Thursday, July 31, 2008

Minor Hiccups

If you guys haven't noticed yet, I've just added pictures onto the blog. These were taken during the HS weekend last Saturday, so enjoy viewing them. However the blog isn't showing all the pictures.. hmmm. Going to sort that out, hopefully will be settled today.

I have also put in youth videos at the bottom of the page but they don't seem to be loading onto the blog as well.. minor hiccup which I'm sure will be overcomed. So have patience, my friends as I sort out these problems.

Oh ya.. this Saturday no youth meeting k? I do encourage you to come for the seminar currently going on in church!

Monday, July 28, 2008

Holy Spirit Weekend

HS Weekend started at 1pm Saturday and our youths started trickling in within that time. I unfortunately didn't include Rachel's name (sorry Rachel! I missed out your form) but it was a minor hiccup. We combined with the chinese youth and we all started with an icebreaker. Ps Jonathan was a good speaker and what he said all made sense, didn't it?

The ministry time was also a real experience, when we invited the HS to come into our midst and minister to us. People cried, saw visions, received gift of tongues, ministered to. Wow! Praise the Lord for his grace and goodness. It was really amazing. I know the games were less fiesty and mild compared to the usual crazy games we usually play, but we had to cater for the chinese youth too. Never mind lah, we'll play those 'usual bien tai' games in our retreat, ok?

The guys slept in Alpha Hall while the girls slept in the rooms upstairs. I must admit I was really glad to see that mattresses were provided and that was really great! Although the mosquitoes were biting, there weren't as many as I dreaded. I don't know how the guys slept downstairs, which was pretty stuffy, but they were more troubled by the noise more than anything, I think. Some of the younger boys in chinese youth were noisier than others.

I was really glad to see Waltson, Mark and Douglas coming to join. It is truly wonderful to see them back again, and even though Waltson's holiday was short, he did come back to spend time with us (that's great of you, man!) and Mark.. Mark was able to get a day off to come spend it with us and get ministered to too. And to receive a gift from God tops it all, doesn't it? I am glad he was with us also, we've missed you, Mark!

It was really a wonderful time together, even though it was only for a day and night, it was still a great time. I hope everyone learnt something over this weekend and that you learn to apply those lessons in your lives!

Dota Revisited

I wrote about DotA 2 months ago with the aim of understanding this game the guys love to play every chance they get. And as Luiz nicely announced in the chat box, Jenny, Soo Man and I went to CX yesterday after lunch to watch 5 of the guys play their favourite game. Let me refresh your memory on what DotA is, which I extracted from Wikipedia last time and pasted here now.

Defense of the Ancients (often referred to as DotA) is a custom scenario for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for StarCraft. The objective of the scenario is to destroy the opponents' "Ancient", a heavily guarded structure in each corner of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters called "creeps". As in role-playing games, players level up their hero and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.GameplayDefense of the Ancients pits two teams of players against each other: the Sentinel and the Scourge. Players on the Sentinel team are based at the southwest corner of the map, and those on the Scourge team are based at the northeast corner. Each base is defended by towers and waves of units which guard the main paths leading to their base. In the center of each base is the "Ancient", a building that must be destroyed to win the game.

So.. let me tell you my ten minute exposure to DotA. The first thought that crossed my mind when I went in CX was "wow.. this place is so systematic and clean." The screens are all flat screen monitors, with earphones attached to every computer. Then we saw the guys all seated and playing their game. Waltson wasn't too happy cos he was losing, as was Edwin. So they started another round and I saw ugly animated creatures running around the screen (these ugly creatures are heroes, I think?) followed by other smaller ugly creatures (which Klement kept telling me are creeps, I believe that, man.. what an apt name for those things) and they were fighting each other. Then there was another bigger troll hurling stones at all the creatures running around the screen, which nobody seemed to be able to kill. Then I saw Waltson breaking and 'eating' some trees.. what is that all about?

Are all the guys groaning over my description.. have I just spoiled the fun of the game? Hahaha.. ok, we girls lost interest pretty quickly. Waltson tried to explain the game to me... but all I saw was little ugly creatures running around, some throwing stones.. lots of stones.. I think Jenny and Soo Man didn't even try understanding the game.. haha.. can't blame them also lah.

Well, I left CX no wiser than when I first went in what this game was about. My brain can only categorise and shelve this experience under "The things that guys do but girls don't understand." Hahahaha