What This Is For

Time and again I had to ask myself if it's still worth keeping this blog alive. And for many of you who still bother to visit, you'd be perfectly forgiven to think that I'm just too phlegmatic to make any real decisions, and thus should be hung in the gallows of uncertainty and indecision. But please read with me through this one last post first before you do so :)

Hands up everyone out there who thinks that blogs are nothing more than avenues to win prizes these days. You see, I've grown disenchanted with the idea of having a blog, because social marketers were too quick to catch on with the idea of being able to disseminate free publicity without so much as to type out the word 'Contest'. I could see that as Marketing went up, Intimacy went down. Intimacy in the sense that you've actually put thought into your posts, in the sense that you mean what you say, in the sense that you are saying what you mean.

Oops, hold back your scorn for me first if I had offended you within just the first two paragraphs. I understand that I have no right to criticize what others choose to do with their own blogs, and I just want to make it clear that I'm not trying to diss anyone here. I'm merely making an observation, and whatever meaning you choose to read from these few lines is your own discretion.

Now if your hands are still up, you can put them down. Like I said, I could not see anymore reason to want to continue keeping this blog in existence. I don't post anything substantial anymore anyway, I thought to myself. But then I also realized that I don't always have to move along with the herd. The reason I got so bogged down was that I tried to write what others would want to read, and that probably gnawed away at my own intrinsic motivation to update the blog over time. I pondered about what the blog could be used for, and felt that it can still provide me with a means of self-reflection in reading over my own posts. And this self-reflection is unique because others can share in it.

So this blog would stay. If you had been reading from time to time, then by all means you're more than welcome to continue doing so. I appreciate your comments, and if it still applies I wish you a blessed and merry Christmas along with the customary Happy New Year :)

Learning

Would people still bother to learn if there were no exams to work toward?

When you motivate a person with monetary or material rewards, what usually happens is that the intrinsic motivation would soon be lost. Artists who are paid to paint all the time might lose their natural inclinations in producing art pieces over time. Psychologists know this well, and suggest using non-material rewards such as praises to avoid corroding a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task.

And exams, if you ask me, totally kill our intrinsic motivation to learn.

Okaylah, that's me being overdramatic again, but looking at all the other students nerding in college today staring blankly at their notes (like me) trying to memorise some facts to prove that they know something (like me) kinda gives me the feeling that the real true value of learning is lost in the education system.

I count our ability to learn as the one of the most profound skills we have, mediated by a dazzling array of neurons and countless electro-chemical reactions within the little organ that we call the brain. But to spend all our neural computing power on memorising pseudo-facts (things scientists aren't even sure themselves) seem a little....illogical, to me. Learning is an amazing process. But I feel that learning in our real-world context falls a wee bit short of that ideal.

Yeap, we're not perfect all right.

Peace Where We Are

Standing next to my car sipping while sipping on a can of soya after filling in some gas at slightly past midnight, the quiet 'suasana malam' made a for a great opportunity to just stand back and enjoy the peace and quiet. Made for a great opportunity to be robbed too I'm sure, standing there at the petrol station in the middle of the night, haha. But I wasn't, thankfully.

Amidst the stillness, it is quite hard to imagine what life would be a little bit farther from home. I looked at the buildings around, thinking if they would suddenly be bombed. I glanced across the streets, worried if armed bandits would ride past and shoot me.

I continued drinking, and thoroughly soaked in the night scene. The peace we have that we don't realize...

And the picture? It's Peace, Where We Are :)

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

The less you know, the better :)

If you're thinking of something to watch at the cinema sometime soon, or not-so-soon, then here's a suggestion:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs!

There, no unnecessary expectation build-ups, haha.

Hope you enjoy it.

How Little We Know

Every year brings with it new discoveries in our knowledge of the world.

A physicist figures out how to split new particles from presently split particles. A chemist concocts a brand new chemical with the most dazzling of effects. A biologist uncovers new swathes of genes responsible for causing obesity.

For the most part I feel that we're living in pretty modern times. Modern in the sense that we are in control of the world, we're grasping it bit by bit and we're bound to unravel all there is unravel. I mean, we have planes, rockets, cars and boats to traverse the landscape in all three dimensions. That's modern right? We have the Internet, Facebook. That's gotta be modern right? We're advancing so much that the polar ice caps are melting. Please tell me that's us being modern, not the polar bears.

But really, at the end of the day I can't help but to realize that everything we know about science and technology is only what we think we know. Our knowledge are no more than careful assumptions about how things work, tested through experiments and proven by logic. Which means we'll never be 100% sure of ourselves. At least these were some of the things that ran through my mind as I read Newsweek's recent article on cancer.

As much as we have progressed in the last few thousands of years, the living bodies in which we inhabit still prove to be the most challenging mystery yet to solve. Being alive is something that I believe we will never be able to fully comprehend. Words cannot explain it, pictures cannot illustrate it. Alive. Almost like magic, but far greater. How much do we really know then?


I am a living person. Can someone please tell me who designed me?

September

Ask me which month of the year is my favourite, and...well, you probably wouldn't ask me such a question in the first place because there's only really one answer :)

If you've ever wondered about the famous historical figures who were born in September, then here's a quick list of them: Justina Lee, Kee Ken Fong, Simon Sim, Kee Ken's Mum, Kat Tan and...the names just keep rolling.

Okay, so maybe I'm not that great a person yet to be considered famous and historical. But the rest of them would definitely be somebody in the future, trust me.

Sometimes I wonder if birthdays were just another convenient excuse for us to celebrate and buy something for one another. If you ask me, my birthday wasn't any different from the other days of the year. The moon came up as usual, the sun was still yellow, 24-hours still weren't enough for me....same ol' same ol'. But beyond that conventional consumerist thinking, I appreciate being that little bit more special for a day. I appreciate every gesture and present, every wall post and personal wish.

Alas, it is always harder to show genuine appreciation than to buy an expensive present for someone. So in case you're wondering, then yes, I appreciate it very much, thank you :)

What more could I ask for? It's Cyclops! Glowing eyes would've been uber-cool, but I guess I don't need a hole in my roof just yet.

An empty Baskin-Robbins cup! Well, it wasn't empty when I got it of course, but that 'problem' was easily rectified in 2 minutes ;)

And the picture at the top of this post? By their powers combined, THIS is what they materialize into, tada~. I didn't use the mug yet though, so I'll try again sometime. Thanks for all the presents and meals and wishes people! (^.^)v

For Simon

Don't know if they've released it in NZ yet, Mr. Sim, but here's a shot of the game that I just happily squandered two whole hours on xD

1:07

Amidst all the brouhaha of the blogs (the three blogs that I read) suddenly firing up again after an unexpected burst-forth-from-the-ground moment from Sim's Xanga page, I found myself in the middle of the blogging scene again. Funny how I literally 'think the world' of just these three people :)

Which is why it's 1 a.m. now, and I'm not asleep yet but instead in this blogspot post editor.

A lot of things that didn't make it to the posting page such as the travel-cations I had a month back probably never would I guess. Langkawi and Perhentian was great though, I certainly found the vacations to be a wonderful experience.

But I'm hoping that I would have more time to sit down and write some meatier stuff in the future. Not that I was any good a writer to begin with, but I think I can still come up with the occasional good post or two. Or at least I hope so :)

Bloom, ye dead blogs, bloom!

Kantoi...

....would be the word to describe my blog in its current state. Or perhaps even the blogging scene in general, since practically the whole world has stopped blogging of late ('whole world' being the four blogs that I always visit). It's bad when you have nothing to write about, but it probably says a lot about whether you should continue blogging when you can actually no longer remember why you started blogging in the first place.

"A penny for MY thoughts"???

Suddenly, even the blog name was beginning to sound awful. Lousy. Self-centred. Pompous. Nonsense, as I would say it.

And my layout...fuh! Drab. Boring. Same-ol same-ol. Nonsense, as I would say it.

Cbox's been dead since the last world war. The updates sidebar is becoming more and more pathetic.

Isn't it time to close this down, and just get on with life?

Hurm.............................

Hurm.........................................................

Nope. Not just yet :)

When in doubt, post lyrics...

Lately nothing I do ever seems to please you
And maybe turning my back would be that much easier
Cause hurtful words are all that we exchange
But I can't watch you walk away

Can I forget about the way it feels to touch you?
And all about the good times that we've been through
Could I wake up without you every day?
Would I let you walk away?

No, I can't learn to live without
And I can't give up on us now

[Chorus]
Oh, I know I could say we're through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

Could I forget the look that tells me that you want me?
And all the reasons that make loving you so easy
The kiss that always makes it hard to breathe
The way you know just what I mean

No, I can't learn to live without
Ohh, so don't you give up on us now

Ohh, I know I could say we're through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

Ohh, and I don't wanna try

Ohhhh, I know I could say we're through
And tell myself I'm over you
But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

I just can't live a lie

But even if I made a vow
A promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I'd fail cause I, I just can't live a lie

Oh, I cant live a lie [x2]

It's nice to be little dramatic sometimes, haha. I really like the song though. Go Carrie!

And my blog is officially on life support now....

*grins*

I don't know about you guys, but of all the different Facebook invites I get (Save the Trees, Stop Pollution, Eat Less Meat, Etc Etc), THIS one definitely takes the cake for being the funniest xD

Glo Taiping: Of Peace and Mosquitoes

NOTE: I've always chosen to write about any holidays, trips or experiences based on the gists of the main ideas that I want to convey, and hardly would I take the trouble to write in the form of literal documentary-style accounts. But the purpose of this post is to give some publicity to Glo (Gospel Literature Outreach)'s training school in Taiping, so I tried to be as informative as possible in providing an introduction to those who have not heard of Glo or have absolutely no clues regarding what it is all about, like me. In case you're confused by my mix-up of past and present tenses, I purposely used a lot of present tenses in the descriptions, in order to avoid sounding like a diary entry. Finally, if you're used to my usual short, nondescript posts, then chances are you would label this as 'boring'. So there, read at your own discretion :)



To say that the Residential Bible School in Cameron Highlands, or more popularly known for its endearing acronym RBS is interesting would be an understatement in many ways. I honestly believe that RBS holds a permanent special place in the hearts of most, if not all the students who signed up for it, be it for the quirky friends made, the insurmountable challenges waded, or the surprising emotional breaches.

But what I didn't realize was that RBS wasn't the only avenue available to pursue spiritual growth. It's a great avenue, no doubt, but there are other options that I never thought of exploring before. One such option, which I faintly remember hearing about before, is the Glo school (there's something about three-letter acronyms...). Located in Taiping, an idyllic town about 2 and a half hour's drive from Subang, the Glo school in Taiping is basically RBS without the cold air, and also the time limitation. Classes take place the whole year round I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), and the different modules usually last a week, or maybe two sometimes.

The way the modules are conducted is through various speakers invited from all around the country, or from other countries even. It just so happened that one of the elders of my church was invited to teach for last week, and he invited me to come along and see for myself what Glo was all about. Together with Crissy, a fellow bummer at the moment, we set off for 5 days of 'studying' in Taiping.

Arriving there, the Glo 'school' is actually a church compound located next to a government school, and in the same compound there is a tadika called Tadika Marks. So yes, in the mornings there would be the principal's blabbering about discipline booming over the school's speakers AND chirpy kindergarten songs playing together at the same time. But it's a pretty spacious place, with a nice spot just for swings. For the children I guess. And for you to sit down and chat.



But the aural entertainment aside, the living quarters for students basically looks like this:



It's a wooden bungalow in the style of traditional malay houses, and it has four separate rooms for the guys and gals. Not bad actually; plus there's always that rustic charm about wooden abodes.

Mornings begin with personal devotion, and then group sharing of individual devotional insights and thoughts. After breakfast, classes would then commence. The classes are conducted in the church building's top room near the roof...or attic, I believe that's what it's called. Fairly comfortable setting, with the usual flip-table chairs and cozy air-conditioning. There's classes until lunch time, and depending on the teacher/lecturer, afternoon slots and night slots are available for additional classes as well. Otherwise, it would be free time to work on assignments.



Now I feel that special mention should be given to the unusually rabid mosquitoes that seem to have taken control of Taiping. I find them uncannily similar to thugs who would go the extra mile to harass you for protection money. In this case, they're trained specifically to rob you of your sleep. I didn't know better, so on the first night I just hit the bunks a la carte. Since I was the only one in the room (there were no other temporary male students last week), I chose a luxurious wall-side lower bunk (all the beds are double-decker). Washed my face, brushed my teeth, yada-yada and then I dived into the blanket to catch some Zs.

Only thing is, I never caught any.

The thing is, sometimes when even one stray mosquito slips into my room, I usually end up with very little sleep. On the first night in Taiping however, I killed at least 9 of them. 9!!!! And still the buzzing-in-the-ear didn't stop. By my calculations, the total of numbers of sleep I had on the first night was probably around -4 hours...

PLEASE ask about what you should do before sleeping, if you're planning to attend Glo for whatever reason.

The gripes about mosquitoes aside, I feel that Glo has something very different to offer, in terms of spiritual training, and buffing up your biblical knowledge. Comparing it with RBS (the only yardstick I can think of at the moment), Glo is....a different thing altogether. Whereas RBS is confined to specific times of the year, Glo simply goes on week after week and there is plenty of room for you to decide if you just want to check out a particular module or put on the headband of determination and sign up for a full year there.

Glo also doesn't enforce no-electronic-device rules, and you can bring laptops even. You have full responsibility for how you wish to make use of your gadgets. I guess you're treated more as an independent 'adult' compared to RBS. From conversations with the others who had been there before (and now comes back to Glo regularly as a sort of retreat), there's certainly no shortage of practical exercises and responsibilities to take up, from chairing the weekly Prayer Meetings, to helping out with the kindergarten's Chapel Service. And you need to know your Scriptures well, if you are to keep up with the more in-depth classes.

Though my trip there was cut short due to a sudden turn of events, Glo was truly and honestly eventful and meaningful to me. The company alone was already half the fun, and I was pretty thankful for the seemingly chance encounter. To be honest, it all seems like a lot of hard work, but I personally think that Glo presents a strikingly unique opportunity to take your faith seriously, and take it further.


A handy brochure that tells you more about Glo can be found at http://www.thelifechapel.org/media/GLO%20Leaflet%2009_final.pdf

Ownership

Just because you stuck your label on something, doesn't necessarily mean it's yours.

The oddest feeling it seems, is to realize that you actually didn't know yourself all that well.

Odder even, when you didn't realize you had stuck any sort of labels in the first place.

This shouldn't make sense to you. I certainly hope not :)

Hurm

We have blogs, and we have twitter. And perhaps, the next social-communication breakthrough is just around the corner. But I'd like to think that our most basic desire to have face-to-face communications will probably not ever diminish. Static texts on the computer screen don't tell us half the story that could otherwise be gleaned from things like tone of voice, facial expressions, body language and all the various non-verbal cues that allow us to say so little and yet mean so much.

Which would explain why the Tanjong Mamak Bistro near my house had been jam-packed full of people the last few times I went there.

Don't know why I'm posting about this though. Maybe it's because....I'm wishing there's someone who is intimately familiar with all my thoughts, all my wants, my hurts and needs and failures that I could just chat the night away with.

Nah, not a girlfriend.

Just sort of imagining God in person doing some pillow talk with me :)

What a random post.

Windows 7 for a Song!

Not exactly a song lah, but close xD

Windows 7 Home Premium is now (right now as in today, 26th June) available for only 50 USD as an upgrade!!! That's about err...only RM 175! I've been trying out the beta version for quite some time, and I love what they've done to it after how thousands and thousands of customers had relentlessly bashed Vista and all its shortcomings. For 200 bucks, I'd seriously consider going for the upgrade and join the other early adopters :D

Unfortunately the offer's only available in the US and some other countries for now....shipping it back to Malaysia would take extra time, and not to mention money. But the huge discount of 70 USD is almost too hard to pass up. Aih, how now.... :P

If you wanna check it out for yourself, simply head over to Amazon and see what the Home Premium version offers, as compared to the other version on offer also, Windows 7 Professional. Sure hope Windows 7 is worth the money this time :)

128 GB

If you haven't found out yet, not too long ago Kingston just announced their new line-up of USB drives sporting a new design and colour scheme. While they've been constantly doing this 'new look' thing for as long as there had been pen-drives on the market, this time around they've pushed the capacities all the way up to....err, (tapping at the calculator...) almost two-months' worth of non-stop music! Plug this into cars with USB playback audio systems and there's no need for the radio ever again, haha.

Picture above taken from hardwarecanucks.com.

Blogging

Blogging seems to have taken a backseat for the last month, which is usually indicative of a relatively boring day-to-day routine. Ironically though, the last month had actually been a period of many blog-worthy activities, from late-night Street Fighter gaming parties to driving a new car around the town and impressing my friends with it :)

Every day when I check back on my blog, I'd feel like updating but then pause for a moment and then in the end decide to do otherwise. Nothing to update? No, I've got plenty to write about. But just that I felt like not sharing what I had been doing, to kind of make those memories a little bit more valuable, instead of just public information available on the Web.

But if I keep this up, then I might as well shut the blog down, I thought.

So I tried to rationalize with myself, and mentally go over reasons to continue blogging. I was pretty blank for the most part. Then I tried to invoke more reasons to necessitate pulling the plug on this blog that I had spent several years on. Blank again, unfortunately.

And it's a tie, I thought.

Ever too often I get myself into the whole 'Why did I start blogging in the first place' dilemma that is never definitively answered and waste time thinking about blogging instead of doing some actual blogging. I'm a lazy person unfortunately when it comes to weighing pros and cons and all that jazz, so I've decided that I should stop thinking so much and going nowhere with the thoughts. And just keep the blog here and post whenever I want to.

Time for More

Quite a few things had taken hold of my time the last few days, but thankfully they're mostly positive.

Time-management had never been more intricate and nerve-wrecking for me, and I honestly had a lot of moments when I realized that I lost a lot of precious time doing nothing of benefit. I had to own up to the lost productivity and pay for all the times I slacked off, making the past few weeks a bit more tense and straining than usual.

But like I always say, "Oh well".

It's really funny then, that right now I suddenly have so many good things on my hands that I could blog about. Then again, I believe that I've always had a lot of good things to talk about. Just that I don't realise it. Life here on earth is way too distracting most of the time, and I had forgotten what it means to constantly see things from different perspectives. I got lazy over the years and lost touch with the flexibility in looking at life that I used to pride myself on. It's so much easier to just stick to one way of looking at things, I had to admit.

Instead of not having enough time to do what I wanted to, I never saw the lack of excess time allowance as a means of learning to make better use of what I do have. One hour can be spent doing nothing, or spent doing many things in one go. The lazy person in me would happily sit out and read newspapers whole day long, but there's so much more that can be accomplished when you find the correct way to focus on the tasks at hand.

For more than one reason, the next two weeks is gonna be an interesting one. Something really bad could happen. Catastrophic. Or I could also be having the time of my life. Ecstatic. Hurm....

Oh well.

Guess I'll just have to learn as I go along, no matter what happens :)

Streamyx Can Do Better

Currently paying about RM 80 every single month to the ONLY landline broadband provider around (I think), it is disappointing that I am stuck with a tricycle's equivalent of Internet speed almost every night..and afternoon, and evenings too. And sometimes mor....ah, sorry, I meant to say ALL THE TIME!!

I know many third-world countries don't have Internet access yet even. I know we are lucky to have such a kind Internet Service Provider who doesn't go after the pirates. I know we shouldn't compare, and instead count our bountiful telecommunication blessings, that we don't have to travel 10 miles to the nearest post office just to send a telegram (which is still being used, apparently).

But this is just sad.

What Streamyx is doing now is akin to trying to simultaneously water 5 different gardens all at once using just one thin pipe, so to speak. The end result is of course every garden getting only an IOTA (very very small amount) of water, and the plants are just happily wilting away. I know I'm wilting away here trying to download a perfectly legal file from overseas servers. Pretty sure I'd make better progress trying to figure out the secrets to time traveling...

Surely the behemoth of telecommunications in Malaysia can stretch its muscles a bit more and try to provide better service for us wanting citizens...personally, I'm just sick of big government-backed corporations like Telekom becoming overly complacent with itself, merrily lazing around and putting the nation's resources to waste.

At present, I get the impression that as customers who contribute to their war chests, we're being treated more like liabilities. It's almost as if we're being a burden to them. Oh poor Streamyx, it's internet lines are so congested by us free-loading good-for-nothing consumers. I hope they're not too exhausted from trying to provide decent Internet access to the lowlies and insignificants like us.

Come on Telekom, you can do better than this.

The Incessant Whiner

The phrase about pastures always being greener on other peoples' lawns has been ringing louder and louder lately.

This semester of my studies, I realized that I've been complaining about a hundred and one things. Oh wait, I actually think it would be more accurate to say a thousand and one things instead. When you yourself realize that you are being...err, snobbish, for example, then it usually means that you really are a snob, because the hardest person to evaluate is always yourself. So when I started noticing that I was constantly on WHINE mode, I discovered the unpleasant prospect of me having turned into the modern-day whine-addict who's never satisfied with what's going on in life.

I don't think I'd need to give any sort of examples here, since those of you who see me regularly would likely have heard about my long list of complaints some time in the last 3 or 4 months. Now that I think about it, I don't remember any recent conversations in which I made any efforts to refrain from whining. Not at all.

And funnily enough, I had initially wanted to post about my busy timetable, the deluge of assignments, the nonsensical happenings and all the other bla bla bla idontlikethisidontlikethat complaints that I had been sharing with everyone else. But I figure you guys already have enough negative stories to chew on in your own lives.

Not that I'll only be posting about happy-happy-I-won-the-lottery sort of things from now on, but I'd like to stop bathing in my own negativity and enjoy what I have right here, right now. And indeed I actually have plenty to be thankful for. Sure, the fan at my house is suddenly dead and the weather is so darned hot and all, but at the same time there's also tonnes of other things to smile about that often get lost in the eat-sleep-then-eat-again cycles that we have to plow through everyday.

The big events, the small gestures, they all count towards this life that I'm happy to live right now. Call me naive, but I love the fact that I am alive and well, imperfect as the world may be that we inhabit.

I'll end the post with a picture of this girl whose smile is so radiant, and so magical that most, if not all members of the male population would instantly be reduced to a melting pool of goo had they seen it for themselves :P