7 Quick Takes Friday - vol.40

- 1 -

I'm very grateful that I took a very detail notes about my internship in India three years ago. When I was copied my notes about my trip to Udaipur in this blog, I still felt the excitement of staying in Udaipur even though it was only for one night. Surprisingly, suddenly I also received an invitation for a gathering of NOC India alumni (NUS Overseas College - the entrepreneurship program that I joined in 2011) next Thursday. I'm looking forward to meeting them again!! =)

- 2 -

My boyfriend shared with me this video about body language.

The reason he sent me this video was firstly, he studies animal behavior, particularly animal communication, so this video inspired him to do a better research. Secondly, I often used that phrase "I'm not supposed to be here" or "it's not me" every time he suggested something good for me =P

- 3 -

Yesterday I attended a Mass in honor of St. Josemaria Escriva. The celebrant, Archbishop William Goh, gave a very beautiful homily on marriage and family. It was really beautiful. Quoting St. Josemaria, he reminded us about the importance of building friendship with children and helping children to be virtuous children. Umm, I know, it sounds cliche and common thing to be told for parents, but seriously, in Singapore the problem of high competition among young children (or parents?) and over-enthusiastic parents to make sure their kids get all As and "well-rounded" (equal to sending them to many tuition classes and enrichment centres) has pushed the agenda to help children to be virtuous to the bottom of priority list.

- 4 -

Currently reading:



A good reminder of prayer, spirit of poverty, detachment, and mortification =)

- 5 -

This Sunday will be my first training to prepare my body (and to practice perseverance) for the Way of Santiago in September!

- 6 -

Two weeks ago, my friends invited a counselor and a lecturer to share about the most frequently asked question: to work or to pursue further study?

It's very comforting to know that there will never be "too late" for a further study. The current trend of pursuing graduate study immediately upon graduation without knowing why we do it, unlike those who have decided to be an academia, has created a little bit of anxiety or fear in me sometimes. The question that I often get is "When are you doing Master's?" rather than "What do you want to specialize in?" or "What's your career plan?", which I think an important question that I need to answer before pursuing graduate study.

- 7 -

I know it's a bit too late to share about this, but I can't help it! Last month my friends invited the author of Star Sapphire to share about her story as a novelist. This book won a High Commendation Award from the Book Development Council in 1986. It turns out that the author was a legionary (member of Legion of Mary) before! I was really amazed by her apostolate as she shared with us how she exchanged letter with her favorite author (sorry I forgot the name!) who was a lapse-Catholic. This lady even sent a Miraculous Medal to this guy (truly Legionary!). My first thought when I was listening to her was, "I should tell this story to my friends in Legion of Mary!" I don't know how to describe it, but there is this zeal of doing apostolate whenever and wherever she is (even through her novel), which I think is really a mark of a Legionary =) I will share with you about the novel after I finish reading it ^^



More quick takes at Jen's blog! =)

Openness

I really really want to write about this before I forget.

Last weekend's camp with the primary school girls was my third camp, but it was my second camp in a 'normal house' (my first camp with them was in a chalet). This time, the owner of the house even stayed with us (even though the girls could be "a bit" noisy). I really learn a lot from them. I am so amazed with their big heart in sharing their house with us for three days. Not only their house, but when plans change here and there, they drove us here and there too, lent us their bikes, watched with us during the movie night, helped us to select movie (because the girls were sick of Frozen and refused to watch Frozen for the...fifth time? - the first four was with their little sister at their home).

I remember last December, another owner of another house also shared with us how her kids took turn letting their friends stayed over in their house. I felt a bit ashamed sometimes. Let's not talk about "families", let's talk about "dating" first. I agree that exclusive time between me and boyfriend is important, but I often forget that spending time with our friends as a couple too is equally important. I do enjoy double-date or triple-date, but I do not count it as "normal quality time" and with our limited time, I often complain of lack of time!

After this camp last weekend, I was reminded once again, how beautiful it is to open our heart, our personal space, and our time to be spent with other people.

Truly, this girls' club has taught me a lot (and I still need to learn a lot too!)

Nostalgia about Udaipur

 
I told Jasmine, my friend who is spending her summer in Japan, that I dream of making a travel blog that also provides Mass schedule. I hope she's willing to write about her adventure in Japan and share with us about the churches in small towns in Japan! ^^

So now I am trying to recall my journey to Udaipur, a small town in Rajasthan, India, three years ago, to make this "travel page" filled (since I don't have travel blog yet =P)

I took a night train from New Delhi. I would strongly recommend that you take class 2-AC (with air conditioner and beds). I spent 12 hours on train and we stopped a lot on the way. On train, you can see that there are many people who entered the train without buying tickets. Therefore, it is not too safe to take non-airconditioner class for an overnight train journey.

I went to Udaipur with two other interns from the same company. We planned to meet our two friends who did internship in Udaipur and two other friends who did internship in Jaipur that is  only a few hours away from Udaipur. I slept really really well on the train =)

We reached Udaipur at 7am and paid Rs 50 to go to Jakdish Temple. We have booked a hotel name Lal Ghat Guest House. (We thought it was Lal Ghat Hotel, so we went to wrong hotel @.@). It was clean and it had a nice roof-top view of Pichola Lake. All hotels, guest houses, and cafes at Udaipur offer roof-top view =P We had a walk along the lake to explore the area around our hotel. We also walked along the market until we reached Chetak Circle. (Chetak = horse). We actually planned to go to Fateh Sagar Lake. After walking for quite some time, we gave up and took auto-rickshaw. This auto was the one similar to the auto in Haryana, we paid Rs 5 per person. I really love the view at Fateh Sagar Lake!!!

Jakdish Temple

View from the top of the hotel where I stayed

another side

Another side. I took this photo to show the "unpopular side" of the beautiful Pichola Lake. Poverty is indeed a big problem in India.

We took boat to Nehru Garden (in the middle of Fateh Sagar Lake) for Rs 125.

A Camel "parked" at the side of Fateh Sagar Lake

Yeay!! =)

The white wall is Nehru Garden

View from Nehru Garden

I hugged pilar everywhere like in the Bollywood movies =)

In the evening, we finally met up with our friends from Udaipur and Jaipur. We had a nice Western dinner near City Palace. (After 1.5 months eating Naan or Uttapam every day, weekend is our only chance to eat non-Indian food =P)
Our friends who did internship in Udaipur brought us to this hidden spot to enjoy the beautiful view of City Palace and a hotel in the middle of the lake:


The following morning, I left hotel at 6.15am because I didn't have any idea about the Mass schedule. I got the address and phone number but the person who answered my phone call didn't seem to speak English, so I thought, "How early could a Sunday Mass in a Cathedral be?" My only worry was I would miss the Mass because it is only a small town, that's why I tried to leave as early as possible.

Since I didn't know how far the hotel from the church was, I just agreed when the auto-driver charged me Rs 80 (1.20 Singapore dollars). But...it was quite near! (not walkable though). The mass started at 8am so I spent 1.5 hour exploring the Church, reciting rosary, and spending time in the Adoration room.

first impression: Why is the church so empty? Apparently it is a huge space to sit during Mass

Everyone rushed to Our Lady after Mass to honour her

So...here's the funny story about my adventure in this Church. I was kneeling in the empty Church once the church was opened, when suddenly a priest approached me and pointed to the church door:
"Put your footwear outside"
me: "huh?"
Father: "Put your footwear outside"
me: "ohhhhhhhhh"
(no wonder the Church is sooo empty).

Apparently in this Church, people take off their shoes during Mass. They also separate themselves based on gender (ladies at the right, and men at the left). One thing that amazed me was even though it was a small town, all people really wore their Sunday best! (If you notice the type of Saree that they wore in the photo, it was not the usual one that they wore on the streets).

So yeah..I finally attended the Mass in a local language (not Hindi, not Malayalam, I'm not sure what language they speak in Udaipur!)

Oh when you take the autodriver, you can just mention "Catholic Church" and the area (Bhupalpura). I think this is the only Catholic Church in Udaipur.

Details of the Church:
0294-2412279
Our Lady of Fatima Cathedral
St Paul's Campus, Bhupalpura, Udaipur Post

After Mass, I went back to hotel and started my adventure with my friends. We went to City Palace. It was very beautiful (and crowded!). They were really strict about photo-taking restriction. We needed to deposit our cameras (that's why I don't have any photos of City Palace). There were a lot of Rajasthani paintings inside the palace.

After going around City Palace, we had this very cheap buffet ( I think Rs 70 for free-flow Dosa) at Natraj Hotel.What I remember was I walked quite far from the market area and found lots of interesting things along the way.

After satisfying ourselves with abundant lunch, we took cable car from Doodh Talai Sunset Point. With Rs 69 we could enjoy the beautiful view of Udaipur. It was drizzling during noon time, so in the afternoon we really had very cool and nice weather.

Travelmates! =)

Enjoyed our last afternoon tea before heading back to different towns again

This poster is unusual because it looks like posters in NUS, our university (National University of Singapore)

My friend bought this bag made of camel leather for only ummm.. Rs 1000? (SGD 30)

This shawl seller wanted to buy my friend's phone! He's so good in persuading us to buy the shawls =)

See you in the next post on Travel! =)

ps. Do you see how tanned I was??? @.@

Flower mood: Jan-June 2014

7 Quick Takes Friday - Vol.39

- 1 -

HR department distributed roses and chocolate yesterday as a "thank you" day. It's such an interesting way to remind us to say thank you to each other. My colleagues and I left thank you post it note for each other =)
I took Xiao Qian's roses and arranged them at home (in addition, I asked my housemate for her leaves. Hahaha). I hope I have time to buy filler flowers tomorrow. Too empty!

 - 2 -

My friends and I started having discussion about "dream" again.
It reminded me of this book:

I read it during my retreat and it really inspired me to keep up my dream alive.
I understand it's very hard to dream and constantly "change" your dream. Furthermore, I'm a type of person who is quite ambitious. Once I aim at something, I will put my whole energy into it. The most difficult thing for me to do is to "see how". However, I slowly learn to moderate my ambition.

- 3 -

This post is a quick takes over three weeks (Sorry!!). Last week I finally went to a market that sells fresh cut flowers. Crazy!! I had over-supply of flowers. Can you imagine they sell 5 stalks of gerbera for only $3.50?? (it's cheap!) Xiao Qian and I split our purple chrysanthemum because for $5, we got A LOT of chrysanthemum. However, even after we divide them, we still have too many flowers. Even though we have many flowers, we don't have enough variety of flowers. @.@ (I didn't want to spend too much money that day). Oh well, it was really a good opportunity to practice various styles of flower arrangement. I would say that day was the biggest failure though. I don't think the arrangement was as nice as the one I made before.

Xiao Qian and our "shopping" of the day

that huge bunch is $5

It's located at Upper Thomson Road. The name is Far East Flora

 

Style 1: supposedly "tall arrangement" Argh! I think I bought wrong flower. I don't really like the white one

Supposedly Round arrangement. I need to cut them shorter

Simple homogeneous style =)

Another one

- 4 -

 We got triceratops in office =) They made it out of cardboard (small pieces of cardboard, do zoom in the photo!! I heard around a few thousands small pieces of cardboard were used). Amazing!!!

This project is an evidence that large-scale prototyping is indeed possible! Their team was working day and night for one whole month!!

- 5 -

I have a new motto, inspired by the fact that my favorite canned iced-apple tea is always sold out in the vending machine.

"Life is like a vending machine. You don't always get what you want because things are sometimes sold out =P "

- 6 -

Tomorrow's girls' club activity is....KINECT DANCE! It's been a while since I did that. I should sleep soon so I have enough energy to dance with them tomorrow. Hahaha

- 7 -

Have you ever felt that the more you do research, the more you doubt lots of things that you did in your research? It's like...are you sure this is the way? Are you sure this is the correct method? Scary.... I wonder if it's normal.

More quick takes at Jen's blog!!