May 25

So… no updates for a while, huh?

As one of my Uni lecturers put it – we’ve now entered the business end of the semester. Exams are in 3 or so weeks, and there’s no time for blogging when you have 3 assignments due in the next 3/4 days, especially when each assignment is more than 50% of your internal mark… :(

So, no updates. Deal with it – I’ll try and update my personal blog, but Twitter’s where it’s at. ^_^

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written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , ,

May 11

Dear reader, this is a tale of one thing that I did on the weekend that really impacted me. Interesting, no? Keep reading…

Friday was Radi8 Youth day, and it was alright. I absolutely loved the “Baby if you love me give me a smile” game, where someone had to go around the circle and try to get people to smile – it was awesome, especially when Dave said it had to be guy/girl – now THAT really made the game more interesting. ^_^

The real part of Radi8 Youth was when we were asked to write down something on a piece of paper, according to what God was saying to us. That was okay – it was the writing that was difficult. Maybe it was just me, but I really struggled to write anything of substance down – partly because the speaker had said that when he had done this, he then got out this piece of paper ten years later and everything on the list had come true.

This isn’t the first I’ve heard of this – the first time was on Twitter, in fact – a fellow Christian had done exactly the same thing, and like the speaker, all of the things on her list had come true, too.

Now, this list that I talk about wasn’t just some wish list that we wanted to happen. Sure, the way that the speaker had set it up it was “sort of” like a wish list, (in that through God, all those things on the list would come true), but no – the list was mainly things that God said to us.

For some reason, I felt it difficult to write things down. It wasn’t peer pressure, or anything like that. It was just a feeling of: “What happens if I get out my list 10 years later and none of these things have come true? Does that make me a bad Christian?” Mostly, it was a fear of the unknown than anything else – what if none of my list items were fulfilled?

Maybe it’s because I don’t have enough faith.

Maybe it’s because I was scared of being a failure.

In the end, I ended up writing a list which was full of wishy-washy things, things like “be married (happily)”, “be happy with my career”, and so on. You’ll notice that I’ve left out specifics, and for good reason – I’m no fortune teller! I certainly can’t predict who I’ll be married to, or what I’ll be doing in 10 years time.

There was nothing of substance on my list – but I’m okay with that. :)

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written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , ,

May 03

Sorry to disappoint, but no, this isn’t a post about freshbytes closing down. :p

No, this is just another weekly post in the freshbytes pile.

So anyway, change happens. Sometimes for the good, but sometimes for the bad. I think sometimes that because change is different it is often accepted poorly, but there are genuinely times that change is for the worse, or, it makes things far worse than they originally were – but that’s for another time. ;)

In any case, something recently changed in Kingston; the Cheesecake Shop closed down, and Dominoes opened up.

Now, when I say the end of an era, the cheesecake shop had a special importance to me, because back in Year 11, I managed to buy a chocolate mud cake for a very special person.

It was completely hilarious.

So on that ill-fated day back in 2007 (pretty sure it was a wednesday), I went for an early Maccas breakfast with some of the guys. It was also the day of the particularly special person’s birthday, so I knew I had to do something. The cheesecake shop was just around the corner from that particular Maccas, so off I went. Choosing some cake wasn’t easy – oh the sizes, range, types! Chocolate cake, mousse cake, there were so many types of cake to choose from!

In any case, I managed to walk out with some chocolate mud cake.

Upon my arrival at school, I stashed the cake in a teacher’s fridge, ready for the end of the day, and with it, last period maths method with Mr Lineage.

Last method maths arrived, and with it, the most excellent cake. I walked to maths especially early – the day before, I had told Mr Lineage that we were going to do something special, so he’d already setup a table and everything for the cake. I plonked the cake down, took my seat, and waited with bated breath.

(The day before I had also told Adam to bake a cake because Mr Lineage said we had to – by some miracle he believed me, and had also brought along a cake. That he baked himself. LOL.)

Anyway, the moment came, and the very special person walked in. She was taken by surprise, of course – never believing that anyone would have gone to all the trouble. Sure, I didn’t bake mine myself, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

I guess you had to be there, but it was pretty amusing at the time. She ended up eating the caked baked by her own cousin, instead of mine – and that mattered a lot to me at the time, but seems so trivial now). I ate some of mine – it was incredibly tasty and delicious.

And also a lie. (Oops, geek refence here).

Now the cheesecake shop is gone, and there will be no more cake buying for me… Aww. :(

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written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , ,