back!

am back from my fantasy holiday to the gruelling grinds of work. :( went to London and Prague with the ACJC Choir and we participated in the 33rd Olomouc Festival of Songs 2005. We did well, got gold awards for all the categories we participated in (Folksong, Mixed Choir under 25 and Mixed Choir under 25 "Superior"). Got 1st for the former 2 categories and even got 100 marks for the 1st! This trip really taught me to trust God in all things, and He made all things possible.

Must tell you 2 incidents that happened during the trip - all regarding transportation.

1. We were supposed to go perform St. Giles-in-the-Fields church for our AEWF London leg. It's located in Tottenham Court Road, London. We went there on 2 buses - bus A and bus B. (I was on bus B). Though we left the hotel late, Bus A got there well on time smoothly. As for bus B, our dear driver thought that the church is in Tottenham! Now for those of us who are familiar with the geography of the UK, we all know that Tottenham and London are miles apart. So, obviously bus B was very very late for the concert! And the worst part was, the Singapore High Comm was there as GOH, and he had to rush off! But he (as well as the rest of the audience) was very gracious to await the arrival of the whole choir, and even stayed to hear us sing 3 songs. My take is, God made this boo-boo possible so that it gives us more time to prepare ourselves for the concert...

2. Flight from Prague to London was delayed for 1.5hrs, which meant that we had to miss our connecting flight from London to Singapore! And that meant having to stay in London for another night, which was enough, thank you very much! To cut the long story short, British Airways managed to make the flight from London wait for us, and we arrived in Singapore only 25 min later than the supposed time. God really works wonders!

OK, now for some Czech:
Thank you: Dikuji (got some symbols on top of the vowels, but i dunno how to add them... :p) (S'porean way to remember it: Chee Kweh)
How much is it?: Kolit To Stoy? (S'porean way to remember it: Collector's toy)

Will post nice photos when I get it from the rest of my Alumni friends. I didn't bring digital cam, so didn't take any photos... :(

Later...

"Why Men Don't Listen And Women Can't Read Maps"

So says the title of the book written by Dr. Allan Pease and his wife Barbara. Think I'm one living example who doesn't live by this title.

To start off, I can read maps, thank you very much. At least I make a better navigator than my dad!

Yesterday's course on relating well with parents proved to me that the 1st part of the title is untrue for the converse. I took a quiz to find out how good I am a listener, and to my "surprise", my score was 80, which made me a "fairly okay listener". And it's the lowest rung of the categories of the quiz!

Which propelled me to buy the book "The Lost Art Of Listening" by Michael Nichols. I've not read it, but from the content, I think I'll benefit. It covers things like how not to get defensive from the things you hear about yourself, etc. Will update more when I eventually get down to reading the book... :p

So there you have it... I don't listen... and I read maps! A counter-example.