Consider the Lilies

Solitary Tree, 1821, Caspar David Friedrich


Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Matthew 6:25-32

Thanksgiving

It was quite heartening to see the boys from three different cell groups playing soccer together; p. ian and p. joshua and the older guys from the church football team also joined in. Although we did not quite achieve the task of reaching out to the dover community (the malay guys did not turn up), it was probably the first time I see the boys playing a game of football together, notwithstanding the fact that my angsty cell boys literally smashed the goalposts - which was made of pvc toilet pipes and connectors - a few times. Their cell leader (me) also bulldozed poor little joel onto the ground. I feel a bit bad because I sprained his finger the first time he came to our cluster, and today he was just commenting that it has been a while since he saw me - before I bulldozed him while trying to dribble and side step him.

It has always been a bit of a headache for me to get the different cell groups to talk to one another. And although I am aware of the little factions that have sprung up here and there, I am a bit powerless to resolve these little groups together. Managing them is a bit like being Kofi Annan in the Middle East royal rumble - you have to handle the sunnis and shi'ites and kurds with a careful and artful blend of diplomacy and conflict resolutions.

Really thank God for Ian and Boon to pull the soccer thing together while I was hiding in Europe. Will spend the next few weeks to do a few more rounds of diplomatic visits to the little factions; starting this thursday with a sit down dinner with Moses and gang in cineleisure. I think my final bastion is to try to connect with the girls in Lisa's and Yue-yi's cell. I still feel totally intimidated trying to talk to them. Seriously speaking, what possible topics can a 24 year old guy have at his disposal to talk to intelligent and well-read 14 year old girls? Women's suffrage? Harry Potter? Carebears? Gah... I don't know!

But thank God for His guidance in the cluster -)

Insecurities

Last sem's modules were very much centred around foreign policies. This sem I'm going pretty ballistic into security studies. In fact, I felt it was a bit too extreme that I decided to drop asia-pacific security studies in the last minute and take up governance and politics of Singapore, which is afterall an essential module for PS undergrads. A quick check on the roster revealed that there is only one other honours student who will be joining me in the lecture.

I don't know why I have been getting a few waves of panic attacks; feeling rather insecure with my final thesis, the prospects of working after grad, of the possibility of getting scholarships, of doing post-grad studies, with the cell group, with the cluster, insecure about myself.

It is funny how I know so much about security as 'freedom from fear' in IR, but I have yet to understand what it means to have freedom from worries in my head.

Strum a few chords and sang a worship song just now. Maybe simplicity is the key to feeling secure.

monday blues

The jump from level 3 to 4 modules is pretty steep, as compared to the jump from level 2 to 3. Today, I spent an average of 5 minutes to read through each page of the readings required for my next Study of War lecture. To me, it feels as bizarre as reading some strange international relations of inter-planetary war, going by the way they talk about the possibility of 'militarizing space', and using naval and air warfare in a 'blue world' of sea and sky to supercede armour warfare in future force projections.

huh??????????????????

I think at the honours level, we are not even learning about the conventional wisdom and theories of politics anymore. It is learning about the hard core issue of force versus legitimacy in a very real and sad world. Going by the really pessimistic and realist and masculine way that the readings have been presented in this particular module, I think there is a large degree of biblical truth that we are going into an era of more WARS, famines and earthquake in the end times.

And then there was the level 6 lectures on international conflict. There's another guy with the same first and last name as me, although he is much older and has worked in mindef before. It was quite interesting to find out the working conditions in the intelligence department, and in the policy branch.

Too much analysis on the undercurrents of war and int conflicts is slowly convincing me that daily newspapers reports can be pretty cosmestic stuff.

We need more love and peace in this world.

old self, new self, no self

The girl with a pearl earring, Vemeer

"It is always the beauty of this portrait head, its purity, freshness, radiance, sensuality that is singled out for comment. Vermeer himself, as Gowing notes, provides the metaphor: she is like a pearl. Yet there is a sense in which this response, no matter how inevitable, begs the question of the painting, and evades the claims it makes on the viewer. For to look at it is to be implicated in a relationship so urgent that to take an instinctive step backward into aesthetic appreciation would seem in this case a defensive , an act of betrayal and bad faith. It is me at whom she gazes, with real, unguarded human emotions, and with an erotic intensity that demands something just as real and human in return. The relationship may be only with an image, yet it involves all that art is supposed to keep at bay."

Edward A. Snow, A Study of Vermeer, 1979

Our zeal must, however, begin at home. Let us examine ourselves as to our right to eat at the Lord’s table. Let us see to it that we have on our wedding garment, lest we ourselves be intruders in the Lord’s sanctuaries. Many are called, but few are chosen; the way is narrow, and the gate is strait. O for grace to come to Jesus aright, with the faith of God’s elect. He who smote Uzzah for touching the ark is very jealous of his two ordinances; as a true believer I may approach them freely, as an alien I must not touch them lest I die. Heart searching is the duty of all who are baptized or come to the Lord’s table. "Search me, O God, and know my way, try me and know my heart."

Spurgeon

The walking biological bomb

I trodded into daniel's temporary office at the soci department with a splitting headache, a runny nose and a very bad cough. To the best of my memories, I think I have never fallen sick during a school semester. So it was a pretty alienating feeling to walk around campus feeling really crap for the past two days. I think it started yesterday morning when I pretty much exhausted myself with an ism meeting with prof singh in the morning, a 3 hr lecture on asia security in the afternoon, and another 3 hr lecture on international conflict at night. I think pema's comment summed up how crapped I looked: "You look like you live in the library!"

Part of the effects of having a fever is that I become more grouchy. For instance, I think there are too many students in school, too many freshmen walking around, and hogging the computers at the library, and too much noise for one to have any quiet solitude to do his readings! So it was quite a haven to hide inside dan's office today. Not that I did any productive work in his office. I basically collapsed on the super nice couch and slept. But I think it is cool to have friends who are colonizers of their prof's office, since it means that cronies like me can access to internet in school (without queueing up in the central library), have unlimited lazer printing, and basically have a place to sleep without being gazed by others. I think it beats the writing centre as a chill-out room (Sorry clem).

Just to do my fair bit of publicity for clem, I think his new online newspaper website is really cool http://campusobserver.org , although I was expecting more controversial news! Seems that both my academic buds are doing really great in school; dan doing his masters, and clem starting a newspaper site from scratch. I think I need to do something great if the tan-tham-lim alliance is to be strong... ha ha.

I think the worse of my virus attack is over. Shall sleep a few more hours before I continue (or should I say start?) on my stillborn ISM proposal.

Waterfall in Tioman, Malaysia

Took this using 'DI'gital camera (Thanks di!!). Placed the camera behind my oakleys to give a more saturated effect, which also slowed down the shutter speed, to get the foamy effect. Tioman was a pretty theraputic trip!

Paradise Now

A photo taken off my hotel in Leiden (This picture has not been photo-shopped).

The Great Cultural Revolution Film Festival

Yeap, it is on! If you got nothing better to do this friday night, feel free to come down to 16 Stirling Road for a night of good dope and good fun!

Revolution starts at: Friday (11 August) 11pm till Saturday morning.

The Manifesto includes: Schindler's List, Paradise Now, Happy Together, with Monty Python comedy breaks (1st season) in between.

The Communal Hall will serve: Austrain red and white wine, ice cream with baileys or milo powder, pizza from Anchorpoint.

Remember, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", so bring some spoils to share too.

All are welcome, including the bourgeois.

The Great Wall

So I was there. That is Sam with me. It was quite funny when he dropped his lipbalm and it rolled all the way down after a pretty steep ascent. The great wall is pretty awesome stuff, though the Beijing fog was quite a spoiler. I've seen two ancient 'wonders of the world' so far in my life, Angkor in 2004 and the Great Wall this year. I think Angkor beats the Great Wall. Ha, I can't give any reasons. I think I make a lousy archaeologist.

So anyway, up next will be photos from Tioman.

No more day dreaming

I think the reality of the coming final year is sinking in. With readings like 'Reconstructing Constructivism' and 'What Sun Tzu can Teach us about International Terrorism', I think it is going to be a really tough (but interesting) semester ahead. Where previously I think there is still room to smoke my way through in essays and presentations, I think this sem calls for a more serious and scholarly approach to studying IR. I'm not sure what I mean by 'scholarly', some say that it just means more hours of mugging. I prefer the other way - more time to stone, so that I got the mental space to think and ponder through the improbables of IR. Yeah, so maybe I'll do another 3 month MSN fast. Felt pretty liberating when I stopped MSN since Feb.

I think Singapore is a pretty tough city to live and think at the same time. People are doing so much yet so little at the same time. Less is more. Hope that will be the new strategy in surviving another tough semester ahead.

Do I really know you?

Maybe not

Friends in China!

These were pretty much the usp friends that I hang out with.

From top:

1) Celebrating Pema's 21st birthday at this 'Boat Quay' area of Beijing, which is call Hou Hai (Back Seas??). I was pretty deprived of good coffee in China, so it was heaven when we found starbucks in Hou Hai. The night weather was just nice (say around 15 degrees) and the atmosphere was good; an edgy night spot of modernity interspersed with rustic communist and communal flava. We joined a mass dance with the old chinese folks after that! I think Nian Long and I totally destroyed their communal culture with our WWF-like form of dance.

2) My roommate, Sam Cho. Really cool and funky dude. Plays good guitar, a good singing Jay Chou like voice, funny, and we talked a lot from christianity to photography. Ha.. he finds it strange that I always sleep so early in China. I guess it is just my way of finding personal space with God when there are so much movement around. Really glad to know Sam.

3) The 'D7' gang of USP. Sam was behind the camera. We were the only goons out of the 50 Singaporean students who decided to run up the Great Wall, while others took the cable car. And we did it in record time, about 30 minutes, before the cable car group even reached us! This picture was taken in one of the little forts along the Great Wall.

4) Diana Wu. Church fren, nua buddy, and travel mate! Cheers to many more years of friendship!!

I know what you did last summer!

This was of course taken in Tiananmen, when on 4 June 1989, images of unarmed students being rolled over by tanks captured the attention of the international media. What started as a sit-in by thousands of students at the Square for Hu Yaobang's memorial service, eventually escalated to a demostration for freedom and democracy, as well as against corruption and price reforms. 17 years later, China has continued to maintain the communist form of democratic centralism that is essentially a power play of checks and balances between the Peoples' Congress and the Party's Congress, guided and controlled by the General Secretary of the Standing Committee. Personally, I don't think China is ready for any form of western democracy, partly because of the fact that the Chinese do not understand the meaning of democracy, but mainly due to the complex juxtaposition of other factors - corruption, agrarian mindset, populist politics against the peasants etc etc - which I am not too interested to explain in this blog. Ha.. I suck in comparative politics.

Anyway, over the next few days, I'll upload more photos of my summer holidays in Tioman, China, Thailand and Europe. My way of saying thank you to all the folks who made my holiday a really memorable and enjoyable one. =)

Call for Paper

If any of my kind blog readers have the 22 June 2006 issue of the Economist on 'Eurabia', I hope you'll drop me an email at the_pseudo_philosopher@yahoo.com.sg , and lend it to me? Can't find it in the library cos it is too recent, and I don't want the web version either. Thanks!

Level of urgency: Moderate

Epilogue to a narrative that neither has an Introduction nor an End

Maybe that is as postmodern as it can get to my sojourn in four European countries -Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Looking back, I really enjoyed the times there; times spent with God, friends and just being myself.

However, I felt that it was a sojourn that really did not have a introduction per se; it was unexpected, unplanned, rash. I still remember when I submitted the 1500 word essay on that cold rainy afternoon, I was telling myself that it was probably the most ridiculous thing that I could have done when the exams for my weakest module - contemporary chinese politics - was just a day ahead.

So anyway, somehow, I managed to bump my way into a 2 week summer exchange that was really amazing. Notwithstanding the free flow of wine and fine cuisine everyday (paid by the taxpayers of Asia and Europe of course), I think the one outstanding fact was that there weren't any cliques, and people just got along with one another in such a sincere and warm manner. It was also a time when I felt pretty affirmed in my post grad directions, although right now I'm not exactly in the best spiritual disposition to feel that calling. Been a bit withdrawn after coming back.

The following 2 weeks were a confluence of highs and lows. Like what I told a friend, for every three days of feeling good, I'll get one day of crap. So I think I had two days of crap, once in Dresden, once in Munchen. In Munchen, it was in a park off the museums that I sort of just broke down while doing my Quiet Time. I wasn't sure what triggered the breaking down. I vaguely remembered that I was asking God a lot of perplexing questions. For instance, I felt that the exchange really gave me the confidence to work in a high power sort of job, such as in MFA or in SID. But yet at the same time, I am pretty clear in my heart that God does not want me to go in that direction, at least not immediately after I graduate. So it is strange that God reveals the possibility of life on the other side, only to create some sort of Cosmic Great Reversal to crucify my passion. It pretty much goes the same way in other departments of my life. So yeah.. maybe the accumulation of unanswered questions made me broke down in the park.

But don't get me wrong, I don't feel that I was being abnormal or anything. I think it is liberating in a strange sort of way to break down in a strange foreign land, and in a park, thousands of miles away, and then just move on. And really move on.

So my trip ended in Baden, where I stayed at Constantine's house. He is a great Austrain pal that I got to know during the exchange. This place was pretty much the 6th avenue of Austria, comes with a wine cellar, a personal gym, a gong left by suharto, a real music jukebox, fruit trees, a pond and a jacuzzi. The last night was a bit excessive though. Hmmm... confession time... I smoked some crap... I wasn't sure what it was, all I know was that it gave me a really bad splitting headache the next day, and somehow it makes you hard to sleep? Was pretty thankful I made it back to essen alive. Just conk out after that.

So yeah, perhaps I ended my sojourn without an ending. Unanswered questions. Expected affirmations. Spiltting headache. And a dip in my walk with God (although it is a predictable pattern, I always feel low in the immediate days following an overseas trip).

But I just want to thank God for everything. Things are clearer yet unclear at the same time. I feel raring to go for my honours year. At the back of my mind, I just want to finish my final year really well. I thought that will give me the confidence to take one year off, before I come back to NUS to apply for some scholarship. It is still Thailand and Indochina for that one year off. I hope that narrative stays, even if others get erased.

run jimmy run!!!!!!!!

I like to run, in a metaphorical sort of way,
especially during summer holidays.

I am not so sure why,
maybe it is an act of self preservation,
to prevent myself from falling into June 2004.

It might be Divinity, it might be the Mind,
but the running took me to quite a couple of places in the past 2 years.

Why the running?
Maybe when you run, images stream past in a flash,
and momentarily, you lose sense of what is really happening.

You are only focusing on the next step, the next route, and the next destination.
You don't really care about the pace of the walking man.

And then once in a while, you stop running.
The acid builds up in the cells, and you feel incredibly painful.
Life dips, and you pray for the Divine.

And then you run again - even harder - in the mind.
Looking back, I think I've already achieved what I set out to do since the beginning of the year.
It is funny how things come full circle in your face at times.
So maybe I ran a bit too hard this year,
and there is still 5 more months to go.

Lady Hope is going home,
So maybe I need to run again - even harder - in the mind.
I find it hard to slow down now.
Leave all aside,
the race has ended, but just begun.