Entries from December 2007 ↓

Counting the days easily with my fingers for the arrival of 2008! To some the first day of January 2008 might just be another ordinary day. As for me, I look forward for the coming of that special day with faith, hope and love.

Faith makes all things possible; Hope makes all things work; Love makes all things beautiful.

When I was a child, my speech, feelings and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways. (1 Corinthians 13:11) I am a grateful guy who gives thanks like a child would no matter what the good things or the bad things are. Not many prominent events had happened this year but as far as I could recall it has been rather a fruitful and smooth year for me. Being a forgetful person, I have to keep on blogging because it is in blogging I found myself thankful for all the things which I had written.

Ten things happened in 2007:

1. Started my first wordpress blog at dliew.wordpress.com (January).

2. Submitted my final year project entitled Educational Module and Tool for Soil Consolidation (March).

3. Accepted by UTM to pursue my postgraduate study (April).

4. Went for a vacation to Bali, Indonesia with my three close friends; Ian, Chow Ern and Shu Ian (May).

5. Received my first Dell Inspiron 640 notebook (May). 6. Failed my Shell Recruitment Interview (August).

7. Obtained my Bachelor Degree in Civil Engineering with Honours (August).

8. My first time as an emcee for the Mid Autumn Festival organized by BEC Taman Universiti (September).

9. Joined 400 youth in Inter Camps Gathering (ICG 2007) at Bukit Mertajam, Penang (October).

10. Volunteered as a teacher for a Sunday School Annual Camp held at Skudai Catholic Centre (November).

This is not a new year resolution but simply some of the things I WANT to do in 2008. Let’s get the heat up so that I can power myself for another 365 days.

Ten things I want to do in 2008:

1. Get to know my religious vocation better by staying with some religious brothers or priests for a few days .

2. Volunteer as a Sunday School helper for my local parish.

3. Gain weight from 59kg to 65kg and build up muscles around my abs, chest and shoulder.

4. To read at least 10 self-help and investment books this year.

5. Spend more time guiding my parish youth, my great motivator will be St. John Bosco.

6. To be quadrilingual, specifically after I master basic German. I now speak, read and write English, Malay and Chinese. 7. Bring up our own choir team.

8. Plan for a holiday vacation within Malaysia, most likely Pulau Redang or Pulau Perhentian.

9. Submit my thesis by end of December 2008.

10. To stay chaste and pure until I made my marriage vow, if any.

It’s time to share with you one song which I love so much that I play it over and over again in my new Sony Ericsson w850i. For your little information, Josh Groban is my second favourite artist after Jay Chou. This song "You raise me up" reminds me of the days I was down and how God pulled me up so that I can walk again.

Download Josh Groban: You Raise Me Up

Just in case I won’t be blogging on 31 December, I would hereby wish all of you a great New Year ahead. I extend my most sincere hope and prayer to you who has been with me and my bloggy all these while. Happy New Year! 2008 will be extraordinary for you and me!

The golden rule of marketing, “when you can’t convince your customers, confuse them!”

Allow me to take away that confusion and unclarity of some information that was hidden from your knowledge. If you are a busy/lazy person who has no time to time to go through all the contents provided by DiGi, then this post is a must-read for you.

Amidst all the innovative call plans that have been introduced by DiGi to her faithful customers, one thing remains unclear – the call rates and sms rates. Every time upon coming across with such new plans, it is always a headache for me (other prepaid subscribers) to choose what suits me (them).

I took the initiative to cover “almost” thoroughly the call rates and sms rates offered by DiGi in my old blog. At present, most of my friends have switched to DiGi prepaid now. That’s a good news for me because I can sms and call more!

As we know, there are currently several subscription plans offered by DiGi: Chat Plus, FUYOH!, Beyond and Powerpack.

With Chat Plus™, we can activate and instantly call anyone on any network, anytime, anywhere for only a low flat rate of 36sen per minute. Meaning we do not have to accumulate RM30 and above in order to enjoy the lower flat-rate calls.

The call rates:

• 36sen per minute flat.

The SMS rates:

• 1sen (Friends and Family),
• 7sen (within DiGi’s network), and
• 15sen (from DiGi network to other local networks).

MMS charges are:

• 10sen (Friends and Family MMS),
• 25sen (within DiGi’s network), and
• 50sen (DiGi mobile to other operators).

Community Zone applies. No subscription fee applied.

With FUYOH!™, you can begin with the lowest messaging rate of 7sen per SMS to anyone on any network end your day with FUYOH!™ Hours which allows you to make free calls after the first 3 minutes!

The call rates:

• 48sen per minute (usage below RM30), and
• 36sen per minute (usage above RM30).

The SMS rates:

• 1 sen (Friends and Family),
• 7sen (within DiGi’s network), and
• 7 sen (from DiGi network to other local networks).

MMS charges are:

• 10sen (Friends and Family MMS),
• 25sen (within DiGi’s network), and
• 25sen (DiGi mobile to other operators).

Community Zone applies. Subscription fee of RM3 per month will be charged.

All else, you may just stick with Beyond, the original plan.

The call rates:

• 48sen per minute (usage below RM30), and
• 36sen per minute (usage above RM30).

The SMS rates:

• 1 sen (Friends and Family),
• 7sen (within DiGi’s network), and
• 15sen (from DiGi network to other local networks).

MMS charges are:

• 10sen (Friends and Family MMS),
• 25sen (within DiGi’s network), and
• 50sen (DiGi mobile to other operators).

Community Zone applies. No subscription fee applied.

With Powerpack, you get to enjoy sending unlimited SMSes to 6 Friends and Family contacts and MTV downloads. PS: Need more info on this. The below information supplements some of what you should know if you are using DiGi Prepaid. If you have registered your 6 favourite numbers for Friends and Family™, you get to enjoy a call rate of 15sen per minute as well as 1sen per SMS and 10sen per MMS to your 6 favourite contacts.

With Friends and Family Plus™, in addition to the 6 DiGi numbers, you can add another 2 favourite contacts of yours from other networks. In addition to the Friends and Family plan mentioned above, you will enjoy a call rate of 15sen per minute, 15sen per SMS and 50sen per MMS to the 2 non-DiGi numbers which you had registered. A monthly subscription fee of RM3 applies.

If you are in the Community Zone™ (college and university campuses and major shopping malls), you also get the chance to enjoy a call rate of 15sen per minute whenever you make calls to other DiGi numbers. Should there be any mistakes or other relevant information which you think has to be added do feel free to let me know. I will start recycling some of my Top Posts from my old blog to benefit my readers as well as to drive in more traffic. Way to go recycling!

Not knowingly, I have reached the fifth day of my holiday from research. Yesterday after attending mass, a group of forty plus souls headed for a steamboat meal at Mutiara Rini. It was my best time with all those BEC members and St Paul youths as well as MCG buddies. Pointless it would be if one group of people gathered together celebrating for nothing. We are, of course, having this special gathering to celebrate the success of our Sunday School Annual Camp entitled 《花样少年少女》要理班生活营. I would also suggest that this was our pre-Christmas celebration. When it comes to blogging, I’m always the first or second person in my community to cover these events. Another prominent blogger to be acknowledged here is Anna. While her articles are mostly Chinese-based, mine would be on the contrary English-based. This is another present for you, hoping that you will able to get more traffic to your blog.

Some of my MCG buddies suggested that I would definitely be bored to death during the university semester holiday. Contrary to their expectations, I am doing fine until now. Had I not joined the camp, I would have not get any closer to this group of BEC members and St Paul’s youth. We filled seven tables. Since I was with a bunch of youngsters aged between 14 to 23, we ate the most! Fr. Paul Wong, our parish priest also joined us for this celebration. At the end of the steamboat session, we performed “Deck the Halls” in front of the shop. Amazing! Today Chin Loon told me he enjoyed spending his quality time with kids and youngsters. I have to agree with him because when I look at them, I can feel the youth inside me. Besides, you can learn a lot from their view points and interests, while they can also learn from us young adults. I believe this is due to the not-so big gap in our age.

“There’s no point in being a grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.” ~ Doctor Who

Another crazy idea sprung up and with a blink of two eyes, we were at Danga Bay. Danga Bay or Teluk Danga is the largest recreational park in the city of Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. It is located near Istana Bukit Serene. There will be a Christmas countdown tonight (Christmas Eve) at Danga Bay. We strolled along the waterfront for two hours talking craps and sharing laughters. The night wasn’t so windy although its supposed to be a beach area.

Having said that Christmas is about to come, it also marks the fact that I better gear up my effort for my research when the new semester comes. I sent my Kelisa for a service this morning. Since the lady told me that I have to wait for approximately one and a half hour, I decided to have a drink at Starbucks, Jusco Taman Universiti. Lucky me for bringing along my notebook. I enjoyed my cup of Iced Caramel Macchiato and a piece of banana walnut muffin. Yummy! Time to concentrate on my work again!

What is Christmas anyway?

To some, it is a season of peace, a season of joy, a season of hope, a season of sharing, a season of forgiving and the list goes go. Yet to some, it is just merely a season of buying gifts and receiving gifts. Moreover, Christmas has become so commercialised that people nowadays do not really understand why the whole world is celebrating Christmas.

Santa Claus, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeers, snow flakes, pine trees, red-coloured socks and the like are slowly replacing the manger, the baby Jesus and the meaning of Christmas itself. This is what Christmas is all about to those non-believers.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to my readers! I am truly experiencing the joy and peace of this Christmas 2007. Carolling is has just ended, the best time of the year for family is coming up, and more importantly the hope of waiting for the birth of the King is so profoundly joyful.

I love the song - Oh Holy Night a lot. The reason I like this song very much is that it tells us the meaning of Christmas. This is the best carol! Allow me to put the words from the lyric into paragraphs.

The stars will be shining brightly on a holy night, this will be the night of the dear Saviour’s birth. The world has long laid in sin and error pining until He appeared and the soul shall feel its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world shall rejoice, for yonder shall break into a new and glorious morn. Let us be led by the light of a star so sweetly gleaming above just as the three wise men from the Orient land were led to the place where Jesus was born.

In all our trials He was born to be our friend who simply knows our needs and our weaknesses. Truly has He taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Let us fill this Christmas with sweet hymns of joy and grateful chorus. Merry Christmas!