Mood: Extremely Tired
Listening To: Television.
As stated in my previous blog, I was away for 3 days and 2 nights to
attend the Confirmation Retreat; held at St. Anne's Domus in none other
than Bukit Mertajam. I think I finally fell in love with the
church there because of its environment, and the way its built.
From the gardens, to the church itself. The materials used, and
everything else. I'm telling you,
that's how a church should be. A holy ancient artifact..
The entrance.
If I'm not mistaken, the old church of St. Anne before the new one was constructed.
Beautiful.
Although I couldn't get a good picture and I was lazy to
take pictures of the place. I didn't want to. Something
told me not to. Hmmm..
Anyways, believe it or not, but this 3 day camp has made me realise so
many things in life, and the religion I'm in. At least I'm
finally understanding whatever I'm going through a little bit
more. And for the first time, I nearly felt it: Jesus Christ's
presence. But I could not feel him like the others did. My
facilitator said that I have an obstacle that diverts his presence away
from me. Advised me to pray every single day to find out what
that obstacle is, and I will demolish it myself, so I can feel Him
inside of me.
It's a wonderful feeling; that I've never felt before in my life.
I felt emptiness for the 2nd time during the healing prayer, and that
emptiness would be that "obstacle". But, during the first time,
my other facilitator startled me when he placed his hand on my right
shoulder from behind. Under a minute, I felt that his palm
touched my spirit. Literally.
From the shoulder; the feeling slowly spreaded towards my whole body, making me feel like I'm burning from the inside.
But before that, I observed the other Confirmation Candidates that
night. When Jesus Christ touched them, they lose control of their
body, and enter a short term coma. If they're standing, they
would be supported from the back so they wouldn't get a hard fall while
experiencing this wonderful moment. After that, they would wake
up; and sometimes, they would be in tears. I found out from
Vanesa that these tears, are tears to forgive a person, or people, who
has hurt you a long time ago. Tears of forgiveness, and they just
flow out, after being touched by Jesus Christ.
Amazing, huh? I don't know if you're going to be interested in
this, but for the first time in my life, I found this very
interesting. It's beautiful. It's..
life.
There's so much to write about when it comes to religion as its field
is extremely wide. So, I'll stick onto my own things that I did
during the stay.
On the Penang Bridge, there was a major traffic jam caused by some
accident. Wow. Everybody in the bus stared at it like as if
they never seen one before. I was busy reading
Joe Satriani: Guitar Secrets. A handy book for a rookie guitarist (I consider myself as one.)
But of course, one accident didn't make my day. In fact, as we
crossed the Bukit Mertajam borderline, there was ANOTHER
accident. Dope sial. Something worth seeing; if I had a
good camera with extremely fast capturing rate. But I'm always
equipped with a 6230i.
Yao yeng.
One car, and two motorcyclists involved. Don't ask how.
When we arrived, this was the scene already. On the other
motorcycle near the Proton Iswara, I remembered I saw a thick, but
small pool of blood. It made me think that this motorcyclist was
a rider who never wore his helmet; and bled straight from his
head. Gah. There's that.
And during the beginning of the Retreat Trip, I was rather a
lone ranger.
Maybe it's because during in class, I would usually sit beside Vanesa
and not get to know others. The others were at the back, being
noisy like as if they're having a rave party. But it's good to
see these things. A group of friends, doing nothing, but
fun. It's the bond that makes it so special.
So, after the motorcycle accident scene, we finally reached St. Anne's
and found out that there's a dorm behind the church. Called the
St. Anne Domus. Sweet. We checked in the dorm, and I was in room 112 along with roommates
Jonathan Tan and
Ramsey Westwood. Yippie. No need feeling awkward in those two. At least I know them a bit?
PS. Jonathan Tan is dope. I'll see him one day in CLHS because he's in charge of the PA system.. Wahahahahah..
Just like in NS, it's always good to be friendly than to be quiet
or
arrogant. Didn't really opened up during the time we got there
because I was tired and sick. Gah. Met up in the Functions
Room and I, alone, was assigned by my soon-to-be sponsor for the
Confirmation day,
Mark Tan.
Not to be mistaken the one who used to be in CLHS who switched to SXI,
but he's the one who was from Uplands and then switched to SXi.
If i'm not mistaken, his name is
Mark Tan Kiak Wen or something like that.
What did I do? Wasn't a scout, but picked up a thing or two
regarding knots related to building a Jury Mast during my NS community
service, when we visited the TLDM (Tentera Laut DiRaja Malaysia), or
for the lazy Malay-English translation - The Naval Base.
PS. Jury Mast is a temporary replacement for the original mast, in case if it is damaged
And that day, we had to build a
real Jury Mast. Which means the size would be equal to the mast on an
actual ship. Cool, huh?
Anyways, with sucky rusty knot tieings, I managed to get my "assignment" done:
The 2 rafia string clothesline-lookalike at the back of the room.
This was used later on the day to put envelopes for others to write some affirmations to you.
So, my room was 112. The air con sucked, the mattresses were hard
like my toilet seats, and the pillows were for those who suffers from a
stiff neck. And for those who doesn't suffer from stiff
necks/neck injuries/problems, you'll get one by sleeping on it. I
had a slight headache on day 2 due to the pillow. Nothing much
happened during day 1, because we arrived at 6 something, and the rest
of the night was spent with joyful sessions about religion. Some
were interesting, some were boring. And some were just perfect
times for you to get a good rest. In fact, I got my rest because
Father Mark said:
"Make
yourselves comfortable. You can do anything you want. You
can even sleep, but just don't snore. If you snore, it'll cause
distraction to the others in the session."
Dope sial. Free time to sleep.
The best time during day 1? Before we slept. I found out
that these sweet boxers of mine that I got in KL glows in the
dark. I was walking around in the room, looking for my bed when I
noticed I had green stuff on me - like as if some alien jizzed on me.
Conversation between me and Jonathan before I switched off the lights:
"Holy shit. Check this out!"
"Nice boxers. They glow in the dark.."
"Yeah man. I didn't even know about this also! I just got these boxers last week in KL for RM10!"
"Hahaha.. Serious? You don't even know your own boxers?"
"Hell no. First time wearing it, too. Check it out man! Dancing Dinosaurs!!!!"
I
got this in KL during my trip last week. I couldn't get a good
shot to show that it glowed in the dark. Guess you'll have to see
it live. Haha
Ramsey came by the room after I switched off the lights, but he didn't
notice the boxers because he switched on the lights. After he
brushed his teeth, he was shocked to see it too. Then all the guy
talk started from my boxers.
Ramsey: "Eh. Imagine if your dick stands up any moment now."
Me: "Yeah. It'll be like a lighthouse for dinosaurs or something"
- Laughters between the 3 nutasses in 112 -
Ramsey: "Hmm.. The air con here kinda sucks. I can't even feel the cold air, and the room feels really warm."
Jonathan: "I already set it up to the highest fan speed and the lowest temperature."
Ramsey: "Oh well. I've got an
idea. Let's sleep without the comforters, and when it gets cold,
we'll just pull up the comforters."
Me: "Good idea. I'm not used to the Dinosaurs yet, so I think I'll just sleep WITH the comforter on for tonight."
- Laughters between the 3 nutasses in 112 -
Ramsey's crazy. I never really got to know the person well until
we shared the same room. We had a tough time sleeping that night
due to our stupid jokes. Ranging from dancing dinosaurs to the
hardass pillows.
So, the fun all started in Day 2. Actually, it started after 6pm
where I finally got used to my surroundings and the people around
me. Me and Jonathan always complained about how warm the room was
due to the aircon and the reason that we have to stuff our key into the
keyslot just to get electricity. We had this idea to
steal the fan
"take
the fan without permission" and put it in our room. When we
passed by the female's room; we found out someone else had the same
idea. Plus, the female facilitator shared the same room with
them. Gah. So, we decided to go down to the lobby, and just
celup one of the fans down there. Soon enough, we had something that everybody else were awe-ing about:
It was really cold that night, alright!
Great. But that wasn't it. We realised that it would be the
last night, and there would be a of people who would be party-ing due
to the party animals who brought their ipods and speakers to tear the
whole holy grounds apart. So, since they had speakers, fun, cards
and everything else. Why, they even had drinks. But do they
have something that satisfies the hunger? Once again, me and
Jonathan went scoping around the Cafeteria and found a couple of
rations:
A loaf of bread goes really well with..
.. Tuna spread. The plastic bags were with curry puffs; the leftovers during tea time.
Never forgetting my personal favourite; papadoms.
I don't know, but we wanted to take the whole water container
that contained Milo/Ovaltine to quench our thirst. But that was
way over the line, so we stocked up on 6 mineral water bottles.
Later on at night, all the rules were broken. The first rule that was broke was
privacy.
Where you are not allowed to go into your friend's room, especially the
if s/he's the opposite sex. Hung out and got to know
Vanessa Chong Before-Christ,
Jessica,
Jaslyn Saw, and
Edwina better than I used to. We chit-chatted and
Jonathan Lau decided to share some ghost stories and his experiences around Penang with us until 3am.
Since we messed up the girl's room, they wanted to mess my room
up. Earlier on, they said that our room were much more messier
than theirs; but it all went the other way around when they stepped
into our room at night. All of us continued chit chatting until
some fell asleep, and everything ended by 5.50am
The next session the following
morning was at 8. It was cancelled because all of us were too
stoned to wake up by then. Postponed to 10am in the
morning. Wahahahaha..
I guess that should be about it. I'm glad that I attended this
camp as we brought ourselves closer to each other; and to God. It
was truly a beautiful experience, and now, I'm getting prepared to be
Confirmed. And I did not write down everything we did during the
whole retreat. There's just too many things to write about :)
"To get Confirmed; isn't the end of the course, but the beginning of a deeper journey in the religion."
Or something like that.
I'm off to bed. Goodnight. ^^
