The-Upperroom.com

I am very lucky! I have a husband who does not need to travel for work even while I occasionally need to. The last time he was away was when he brought his mom and sister to KL while I wo-manned the fort at home with the babies. Last Saturday, he brought his mom back to Swatow for a 2-week visit and that would be the longest stretch of time that he has been away since we have been married!

To cope, here’s what I have done,

1. Take out the GPS (or street directory for that matter!)
With daddy not around, mummy now has to be the one in the driver seat instead of chilling out at the passenger seat beside. And it is a known fact that I have absolutely no sense of direction at all, so bad that on Saturday, on the way to a full month party, the little girl suddenly, without a cue from anyone, started praying - “God, pls don’t let mummy get lost. Amen!” I nearly expired from laughing and had to slow down just in case I go up the curb!

2. Load up on Pi Pa Gao
Two pairs of ears but just one mouth to read the books, guess whose throat needs lots of nourishing?

3. Take out Mr Cane
One loud booming NO from the daddy is enough to stop the children in their strides. Now that the booming loud voice is not around, Mr Cane is making a lot more guest appearances. He actually doesn’t need to do much, just showing his face now and then is enough to achieve the effect of getting naughty children to obey!

Hey! that’s not really a very long list isn’t it? so there! I would lurve to think the mummy-not-around survival kit would have a longer list! *AHEM*

I wish…

Just like in the beautiful utopia world of Playmobil, the little guy would already be toilet-trained…

Slowly weaned off drinking from his milk bottle…

He would be able to self-feed…

and transition from sleeping in a cot to a toddler bed…

The little girl would become accomplished with using her camera…

and learn how to ride a bicycle…

and would be interested to pick up tennis, golf or horse-riding…

and most most importantly of all…

Both of them will play together without bickering or screaming or fighting…

I WISH!

I have something great to reveal!

Happy birthday Daddy!

Woof! Woof!
Cookie Girl

Well, today is the last day of year 2009 and I just sent a dear friend who was visiting from Germany to the airport last night. She took a well deserved break and stayed with me for the last 3 weeks and it has been wonderful just catching up with her. I could hardly believe it that the 3 weeks flew by with us just going to church together once, having lunch together twice, going to a concert together and having her celebrate Christmas together with my family on Christmas eve. We have known each other for almost 20 years and held each other’s hand when we broke up with our exs and dried each other’s tears, did crazy things like queue overnight for concert tickets and now we are both mothers of two.

And coincidentally another dear friend who is posted to India was visiting during this festive period too and I had to say no to meeting up last night and today’s lunch as I am meeting up with yet another group of old uni friends for lunch. Isn’t it just apt that this is the season for singing Auld Lang Syne and I am doing so many catch-ups?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

The words ‘Auld Lang Syne’ literally translates from old Scottish dialect meaning ‘Old Long Ago’ and is about love and friendship in times past.

I realised it is so much harder to forge good friendships as we grow older and which is why we should hang on more to our old friends!

Here’s to friendships and a brand new year of reconnecting and re-establishing old bonds! Cheers!

Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information.

What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, including one’s culture, and the interpretation of the perceived. If the percept does not have support in any of these perceptual bases it is unlikely to rise above perceptual threshold.

In the case of visual perception, some people can actually see the percept shift in their mind’s eye. Others, who are not picture thinkers, may not necessarily perceive the ’shape-shifting’ as their world changes. The ‘esemplastic’ nature has been shown by experiment: an ambiguous image has multiple interpretations on the perceptual level. The question, “Is the glass half empty or half full?” serves to demonstrate the way an object can be perceived in different ways.

Just as one object can give rise to multiple percepts, so an object may fail to give rise to any percept at all: if the percept has no grounding in a person’s experience, the person may literally not perceive it.

The processes of perception routinely alter what humans see. When people view something with a preconceived concept about it, they tend to take those concepts and see them whether or not they are there. This problem stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information, without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. A person’s knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed. When objects are viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that we don’t comprehend.

Now, which matrix are you living in? Have you ever questioned your own preception of the world? Does it ever occurs to you that some comments made by others simply doesn’t make sense to you.

Take afew minutes to learn more about Perception by afew experts who spoke at TED conference. Don’t worry, they start from the fundamental with great illustrations.

One of my wish is to attend a TED conference soon. Perhaps to have a similar inspiring network in Singapore.

Bliss is when all is quiet
and each little person is otherwise engaged…

and Groove is when you can dance even though you still can’t walk!

When I saw this, I went wow!!!!

Yes, I want a few of this bladeless fan by Dyson (vacuum cleaner maker). It draws in air and amplifies it 15 times using the same amount of energy as conventional fans. Here is Sir James Dyson explaining how it works.

Don’t you just hate slices of choppy air blowing at you when you use a normal fan. See the following to understand how it works.

I don’t think it’s available for sale in Singapore yet. It was launched 6 days ago in UK (13 Oct). We were about to buy another fan, I’m glad we have not.

I believe all parents reading this will be glad for such an invention. When you finally see it for sale in the stores, you won’t have to be puzzled like all those in the following clip.

Wait, before you jump and grab one…the fan is not designed with dusty and polluted cities like Singapore in mind. Those holes below (air-inlet) are likely to get jammed and cleaning may be a major issue. Nevertheless, it’s a fantastic product.

17 months ago, I posted a Pachelbel’s Canon clip by DEPAPEPE, still love that awesome remix.

Today, I saw something that surprised me. It’s the story of a deaf and mute girl who learns to play the violin against all odds. She played my favorite piece of music, Canon in D by Pachelbel, which was our wedding march-in song.

There is a little message in this video clip. Don’t miss it.

Inspiring I hope. Different people may notice different messages, depending on their priorities. Anyway, we all have dreams…if we put our heart and keep believing, each one of us can shine. Just like the Adv., but with or without the ‘product’.

Yesterday, I bought a book “The Dream Giver” by Bruce Wilkinson onboard of MV Doulos. By now, many people would have known the author, however, the first time I met him was on the 1st Sunday of 1990. Bruce was the guest speaker invited by Pastor Lawerence Khong to preach the new year message for Faith Community Baptist Church (FCBC). He preached about the Jabez’s Prayer. That sermon inspired a 3,000+ church to grow into a 10,000+ in less than a decade. That church impacted many nations during that decade. It was later published into a book and I think it was a best seller for a while.

The Jabez’s Prayer impacted my life greatly in the 90’s, but I’ve lost sight of it. Perhaps, I’ve lost sight of “The Dream Giver”. I’m going to read the book on my great white throne later.

Ok, I shall leave you tonight with another version of Pachelbel’s Canon played on an electric violin by sori1004jy whose youtube account was suspended. Listen to it before it’s banned again.

Kim Ji Youn (김지연, also known as SORI1004JY) is a very humble and modest Christian electronic violinist from Seoul, South Korea.

Her favorite bible verse is Psalm 150:6.

“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150:6)

“凡有气息的，都要赞美耶和华。你们要赞美耶和华。”(诗篇 150 : 6)

“호흡이 있는 자마다 여호와를 찬양 할찌어다 할렐루야 !” (시편 150: 6)

“息あるものはこぞって 主を 贊美せよ． ハレルヤ ．”(詩篇 150 : 6)

“Alles, was Odem hat, lobe den Herrn! Halleluja” (Psalm 150 : 6)

“Todo lo que respira alabe al SEÑOR. ¡Aleluya! (Salmo 150:6)”

If you know Psalm 150:6 in other languages, post it in the comment and I’ll include it above.

Enjoy the music again, recall your dream, remember the dream giver and live your dream. Yes, you can SHINE!

During the weekend, we went to visit the sail-around-the-world Christian ship MV Doulos that was docked at Harbour Front. It was quite thrilling for the children to go up the big ship but since we didn’t take the tour to see the insides, we only walked around the deck and then went to buy books at the bookshop on the top deck.

To be honest, Kev and I went up this ship many many years ago when we were still dating and even dreamt that we would go sail around the world in it once! Ah! the days of youthful dreams and ideals! The slight tug on the heart on unfulfilled aspirations coupled with bittersweet reminders that you lose some you win some!

Yet a smile on a certain little person makes you content and know that dreams can now be made together!

I taught Talia Ann to say “我是潮州妹” when she was much younger. However, due to the environment, she has adopted English as her mother tongue and was speaking ‘ang moh’ slang Chinese a while back. With much efforts to expose her to the Chinese language, her Chinese is getting better.

I guess it’s about time to put her through some 潮州 (teochew) immersion programme.

Let’s start her with Snow White in 潮州.

I was told that children pick up language fastest via advertisments. Let’s try some…

Here is an old 潮州 song about “walking out of the garden” - 出花园. That’s when a girl turns into a lady (adult) at the age of 15. Time to learn some teochew customs.

Which 潮州人 don’t know 门脚一丛梨?

Now, let’s have Chinese, 潮州 and English together.

When she is ready, I’ll let her take part in the global Diojiu Visibility Project.