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06/04/07 - At last, I've finally returned to Asia! Or atleast that was the feeling I had last Sunday. Elizabeth took me to Palmers Green Baptist Church, the Tamil Church in North London, and it was great. It was Palm Sunday, so we marched up the street, waving palm tree leaves and singing songs (with the aid of a megaphone). It did feel a little uncomforting during the march, more at all the people watching us than being the only white person in the group. We then went into the church, sung more songs (with the words only in Tamil characters), had a month old baby introduced to the church, then I was sent off to the Sunday School.

I had been told that the church had been praying for a Sunday School teacher, and ironically I had been praying for a Sunday School, so it's good we've found each other. During the class (where the teacher kept calling me Kyle, instead of Huckle) I was told to give testimonies of my life as a Christian. I gave a brief summary of the four years of my Christian life, then gave a testimony about my time in Cambodia, in how lucky (or blessed) I was to have had Chan looking after me during my stay there.

Though I didn't get to properly know anyone at the church, it seems Tamil tradition still remains with some of the families there, despite them living in a modern country. Their teacher seemed to teach them to respect that they are foreigners to this country, but though some of the kids had picked up British accents, over time I should start to learn if they still have traditional values. Some kids were wearing the traditional dresses I've seen in Malaysia and India, and some women were wearing saris. But they're already keen to have me back, so I'll be going up there again in a couple of weeks. Just a shame Elizabeth and I had a rotten journey home, getting stuck in London traffic for three hours, breaking down and not getting home till 1:30 (missing the first live 90 minutes of Wrestlemania).

So the Tamil church was certainly the highlight of my week. Even more exciting than the police taking stuff out of my neighbours house in clear plastic bags. They've been up to some dodgy things (piracy and fraud, probably) and have been trying to move house, but the law has caught up with them. And I've been finding a number of strange things left stored on the memory cards of people's mobile phones at work the past couple of weeks, including pornography, someone trying to record a guy in the shower, and a recording of a prank call to a job agency.

13/04/07 - I really should have wished a Happy Easter to everyone last week, Sunday seems so long ago when it gets to Friday. This was my fourth Easter as a Christian, but I think I've only ever been to one Easter Service (at Taman Wahyu). Easter Sunday this year was spent at my Aunt Jenny's house, along with my relatives and cousins. I've posted a few photos from the day, including a pinata we all battered (though it was actually a string pull one).

I'll be going up to the Palmers Green Tamil Church again this weekend. I'll be going up on Saturday, staying the night, then visiting two churches, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. Hopefully I'll get to know some more people there a bit better... The Photography Section has undergone it's whole transformation, again. It's interesting looking through the Design Archives at how much the Album style has evolved, but I'm hoping it won't be so much work again when the next major design change comes around. But now that morning filler before work is completed, it's now back to the SimsBB drawing board.

Something interesting I picked up at work, whilst testing mobile phone radios on Radio Four, was the program Analysis, going on about how miserable the upbringing of British children is (but just briefly, this week's 'strange things found left on people's memory cards' was the beheading of a live pig! I couldn't brave myself to watch it all...). Some of the things that were mentioned on the show (link) were similar to some of the things I noticed when I spent time with kids in Asia. The main difference between why Asian kids are so happy, and Western kids are not, is because of material possession. Western kids get so worked up in not having the latest, expensive brands, whereas (traditional) Asian kids make the most of what they've got.

But another interesting thing mentioned was how little time Western families spend with each other, and young people are spending more time getting bad influences from their peer groups, rather than being treated responsibly by their parents. I noticed this whilst I was at the orphanage in India. I understand how difficult their situation is, and the kids not having the same authority over them as a standard child does with it's parents is a problem for their upbringing. But the most interesting quote from the show was 'it's the family that plays together that stays together', which tends to fall in the style of the traditional family. I just hope I can give my future kids the most traditional upbringing I can...

20/04/07 - I think I set myself a new record this week in church visiting. In about ten hours I visited three different church services, and attended two different (Tamil) Sunday Schools. I went up to stay with Pastor Steny (who I met at Palmers Green the other week) on Saturday night, and got to know his boys, Daniel, Joel and Jude. It was nice having some traditionally made chicken curry (where there's as much meat as bone), then in the morning we went to Willesden Church of God, which the Tamil's share with other services. I was told to lead the Sunday School of seven kids, all of whom spoke good English, except one small boy, who reminded me of Simeon.

The class went OK, though it wasn't easy leading my first ever Sunday School class in English, to kids with more religious knowledge than me, but I think I managed. After that, I went with one of the families from the church to Hillsongs in Central London, the Australian 'love fest'. Their services are quite well done; they get their message across well and everyone has a good time, but I think I need to meet a few more nice Australians before I get into the right mood for them.

Then finally it was onto Palmers Green, which still had a fair number of people, after the expectedly high numbers that attended for Palm Sunday. I was sent off to the Sunday School again, but the teacher's (who still calls me Kyle) daughter lead the class, though she seemed to be telling her mother off more for talking than the children (and ironically, it was two small girls who interupted most, all the boys were very attentive). Hopefully I'll have the confidence to lead the Palmers Green class next time, I just need to develop a bit more confidence with the children. I got to know a couple of kids though, mainly Diviniya (who reminds of Durga (Laksamana) and Vaiythiswary (Wahyu 2)) and her brother Inok (who reminds me of Prakash).

It's just a shame the journey home was another bad one. There were a couple of black girls on the bus, coming from North London, who were typical loud mouths looking for trouble, and then my journey had a good couple of hours added to it as the line between Tonbridge and Ashford was closed. I find it a bit sad (in both senses of the word) in how black people exploit the racial equality laws (that the whites put in). White people don't really have any racial issues with blacks anymore, but now the blacks seem to have missed that verbal abuse, and just seem to want to bring whites to say the 'N-word', so they've got an excuse to make another hoo-har out of racial abuse.

I called my current (PSB) and former (NAG) job agencies this week, asking for some temp office work. My current job isn't too bad, the hours and location are good, it's just the work can get a bit repetitive, it's not a great wage, no chance of any promotion, and isn't creating much for my previous work experience... but... the hours and location are good... I continued my phoning fest that Wednesday morning, also calling Victoria, Rebecca and Jyothi. I also tried talking to Ranjita, though we seem to communicate better in person than on the phone. Jyothi says she'd like to come to England for a holiday in January (which will probably be when I return after Christmas). I'll have to try and encourage her to bring Ranjita along...

27/04/07 - Is April almost over? About time too. Haven't really had the most exciting week, went to the Ashford church for the first time for a good few weeks, but it just doesn't feel the same as it used to. I just seem to enjoy the Tamil services more, though Palmers Green still doesn't help with me missing Taman Wahyu. The Sunday School's not so easy to teach there, especially when the kids speak English and have more religious knowledge than I do. I need to sit down and find some inspiration...

There was a power cut at work on Monday, which meant we got to leave an hour early. Strange things on phones this week, a child with a condom over his head. I'll get to that in a moment. One thing I've come to realise lately is how mobile phones are immune to things that are regarded as a nuisance. You're not allowed to play radios in public places without permission, yet you can play music from your phone as loud and as inconsiderately as you like. But what gets to me more is cameras; where the standard or professional kind are strictly banned, mobiles, despite having the same resolution and zoom as standard cameras now, manage to get away with it.

I don't read the news or media much nowadays (I've only just learnt why Britney Spears shaved her head), but sometimes I just feel I'm better off not doing so. It's just depressing article after depressing article about how poor British culture has become. An article by Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail this week went on about how the welfare state has created a dependency culture, another article goes on about how there are no decent female role models in Britain, and another says how a mother encouraged and recorded her children fighting. And then, like I said, I see kids with condoms on their heads, and videos of chavs trashing a youth centre, and it creates not one bit of desire to turn back from my anti-British views...