Woah … I’ve been away for quite a while huh. Can see the spider webs or should it be cyber webs weaved all over this blog. Haha. *Lame*
Anyways, I was back to Malaysia for a short trip. I know I was home recently during CNY but heck, I’ve got a good reason to be home this time around. It’s for the compulsory Catholic Marriage Preparation Course (CMPC) which SY and I must attend in order for us to be wed in a Catholic church.
The course was held at the Infant Jesus Convent in Cheras and a total of 30 couples (both Catholics and interfaith) signed up for it. We relied on a real crappy map downloaded from the net to get there. The very heavy downpour didn’t help either. Nevertheless, with God’s good grace, we found the place and arrived in time. The only problem was because we were instructed to park our cars in the convent’s field, I landed mine in a mud pit and hence, my car was stuck. KNN!!!
More than half of the attendees were already there while others started streaming in after us. SY was shown to the girl’s dorm while I nestled myself on one of the vacant beds in the guys dorm. The sleeping environment was of the very very bare necessity but we consoled ourselves that we are here for a good purpose and furthermore, we only needed to rough it out for 3 days.
To avoid boring you guys further, I will summarize that the course had 14 sessions relating to various aspects of marriage life, covering issues regarding life as man and wife, family, friends, religion, sex etc. We also attended two masses during that time. We had two presenting couples throughout and also two priests, Fr. Jestus (Head of the Catholic Marriage Tribunal) and Fr. Martin Lam to help complete the course. One thing’s for sure, both SY and I gained a tremendous amount of weight from all the meals they serve there. We had a whopping 6 meals a day namely, breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. Let’s just say we didn’t skip any meals but took full advantage of it instead. :p
Overall, the course brought the both of us closer in the sense that we understood each other better because through the CMPC, we were ‘forced’ to face issues we were reluctant to talk about prior and this actually provided us with the perfect platform to really gain a better perceptive from each of our point of views. Before we attended the course, we’ve been told of many nightmarish tales of how many couples ended up separating / breaking up after attending this course but it’s nothing like that really. We also made a couple of friends while we were there, so all in all, the course did us good. Oh and a couple of macho guys helped pushed my car out of the muddy pit. *HOORAY!!!*
By ‘passing’ the CMPC, we then made an appointment with the parish priest, Fr Simon from St. Francis Xavier church to go through the pre-nuptial enquiry. Basically the church wanted us to have a clear understanding on what marriage is and that we’re getting into this sacrament of holy matrimony on our own free will. An interesting point to add is that Fr. Simon is a real joker in person and we will most probably get him to preside over our wedding.
Err … what else, oh yea, we met up with Fiona and her Irish fiancée to discuss on the church’s décor. Since we’re all having our wedding on the same day at the same place, it just makes good financial sense to share the cost of the décor. It took us about an hour to discuss and agree with the florist’s recommendations, so now that’s settled.
I’ve also begun distributing the wedding invites to mostly my friends and colleagues and this gives a good excuse to catch up with them as well. It was just unfortunate that I couldn’t hand all the cards to each and everyone of em’ in person due to the limited time I was back home.
We attended the GX launch in True Fitness’s Pavilion and had a good time doing it too. Other spare time were utilised for settling and confirming other matters related to the wedding like the attires, the pre wedding photo shoot layout (the album will be ready by mid April … WOO HOO!!!), wedding entertainers etc. Oh and our families met as well for the food tasting in the hotel where the wedding is to be held. Overall, most of the servings were satisfactory, so let’s hope it’ll be ok as well during our big day.
We also submitted our Civil Marriage Registration form at the Registration Ministry in Putrajaya and managed to get the date we both wanted for the signing ceremony. Over there, we were shocked to see so many mail-order-brides making their way into our country. So you get to see 60 year old local men being paired up with young twenty somethings from China, Vietnam and Indonesia. Ughhh …
I also bought lottery tickets hoping to strike it big and make all my dreams a reality but alas, it was not meant to be … not now at least. Perhaps I should persistently keep trying eh??? :p
On the flight back to Abu Dhabi, the stinky Arab guy sitting beside me had an argument with the ang moh lady sitting in front of him. Petty matter but they blew it up childishly. Well, it resulted in the guy moving to sit some place else and left me with more space on me own, so am not complaining. *wink*
I guess that just about covers my trip back this time around and now I’m back here in this sandy shit hole resuming my duties at work. *Sien* Well, at least I still had a job to hold on to unlike the poor chap and his furry ‘buddies’ pictured above.
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