question

hmm. in the midst of uncertainty, what am i/can i be certain of?

ah.ha. ha.

lol look what i found when i tried googling my name.
yucky hair. (damn. i really didn't expect them to use those photos cause so meehhhh)
http://www.bcom.unimelb.edu.au/breadth/
http://www.bcom.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/Marketing_brochure_2011.pdf

Refreshing

Love the buzz that the nasi lemak is bringing into Toastbar.
J asked me a really good question when we were chatting in the office after closing tonight.
"Isn't it weird operating beside Nasi Lemak? Isn't there a conflict of interest?"

I suppose it comes back to the competition question again.
Again,
I need to remember Toastbar's bottom line purpose and
vision.
Hold it.
Remember it.
Live it.
Be secure in it.

Last night's Toast Core meeting with Tim and Ellie was affirming and directional in that it gave us as a team the added clarity that we needed to take the next step, and enabled us to re-cast vision for Toastbar. Not that the vision for community engagement has changed, but it’ll be a continual process of refining and sharpening.

I realise that knowing Toastbar’s identity is so important. Without the clarity arising from last night’s meeting and an entire week of slowly responding to everything that’s happening around, i daresay i would not have been able to answer josh’s question.

Certainly, having nasi lemak being such a hit beside the consequently heavily overshadowed Toast menu felt uncomfortable at first. However, today, I felt like i was operating at a different level. Like it was a quiet little breakthrough as i got comfortable with working together with the nasi lemak crew to serve our customers. To serve the people who use this basement space.

There was such a buzz tonight. I really enjoyed seeing people enjoy the space. Andrew (my ex-tutor for maths in Trinity College) slowly becoming one of our regular customers and seeing a group of students gather around him to chat and ask him math questions. Fan.tas.tic. i think that’s a success. Toastbar successfully created space for life there. As Andrew left. He said “i hope you didn’t mind having the group of students just crowding around there”. Of course i didn’t! Now, I know somewhere like the Mess Hall would certainly NOT fancy that. Yesterday I was looking for a space to be alone and reflect on the past week. Went to the Mess Hall to ask if there was a place i could sit and type on my laptop (obviously getting lunch as well) but the guy just said ‘sorry this is a restaurant” and didn’t even bother trying to engage me. Srslywthlol.

So. Yknow what? I’m overjoyed to have toastbar. I feel so blessed.

Setting up toastbar and having a sense of ownership over it has also made me interact with people in the building differently. I feel like im part of the building, and part of a bigger community here. And just the other day i said hi to this aussie in the lift and i didn’t quite remember the brief conversation, but that conversation actually led him to come for neighbourhood dinner last night. I didn’t recognise him at first, but i went over to talk to him because he’d come late and looked a bit lost as people were packing up. So we reconnected and today, he came down to try kaya for the very first time ever! It makes me so happy to be able to plug someone in to community. Being new to Melbourne and not knowing anyone around at all, it obviously feels great to have somewhere to belong right... :D Later on in the night he came back again with his housemate and her boyfriend and asked me if i wanted to join them for drinks. :D these are little things that reaffirm me of Toastbar’s vision being slowly lived out through me.. or rather the HOPE i have for toastbar being lived out. Other people on the core may have other hopes, according to their faith, strengths and things they enjoy. And it’s in pulling our different strengths and things-that-we’re-anal-about together that makes us work as a team – hopefully a complete one. Haha. Now none of us are turned on by accounting and inventory for toastbar. Someone JUST has to do it. So. Hopefully we find some crazy accounting lover. Like wenyihong LOL.

I also had a brief hi bye small talk thing with some of the guys from glory city church who had an event at Champs Hall tonight and.. it felt like we were new housemates. The kind of relationship where you’re sharing something big together, and you’d like to know each other better, and there’s some form of mutual respect and interest in each other. It was comfortable. I think having Shirley from glory city as a toaster for the past couple of days has definitely helped to bridge some of the relationships with glory city church and myself. Not that we had any problems with each other to begin with, just that we never quite got the chance to connect beyond the “oh you’re just another user in this venue”. It’s lovely when you get a glimpse of something forming. So. I would say, that’s success also.

I just realised that in the past 3 scenarios i’ve ended with the word success somewhere in there. Yet it’s not that i’m conscious about how to achieve a certain level of success, but only realise how the very things that refresh me and make my day are the things that fall into my subconscious definition of success at Toastbar.

Anyway, tmr’s our first ever Open Mic night at toastbar. :) 8pm – 10pm (Friday) looking forward to it!

day full of conversations

at 9.45pm i felt like it was already midnight. I just lose track of time when im at Toastbar, always doing things, and talking, and... unfortunately, still in a frenzy with some orders.

I had a couple of really refreshing conversations today. The first was with Grace's friends Diana and Beckii, who came by to check Toastbar out. Beckii is also a blogger and she did a short write up on Toastbar!

Reading the article was for me, quite..hmm.. i dont quite have the words to describe it (or perhaps im too sleepy to think now). Some people may think "OOHH PUBLICITY!!" as the first thing that pops up in their minds, but for me, it was a mix of comfort, encouragement and satisfaction in realizing that someone managed to catch on to the vision of Toastbar, even if it's just catching on to part of it.

So the three of us ended up chatting for a good amount of time which led us to talking about dance, and then to me introducing them to doreen who is so passionate about building dancers up.

The second one was at lunch with isuri. We talked about top-line and bottom-line.. something Tim's spoken to me at length about too. Getting Izzy to dream and live. Even as i was talking to her about what top-line and bottom-line were about, it felt like I was understanding it more and more. It was almost like, learning in teaching.

Aunty Khoo's nasi lemak launched today. It gets confusing when i use the term "aunty khoo" ey. They're a bunch of (majority) guys who've been part of the arrow community for a long time and i love having them around :))) Nasi Lemak was selling at $3.50 per pack which is dirt cheap considering melbournian prices. It was a hit. total hit! and i really like the buzz it generated.

They even have free pulut hitam. for obvious reasons, not many people then ordered toast. for a split second, i found myself thinking that it was competition. But i've thought about competition before and i'm quite adamant about not allowing myself to think that there's any sort of comparison or competition. So i turned it off. and i'm really glad that they're doing what they're doing. I also wanna be a part of themmm!

the questions I need to then ask are..

1) how would you define success for Toastbar

2) How do we then also bring Toastbar to a new level where it doesnt necessarily have to be "more profits" or "more money"?

3) to answer (2), we'll then need to ask ourselves what the primary vision and purpose of Toastbar is, what the original inspiration was.

mmpf. i'm falling asleep as i try to tpe everything up. gnite world.

another different day

went down to Toastbar to do some dishes first thing in the morning before jumping in the car with ellie jonathan and joseph to check out the campsite for this year's easter camp waaayyy out in the country.

we first went to get breakfast from my ol' 'hood because i was craving for Baker D Chirico's Almond crossiants. omg.. i feel like having another one right now. Ellie and jon wanted coffee so we walked over to Campos. That short trip from BDC to Campos just brought back such a strong feeling of nostalgia... felt like i was a student again. i really do feel like an in between now. this year's been such a new and different start.

bible study with erica and rach ong turned out to be more of a sharing session as we digressed from the study of Genesis. Here's yet again another dynamic to the plate of relationships i have. haha im so sleepy now i dont know how to word my thoughts but just there, when i thought of relationships, i just saw a platter of different sorts of pastries. argghh i'm obviously hungry.

gotta havta sleep it off. third day at Toastbar tmr!

the in between

I still feel like a student, but not quite. I'm more like an in-between. a TRANNY. haha. there's so much to say about working here in expedition.

i just came back from a basketball game with jonathan, joseph, keii, quinn, josh and ken vern. this is probably the third time i'm playing in the past week and i feel THIRTEEN AGAIN! :D love it. time passes so quickly here at life expedition that i find myself failing to keep track of the days that go by. it must have been friday that jon, joseph, keii, quinn, josh and i played till 4am. jon reminds me of kc when he's on the court.

a group of them are going to check out this year's easter camp campsite tmr morning. fortunately Toastbar's not open tmr, so i'm jumpin in El's car.

Today's the end of day two of the official operations of Toastbar. the crowd was decent today because there was boardgames night and network 21 was happening. plus there was the medical bible study group and chris' housechurch. what a buzzzz!

i was extremely cranky yesterday because i was sooooo tired from just 3 hours of sleep. grace was up late in the kitchen working on the kaya which refused to behave. SHE is on crazy lady. so much strength. not energy. strength. a stable one that pushes her on and on and on..

new relationships have formed here and it's been so refreshing. i'm so thankful for the chance to be around people i wouldn't normally hang out with. i also think i'm starting to love the lee brothers and the young under 18 josh. haha.

A new security guard has come. he just came in to check on the office because he saw the lights on and we had a decent short chat on life expedition and religion. nothing too intense. i'm still stinky from basketball and my bloody knee needs to be washed. so gehkiang.. it's not a deep injury but i hope it doesnt get infected. so much fun though. really motivated to practice bball now.

Erica, Rachel and I are gonna be doing bible study tmr. i'm quite excited. I'd really like to dig into the bible more and grow together with a girl friend.

life seems good. i guess life's good, but not entirely all fun and yay. This environment has been challenging. many times i feel like i'm holding humptydumpty together, so fragile and delicate that i have to be so careful with the things i do and how i do them. and then there are people in singapore that i love and relationships i want to strengthen. people i want to grow with.

so blessed.

End of a week's "break"

I'd say that Toastbar's pop-up store was a success. (4-7th Mar)

the way i've chosen to define success here is especially important to me, for myself more than for anyone else to understand, because I'm trying to work out what the specifics I prioritize are, and what i value.

it was a successful 4 days because..

I saw people coming together, not for money

I saw at least one person being empowered to do something she enjoys

I saw many people using the once-dead space and enjoying it

It enabled me to meet a fair few other people in the building. the start of new relationships!

This week has been fantabulous. not that I enjoyed every bit of it, but i'm so satisfied and, i feel so full.

So a lesson I learnt last week was that I needed rest. I needed to remember to rest.

This week of gearing up for Toastbar's official launch has taught me something else. While I rested, I realised that i've neglected my relationships with people. New relationships have strengthened and for them I am grateful. But that is still no excuse for me to 'forget' the ones i love.

mmpf.

I also realised this evening that I've become slightly more cautious about who i share with regarding how setting up Toastbar has been for me. quite a few people asked me about Toastbar at a party this evening, and i realised that there was this one person that made me hold back.. perhaps my gut is learning to tell when a person is likely to be slightly too cynical to catch the spirit behind why i'm doing what i'm doing.

the other matter i've been trying to work through is also coming to accept that Toastbar does not have to be here at all and that I need to hold on lightly to it. in fact, we could all decide tomorrow that we dont wanna follow through with our 19th March Launch, and just close shop completely. My identity and security don't lie in the existence of Toastbar. Try holding on lightly to your baby.

counting the cost of building

the cost of what i'm building here..
these are the things i cannot sacrifice:
1) what i've built with dng and how far we've come
2) caleb's growth
3) mentoring tasha

elisa, remember these things.

expectations living

"stop thinking about what T expects what T expects what T expects! think about what YOU want to do with this"

and T's not the only person with whom i feel like there are expectations to meet. with T, i think to a large extent, the expectations are self-imposed.

now i feel greater need to study the bible. this is fear driven though. im letting my thought break here. need to sleep.

fruits of your labour

ellie's love language is service. so obviously.

today she went out to victoria market with juan just so that she could get ingredients to cook for the housekeepers because they just finished checking out all the rooms and she thought they should have a little celebration. or it might have been yesterday. the days are so long and dynamic that i can't keep track.

nobody came to the store for about two whole hours this morning so vong and i had an incomplete discussion on death following news that a friend i interned with at kpmg passed away suddenly.

today was a busy day in general though. amazing response to our facebook page: www.facebook.com/toastbararrow

closed slightly earlier because i was so tired.. so started cleaning up at about 10.. ended up speaking to this guy who attende the arrow neigghbourhood dinner.very encouraging conversation where he just expressed his amazement with the energy and buzz in the basement and in the community in general. this is the first time he's in an asian community and he's jus tin so much awe at the community here at arrow. he thinks all asians are like that, but i told him that arrow does have a very distinct culture of its own created by life expedition church.

k v tired. bye.

highlights of the revolution

The KAYA REVOLUTION is here!

tmr's the last day we're operating.. so the last of my 18 hour work day.

the week leading up was intense and really stressful.

we had our first day of cafe operations on sunday from 8am till 11pm but i had accumulated a lack of sleep and sunday was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

sunday morning was supremely with so many people from Life Expedition Church coming in for breakfast.

So extremely grateful to have the arrow students around because i can honestly say that without them i would not have been able to pull through sunday. Joseph lee and jonathan lee have been such precious siblings. really moved by them.

Grace lau, joyce, lili and chong are such a lovely family. grace is a superwoman i tell you. she's the kaya queen. again, i can honestly say that she's one of the people i cannot do without. grace has been really inspiring, how she goes out of her way so much to serve others. it's amazing.

still, sunday was the first time we tried operating and going through the entire process flow. cocked up here and there.. but thankfully, there were sooo many people like vong, joseph, jonathan who came to help in the last minute.

but alas, i was so worn out that i had a breakdown before going to bed exhausted from running on adrenalin the couple of weeks leading up to it. but somehow, i also felt so blessed that when i was crying in bed so many people called and texted to check on how i was.. and this well past midnight. kong kong called to see how i was as well but i didn't want him to worry so i forced a cheery tone.

needless to say my eyes were really badly swollen on the second day.. there was no hiding it. i thought i could get away with it with my thick rimmed glasses.. but after staff meeting, doreen pulled me aside to ask me if i cried the night before and asked me how i was. and she so kindly took out a box of chocolates for me to share with the people who volunteered so that i could take care of them as well. this was so touching.

i gotta say though, that first night was the best sleep i've had since i got back to melbourne. since last year even. it's one of the best sleeps i've ever had. i felt so refreshed and energized in the morning. so thanks for the prayers. i know some of you were praying for me. and God has been so good.

adeline loh came to help me for the entire day on tuesday. which was insane. so frickin super of her. she attracted a crowd of her own :) haha and i just love the energy that she brings to the place. such a gem. she's now heading marketing and HR for Toastbar! i'm really so excited. She's someone i trust who can catch vision and has probably been able to catch the vision I have for Toastbar. so blessed!

today quite a few ocf-ers came. there was a network 21 event at the ballroom next door as well, and a few people came over to check the cafe out. the evening buzz was fantastic. so many people, so much energy.. especially with housechurch happening here too albeit in the corner. people came to talk to me and i just engaged them which further energized me and a few people are going to give me a call tomorrow. im not quite sure what about but they asked for my contact details. really good conversations there.

omg i love my job! thank you God!

time to sleep. 5 hours and i'll be back up and running this show again.