Sunday, February 26, 2006
it seems that an nsf's life is busy after all. asian aerospace has barely ended, yet we have already begun rehearsals for the caf coc parade on 24 mar. we are scheduled to meet, on average, 3 afternoons a wk until such a time that the incoming general officially accessions to power. (this, by the way, is over and above the 2 outfield exercises and 3 tekong duties planned for the upcoming month.) so what this all means is that i can hardly wait for apr to arrive, apart from the fact that it brings me a month closer to ord.
honestly though, ord (disruption?) is bound to present its own set of dilemmas when it looms on the horizon. the thing about ns is that u tend to attribute responsibility for your own decisions to higher command, "institutionalizing" (this term appears in the shawshank redemption, excellent dvd) yourself in a comfort zone where nothing - as far as possible - should be made your problem (even if it truly is). i really wonder how different individuals grapple with the mentality when they reintegrate back into society after they complete their ns liability and discard their combat fatigues for civilian outfits. personally, i feel that ns has initiated me to the finesses of working class politics. it has definitely awakened my senses, for better or for worse. however, i would comment that ord itself is a hyped up concept intended to distract u from the very genuine lessons of ns; perhaps rightfully so for nsfs and not so for regulars? (could this explain why a substantial number sign on? hmm...)
i realize most of u would probably have lost me in the preceding paragraph, so i shall just make my point. (which i guess not everyone would understand either - but after all this is blogging right?) bearing the above in mind, i venture that the "clear leave" period just prior to ord is actually a better time of your life than ord itself. the hypermodern chessplayer aron nimzovich, a world championship contender in the early 20th century, once remarked that 'the threat is stronger than the execution'. over the board, this indicates that the mere hint of aggression is often sufficient to send your opponent scrambling to defend, achieving (and in the process defeating) the purpose of actually displaying aggression. a bit like nuclear brinksmanship during the cold war era. juxtaposed to ns, u could derive that:
1. "clear leave" period is better than ord
2. everyday is a potential "clear leave" period
3. therefore, everyday is potentially better than ord (ok, potentially...)
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Kenneth Henes
Ravi Zacharias tells in one of his books about a trip he made to Vietnam in 1971 to travel the country and preach.
Wherever he traveled for a month in Vietnam a Vietnamese man who translated for him accompanied him. They were both young, and they saw many things that shocked them, things neither of them had ever thought they would see in their entire lives. Their preaching, though, had good results, and they saw people respond to the Gospel.
After he left Vietnam, Zacharias did not see his translator again for many years. Then, one day, in 1987, sixteen years later, he received a phone call in his office. When he picked up the phone, the voice on the other end asked him if he knew who this was. Ravi immediately recognized the voice of his translator. The man asked Ravi if he had a few minutes for him to tell what had happened to him, and Ravi said he did.
After the Communists took control of the country, his translator was arrested and spent a great deal of time in prison. They tried every possible means to get him to deny his faith, all without success. He had no Bible, except for the verses he had memorized, and that helped sustain him.
Then one day, he was ordered to clean the commandant’s latrine. While he was cleaning, he found a piece of paper with writing on it that had been used for toilet paper. He noticed it was a page from the Bible. He put it in his pocket and took it back to his cell where he cleaned it off and used it for devotions. He found it was this passage from Romans 8, and the verses sustained him. He then volunteered to clean the commandant’s latrine everyday, and discovered that he was tearing pages out of a Bible to use for toilet paper. He would take them back to his cell, carefully clean them off and used them for his devotions.
Sometime later, he and some other prisoners began to plan an escape. One day, four men came to him and told him he had heard they were planning an escape and wanted to know if they could go along. They were reticent at first, after all they could have been sent there by their Communist captors to test them, but then Ravi sensed the Lord telling him they should take the men, and so they did. He said they would not have survived their escape without those men. They escaped by boat to Thailand, and at times the journey was perilous, but those four men were seasoned seamen, and they kept them all alive.
Now Ravi’s friend operates his own business in Los Angeles. He survived because God sent him a reminder that God always works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,[j] who[k] have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Name five of life's simple pleasures that you like most, then pick five people to do the same. Try to be original and creative and not use things that someone else has already used:
- eating a steaming bowl of miso ramen outdoors on a cold tokyo night, with guitar-strumming buskers serenading the world and its vagaries
- obliterating mr phua at winning 11 [8-0 8-0 8-0]
- the crystalline resplendence and irrational comfort of friendship. and love.
- music, the ubiquitous and chimerical lingua franca of humanity and emotion
- aramis lift-off deep cleansing gel
i kind of miss ashley tickling me until i die.
im not trying to give anyone else any ideas...
party soon fellow travellers?
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
continued...
my snowman and i
the snowman that we made (me, josh and mingjing- fellow singaporean at penn) check out the singapore flag burned into his chest! =) hahah snowman a la singapore superman. he may not look like much but it was freezing and he's actually quite tall. up to my waist? okay maybe a bit lower. heh
snow angel!
hello! back to my blog flooding days. so it snowed like crazy right- all night and all morning, some ginormous blizzard that fell on the east coast and me and ashley... and here's some pictures that i took of the season.
the prata that my brother made! and fish curry with chicken in it. oops. heh
unflattering picture of me talking to josh
trudgin through the snow like a giant, but look how much snow there is!
Saturday, February 11, 2006
who is pouring pestilence into my ear?
u know something that really enrages me is when
WE ARE encouraged TO BELIEVE
that people doing something WRONG in order to do something RIGHT
is RIGHT
NO>>>
THE RIGHT THING DONE THROUGH THE WRONG MEANS IS STILL THE WRONG THING.
eg. in order to help someone get out of poverty, you steal.
now listen to me carefully please;
this is not about whether "the ends justify the means".
this is about encouraging others to support the person doing bad stuff because of his good motive.
it is when the media casts assasins as heroes because their final victim is a fellow assasin who is trying to kill an innocent girl. (think: elektra)
now i reckon that it is deceitful to portray evil deeds in a good light.
someone is embellishing/disguising the facts and causing me to think in a certain way.
NO!
u're not as helpless as u would like to think
who is pouring pestilence into your ear?
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
This is going to be completely random but I haven't been here in a while so indulge me :)
Name five of life's simple pleasures that you like most, then pick five people to do the same. Try to be original and creative and not use things that someone else has already used:
- hot milo, a useless froufrou magazine (read: vogue/glamour/allure/harper's) and whatever happens to be on my itunes 'hitlist' at the moment (especially when it's blizzarding outside)
- dorm life - curling up in elle's waaay too comfy bed hugging chibi-mochi, drifting in and out of sleep with the lull of newly-familiar voices around me.
- laughing out loud and sniggering at all the funny/amusing/pseudo-tragic/traumatic parts in babar's absurdly long emails.
- expected surprises (like the photobook thing you guys compiled for all us overseas babies, mine's sitting in front of me as I type this) - because I'm one of those girls who can't take the anxiety of not knowing what's coming or when it's coming. Unexpected surprises cause me a great deal of stress.
- hearing that oh-so-familiar 'hello' on the other end of the line :) and the goodnight that comes after our nightly conversations - the last thing I hear before I fall asleep.
Ok so now all of you do the same :)
