why criticism should sometimes be taken with a pinch of salt

i love how brad bird inserts this interesting speech right at the end of a children's movie.
Ratatouille is not as flashy as The Incredibles or clever as Toy Story. But it certainly has a lot of adult charm.

Anton Ego: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize that only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more."

this week, three of my staff in the cafe had birthdays on the same day so Y dressed up as a big old cow and delivered a cake to the cafe. We then took turns taking pictures with the enormous cow head. :)

it's nice to know silliness can still prevail, humour can still win the day and work can still be as enjoyable as it always has been for the past 6 years since the SOT enterprise began. New challenges - personal, spiritual, material - crop up all the time but it really is good to know God is in control and I still passionately believe, as long as you keep trying to stay on the striaght and narrow, He will help make things work on all levels.

this is perpetually in my mind these days: what does it mean to be a christian especially as a colleague to difficult colleagues, as an employer of staff that make mistakes, as a waitress to demanding customers, as a teacher to unresponsive students. as a daughter to sometimes rambunctious parents.

it's so tough applying what you know about grace and forgiveness when it comes to work - where demands on efficiency are high and less slack can be cut. I suspect if all of us in church or cell group were forced to work together in a office context, we would see a lot more of our true selves. Work sometimes can bring out the demanding beast in us. Simultaneously though, because you see each other in high stress situations and see the tough, less likable parts emerge - there are much more opportunities for grace to emerge and bless.

the difficult part of course is making the decision to actively - not passively - issue grace.

we don't need to dispense grace. Grace is a senseless choice in our world. You give grace to those who may not appreciate it or acknowledge it in any way and you are expected to be glad for it.

Grace is tough and it ain't meant to be cheap. Grace is costly and goes against your intellect and pride.

my constant prayer - when i remember to pray - is just to be able to allow grace to overflow and soothe my own self-righteous wrath away.

It is so humbling to be reminded in Proverbs to make every word of your tongue a word of HEALING and BLESSING. not cursing and undermining.

I really love the apostle Paul for voicing out the everyday struggle of Christians in Romans 7:14-25 (The Message)

"I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different."

Every day is beautiful and joyful and hopeful - not because things are always beautiful, joyful and hopeful...because oh man, there are PROBLEMS all the time - but everyday is gorgeous because it is a wonderful thing to know that God is in charge.

Worrying and fearing just lead to evil. Trusting, hoping and doing what needs to be done again and again - no matter how many times you feel you could have done better - leads to glory.

little bits of providence

to me friends who have been wondering what on earth i have been up to...

i think i have never worked this hard in my life.
but conversely, i think if this is what working super hard feels like - its not a bad feeling actually.
i feel excited thinking about how this year is going to end ( and yes...i am looking forward to year end and a slow down oof the madness). Its cool to know you can end the year having created really fantastic things that you believed in and still believe in.

have not been feeling stressed, overwhelmed or unhappy
mostly just severely tested - intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically

my workdays are now classic: i get up at about 8 - 830am, reread the nearest trashy novel next to my messy bed, and then i am in the office by 10-11am. Once at work, its non-stop - no MSN, no trashy web-trawling any more and certainly there has been no blogging for a while. At work, I am either teaching, writing magazine articles, doing magazine layout, designing collateral for office or cafe OR doing waitressing shift downstairs in the cafe. After teaching at night and maybe helping out in cafe a bit more, its back upstairs again for more magazine work. By the time I reach home, its 2am usually.

And then wash, repeat, rinse. cycle has been going on for past month and probably will continue till end of year.

I secretly like waitressing I think. I have always gotten some kind of cheap thrill from being able to keep many table's demands in my head and get them out on time and still keep that smile going. I enjoy hearing the chefs go "pick up for table six" and i can call back as professionally as i can muster "picking up table six!". Its kinda therapeutic washing dishes, wiping tables, making small talk and what not after all the intellectual blah blahing i have to do at the school.

but multi-tasking does have its limits.

somedays i stumble back exhausted and wake up cranky: and that's usually when i know i have pushed my limits too far and need to step back and rest. like really really rest. not just physically but just to take quiet time to sit down and remember again who is Sovereign and who is in control.

Running a cafe is like asking for a big humbling - in my opinion. never go into it "for fun" or "because it looks cool". F&B makes running a school look like nothing.

It has been really really good though for me to remember and rest in God's promise that He is in control of everything. Worrying only leads to evil. And I tell you, that is really balm to the soul when you have to deal with uneasonable customers, cafe staffing problems, scary numbers and the freaky thing called the Internet where all sorts of people have no trouble at all telling you in your face if they don't like what you are doing.

Keeping perspective - a heavenly one centred on God's kingdom - has been the most, the most, the most sane thing I can do for myself.

So yeah, still essentially joyful - but damn, that's a lot of work we are doing this year. woah. still not sure how we are going to finish it all and finish it well...but I have learnt to just take each day as it comes and to remember He will provide.

Thank you, God.

and thank you, all my nice friends and lovely sister and mom, for continuously turning up at the cafe so that I can still imagine I have an outside life. i have been encouraged really. truly grateful for the support. and for God bringing people constantly into the cafe - dont know how it happens. just know that it does and i feel really it is a kind of miracle.

Perspective. perspective. perspective.

Kay....going home now. leaving the office - once more at 130am. ha.

hee hee

SHOUT OUT from the blogosphere about food for thought. yay!

Where do we go from here?

In my head, I call this picture "Where do we go from here?"

One of my favourite shots from Cinque Terre in Italy. There's something that gets to me about the picture - the emptiness of the platform, the serene stretch of ocean behind them, and the amiable yet pensive tension of a couple waiting for their train to arrive.

Why Gorday Ramsay (Minus Expletives) reminds me of God

While re-reading Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour", this passage struck me:

"Finally, there’s England’s greatest chef, or England’s biggest bully, depending on which paper you’re reading at the time – the fearsome and prodigiously talented Gordon Ramsay. I’d been hearing about this guy for years. Ex-footballer. Formerly with Robuchon, Ducasse, Guy Savoy, Marco Pierre White. A legendary wordsmith in the kitchen – famed for excoriating his crew, ejecting food critics, speaking his mind bluntly and undiplomatically. Awhile back, I was told about the cinema verité Boiling Point series, in which the beleaguered Ramsay was said to behave monstrously to his staff. Intrigued, I managed to track down a copy of the videotape series. To my mind, Ramsay was sympathetic from beginning to end. I rooted for him as he sweated out the beginning of a service period for a massive banquet at Versailles, ill-equipped, with only a rent-a-staff of indolent bucket heads to help him. I cheered when he summarily dismissed a waiter for guzzling water in full view of the dining room. Pour décourager les autres, I’m guessing. I suffered as he suffered the interminable wait for his much-hoped-for third Michelin star and was heartbroken when he didn’t get it. (He since has.) Those who can’t understand why a chef operating at Ramsay’s level gets a little cranky, or who appears to be operating at a higher and more self-important pitch than their boss, simply don’t understand what it’s like to work in a professional kitchen. They certainly don’t understand what it takes to be the best in that world. It is not how well you can cook alone that makes a great chef, but your ability to cook brilliantly, day in and day out – in an environment where a thousand things can go wrong, with a crew that oftentimes would just as happily be sticking up convenience stores, in a fickle, cost-conscious, capricious world where everybody is hoping that you fail.

Is he really such a complete bastard? Let’s put it this way: On a recent visit to his restaurant in Chelsea, I recognized large numbers of staff – both front and back of the house – from Boiling Point. Years later and they’re still there. When Ramsay walked out of Aubergine, the entire staff, service staff included – an incredible forty-five people – chose to go with him. That’s really the most telling statistic. Does he still enjoy the loyalty of his crew? He does. No cook shows up every day in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen, works those kind of hours, offers themselves up daily to the rigors of a three-star service period, toiling in a small, hot space where at any moment they could get a painful and humiliating ass reaming because Gordon Ramsay is the biggest bastard or the biggest bully in England. They show up every day and work like Trojans because he’s the best."

When I read that, it made me think of how so many people perceive God as a complete bastard who should tone down. We like the soft parts about Love and Grace in the Bible but are embarrassed or unhappy about the much nastier bits about Judgment, God's intolerance for Sin and quest for Perfection in us snivelling never-do-wells.

Why do people stick with Ramsay and endure all that pain and suffering? For similar reasons why many sincere Christians sacrifice time, money and face to do things they pretty much did not need to do or would not have desired to do - like giving more money to the poor, lending an ear to friend after friend, serving in ministry after ministry etc.

We "show up every day and work like Trojans" because we know God is the best.

To paraphrase Bourdain, what's amazing is God's ability to manage the world brilliantly, day in and day out – in an environment where a thousand things can go wrong, with a bunch of human beings that oftentimes would just as happily be doing every bad or convenient thing under the sun, in a fickle, cost-conscious, capricious world where everybody is hoping that God will fail.

If I had to do God's job, I would find it mighty hard to be Mr Popular when I know I need to lay down some serious smack-down.

Invisible City 备忘录 by Tan Pin Pin, opens 22nd July 2007

Loved Singapore GaGa.....who wants to watch Invisible City with me?

St Francis of Assisi is Da Man

...because he came up with two of my favourite quotes

"Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary, use words"

and

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

For a dude from many centuries ago, his quotes are still as refreshing and necessary in our silly modern age.

Food for Thought

Some days, I still cannot believe we are actually doing this. But God willing, by mid July, there is gonna be a new cafe in town and it's gonna kick some copious amounts of butt.

P.S. for those of you who don't already know....School of Thought is setting up a cafe.
We are now officially in Phase 2.0 dubbed Make Trouble for Yourself, Rock da Cosy Boat and Set Up Another Enterprise. :)

Fear, Passion and Purity

Last Saturday as my hairdresser set out to save my unkempt hairstyle from fashion doom, I read "Every Woman's Battle (Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment" by Shannon Ethridge in one intense sitting.

The book put me in a pretty sober even melancholy mood throughout the whole weekend. The book was not radical or thought provoking in terms of issues raised - it was the usual rehash of the need to stay pure and chaste. The difference was her frankness about how women had to continually fight to keep their purity throughout dating, courtship and in their marriage.

Ethridge was quite upfront - if we women thought it was appalling that men could not keep their eyes from straying even after they got married, we had to take a really close look at how often women let their hearts and minds stray. Many women are guilty of conducting virtual emotional and mental affairs - only some were unlucky enough to get caught when they acted upon the affairs in reality. Ethridge's warning was that if we never learnt to discipline our hearts in our singlehood, we might carry this habit even after marriage: thus allowing the roots of adulterous affairs to take place.

The book scared me. I sometimes laugh at how fast men's heads swivel around on the street at the sight of a pretty girl - but I find it far more serious when I see how fast my own heart can swivel around in the presence of an attractive man. I found myself wondering throughout the day: So why do we women do this? Why can't I get a grip on my heart and mind as much as I would like to? Why do a few choice words or sweet gestures make my resolve melt?

I know I should stay open to being touched by a man's sweet words and lovely gestures - as a single woman, if you put up too unrelenting, too judgmental a wall, you run the painful risk of never letting yourself be open to love and being loved by the right man.

But yet, I don't want to be so open to being touched by words and gestures that suddenly you cannot discern who the right man is any more. Your fickle heart just starts to fall for any man who pushes the right emotional and mental buttons. I don't want to be that undiscerning single woman. And for the future, I don't want to be that adulterous wife either.

I don't think I was ready to date in my early 20s - I was too fearful and insecure in my own identity. I used to say flippantly that I have no problems staying single for the rest of my life if need be because I was scared to hope, scared of disappointment and scared of being let down by God.

Approaching 30 this year, I can finally say quite confidently I know who I am, I know what I want in life, I know the kind of man I can last a lifetime with and I am no longer afraid to hope.

Still, I need to keep watch over my old fears - because it pays not to be overconfident and complacent. Old fears have deep roots and are remarkably resilient and ever-ready to grow again.

What am I scared of? What fears and lies tempt me away from being wise and beckon me towards the path of destruction?

In all honesty:
I have always been scared of not being physically attractive enough.
I have always been scared that good character does not make enough difference to men, even Christian men.
I get scared that God is not as faithful as I believe. That He could not be bothered with my petty desires
I get scared that That This is As Good As It Gets and You Should Just Take what the world has to offer for God does not have better plans for me.
I get scared that patience, faith and hopin God's plans are silly notions - better to be impatient, take things into your own hands and hope you yourself can force things to work.

The fears are very very real in their ability to knock me off course despite my knowing that the fears are very very false.

And so, only Truth sets me free.

So this is what I know is True:
God loves me - in Him, I have significance and security and no fear that I am without worth.
His love transforms me because I see the way He wants me to be and His love helps me believe I can be that way.
God loves the men and women of this world - they all have worth and significance in Him.
His love will transform them the same way that they transform me.

God Makes a Difference. People who have finally accepted that God loves them can be transformed. When you know you are loved, you suddenly feel you can do anything. You feel renewed and reborn - that somebody has looked past all your weaknesses and dirtiness and seen the gold within. You can be Good again because you finally found someone who believes you will be Good.

And God is faithful - His plans to remake us in His image, remake our relationships into purer kinder relationships will come to pass. And patience, faith and hope will see their reward not just in the unseen future but also in the present.

There is so much that is mysterious to me right now. So much unknown that should scare me.
I don't know who God has in store for me at the end of the day
But the patience for God's timing to unfold, and faith in the Goodness of His plans puts peace in my heart that helps me wait.

And this day at least, and prayerfully every other day to come,
I can believe that I will find the strength to stay patient and stay pure while I wait.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Help me God, not to be a Fool.

Thank you Mother Teresa

"Do not think that love,
in order to be genuine,
has to be extraordinary.

What we need is to love
without getting tired. "

I love this quote from Mother Teresa. And I love it that she tried to live up to her own words.

How to Be Good

Just read Nick Hornby's How to Be Good and was doing some thinking about stuff I want to improve on in my behaviour. It's not depressing stuff - completely understand how God's grace will see me through and help me be a better person. But I find it is always good once in a while to muse about one's shortcomings and force yourself to buck up.

Since I was a kid, I have always wanted to be the Good kid, the one that sits on the side of the angels - who is naturally polite to her parents, does all her homework, always has an intelligent answer, always has perfect manners, smiles alot, is never burdensome and always winsome.

Now as an adult, it is hard to look at the gulf between what you want to do and what you actually do. I feel even more like a louse when I have walking, talking specimens of humanity who live up to the ideals that I aspire to. Witnessing their lovely sides makes me wish I could be as Good as that.

Here is my current Wish List of Good Behaviour right now:

I want to be as consistently friendly to strangers as D - hospitality is such a gift and I realise while I have a little bit of that talent, it is no where near what I think hospitality ought to be. I want to be the type of person who leaves behind a trail of cheeriness everyday and sometimes back in taciturn Singapore, it's easy to slip back into the culture and put on the deadpan pedestrian face.

I want to be as inspiring as Y - who keeps tabs on all his students and knows all their names, silly fears and mundane thoughts. I want to live up to the ideal of what I think a teacher ought to be and some days, I let work and just selfish desire to retreat into personal space stop me from reaching out as much as I should.

I want to be as neat as L. My table is such a mess and my room has devolved back to its primal soup stage.


Current mood: musing, optimistic, hopeful, trying to keep the faith and impatient for things to happen
Current music in room: my students yakking about iPods while I cling onto the last few minutes before class starts

6 books i want to read and cannot find :(

1: Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens
by Neil Cole

2: Organic Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect
by Joseph R. Myers

3: The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out without Selling Out
by Mark Driscoll

4: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
by Shane Claiborne

5: Faith Works: How to Live Your Beliefs and Ignite Positive Social Change
by Jim Wallis

6: The Relevant Nation: 50 Activist, Artists And Innovators Who Are Changing Their World Through Faith
by Heather Zydek

A Man and a Woman

True love never can be rent
But only true love can keep beauty innocent

I could never take a chance
Of losing love to find romance
In the mysterious distance
Between a man and a woman
No I could never take a chance
‘Cos I could never understand
The mysterious distance
Between a man and a woman

You can run from love
And if it’s really love it will find you
Catch you by the heel
But you can’t be numb for love
The only pain is to feel nothing at all
How can I hurt when I’m holding you?

The soul needs beauty for a soul mate
When the soul wants… the soul waits …

For love and faith and sex and fear
And all the things that keep us here
In the mysterious distance
Between a man and a woman

A Man and a Woman, U2

Alas, Oprah, I Loved Ye So Well

Oh Oprah, Oprah, Oprah.

I once loved your crazy shows where you paid off bills for some lucky never-do-well, roused your audience to raise money for your Angel Network and gave beauty makeovers so dramatic that you made ugly ducklings weep. I used to be unashamed to say I watched the Oprah Winfrey show because - well - there was some good being done through her show. Plus, Oprah herself could be really charismatic and inspiring when she talked about the need to help others.

But now, I find the direction of your show difficult to comprehend and almost repulsive. First, the public skewering of James Frey. Then, the increasing propensity to talk over your guests. And now, the inexplicable throwing of your moral weight behind the most unbelivably pretentious self-help book I have seen in a long time - "The Secret"

"The Secret" is far more noxious than anything John Gray or Anthony Robbins has put out because at least those guys never crossed over to the realm of claiming their bag of postive thinking tricks were used by Einstein, Jesus, Moses and Leonardo da Vinci. They never claimed their theories were scientific or a spiritual truth. (Can I pause to scream into cyberspace right now: ARGH, HOW I LOATHE "THE SECRET"! And I loathe how people will fall for its clever tricks because of slick packaging and clever copywriting! How can people buy into this snake-oil rubbish!)

I think this Salon article pretty much sums up my disillusion with Oprah and her works. I loved that woman and I still love her crazy, "I want to help the world" attitude. But girl, you are so not helping the world right now with this "Secret" rubbish. Please, stop. the. insanity. ( rant over)


Excerpt from Oprah's Ugly Secret by Salon.Com's Peter Birkenhead

"The promises of Oprah culture can seem irresistible, and its hallmarks are becoming ubiquitous. Believers may be separated into tribes according to what they believe, but they do it in pretty much the same way, relying on a "Secret"-style conception of "intuition" --- which seems to amount to the sneaking suspicion that they're always right -- to arrive at their tenets. Instead of the world as it is, constantly changing and full of contradiction, they see a fixed and fantastical place, where good things come to those who believe, whether it's belief in a diet, a God, or a Habit of Successful People. These believers may believe in the healing power of homeopathy, or Scripture or organizational skills -- in intelligent design, astrology or privatization. They all trust that their devotion will be rewarded with money and boyfriends and job promotions, with hockey championships and apartments. And most of all they believe -- they really, really believe -- in themselves.

For these believers, self-knowledge is much less important than self-"love." But the question they never seem to ask themselves is: If you wouldn't tell another person you loved her before you got to know her, why would you do that to yourself? Skipping the getting-to-know-you part has given us what we deserve: the Oprah culture. It's a culture where superstition is "spirituality," illiteracy is "authenticity," and schoolmarm moralism is "character." It's a culture where people apologize by saying, "I'm sorry you took offense at what I said," and forgive by saying, "I'm not angry at you anymore, I'm grateful to you for teaching me not to trust shitheads like you." And that's the part that should bother us most: the diminishing, even implicit mocking, of genuine goodness, and of authentic spiritual concerns and practices. Engagement, curiosity and active awe are in short supply these days, and it's sickening to see them devalued and misrepresented."

Yet another reason to love Italy

Where else in the world can you find a bunch of hot-blooded male cooks who have such an innate sense for the theatrical that they can stage an impromptu chorus (with all of them singing in parts!) without missing out a beat as they dish out freshly grilled meats to the public?

No, this is not a stage performance - thought it just might be a scene straight from Les Miserables' "Do You Hear the People Sing?", if the characters were not French revolutionaries but Italian cooks.

The cooks just happened to set up their table with a very dark alley as a backdrop. Coupled with the smoke from the multiple grills rising up as dramatic mists and blazing white-lights turned on them, and you had an instant street musical worthy of Broadway. And one had the comedic timing to cheekly interject in between harmonising, "No Photo. No Photo. No flash." although all their grins told you they were eating up all the attention.

Good song with good food. Bravissimi!

The Meet Cute

"The Meet Cute"

I learnt this new phrase while watching that amazingly awful romantic comedy The Holiday en route to London three weeks ago. The Holiday reaches new depths of mediocrity with the scenes between Cameron Diaz and Jude Law (gorgeous people but ARGH, noxious plot!) but at least had a few charming bits during the Kate Winslet scenes. (But of course I also think Kate Winslet can do no wrong. hee.)

Anyhow, Kate Winslet plays poor melancholy Iris, a magazine writer nursing her pummelled heart. Her ex-boyfriend is that kind of cad that still wants to remain friends but keeps things so fuzzy that you are always wondering hopefully if he still likes you and wants to get back together. So Iris flies all the way to California to escape her crummy life.

Anyhow in the Hollywood neighbourhood, Iris befriends Old Screenwriter because he has lost his way home and she decides to kindly offer him a ride. That's when he tells her about "The Meet Cute"

According to good old Wikipedia:
"In the film The Holiday (2006), Eli Wallach's character Arthur Abbott (a Hollywood screenwriter) described a meet-cute by saying "Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in and both go to the same men's pajama department. The man says to the salesman, I just need bottoms, and the woman says, I just need a top. They look at each other and that's the meet-cute." "

In other words, it's one of the conventions of romantic comedy films where you have the contrived encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances. During a "meet-cute", scriptwriters often create a humorous sense of awkwardness between the two potential partners by depicting an initial clash of personalities or beliefs, an embarrassing situation, or by introducing a comical misunderstanding or mistaken identity situation.

So if screen mimicks reality to some extent, I wonder how many of the couples I know began with a Meet Cute in real life?

the end of the affair

i did not mean to do it but i spent my entire morning sitting at a coffee shop trying to finish Graham Greene's The End of the Affair. It just got so engrossing I decidded to push aside thoughts of work.

I am floored by Greene's insight and his ability to put simple words to the tangled, complex struggle between wanting to do the right thing for God and wanting to run back to the security of the wrong things.

what an amazing work - deceiving in its brevity.

Think I shall pick up The Power and the Glory next. Wow.

The Art of Life

Was musing with RBF over dinner about life choices and how they shape the person you become. It's amazing to consider how a million tiny choices that we make moment by moment seem to edge us towards a better or worse path. Only when you look back at all the decisions you have made thus far do you suddenly see clearly how you slowly but surely created the person that you are this moment. How strange and humbling to know your "Yes" and "No" to whatever comes your way leave indentations in our clay-like selves: what kind of life, what kind of self have we sculpted ourselves into?

I always liked the analogy that our lives were like a giant carpet being woven. On one side, you can only see a crazy criss crossing patchwork of threads that seem to make no sense even though you thought you swore you wove correctly. But when you turn it around, you suddenly see the pattern in full glory and all the stuff suddenly makes sense.

Sometimes I think if God left me completely alone to paint the picture of my life with my limited imagination and limited understanding of my character, I would have made one screwy mess of it.

I can totally see how "but for the grace of God, go I".

Without God making me wise up to my inner idiot, I would have turned into one of those girls I hate. I would have become one of those awful, fashionably left-wing, liberal jerks with a smart mouth full of empty diatribes about the unenlightened of society. I would have painted my opponents with broad stereotyping strokes. I would have loudly and intelligently backed all the "right" social causes without the humble wisdom to put in the tough work required in the face of unlovable human beings. I would be a terrible, affected windbag with words of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I would have been a pretentious awful, awful person.

Without God's merciful revelation of my insecurities and healing power of Love, I would have probably gotten myself into countless flings with the worst sorts of men. I would have given up everything for a cheap semblance of affection. I would not have understood what real love looked or felt like. Though I don't really know much of her life, (and I don't want to insult or oversimplify what she has gone through) somedays I think I would not have been that far off from taking the path Annabel Chong took. I read about her and I don't feel disgust for all that she has done. I just think how realistically speaking, it would have been entirely possible for me to have decided to do the things she did. I think of her and wonder what I would say if I had the chance to have coffee wih her.

For me, without God, my life would have been mud. A long wallow in the dark, shifting quicksand.

With God, though...

...My life is on solid rock and one sure footstep after another, I know I can navigate even the most precarious lands though I see no map in sight.

...and my days are sun-kissed where even the most melancholy and tear-filled days are edged with the gold of hope.

To my fellow traveller CL, its good to know yet another who understands the taste of a life sweetened by God's timely and kindly revelations.

How good it is to be Beloved.

And better to know that the good life is already a gift within everyone's grasp.

Oh, that more should reach out and taste it for what it is.

When You're Happy and You Know It

"It won't do
to stir a deep desire,
to fan a hidden fire
that can never burn true.

I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;

But I don't know
how I would live with myself,
what I'd forgive of myself
if you don't go."

It's nearly midnight and I am clearing emails that have racked up while I was away in China. Am killing time before I can treat myself to a midnight cab ride home. Meanwhile, Suzanne Vega's Caramel is doing a honeyed, languid drift from my iTunes.

I liked Caramel the first time I heard it because Suzanne Vega's smoky voice makes it sound amazing. It's a bittersweet ode, a melancholy tribute to the cunning tangle that poor romantic choices weave around the human heart.

It would make an apt companion to Ha Jin's novel Waiting. Intrigued by how fast R and RBF had thumbed through the book in Xinjiang, I nabbed the well-thumbed copy and finished it during the hours spent in Beijing traffic.

Waiting is about frustrated romance - it's about the 18 years of waiting endured by officer Lin Kong's vibrant girlfriend Manna before he gets the divorce he has been craving for from his homely wife Shuyu. It's not a pretty tale and though nobody dies physically, they die emotionally. The realisation Lin Kong reaches about himself and his women is truly tragic. With restraint and reserve, Ha Jin paints a stark picture of how so many lives and budding romances come to be lived in quiet desperation.

In my 20s, I had throughly convinced myself I was in Love. I was too green to understand it was not Love but simply Desire. Desire can grip your heart so tightly that "having a crush" is no misnomer. Desire can crush your noblest thoughts and senses into nothingness if you let it. Desire can make such an incredible fool of you - you rejoice with crumbs; you weep in paranoia and fear; you loll around the dark mud of your insecurities; you shut your ears to truth and wrap yourself in a cocoon of martyrdom and lies.

With 30 round the corner, I think I have learned for myself how to tell Love from Desire. Love is about choice and commitment: an adult decision to give and receive both bittersweet truth and the merciful rain of kindness. Desire is simply not interested in all that. Love is Grace - a bit of heaven on earth that any of us can dispense if we humble ourselves enough.

I think I can say I have found firm ground. Somehow in the middle of a Good Friday solitary prayer in Kashgar - the kind of prayer which my 20something self would have happily let spiral into maudlin self-indulgence - I realised I have come to some strange restful place. I was pleasantly surprised to look for the usual tears and self-flagellation - and yet discover they simply were not there anymore.

It's a place between knowing - finally - exactly what I want in a man and yet trusting that it will be far better for God to keep me single than to settle for anything less. And being able to look beyond that to Love the world beyond.

It's the kind of thing you keep telling yourself in your 20s but are secretly unsure if you are not just deceiving yourself.

It's a completely different and liberating feeling to finally realise it's the truth. And that i understand and find pleasure and peace in it.

In Kashgar, I saw rows and rows of amazingly green grass crowned by apricot trees. It was still early Spring and the sharp bite of Winter was still in the air. Some of the branches were still dry and dead but oh - the promise! - the promise of Spring and Summer was pushing out in the sweetest hues of cream and pink. Those apricot trees set on grass so amazingly, vividly green have become the most beautiful thing in my mind's eye. It is a picture of Spring, and Hope and Promises Fulfilled.

The apostle Paul declared passionately "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Indeed, my dear dear God, my sweet Saviour Christ, the old has gone. And I believe, with a fresh heart, that the new has and will come for me.

I think I am happy.

And when you are happy and you know it, and you really want to show it -

- You clap your hands.

It's a rich man's world

So our local ministers are getting yet another pay hike and as predicted, the masses are rumbling about the unfairness of the whole thing. How can you read about some guy in a suit getting $2.2 million a year without feeling all crappy that you will never see that amount in a lifetime? Hey, an entire village in Somalia would probably not see that in 10 lifetimes. To feel jealous, angry, contemptuous and yet completely covetous about our millionaire ministers is a completely human thing.

I personally think they should be paid high but a possible million dollar hike is just over the top. I personally like Low Thia Kiang's sneaky suggestion that they peg minister's salaries to the poorest 20% of Singapore so there is major incentive to push the agenda of the disenfranchised, but I think it will probably not work. Perhaps pegging it to the average income earners instead?

What I WOULD like to see from the government is better PR skills. I think it is useless for them to keep trotting out the same logical, rational, intellectual arguments about why ministers should be paid well. Financial renumeration is a topic that strikes people to the heart. Like it or not, many of us peg our pay to our self worth. I think this is a habit we would do well to exorcise from our systems. Meanwhile, it is not helpful to hear the rich and mighty pontificate in cool,intellectual arguments about why they deserve the pay - because the implication is "...and you deserve yours. (Perhaps you are not trying hard enough - it's a meritocracy after all?)"

Less logic, more heart. Less talk, more action. If I had my way, scaling up the minister's pay dramatically ought to go hand in hand with policies that scale up help to the nation's poorest with equal drama.

I think some of our ministers are Christians. I would LOVE to hear such a minister talk to the people with genuine honesty about what he feels about out-earning his people by such a high percentage, without retreating behind intellectual reasons. I want to hear him just talk about his thoughts on the social responsibility that comes along with earning that amount of money and what he does with the treasures he has been allotted. It's not about justifying himself to the people. It's about showing people that there seems to be some point or some good about that much money being given away from the taxpayer's pockets. Also, I am just plain curious about the thoughts and struggles of a Christian millionaire.

I had a pretty sober conversation with SB one night about our chosen profession and hence, chosen income level. He was talking about how saddening it was to listen to students who appreciated his contribution as a teacher to their lives, see nothing wrong in talking openly about liking the idea of teaching but never wanting to do it because "the money wasn't worth it." There seemed to be complete and utter unawareness of their indictment of their teacher's choice in life to choose sacrifice over financial reward.

It was like "thanks for teaching me and making those sacrifices. I won't be doing the same though. That was your choice, not mine. Someone has to do the crappy, underpaying, noble jobs. But it's not me. Thanks anyway. :)"

Being a good teacher - or a good pastor or social worker for that matter - does not automatically result in more pay. I assume this is unlike what happens in banking, sales and the civil service. Good teachers often commit to too many unpaid overtime hours of decent marking, planning, pastoring, prepping of own material. They understand that an overstretched school budget just cannot renumerate them - so they sacrifice their own money and time for the sake of making sure children turn out into half decent human beings. I am nothing like the best of these teachers - but I try to aspire to greatness that way.

We are raising a generation of youths - Singapore HAS been raising generations of youths - that do not see wealth as a responsibility. They see it as a goal, a prize and an affirmation of one's ability. Wealth is yours because you deserve it for all the work and all your choices. Go ahead and spend it on yourself. Oh, and throw in a piddlly amount into the charity tin that will hardly add up to the amount you spend on facials or lattes in a year. Wealth is not a daily gift from God, a grace extended to you for a higher purpose. Wealth is not something you consider soberly as something that ought to be distributed and shared.


I think I earn a decent amount of money. I like to keep in mind that compared to 80% of the world - I am considered a "Have", rather than a "Have Not", born into a developed nation of realtive luxury and choice. I think I am fairly renumerated - enough to save for vacations, buy nice Christmas presents for people, give money to my mom, tithe and keep myself fairly insured. However, I still calculate what it would cost me to buy a Starbucks latte, I still check out the cheapest thing on a fancy menu and I still check out Giordano and This Fashion.

I am always thankful for the opportunity to build something meaningful. I like knowing I do not have to slave away at something I do not believe in. I know even if I was paid tons of money but had to work in something I feel nothing for, I would be vastly unhappy. Rich but quite stressed and cynical. Often, I quite appreciate my lifestyle of being fairly paid, unstressed and have-the-time-and-energy-to-not-be-cynical.

But there is always that undercurrent of covetousness that lurks underneath the confidence. It jars me when I hear people talk about how many months bonus they get or how much CPF they have accumulated over the years. Fear and covetousness - the sly little tag-team - taunt," You fool, you poor poor fool, for thinking you have enough. You think you have a decent amount of savings and earn alot? HA! Please look at your peers. Give a few more years and you will be eating the dust in your face as they race away into a life of condos, cars and endless vacations."

When I dwell on those thoughts, I feel like scum. I feel like an idiot and someone who has been made a fool. Someone who has not "grown up" and started earning "grown up money". I fall into the self same trap all the time of thinking about wealth as something I am entitled to, that "I DESERVE MORE for being this smart/educated/ qualified/hardworking". I stop thinking about wealth as something that is given to me by God - whatever amount that I have been given, I should be thankful and thoughtful about the way I use it.

I don't think you can ask the world to be Communist - there will always be people who will out-earn you, just as there will always be people who you will out-earn. If Christ was telling the truth that this world is just a big bunch of brokenness, then unfairness and imbalance is going to be there. This world sucks - it's true. But it was not meant to be that way - and Christians ought to live in anticipation of the un-sucky, fairer world that IS TO COME.

Which means for me - I have to ignore what the world's ideas about wealth are and consider soberly Christ's ideas about wealth. I should not be concerned too much about the fairness of how much I earn or be bitter about my EXTREMELY RELATIVE "poverty" (big bunches of sarcasm)

It is a gift for me to earn whatever I am earning. There is responsibility and opportunity entailed in every dollar that I earn.
I need to remember that and focus on that. And keep praying for Christians and non-Christians alike to remember the same.

What small luxury can I deny myself today that would provide so much more relative happiness for someone else?

It's a really tough question that I cannot always answer well. It's the kind of question that makes me squirm because I know the answer humbles me. I cannot keep bitching about highly paid ministers who do not care about the poor if I find it hard to talk about how I spend money myself.

I am not a smarty pants economist and just an armchair critic. I do not have numbers to back up whether high pay or average pay is good enough for ministers. I just know the problems in this world do not get solved just by thinking about how other people should live - it really and truly begins with a lifetime commitment to thinking about how I live.

If that step never gets done, all talk is just dust.

Let the ministers earn their millions: which of them uses the millions for good purposes and which of them truly deserves the millions will be revealed on the same Day that my own intentions and actions are revealed.

wanna be a cult leader?

quite a fabulous summary of how to tell if you are being brainwashed into having a religious experience :) the scary thing is the tactics probably work too well.

Life - a mystery to be lived

"I met a woman afflicted with multiple sclerosis, shockingly young, who limped up to tell me she was learning all she could about prayer because the disease was progressing so fast that soon she would be able to do little else.

I heard of suicides, birth defects, children hit by trucks, and teenagers raped. One woman, now an ordained minister, spoke of a dark period after her son died when for 18 months she could not bring herself to pray. She cried out one day, "God, I don't want to die like this, with all communication cut off!" Even so, it took her 6 more months before she could pray again.

In one meeting, a 20-year-old came to the microphone and chided me for not taking literally the Bible's promise about faith that can move mountains. I agreed I needed a larger dose of such childlike faith, yet at the same time, I could not dishonor the pain of suffering people by telling them their faith is somehow defective.

From such souls, I learn that life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Prayer offers no ironclad guarantees, just the certain promise that we need not live that mystery alone."

Everytime, I leave Philip Yancey, I return to find another lovely turn of phrase. I like that last paragraph.

PoP! Goes My Heart

oh 80s cheese, how i adore thee. its slightly scary how they managed to de-age hugh grant. its slightly scarier that the song is insiduously in my head. retro is evil

Ever wondered if guys think exposed bra straps are THAT big a deal?

I must say this is quite a well done website with a pretty interesting survey on what men consider immodest - the questions go into a lot of detail about what men (from various age groups) find difficult to keep their eyes off. The two guys who conducted this survey have really done some impressive homework - questions range from exposure of the small of a back, to pulling off a sweater, to slinging a bag across the chest, wearing glitter lotion etc.

The results are pretty revealing (bad pun) and the comments are candid, funny and some even moving. I learnt a couple of things myself that I would NEVER have thought would feature as a potential stumbling block.

The really nice part about this survey I guess was to know how many men out there cared enough to answer this survey and put their comments out there to guard and encourge women.

It is genuinely moving and sweet to read the encouraging comments left by so many of the men - from 16 to 45 - to let women know they care about inner beauty and genuine modesty and are open and apologetic about the ways in which they discourage women from believing any less about them.

Rabbit Steeple Chase

I had no idea there were rabbit jumping competitions. But my favourite part of this video is the in the 56 sec when this grown man is all serious, puts down his rabbit and shouts a loud "YES!" when his little cutie clears a major leap. priceless. :D

God like Jazz

Just wanted to remember one of my favourite opening lines of a book.

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Baghdad Theatre one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.
It is as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened."

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

I am pretty fond of it because that's how I got lured into this whole God business as well - truthfully, it wasn't the intellectual arguments nor the precious words of some preacher.

I saw people in love with Him. And I fell for Him too.

The Politics of Food, Weight and Women

Post CNY binging guilt, I found myself at the gym tonight and the whole place was PACKED to the brim - with lots more women than men. It got me thinking about how many of them were there because they were thinking of that last 10 pieces of bak kwa or pineapple tart that they were wishing desperately would leave their systems.

I swear the big difference between men and women is that men never feel the need to apologise or justify for what they eat. But women seem hardwired to feel some kind of compulsion to explain themselves when it comes to issues of food, weight and their appetite. Women with large appetites get the once-over from other women, "Wow. You can really eat a lot eh." (which can come with a loaded hint that a proper woman should not eat like a piggish man) Women with small appetites also get the once-over,"Eh, why you eat so little. You on a diet?" (of which, then comes an embarrassed revelation "Yes I am on a diet" akin to a confession of moral weakness)

Take the simple statement: "I don't want to eat carbs."
This is sometimes followed up with either a sheepish "I know I sound stupid and neurotic" look or a smug "yeah, cos carbs are BAD for you" or even a challenging "wanna make something out of it?" or perhaps a long explanation of why such an earth-shattering decision was made.

What's even more interesting is how women respond to such statements by other women.

Take the typical "I put on so much weight/I am fat" which will be instantly followed by either an encouraging chorus of "No, no, you are not fat." or a mini contest of ego-battery "No, please, look at MY THIGHS. I am fatter than you. No way you are fat cos what does that make me?" - It's like this strange tactic of affirmation by self-demolition.

Seriously, I wonder why men's heads don't explode from trying to navigate the female brain's complex wiring around the most seemingly mundane (to the men) issues.

The reason why questions like "Honey, do I look fat in this?" or statements like "I put on so much weight" sound so loaded is because it is loaded with a whole minefield of neuroses. The mundane statements touch on far more profound questions beneath the surface: about self-respect, fear of being mocked etc. It doesn't even seem to matter if you are skinny or fat, or put on a whole bunch of weight or lost a bunch of weight - every girl has had to deal with the politics of how to give or take in conversations revolving around food, weight and looks.

Of course, I am just as neurotic about all this as the next woman - thankfully a little less neurotic than I was in my nutjob teen years.

SB offered me a cream puff today, "Do you want a cream puff?"

Thinking of my post CNY guilt, I answered sheepishly,"Ya. But I don't think I can."

SB laughed," Don't be silly lah. Have a cream puff."

When I gave him another helpless shrug and said, "Cannot." He rolled his eyes, "Women. You are all crazy."

Yep, that we are. :)

Ah for the freedom of being a man, eating like a pig and then patting his belly proudly with his buddies. Seriously, there seems to be alot more jollies in a pack of men sharing the woeful beginnings of a pot belly. It's like a mutual "Buddy-boys, it's all down hill from here. Let's go get a prata."

It seems like in a guy's world, things are just more black and white and objective.
Pot belly = Pot belly

whereas in the girl's world, all things have strings attached.
Pot Belly = I have no self-control/I am not attractive/I am useless/I am not sexy/I am a loser/I am not as good as my friends.

Funny thing is - I suspect that when we are talking about issues of career, work and money-making, the roles might be reversed. as in girls will not take earning less than peers, or getting sacked as harshly as their male equivalents.

Hmmm....food for thought. :)

We Have a Wiener!

We Have a Wiener!
Originally uploaded by thejacksons.

this is so hilarious.....what is it about plastic googly eyes that appeal to us? i mean stick a pair on practically anything and it will reduce even a grown man to giggles - okay , at least a smirk of repressed giggles.

Comedian and cook, Amy Sedaris organised this craft contest - i think that is SO brilliant. we should all have a googly plastic eye craft party. so cute.

Visit the rest of the competitors entries at
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sedariscraftchallenge/pool/

i will keeeeeees you

happy valentine's day. :)
(courtesy of cuteoverload.com - my secret comfort food)

what did you do when you were young?

2 weekends ago, some of us were making the last minutes of sunday stretch by swapping childhood memories. It was amazing how light-hearted and happy we got just by recalling past silliness. Nostalgia has a magic of its own. Somehow reminiscing about the past is such a human way of forming connections: it's always interesting to get the know what someone was like before you had ever met them.

We discovered surprising little links between the hijinks we got up in school to what we were ended up doing as careers. The irrepressible Redbeanfish was devising codes for her little Famous Five gang to communicate in; enterprising CL was once hauled up by her primary school teacher for being an illegal sticker seller: she had rubbed her mother's perfume on ordinary stickers to latch onto the then-popular "scratch-and-sniff" sticker craze' ; I was always creating stuff to share with my classmates: I cut bad albums with badly written lyrics superimposed on popular songs. I created magazines full of hand-drawn pictures of my childhood mates as celebrities exiting out of limos, hand in hand with hot guys. I had a flourishing little business where I made paper dolls for friends and regularly updated the dolls' wardrobes with new fashion lines of paper clothes.

We also discovered surprising propensity for mischief that lay behind mild mannered faces: A used to make flying leaps off her family balcony in defiance of her screaming mother; SpyMaster used to hide snails in unsuspecting provision shop owners' deep freezers, in between launching water bombs on innocent passerbys.

There were also anecdotes of how childhood shaped your ethical outlook: I will always remember how I cheated on my chinese exam in Primary Six. My chinese teacher had seen through my pathetic attempts to cover up and chose not to reprimand me during the exam. Instead, after all papers were handed up and all people had left, she took me aside to tell me she saw everything I did and told me never to cheat again. It was pure grace. I never expected it from a chinese teacher I had always associated with fiercely knitted brow, tightly pursed lips and a red pen of fury. I never cheated on a test ever again.

You gladly leave some things behind in childhood: your secret and ill-thought crush on Jordan Knight from NKOTB, your deep desire to go for a Richard Marx concert, your notion that Richard Clayderman was the classiest music on earth, your ill-fitting pinafores.

But some things you should just never let go: your irrepressible search for cheap fun, your belief that a good day is always just around the corner, the simple presumption that you were creative and the notion that all you needed was to make the most of today. Tomorrow would worry for itself.

As to all my friends: I raise a glass of ribena (or if you prefer, lukewarm banana-flavoured UHT milk in square little cartons sitting in the sun) to all our todays and tomorrows. Grow like a Champion, Grow.

How glad I am for such lovely company along the way. :)

A form adequate to its content

I was following a trail of google crumbs when I found Jeffrey Overstreet's blog and his thoughts on Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book:

"Honest stories respect our freedom; they don't manipulate us, don't force us, don't distract us from life.
Not all stories, of course, are honest. There are sentimentalizing stories that seduce us into escaping from life; there are propagandistic stories that attempt to enlist us in a cause or bully us into a stereotyped response; there are trivializing stories that represent life as merely cute or diverting..."

The Peterson quote continues "...The Christian life requires a form adequate to its content, a form that is at home in the Christian revelation and that respects each person's dignity and freedom with plenty of room for all our quirks and particularities."

Overstreet muses quite aptly about the Peterson quote, "There's a whole discussion waiting to happen, just from that quote. "A form adequate to its content." He's talking about the Christian life, but let me tell you... if more Christian artists came to understand that the form of their work is as important as the content, we would have a new rennaissance of artmaking.

I don't know how many times I've received emails in which someone has protested my critique of a mediocre "Christian movie" or "Christian music" saying, "But Jeff, your focus is in the wrong place. It doesn't matter how good the art is so long as the message is good."

Wrong. If we package the message in mediocrity, we show it disrespect, and worse, we make it unappealing to those we would desire as an audience.

The form and structure of the Bible is awe-inspiring. The forms and structure of God's creation... from the ocean to the human body to a hummingbird... are awe-inspiring, excellent, beautiful, and meaningful. In the same way, great art lasts and speaks to us because of its excellence. And there is no art more lasting and powerful than great art inspired by, and reflecting back, God's Word. In fact, the meaning of great art and the excellence of great art are inseparable. They are very much the same thing."

On that note, Tim Jackson from relevant magazine weighs in with another quotable quote. He is comparing a Christian production called Facing the Giants and Stranger Than Fiction, "Facing the Giants doesn’t tell a story so much as it builds a case. Giants is an infomercial for a brand of Christianity. From the moment it starts to its never-in-doubt conclusion, it does what all advertising does: sells. The pitch is clear: Buy Jesus now and as a bonus He’ll fix everything broken in your life.
Art often begins with a question that propels us on a journey to discover the answer. Advertising begins with an answer—whether certain or dubious—and creates questions to lead us to that answer. Stranger Than Fiction is art, even if it’s fluffy pop art. No matter how well made or how sincere the intent, Facing the Giants is essentially a commercial.

I love it when people put words to my thoughts. Saves me hours of pondering and keyboard pounding. Plus usually they do such a spiffy job of summing it up. :)

I will kill to see a well-made film that is sensitive, truthful and balanced about Christ/Christians that does not see the need to hit people with a mighty sledgehammer.

The best theatre productions, films, artwork or books that I have seen about Christians/Christ have very strangely been done by non-Christians. The Christian produced ones just seem so...overloaded/overdone/overwrought....with agenda.

Well sure there is The Passion of the Christ - which I admit I did cry but that was more because of my vested sentiment as a christian and just the sheer brutality of the torture scenes. I did not think Passion was great for pretty much the same reasons why I cannot say Babel was great: well-shot, well-acted but ham-fisted and a little too political for my liking. The audience is pushed into a conclusion by vivid cinematography and a plot driven by the director's intentions more than the story's intentions : The audience is left with no room to discuss or ponder or choose to think any less than what the director has already pre-judged worthy of thought.

Resolution Revolution aka 2007 Resolutions - Sort of

Most people I know have given up on making New Year resolutions because they just seem so futile and ego-deflating after a while. Another year, another bunch of failures. How can anyone look forward to the new year when come January 2nd, you have already blown your precious list of resolutions by a mile?

I mean just check out this site called 43 things which keeps an updated list of top new year resolutions for 2007. Pretty keen but some rather intimidating stuff!

I was checking out my list of resolutions from a year agoand was pleasantly surprised to find out I had more or less managed to do all of them. I called the list "2006 Resolutions...Sort of" because some of them did not sound like resolutions at all to me at that point of time. It was sort of a half joking, half serious kind of list. I think the main reason why this list was one of my more successful lists was precisely because it was more of a fun than a serious list.

>>1. Get a new Powerbook once and for all. Yay!
Bought me a G5 computer! love it love it love it. Glad I waited so long before getting a new Mac. The Intel chip was worth the wait. ah, sweet hybrid bliss.

>>2. Be a humbler listener and curb instinct to be a holyschmoly smartypants!
Yeah I made a more concerted effort at that, especially with one particular friend. haha. you know who you are. :D

>>3. Actually use my PDA to organise the chaos I call my mind. Got plans? Execute, execute! and use that PDA to help!
YUP. My little PDA is pretty indispensable to me these days. And I used to call myself a non-PDA type of person!

>>4. Spend more time with my family. House not equal as hotel you know.
Yeah I improved in that in 2006. The remodelling kitchen project in December was quite reflective of that. Plus I started coming home at more regular hours nearing the end of year. :)

>>5. Get back in gym rat mode. Last year of gym membership- diedie must chao kuan use to the fullest!
OK this one was in major deprovement in 2006 given the shiploads of work and horrijible MMPORG I got introduced to. But towards late December I was slowly moving back to my 3 times a week habit again. SLOWLY.

>>6. Clean up 1/4 of the chaos I call my room (1/4 is realistic estimation I think)
1/4 was indeed cleaned up. 3/4 is still a hurricane. I think it was severe mark of improvement that I kicked of 1 Jan 2007 by cleaning up my overflowing pile of art materials and bags. The corner looks so INCREDIBLY clean and neat now that I just stare at it and block out the rest of my mess. The clean corner is SO therapeutic to look at. :)

>>7. Adopt a hamster to channel all my lack-of-a-rabbit-affections to.
I have a hamster - HAMHAM - and TWO(!) bunnie wunnie hunnies - Flopsy and Mopsy!

>>8. Share and admit to my weaknesses more often to curb instinct to play holyschmoly smartypants!
Oh yeah baby, I did this too! and learnt some super interesting things about my psychological makeup. Which deserves a whole other blog entry by itself. haha.

>>9. Stop drinking teh si like its the last drink on earth. Must...try....other....drinks.
eh failure. I think its addiction. Although this year, I did add Yuan Yang to my list but not counting it cos it is nothing more than teh si WITH coffee.

>>10. Go on One Good Date. Mwa ha ha. Insert archi insider joke.
well actually, I did kind of go on one pretty nice non-date. Date pretext was not a romantic one at all but it had all the nice ingredients of one: dinner with a cute well-dressed guy; fancy restaurant which I did not have to go dutch for; intelligent, enjoyable conversation sprinkled with good manners and compliments. So even if it was NOT A DATE, I am gonna construe it as one any way so I can rack up another resolution done. heh.

>>11. Love God. Love Neighbour. Feed Sheep.
as usual, a tough one to accomplish. getting there. more on this later.

So I have a theory about New Year's Resolutions.There should always be two lists:

-The perennial one that rarely changes, being full of big-picture, hard-to-achieve goals (like my 2006 #11 Love God, Love Neighbour, Feed Sheep").

- and the fun one that is redolent with easier-to-achieve, light-hearted goals (like my 2006 #7 Adopt a hamster")

The former list is neccessary because it reminds you year after year about what your life's goals are essentially about. It determines whether you are still heading towards the right direction. Although nobody can say with a straight face that they succeeded in living their neighbour perfectly by the end of the year, it does not mean "Love your Neighbour" should not deserve a hallowed place in anyone's list of things to accomplish. As that annoyingly twee little quote goes - "Aim for the stars and maybe you'll reach the sky."

But the latter list is just as vital because it reflects the little steps it takes to accomplish the former. For instance, my trivial resolution to buy a Powerbook was silly on the surface. But it did reflect a deeper change that I was hoping to make in myself by year end. You see, I have terrible hangups about money and spending. I used to be fairly neurotic about penny-pinching but over the years I have been learning to spend more on creature comforts and discerning what are areas worth spending money on.

The point is - we should keep the serious former list in our heads for life but every new year we should just draft the fun one and get people to draft theirs just for kicks.

The fun list of resolutions works in its fluffy little way: It is light-hearted, sincere and easy for one to look forward to accomplishing.And some how along the way you accidentally accomplish other resolutions you did not pen down but were still major milestones.

SO, this year, I am drafting yet another fun list of "2007 Resolutions - Sort of"

1. Get in touch with my inner art student again and paint one picture on a big canvas.

2. Do a Martha Stewart and refurnish the yard for my mother so it becomes a cosy ironing/laundry/storage corner.

3. Visit Italy again - Cinque Terre - and revist travelling Europe with that kick-ass hamster girl I have not made enough effort to hang out with more often over the past few years! :P

4. Enjoy my 30th birthday by throwing a semi-big shebang and finding a way to honour everyone that made me who I am 3 decades on.

5. Buy sensible flat shoes for my insensible flat feet. Stop buying pretty but nasty-to-feet shoes. (Cringe)

6. Break bread more often with acquaintances I find hard to get along with. :)

7. Go on mission trip #2: India? Ethiopia? Philipines?

8. Learn to bowl properly. Don't know what a decent average is for a raving amateur like moi, but I will settle for having a consistent rate of 5 closed frames, 5 open frames.

9. Work out 3 times a week, 1 hour each. Build up muscle tone and flexibility again.

10. Read 50 books (graphic nnovels do not count) - actually I have always wanted to know exactly how much I read. Maybe it would be fun this year to actually do a tally. :)

11. Attempt writing some fiction in new notebook with inspiring pictures friend bought me.

12. Publish magazine successfully.

13. Keep better records of how much am spending.


Wish me luck and to kick it off...i shall launch this new signature line in me blog. ha
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Now reading book #1 of 50 books for 2007:
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco
Verdict so far: cool concept. My first Eco. :)