Exhausted!!!

Having one sided headache right now and feeling awfully sleepy plus tired. Slept at almost 6am and woke up at 8am, because the Toshiba man needed to come and clean up my photocopier and his last day to do the job at my unit or else he would get firing from his boss.

Oh well, it was a long, long night as i went thro page by page, song by song and chord by chord one last time.... the completed artwork from the printer. Need to do one last check before i approve printing. I felt it was necessary because it would a gross sin if i spend $3k of church money and not put in effort to proofread the final copy before printing. Anyhow, it is a norm for the client to check the printer's ready to print file.

My ordeal began at 8plus in the night, after i got home from tracting. Decided not to check word for word against the hymnals or song books, but sing and play the guitar thro the entire book of 443 songs. Some of the songs i really dont know how to sing (from CP song book) and so i just made sure they appeared the same as i compared with our current songbook). The singing was rather funny coz i would sing at normal pace for 1st stanza and chorus and did a chipmunk or fastforward effect for the rest of the stanzas or song....haha... thot i sounded ridiculous!! Thank God i checked. Spotted 21 songs with errors. It was a mixture of typo, wrong word, wrong placement of chord and even no "Chorus" word when there is a chorus for the song. I even had the 3rd line of the stanza went to the 4th line... must had been the initial checking that i did when i was soooo sleepy. Perhaps hit the enter key as i dozed of or what.....

Listed all the errors in an email to the printer and also changed my softcopy. At 5.30am, emailed over to them and waited for reply. I honestly didnt know if printer would allow the changes coz when i submitted to them, it was supposedly to be the final copy. If ever there would be a change, it should be because the printer did an error and so he needed to redo. Now it is the client. It was wonderful Alan changed all that i mentioned and it took him whole day!!! He even helped me darken the lines of the guitar staff!! So nice of him. He is the best graphic people i ever worked with and it helped a lot with the same name thingy :)

And about 4plus to 5pm, received an email from him that it was ready for me to go thro. I was in Jurong Point then, had an afternoon outing with Rach. She needed to spend her Robinson's voucher and so we bought some stuff like shoes and bag and just before heading home, she convinced me to do a manicure and pedicure!!!! I had never done before and she said i must try. We sat down at the shop and soon we were both "conned" to do a complete treatment worth $48, compared to the initial $15 we wanted to spend per person!!!! Haiyo.....

Came home feeling so so tired, almost slept during the "beauty nailing time" and quickly checked thro the file. This time, i only looked at the ones that were changed coz he didnt do anything to the rest. And finally, they are now starting to print and God willing, they can rush out 20 copies for Eld John to use on 7 mar. Printer told me the stitching part is the one that takes a lot of time and they hope they can fulfill what they have promised. In fact, i am just so so grateful that they are rushing for me even tho i delayed them a few times. The world has nice people too.... and seems like he is a christian coz he typed this in one of his sms to me

"God bless your labour of love...."

Guess only Christian will say things like this. Anyhow, i am meeting him again and will seize opportunity to ask and pass a tract if he really isnt :)

Oh boy, i hope to sleep more tonight and sleep well too. Last night kept dreaming about something silly too..... Can someone hypnotize me into deep sleep??? :( I always envy friends who can sleep just like that, snap of a finger, and sleep really really well throughout the night. The quality of my sleep is extremely lousy these days. Now that the songbook thingy is over, as in at my end, O God, please give me good sleep.....i can do with a solid good 6-7 hours :)

February!

8 Feb.....my BD......

Whoa... it is now 26 feb and i just started to write about it. Anyhow, it all started on 7 Feb when the exco (initiated by Sharon) sprang a surprise cake thingy in Eld Boon's place. So sweet of them and there was one cake for Shing too. Hmmm...how come i have this strange feeling i wrote about this before.... Nvm, double blessings for those who read. Then Eld Boon whipped out the ELMO thingy and it started to sing something i really couldnt hear. Elmo is a "creature" i dont mind or have no strong feelings against and this elmo is rather amusing. It can talk, move and even chuckle...hahaha.... but i guess it only amuses kids coz after a while, it is like "ok...i am done with it, what's next?". Anyhow, it was nice of Eld Boon to spring this Elmo delight onto us and i could remember shing grinning from ear to ear.... you know, when he gets excited that kind of expression??? hahahaha.....

The actual day was full of surprises with presents and greetings from many people. Thank U all who have remembered the day but never my age (haha....who is complaning?) and i have pasted all the lovely cards and stuff in my study room, not to mention an essay from Ben with Maris Stella letterhead....lol! Greetings in sms have been saved and what else? Yah, the milk bread has been consumed.

Some gifts.....sunny (the brown doggy tag), jar of love notes and a mini fan that is to be plugged to my comp... cool huh?

And just gotten a ahem...."lotus-look-alike-tulip" lamp from Jamesy on Sun, Shing helping him to fix up for me so i need not "toil" over it.

Oops, last to mention would be Rachel's gift of a pair of new shoes of which i have not worn. I will not be throwing away the box for years to come. Why? Because this being a recession year, she has no more money to splurge on a BD card after spending on the shoes. Instead, she has written on the inner cover of the box a greeting for me.

And for isaac, he erh... forgot about my BD. We went to Jurong Point to have a meal after church and it was there that i got a present from him..... ear piercing. ...hahaha.... I had my ear pierced when i was in kindergarten and after many years of not putting on ear rings, one hole is closed and i couldnt even remember which one. The lady at the shop told me to do both ears instead since i failed to get the ear ring thro any of the remaining ear-hole i have. Sigh... it was short pain and WOW!! The right ear being the most painful between the two. In fact, i think it was the right ear whose hole has closed!!


And so we went to have our dinner at Din Tai Fung. First time there. Obtained a queue number and because we were a group of 3, it was relatively easy to wait for a table. Not too long and our number was called. Like from 72 it jumped to 86... u know what i mean :) Already preselected our food and it didnt taste too bag except that i couldnt even finish my noodle. Rac & Iz felt hungry still and decided to order one small plate of chicken to try. We didnt read properly some fine prints and so when it came, it looked good, just like those in soup restaurant. But when Rac put into her mouth, she nearly threw out. What was it? DRUNKEN CHICKEN!! It was so drunken in wine that it was repulsive. I thot it wasnt so bad, as in chinese cooking wine. But hey, it was hard to eat and swallow. Iz didnt even want to try. We called to the lady and told her we didnt know it was Drunken Chicken that we ordered and can we reject it coz it was really really hard to eat. She was very nice, took back the dish and cancelled the order. After the meal, i had a surprise little cake thingy from them. Isaac went to buy when i went back to the car to fetch my sweater (coz i was feeling too cold inside the newly constructed extended jurong point). The cake was lovely in fact and we finished it all. While on the way out to the car park, spotted the same cake from one of the stall.... hahaha.....

Dr lowly was not with us coz he was really sick. But he gave me a 10mega pixel camera... something i wanted to have for 10 years and so i was rewarded for that. So some things in life got to learn to wait long long.... got it???

Then last Sunday, 3 of us went for lunch at this Bollywood Veggie, formerly known as Poison Ivy. I just wanted to eat there and so we went. Here are some of the pics taken for that day and i must say, the food didnt taste as good years before. In fact, some dishes were really not hot but warm, which means they cooked in a big pot and warm up that portion for you. I dont mind that but at least serve me hot food lah! And also so slow in bringing out the food, plus getting the wrong orders and failed to inform us when the dish we ordered ran out of stock. We waited and waited and could wait no more till we asked and was then told "oops, no more!". Sigh.....

Hey, i wasnt even ready!!!!

Isaac being a responsible young man here, treating us to a meal...... heeehee.... No lah! I forgot i had no cash in my wallet and so he had to pay first. Besides, this place doesnt accept nets or credit cards.... :( And so, it was "memorable" moment while he went to settle the bill....

Being a farm too, they produce veggie and plants. Look at the humongous size of the products!!!!

Pics taken outside the restaurant but within the farm. We were told if we want to tour round, we need to pay $2 per person. At 1.30pm, we decided not to and head straight to church.

My sensitive nose did it again.....Ahhhhh CHOOO..... and Rac caught it on camera!

Anyhow, we spotted the scarecrow on our way back and took a few pics....

Oh yes, not to mention how scared Rac when she saw the scarecrow...... here was how she looked...... hahahahaahahah!

Beautiful rainbow!

I was sharing with JH & Ben on sat about the rainbow thingy and just last evening, there was one outside my window! In fact, it was Rachel who alerted me to the awesome spectacular thingy. I was too engrossed with the guitar chords that i didnt look out of my window.

How beautiful? Here are some pics captured with my new olympus camera (i think 10 mega pixels). But i aint no shutter bug and so i used the automatic mode to capture. Btw, it is not SLR just in case anyone wondering..... :)

I dont know if i did justice to the wonderful arc but this is all i have to prove it. This brought me reassurance from God's Word and also learn a whole new perspective during my QT the week before. I was sharing that i never looked at rainbow the other way except that it is God's promise not to destroy the earth again with water. It is His faithfulness and in keeping His Word. I now see rainbow as our shining testimony on earth. Let me elaborate:

How does a rainbow come about? Lights of ray shine thro droplets of water, right? And so, drops of water are equivelent to our trials in life, all the tears and sorrow and testings we go through. Even happy tears i count them in. But they are only visible as "rain" and rather gloomy if they dwell in that state. What is so beautiful is when rays of light shine through to give about the rainbow effect. And this means our testings and trials can only shine when we let God's light pass through us and through it all. Include Him in your lifes's journey. Include Him when you think you are all alone. Include Him when you are in pain or sorrow or happy. Let His light shine through you.... let God take control of your life, His Word being the lamp unto your feet and then your testings, your trials will be shining testimonies for Him as in the manifestation of the rainbow.

And so, yesterday, during my struggle with the chords, i was reminded of His faithfulness and my testimony for Him. Amidst my constant struggle with my illness, I give Him all the praise and glory for how He has seen me through and will continue to see to every detail in my life. I am not about to start a sick journal here but all i am saying is, with His light shining thro, my "sick" burdens have wings now. They are a lot more easier to carry around and sometimes, i dont even feel them anymore. It is wonderful and heartwarming to know there is only one set of footprints in the sand during the darkest hours in my life. And equally encouraging to know so many are praying for me....thank u :)

Remember, rainbow comes about with a combination of light and rain. Similarly, our trials in life are necessary for us to testify for Him. "God hath not promised skies always blue...." Remember that poem? Hmmm... maybe i will teach this song this sat......

Psalm 104:33 & 34

"I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD. "

JUST when i thot it was over......

I was "plagued" literally with guitar chords.....thot it was all over when i sorted out the nightmare on Tues but no.....


Yesterday morning, the graphics people from the printer (hey, his name is Alan too) called to inform all files received and stuff. They did a count and total 357 pages. They said the printing is done in multiples of 4 or 8 and so there will be 360 pages in total. That means, i will be left with 3 empty pages. What do i want to do with it.... hmmm.... my options:

a) Adding songs.... cannot unless they start with letter Y or Z and must be YO onwards coz my last song is YIELD NOT TO TEMPTATION. Hahaha....maybe put in Zacheus' song......nah.

b) Leave them empty or put little footnotes... like what? That need to think and need to look at other song books what they print at the back. Realised the acknowledgment part is usually at the back but ours is in the front already!!!! Cannot touch front pages now.

c) Extend the topic index. Our songs are now listed also by topics and some songs is not just under one topic per se. To do that, i need to re look again and add on and format the topic index... which is not very hard work but will need about an hour's job.

d) Guitar chords chart. Hmmm.... this was something i wanted to have when we first printed the book in 2005 but no time to do a proper one and those from internet are too blurry when copied over. Plus there werent a clear clear comprehensive list and so it was kind of put aside. And over the years, i realised there are difficult chords in the song book. So, if we have a reference chart, it should be good for the guitarists or any aspiring guitarists. But where to get good guitar chords? Copy from other song book back cover, as in scan and crop and align or copy little jpeg from web or wholesale from free website or what? This takes some time.

What did i choose?


D lah.... my first para tells it all. Sigh....at first i thot the idea was "noble" and it was needy and so i searched the net and found few websites that i can download the chord as jpeg or gif and then insert them as pics into my doc. Sounds easy and good. But soon it became very cumbersome.

1) Not all chords are in the same website and so if i want a comprehensive list, i need to mix and match from all sites and then we have cartoon guitar chord chart with different chord layout design. I spend much time going thru websites but could not find one that has all. Some needed to pay and there were donwloadable charts of chords but all seem too small.... as in they come in A4 size and i need to cut and paste and redo to A5. If i just use this and shrink to A5, i might as well catch houseflies or tiny flies, kill and flatten them into patches and print in the book!!! Er....maybe the other analogy is better but too yakky to write here.. you know, the black little dots thingy???? ok...move on!

2) The graphic file seem crisp and sharp but it turned out to be nightmarish again. Why do i say so? After inserting like almost 50 over chords and placing them nicely in position, realise some of the staff lines are not visible when printed and so were the chord names. Most of the top part were kind of cut off.... botak, u know? C, F...all didnt look like C or F. And there werent telltale signs when i first saw the file. They look so good.. even now, in my hard disk when i browse the pic files. For the words, i typed a text box over each chord name and positioned nicely and it worked fine.

3) Then i realised not jus the words and middle lines of the staff missing, even the side also missing....ah this, i solved it by making it thinner and not so fat until it overlap.

After solving every possible hiccup, i was still plagued with the missing lines and totally unclear pic. Time checked was like 3pm. What have i achieved? NOTHING! Then i thot maybe because this is A5 size and so the pics are unclear. Why dont i do on a A4 size and then use my trusty photocopier to shrink it before i email to printer? Sounds good too. I restarted from scratch and pull bigger the pics. Did the individual text box for chord names and this time, i was smarter. I tried about 3 rows of chords and then print them out to test. It looked good but argh....some lines went missing again.

5pm.......still nothing accomplished. Totally exhuasted and neck strained. I emailed to Alan the first completed file (A5 size) in excel plus the pdf and asked if he can help to see if they can make it clearer. Then i called to ask if he received. To my dismay, he has left office already. Should i wait for him to tell me this morning if the file is ok or should i do something concrete to solve the problem???

Yes, i could have done the topic index and finish in 1 hour but is this what i really want? To waste 3 pages like this when i can have the choice to do a better option? Actually the deciding factor was also with Alan. I asked in the morning if my spending time to do the chart will delay the printing job and he said no coz they are working hard on the 443 songs that i send over. It will take them whole day and since the chord charts are at the back, it doesnt affect them. The decision i made next was one that i was trying to put away since morning. it was a naggy thingy inside me to create my own guitar chord chart....a totally tedious thingy that i dreaded. BUT NOW, seemed like i have no choice. During the day, i wanted to give up and just take the back page of one of my song book to scan and then crop each piece up. But if i do that, i might as well recreate one and that would be so much clearer. In addition, the created chart would be a comprehensive list of chords which is much better than the limited ones i got off the internet from anyone source. The interactive websites are better... you get every single chord you ever wanted on the internet but copiable (haha...my new coined word) ones have fewer chords. One last reason why i didnt scan my copy was because of the visible yellow blots of stains, accumulated over the years..... :) Yup, it wouldnt be clean and neat and i would regret if i started on that and ended up looking lousy.

And at 5 plus in the evening, i embarked on a journey that i would never forget... something i never done before and enjoyed doing. Was choosing between word or excel and decided on excel. Firstly, when it comes to columns and rows, excel is good. But for time table and stuff, word is better coz more flexible. I needed 8 columns for 8 chords for each key and one row per key. Add to that, there are 5 small columns for each chord (6 guitar string lines) and 5 small rows for the frets in each chord. I even created two rows for slash chords.

Next came the little black dots for chord position followed by the teeny weeny white circles outside the staff to indicate not to press that string. Oh yes, needed the little curve thingy or arc to indicate bar chord stuff. And yah... a lot of drawing and slowly, i see the created chords coming up beautifully (my standard) :)

It was a lot of satisfaction after all the useless struggle. Now there are profitable fruits. Those many hours spend earlier were really time wasters....but then again, if i didnt go thru that, i wouldnt have been driven to do this once and for all to keep for years to come. Besides... i have one less copyright to ask for or copyright issues to worry about!!! HAHAAHAH......


And with that, i used up the extra 2 pages. Btw, the 3rd empty page is at the front, just after acknowledgement and before the number 1 song. Alan told me this in the afternoon. I couldnt do anything about this page because it has been set to print.

Here is how it looks like.... minus the grid lines, it wont be visible when printed:

Hmmmm.....and so, at 10.40pm, i finally finished the task and confirmed with Alan this morning, everything looks good. Thank God once again. Now i can rest my fingers and neck.... :)

FINALLY!!!!!

With one big heave of relief....i can finally drop "dead" on my study table, not after gaining bone pain on 2 elbows, neck spasm and stiffness, some mosquito bites or allergy (need to verify these), tired fingers (from typing), sore finger tips (from playing the guitar), swollen right shin (wondering why???) and TOTAL FATIGUE!!!!

YF songbook needs a revamp after it has seen the world for 4 years! Pretty long time tho i could still remember that year we were rushing out the songbook. Back then it was Carol & Sharon doing, and with Rachel helping in the design. I couldnt even remember if i did any editing....neither could i remember who else helped. This is not short term memory loss but a long one. Sigh... And so, it has been decided towards the end of last year that we will reproduce the book coz there are errors in lyrics, chords, etc. All these are not really the pushing factors. The main reason is we are running short of songbooks for use on Saturday!!!! Wondering where did all the backup copies we kept aside. hmmm..... and we dont even have enough to give or sell to YFers.

Background people - Sharon checked the lyrics while Lem did the chords. I did the final editing plus typing 78 new songs, including the insertion of chords. Sharon picked one song from her books to add in and James wrote a new Acknowledgement page.

It was a long tedious job but a needful one. With all the corrections from Sharon & Lem, i started doing last week. My initial aim was to complete over the weekend and hand over to printer early Mon morning but alas....it clearly wasnt happening. The typing of new songs were easy but choosing & finding which songs to go in took time. Adding the chords were a little longer than typing. Editing the lyrics & chords were ok but there were some songs Lem couldnt check coz he didnt know how to sing them. Most of them are from CP songbook and i had no idea too. Carol & Sharon helped in these & Isaac helped me for some of the songs too.

On Saturday, i requested for prayer to finish the song book by Mon. Didnt even stay with Yfers for dinner that night but rushed home to continue editing. Worked till 6am and was really really tired. Tried to sleep but couldnt really and keep having stupid nightmares.....so stupid till i cannot remember when i woke up in the morning. Had very lousy sleep of 2-3 hours and had to prepare for service.

Came back after dinner at Dr Lowly's mom's place and continued where i left. Tho i realised it would be really really impossible to finish by Mon morning, i had to try. Pushed and pushed till 5am and had to give up coz i think i created more errors than those i was trying to edit....argh... how do i know? Opened up the file on monday and saw some deletion of lyrics & some song numbers were missing too.....oh man!!!

Sms to printer on Mon morning to apologize and inform him that i can only email by evening. Had to run off to bring the car for servicing in the morning & then to dentist place to take out stitches....oh boy, that was painful. 3 sharp but short pain...at first i thot she poked my soft flesh with the scissors but soon realised she was pulling out the stitches. Anyhow, thank God for progressive healing,. One more week to go tho for a full heal.

At 9plus last night, i finished...as in checking thro, formatting and all. My nightmare started when i tried to convert to pdf and printed a few pages for sample. They were all A4!!!! This brought an immediate remembrance to what happened 4 years back....oh no... why didnt i remember before i started??? Why oh why???? Back then, the printer (it was Kwan Leng's team) had to shrink our A4 copies to A5 and because of the shrink, some last lines of certain songs disappeared!!! The other thing that i forgotten was to do the songbook with pagenation, as in more distance away from the centre core of the book, be it left or right page. I sms to William last night if his team can work with A4 but he didnt reply.

Alright, dont panic, change page setting to A5 and bookfold and everything should be ok....i was comforting myself, tho in such a lame way. Anyone who had done word or used word doc should know what to expect next. i did but i was honestly hoping for the best. With the change in setting, EVERYTHING, i mean EVERYTHING changed. The lyrics ran out of the page, the time signature had to be realigned. What was clearly the DISASTROUS consequence of all would be the guitar chords. They ran all over the place! Some of the chords didnt run and so since i didnt know which ones did, had to check all of them.

At 10.30pm, i had to redo all over again. Besides formatting, i had to look thro every chord placement and sigh....i could have been smarter lah!!! Bit my lip and told myself to do a proper format and keep this softcopy for years to come. But aiyoh... why did i not remember about page setting??? Could have saved me much much time. But hey, on the positive side, it was a blessing in disguise coz i found some errors and corrected them. Guess if i were to look at the file now and scrutinize, there will still be errors too.....hahahaha....

At 12 plus am, i couldnt take it. Did up to song number 115 and had to retire to bed. Started work again this morning and thank God, by 4.30pm, i finished formatting the entire songbook. WHEW!!!! Emailed to the printer so they could start work on it.

Well actually, i forgot to mention the cover design. With no more softcopy in my data (hard disk crashed), the printer only had a full colour printed out hard cardboard sheet to work on. Kwan leng passed this to me 4 years back and i kept it nicely without bending it tho i didnt know why i didnt throw away. Perhaps i had an intuition that i needed it 4 years later on. Nah...it was so beautiful and too precious for me to throw away. At first we were worried if printer could not scan a good pic out of this and we need to rush out another design cover or try to redo this one. Either way, it was something that we didnt want to see it happening. Thank God they did a decent job out of the hardcopy. And yah, sharon changed the spine thingy too coz the existing design is too squashed. For this, the graphics team started work last week and i confirmed the artwork this morning.

After emailing the songbook proper, i then had to do up the first 3 pages (foreword, acknowledgement, etc) and the contents at the back. Finished the former close to 6pm and the last task on hand would be the contents.....listed alphabetically and topically. The topical assignment also took time and some songs took me a while to decide which category to place them in. Hmmm.....at 11pm......it was finally over. The next task would be to get copyrights for the additional songs and to get ready the piano score book for YF.

Why the rush to give to printer? It is because back in Nov 08, while deciding to reprint the songbook, Tabernacle BPC has indicated interest to buy over our existing copies at $10 per book when we get the new ones printed. Our initial assessment of the quote would be around $18-$20 per book and so it was way out of their budget to get new copies. But with the very good quotes i gotten recently, Eld John now can buy 20 new books from us (or rather tag on with our order) to kickstart his new YF group coming up in Mar 09.

He has basically restructured his YF and all the older ones will be going to YAF. This is a significant moment for them and I know it means a lot to him. Since end of last year, i had been reminding YF exco to get this project done. Jan....busy busy month and erh....i should have received the proofread copies in first week of Feb but i guess with the CNY and lots of things to settle, it was delayed. But we have already promised Tabernacle of the new books and so i was still aiming for completion. It was supposed to be end Feb (as in finish printing) but now it has been extended to 6 Mar. William, the printer, told me if i were to give to him on Monday morning, they can give to us on 6 or 7 Mar (which is the day Eld John require the books). They needed about 2 weeks to do a good job. That is why i needed to rush so badly and had to forego sleep and fight against time. Eld John had told me if we really really cannot make it, he will use either the existing ones or our current copies (on loan to him)... but honestly, it is not nice for me to delay anymore. He has been asking about the progress periodically and i just felt that we could have done a better job. Besides, the printer is very helpful and they literally stand by last evening to wait for my file. They are trying to get at least 20-30 copies for Tabernacle to use on 7 Mar. With all these weighing in the balance, how could i just take my time with no sense of urgency?

I am thankful to God it is finally over and thank those who have helped, prayed for us & me. And i pray & hope all the errors had been spotted and our finished product is "faultless" :) Now, I can sleep peacefully....especially tonight......

A Fool :(

Thank you to all who showed concern and have advised me.  

Thanks to elderly Seah & Amy for their rightful admonishment.  I was indeed too gullible, too kind and not discerning.  I would call myself a STUPID FOOL rather.....ROAR!!!!  

Have learned from this mistake and will move on.

Thanks Angela for telling me the truth too.

And thanks to all who prayed for my tooth pain. It persisted Tues night to Fri.  In fact on Friday, i could feel the long long suture running inside my mouth. My dentist told me not to use my tongue to feel the area and let healing take place. And so i was very cautious not to do anything. She also said not to clear any food stuck there too. By scraping away stuff, it curbs the body's healing process and made it bleed. When it bleeds, it will give rise to infection. She told me it is better to live with unhygienic mouth for one to two weeks than an infection.  Words of wisdom??? HAHAHAA....

Thank God today the pain was almost gone. No nagging and dull aching too. Looks like healing is finally coming. But i am still eating plain porridge.  Broke the record for yesterday's lunch and dinner as i was outside. 

OOps.. time to go YF.... ;)

Amazing Pilgrim's Race - My Story

31 Jan - was the day for this race. In fact, my original idea was more of a treasure hunt but needed a "classier" name. Joyce suggested Amazing Pilgrim's Progress but was subsequently changed to Race.

How did it all started? Just my dream. Nothing more. I always dreamed of playing in one and since Dr Lowly never liked the idea of driving a car and looking for treasure, points orlandmarks in those yearly SingTel race (usally in malaysia i think)... my chances of participating in such races is ZERO. Then i thought about the YFers and it would be fun for them all. We had group leaders outing (of which they went round Orchard road looking for places identified from photo shoot) and food outing (taking public bus to look for eatery place). And so i thot why not a race that involved cars??

This thot came about when i returned from NTM & just before YF camp. Then i chatted up Carol and she welcomed the idea. Next i approached Alvin and he loved it too. Lastly, i asked Sharon and then the exco and yup... no one seemed to have objection, except that some were asking "are we having it for the sake of fun?" Not exactly. I did have in mind to have bible quizzes and questions and activities to do during the hunt... so as to make it more mind challenging. But then again...... so what if we are having it for the sake of fun? What is wrong with that? Outing.... is also fun and physical.

Anyhow, next came the biggest problem. The cars. I had already zeroed in on the drivers. It was supposed to be the youths themselves, including David (4th driver). Yes... they are not experienced like adults but i believe they are responsible and careful. Knowing youths, they would love and embrace the idea of driving the vehicle in their own groups to look for clues. This is really fun... as in not having a driver. I would love to do that too. And yes, being inexperienced and looking out for clues... it would be a two-time NO for me to get past the adults whom i would be approaching to borrow the cars... MPVs in particular. I reckon our YF would be divided into 4 groups of 7-8. Since i only had 4 youths who can drive and so it had to be 4 groups. I knew it was against all odds for this but since the youth drivers i spoke to prefer to drive themselves, i had to give it a try.

Angela was ok with the loan of her MPV but it has to be Alvin driving it. Then Joyce said yes to me (that was because she thot she was driving it...it was only later on that she told me Dr David wont allow anyone else to drive their cars). And Aunty Patricia... she was most supportive. She said she prayed very hard and at first she had no peace. Then she realised it is just something material and if we really needed it, she should lend us. If anything untoward really happen, God is in control and so she was able to tell me she had much peace after committing to God. But i was still short of 2 cars. The other mpvs were not available as in drivers using them or not in Sin. So, this self-drive thingy has to be shelved.

Next, i needed to look for more cars.. smaller sized ones plus drivers to cover the event. Alan, Michael, Ian, Eld Boon had to be roped in to help. In fact, they responded when i send out many smses to selected adults in the church. Thank God for their help. Initially, Angela, Joyce & Peggy were supposed to be in my comm to help in the planning. Joyce did help with some suggested places and when i knew she had to drive, told her not to participate in the planning anymore. Peggy too. But when i needed to do a recce, i had to enlist help. Couldnt do it alone. Angela & BK were happy to help out and Angela promised to pretend DUMB on the actual day when she drive the youths.

I did my homework before the recce. Selected few places that Joyce mentioned in an email, studied the entire street directory 2008 and plucked out places from North, South, East and West. Charted them down and indicated where to find them, as in which map page and square. This took me one whole day.

During our first recce... which was mid or early Jan, we managed to cover East & South. Couldnt cover West & North. We spend the whole day and it was hard. At our first stop at Changi Chapel Musuem, Angela advised me not to go back again to physically place the clues. She told me it would be very taxing on me and difficult too and looked like i might not have the time to do it. Calculating the no. of people who indicated they were coming, it was a total of 30-32 people. That meant i needed 7-8 groups. Considering each group had a set of 7 clues, i needed to plant 40-49 clues before the actual race. It would be madness. Yes, i could have put everyone the same route but i didnt want that coz everyone would be looking at one another and sometimes, they would not even figure out but follow the other.

Besides, vehicle too was a problem. Dr lowly had to be sent to work so i could use the car. He stayed in the office the whole day (i.e. he had no meeting that day) and i picked him up in the night. As much as i wouldnt mind doing this a few more times, i didnt have the luxury of this being repeated. He needed the car most of the time.

It was concluded that the drivers would have the set of clues but with jumbled up numbers. This would prevent some from cheating and open 1,2,3,4,5 and all to see what was inside. We wanted them to follow the sequence and then do it step by step. And the drivers were supposed to just drive according to the command of the youths. They were not supposed to volunteer to know how to get there per se. But it didnt mean if they were on the expressway and they knew the exit and purposely went the wrong one.

While waiting for my next opportunity to use the car, i started reading Pilgrim's progress again.. so that i could give them some questions from there. After all, i had to give at least one question to match the name of the game :) Btw, i couldnt plan or write clues coz i had not scouted West & North and needed to know those places I marked out are still existing. It turned out that 3 places i marked existed no more.... hmmm...why is the 2009 directory still indicating their presence in the map of Singapore???

CNY came. In fact, i needed to stop preparing before CNY. What happened? It was the NTM video. I had written in my earlier entry about the nightmare and so my preparation time for this race was put to a halt. When did i resume? Friday 30th.. one day before the race. As much as i would love to get all things done, i couldnt. Time was not on my side. I wished like Angela to have a 48hour period but nope. I was already suffering from lack of sleep while doing NTM video but thank God on Fri morning, early at 6.20am, i was able to wake up and drive off to pick BK. Why this early? Because i needed to bring the car back to Dr Lowly by 11.30am. He had an important meeting and i asked God to enable me to finish. I had 20 over places to visit and it seemed like an impossible task with 4.5 hours window period to play with.

Made a mistake that morning. I thot BK & I could grab a burger along the way and so i didnt eat my breakfast. I wasnt even thinking coz i forgot my route was Lim Chu Kang, Sembawang & Seletar... where to find burger. Not even coffee shop or hawker centre lor! And so at 8am, my stomach was growling badly. I didnt bring my usual bag and no gastric pills to pop. Only thing i had was a bottle of water. By that time, we had covered close to 15 places. Thank God... all concentrated within Lim Chu Kang. Our next stop was Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. Whew.. there should be an eating house there... i thot to myself. Yes there was but it was before opening time. Thank God it was just 5 mins more and the cafe outlet was opening up. The lady just started work and i was her first customer. I asked for the easiest... bread... not even toast. She said i had to wait but the fastest food she could prepare was sandwiches. Why not? And so while waiting for her to prepare, i bought off the shelf packet choco cookies. Whoa...food never tasted so delicious...hee..... Within 10 mins, i got my sandwich all packed. BK came out from the toilet long ago and she was helping me to finish the cookies too. She told me she did eat oats before she left home. At least she was smarter than me.... :)

With sandwich on my lap, i ate and drove on. Sped up when finished eating and energy boosted, By 10am, we covered slightly more 20 places. Then it was the long distance ride to Punggol. I told BK that if i didnt drive to Punggol, it would be a wasted trip alyogether coz i needed Punggol to break the long drive from North to East for some of the teams. With only 1.5 hours left to get there, find the few spots within Punggol and return home (thot i wasnt able to send BK home), i sped. Really CHIONG... Angela's lingo. In fact, i had been speeding all the while and thank God for safety and protection and no "stopping" by TP. Reached Punggol and was able to locate 2 or 3 places out of 4 and had to go back. It was about 10.50am. I drove at 120-130km/hr all the way on SLE and was able to bring BK home (since i was on SLE & went on to KJE). Stopped her at the stagmont road and turned back home. Reached at exactly 11.30am. Dr Lowly....he wasnt even ready!!! He was not changed and he told me he needed to see the car before he went on to change. SIGH... guess he didnt really need it at 11.30am but told me a time so as to get me home early. Anyhow, i was thankful he let me use the car and so no more complaints.

After lunch, i spend my time printing out all the photos for clues. Then i plotted & confirmed the routes for each group. After that, i went to the map of Singapore with all the areas shown and used a ribbon to measure the distance. I needed to be sure each group had a similar distance to cover. Discovered group A had a very short route and i changed. Found out group F had an unsually long route and changed that too. Measured one more time and almost all groups had equal length.

Next came the clue thingy. This took up soooo much of my time. I didnt know if i should give clues to the place or just something to spice up. It also didnt help when my comp couldnt connect to internet!!!! I had to use Rachel's laptop and tried and then shut down and turn on many times before it actually worked. I think it could be singnet fault too. Sigh. And so while experimenting and typing, i progressed very slowly. Time checked and it was night already, probably 9plus. The picture clues were already printed out and sorted by the groups. In fact i was telling myself if i could just finished them tonight, i could drive over in the morning and physically plant some clues for the groups... at least 1 or 2 spots they could hunt for real thingy. Alas, my brain cells and juice was just too tired to work.

For group A, i didnt use comp to type and print out the clues. I wrote them out at the back of the pic. Then i decided to be smarter and typed out the clues from group B onwards. When i got to group D, it was like 2-3am. I was really really exhausted but i had to go on. No amount of coffee would ever help me then nor any SIAN DAN. I plodded through and then i realised i should have indicated on each clue the next envelope to take or else there would be broken chain or link. For the bible verse and pilgrim's progress question, that one they were supposed to form or answer it and then send me sms for me to tell them to proceed to take the next clue. And so from group D onwards, i really planned properly and rechecked severally times. Very soon, daybreak came. Think i did doze off for 10 sec over several instances and needed to pinch myself to keep awake. Mind was awfully sluggish but my whole life dream could just only happen this once and the determination to get it through was so strong that kind of pushed me on. Besides, i didnt want to disappoint the YFers and it would be a total failure if i just gave everything up. I was quite harsh on myself because i wanted exactly 8 clues.. thinking anything lesser, it would take too short a time to complete and end the game.

At about 10am, i needed to redo group A-C clues. When i almost finished, it was close to 12noon. Looking back, i realised i was slow because i spend much time checking to ensure clues had no broken links but sad to say, there were some lah and i felt bad for not making it "perfect" for yfers.

I also realised i had not sorted the people into groups!!! I already planned who were the group leaders... the street smartest among the youths (at least i think they were). Angela helped me to pick them too during our recce trip. Did a quick grouping and i guess some groups were a little unbalanced. Sigh....

Got my quiz questions for them to do while traveling. WHoa.. no time to bathe and freshen up. Did a quick change and didnt even eat my lunch and raced down to church. Supposed to be there at 1pm to brief the drivers. I was late like 10mins and eld boon was "grumbling" away... smilingly.

Started to brief the drivers one by one. Realised group B had some broken links and so i purposely passed to joyce coz i thot as a lady, she would be more careful and meticulous than man. Besides, i thot she would listen and understand the briefing better. Men always look at big picture, even with the one-to-one briefing. Take for instance Eld Boon, i explained and told and retold and what did he do? he passed the envelope of bible verse to his group and they even started forming the verse while we were still in church!!! And Alan & Eld Boon never listened to instruction and thot those pointers i wrote on the envelope were the actual steps. I already said NO but they never listened. And so David were given the 6th or 7th clue without having to go thru 4 clues before that. That was why they ended up in Pasir Ris Park sooooo early! My fault again.... i probably didnt brief and prepare properly....argh....

Poor Joyce, she got confused at the end. And very soon, i heard the drivers actually passed the big envelope to the group leader and let them take control. Hmmm.. this wasnt right too. Sigh... i wished i had more time to brief the drivers but somehow they really werent listening.

Oh yes, Michael was not able to drive (he was having fever) and i had to rope in Mona. She wanted to participate too and thank God for her. I also asked my bro to stand by coz i was afraid i needed to use the 8th car... but then again, i couldnt coz i didnt have the 8th set of clues. Peggy agreed to drive Pat's car. And so at about 1.30am on early Saturday morning, i send a confirmation sms to Mona. She didnt read that. At 1pm, she didnt turn up. 1.45pm no sign of her. It didnt occur to me to call her. I thot she was delayed. 2pm and still no news. The youths were all ready to go but the 7th car was not here. I called her but failed. When i finally got thro, she said she was waiting for my confirmation. At that point, i honestly thot i fouled up this one and didnt tell her. Did i not tell her and thot i did?? Anyhow... what happened thro the night was rather blurry to me ...so many things to do and yah, i apologised to her and asked if she could quickly come down of which she said yes. After putting down the phone, realised the rest might not be able to wait and so decided to let the game start. i then drove James' group to meet their car and driver at lot one. Sped and spotted her car. They hopped over and finally i was able to go home, bathe and eat my lunch.

The calls kept coming in and smses. I tried my very best to respond. Each time one came thru, i stopped my car along the road and answered. When i reached home, my nightmare just began. James' group clues were with me in my car. I didnt pass to them when they hopped over.... OH MAN!!!! I could never forgive myself. And so, over the phone, i told them their 2nd clue and what to look out. Find it, take a group pic and call me for next clue.

In between the flood of smses, i tried to eat my lunch. And i am truly sorry if i responded slow. David's group asked me the most questions and i spend time on the phone with him till i couldnt reply the rest. Why didnt i get people to help me? I did but they were soon roped in to be drivers. And last min, i couldnt get any Tom Dick or Harry....Anthony volunteered but he had to rush out the accounts and plan for his chairing on Sun and since he didnt understand from head to toe and i really had no time to explain to him, i had to be the only one giving out directions or answering replies. I had already typed them into my communicator phone during the night as i planned the clues but i forgot to tell the youths to sms at that number. I used this method for the food outing and thot it was pretty ok. But i guess it wasnt this time. Everyone was so impatient and i would be too if i was playing.

What else went wrong? My routes... all from Lim Chu Kang, North or West and led up to East. My reasoning was that no one would like if i made them go all the way to the east and then come back to west. I thought if step by step progress would be more confident booster than the other way. Little did i realise so many people were unhappy that when it all ended at the east, there was no dinner involved. I had a family cny dinner and so i couldnt stay. I would have loved to dine with yfers.

Once again, YFers & the adults, i am sorry that you had to go all the way to the east and then went back home. Everyone was rather concerned about getting home. I was told that if i had planned for them to first go to the east and then back to west, most probably they could have dinner together and travelled home. Now that the drivers needed to go home, yfers had no choice but to rush back to the west with the drivers. Honestly to me then, what's stopping everyone from having dinner together and later go home on their own? It is fellowshipping together and Sin is not that big lah. Traveling on MRT or buses can be a blessed time too. But since it was the general sentiment, i stand corrected and yah...

Oh yes, i forgot to even mention after my quick bath, i needed to be at the ending place to greet them. I have asked Aprel to help me buy potato chips and mineral water and so isaac went with me in a cab all the way to Changi. Thank God we were early and about 30mins later, the first group made their appearance and the rest were history.

Looking back, i am thankful for so many who came and gamely played. Tho they didnt have physical clues to look for, they had to look for the place or the spot and so in a way, it was like a hunt. And also to put up with the pok clues and some broken links....thank u YFers for your patience. And to the drivers who were so kind to offer their services... i salute you too.

Lastly, i thank God for enabling and it was a really eventful JANUARY as i started the new year. Thank God too for good weather during recce and actual day. Only half of my dream came true that day. Not sure when it would be fulfilled totally but i am not complaining... already contented that part of it came to pass in my lifetime :)

Here are the pics for recce of which i didnt have photos from YFers to pair up coz 4 groups didnt email me their photos ;(

This is Angela's BIG FAT idea of making it look spooky...haha!!! mADNESS!

Thanks to my 2 faithful models who made life easier for me :)

These are pics taken that were matched with YFers on actual day - a replica :)

Chapel was closed when they got there and had to take pic from outside :)

All in all, the YFers were rather creative. Hope they have enjoyed their day and yes, would definitely do it again if i have the opportunity :) Shing commented perhaps there should be a comm and roped in YFers. But that would mean some couldnt play and it was my every intention that all to play and enjoy. Yes... this event was mega but thank God for enabling to do what i could with the little time i had.

Many thanks for Angela & BK for helping with whatever they could do, esp Angela who had so much things to do in Jan. She even tried to "borrow" Anthony's car for our recce. And BK... she was soooo sweet. She thanked me during the 2nd recce for asking her to come along. She said she was grateful to be brought around Singapore & to places she had never been to nor known they ever existed. :)