...but went to Universal Studios and saw Chris Tomlin in Concert!

...my lights cover dropped, and my car got towed.

I am supremely annoyed now.

Last night was a totally rocking Chris Tomlin concert, of which I will talk about in a later post.
One of the other exchange students agreed to come to church with us this morning.
Another one could make it only for small group, so both of them are coming to discover their Purpose Driven Life.
I am leading the discussion tonight.

And that is why the devil is trying to obstruct God's will.

Last night after I got back at 2am, there was no place to park cos someone else parked in my lot. There was NO other lot available on the curbside. Not even at the leasing office.
So I parked at the Permit Parking lots, assuming I had the right to park in my own apartment vicinity and not have to cross hell and high water just to get my car a resting place. Besides, it's not safe to walk around alone at 2am.

Guess what. THEY TOWED IT AWAY. In the mere SIX HOURS I left it there.
Thing is, if I parked in another resident's lot, I still might have gotten towed.
Result: Missing Church at the main campus. Missing another day at Universal Studios.

Another thing happened. The cover for the lights in my kitchen fell out.
It's not like the plastic covers of the same kind in hall.
This one's plastic but attached using Plywood and Steel bars.
I was standing in that kitchen just a min or two before the thing tumbled down in this massive ripping-cracking noise.
I would have had serious head injuries.

The thing that dropped.
Moved it so people could walk in there.

But I don't. I'm still alive. And I can have church right here in my own home. While I'm waiting for the apartment manager to get to work at 12pm. There's another church service at 4.30pm. We're still going for small group.

I CHOOSE TO PRAISE GOD IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE.
I don't care what the world throws at me now. It's gonna be alright.
Cos I know my God saved the day and I know His word never fails.
And I know my God made a way for me. It's gonna be alright!

The enemy's been defeated, death couldn't hold You down.
Gonna lift our voice in victory. Gonna make our praises LOUD.

We will sing sing sing and make music with the heavens.
We will sing sing sing grateful that you hear us when we shout your praise.
Lift high the name of Jesus!

PDL Day 25:
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." -Romans 8:28

Update:
Luan came to drive Ka Ho and I to the impound and we got the car back for $180 instead of $270. How many people get driven by a royal? And the charges were reduced.
We managed to catch the 4.30pm service after lunch at Luan's fave Viet restaurant. Nailed all my unforgiveness to the cross. felt good.
Small group discussion was GREAT. Leo and Ka Ho were blessed I think. The others were challenged by questions such as "why does Christianity deem other religions false" and "what are the conditions for heaven?"
Awesome stuff. 14 ppl came for cell in total.
still need more prayer!!

...so Deborah had to be my GPS

...and my mood.

I seriously can't wait to go to SF and get out of here for awhile.

Let's not even start on the schoolwork.

Or the fact that things keep catching up to me, even though they're such a huge geograhical distance away.

Sometimes I wonder why I didn't leave the months before the next semester at NUS free, so I could get an internship at Washington D.C., or even at least in Sacremento.

At the same time I wish I was back in sg to storm the political science department and demand my grade to be higher and stop being so wishy-washy and have some transparency in the whole process.

But then God promises "It shall be done according to your faith." (Matthew 9:29)

I have faith that there's a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). I have faith for big things that have not been done or seen (Isaiah 43:18-19)! I have faith that I will look back on this night and praise God for all the things that He will bring to pass from now on (Romans 8:28).

Amen!

...and had dinner at Debbie's house!

Remember the people we met at the Christian Students booth? Debbie and Grace are housemates and they live in this townhouse at...Columbia Court? somewhere near school anyway. the people who live there are all Christians and go the same church. Yvette and I got invited over for their weekly Thursday house dinner!

Apphia and Yvette! Apphia grew up in Singapore but her father's American so they came over. Good choice. Instead of getting stuck in ACJC.

Jasmine, Debbie, Grace. Jasmine's husband's a prof at UCI. They're from China.

Top: Grace, Debbie, Me, Jasmine.
Bottom: Apphia, Yvette, Johanna
The artwork on the wall behind is done by them, on Painting Night.

Me taking a photo of Debbie cos she didn't wanna join the photos.

There's Nancy! She was taking the group photo. She ran all the way around the table just to hug the rice cooker and be in the photo.

Carrots in ORANGE JUICE.

Casseroles, Singaporean Carrot cake, Kung Pao Chicken and Spring rolls for dinner.

Clearing up after.

Doing homework on the floor.

Their house is a nice place to live in, although I don't know how I would react to the bursts of loud laughter and giggling that seems to occur every 5 mins or so. Good times, good times.

...and had a Weekend Trip: San Diego!

Thank you, Martin Luther King Jr., for the long weekend in your memory.

The Ride

The Radio Station: Sophie 103.7 playing the same songs over and over and over again. Heard Sara Bareille's Love Song, The Fray's How to Save a Life, Ingrid Michaelson's The Way I Am, Linkin' Park's Leave Out All the Rest, Pink's So What and a few other songs for about 8 times each over the past 3 days. Why? Songs worth playing are worth playing over and over. That's what they say.

We started on our journey at approximately 10am and sleepily made our way to Carlsbad Premium Outlets to shop and have lunch. Everything was on sale! 30%! 40%! 50%! 60%! 70%! I got stuff from Gap like a new hat!! Which can be seen in use at the Wild Animal Park, Day 3.

People from the Dog Rescue Society set up this area in the centre of everything to get people to adopt the dogs. So cute.

On the way to San Diego! Another Flores road.

Like it says.

Panda Express! Chow Mein with various things like hot and sour soup, eggplant and tofu etc.

Cute Panda drinking.

We had lunch at Panda Express! Real chinese food. Just really oily. Loved the peach green tea! Barely shopped for half an hour after that at Banana Republic and just glanced at Guess before had to leave to catch the sunset at La Jolla [lah hoya].

UC San Diego at La Jolla.

La Jolla beach!
Took this photo cos the scene reminded me of God and how He watches over us like a father watches over his son. And He made sunsets like these to wow us. Indescribable.

Why don't the East Coast sunsets look like the ones here?? We played at the ice-cold water, dug our feet in the sand, watched the surfers (of all ages, including tiny kids) coming in, and tried to steal heat from the bonfires/bbq fires that other people set up on the beach. The stars and airplanes in the sky were amazing. When we couldn't take the cold anymore we hobbled (cos our feet were so numb there was no feeling) back to the car while listening to Little Wonders, which is the theme song of this entire exchange, by the way.

Dumping our stuff. Girl at the bottom was one of our roommates, Stephy from Germany.

Attached sink, bathroom and lockers.

We checked in at the Ocean Beach International Hostel, the photo of which I can't find. It reminded me of hall - old and creaky but surprisingly clean and modern. I got a top bunk above an English girl whom we never spoke to cos she was either sleeping or out. Dinner was at the Ocean Beach Noodle House. What did we order? Pho of course!!!

Lovely lovely lovely Vietnamese Beef Noodles!!
Look at how happy we were! Posing with a REAL Vietnamese prince. Really!

We went to check out the nightlife at downtown San Diego after that, at fourth and fifth streets especially. It was so cool, with all the live jazz bands and live rock bands and live pop bands. But we couldn't go in cos we had under-21 kids with us :( I really wanted to hang out at Croce's Jazz Bar (Jim Croce's wife started it) cos they were playing WATERMELON MAN but we ended up in Hard Rock Cafe instead.

My Vodka Cocktail.
Ka Ho being weird after ordering the worst drink in the place - Platinum Bloody Mary.

The next morning we had a buffet breakfast early at the hostel before setting off for the Zoo!It was fun riding the various contraptions of transport they had, like the cable car. But all the animals just kept showing their butts or sleeping in some shaded area of their enclosures. By 3pm I was tired and wanted to go off. Mexican food for lunch was gooood.

Breakfast: Toast, Scrambled Eggs, Oatmeal with Cinnamon and Honey

Kitchen and dining area. Hostel guests get to stay for free if they work for 3 hours.

Zoo!

Watching an animal show! Check out our bodyguards behind.

Sloppy Panda drawing by a kid, in the Panda enclosure walls.

Panda...eating bamboo...!!

Guess what!! The bird in the show flew away!! Keepers had to scale mountains to get it back.

To Little Italy!

Another Indescribable sunset, outside the restuarant.

Amanda checked her guidebook and recommended Filippi's in Little Italy. So we went to check it out. It's so famous that people queue more than half an hour to get in cos reservations aren't allowed on weekends. Look at the photos of the real food!!

The deli right in front of the resturant. Italian baked goods! Torture queueing in front of these for half and hour.

Real lasagne!!
(Bad lighting, sorry.)Real clams with white wine linguine!!
Real pizza!

We ordered so much that we had a whole pizza left! Tried to play the number game to finish the rest but we gave up after finishing the lasagne. Packed it up and gave it to Xian Cong to give his friend. For free entertainment, we went back to the hostel for Guitar Hero!! Out on the back patio, the smoke was suffocating, but the xbox was too mesmerizing.

The patio.

Guitar Hero!

The next morning, I drove us to the Wild Animal Park, picking Xian Cong up on the way. It was so fun cos everyone's so nice. Rarely do you hear honking on the roads here. Especially when I made two wrong turns haha. GPS is really needed here man.

Woohoo!

I LOVED this park!! It was like being on safari, even though I've never been to Africa before, I would imagine this was what it would look like. Giraffes! Condors! Gorillas! More birds! We watched two shows, one of birds, one a game-show-like thingy that was funny. Unfortunately, there was not that much drama cos all the animals went back into captivity willingly.

Ain't we cool?

Spongebob! You're here too?!

Munch.

"Mommy, I'm hot!"

At Condor Ridge, way above the rest of the Park. Hot air balloon ride in the background!

Scientific name of Gorilla: Gorilla gorilla gorilla.

Another Indescribable moment. Blurred cos in the car.

We drove back to Irvine and reality (SOBS) for 2 hours, dozing off in the backseat with the same songs blasting surround-sound-like. But not before stopping at an International Buffet at Garden Grove near Luanh's place. There was a filipino family there. And everyone else spoke either vietnamese or chinese. So american, eh?

Food! More food!

Our last stop was WalMart, but my camera and phone had run out of battery by then so no photos. Bought a vacuum cleaner and groceries to last the week. Yay! Clean floors!

Only two days of school this next week, whee!