Double confirm

I had a perfect plan for today: go for morning mass followed by a colleague's wedding after that, have my lunch there, and then go for my Japanese class. Of course I prepared plan B for a very likely event that I woke up late: skip the mass. Obviously I woke up late. I woke up at 830 and I was still thinking that if I could finish my bath and brushing teeth by 9, I would still be able to attend 930am mass. When I was done bathing, I realised that morning mass should be at 9am and not 930am. Oh well...

I guess God did his divine intervention again today. My mum sent me random messages as usual but she reminded me that today is first week of Advent. That was the reason I ditched my plan B. I went to my colleague's wedding first but unfortunately, the bride and groom did not appear yet. It was supposed to be from 1030am - 2pm as per the invitation card but I did not meet my colleague until I left at 11am. That was the latest that I could wait so that I did not miss 1130am mass. Lucky there was another colleague who was also early so I could ask her to help me pass my angpau.

The mass that I attended happened to be a Confirmation Mass with about 120 confirmands. Add another 120 grandparents and the church was packed to the brim when I arrived. Even on the second level I had to stand. I guess I should not be complaining since at least I got to stand against a wall.  It was very hot and uncomfortable. It is bad for me to say this but I think I felt less warm and uncomfortable when I saw the people around me felt more bothered with the heat and discomfort.

The guy next to me also kinda reminded me of myself. He was next to other 3 friends but seemingly only spoke to the person next to him. The conversation was kinda awkward too: "Are you going to have lunch with us after this?" and the guy said no because of parents or something. I can socially awkward in certain situations and often I will try to run away from social gatherings. Well, I honestly don't know why looking this kind of thing gives me comfort. I am weirdo.

Anyway the Confirmation Mass was really a blessing a disguise. That's why I say that everything that happened today was because of God's divine intervention. Although I did not feel anything Advent-related, the homily really struck me hard. If you don't have a vision in your life, your life will feel empty. What you do daily will not serve as missions to eventually achieve your vision and they will just become mundane daily work. If you have a vision, you will have the passion to do your daily activities as they serve as mission to achieve your vision and hence you will achieve your personal success in life. I say that the Archbishop's homily was really good. He did not only say the spiritual things but related those spiritual things back to the worldly things.

Hmm.. actually I do have a vision for my life: I just want to go to Heaven. Ironically, I don't know or perhaps I choose not to do things which will bring me to achieve my vision. It seems that I am just waiting for my time to go from this world by going through the motion. I don't give a damn about career and I am just working to earn money and to enjoy the money. Rinse and repeat. I hope that what I heard today will become something life-changing and not only being thought-provoking.

The mass also made me realise that perhaps having baptism and confirmation together is not a good idea. I was baptised and confirmed at the same time as I was baptised as an adult. I actually did not recall anything about my confirmation! I only remembered things about my baptism. I read back my blog post after my baptism and I wrote that the chrism oil smells good. Sadly I cannot even remember how good the smell is. Basically I don't remember anything about confirmation. I am wondering if I can be confirmed again. After all, we always say we want to double confirm things right? Haha...

Oh ya the guy next to me who reminded me of myself actually offered a handshake during the exchange of peace. May God bless him for offering handshake to a random stranger T_T I am usually to shy and awkward to even bow and smile to strangers during the exchange of peace. Most of the time, people only pay attention to their own friends or families and ignore the strangers. That is the sad reality of our church.

My Japanese lesson is getting more challenging T_T but I am still enjoying them. I really think that having no examinations and learning at my own pace with no stress is a very good learning experience. It does not stress me out or burns me out. For example, I was busy for the past week that I had no time to revise. I was a bit lost today but it is okay. I think I should be able to have more time to catch up this week. As an adult learner, I think examinations are not good. It is really a one size fits all approach and those who do not fit into such approach will just be left out or left behind.

It is quite sad to think that I had negative perceptions with music as well as Mandarin. I went for organ lessons for many years and I stopped just before I moved to Singapore. I actually like playing music. In fact, when I go home for holidays, I often dream about waking up late for my organ classes when I have my afternoon nap on Wednesdays. I like music but I really have no talent. I was struggling in the last 1-2 years before I stopped the lessons altogether, although the reason for stopping was my moving overseas, as I just had no talent for the improvisation and hearing components of the examinations. The last 2 examinations that I sat for made me really stressed because I was scared of failing. I had no problem with playing the music of my choice as well as sight reading but I really could not do the hearing. Similarly with my Mandarin module. Because of the semester system, the pace for the second module was too fast for me and I simply lost it. I barely passed the module (although I S/U-ed it). I did not mind continuing but since I already lost halfway the second module, there was no way I could follow the third one. Hence I stopped. Bleah.. hopefully my desire to be able to go shopping in Japan alone is strong enough to sustain my interest in nihongo o benkyou shimasu. Lol..

I was ready to miss AFA 2015 again because of my tight schedule for the past 3 days. I forced myself to end work early on Friday so that I had the chance to at least go for awhile. I did and I was pretty disappointed. I actually finished walking around in just an hour. I reached there about 6pm and I was surprised to see so many Nendoroids being sold out T_T That was only the first day leh!! I actually wanted to get Haikyuu's Tobio and Hinata Nendoroids ($45 each) as well as the playsets for Nendoroids ($35 per set). I was tempted to try some Ichiban Kuji but most of the interesting prizes were already won! Some of the Kujis, like the Natsume Yuujincho, were already fully redeemed. Like what the heck?? Only the first day leh!! There was no interesting or extraordinary display or experience zone that would draw crowd interest. The only interesting I saw was Titan cosplay o_0 which was basically a man wearing beige underwear with stupid expression. It was part of the show on the mini stage. Oh well =x The only good thing was that it was not as crowded as Saturday mornings because usually I go on Saturday mornings for AFA. It was the first time I went home empty handed too!! Most of the items can be found in the physical shops at cheaper price. In the past, usually I would discover something unexpected: be it very old items for clearance sales or very new items which were not at the shops yet. None of these things this time.