistics [8am], Japanese Tea Ceremony practice [lunch break], Missions in Biblical Perspective [3rd period], Systematic Theology I [4th period], Wednesday night prayer meeting
Thursday-
Japanese History [4th period]
Friday-
Piano[lunch break], Choir [4th period]

Choir, voice lessons, and piano lessons are subjects taken apart from my required subjects; TESL is something I want to do and Linguistics with Mr. Poulshock is an independent study. I will be wrapping up my term at student council. (yay!) it finishes at the end of October. As for now, I still have duties in Student Council Orientation for the Freshmen of my course and preparing for the End-year meet. I am also helping out in co-ordinating the Wednesday night prayer meeting. I didn’t know that we have 32 attendees last week! This semester we will be having Mission Party on Septemeber 23, Campus Retreat (September 28-30), Zion Festival (November 3), Messiah Concert (November 25). Yamato-sensei wishes to perform the Japanese tea ceremony at the school festival and I am interested to do that. My course mates are also all geared up to sell curry again this year in mass amounts in order to save enought for our course fund, which will be used for parties such as farewell and welcoming purposes. So, that’s about it. Oh yeah, there is also the speech contest in mid October that I wish to join and hopefully win (hehe). I am eyeing on the prizes that are book certificates/vouchers that I can use to buy books.. and I am also taking my Japanese Proficiency Examinations on the 1st Sunday of Decemeber. I should find time to work on my Japanese feasibly.

As for my financial side, I am still teaching English in my free time with Asakura-san. The Friday night class will start again next week and run for 10 times. I hope Uchunomiya-san and Abe-san will call me soon to arrage for classes. Since I will be busy this semester and should start working on my graduation thesis, I can’t really find time to go work for a real company.

Please pray that this will be a good semester and academic year for me. I worry on how am I going to handle my studies and financial needs… but God is good, He is in control and He will take care of me…. (along with all the loved ones over here that he has given me). Thank you for your constant support in prayers.

That’s all I have for now. I will tell you more about my newly assigned church and the current ACTS-student body we have next time.