ALL THiNGs ArE PosSiBLe

My left hand is so NUMB that i'm finding it hard to type on the keyboard.

It's already 1 32am and i as usual , drank tea to keep myself awake ... to practice. And this time is no execption , i stayed awake where i was suppose to be long gone in my slumber. Anyway , my hand is numb due to me playing the same few bar chords on my guitar! I am practising acoustic strumming on my classical guitar because no one that i know off is able to lend me their acoustic guitar to practice for this next few months. i'm SAD..

Was pretty frustrated when i found out that i couldn't get any guitar available , because the instrumental (us : 2-1plus3+1) ensemble are playing Taro Hakase's famous latin-like japanese violin song... for our coming World Music concert .. so C.H asked me to play the guitar and i being the person who loves to take risks decided to TRY though i often cheated my way through.. AHHAHAH ..

And all the while i've not been playing acoustic guitar the right way , which is strumming with BAR CHORDS but looks like now if i want to make this song successful and happening , i have to show some real stuff and stop pretending like i know every single POP instrument. (Yeah the last time round i self-taught my own drum skills and "cheated my way" through the Beatles Concert in sem 2) SHHH!!!...

So this time, i wasn't sure if it's going to work.. but i promised to TRY .. and after learning from other people's experiences , i need to know my own limitations and so i told myself ,

"Lily Tan . I'll give yourself A chance to try. If you can't get it done after practising , then forget the whole guitar thing and go back to your major instrument-don't be such a big headed person"

And so yeah .. i couldn't lend an acoustic guitar to practice , and so i thought of changing my RUSTY steel strings to a new set of acoustic strings. I went to work yesterday and bought my new strings for a very CHEAP price. THanks to you , nice guy. But the colour is weird though , 4 gold strings and 2 silver makes it WEIRD looking on my red guitar! (Didn't realize the colour difference until i reached home) . So i only changed the strings an hour ago ...

And yeah i tried strumming and learning the few chords for the song ... so far i've learnt and memorize the chords on the guitar .. BAR CHORDS that is... the chords make my hand so painful and those poor left fingers of mine are now hoarse and rough and the skin is tearing itself... but it's ok . I'm willing to suffer to play on the concert day. Though just for 1 song. aHahahhaha .... (have you heard of those few weeks/months intensive course just for 1 performance?This is it)

All things are Possible. Through Christ who strengthens me.

SO it is... i practised for about an hour and now i can strum the chords out with a much better sounding and got the right strumming pattern! YAY! I've not played this strumming pattern before so it's all new to me. Just like an alien .. i'm learning from scratch actually. Only my little experiences helped in getting some stuffs done.

I don't care... now that i've invested in a new set of strings and spent time learning the chords and practising i MUST make myself play for the song ... we've not started to play together in class yet because our class is cancelled this week.. so i hope next week or so i can show some more results. THANK YOU LORD!! It's really glad to know YOU ARE WORKING IN ME!! =)

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By the way , i felt that i've heard one of the most logical and best sermon in church ... Ps Leslie preached a 3 week series of sermon focusing on the purpose of PRAYER . Prayer is not about our needs , our lives , our worries or our own thoughts and material things (Which I ALWAYS ask for) ... i learnt also that our God is not like a genie where we just rub the bottle and He grants us wishes (which i also always treat Him like that) , and most importantly .. prayer is about

1) The God of "how much more"
2) Showing your submission to GOd
3) Doing the will of God

Then of course our lives are full of worries and anxiety .. but life will never be complete without knowing the Lord and relying on Him ... even Jesus once wanted to run away from dying on the cross for us .. until He acknowledged the fact that He has to do the will of the Father and that is to DIE on the cross and wipe away mankind's sins. I need to check on myself and honor Him .. as far as i'm concerned , i'm still far from being who the bible says every Christian should be.

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By the way, we had a great Mooncake Festival celebration the night before (Friday) in Poh Yee's house. This year i get to celebrate it with MOST of my YAAM friends ... and it's so nice of them to actually WAIT for me until i finish work so that we could ALL lit up the lanterns ... really thank you girls! Appreciate it! I never thought anyone would be so nice again to actually wait for me and acknowledge my importance , but they were really serious about it and i'm so touched by the fact. Sorry .. i've underestimated everyone's thoughtfulness and kindness.

We had a great time , while eating my supper all of us were chatting away and joking away ... the conversation became more and more lame and more and more poisoness... Den couldn't join us again , this time. Her streak of cousin's weddings is never ending! The rest came , and we had fun laughing .... taking all sorts of different cheorography of lantern pictures , and LAUGHING ... ahhahaha ... put a bunch of music students together , and you'll see how imagination go WILD ....
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Then Saturday came .... time for me to go to work , as usual... I'm suppose to be opening a new JMC class in October on saturday 2 pm .. but seems like this time the intake is not very responsive ..plus some misunderstanding happened in Ampang , so my si fu who was being very kind and supportive sms-ed me asking

"I thought you open JMC class in Oct 2pm? How come given to shiyaN?"

I got a shock to receive that and replied ,

"HUH? Since when ? Shiyan? The class is mine , Grace told me earlier .. are you sure??"

She was nice enough to help me check and confirm everything again because she overheard some people's conversation and finally clarifying that the class is mine. Then we started talking about the poor response and so i told her if it was OK for me to talk to the school about not opening if no one;s enrolling! I've been very sick of teaching 5-6 kids in a class and acting like a stupid clown !

She agreed and advised me... anyway to cut the long story short , some investigation went on and i found out that the enrolment so far is pretty discouraging .. so the final conclusion is that the staff will still call (Grace) the parents and see waht happens. If all goes well , i'll continue opening .. if there's less than 5 souls enrolling am not opening. I rather wait till Jan... honestly , i better pray no one enrols because in the first place i want to finish my studies first .. and secondly, this is the new syllabus which means i have to start practising my teaching all over again .. and thirdly , i'm so broke i don't want to spend on the CD and DVD which will cost me a BOMBSHELL!

Above all this , i want to thank my si fu .. she's been so nice to be there to help me and advice me whenever i need them. On the other hand , i don't mind at all being her postman .. helping her pass things around to people ... and receiving things on her behalf in KJ .. hahahaha ... whatever you say , i'll do. (this is pretty dangerous but nah i mean it)

I don't know ... tell me if i've lost my passion for teaching or lost my focus .. but i certainly admit that my heart is pretty much with my final semester in YAAM .... wanting to make the best out of it. I've got so much to do there and it's certainly going to be a busy next 4 months ahead. Please Lord ,help me through this and not struggle because i know You are there to provide. =)

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Talking about my load of work .. today i finally started my arrangement and i wrote so many notes that my hand started to be painful ... by 9pm , i got fed up and went out with Poh Yee for a cup of tea. I had a conversation with C.H the other day .. and now he's saying he might want me to change my EF piece ... he found another fusion song which he thinks is more suitable to me.. so i hope i will like it .. otherwise i'll be disappointed to have wasted some time composing the first section of the current one.

He wanted things to be completed by end of the year ... but i know his mind is on my Academy exam .. so i must strive to finish learning all my songs asap so that i can proceed on .. sigh .. talking about that .. i realize that i am not the only one. I read Ting's blog the other night and found out she has an almost equally amount of work to complete , except that probably she doesn't need to cope with teaching 6 J-courses classes. God is faithful , whatever it is .. He'll give me the best.

Everything - Israel Houghton
Everything, everything, Lord, YOu are everything to me;
Everything, everything, Lord, YOu are everything to me;
My treasure, my pri - or- i- ty, Who can compare to You;
Great is the measure of Your roy al ty,
Oh Morning Star, You truly are everything