Two Weeks Later

Famine's this weekend? Are you excited? I know I am!

So far we've raised over twelve thousand dollars in the name of less fortunate children all over the world. So... thank you all for your generous donations!

Here's a quick (not really) recap of what's been happening in the days (weeks?) since I last blogged.

! 15/6/07 - Friday

We did not get the ball back. Neither did we hear from the staff of MBS.

Life went on.

! 16/6/07 - Saturday

The Interact Club's kids carnival took place in school. It doesn't really concern most of you, but if you're wondering what a kid's carnival is, it's like a carnival, for kids.

Profound!

The kids were mostly from orphanages or impoverished families around Sentul. The majority were young kids, between the ages of six to twelve. However, the group had a couple of extreme values (that's maths!) in the form of two sixteen year olds and one seventeen year old.

All morning we kept the younger kids busy with musical chairs, station games and sand art, while the others joined us for basketball, football and stories about life in school and church.

Guy: So your principal is Malay or what?
Kevin: No, Indian woman. Used to be a man.
Jun Ian: HAH!

It was a good time. Our photographer guy took like seven hundred pictures in the few hours we were there. Not that I've got any.

Night heralded the arrival of Jamie Neo, here for the weekend.

Jamie: I will have mercy and leave your national landmarks untouched. The Petronas Towers shall stand.

Wow, really? Our humble nation is eternally in your debt.

Jun Ian: And which is your guide? The blind one or the bald one?

A few of us met up for dinner at Bangsar Village - Peako, Lih Fern, En Yaw, Eugene, Jamie, Mahadi and myself.

Peako: Where's En Yaw? Oh he's calling.
Jun Ian: Tell him we're at Nike. Don't say which one.
Peako: How many does this place have?
Jun Ian: Two. One sporting and one casual.
Lih Fern: So which one are we going to?
Jun Ian: Puma.

The restaraunt was a posh deal, but not without its shortcomings.

Eugene: I can't believe everyone's food is here but mine.
En Yaw: Why's your lamb taking so long?
Mahadi: Maybe they're trying to catch the lamb.
Jun Ian: Or maybe their sheep is giving birth.

On a variety of topics.

Jun Ian: Would you really give up a cool name like Neo for one like Mohamadon?
Jamie: Maybe... if you shorten it I guess.
Peako: That wouldn't be all. You'd have to change Jamie to Jamaliah or something.
Jun Ian: They make you do what?

! 18/6/07 - Monday

Dance practice started. It's pretty sad how we only have an hour a day for a month to get our act together for concert.

Practice hours per day: 1
Practice days per week: 5
Practice hours per week: 1 x 5 = 5
Weeks until concert: 5
Total number of practice hours: 5 x 5 = 25

That's like one whole day.

WMS FTW.

! 19/6/07 - Tuesday

My pet sister Joey's birthday.

...What?

junian?: oh wait!
junian?: how about a FISH!
?Jojo?: WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD I WANT THATT?!?!?!
junian?: no wait
?Jojo?: hahahhahahahah
junian?: if it died that would be bad
?Jojo?: WAT THE HELL MAN!!
?Jojo?: YEA!!
?Jojo?: that would be the end of our friendship!
?Jojo?: woot!!
junian?: who asked you not to take care of my FISH?
junian?: one day the fish i give you will save your life
?Jojo?: =____________________=
?Jojo?: if u rly give me a fish
?Jojo?: im SOOOOOOOOOOO gonna kill it

You will learn to love this sweet tropical fish.

! 20/6/07 - Wednesday

Wen Juin's birthday. Celebrated with boxes of Lindt and Chocolate Indulgence, which I discovered was the most delightful cake in the existence.

Some believe a new universe is created every time someone has a taste.

! 21/6/07 - Thursday

Keng Yee threw coleslaw at my head. I got her back though. I won't say where.

But it was an excellent shot.

! 23/6/07 - Saturday

CF Camp today. What can I say about it? It was awesome.

Like a religious rock concert.

Jun Ian: So you said you managed to get some of the best bands in the Klang Valley?
Marcus: That's right.
Jun Ian: How many bands are there in the Klang Valley exactly?
Marcus: Two. One for morning worship and one for night rally.

I went around to everyone's blog looking for pictures or a detailed account of some sort but I couldn't find any.

So I shall be the first. But there will be no actual pictures.

a Never Jumped

Ever been to chapel in the mornings? The barely audible vocals, the trash of the instruments, the futility of the piano, the crowds of Buddhists.

And the jumpers.

Don't know what a jumper is? In the language of our school chapel, a jumper is a person who gets so caught up in the music or worship during chapel that they start jumping up and down during the chorus of a fast song.

For example.

The thing about jumpers in daily morning chapel is that there's not a lot of them. The atmosphere's not that immersive, and people tend to be self-conscious. So what normally happens is that a couple of jumpers will start, in random places around the hall, then stop after a couple of lines.

Camp was not like that.

When XYZ, the second best band (according to Marcus) in the Klang Valley arrived that morning, one of the first things they did was teach us all to wave our arms and jump together, and which parts of the song to do what. Then they played Majesty.

The way the crowd responded was mind blowing.

z Hosanna

Worship's not all about hollering and jumping though, awesome as it may be. The Christians believe in quiet time and prayer, and we had that in spades too. As it turns out, the proper way to calm yourself after vigorous chapel activity is by closing your eyes and singing Hosanna like forty times.

d In Case of Emergency Break Dance

Pastor Andy Yeoh was one of those dynamic young church enthusiasts who never seem to run out of steam. His passion was infectious, and he spoke for an hour longer than the committee planned. But that was okay because he was just that good.

Right at the start, he gets on stage and starts bouncing around.

"Okay, I wanna try something out, and I need someone to help me. Is there anyone here who can breakdance?"

I freeze and my heart skips a beat as every gaze in the hall spins around to fix on me.

"Jun Ian!" Someone shouts.

"MARCUS!" I protest, pointing. Futile.

There I was, standing up on the stage next to him (I almost tripped on his Bible) and he starts talking again. He wants to make up a rap, about God. The drummer would play a beat, he explains, and he wants me to dance while he raps.

Before I know it, the beat is playing, the pastor is rapping and my inner voice is screaming at me in disbelief.

"My G-O-D is B-I-G!" Pastor Andy starts flashing crazy ghetto signs at the crowd, walking in true rapper style and looking at me like I'm supposed to be doing something.

"My G-O-D is B-I-G!"

No problem, I think. You can do this. Just step, bounce, step, bounce, cross and turn, step and slide... People are cheering. Guess this isn't so bad after all.

"My G-O-D is B-I-G!"

Step, bounce, step, wait, is Kay Lee recording this? Cross and turn, trip, whoops! Focus! Did anyone notice? Don't think so.

"My G-O-D is B-I-G!"

Step and slide, bounce and spin...

"My G-O-D is BIG!"

He shouts one last time, then it's all over.

m The Shoe and The Tower

The station games at camp were cool in the sense that most of them were original, creative and gave you sense of accomplishment to complete without being too challenging.

Except Marcus's game. Stupid Marcus.

I will not go into detail about Marcus's game. Suffice to say it involved running in circles with your head sideways around a stick until he was satisfied or you collapsed. No prizes for guessing which usually came first.

My favorite game was probably Caroline's. Construct a tower out of tape, newspaper and string. The tallest tower still standing after a blow from Zhou Wei wins.

The heights of the towers were measured in broomsticks. Before my group arrived, the record stood at three and a half broomsticks.

So I tied the string to my shoe and threw it over the branch of a nearby tree. The branch held. I lowered the string to the ground and we started tying newspapers around it. When we decided we were done, we raised the string back up to form a spiraling tower of six and a half broomsticks.

Thinking out of the box. It's awesome every time.

e Hallel

I thought the morning worship session was awesome. The night rally took it to a whole new level. The best band in the Klang Valley according to Marcus, ACTStreme took the stage. Apparently God loves to party hard, because pastor Andy returned to teach us moves that wouldn't have been out of place at a rave. Jumping as high as we could, punching the air, spinning in circles and gyrating wildly were all a part of worship that night.

I was up in front, next to one of the amps with Mike, Jocelyn, Grace, Tammy, Eli, Xyun, Hannah, David, Laura, Carmen, Mariko, Jon Yeoh, Zhou Wei and a whole crowd of people. It was insane.

There was a bit that went something like this, pastor Andy would call out,

"Give me a J!"

And we'd reply,

"J! We got your J we got your J!"

Which we did, with variations, for all the letters J-E-S-U-S and I just found that incredibly fun and cool. And then he taught us a new word.

Hallel.

According to the pastor, Hallel was a form of praise that literally meant go crazy. In accordance with some ancient party tradition, all of us had to take six steps, in each and every way, and then on the seventh, reach Hallel and lose ourselves completely.

"One... Two... Three... Four... Five... Six... SEVEN!"

Time slowed down as the lights flashed, the instruments rang and everyone threw themselves into a frenzy. The world around me exploded into a maelstrom of furious energy. I felt the vibrations of the crowd in the deepest reaches of my body, and while it lasted, I felt a sort of warmth fill me, and everything was clear in my head.

I guess you could call it a peak experience.

So much for my tale of CF Camp 2007 : Floodgates. There are a few things I didn't get to mention, like Ivan and Ju-Hann's sketch of the prodigal son, but it's actually past midnight and I'm really tired from staying up til two every night since the weekend.

I'm ending this post here, but you'll find out about what happened this week in my next post, most likely after Famine.

While you wait, why not have a look at my playlist?