Pseudo Philosophy

Winter, Coffee, Philosophy

2009-03-27T14:42:00.001+08:00

Somewhere in Brooklyn, 14 Feb 2009

No Exit

2009-03-21T11:20:00.000+08:00

Keep it Going

2009-03-21T10:12:00.002+08:00

Bay Street, Staten Island, 8 March 2009

Light and Tunnel

2009-03-18T03:11:00.000+08:00

110 Station at Cathedral Parkway, 7 March 2009

Team!

2009-03-17T07:35:00.002+08:00

Clockwise: Bobbi, American born Korean, specialist in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and also in Heidegger! Hitoki, Japanese, boss. Olga, Russian, secretary for Hitoki. Catherine, Chinese, specialist in India and Nepal. Alma, from Albania, specialist in Pakistan. Jimmy, from Singapore!

Urban Movements

2009-03-16T13:18:00.004+08:00

Coney Island, 7 March 09

Where's Jimmy? =p

2009-03-13T04:57:00.001+08:00

'Group Shot with Ban Ki Moon'.

"Much is given, much is required," she said.

2009-03-01T10:42:00.012+08:00

It was probably my toughest interview since the days running for student council. Friends who know me well will know that I’m not very good at handling interviews. It puzzles me because I’m generally confident in handling tutorials.

Anyway, 4 of us were interviewed at the same time. All had impressive backgrounds - a Harvard Kennedy student who prepares speeches for an MP, a Georgetown undergraduate with many internships under her belt, and an auditor in a big firm. I guess my advantage was a better awareness at local issues.

It was a good hour of exchanges between the interviewer and us. I didn’t talk much in the opening five minutes because I was trying to squash the butterflies in my belly. Gradually, topics shifted to issues on the financial crisis, meritocracy and elitism, and social security.

I argued that the public service should foster a culture of philanthropy to sustain VWOs, in light of the government’s cautious approach towards a welfare state. The interviewer asked me if philanthropy was a difficult issue to talk about during recession. I was quite surprised by my quick rebuttal that “philanthropy is difficult to talk about in bad times but that doesn’t make it less important”.

Another tricky question was whether I would fire foreign talents if Singaporeans wanted me to do so. It was a difficult question and I tried to play the Daniel Tham diplomatic (i.e. non-committal) card by saying that it was a choice between making Singapore a competitive business location and responding to the social needs of low-income Singaporeans. The interviewer pressed me for an answer and I borrowed Obama’s budget solution that we should increase the tax of the top 2% wealthiest people in Singapore by a few percent. I reasoned that:

1) since the marginal propensity to consume for the wealthy would not increase with GST rebates (a theory mentioned in this year's budget speech), they wouldn't drastically suffer with a few percent increase in taxation.

2) while it would drive away some foreign talents, it would at least retain those who wouldn’t mind contributing something back to create a pool of social security funds (or in the words of Obama, a sense of 'balance and fairness').

3) it would be a good compromise between listening to the people and retaining conscientious foreign talents.

Later on, the interviewer asked each of us to suggest one policy that we would like to change in Singapore. I suggested that our national service should have two tracks. Besides the usual 2-year service, we could have a different track for groups such as the Jehovah Witnesses. This might be in the form of a 2-year local and overseas community service. I told the interviewer that this would create greater social liberalism. Instead of wasting their time in the DB trimming potted plants and making bird cages, they could contribute to Singapore too.

The interviewer was quite accepting of my 'interesting' idea but said that MINDEF might not like it.

I guess I did fairly ok for 70% of the interview. There were moments when I stuttered and fumbled in stringing my sentences. Towards the crucial final few minutes, I misinterpreted an issue concerning the need for better public relations by the civil service. I handled that rather badly. Also, I didn’t do too well in the 2-hour psychometric test.

I will know the results in a fortnight. Not exactly confident about my chances. I was quite upset with myself during the evening; walking around Chinatown and along Broadway in the drizzle. Felt that even the wind was against me, when it inverted my umbrella. So I was already trying to find out opportunities at IE Singapore during today’s career talk at the Grand Hyatt.

Whatever the outcome, it was a good experience to exchange perspectives with a very sharp and ENTJ interviewer. I think I’ve come out of it stronger, in terms of confidence and handling tricky questions from NTJs. That is an important lesson, regardless of the results. I think I made a new friend too, with Harvard Kennedy dude. We share many common paths back in Singapore and he is from Living Waters. I joked that whenever the security guys caught us playing Sunday soccer in ACS, we would say that we were from Living Waters.

Time to focus on thesis in the next few weeks. Walzer.....

Art Education

2009-02-23T04:32:00.000+08:00

A Toilet Moment in MoMA

2009-02-21T11:27:00.005+08:00

Into the Abyss

2009-02-20T09:30:00.004+08:00

Feels like I'm running a small campaign, with printed and handwritten notes, profiles of some important people and coffee cups spread over my office table. Except that I don't have a campaign team. I'm covering domestic politics for today and tomorrow, followed by foreign policy over the weekend, and then personal questions next week. I've worked out a series of possible questions and answers, counter-questions and counter-answers, policies and their pros and cons. I'm really bad in interviews but the Frost/Nixon movie taught me the value of hard work and preparation. I'm taking it quite seriously, because I want to push myself to see how far I can go in competing with the best. I want to see if I can translate TA confidence in handling students' questions into professional confidence in handling the Perm Sec's questions. More importantly, I feel a strong urge to pray. Not so much for the interview, but perhaps to dust off cobwebs and entanglements from my mind, and focus on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable and excellent (Phil 4). Secretly, I wish that God will close this door; to stir up deeper awakenings to pursue less travelled paths. I guess I have different dreams, and they don't always gel together. Some dreams require money. Some dreams require guts. Some dreams require patience. And some dreams require a foreign land. But "many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand" (Proverbs 19:21). God's Purpose, at some levels, can be a mind-boggling concept. Maybe it is time to think less, and pray more.

Good Friend, Good Times

2009-02-18T11:48:00.010+08:00

Chatting on top of the Brooklyn Bridge; discovering quaint shops at DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass); jazzbar; waffles, pancakes, maple syrups and free flow of coffee for daily breakfasts; Chinatown and Little Korea; ferry ride to Staten Island; watching a movie called Frost/Nixon; skating at Central Park; shopping for books, window shopping around NYU; Starbucks; mexican food; beer; intelligent conversations; musings about love and life; and an abrupt farewell at JFK.

It was good catching up with Leen. There was the occasional cultural awkwardness but we got by, as usual. It is hard to keep in touch with distant friends. But I'm glad we've been so since 2005. She suggested that we should go Bosnia next time. She showed me her photos and I must say that the mountain lakes in Bosnia are awesome. Maybe I'd try to get a free trip to Europe this May or August through ASEF though I'm getting tired with cover letters. Writing cover letters feels like self-flagellation at times.

Nothing reflective in this post though I just want to quickly jot down my memories before they go away. Having a bit of a social stress cos I haven't had the time to reply emails to friends. At the same time, it is hard to find friends on the same wavelength in UN and NY. Leen's visitation was timely. I need to prepare for an unexpected job interview next Friday. The PSD guys are coming to town. I'm nervous but would put my best energy into it. Honestly, if this program doesn't work out, I should re-evaluate my options and...

a chord in you

2009-02-07T08:48:00.007+08:00

I was doing grocery shopping at duane reade until I heard 'the scientist' being played on the radio. reminded me of a conversation a time ago, about how the sahara was once a fertile tropical land but became arid and dry cos of tectonic shifts, and about how it would be nice to go to the middle east and africa. anyway, i can't believe that half the internship is almost over. i've learnt a lot about south asia and i guess quite a bit about un too. along the way, i've grown closer with my two danish roommates. last week, we went to catch an NBA mid-week game at madison square garden, and then to a sports bar on sunday to catch the super bowl final. it was a complex game but i liked it, the strategies and the grit. there was this quarterback call kurt warner who was excellent with his pinpoint passes. i was rooting for his team, arizona. they lost in the end. it has been a good balance between hanging out with singaporean friends in new york and getting to know some interns at a slightly deeper level. i'm trying to sign up for free tickets to the david letterman show, daily show with john stewart, saturday night live and erm... the tyra banks show. the odds should be tougher than getting a place in the un internship, though i read that getting the tyra banks show is quite a walkover. leen is coming from belgium next weekend, so that should be good fun. the landlord is trying to milk her money but we have thought of a ploy. soon, the music will be over, and it will be time to go home.

Thoughts

2009-01-27T11:49:00.002+08:00

It has been a really fast January, faster than I’ve expected. I haven’t been putting enough efforts to jot down my thoughts. Though I should. I suppose I have a pretty good memory to remember conversations and events that trigger impressions. But life, especially right now in NY, can be quite a smorgasbord of facebook-like conversations and activities. A good memory is quite useless when the mind is not sharp enough to abstract meaningful lessons out of whatever that is left in facebook life. Often, I feel that I have to search deep within myself to connect the various dots of my experiences. But along the way, I’m exhausted by the bone chilling cold and work routine at the UN, and thus trade away my soul-searching card for the more primitive task of finding food and getting enough sleep.

So I’m keeping a journal now, with a few trigger questions. I even included the question from the MAP Application as part of my daily journal: “Achievements and Aspirations in terms of Career and Personal Life”. I don’t think I’ll get the program, though it has been something that I feel God has been urging along; something that makes more sense than my other career options. But still, it is an important question to think about for post-Masters life. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. MLK was referring to greater, and more pressing things, like oppression. But I suppose it is true at a personal level as well. There are things in my life that have died their natural deaths, after I’ve stop to ask, seek and knock, after I've become silent about them. The NY City Fire Department says that carbon monoxide poisoning occurs more often in the winter months when people use their gas stoves to heat the house. Approximately 500 Americans die annually from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Silence, like carbon monoxide, comes in an odorless but deathly manner.

I wonder how many jobs out there create carbon monoxide. I also wonder (though I’m getting a clearer picture) what is it that I hope to achieve in this fleeting life. I wonder how God speaks to His people specifically, other than the bible. In this world, there are no permanent happy or sad endings, for such endings belong to the world of fantasy, says Saul Alinsky. He is right, but that sermon can only be for a congregation of atheists. In a finite world, life is indeed a “stream of events that surges endlessly onward with death as the only terminus”. This is the only world that we are born into, and this is where we start… to tear down fallacy after fallacy, to abolish the wall between idealism and reality.

“What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put enmity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil – this is God’s gift to man,” says the wise man who wrote Ecclesiastes.

I don’t think that the wise man has suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, nor has he transcended himself into Nietzsche’s tragedy. What he has achieved is a relationship with God who is Greater than him. Maybe I’ve tried to search for a cause greater than myself. But that cause would either send me towards Alinsky’s path of endless struggles, or Nietzsche’s tragedy. Not that I do not know this about myself. But I’ve been escaping from God, unknowingly. Because of natural deaths, and carbon monoxide poisoning. And searching for causes become a more adventurous quest than searching for God, the gift becomes more elusive and enigmatic than the Giver.

So let’s see how it goes from here, to put aside past and incoming natural deaths, and just enjoy God for His providence and grace.

Hard to express how I feel

2009-01-25T05:01:00.016+08:00

I didn't feel too good over brunch. Decided to take a solitary walk through Central Park. It was a bit chilly, but I felt better walking among trees and basking in the afternoon sunshine. Most of the trees were quite dead. But you'd see squirrels jumping beneath, and playing with leaves. A simple lesson in philosophy, that we can't have one without the other. Life without death. Humans without society. Desires without drudge. Justice without fear. Contempt without passion. Love without jealousy. Love without vulnerabilities. Are they compliments or contradictions of each? It is quite hard to tell. Try embracing both, for that is idealism at its measured fullness, the 'glorious sadness that brings us to our knees'.

An Empty Bench

2009-01-24T11:27:00.006+08:00

Between Two Empty Roads

The Beginning of Hope

2009-01-20T08:57:00.010+08:00

So Obama is bringing an end to an error. Or so we all hope. Hope is a good thing when all is cold and bleak. Like fresh sunshine through my frosty morning window.

That's my thumb by the way, clad in Chelsea's lifesaving ski gloves, walking down Grand Central to UN for work. Very cold day! And I'm going to frame up this newspaper when I'm back in Singapore. Historic!

My Academic Retreat

2009-01-12T12:18:00.004+08:00

I have a rather minimalist table; the result of scanning much of Michael Walzer's (the theorist whom I'm critiquing) readings into my mac. Guess this will be the place for me to think about my thesis once in a while. Don't exactly have any great urge to visit the touristy parts of New York. Maybe winter just makes one sleepy and lazy to go out. Somehow, the idea of drinking hot coffee and writing thesis at night is more appealing. Let's see how it goes...

I love snow (when it's not too cold)!

2009-01-12T11:07:00.005+08:00

Off to New York

2009-01-08T21:55:00.003+08:00

Alrighty, guess I'm all set to go. Wanted to do a separate blog for this trip, but too lazy to do so.

I suppose this trip is more UN than NY. Will be working from 9 to 5pm daily. Still, I'll try to balance unpaid working life with museums, snowy parks, thesis, and also church hopping. I think this church is pretty cool: 'Redeemer Presbyterian Church'

Will update more when I've settled down.

It's a mad rush to nowhere

2009-01-07T23:57:00.003+08:00

Or so it seems...

The philosopher disappears

2008-12-28T09:24:00.004+08:00

With dark forebodings but clear ideas, he summoned his last great exertion to pursue a simple hope.

I need to orchestrate myself

2008-12-19T17:37:00.003+08:00

It was good to bump into Dr Tan today. He shared with me on the different ways he tried to 'orchestrate' and 'enchant' himself in order to write a work that is theoretical, aesthetic and deeply personal. "It's all about playing mind games with yourself, sometimes you need to contemplate over a glass of wine."

It's just great to meet inspiring professors.

Stepping out

2008-12-19T00:46:00.004+08:00

I'm taking a one year break from serving the core team in Youth. It is indeed a welcome break. I suppose there are many reasons why I chose to step down for a while. One of the deeper reasons is that I do want to experience Him in a whole new way, or in the same way, but with a deeper awe. I feel that this engagement with God is all the more important for me personally when everything seems crazily uncertain for next year.

I do not know what next year will hold. Actually, I can foresee more valleys than summits. I can imagine heartbreaking or life-shaping decisions, and maybe moments where I might cower in fear rather than step up in faith. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28). The second part of this verse is a bit mystifying for me, but this is nonetheless an encouraging verse. Sometimes, I do not know if I love God more, or the goodness that loving God brings. Sometimes, it is difficult to conceptualize the idea of loving God in an asocial context, stripped of the goodness that He brings. At such times, I feel that it is better to just try to marvel at the idea of God, and in some sense, wish that this world will just melt away for there is nothing really good or worth possessing in this world, in comparison with the idea of being with Jesus.

I don't think that the world will melt away in 09. Maybe 2009 will be a back-to-basics of sort, to experience what it means to be loved by God.

Email from school

2008-12-04T21:50:00.000+08:00

I’m afraid our efforts to find a way to support your UN internship have not been successful (see the correspondence below). You would be able to keep your RS while in New York, as explained in the email... I hope you will still be able to go. I’m sorry we are unable to help.

What have you discovered today? Nothing!

2008-11-13T23:35:00.005+08:00

It hasn't been a very tiring week. But it hasn't been a very good week either.

I spent an hour today undecided between writing my thesis, calling the travel agents, fiddling with my camera, or continuing the hunt for cheap lodgings.

In the end, I chose to call the travel agent, and spent an hour undecided between 2 airlines, each with their pros and cons. There are just too many assumptions and imaginary money built into this internship, and I feel like giving it up altogether and return to my simple existence of writing, sleeping and watching discovery channel.

Multitasking is just not my kind of thing.

Low on fuel

2008-11-09T00:57:00.005+08:00

Been an interesting week. But I'm rather tired now. Think I'll wake up early to complete the slides...

American Dream

2008-11-05T01:28:00.006+08:00

Dear Mr. Wei Chung Lim,

I am pleased to inform you that the United Nations Secretariat hereby offers you a fulltime, unpaid internship from 12 January 2009 to 13 March 2009....

... On the first day of your assignment, please report to the Information Booth in the United Nations Visitors' Lobby at 46th Street and 1st Avenue at 10:00 AM. The Internship Programme Team will meet you there and introduce you to the organization.

A lot of things to settle between now and then. I'm not sure if everything will work out. But will try my best. Praise God :)

Enlightened... but Seriously?

2008-11-01T12:57:00.006+08:00

I like to dwell in (photocopied) books. They provide artificial brief respites from the fetters of my humdrum existence. But it's terrible when Saturday feels like a Monday, and Monday comes after Sunday. And Sunday is not exactly Sabbath. Time to go to the library...

Chapter 1... and 2, 3, 4....

2008-10-14T16:11:00.010+08:00

My prof agrees with me that the scholars who studied Walzer's thoughts are all quite crappy. But he feels that I've dedicated too much time on these crappy scholars in chapter 1. He thinks that literature review is quite a waste of time in philosophy because we are simply reviewing ideas about other people's ideas. He thinks that there will be more payoff if I proceed to chapter 2 now with my independent ideas. While he is not suggesting that my chapter 1 is going down the drain, he thinks that it will 'naturally' be severely revamped once I put in my independent thoughts for chapter 2, 3 and 4.

He wants me to churn out my independent thoughts as soon as possible for 2, 3 and 4.

This is not easy at all. I feel encouraged and discouraged at the same time. But I think I should feel less. Not much room to be emo with thinking people. I wish that there are more feeling people around.

On another note, I've been following news quite closely. Somehow I think that recession is going to affect me next year.

On another note, I feel like I'm an amoeba, with no self-agency, or maybe with very limited agency. It is funny how our motivations, worldviews, decisions and sense of survival are highly shapely by our circumstances, even when we try to deny the effects of our circumstances. Yet there is a sense of liberty in amoeba-like agency. I can't quite explain it except that - technically speaking - the amoeba shouldn't have to worry about life since worrying cannot change the pathway of the amoeba's existence, which is conditioned by life. Like what St Paul says, 'you are not your own'. So in Christian jargon, why worry when God is taking charge of things - both good and bad - in the natural order of things? Just go with the flow, like the amoeba. Amoeba's rights to self-determination resides in its ability to comprehend the rules of life. Self-determination presupposes wisdom. Maybe God gives clarity to our sense of self-determination since He can inform us on the purpose of self-determination.

Too much abstract principles... time to hit back to reality.

F1 thoughts

2008-09-29T12:03:00.003+08:00

1. How do FI drivers pee?

2. Singapore spent US$150 million dollars on the event, but the 'good news' - according to CNA - is that we stand to make a profit of US$77 million dollars in the hospitality industry. I'm not an economist, so why is that good news?

3. With regards to question 2, maybe the 'trickle down' effect really works for the poor in Singapore, but it sounds like those megachurch arguments where it is good to pump S$500 million dollars into a new building, or to have a titanium-clad building like the Guggenheim Museum, in order to draw in new believers.

4. Force India is a really bad name, even Srinjoy, my Indian national friend, agrees! According to him, Force India was set up by a tycoon who is proud of India. Amusing!

6 random things

2008-09-19T15:28:00.007+08:00

I ate the most expensive prata yesterday morning. Was fined a 100 bucks for parking along double yellow line.

I wrote a 3000-word cover letter for the UN application, only to realize that we were not supposed to exceed 3900 characters.

There are about 20 words in the above sentence, and roughly 100 characters.

I'm thankful for a quiet space to do my work in the grad room. No one talks, and that suits me fine.

I'm coerced to pay another 100 bucks for a (useless) political science association membership. I could eat 80 pratas with that membership fee.

An ant just went into my milo packet.

On Life

2008-09-16T14:34:00.002+08:00

"Everything we do is futile, but we must do it anyway." Gandhi

Chapter 1 and 2

2008-08-30T00:36:00.003+08:00

I think I've been chalking up a good 7 hours per day typing notes and re-reading the works of Michael Walzer. It's quite laughable really, to study a prominent thinker and believing that I actually got something to argue against him. I don't really know what is that something. I'm currently surviving on borrowed ideas to sustain that belief. I need originality.

Searching for Serendipity

2008-08-27T11:50:00.012+08:00

'The Month of the Grape Harvest', Magritte

'Woman at the Window', Caspar David Friedrich

Looking in, gazing out. The anonymous and detached crowd closes in on me. But I've no great desire to express my thoughts. In the space between my invisible thoughts and visible expressions, I realized that I have not been true to myself. Reduce the space, for there I'll find you waiting.

And you wonder why...

2008-08-13T11:51:00.002+08:00

Fame is but a fruit tree
So very unsound.
It can never flourish
Till its stalk is in the ground.
So men of fame
Can never find a way
Till time has flown
Far from their dying day.
Forgotten while you're here
Remembered for a while
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated style.

Fruit Tree, Nick Drake

Salt and Light Sermon

2008-08-10T23:00:00.010+08:00

My sermon script today. I find it hard to do spontaneous preaching so I sort of typed everything out. Many thanks to Pastor Joshua, Ian and of course God for the inspiration and advice.

Introduction

Look at the two photos in the slide. Can you recognize them?

The person on the left is Mother Theresa. She was a Catholic nun and in 1950, she founded a ministry in India, known as the ‘Missionaries of Charities’. In the next 45 years of her ministry, Mother Theresa was known throughout the world as someone who cared for the poor, the orphans, the sick and the dying.

The person on the right is Martin Luther King. He was a Baptist pastor in America in the 1960s. He was famous for his speech in which he said those few words “I have a dream”. There was a lot of racism against the blacks during the 1960s. Luther’s dream was a desire for a future where American blacks and whites can live together in harmony. In history textbooks, people now recognize Luther as a key leader in the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

What do they have in common? They are people who are driven by a strong sense of compassion for other people. That led them to make a difference in other people’s lives. They influence society in a positive way.

Today, as part of our sermon series, I am privileged to share with you my reflections on these verses taken from Matthew 5: 13 – 16, to see how we can influence society in a positive way. Let us turn to the bible now.

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under the bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Before we begin, let us enter into a word of prayer…

There are several lessons that we can learn from these 4 verses. For the purpose of today’s sermon, I am going to focus on two. The first is that we are called to be different; we are – in some sense – distinct from the world in the way we look at things. The second lesson is this: although there is a distinction, there is also a need for engagement. We, as ambassadors for God’s kingdom, must get up close and personal with human society. We need to enter into society and influence it in a God-centered way.

Distinction: We are called to be different

People living during Jesus’ time must be familiar with everyday items such as salt and lamps. Let us understand a bit more why Jesus choose to use these items to illustrate the influence he expects his disciples to exert in society. Let us first look at salt:

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?

Back in those days when refrigerators weren’t invented, salt was used as a preservative to prevent the meat from decaying. In some sense, Jesus is saying that the world is ‘decaying’. This decadence can be seen in the sufferings of people, and a general sense of sins and evilness that are found in society. As Christians, we are different or distinctive in the sense that our Christian values should compel us to try to rise up to the occasion and prevent (or preserve) the world from further decay.

However, I will like to also highlight the fact that we may lose this distinctiveness, if we are not watchful of our lives. According to my bible commentary, most of the salt used in Israel came from the Dead Sea. I’m not so sure how people in Israel exactly extract salt from the Dead Sea, but I guess all of us with a little bit of primary school science background can imagine that it is through a process of evaporating the sea water. However, the salt from the Dead Sea are full of impurities. Do you know that ocean salts – together with other impurities and minerals – are actually derived from the breaking up of the Earth’s crusts and rocks on the sea bed? I have with me here a diagram that illustrates the sources of the salt. Maybe this is why Jesus says that although we are the salt of the earth, the presence of impurities means that it is possible for us to lose our saltiness. If a meat is decaying, salt can reduce the speed of the decay, but if the salt loses its saltiness, it cannot be made salty again.

Let us turn our attention to light:

You are the light of the world.

Just as earth is the source of the salt, God is the source of the light in us. Just as salt is useful, light is useful in illuminating a dark world – but perhaps even more glorious. Christ calls himself the light of the world in John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”. Because God is so glorious, and is the source of the light in us, Paul says in Philippians chapter 2 that we are to “shine like stars in the universe” as we hold fast to the word of life.

Engagement: We need to get up close, and personal with society.

I hope now we can get an idea of our distinctiveness as believers in Christ. Jesus told the disciples that they are as different as light from darkness, and salt from decay. God is calling out from the world a people for himself, and the purpose of this people is to be holy or different. ‘Be holy,’ Jesus says to them again and again, “because I am holy”.

Because we are called to be different, and because we have a God-centered purpose in the way we look at the world, we ought to be as visible to human society as a ‘city on a hill’. It is illogical for a city on a hill to be invisible from the eyes of those who are staying in the valleys. Jesus tries to illustrate the illogical idea of a ‘hidden city on a hill’ by comparing it with the absurd idea of putting a lamp under a bowl.

[Show and tell] I have a Sony Ericsson phone with me. It is very a useful gadget for me to connect to people. Imagine I choose to use it as a paper weight. I've removed the purpose of this phone. This is what Jesus means when he says “neither do people light a lamp and put it under the bowl”. This is also why he concludes his salt and light lesson with the following: “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven”

Notice that Jesus uses the word ‘see’? I’m not so sure what is the actual Aramaic word that Jesus used to speak to his disciples, but probably he meant it in the context that people can appreciate the good works done by Christians.

So as Christians, how do we do good deeds? As salt, how do we rub and soak ourselves into a decaying fish or meat? As light, how do we dispel the darkness of evil? In other words, how do we get up close and personal in society, to show compassion and uphold justice to people in need of God? Here, I need to stress that I’m not calling you to be Martin Luthers or Mother Theresas to impact hundreds of people. We are ordinary people. But we do not need to think that we are insignificant for God. God can use us in different ways. Here I would like to show some of the ways in which our youth leaders have tried in their different ways to be salt and light for Christ.

Renita: I try to engage and talk to the elderly both at my office (the cleaning aunty) and at my block – asking about their family, looking through their holiday photographs, talking about their hobbies…etc and through doing so I’ve seen a glimpse of the loneliness old age can bring… Almost everyday when I come out of the train station, from around 10pm-midnight, there is a lady holding on to her young daughter and selling tissue and I try to buy from her regardless of the number of tissue packets I have in my bag.

Kwang How: I don’t see being the salt and light of this world as looking for good deeds to do everyday. Instead, I think being salt and light stems from being a God centered person. That in turn translates into every other thing like studying hard cos God put you in school, loving others as myself cos the bible says so, keeping fit cos it’s the temple of the holy spirit, not saying spiteful things cos the bible says we need to control our tongue, not being anxious about anything but presenting my requests to God, doing small things to encourage others. So, while everyone else is chasing worldly things, getting worried about everything, … I am the salt and light of this world by being different, and hopefully the people around me can see the difference.

Andy: To have convictions and make a stand on issues without being hyper spiritual or religious. To look at the culture of the world and how it tells me how to behave and what I need and chucking out everything that doesn't sit well with what the culture of God has called me to live by.

Huan Yang: During a teaching session on Educational Psychology, the lecturer showed us a video. The video showed a half-naked Jesus prancing around the streets, MTV-style, singing “I Will Survive” by Cake. His actions were highly exaggerated and evoke much laughter from the class. I was hopping mad within. After the class, I requested to speak to the lecturer, and shared my thoughts with him. I made a point that there seems to be a grotesque inconsistency in our “westernized, liberal” Singapore culture that deems it ok to make fun of Christianity, while leaving other religions untouched. I asked whether he would show a similar video featuring the Prophet Mohammad. The lecturer agreed with me, and apologized. He also issued an apology to the class at the next class. He also further promised to never show the video in class again. I felt grateful that God could use someone like me to preserve his glory, and dignity, and to combat false values and ideas in our secular society.

Through their life stories, I hope we can see that it is not exactly that difficult to be salt and light of the earth. Through their life stories, I hope we can also see that we do not always need to go on a mission trip in order to be a salt and light of the world, or think that we are too young, or not ready enough, in order to be salt and light for Christ. We can be salt and light right now. This is why Jesus says:

You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.

He didn’t say you ‘were’, or you ‘are going to’. He simply says you ‘are’, because Christ is in you.

I would like to urge you all to go through the devotion materials in the 40 Day Prayer Book. It contains much practical advice and much wisdom in teaching us to be salt and light for Christ, in influencing society. I would like to urge you to go back to the gospels to look at Christ. Through Christ, you find that God did not love from a distance. In Christ Jesus, God became one of them. He became poor. In the ultimate act of identification, He experienced the full intensity of what it meant to be poor, to be a refugee, to be on the run, and ultimately to be a target of the Roman death squad at the cross of Calvary.

Like Christ, we may experience rejection or be ridiculed as we try to present ourselves as salt and light for Christ. But Church, we are all in it together. The people that I’ve interviewed all experience fear in one way or another, when they engage with society. But perfect love casts out all fear [personal testimony of Sri Lanka expedition]

Closing

I will end my sermon with the 'The Franciscan Benediction'

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy
And may God bless you enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen

A List

2008-08-05T23:58:00.003+08:00

After watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture on youtube, and on the verge of completing 'Naive.Super', I've decided to make a list of dreams that I've always wanted to fulfill before I die.

1) Work (not intern) in an NGO
2) Set up a social entrepreneur project
3) Teach in a university
4) Live overseas for a year
5) Find a wife (who share the same values)
6) Write a book

Technically speaking, I've done point (3).

Between old age insecurities and unfulfilled dreams, the latter disturbs me more. It's reassuring to know that I haven't accomplished much in life, other than point (3). Gives my life a bit of purpose to work out the rest of my dreams.

Notes on being a tutor

2008-07-31T01:31:00.003+08:00

My second last time being a tutor. I thought this 'article' is pretty inspiring. My friend, Clement, is off to the States to pursue his journalism dreams. May he find a good dose of intellectual rigor there. I just feel like day dreaming most of the time...

Transport woes from proletariat living

2008-07-28T13:48:00.008+08:00

I think in an urban city like Singapore, people have to spend money to enjoy quality quiet spaces - cafes and hidden restaurants tucked away from the means of motion between the nodes of metropolitan and sub-urban gatherings. From my limited experiences, I suppose it is quite unlike European cultures where motion stops at off-the-road spaces and transfer by foot is possible. In Singapore, you'll just suffocate in the tropical humidity; the car negotiates the trilateral conflict between auto-speed, human-flow and the unrelenting humidity by re-imagining the urban landscape through an imposition of its own idea of efficiency and social quality time. However, the state comes in to moderate the privileges of private transport through gantries, taxation and petrol price controls. The circulation of capital and the circulation of traffic becomes one, and I have to find new strategies of flow to redefine quiet quality time.

Just take MRT lah...

Gritty stuff

2008-07-28T00:39:00.005+08:00

The foregrounding psychological battle between Batman and the Joker ventures into a gritty extremity that to a certain degree inflects the usual genres in superhero films - a hero turns into an anti-hero without an end, and a damsel caught in a twisted game theory, which subsequently provides the emotional arc for Two-Face to adjudicate justice through the binary flip of a coin. The subtext locates the potential anarchic collapse of modern (Gotham) urbanity as the result of a blind thrall - and faith - to public morality and social order, as Joker designs a prisoners' dilemma that pits the human will against the tyranny of the majority. Maybe Foucault's 'ship of fools' is not too far off the grid in Christopher Nolan's thematic build up. Darkness, revenge and madness - each is never concretized in the absence of the other. This perhaps explains Batman's eventual immolation into the shadows of Plato's philosophical cave, as means to preserve the imagined iconoclast of virtue, justice and incorruptibility in the unenlightened minds of Gotham metropolitans.

Watch it for Ledger. He's legendary stuff. Certainly my best movie of 2008 thus far.

We missed the 1st 5 minutes though. According to Wiki, it says: "The film begins with the Joker robbing a mob-owned bank with several other accomplices, whom he tricks into killing each other". I guess we didn't miss too much :)

Miss it by a mega mile

2008-07-09T16:47:00.004+08:00

I was checking my gmail account just now and realized that MFA re-offered me an internship in August that has to do with the SCP program. It is basically a program that allows Singapore to work with developmental agencies with its interested partners. Quite a good program that is consistent with the things that I've been learning from Pastor Ian in Laos and the mission trip in Phnom Penh too.

Problem is, I was supposed to reply them a month ago, which I have failed to do, cos I don't usually check my gmail. Besides, I was in Phnom Penh then, walking around with a divided self of spiritual rejuvenation and mild depression. The thought of checking emails was non-existent in my mind then.

I just replied to the dude that it is a sincere mistake on my part for the procrastinated reply. And told him a bit about how this internship will help me to get a better understanding of Singapore's role in regional developmental works.

He'll probably reply to me a month later that that won't be possible.

Just a bit upset that my exposure to developmental works is rendered incomplete by my own mistake.

Funny how when chances are up there for grabs, I'm just really slow to respond, in a silly unintentional manner? Story of my life perhaps...

New Read

2008-07-06T19:33:00.007+08:00

I bought a new book today at PageOne. It's titled "Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as told by a friend" by Thomas Mann.

It sounds like a really awesome classical read as Mann plays with the coexistence of aesthetic brilliance and spiritual self-destruction within the protagonist's divided self. Sounds like German Romanticism and critical theory all at once. I need to finish some other books before I get started on this. Feels like I finally found a good book after a long while.

It was a good yesterday hanging around with s and talking about hobbies and intruding into the lives of HDB dwellers in Chinatown. Not much insights about the lift experience though. Feels nice to keep in touch with a good friend for so long.

I should really practise more self-discipline and work on my thesis. Less than a year to go.

Always wonder what I'll do after graduation. I guess it is reassuring to know that good friends (who can tolerate my morose ramblings) and family (even though they cannot understand the political streak in me) are the constants in my uncertain life.

The Rainbow Connection

2008-06-23T17:33:00.005+08:00

Took me a while to get back into the routine of life. It has been a month of traveling around Southeast Asia. Visited the Dierdens in Vientiane in May, then it was off to Danang, Hoi-An, Hue, Sapa and Hanoi in Vietnam with a few friends. Came back for a short while for Huan Yang's wedding, and then it was off to Phnom Penh for a short mission trip. Has been a good time of soul searching and reflection, especially at Vientiane and Phnom Penh. A tale of two different cities, with different spiritual and physical needs. Maybe I searched my soul a bit too hard at times. Was a bit morose when I came back. Was a good time of meeting up with P. Ian and others, as we exchanged ideas about Buddhism, social justice, spreading the gospel, social and political issues in Singapore, Laos and Phnom Penh. Slept at 7am and woke up to a strange argument with mom. Escaped to bucks in holland and started to think about my two main objectives for the rest of the year: writing the thesis and career-research. Will reflect about stepping down from youth ministry too, possibly next year.

Just packed my table and I feel like flying out of Singapore again. Oh well.

A spot in the universe

2008-06-06T23:50:00.009+08:00

Married eyes upon a quiet night, where dreams navigate the tides of time. It is now hard to sketch a picture of emptiness, when the starlight has exhausted itself into nothingness. Space curls up at the point of non-redemption, and you wonder why of all nights, the devil chose that time to uncouple the mind. Like a chapter from the garden, all that is left is now a spot in the universe.

Do pray for the afflicted...

2008-05-07T12:52:00.004+08:00

'Photos'

'Path of Nargis'

Walking along the river

2008-04-06T21:43:00.003+08:00

It has been a busy but good month. Mentally tired, lacking in confidence cos of thesis, marking and writing essays, and running different sort of errands. Still, there were many good days, like eating crabs and playing grand theft auto. I guess along the way, you learn more about friends, like those who believe in you, give you honest opinions about yourself, and who are in for the tough times, and the long run, with you. Will be a difficult two weeks ahead, but will just do my best and leave the rest to God.

On Cambodia

2008-02-27T23:31:00.007+08:00

This 'BBC article' reminds me of cambodia in dec 2004. It is hard to make sense of a genocide... the lost of an entire generation. My guess is that the indochina war and the genocide probably regressed the economy by a good 20 years. I guess there is much that the developed countries in this region can do to help their neighboring countries. Maybe the question is how? And why? Sometimes, I guess I have a overly romanticized idea of 'helping the needy'. I guess it stems from my lack of courage, confidence and will to engage the 'rules of the game' in this city to make decent money and survive. Just sometimes, I wish I can disappear in some corners of this region to do voluntary work (and not knowing where the money will come from), mind my own business, and hopefully, contribute some positive things to people of a different culture. I guess I can just read books for now, for another 12 months at least... literature, politics, philosophy, christian books... to enter into another world, to ponder about imponderables, to find a balance, to find an imaginary escape vault, to find a concrete path into a different world.

By the way, my supervisor has been rather kind. He provided some guidance along the way, and hopefully, I can write a good paper about poverty. I told s that my paper is like playing sudoku by myself for 12 months. There really isn't anyone who is interested in the game. And completing the sudoku game will have no implication for anything at all; it doesn't provide tangible contributions to anyone too. It is probably just a personal satisfaction, an 'academic' kind of satisfaction, paper knowledge, detached knowledge... a logical paper without a soul. Writing a paper without a soul feels alienating sometimes, in fact... all the time. Still, I hope the eventual completed book will become a sort of reminder and hope to myself that one day, without much societal constrains, I can contribute some good works to people from a different land. It is probably 'romanticized' but I don't really care lah.

Last night

2008-02-24T22:33:00.005+08:00

A murmur of spring that awakens a falling night,
of a fountain heart beneath the singing cloud.
A leaf through a floating moment,
of ginger lime and minted moroccan.
Like a deluded moon,
in a peaceful night
that was still and nice.

wandering in the green

2008-02-04T23:56:00.000+08:00

The Kite Runner

2008-02-02T13:24:00.000+08:00

'A way to be good again'

Heroes 2

2008-01-30T01:17:00.000+08:00

Well, I've been a bit slow... and I don't really like to download stuff from the net. So anyway, starworld is finally showing season 2 of Heroes. I missed last tuesday's episode 1. Was coerced into some alumni stuff last saturday and I missed the repeat telecast too. Just caught it on the streaming version. Going to watch episode 2 now on tv. Most of the reviews have been rather harsh for season 2. But I don't really care. To me, it is a pretty hopeful drama... of dreamy characters who are weak in their humanity, but strong in their convictions. Haven't quite get going for my 'milo-truck' winning essay yet. Shall tune in to starworld now first, heh..

Consider the Lilies (Matt 6)

2008-01-27T21:04:00.000+08:00

Okie, not quite lilies, but big leaves in Vietnam :) I've been thinking how life becomes progressively more difficult and exciting as we grow older. I guess in recent weeks, I felt that the 'difficult' part is probably going to be more overwhelming than the 'exciting' part in my life. Shall try to focus on God as my Providence for this year.

It is quite hard for me to conceptualize a world without a bigger Being - a supernatural plane above the human plane. In terms of ethics, nature, beauty and sometimes silence, why would this world be the way it is? Couldn't it have been nothing at all? I suppose in Christian sense, faith is about envisioning the future, an objective future that History will come to an end one day, and yet an end that brings a new beginning in Creation. In the vast expanse of this tense-less time, the present become ever more meaningful, because we are doing something progressively good, even in the bad times. Faith - while an abstract and unquantifiable enigma - makes reasonable sense, if you give it some thought. And faith brings mystery, which makes life interesting; it makes life literally less predictable, which is not always a bad thing. It is good to have faith - in God, in friends, in time, in waiting, in prayer, and in life in general.

The Fishing Net

2008-01-24T12:55:00.000+08:00

Most of us, in one way or another, theorize the way we relate to our surroundings. Often, our theories are conditional on certain assumptions. Assumptions, on their own grounds, are often unconditional. For some, unconditional assumptions are based on reasoning. For others, they are based on religion. For the rest, they are based upon their own experiences, or observations, or gut feelings. For the last group, there are usually sufficient evidences to support their theories. In turn, their theories have a certain level of predictability. I think when we can go into the theory of theorizing, we need to suspend experiences, observations and gut feelings. Perhaps, for political theory, we need to suspend current affairs; social theory, the social world; economics, the market system. By suspending our experiences, we can have a certain confidence that our theories are not grounded in subjective interests - how we should perceive the world, how the world ought to function, how the world reflects our belief systems. There is a branch of theory - called critical theory - which has historically functioned as a way to question the way we theorize the social world. Of course, there are other branches of philosophy that dwell in the business of theorizing theories. But let's just use 'critical' theory for now. It is 'critical' in the sense that it can be subversive. It is also 'critical' in the sense that it offers a solution to unmask our various (precious) assumptions about the way we relate with the social, so that we can come to a better understanding of who we are, or why we are the way we are. Perhaps the word human 'emancipation' - which is a favorite word among year 1s and 2s - is a rather pretentious way of saying how we can better understand ourselves, in relations to others. In my opinion, this 'emancipation' thing, is possible only through reasoning. Yes, religion does help one to 'emancipate'; a closer word to religious emancipation might be 'epiphany', which is essentially a spiritual manifestation of Christ in or through the material world. But I'm not talking about that kind of 'emancipation'. I'm talking about a way of recognizing our own blind spots, or societal blind spots, so that we can better understand the world as we experience it - by way of reasoning. We can - and should(!) - reason in the way we cherish our religions, lest we become legalistic in our religious traditions. Still, I don't think 'emancipation' will therefore make someone happier. Why should we become 'happier' by virtue of reasoning? We become more aware of our surroundings, but we don't necessarily become happier. So perhaps, I am puzzled by people, who are keen to change political or social systems, as means to achieve human emancipation. Perhaps there are some who really want to emancipate in the sense that they want to understand their lives better, but my own unenlightened gut feeling is that people want to 'emancipate' because they want to be happy. So what is happiness? Michael Oakeshott says that he who keeps mending the fishing net catches no fish. I think he is right. We can suspend life and mend our theoretical nets eternally - reshaping our belief systems, challenging the assumptions of others, critiquing ourselves and others - and well, maybe there is a certain pleasure in that sort of thing. Perhaps it is pleasurable to live our lives according to our theories, or theory of theories. For me, when I try to live by my own theories, I become reclusive... I don't know why. Nothing wrong with reclusion. In fact, it is my own personal preference too. But I guess I'm mildly disturbed by my own theoretical source of reclusion. Maybe a response to myself, or rebuke against myself, is that the social world exists as a representation, and it doesn't even exist. Nothing exists except for the self - I think, therefore I am. So why even bother theorizing? We don't even need to suspend life, because life does not exist, in the descartian sense. I suppose in order to prevent reclusive tendencies, from 'theory' and within 'practice' (which I feel is a rather shoddy way of dichotomizing two modes of scientific inquiry), there is a need to suspend one's critical mind - not all the time, but for a while - for the purpose of catching some fishes along the way. And in that instantaneous moment when we suspend criticality, we can find happiness, and through happiness, our theories are reshaped, hopefully more complete. Maybe the fishes do not exist. Maybe the fishes are a manifestation of our imaginations. Maybe we are misrepresenting the 'objective fishes' out there. And maybe we'll catch some badly imagined fishes in the process. But at the very least, we are finally actualizing the purpose of the fishing net.

Recollecting Memories

2008-01-18T01:24:00.000+08:00

I was here, at Shakespeare and Co. I suppose it brought back a certain nostalgia; a memory that has been concealed, almost forgotten, in time. Amnesia; don't you feel that the articulated difference between 'I was' and 'I am' can be quite a deliberate action of erasing one's original longing for an identity that was lost? A place that stood for temporality, loses meaning, in the light of deliberate amnesia. A place reinvigorates itself, in a space of infinite fleeting perfections. Cogito, ergo sum. That is as objective as memories can be, the negating distance between the cerebral and the emotional, entangled in an intricate web of sublimated intentions and motivations. All that I thought about myself, of others, count for nothing, in the light of deliberate amnesia. 'Things', in their various metaphorical expressions, can never be the same again. It is true. The space of infinite fleeting perfections dissolves into subjectivity, all too soon, in the light of deliberate amnesia.

On a quiet Hill

2008-01-01T13:16:00.000+08:00

It was nice to have a quiet New Year's day. A few of us head down to johnson's place for settlers (again) after covenant service. Cos it was a bit hard to find a parking lot, I told dan and 'bart' to go up first while I go find a place to do my dreadful parallel parking. Found a good spot round a bend at Pasir Panjang hill. It was then I heard some muffled booming noise in the sky. Turn out to be some firework-like flares. Reminded me of the fireworks that we saw coming from sentosa at vivo. I looked at my watch and it was 12 midnight. Stood there for a quiet moment to just gaze at the flares and enjoy the slight breeze. I don't really have new year resolutions, except to read as many books as possible; art history, social sciences, christianity, novels etc. Kind of in the midst of devising a schedule to systematize all the things that I've learnt and I want to learn. It is probably going to be the last year in which I have the luxury of time to read and write, so I'll make good use of it; 'probably' because I'll most likely do my GRE for fun and see how it goes from there. Sounds like I'm turning into a social recluse. By the way, this photo was taken in Sapa... one of my personal favorite photos in Vietnam. Happy new year everyone :)

Some more Hanoi photos!

2007-12-27T11:40:00.001+08:00

Going to church camp from today till Sunday. So I thought maybe I put some of the hanoi photos on the blog before I go! Most of the photos below are taken from our stay in ha long bay. Ha Long Bay is the place where they have 'floaty' rocks in 'space' at night. Try to imagine! Oh, and there is also the oriental-looking table lamp from our chuggy train :)

Good time, great company

2007-12-24T04:02:00.000+08:00

Been a good weekend. Did my last minute christmas shopping at SKS bookshop on Saturday before visiting my grandpa in serangoon. He is having difficulty walking up the slope to St Francis Xavier, and I'm thinking of buying him a walking stick. Had youth service in the evening, before watching arsenal-tottenham with the boys at jumbo.

Sunday was spent sleeping late into the morning. Paid my carpark fine and then played settlers at johnson's campus crusade den. Had nice belgium mussels and gelare with sar at night before playing more settlers at shawn's place. Won the battle by snatching huan yang's longest road in typical swashbuckling fashion. Okie, not really that swashbuckling cos I merely took over shawn when he was already leading with 8 points.

Kind of tired now. But maybe I'll wake up early to go somewhere quiet and do some quiet time. It is Christmas eve, and I need to put the festive mood in its proper perspectives.

Two Trees of Puzzling Contradictions

2007-12-22T12:43:00.000+08:00

But by making it important and serious, the lightness became forced, laboured and overdone.

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being", Milan Kundera

Colors

2007-12-21T13:47:00.000+08:00

Water.Falls

2007-12-19T12:27:00.000+08:00

Hanoi

2007-12-17T13:32:00.001+08:00

Back from a week long trip to Hanoi. It has been a good trip, I kind of re-acquainted myself with the therapeutic joy of photography. Last time, I like to take portrait shots of strangers. Hanoi presents a good opportunity to take photos of that genre. But I think I'm a bit bored with that; the formula is pretty straight forward. These days, I prefer to take photos of places without people. Sapa, which is a 9-hour train ride out from Hanoi, presents a good opportunity for that genre. Perhaps it is easier too, cos you don't deal with human subjects, and it removes the ethical problematique of objectifying human beings through photography (Yah right... actually I'm just lazy to whip out the camera in crowdy places). Still, I feel connected to landscapes without humans. Will post more photos over the next few days.

Shall leave you folks with this passage from Graham Greene's Quiet American. I bought it at 3 bucks, it is probably a third or fourth hand book. The front pages are coming off. But it is quite an interesting read; about this fumbling American in war-torn Saigon. My first Greene book actually.

'Why don't you just go away, Pyle, without causing trouble?'
'It wouldn't be fair to her, Thomas,' he said quite seriously.
I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused. He added, 'I don't think you quite understand Phuong.'

'The Quiet American', Graham Greene.

Me

2007-12-05T14:18:00.000+08:00

My friend asked me to do the following personality test. I thought it was pretty accurate! :)

Click 'MBTI' to do the test. Caveat: Takes about 20 minutes to complete!

Enneagram Test Results

Type 1	Perfectionism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Type 2	Helpfulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Type 3	Image Awareness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	53%
Type 4	Sensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Type 5	Detachment	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Type 6	Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Type 7	Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Type 8	Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%
Type 9	Calmness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	40%

Your main type is 4
Your variant is self pres

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Main type	Variant

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Why we live

2007-11-29T14:20:00.000+08:00

I was reading Reuben's blog. He was one of the five national dragon boaters who were involved in last Friday's mishap. I do not know any of them. But reading Reuben's blog was inspiring; his passion for music, sports and life, despite struggles that strangers like me do not know, but can only sense. Perhaps his music resonated in me of a spirit who yearns to make a difference in life, but was unfortunately cut short by Providence.

I was thinking about last night as well. It was a good night of driving around, a nice way to wrap up the year. I thought the blue Christmas lights at Orchard were nice. Been thinking how I've fallen short of my own expectations this year. I guess in the midst of good and bad times, life is indeed precious and worth living and fighting for. And beyond the daily strivings, family and good friends are the most precious gifts that God can ever give in this short and fleeting life.

'Reuben's blog'

Re-learning what I have unlearnt

2007-11-20T21:34:00.000+08:00

'How to fight for joy in everyday life'

Well... I guess I've been listless and forgot how to smile along the way. So this is a good sermon. I guess the difficulty is to put in some sort of a daily discipline to focus on what is true but tough to do, which for me can be as simple as just experiencing joy. Yeah, experiencing joy can be difficult for me, though once in a while, I do encounter what Edmund Burke might call the 'Sublime and the Beautiful' (1757).

Maybe God has blessed me with weird difficulties as a way for me to channel my energy towards Him. But I've been lazy to turn towards Him. I rather just go read books or sleep these days. Maybe that is the problem with free will? We have agency in exercising choices, but our choices lead us to valleys where we know we should not go. Still we are compelled by our sense of freedom, intellect and creativity to wade through depths of murky waters. In freedom, there is much irony. But in irony, you don't always find liberty.

If you guys are keen to learn how to smile, click on the link. It is probably good to listen to the audio rather than read the text.

Good Company on a Rainy Monday

2007-11-19T23:56:00.000+08:00

Met the bridge gang today for dinner. We were supposed to go holland for dinner and then play bridge but di couldn't make it at the last moment, so the 3 of us - dan, jac and me - decide to just eat at city hall. Was good catching up, jac says that Ram is getting married! Maybe he'll send invitation cards to some of the VK people. He made super good pratas while we were in Cambodia. I remember our group made 'Singapore' pineapple fried rice back then, I still got the horrid kitchen photos.. ha.

Had lunch earlier with sar, another dear VK friend. She got me a cool flipbook + notebook/pencil case from Japan! :) So I finally have a pencil case after many years. There have been too many scraps of papers flying around my table (and inside my brain too) these days; they are full of multi-colored mind-maps and notes of random ideas, thoughts and theories for my coming thesis and other random academic interests. I think the muji notebook will come in really handy, gets me organized, and helps me find my pens and highlighters when I need to jot down ideas in the train or bus.

Shall go read my steppenwolf book now. Last 80 pages. Hopefully I'll wake up in time for some invigilation briefing in school at 8..

Diana Wu with her super poser coke shot in Cambodia!

saturday

2007-11-17T23:36:00.000+08:00

went to catch the andy warhol exhibition off mohammad sultan road today with a whole bunch of people from soci dept and church. i suppose it is a pretty decent exhibtion, but won't say it is worth dying to go. it did give me thought bubbles to photocopy my mao zedong poster at home, and then andy-warholize it with crayons and markers. Anyway, the exhibition ends tmr so there is still time to check it. had japanese dinner after that, but i think the fried chickens have aggravated my cough and sore throat... for the second time in a month I think. so i'm going to drink hot water, sleep and hopefully be able to wake up for church tmr.

Good song for a nice day!

2007-11-09T00:38:00.000+08:00

Good Song, Blur

Where paths have never been crossed

2007-11-07T18:35:00.000+08:00

I think if there can be such a thing as a semiotic reading of people's blogs, then maybe it is quite possible for people to blog with a particular 'horizon' of audience in mind. The blogger is the author, the text signifies the author's world, and the contents are written in a way by which the author wants the audience to interpret in a particular manner. Reading friend's blog can be celebrative and alienating at the same time. You celebrate because you identify with, and participate in, the author's world. But the same act of celebration instructs you of the limited possibilities by which you can ever 'truly' participate in the author's world. You gaze at the screen with a particular despair, and the screen becomes the locus of your mediation between reality and representation. You see, the subject that is being represented in the screen, speaks of a reality that is quite out of reach, out of bound, out of touch. Maybe this is how I feel when, on days when I'm kay poh, would survey the archived records of other friend's blogs. It is quite illuminating because a cursory glance across an archived period of say, 12 months, would make you realize that the author, usually unintended, has already signified a world that you can never participate. Your real paths have never crossed each other, but the represented paths do share a certain history together, at least within cyber space, where everyone shares a certain public signified objectivity of themselves. Sometimes, you will actualize the represented by meeting up with the author of the blog. But maybe I am just playing with mirror; it has never been the real deal.

The above photo was taken in a train ride to Poland. One of the slightly longer journeys that we undertook.

Hero of the Month: Henri Bergson

2007-11-06T14:08:00.000+08:00

Okie, I must admit that I have not read much about him. In fact, I only knew him today. But, this french philosopher has many interesting philosophies that might give me a clue about how art and ideology works. Not that I am keen to pursue that area as my dissertation because the only credible prof who can do such amazing supervision has left the department. Anyway, I think Bergson is leftist, platonic, darwinian and freudian all at once. It has been postulated that his theory of 'intuition' and 'Élan Vital' is able to shed light on the rationalities behind some of the artistic movements during the interwar years, such as dadaism, surrealism, cubism and futurism. Right up my own little un-enlightened valley because I've been keen to find out how these movements come together.

I'll go library now to borrow a book about how Bergson's theories are able to shed light on the birth of the modern museum. Think I'll push my much procrastinated friggin stupid stats assignment to another day. Today shall be jimmy's self-indulging day in the nonsensical world of meaningless art. Will leave you guys with a quote by Bergson on comedy, which was taken from a book which I stumbled upon in Prague. I feel like meditating on those words:

"The first point to which attention shoud be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human. A landscape maybe beautiful, charming and sublime, or insignificant and ugly; it will never be laughable. You may laugh at an animal, but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression. You may laugh at a hat, but what you are making fun of, in this case, is not the piece of felt or straw, but the shape that men have given it - the human caprice whose mould it has assumed...

... Here I would point out, as a symptom equally worthy of notice, the absence of feeling which usually accompanies laughter. It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. I do not mean that we could not laugh at a person who inspires us with pity, for instance, or even with affection, but in such a case we must, for the moment, put our affection out of court and impose silence upon our pity. In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter."

Perhaps there is an intimate reciprocity between self-contempt and extraordinary self-satisfaction. Only when one has fallen out with oneself and no longer suffers with a good conscience, only in the throes of stricken vanity, only then does one become a pitiful and repulsive spectacle unto himself in his own tragic-comedy.

teachers

2007-11-04T20:08:00.001+08:00

from left to right: Mat, me, Angel, Aileen, Angeline, An Dian

haha, aileen finally sent me the one and only group photo which suggested my existence in nj. Mat is the one who intro me to jap anime and hongkong pop, and she is quite a fun teacher to talk to. Angel is my church friend who was also my colleague, i'll usually share my deconstructed thoughts about njc/moe, education and bureaucracy with her at the canteen. Aileen was my 'direct boss'. i'll usually ask her for help for many admin and teaching stuff. i dun usually talk to Angeline. but on days when i do talk to her, she always laugh. i dunno why she always laugh. but i guess it is good to be cheerful :)

Singapore Is Not My Home

2007-11-03T13:28:00.000+08:00

'Top Ten Most Liveable Cities'

My favourite paris and brussels are not inside though. Though I've never stayed long enough to know how it is really like... I think the main difference between some European cities and Singapore is that Europe is so so so much more quieter. It is the quietness that I really miss. Even in the slightly crowded cities, you can find pockets of solitude, emptiness and peacefulness. You can be yourself, walking or reading a book in the garden, dip your feet in the lake, entertain your own world of thoughts and stay Invisible. No expectations whatsoever. That is my cup of blissfulness and simplicity. I hope heaven is something like that.

I am a product of MOE

2007-10-30T22:01:00.000+08:00

Been marking and typing out 2-cents' worth of what I think of my students' essays. Having read a pretty interesting essay from an exchange student, I realize that I am truely a Singapore product. I would have probably given her an A- if I am an American, but I think my brain is 'wired' and 'programmed' to write in a particular way. Man, I am truely Singaporean.... and I can't stand it.

***

Dear xxx,

Thank you for your essay in which you gave a personal opinion on how Singapore’s authoritarian democracy differs from western strands of liberal democracy.

On the whole, the essay is fluid with sufficient contrast between ‘Asian’ and ‘Western’ liberalism, with a focus on the idea of freedom of expression.

However, a weakness in the essay is that you have not defined clearly the idea of ‘democracy’ and its associated values. There are certainly many strands of democracy (or for that matter, liberalism), such as classical democracy, republican democracies, corporate capitalism, deliberative democracies and even Marxist democracies. The lack of a clear definition makes it difficult for me to understand the conceptual basis by which you view Singapore through a Western lens. Consequently, the essay lacks a strong thesis statement and is meandering in structure. There is a surface perspective on Singapore politics, without a critical exploration on how and why it has evolved towards a democratic state that, as you say, ‘has strings attached’.

In terms of style, the essay lacks an academic tone, with insufficient evidences and credible bibliographic citations to back up the points that you are making. While the essay might make it to a newspaper commentary section, it might not do so well as an entry into an academic journal.

Nonetheless, the essay is engaging, certainly for a Singaporean reader. I hope your stay in Singapore has been great, despite the lack of freedom and cultural vibes.

Regards,
Jimmy Lim

Grade: B

snowball

2007-10-28T20:06:00.000+08:00

Ha.. I like this mtv. It's called 'black cab' from Jens Lekman's album 'Oh you're so silent, Jens'. I think the snow ball describes my world! =s

Triplets of Belleville

2007-10-26T14:36:00.000+08:00

It was a nice cartoon. The characters are a bit quirky, especially the triplets who eat grenade-d frogs for dinner, and tadpoles for dessert. Grandma is super resilient and resourceful to find her kidnapped tour-de-france grandson. And the dog was ever haunted by its own childhood train mishap. yeap yeap...

A sinner is not always a criminal

2007-10-24T13:55:00.000+08:00

There has been much debate about repealing Section 377A. People are arguing that homosexual sex should be decrminalized. I've been giving this issue some thoughts and my christian/political position is an inconsistent, vague and contradictory one, in the sense that I think that it is unfair to criminalize someone for his behavior, but at the same time, I feel that the law should be retained as a symbolic gesture. Don't think I have the time to write it down today but well maybe shall just put them down in point form first

1) As a Christian: Love the sinner, hate the sin.

2) As a legal theorist: A sinner should not be a criminal when no harm is inflicted upon others (as counter examples: murder and stealing constitute harm to others, suggestion: read Exodus 34, John Locke and John Stuart Mill together).

3) As a pragmatist: You are not a criminal until you are caught (essentially what PM Lee is saying)

4) As a counter-pragmatist: Hence, do away with the law since it is a useless law and you are not sending moral police to catch people on their bed.

5) As a Christian again: But we shoud retain the law as a symbolic gesture

6) As an activist (to the Christian): It is not fair, and tantamount to double standards. For instance: Why not criminalize adultery, debauchery etc. as a symbolic gesture?

7) As a political theorist: If the issue is on fairness ONLY, then by the same measure of fairness, I must not only remove the law to ensure fairness for all to practice their lifestyle without the state interfering (negative freedom), but also institute laws so that they can practice their lifestyle with the same amount of support that the state provides for the heterosexual (positive freedom). Example will be equal rights for same-sex marriage.

8) As a pseudo philosopher: Equality, fairness and justice are three different concepts altogether. And point (7), according to my friend, is a logical fallacy, or a slippery slope arguement. (I'll talk about that if I have time)

9) As a Christian: While I am all out for negative freedom, I have my reservations for positive freedom for the homosexual in Singapore.

10) As a writer for Ailing's 'Season Of Life' team: I think pushing for negative freedom will - in PRINCIPAL - legitimize the space for positive freedom. And therefore - with sociological foresight and hindsight - affect the way future generations might interpret the idea of the family (well, I guess there is room to accuse me of having logical fallacy here). I think how we are trying to be Switzerland, Macau and Monaco (repectively black money, casino, and F1 [which perpetuate more black money]) all at once is already sending many wrong messages to children and families alike.

I guess at the end of the day, my main gripe is not about the fairness of it, but how society in general - christian, non-christians, homo and heteros - will interpret the criminalization or decriminalization of law, which either way cannot please everyone. My other main gripe is how the Church should respond, if we are in the business of saving some souls without being misinterpreted.

fuzzy thoughts

2007-10-23T13:49:00.000+08:00

i was reading some articles from an extremely boring eu think tank and thought that maybe this region should be more forward thinking in their own foreign policy and start to come up with a doctrine for an asean army or something. will give george yeo's rhetoric of asean's 'moral authority' more credibility. that way maybe we can really chip in for peacekeeping duties in burma, east timor, southern thailand, and other hot spot borders in this region, rather than to stand by, do nothing, and talk only. oh well, i wrote a paper long ago on eu's defence policy and now looking back at the paper, i thought it sounds like such a year 1 textbook-type of answer without any consideration for the imperfect world that we live in, and how political leaders are always playing smoke screen and mirrors in front of their own audience anyway... yucks. singapore will probably rather opt out of asean than to share defence doctrines and resources with m'sia or indon. so anyway, maybe it will be another 100 more years before leaders in this region can think beyond their economic interests and pool their legal and moral resources together for some sort of sustaining humanitarian foreign policies.

ok, i better start marking essays now. after a short break of about 4 days, next 3 weeks will be intense before i can take a short break for my only exam on 3 dec.

Urban Ninja

2007-10-21T23:47:00.000+08:00

Haha... I thought this skirt that unfolds into a vending machine is pretty cool. Designed by this fasion designer Aya Tsukioka. But does it work? 'Read more here!'

ITune Shop

2007-10-02T19:47:00.000+08:00

Heh, I shall do a bit of publicity for ailing and james in my unfrequented blog. They have set up a new ecommerce venture call
'ITuneShop'. Reminded me of 'online shopping' during last night's msn before my mac died on me. So anyway, pls go to their website and support them! :)

rest well

2007-09-29T23:13:00.000+08:00

For fraternity

2007-09-29T08:19:00.003+08:00

'http://www.uscampaignforburma.org/action/action.html'

'http://www.petitiononline.com/BUR_2007/petition.html'

'http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/h.php/?cl=20589575'

Derrida 1101: Text as Theory

2007-09-24T20:43:00.000+08:00

I read yesterday's Sunday Times, which has the title 'S'pore just for rich? Not possible, says PM' (pg 6) and was really puzzled by the first paragraph:

"Singapore is not a country just for the rich, said PM Lee Hsien Loong. It cannot be. Otherwise, the Government would lose elections because there are not enough rich people around to vote it in."

I thought the statement is either an error by the printing press or maybe PM Lee was really contradicting himself. Won't the statement make more logical sense if he replaces 'rich people around to vote it in' with 'middle class people around to vote it in'?? But I guess it will open up a can of worms if ST/PM Lee did mean 'middle class' in its/his speech act. Or perhaps it is better for ST to make it ambivalent with regards to the definition of 'rich'? After all, his idea of 'equality' and 'poverty' is already pretty vague in a line that says 'if Singapore were a society where everybody was equal, it would be a recipe for poverty'. Maybe we should re/de-construct the line in our national pledge that says 'base on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation' ?

Anyway I thought the whole of page 6 becomes even more interesting when I turn to page 10 and 11 of the ST, where there is a 2-page article about how people aren't saving enough for their retirement. The emphasis of the article seems to center on the inability of Singaporeans to save up for themselves, despite of the efforts by the government to teach us how to be prudent.

Putting the two articles side up side, I think the idea of Singapore as a capitalist kind of welfare state is wrapped with many layers of meanings that either contradicts each other (capitalism triumphs over socialism in terms of Progress [whatever capital P means], but the People [whatever capital P means] are nonetheless incapable of progress in a meaningful sense), or complement each other (we cannot afford to be socialist in virtu, and the government will always be there to remedy the malaise of capitalism).

The employment of newspaper articles that contradict and complement simultaneously is powerful because the reader basically does not know what the hack the Author is implying, nor His real intentions. Throw in the fact that the press is controlled, you really can relegate Straits Times to the status of wrapping paper for kacang puteh. Better to trust in the government then, because the common denominator is that 'it works'. We become stupified and will not be able to progress deeper intellectually and culturally as a nation, even if MOE continues its conceptually sound principle of 'teach[ing] less and learn[ing] more', because the dominant ideology is to screw the socratic purpose of education, trust in the government, and do well in subjects, degrees and majors that bring the bacon home for the factory-nation. In fact, the 4th university might just turn out to be a liberal arts college with a focus on financial management. Seriously, what in the world is that???

Sometimes I do feel a bit sad of my place in society that is suppose to be my home. If I read this landscape as a text, I really do not know if I'm a protagonist or an antagonist in the narrative. And besides, who gives a two-cents' thought to his or her sense/source of citizenship these days? Money! My friend! This land is all about friggin money.

*my two cents' worth of reflection on teaching, politics, and teaching politics, in singapore. looking forward to a break come mid october :) *

Last Request

2007-09-22T12:01:00.000+08:00

Ha I like this song but the mtv is a bit off

Friday Inertia

2007-09-21T13:02:00.000+08:00

Went to catch The Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ yesterday with daniel, angel, jess, adrian and their friends, although we were all sitting at different places. Hmmm.. it feels a bit flat and the jokes kind of cliche, although the cast was quite good. Maybe, for me, 'Asian Boys' and 'How Did the Cat get so Fat' have really set the standard for political theatre this year in Singapore. We later went for supper at this HongKong Cafe in cineleisure that sets a hyperinflation rate of 600% for maggie mee. It was pretty nice la, taste like how I would prepare maggie mee at home. The peanut butter toast was pretty good, though I won't advice one to eat the whole thing by himself, not good for his blood pressure.

There is still a lot of inertia to do my assignment. Probably the only good thing that come out of this research design module is that I get to know how to use excel in a more pro manner. But the whole module is really painful. The last time I felt so much doom and gloom in going for a class was in year 1. Really a lousy way to start post grad. Bjorn, my fellow singaporean post grad friend, told me "How? Next year must pay school fees already. This module sure fail one". We are both on scholarship, so bad grades means no more funding. Sigh sigh sigh.

Ok, time to snap out of it and do something about it.

Resting Day for schizo me

2007-09-18T22:39:00.000+08:00

Finally managed to take a breather today after a rather intense weekend and monday. Decided to step off the pedal a bit today and didn't go to school to mark the remaining bunch of projects assignments. Went to school instead to consult my prof how to program dummy variables into R. Bumped into my previous sup and I'm looking forward to nov when I can start to do something about journaling my thesis. As with all things related to me, the journal will probably not materialize but thinking about the possibility is good enough. Checked my email and was quite happy that at least one student appreciated my mini-heroic effort to help them in their essays. Checked my other email and was quite irritated by a student who thinks pretty high and mighty about her essay. Checked my other email and I'm puzzled and amused by this bimbotic-looking 16 year old who wants to confirm me as her friend in facebook, but I don't even know her. And she really looks super bimbotic. Even her name sounds bimbotic. Ha. Ended the day at west mall with jamie and eunice for la mian. They are my usp chummy friends since year 1! We haven't met up in a super long while. They ask me what are my plans after masters. I told them I'll try to complete masters in 1.5 years and then work first lah. Good to take a break from studying. And I've been increasingly feeling the need to be a practitioner in my field first, before I can gain my own sense of credibility to pursue further studies. Herbert Marcuse was working for german army in WW1 and US army in WWII before he wrote one-dimensional man. I think he started academic only after his wife died. Makes pretty good sense to me. Kafka was a lowly (probably boring) clerk before he wrote Metamorphosis. Alright, going to read my marcuse book and then tmr will resume another 7-day cycle of intense schizo me.

INRI

2007-09-14T06:22:00.000+08:00

Where have the flowers gone?

2007-09-08T13:54:00.000+08:00

"The work of art is a universe of colors, sounds and words, and concrete characters. There is no death, there is only Phaedra dying" Lucien Goldmann

I like the gardens in Europe. And maybe travelling alone, like what I did last year, enhances the beauty of nature, because there is this deep longing to try to connect with a foreign world, when it is hard to articulate purposeful words to strangers around me. You feel close to nature in the gardens, and perhaps even to the Maker himself. I think that is how I've understood the idea of how we can experience the Maker by observing His creation.

Btw, I think Goldmann meant that there are different ways to experience a singular aesthetic event. Since there are different versions of how Phaedra died, or indeed, if she has really died at all.

Vineyards in Vienna

2007-09-06T18:18:00.000+08:00

There is sunshine in this world.

The next 6 weeks will be pretty tough. Promos are coming and I actually feel mildly motivated to help them through the last hurdle. A new prof is coming to nus and I'm half looking forward to seeing him, to see if he likes my stillborn proposal on art and politics. After that, there will be another 40 odd essays to mark for the ps module. I think I do like the idea of having flexible hours of doing what I like. But just maybe, I'm already tired of living in an ivory tower. I probably need some 'real' work after Masters, to take a break from depressive books. Man... 'One-dimensional Man' by Marcuse is really a powerfully insightful yet depressive book. I'm halfway through the book and I feel so compelled to finish it, despite its ability to make me feel that life is pretty bleak and hopeless. At the same time, I turned to Ecclesiates and it says that I can find joy in toil (5:18-20, 9:7 - 10). Maybe, to experience deep rooted joy, one needs to experience heart wrenching sadness from time to time. Perhaps it is tempting to ask God to banish away all pain and sadness, and in the natural process, joy becomes a more surface and less deeply rooted existential sort of feeling. But won't that make life a bit too predictable; relationships become bland and language rendered empty? I think there have been instances in life when we are all chasing something precious - status, power, material, intangibles, love - only to realize that they are indeed a few pieces of golden nuggets resting on our palms after a period of struggle. Maybe the idea of 'joy in toil' can only be easily grasped when we are always in a constant disposition to surrender these golden nuggets to God. Joy resides in the means and not the end. Exploit me then.

Searching

2007-08-30T13:18:00.000+08:00

Rurouni Kenshin

2007-08-28T01:30:00.000+08:00

Woah! I must say that this is really good stuff! Watched 10 episodes straight even though I am dead beat after a full day of work and school. My colleague from nj, who is super into canto pop music, has been giving me exposure modules to jap anime over canteen breaks, and lent me all 4 dvds of rurouni kenshin. The plot is a bit predictable because kenshin ALWAYS beats the bad guys in every single episode. But wad I really like is his tormented guilt complex, whenever he tries to reconcile his past as a Battousai during the meiji revolution, with the present as a redemptive simple wanderer. The one thing that is pretty awesome is Kenshin's defensive reverse-bladed sword, or the 'sakabato'. I wonder if he will ever reverse his sakabato to go into offensive mode in the future. Oh well, I still got 50 odd episodes to find out! =p

Cherish the good times

2007-08-26T22:53:00.001+08:00

It has been a while since I've stoned properly - eating ice cream, reading a book and people watching. It is hard to do that in Singapore. This photo was taken in Paris, I think Daniel was walking in Louvre while I was stoning at St Germain. I think I'll do some proper stoning soon. These days I try to space out my 'starbucks money' - one bucks per week - so that I won't over spend. I need to find cheaper and less crowded places to stone, away from the west or central part of sg. My life will be quite transformed next month when the new car arrives. Mom says bro doesn't want to drive, which means I get to colonize the old car... hur hur. But I'm still working out on my petrol bills. Even one starbucks per month won't really help. Argh. Still, I think I'll drive up north to hunt for places to stone come next month, heh.

a new morning

2007-08-25T14:21:00.000+08:00

Jesus, don't cry
you can rely on me honey
you can combine anything you want
I'll be around
you were right about the stars
each one is a setting sun

tall buildings shake
voices escape singing sad sad songs
tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
bitter melodies turning your orbit around

'Jesus, etc' Wilco (from another album)

old friends

2007-08-23T00:22:00.001+08:00

met up with my council friends today cos one of us is flying to the states this saturday. wow, you can really sense people ageing together. 2 of them are looking for a hdb flat together, 1 of them is engaged, 2 are married, and many are going to the states over the next 2 years. they are all doing their GRE and GMAT now, except me. chun chia told me to stop daydreaming and join him in the states. aiyah.. i still think 6 years to get a phd is toooo long. i might as well stay there since I'll probably be so used to the life there after 6 years. my prof told me that the fall out rate is pretty high though to do phd in some unis, cos the the mental loneliness can be quite a killer, so it is very common to spend 6 years there without getting certified, plus you are living from hand to mouth everyday. sometimes i ask myself, what in the world am I in for in this academic business thingy? i should simplify and de-idealize things a bit. i'll probably be a happier person that way.

Life and Simplicity

2007-08-09T21:24:00.000+08:00

Listen to what Thomas Mann has to say about simplicity, in this novella titled 'Tonio Kroger'.

"Listen to me. I love life - that is a confession. I present it to you for safe keeping; you are the first person to whom I have made it... 'Life' confronts intellect and art as their eternal opposite - but not as a vision of bloodstained greatness and savage beauty. We who are exceptions do not see life as something exceptional; on the contrary! Normality, respectability, decency - these are our heart's desire, this to us is life, life in its seductive banality! No one, my dear, has a right to call himself an artist if his profoundest craving is for the refined, the eccentric and the satanic - if his heart knows no longing for innocence, simplicity and living warmth, for a little friendship and self-surrender and familiarity and human happiness - if he is not secretly devoured, Lisaveta, by this longing for the bliss of the commonplace..."

It was nice playing settlers with the whole motley gang today. Maybe because I won with my longest road once again. I like last night too, even though we missed itchy and scratchy on the moon. I guess I'm drawn to the sense of familiarity, laughing at silly things together. I'm not really looking forward to tmr's tea session for grad students. Loathing intellectual talk quite a bit for now. Oh well... need to snap out of it soon to start preparing for a new season of essay typing.

July and August

2007-08-09T01:18:00.000+08:00

Oh, the band marched on in formation
The brass was phasing
Tunes I couldn't place
Windows open and
Raining in
Maroon, yellow, blue, gold and gray

With a sky blue sky
I should be satisfied
I survived
That's good enough for now

'Sky Blue Sky', Wilco

Friday

2007-08-04T00:33:00.000+08:00

Went to catch a pay-as-you-wish iranian film, "The Willow Tree" by Majid Majidi, with daniel and his friend at national museum today. Pretty existentialist stuff as it is about a blind man's experience of regaining his sight and losing it again towards the end. Think of words like 'being', 'becoming' and 'awakening' and you get a sense of the film's narrative as the protagonist wrestles with his God for more compassion, as well as overcoming his inability to cope with the new freedom in experiencing colors.

I was pretty attracted to this whole existentialist philosophy when I was first starting out in social science. It kind of got a bit too airy fairy for me along the way. Then, Soren Kierkegaard was quite a philo hero for me, though I could never really comprehend his either/or book, or why he has to get rid of his wife to proof his love for her. Kind of got a renewed interest in existentialism after visiting different art museums in europe, as I think that such meta-theories seem to make more sense in the realm of art. Think of the works of magritte, dali and dadaists and maybe those are what I feel, are ways, where we can, in the words of kierkegaard, start to explore the pardoxical attempt of 'discovering things that thought cannot think'. I don't know, I kind of believe in that philosophy as a way to approach life... sometimes.

Anyway, the above photo has nothing to do with existentialism. I was just kind of fascinated by the crack lines in the wall. Wondering where in Singapore can I find such authentic walls???

Frozen in Time

2007-08-02T22:47:00.000+08:00

Maybe photography is magical because it heightens the awareness of the subject's mortality; any indecisive moment would have created much absence rather than presence.

It has been a nua-ing, salty and enjoyable day at jb today. Time to sleep to prepare for a busy weekend of school admin, research reading and ministry stuff =p

jb

2007-08-01T16:15:00.000+08:00

"Hilly downtown JB is undeniably scruffy, a fact born out by a stroll through the claustrophobic alleys of the sprawling market, below the KOMTAR building on Jalan Wong Ah Fook, where machetes, silk and one-thousand-year-old eggs (actually preserved for a year in lime, ash and tea leaves) are sold... A little further south, the Sri Mariammam Temple lends a welcome splash of primary colours to the cityscape. Underneath its gopuram, and beyond the two gatekeepers on horseback who guard the temple, is the usual collection of vividly depicted figures from the Hindu pantheon..." (The roughguide to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei)

Heh, it is quite interesting to read guidebooks on your own region. Small facets of everyday local life are illuminated with travel-savvy insights. Even the not-so-interesting nooks and crannies are painted with a sense of rowdiness and vibrancy that gives it character and cultural vibes. Maybe I should backpack in Southeast Asia soon, once I have saved enough. Going to JB tmr for a day of shoot-out and pigging out :)

Body Movements

2007-07-26T13:57:00.000+08:00

Ozlem said that that was capoeira in Bordeaux, although I disagreed. Anyway, I feel like learning capoeira after I quit nj. Hmmm..

Love, Banishment and Identity

2007-07-25T23:40:00.000+08:00

Where do we begin when it comes to an issue as complex as a person’s identity, the sense by which he gathers purposes and meanings in life with respect to his various communities? For most of us, identity is complex enough when it forces us to make critical choices in life at the Archimedean point when allegiance to one’s beliefs is necessarily a denial of another.

Nothing illuminates this tragic-heroic dilemma more than the lives of intellectual/ political exiles, who in one way or another, are forced to leave their homeland because they threaten to reveal truths greater than what their own fellow men could grasp.

Nothing is perhaps more self-sacrificial than the person who is incapable of banishing himself to without, because of a peculiar and deeply rooted passion for someone who you are beginning to understand, and whom you are beginning to identity with. Stay, because nothing reaches the core of understanding one’s self more powerfully than the other who has become the invariable of all causes that are in constant flux.

Nothing is therefore more tragic-heroic than he who has become an exile from within, because while there are no more reasons for him to be loyal to an opportunistic society that endorses and stigmatizes him at once, the singular hope of him being rescued from civil death is to cling on to the motif of forbidden love; the lyrical travel-experiences that speaks of a nexus of coincidences and chance impressions, none inexplicable but many indefinably enigmatic.

(My own musings after watching an alfian sa'at play yesterday)