Why I should not get a Blackberry

I was drafting emails in my head while on the bus to work today and I thought, wouldn't it be great if I could actually write the emails now and send it off while I'm on my way to work? Wouldn't that increase my productivity and give me more time to do other things that need to get done when I get into office?

And then I thought: do I really want to squeeze out every empty moment in my life? I find that there are fewer and fewer "still" moments in my life (and I don't mean time spent sleeping). Most of the time, I am bombarded by adverts, thoughts about what I need to get done, shoppping windows that vie for my attention, SMSes, my rumbling stomach, etc. There are very few moments when I am truly quiet and content with who I am.

We have lost the Sabbath. So much so that when the sounds die out and the sights fade away, we are suddenly struck by how desolate our inner being looks, and we freak out, so we say we are bored and we look for something to distract us from ourselves.

I suppose I ought to relearn how to be quiet again.

Read More!

die die must run

I am at the "die die must run" stage of the week. My motivation to run waxes and wanes. Although the looming task of 42.2km at the end of the year ought to be motivation enough to put away my pack of chips, get off the couch and go for a run, December is a long way from March, and I just can't seem to find that extra oomph to do more than what I usually do. These days, I'm content to just put in the minumum number (and I mean minimum) of kilometers on the old usual routes.

But today, I "die die must run". I didn't run Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and I just know that if I put it off any longer, it is going to hurt when I start again.

Read More!

Notable Links: The Da Vinci Code

Remember how in January I read The Da Vinci Code and promised to tackle the controversies at a later date? Well, today's the later date. But I don't think I'll give the full low-down, others have done it much better than I could have done, so I'm just going to give you a list of notable links.

Catholic answers has an excellent FAQ titled Cracking the Code. A few questions relate to Catholic institutions such as the Opus Dei that Brown misrepresents, but it includes general questions as well, such as the divinity of Christ, the reliability of the Bible, whether Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, etc. It also has general questions like `What is the Da Vinci Code about?' for those who haven't read the book and want to know what the hoo-ha is about this novel.

RBC Ministries have produced a free booklet titled The Da Vinci Code: Separating Fact From Fiction. You can download it from their site. It is very thin and good to give away. Also, Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ and Covenant Evangelical Free Church have jointly produced a colouful magazine titled Beneath that Smile. Check out The Da Vinci Code project website.

Josh McDowell, who wrote More than a Carpenter and Evidence that Demands a Verdict, also has a book out titled Da Vinci Quest. This book is written in the style of The Da Vinci Code, i.e. a story. I haven't read it myself -- it seems like they sell it in packs of 10, but it sounds interesting. I may do a review of it if I can get a hold of a copy.

The bottomline is that while The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a great thriller, but don't go to it for any real facts because a lot of it is fabricated and wishy-washy. The "evidence" for the bloodline of Christ was made up by a Frenchman, Pierre Plantard, who was once jailed for fraud and actually admitted in court that he made the whole thing up. And the most telling thing? The bloodline of Christ and Mary Magdalene ended in himself!

Neither is there any real evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. This spurious claim comes from a sentence full of missing text in the Gospel of Philip:

“And the companion of the…Mary Magdalene…her more than…the disciples…kiss her…on her…”

Er, so we conclude from this that Jesus was married to Mary? Okaay..

In any case, I don't think I'll be watching the movie. The book was good enough for me.

Read More!

It's in the mail!

Our two-minute-fifty-four-seconds audition tape is in the mail. *heart thumping* Now I can't decide if I really want to get in because I'm worried about taking leave and jumping from high buildings and crawling through small places and, get this, a typical Singaporean worry, getting enough to eat. Haha! Have you noticed? You never see the teams on The Amazing Race eating. What do they live on? Air??

Read More!

Imagery

You know you haven't been thinking about theology for a while when you sing a song `Lamb of God' and all you can think of is the lamb chops you had last night for supper.

No wonder there were so many misunderstandings regarding the church in the early days -- folks thought that Christians were cannibals, eating and drinking the body and blood of their Saviour. But who would blame them, when the priest reads in church: "This is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Take, eat, do this in remembrance of me"?

I am getting more and more literal the older I get. Today we sang another song "Every mountain we will climb.. is only by his grace"etc., and all I could think of a literal mountain stretching in front of me.

I am slowly losing the imagery of Christianity.

Read More!

The Simian Crease

Of the 45 or so common features of Down's Syndrome, I have at least two: the Simian Crease and an excessive gap between my large and second toes.



The Simian Crease is a single crease across the palm of the hand. Most people have two lines, one symbolising the heart and one symbolising the head. Palm readers say that folks who have a single line across their palms have their hearts and heads joined. (Not that they are lacking a heart or a brain!) For folks with a Simian Crease, there is no difference between thought, desire and action, and so they are very intense and uncannily focused individuals.



The excessive gap between the large and second toes is well, an excessive gap between the large and second toe. I've always thought I have such a large gap because when I was young, I liked to wear those flip flops which you have to pinch between your large and second toes. I thought that the flip flops permanently spaced my toes out. Well, I'm probably wrong, because this is actually one of the common traits of Down's Syndrome too. Too bad they don't have toe readers, or I may get a favourable reading on the spacing of my toes as well!

So, Down's Syndrome or Intensity of Being? It's your call. For every piece of evidence, there are many reasonable possiblities.

Read More!

Back

I'm back. I've finally got Ms Anthrope, my evil twin, out of my system, at least for another year or so. I've put her back into the hole of my guitar just as she was planning to insert a script into this blogspot address to have it re-directed to her own blog. Luckily for me, msanthrope.blogspot.com and missanthrope.blogspot.com were already taken by other sarcastic bloggers and she had to settle for mrsanthrope.blogspot.com, but she hates that blog address with a passion.

I'm sorry I've been gone. You guys have been very patient with me, thank you. I promise a whimsical post, a running post, a book review post, and a content-free (copyright Eric) post in the works. Meanwhile I've got a meeting to go to.

Read More!

Lesson #9: On Reality Shows

You will never be able to guess what Ms Nomer and her friend Smole have been up to while I’ve been patiently blog-sitting Pencil Shavings. You’ll never hear it from Ms Nomer herself either, since she is so miserably shy and defensive about her privacy, but I’ll tell you; heck, I’ll tell you anything if it is to my advantage: they are busy making a three-minute audition tape for the Amazing Race Asia.

I watch from my hole in the guitar and laugh at their conceit: they think that people will be interested in watching them on TV!

Ms Nomer: “Hi my name is Ms Nomer and this is my best buddy Smole.”

Smole (in the sweetest Ms Universe voice): “We are both 28 and we come from the sunny island of Singapore!”

Together: “And we want to be on the Amazing Race!”

Makes you want to cringe in your seat, really, if it wasn’t so funny to begin with.

If TV makes people have unrealistic expectations about what life should be like, reality TV is even better. It blurs the line between what is real and what is made-up: Everybody can be a star! (American Idol) You can be the next Donald Trump! (The Apprentice) My life is so interesting that I want to broadcast every minute detail to the entire world! (Big Brother) Life is just a back-stabbing game to the top! (Survivor). Quite brilliant, actually. Who would have thought of it? That real life should be more absorbing than fiction?

Read More!

Lesson #8: On fasting

(For Smole, in point-form, so she doesn’t feel like she needs a highlighter when she reads these long-winded posts.)

1. Ms Nomer is fasting from fast food this Lent.
2. The more she tries to abstain from fast food, the more obsessed she has been about food in general.
3. Which means she is eating a lot more this Lent, as evidenced in the list of what she consumed yesterday.
1. 1 lor mai kai (glutinous rice with chicken)
2. 2 cups of coffee, with milk and sugar
3. 2 pieces fried chicken
4. Coleslaw
5. Mashed potatoes
6. 1 cup coke
7. 2 Crystal Jade char siew bao (Stewed meat bun)
8. 1 pork floss bun
9. 1 plate Halal chicken rice, and
10. 1 spoonful chicken soup with pasta
4. Which led Pink tutu to message her: “No wonder you need to exercise and I dun! ;) ”
5. Which is perfectly smoozy with me.

Yours,
Anthrope

Read More!

Lesson #7: On `going full-time'

For the uninitiated, `going full-time' is a loaded word for the protestant Singaporean Christian. It means taking the plunge and signing the dotted line with God – wearing the collar, toting the line, walking the talk, serving Holy Communion, conducting funerals, or whatever you want to call it.

Now the protestant Singapore Christian Church has one of the most hardworking groups of volunteer lay folk in the world, not counting the indefatigable mountain-praying South Koreans of course. No matter what month it is, something is going on: an all-night prayer meeting in the heartlands, distribution of oranges in the neighbourhood during Chinese New Year, mooncakes during Mooncake Festival, loaves of bread in ordinary time, Chinese evangelical concerts, seeker-sensitive plays, festivals of praise, church camps, healing services, leadership seminars, walk-a-tons to raise money, oh the numerous fund-raisers! Golf tournaments, car washings, flyers in the mail, fancy dinners, charity concerts, swim-a-tons, flag days, the selling of cookies, calendars, seasoned meat, pineapple tarts – you name it, they’re doing it. They are so worn-out from their running around they can’t tell their tail from their head.

So for many of these lay people, `going full time’ is like a dream come true. They dream of a time when they don’t have to rush to church for a five-hour meeting after a long and stressful day at work, or feel pressured by their secular bosses’ unethical demands, or their colleague’s back-biting, or the unending rat-race to the top. They think, “How wonderful it would be to do God’s work full-time! 8 hours a day without any distraction! To be able to focus on the things that truly matter in life!”

Ah, but as they say, the grass is always (deceptively) greener on the other side. These good-hearted folks have some ridiculous expectations of `full-time ministry’ – they expect God to speak to them every morning, that their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ will be kind, loving, and above all, submissive to their Spirit-led ideas, that the church members will listen to them ‘cos they have a “Rev” in front of their names, that the church, above all, will have absolutely no politics. They completely miss the point! Just like the British forces missed the point when they pointed their loaded cannons towards the South-China Sea – because the Japanese were invading with bicycles from Malaysia.



Without the army of lay people, the Singapore church is worth nothing. I would rather they all sign up to be pastors and priests and have them completely absorbed with their local church going-ons that they forget that there is a larger world outside their four walls.

Yours in service,
Ms Anthrope
Read more!

Read More!

Intermission

An advert.

I'm charging the guilible sponsors double for the blog-time.

Read More!

Lesson #6: On Evil

What is evil but the perversion of good? You moderns don’t know the least about evil. You picture a horned demon that tempts other people to steal, kill and destroy. When you read the newspapers about how a 8 year-old Chinese girl was lured, raped, killed, and dumped in a wooded area, you shake your head and say, “What is this world coming to?” And you think that it could never happen to you, or the ones you love, because it is too sick.

What you don’t know is that evil is simply the other face of good. Evil does not exist as a real being. Contrary to what you, you and you think (or may not think), I am not evil personified! I cannot exist without the existence of good; I cannot tempt where good intentions do not abound; I am merely Ms Nomer's evil twin. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say.

Why does a mother abort a baby? Because she doesn’t have enough money to give the baby a good life. Why does a security guard storm into his wife’s office, shoot her and then himself? Because he is too heart-broken from his unreciprocated love. Why does a woman throw a 4 year-old toddler out from the 6th floor? Because the toddler is the child of her lover who cheated her money and her feelings. Why does the scientist want to make a clone of a human? So that we don’t have to die from leukemia or heart attacks or cancer anymore.

Remember this when you are the most self-righteous – evil is in your heart. That is why Ms Nomer would have made a lousy lawyer. She would not be able to talk to the tax dodger, the thief, the cheat, the murderer, the drug pusher, the bully, the liar, or the adulterer without seeing her own heart reflected there.

Your good queen,
Anthrope

Read More!

Lesson #5: On Freedom and Having Fun

Diabolical. Don’t you love the way that word rolls off the tongue? I think I may have to have that embossed on my name card in the future: The diabolical tyrant. Lovely. It is always important to state your credentials on your business card clearly. If you have twelve alphabets after your name, be sure to print them all! Make sure not to neglect the quality of the paper and printing – use only the finest material, because a name card is the measure of a man.

Anyway, I digress. Today’s quiz question for my readers is this: who do you suppose is truly free, the Christian or the heathen? Put another way, who do you suppose has more fun? You heathens out there will be puzzled by this question because the answer seems obvious to you. You think, of course those who don’t feel like they have to obey a god get more fun out of life. Christians are wet blankets – no cigarettes, no drinking, no fucking around, no cussing, no skimpy clothes, no nothin’ at all. Worse, they keep trying to ruin everyone’s fun by saying that everyone should live by their rule book, just like John the Baptist did to Herod when he told him that he was committing adultery by taking another wife. Christian spoilsports like them end up with their heads on platters.

You Christians shake your head sadly because you know that the heathens just don’t get it. You say, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” and “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!” Of course these statements sound like self-evident conundrums outside your little society of Christian brethren, but somehow you know that your freedom is the exhilarating freedom from sin – from the things that kill you silently every time you do it – and you know that the heathens are the ones who are really the slaves to their own selfish and awful desires, leading them in a spiralling circle into death and despair. Your Christian fun revolves around strumming guitars, potluck dinners, fundraising for the needy, and knowing that you have found what you call the greatest treasure in the entire world.

Let me offer an answer to the converse question to clarify our thinking on this matter. The people who are the least free and get the least fun in life are neither the Christians nor the heathens, they are the half-hearted Christians who have fallen back. These are the ones who have tasted of the goodness of the Lord and have turned back; yet, try as they might to forget by losing themselves in this world, they cannot forget, and the taste lingers on their tongue forever, like a childhood scent on a blanket. And so, even as they lose themselves in the pleasures of the world, they can never be as happy as the heathen, because that taste keeps coming back, making them want to retch . every . single . time .

These are the truly suffering souls, men and women after my own diabolical heart. Now, ny dear readers, which are you?

Freely freely,
Anthrope
Read more!

Read More!

Lesson #4: On Blogging

This will be my last post because blogging is for wimps, and so all the better suited for my wimpy half, Ms Nomer. Besides it will keep her from doing what is important in life and keep her under the age-old deceit: that talking about it is the same as doing it.

She calls this blog Pencil Shavings, and that is exactly what she will have at the end of the day, a pile of wooden shavings, worth nothing, spent and useless. Do you suppose blogging is the shaving of the pencil, or is the pencil already shaved, and blogging is just the gathering of the shavings? But it doesn't matter, at the end of it, there will be no pencil left anyway.

Don't be too gleeful yet, especially you, Mr Jim (or Mr Old Fashioned aka Romantic); it may be harder to get rid of me than you think!

Constipatedly yours,
Anthrope (Ms)

Read More!

Lesson #3: On love

All night long I have been out sowing love among my countrymen, so I will keep this post short. Now, if you are surprised that such a being as I should sow love, you need to be educated. Love is one of my best-kept secret weapons. Because of love, men will focus only on their immediate family, ignoring social justice. Because of love, men will commit sins of the flesh. Because of love, the young ones will build castles of fancy that can never come true. Because of love, many will kill themselves. So, I've got to go now, I am a very busy person.

Signing off,
Anthrope

Read More!

Lesson #2: Be Happy

I am not unreasonable. In fact, it is my humble opinion that I am far more reasonable and rational in my philosophy than my counterpart, Ms Nomer. In the previous post, I said that it was important to prioritise and to channel your energy into a worthwhile cause if you want to have something to show at the end of the day. And all of you nod your servile heads in agreement. But what is a worthwhile cause, you wonder?

Though by no means do I wish to prescribe what is worthy of your life’s endeavour, I would like to suggest this as the most worthy cause for a human being: being happy. The logic by which I reach this conclusion cannot be faulted. By the end of this post, you will have to agree that this is by far the best, the most meaningful, the most excellent goal of all human endeavour.

Let me ask a question: how many things do you know for sure to be true? Some of you will say: the physical laws I know to be true, such as gravity and melting points and the like. But I ask, is gravity true in space? Isn’t it only true only within the context of your experience, that is, here on earth? An apple falls on Newton’s head somewhere in the continent of Europe. Will that same apple fall universally?

The fact remains that everything that we observe is only true within certain parameters. We cannot be absolutely and completely certain of anything. Does that mean that there is no such thing as absolute truth? Does that mean we are left to flounder in perpetual flux?

Ah, but there is one thing that is sure: that which is within our own hearts. If you cannot have faith in what you observe, have faith in the instrument! As long as you are satisfied, you are true to yourself, and that happiness can never be taken away from you. Does making a name for yourself make you happy? Work your butt off for that cause. Does experiencing new things make you happy? Do it until you want something else, then do that instead. Does doing good to others give you fulfilment? Seek to exceed Christ in good works!

This way, at the end of your life, you will have no regrets and can at least say: I have been true to myself, the one thing that I am certain of.

Gaily yours,
Anthrope
Read more!

Read More!

Lesson #1: Prioritise

If you want to succeed in life, you need to prioritise. You've got to channel your energy and ambition into a cause that you want. I'm not being didatic about what are worthy or unworthy causes, it's your call, but you've just got to decide.

Look at Ms Nomer. She is out running this morning and guess where she is running to? To work. On a Saturday morning, and get this, to pick up 5 Bibles to give to Cambodian children. Let me ask you this: you say the Word of the God is sweeter than honey, but can this book fill a child's empty stomach? Or is it just to placate them and keep them from rising up from under the yoke of injustice? Thank god these well-meaning foreign missionaries did not go while Cambodia was still under the Commmunist Khmer Rouge, for if so, I'll bet my bottom dollar that the people would still be suffering atrocities today.

Religion is a medicine. To soothe, to placate, to numb. It's good for developed countries like America because it is an alternative lifestyle. Like I said at first, I'm not being didactic about what is a worthy or an unworthy cause. If you wanna be a famous and rich pastor, by all means go ahead, but make sure that your energy is channeled and that the end of the day, you have something to show for it.

Look at that fool Richard Foster. For a period, he was the most sought after Christian speaker in the world! But he threw it all away to tend to a mentally retarded invalid, refusing to accept speaking engagements, saying that he has "retired" from public life. Retired my foot! You only have one life my friend. Squander it, and it will disappear as smoke from a smoldering log.

Wilfully yours,
Anthrope

Read More!

Mwhahahhaha!

Hi, let me introduce myself. I am Ms Anthrope, Ms Nomer’s evil twin. Ms Nomer usually keeps me locked up in the circle hollow of her guitar, torturing me with love ballads late into the night. Have you ever heard her pluck her guitar and belt the sorrowful dirge “Why does the sun go on shining?” at midnight? It makes you wish you were dead.

Well, she forgot to lock me in tonight in her haste to go to bed early in preparation for a morning run tomorrow, so I’ve escaped and hijacked her blog. It is a mark of my superior intelligence, ability and personality that I’ve taken over this blog. Besides, this blog has been wishy-washy for far too long! Ms Nomer doesn’t know who she is, what she wants, where she is going, or even how she got to where she is. Look at the name she chose for herself, for crying out loud! This blog needs a leader.

Needless to say, I know exactly where I am going with this blog now that I’ve taken over ownership. No more of this sentimental feel-good crap. No more geeky book reviews; no more mundane run reports; and especially, no more teenage angst.

Ms Anthrope will lead you and be your queen.

Read More!

A thought

What if somebody hijacked my blog tomorow and starting posting his or her own stuff, would you be able to tell the difference?

Read More!

(: Smiling like an idiot :)

Han's is my favourite restaurant in Singapore!

I love everything about it: the variety of food, the outdoor seating at the Central Library branch, the happy balance between self-service and service, the price, the taste, everything. Some restaurants, in a bid to focus on their niche, cut their menu down to a few core dishes of a certain genre. Not Han's. You can find everything there, from Western set meals like Chicken Chop (better than their fish and chips) to Chinese favourites like Hor Fan to sandwiches (good deal) to hamburgers (try the yummy superburger!) to pasta (increasingly popular), and get this, it is all good.

They do all things well!

On the way to work this morning, I stopped by the Central Library to return a few books and decided to stop by Han's for breakfast. For $4.50, I bought their breakfast set called "Scrambled egg bacon". For the same price I could also have bought "Scrambled egg ham", or "Scrambled egg sausage", or "Fried egg bacon", or "Fried egg ham", or "Fried egg sausage", you get the idea. I collected my coffee with milk and sugar and sat down to wait for the food.

When the food came, it looked ordinary: a lump of egg, 4 half pieces of toast with butter, and two strips of bacon. But when I first bit into the egg, it was heavenly. I'm not sure what they put in their egg; there must be some cheese in it or something, because it melted in my mouth. The toast was perfect -- not too hard, and the bacon excellent too. I ate the bacon lock, stock and barrel, fat and all. As far as the bacon goes, it is just hard to find anywhere that would serve you real bacon (as opposed to turkey bacon like Burger King) now that a lot of restaurants are going the Halal route. This must be the first time I'm having bacon in years.

The best thing? It is served on a real plate. Needless to say, I smiled like an idiot all the way to work.

Read More!

Search for significance

Some days, blogging feels like I'm trying to keep an empty verbal game going. And work, even meaningful work for a non-profit organisation, feels like a chasing after the wind. At the end of it, what is left? Just a few people we had loved, a few memories, and if you're lucky, a few stories of your existence here on earth.

The Total Perspective Vortex in Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a torture machine that makes you see your place in the perspective of all infinity. The idea is that the shock of seeing your complete insignificance in the scheme of things will kill you.

But who decides significance? Is the cup of cold water given to a good man as significant as all the work the good man does? Yet both receive the same reward. How significant is the death of a single man on death row in an age of widespread executions, war, and inhumanity?

Significance has to be found internally (or perhaps relationally?). One man, Zaphod Beeblebrox, survives the torture of the Total Perspective Vortex because the machine told him "You are the most important being in the universe". He only saw what he wanted to see. Of course he also had an ego the size of the universe.

Read More!

Childish nightmares will haunt me forever

I must be stressed about the meeting this morning because all night long I dreamt I was taking a Chinese test I could not understand. Worse, my friend sitting beside me didn't let me copy. If there is something I can fail at royally, it will be a Chinese test. God knows how I passed my `A' levels.

Read More!

Jessie Superstar

Does Jessie get to eat as much Milk Bone as she wants now? :)
(Link: On the Package, thanks Eric)

Read More!

Running Safely

I've been running on the streets for about two years now and there have been a couple of times when I've nearly gotten into an accident. A father of a teenage girl was killed by a motorbike while running in my neighbourhood, and everytime I run near my home, I invariably think of his family's loss, and what we can do to keep ourselves safe.

These are some rules I try to adhere to:

1. Run on the pavement rather than on the road.
2. Always check for turning vehicles in both directions, even when it is a quiet road.
3. When there is no pavement and you have to run on the road, don't listen to loud music.
4. Don't assume a car's direction.

The fourth rule was something I picked up after a few near accidents. One time, I was running into Labrador Park and there was a huge lorry about to move off. I thought the lorry was going to reverse out so I ran in front of the lorry, but I was wrong. The lorry had to brake for me.

The other time, I was running on Nassim Road, where there were a lot of driveways. There was a car halfway out the driveway and I assumed it was reversing out of the driveway so I ran in front -- turned out it was driving into his house instead.

What are some rules you have to be safe?

Read More!

Tagged!

I’ve been tagged by Carine

The RULE: Remove the blog in the top spot from the Final Five list and bump everyone up in one place. Then add your blog to the bottom spot.

The Final Five
1. YounGorgeous feat Kelly Clarkson
2. Shahruddin.com: Project Sha
3. Simply Hirol
4. Moi-Carine
5. Pencil Shavings

You’re Next
1. Jim
2. Eric
3. Canopy
4. Titania
5. Sembler Fatigué

So here goes.

What were you doing ten years ago?
This time of the year, ten years ago, I was doing a lot of things in church, and struggling with glasnost, interior monologue, and supply and demand graphs on the side. Played a lot of volleyball, ate a lot of ice kachang, and spent a lot of effort trying to sneak into class late without the teacher noticing.

Five Songs Which You Know All The Lyrics Right Off Your Head Now
This is the song that never ends
Come O thou Traveller
Lean on me
White as snow
`C' is for Cookie

Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire
Buy a home
Buy a car
Get broadband
Treat my friends to dinner
Buy Smole a Jaguar

Five Bad Habits
Snapping at the parents
Eating too much twisties
Going to bed without brushing my teeth
Worrying too much
Counting the pennies

Five Things You Like Doing
Blogging
Running in the sunset
Talking with a friend
Getting lost in a book
Cycling at the beach

Five Things You Will Never Wear, Buy Or Get New Again?
Matching orange overalls (don't even ask)
Grey cotton track pants with yellow stripes
Pink plastic spectacles
Cullocks Culottes with pleats (more specifically, cullocks with pleats sewn in Home Economics class)
Navy blue bloomers

Five Favourite Toys/Things
Timex watch
NIV Exhaustive Concordance
Creative 5-speaker system
My bolster (His name is, well, I'm not telling)
Black jacket at work

Read More!

Cafe Latte Grande

A disproportionate number of posts start with a comment about coffee, but I make no apologies. Today, in my Monday morning astuteness, I noticed two things.

1. The longer I work, the higher the level of coffee. Check out this picture in April 2005.



Look at how high the coffee level has risen in less than a year! Going with this trend, I'll need a larger cup by November 2006.

(The pictures I post are also getting larger.)

Now, if the amount of instant coffee I used for each cup of coffee remained the same, then it doesn't make much of a difference -- I'll just be drinking more water; but no....

2. I add the same amount of instant coffee grounds, i.e. one happy heaped tablespoon, for my one cup of coffee as my colleague, except that she is making a POT of coffee for three.

I think I should have given up coffee for Lent.

Read More!

Old friends are like wine

Friday, 11:30pm. I turn the corner and there you are, clutching a green Heineken bag full of marking, eyes tired from lack of sleep. We have been friends for over fifteen years now. I smile when I see you.

“I was just messaging you. Wanted to come up to give you back your money.”

As I reach for my wallet and take out $110, you tell me that you’ve been awake since 3am and that you have marked non-stop to 6pm, stopping only for breakfast and lunch.

“No wonder you’re so tired,” I say sympathetically, “Where are you heading to?”

“Back home,” you say, and I say, “I’ll walk you,” and we both start walking to the train station, talking along the way.

“I have a pain in my mouth,” you say, “I think it is a wisdom tooth, but it can’t be ‘cos there is no more space for it.” You stick your index finger into your mouth, poking at your gum and say, “Air yis sore air..” You stop in the middle of the pavement with your finger in your mouth so you can feel the sore spot better.

I think for a moment, and say, “It doesn’t matter than you don’t have space you know. Have you taken an X-ray?” You say, “No? It doesn’t matter? Oh dear! I hope it isn’t a wisdom tooth..”

We look at each other, and immediately we say together, “No, no, we don’t mean that. We hope it is only a wisdom tooth. What else can it be?”

We walk a bit in silence. “You have dental woes, you know?” I say to you.

“No lah, I’ve only had a root canal.”

“A root canal! Whatever! People who have had root canals are like people who given birth.”

“Erm. I think there are more people who have given birth.”

We smile, laughing away the tiredness of a week.

Read More!

Orient Express, by Graham Greene

The cover of this book is so pretty! And the pages have rough jagged edges. That is reason enough to read this.

Published in 1933, this is the first and last time Greene "set out deliberately to write a book to please". And it is quite a pleasing novel. All the action happens on a train rushing towards Constaninople:

In the rushing reverberating express, noise was so regular that it was the equivalent of silence, movement was so continuous that after a while the mind accepted it as stillness. Only outside the train was violence of action possible, and the train would contain him safely with his plans for three days...

The novel is full of such lovely detail and description. The characters are distinct and well-formed for a short novel; the plot substantial.

While pleasing, Orient Express isn't frivolous. It is about class, race, and political differences: yet it is never didactic or forlorn. It simply describes. Greene describes a self-conscious and rich Jew in this novel: it is troubling to read of the safety this Jew felt in Western Europe and to think that this was written in 1931, just a few years before the horrors of the Holocaust. Chilling.

Read More!

Never let me go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

I'm not sure how to write about this book without giving it all away. Mystery is probably the most compelling aspect of this novel, and if I take it away by telling too much, the novel simply does not work.


Ishiguro's students are more personable and memorable than Huxley's Alphas, Betas, Gammas and Epsilons in Brave New World, but in his effort to humanize them by writing about their aspirations, dreams, creativity, sexual desires, and social interaction, he never once addresses the issue of religion, and the age-old need for mankind to have a God. Even Huxley addressed the need for God in Brave New World. How did mankind lose their need for God? Was it suddenly, or gradually, like the passing away of "the old kind world" of before?

"a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go."

The closest readers get to a God in this novel is Hailsham and her governors. The students plead with the governors for deferment, almost like a person prays to God, but ultimately, the governors are not powerful enough to grant their request — it is a God of good intentions only. Interestingly, the rumours are said to arise spontaneously even after repeated stomping out, as if it is instinctive for humans to hope.

It is a sad novel, but I cannot imagine the world as I know it coming to this, not in this generation anyway.

Read More!

Kool-aid for Christian groups

I bumped into the director at the lift landing mid-way through a very large gaping yawn, and he said, "Had a late night?" And at precise moment, I thought that I had better either take my coffee before I leave the house, or come to work earlier to drink my shot.

Shucks, guess I can't apply to be a Mormon.

American Mormons drink a lot of Kool-Aid and eat a lot of ice-cream at their college parties, since they can't have caffeine or alcohol. When I was in college involved in an inter-denominational evangelical group, we had a lot of kool-aid too, that bright red drink that drove the minister's wife nuts because the students would spill it on her white carpet. Heh. Kool-aid + college kids (regardless of denomination) + white carpet = inevitable disaster.

And since we are on the topic of Kool-aid and Christian denominations, here is a joke my dad told me the other day.

A preacher was preaching in a Baptist church and in the middle of his sermon, he asked, "How many here are Baptists?" Everyone raised their hands, except for an elderly lady in the front row.

So he asked her, "What is your denomination, Madam?"

She said, "Methodist".

So he asked, "Why are you a Methodist?"

She said, "Because my great-grandfather was a Methodist, my grandfather was a Methodist, my father was a Methodist, and so I am a Methodist."

The Baptist preacher thought for a moments and teased her, "So if your great-grandfather was a moron, your grandfather was a moron, and your father was a moron, what does that make you?"

Without skipping a beat, the elderly lady replied, "Baptist".

Read More!