Hey, No internet connection for a while!! >_<

Dear all visitors and honoured, loyal readers and followers of my humble... and insignificant blog (hahahaha),

It is with great regret that I inform you that I wont be doing much posting for a month or so starting from today as my internet connection has been cut off due to my moving house process. It seems that my new area hasnt got a phone cable up yet so its a really pissy off thing that really got me frustrated. Telekom had better get things started or I'll picket in their HQ!!

So, right now, I'm in this dingy little cybercafe somewhere in Taman Mayang, near where the old LUCT campus is (for those of you who dont know what LUCT is, dont worry, you're not losing out on any important info ^_^)

I've officially moved into my new place!!! Its really great! Though its not a good idea to post my new address here, those of you interested to know WTF (vulgarity :-b) I stay, pls do drop me a line and I'll be glad to point out to you ^_^ Oh, please note to my new email addy - phil.welcometomylife@gmail.com

Well then, until next time... ciao!

4 houses in 22 years - A little history about my past and present residences

Hey there everyone and anyone who reads this... ^_^

Reason why i hadnt been able to write anything for the past week was due to my hectic moving house schedule, a back ache which left me temporarily immobile and being a tutor to some of my dear students....

Yep, I'll be moving out and for those of you who are in the know, moving out is a big event in one's life. You gotta at least move out once or twice in your entire lfetime... Heh, heh, so far I have moved four times in my entire 22 years of living on this blessed place called Earth.

The first was when I was still a kid... too young to remember the details but my folks decided to one day pack up, sell the house and move all the way down to honey pot Selangor from Penang. Gosh, I still miss penang, especially some of my old friends who probably could not remember me anymore. Plus, never really liked the place we moved into... a cramped apartment in Subang Jaya. Still, we managed to survive there for about three years before my dad got all worked up and started to yell at my mom telling her he wants to move out cos the apartment's so cramp that it's like a prison... and so... we moved...

I have been living for ten glorious years in my present semi detached two storey house here in Petaling Jaya. It was a huge house, spacious and cavernous. It was absolutely perfect for us at the time. I had a lot of memories of this house. Some good and some bad of course. I went through Secondary school living in the same house. Unlike when I was in my Primary years when I was living in three different houses. Plus, I think my mom was actually quite confortable in it and had initially didnt want to move. After all, she became quite good friends with some of my neighbours.

So why the sudden move from this great place, with great location, you ask? Well, one major reason which I am quite ashamed to say - ME. Yep, my dear folks decided to move out because of ME. They bought the new condominium for me... so that I wouldnt have a problem getting one of my own property in the future. All they expect in return is to just be loving and appreciate and care for them. I know the one thing they always feared... that I would abandon them and leave them on their own. Sad to say, I did thought about leaving them and go my own way to live in some foreign land or just do my own thing.

You must be thinking how cruel and evil and ungrateful son that I am. I guess so. I had always had an uneasy relationship with my folks. It seems that we are always at each other's throats... well.. with my dad at least. I love my mom a lot, but she can be a bit unbearing at times too. But, please understand that I know that they do love me deep down and I do love them deep down too. But like many folks from traditional Chinese families, love is never shown emotionally and expressedly. My family's been through a lot. Its hard for outsiders to understand... but anyways, this is about my moving house.. not about my personal family history. Not comfortable about it being in public domain anyways.

So yea, the condo's for me. But there's another reason to it too, I guess. My mom and dad are well into their late 60's and for them to manage and take care of the house while I am away working most of the time is a bit too much and tough for them. So, the best otion is to move out nd get a smaller place and a condo was what I had always wanted and now I got my wish. I'm a happy and lucky person and I really count my blessings to be in such a good family. So, for you people who know me, if you ever catch me moping and griping about my family, please give me a good hard whack on the head... ^_^

Phil signing out...

Grace... such a beautiful word

Good evening to one and all! How did you all do today on this graceful day of the 5th day of the month, on the 5th month of the 5th year of the new millennium? 5.05.05. For those not in the know, the no. 5 is a great significance to Christians cos its a number of 'grace'. All the more, today is the day that we should all be thankful that we are living in this blessed period of grace.

Don't know about you, but I think there are no words in the English language more beautiful than the word grace. So what is this grace? What's so special about it? You should know by now that the grace I am talking about is something more than just mere elegance and smoothness of movement or behaviour. It's bigger than that... and it holds a deeper, more powerful spiritual meaning.

Grace is the ultimate gift to mankind from God. And it is because of His grace that God sent His Son Jesus to die for all our sins. A selfless act. A GRACIOUS act. All i can say that it is VERY, VERY special. So special not only to me, but it can be special to EVERYONE, even YOU! If you are reading this now, and you think I'm talking rubbish... I just want to let you know that this grace is what is keeping me going. If it weren't for grace, I would probably have ended up in a mental institution, driven crazy by depression and suicidal/homicidal thoughts. By God's loving, saving grace, I am set free from this terrible bondage! By His grace, I couldn't be more alive, more full of joy and love than I could ever have.

So, in this blessed day, I want to share with you, dear readers of my blog, that grace from God is the most beautiful thing to have. He's not asking for anything in return... all He wants is your devotion and submission to Him. It is your choice... to have a life full of grace... full of love, peace, hope, faith and compassion or choose a life full of enmity, hurt, depression, evil and deceit. Be wise, dear friend! Be very wise indeed!

"Thank you, my Lord Jesus for Thy wonderful grace. Thy loving grace is more than sufficient for me. It was because of Thy grace that had led You to die on the cross to save me from my sins. I thank You, Lord Jesus for saving me and I pray that I would be able to continue to serve You in whatever way that You want me to. Most importantly now, Lord, I pray that You touch the hearts of the people who are reading this, and may they know this wonderful grace that You want them to have so much. Reveal Yourself to them and may their life be changed in ways beyond their own understanding. In Jesus' blessed name I pray AMEN"

To the Chinese & Japanese - Please forgive and forget the past!!! Look to the future!

Whew, what a week it has been since my last post. In between giving tutorials to my beloved students and moving out from my current place, I could not help but get drawn into the controversy over historical facts that had set people from three nations and three cultures that are very dear to me into a frenzy of outraged protests, demosntrations and riots.

I am talking about China, the country of my nationality but not of birth, South Korea, the country which had recently interested me due to my exposure of Korean people in the international school I used to work in and Japan, the country that has held my fascination for a long time in the form of old Ultraman series, Transformer toys and today... Japanime.

What was the fuss, you say? If you had been following the news, it would have been very obvious that even though the World War II is long over and that Japan is not the country that it used to be in the old days, it still have much to answer for the crimes that they did in that period. Is it a crime to whitewash a terrible past? Was it really a whitewash? I can't be the judge of that as I still can't read kanji and have no access to the historical books that the Japanese had been accused of covering up.

Still, I believe that Japan had suffered equally as much and deserved the penance they had to pay when the Americans dropped A-bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And if they want to honour their war dead (war criminals to the rest of the world) it is their right. Why must the Chinese and the Koreans read so much into Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the shrine honouring their dead? It doesn't mean that he will become like them. And many youngsters today hardly really give a damn about what had happened during those days. Its only the older generation thats making a fuss. Why couldn't they just forgive and forget? Why do they still want to relive a terrible past? If only the people in the seat of authority take a step down to earth and see that we are living in different times.

I wish the three nations would wake up and smell the roses. Let bygones be bygones. Indeed, we should learn from mistakes done in the past so that the same mistakes would not be repeated but we should do so with an open heart and open mind. It is pointless to fight and argue and protest over something that had happened so long ago, something that Japanese of today's generation are innocent of.