The reflecting theologian

Finally last day of holiday and we shall be moving back to school to enjoy our lively debates in tutorials and discussions in lectures. As much as I dun want the holidays to end, I'm also quite eager to have the tutorials and lectures started again. What an oxymoron. Today I see almost the whole Hope NUS Unit A here for a house visit. Too bad my mum was not in, so no hongbao for them. But we had a good time and well, of course, how can the fun be without the presence of my brother, with whom people were so amused by the both of us. Took quite a few pictures and should be posting them up soon. We also played Indian poker and never know Indian poker can be so fun. Well, had other fun times but I guess I'll stop here, as they tend to get a bit narrative. But really, these four days had served as a break from school work for me to recharge and prepare myself for the onslaught of work that'll sure to come after this holiday. Well... I just saw the weekly wisdom provided by chris...

Now, as the day draws to an end, I have collected $92 for the day's taking. That makes $314 together. Hmmm.... should be enough money to last me for the rest of next month. Today had a rather uneventful day. Went to my aunt's place for lunch. Then came back home to find my third uncle from my mum's side and gang at home for a visit. At least I got a chance to drive the car just now. But realised that my mum's side the uncles are quite friendly and easy going. Good, next time I must see if I have a chance to bring my mum back to Malaysia for a visit. Also, I had a chance to learn my family's secret recipe for 'ji dan gao', basically egg cake, translated literally. Think next time can make for my friends. This week also seems to be challenging me to go for a breakthrough. Now I have to learn a new song by the name of 'I give You my heart' by Friday... dun know if I can make it or not. Pray hard... and practise hard sia. Think things should go pretty we...

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year and in case some readers are unaware, it is the first day of the new year in the lunar calendar (hey, I just realise there are foreign readers in my blog). Anyway, it's time to do some calculations on the amount of hongbao money I have collected for today... and they all amount to... $222 for the first day... Whoaz, what a nice number. As usual, what happens today is so routine of CNY. Woke up in the morning to go fetch my brother at Changi Naval Base. After that, went off to the various temples. Luckily our dear dog is with us. I was entrusted with the responsibility to carry him, so that I dun need to be seen not burning the joss sticks and will be seen as I have finished my 'worship' already. Thankfully, I do not have to repeat yesterday's fiasco. Evening saw another round of so-called reunion dinner. With more people and with more and better food. The YRC khakis as usual, arrived in my place... to set up their version of an...

I just returned from the River Hongbao Festival. Saw the fireworks there. When I reached that place, we saw something. There were a huge crowd of 'fortune tellers' there, quite a lot and they take up quite a huge portion of the carnival. A lot of them put on this notice: No need to talk and I can foretell your name. If inaccurate, no need to pay. My mum decided to try one of them and that guy, after taking measurement of her palm, took out a pile of cards with a lot of chinese characters on it and asked her to look for her surname. She couldn't find hers, but that guy gave her a slip of printed words anyway... which was superbly... inaccurate. I know cos when I read the last line, I immediately knew that it was disgustingly wrong. The last line said that she will have 3 children... she only has 2 and given her age, how can you expect her to conceive again?? Well... just for fun.

Hmmmm.... Today is Chinese New Year Eve. Yesterday was a lazy day. NUS was pretty quiet which comes as no surprise since most of the foreign students are away back home with their families. Wanted to do all my readings for Empires but in the end I gave up cos the day was too lazy and the place was too quiet. But had a happening service at Nexus in the evening, which was more than enough to brighten up the day. But right here, I would like to narrate a happening story of me with the aunties at Zhong Hua Ramen at Cuppage S11. You see, after service last night, my CG decided to go to the Cuppage S11 to eat supper. Originally, I didn't see any store other than the drink store opened. Then after I got my Milo, I found the Zhong Hua Ramen store still operating and decided to go and get a plain ramen, since I was starving after the service. The ramen cost me $2 and I gave the auntie a $10 note... and my change never came back. So I decided to ask for my change back. Little did I know, the...

Today marks the end of my 21st year of human existence and the beginning of my 22nd. Seriously, life passes by quite fast. To think that last year I celebrated my 21st birthday with Lilong alone in some ulu camp in an isolated air conditioned tentage and that I had previously celebrated my 19th during my BMT field camp, being tekan by my sergeant in the middle of powder bath. This year, however, proved to be a festival. To begin with, the celebration started on 21 Jan, when my fellow NUS Unit A brothers and sisters celebrated with me at the Singtel building behind Somerset MRT. Quite a fun time we had and crazy Xinying and Kiadai actually made me act out my route to my faith, but then it was quite refreshing to refresh myself with the memories. For those who want to know more, my previous blog posts are filled with details. They also gave me a 'bowling ball' for a birthday card... and the cake was nice (well, made by Claire). Actually had a good time that day. 22 Jan was celebr...

Today I saw something in school, and I can't get over with it. I dun know why. Sometimes, things just get confusing and I dun know why. I'm supposed to meet a friend today in school at 7pm, but I made another appointment with another group of friends in City Hall at the same time, forgetting the former appointment. To make things worse, I saw that 'something' which I can't get over with, at the same time. To put things into analogies, it's like suddenly everything starts crashing onto me. Troubled, sad, confused and desperate... suddenly just reminds me of something I heard today, which I dun think I'll say here. And as I'm typing this, everyone starts talking about prom night and photo taking... how distracting and how distressful... though I dun blame them and what my inner self is experiencing now has nothing to do with them. Too bad, 要怪就怪我太执著。 Aiyo, must put up a brave front...

Well, I have not been deceived by charm, but I write again. Before I start, I will like to share this quote from somewhere: I don't want to get to the end of my one and only life and realize I've wasted it. Probably everyone wants his or her life to count for something and to matter; there are certainly very few people who want to waste their lives. I have seen some, not that I haven't but the traits are sometimes quite subtle and one of these traits include smoking which I had my say already. But what does it mean to waste your life? And what does it mean for your life to count, to matter, and to be meaningful? Really, both of those questions boil down to this: Why do you exist? What are you here for? Well, for this, it's up to everyone of us to find out. I have found out mine, and for those who know me, you will probably know what I am talking about. But how about the rest? Well, good luck to you. Then, I saw one verse from my Daily Bible Verse: What good is it for ...

That day I was having a conversation with my friends and it was mentioned that if a guy meets the woman of his life, if he ever knows that that is the woman of his life, he will change for her, for the better, of course. I was just wondering how true that can be. Nevertheless, charms can be deceiving... but are we willing to take the calculated risk and willing to be deceived? If she is not the right one, then how about the left one... Sorry, deviated off to something of a joke which I thought I can share from what I heard yesterday. Speaking of which, that day, one of my friends also sort of asked me this: assuming I have a girlfriend who is of different faith as me, eg an atheist, and she wants me to choose between her and my faith. What would I do? For me, in whatever case, I will never go out with such a girl in the first place, since I would normally make sure that that girl is who I want to be with. If suay suay I got to go out with such a girl, I'll dump her if she ever asks...

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres.' - 1 Corinthian 13:4-7 I had sort of a sharing on Thursday evening with my CG. Then I went back home and saw this in one of my friends' blog: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Then as I scrolled down further, I saw this: I choose e former. I do believe in miracle...some unexplainable wonders tt happened, something u cant explain at all. YET i believe tt nothing is a miracle because Everything happens for a reason. A decision is made for a reason. What makes the decision? it's the owner of decision. E ownder is none other than the person him or her Okay, quite a mouthful. Then...

It's still raining outside, and it's freezing cold. In case you all haven't realise, I have included a new section in the navbar called 'Our daily bread'. Yeah, they are bible verses, but sometimes, we must remember that these verses do apply very much to our life in general too. So do take a look at them. A lot of things have happened for the past few hours. Firstly, I realised that the mono printer B at computer centre prints so slowly that I'll never engage that printer again. Printed $7.65 worth of readings today, which makes out to 133 pages altogether. Considering that it's 2 pages in 1 most of the time, it amounts to around 220 pages of readings. It took me the whole afternoon to just finish 33 pages of it and it's just the readings for the first month. Looks like I can expect an exciting semester again. Secondly, got to know a new friend today. He's a year 1 like me but majoring in economics. He's taking 2 history modules this semester an...

Today, my father received a flash clip in his email from one of his friends and it's quite cute. So I would highly recommend all to take a look at it here . It's about chicken... but not chicken little, in case you are wondering. Anyway, a short update about this blog. In case you haven't realise, I have recently inserted this song called Imagine Me without You by Jaci Velasquez into the blog for all your hearing pleasure, in the event that you think that music beforehand was too irritating. But expect frequent changes on the music in the near future. Also, I have inserted the lyrics at the navbar on the right, in case you all want to know exactly how the song goes. More to come, more to come, dun worry. Today is Hari Raya Haji. It's a public holiday. And guess what, I still went back to school... not to study of course, but for some outing with some guys who called ourselves M.A.C.H.O. Interested to know what it means? Ask and you shall receive. Today is cold, really c...

Today the long awaited reopening of a new semester finally took its rightful place. My first lecture of the semester was also a long awaited lecture on nation building in Singapore. I was quite surprised at the crowd, thought only got 184 students taking it, not knowing that I actually remembered the class roster for EU1101E. Saw some familiar faces in the lecture theatre, one all too familiar. He's my tutor for HY1101E last semester. I already knew that he'll be tutoring for this module but well... He reminds me of this another friend of mine who went to the same tutorial class as me for HY1101E last semester. She told me that she's scared of him... but for once, I would say that he should be more scared of her, given that he couldn't remember her name all these while and there was once when he was so paiseh to ask for her name that he actually looked at me and signalled and mouthed to me what's her name... The lecture was talking about Singapore as an unlikely nat...

A switchman sat in a small shack on one side of the river where he operated the controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place when a train crossed. One evening, as the switchman was waiting for the light of the day to com, he looked off into the distance through the dim twilight and caught sight of the train lights. He stepped to the controls and waited until the train was within a prescribed distance within the bridge. He turned the bridge into position, but to his horror, found out that the locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position, it would wobble back and forth at the ends when the train came on to it, causing the train to jump the track and crash into the river. This would be a passenger train with many people aboard. He then hurried across the bridge to the other side of the river where there was a lever switch that could manually operate the lock to hold the bridge stable but he would have to hold the switch firmly as the train crossed. He cou...

Well, before I begin on what I want to say today, I found this flash presentation on my friend's blog on stereotypes. Considering some of my readers are hardcore fans of my blog, ie you only patronise my blog, I decided that you have to see this flash presentation cos it basically stereotyped males and females. Though I dun really agree with some of the stereotypes, I must agree with the one regarding females going to the toilet (not meant to discriminate anyone). Perhaps what depicted in that section is more commonly seen in schools than anywhere else. Anyway, just watch and see. The normal human life is not perfect, meaning that there bound to be ups and downs. Maybe ups will come after the downs and the downs wil come after the ups or both will come together. But as Ronan Keating sang, 'Life is a rollercoaster'. We cannot do anything about what is beyond our control. But what we can do is to adjust our mindsets and the way we adjust our mindsets towards things will dete...

You Are a Henna Gaijin! You're not Japanese, but you wish you were! You can use chopsticks with your eyes closed, and you've memorized hundreds of Kanji. You even answer your phone "moshi moshi." While the number of anime videos you've seen is way higher than the number of dates you've been on, there's hope. Play the sexy, mysterous gaijin, and you'll have plenty of Japanese meat. What's Your Japanese Subculture? You Are a Little Scary You've got a nice edge to you. Use it. How Scary Are You? You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be. How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

Had a good day today. Firstly, as my bidding on the CORS ended, let's review my own performance for this time round. Here's the result slip: JS1101E - 1 pt EU1101E - 1 pt HY2229 - 1 pt HY2245 - 1 pt FNA1002 - 1 pt Total - 5 pt Whoaz! Great improvement from last semester. Maybe it's a good idea not to bid for cybercrime at all. I heard that by the end of open bidding, next min bid was 840 points. It's insane. It virtually drove all year one students out of the competition. But well, I got what I wanted in the end, so no complaint. Today, I managed to learn something about facing the New Year and since these are tips on how we can face the new year ahead and since it's only 4 days into 2006, I have decided to share these tips with all of my readers. 1. Recognise the value of time Young people like ... me... these days have the tendency to waste time on things which we could have put to better use. According to a research done, an average human being spends 14 year...

Sometimes, you just dun know what is in store for you until the very end. You see, today, me and Robert were going back to school to do some stuffs. For him, it's returning of his library books and seeing if his honours room is opened or not so that he can get some of his project readings. For me, it's just getting back to school to get some readings in advance to see what's in store for me in the coming semester. We board the bus as usual, and alight at Ngee Ann Poly to take 151. To our amazement (horror?), 3 more 184 passed by us and no 151 was in sight. As a result, we decided to take 52 to Clementi (after 30 min of waiting) and just as we alight at Clementi, 96 drove away... We missed another bus, yeah. Finally we got on the next 96 and when we reached the school library, all the bins were full, which means that Robert could not return his books. Also, he received a bad new that the honours room was locked. Bad luck to the worst? Therefore, being the positive looking du...

Ever wondered how a dog can be practical? Let me tell you how but before that, let me give you a simple background so that you know what is going on. You see, I live in a HDB flat, 3rd storey to be precise. My aunt lives at the 2nd storey, directly below my flat. Our household has a dog and this dog normally sleeps at the 2nd storey. So this morning, while I was still sleeping, my aunt brought the dog up. This cutey little dog sensed that I was at home, so it tried to push open my room door (it was not closed properly) and came into my room and tried to climb onto my bed. I helped him with that, and within seconds, he was making himself comfortable on my bed and refused to go home with my aunt. So my aunt decided to leave him under my care and went down. Minutes after that, I woke up and switch off the air con... cos I was unable to go back to sleep after that. And guess what, the moment I switched off the air con, the dog jumped off my bed and decided that he wants to go back down, in...

I saw this in one of the blogs I read: . Well, do you all know why people call it "new year resolutions"? That's because they only say it on new year's day, which is on the 1st Jan Before I carry on, let me wish all my readers a happy new year. Ok, now, Are new year resolutions called so because they are only being said on New Year's day? Well, for a lot, I do agree that this is the case. It's an opportunity for a lot of people to say 'YES! It's a new year and let's show people the new me!'. Oh well... But to some (includes me =P), a new year represents a new start and a new beginning and a chance to refresh myself from the past. In short, it's a chance to really begin on a new journey. A year is a year and 365 days mean a lot of events and stuffs. Shouldn't then a new year deserve a definition of a new journey, even though this new journey is part of a constant journey we call life? But of course, if a new year is the start and beginni...