What Would Jane Do?

The answer lies in ImagineIff.

It's a game we played last Saturday during Cell Group, where each of us would make guesses like what a person would do or become under given circumstances. There're no standard answers, and upon making their predictions, the majority of the players will get to progress in the game.

We usually got questions like "What kind of crime would this person be?" and so on. The point is, "be" questions are not to be confused with "do" questions.

But still, when Jane called up Weiqiang and learnt that dreadlocks is the hairstyle he would rather "be", we couldn't help but wonder... 'cause that's the only questions where all 5 of us got totally different answers.

And through this game we can find out who doesn't do his morning prayers... heh heh.

And I wasn't just being politically correct. If I could witness a historical event I'd really like to see Moses part the Red Sea rather than Newton's Apple Drop.

Though if there's a choice to watch Adam "get to know" Eve, I would have gone for that.

Too bad they don't have "Socially Impaired" in their list of politically correct phrases. But we all found "Chronogically Inflated" to be the phrase that has the most kick. On our lone female Cell leader, that is.

Minority

LOL

Coffee Break: Got Coffee, No Break

I know you're gonna skip the video. At least watch till 00:20.

Ruddess. Wasn't playing chords. He was shredding.

Above was the recording process of the song. You want the song itself? Here it is.

Easter 2008 Special 1 -- God's Temptation

Since that Sec 2 Bible Study lesson when I first heard of the story of the 3 temptations of Jesus, my opinion of it had always been that it was easy for Jesus, fully divine, to resist those seemingly human temptations anyway.

That was, until I read this book entitled "Disappointment with God" by Phillip Yancey, in which he explored God's perspective from the things he said in the Bible, so as to attempt at an answer to questions about whether God was unfair or hidden.

What I realised was that those temptations were not exactly appealing only to the human side of Jesus. Those were temptations for God himself.

...

OK, maybe not the first one, which was the bread. After 40 days of fasting, anyone would have loved to be able to turn stone into bread.

The next two, then.

Jumping from the top of a high tower so that angels will catch his feet as he fell... that's quite a public exhibition of a miracle. The Devil even quoted from the Psalm itself that it could easily be done.

The last one used to puzzle me the most. It was a 2 part temptation. "Worship the Devil" plus "to have authority over all the kingdoms of the world".

What puzzled me was that it looked, at first glance, like Jesus being tempted to worship the Devil. It was easy to ignore the "authority" part.

Tempting Jesus to worship the Devil? That's about as tempting as asking me to loop 老鼠爱大米 on my player all day.

So what exactly were the temptations about?

~

Just to put things into context... in the ancient times when God himself worked visibly among his people Israel, his very nature of holiness caused so much fear in the Israelites that they exclaimed "don't let him talk to us directly, for we'll surely die!"

In coming to Earth as a human, God was able to interact with his creation on par with them. No flambuoyant exhibition of power, not even saving himself when he eventualy got nailed up on the cross.

What God wanted was faith from people, and history has shown that majestic displays of signs and miracles would not necessarily inspire genuine faith.

It was nevertheless still a temptation for God to display something visible, something public, just to prove a point.

How it pained God as well, to see what humans are capable of doing when subjected to free will. Having said that, 'absolute authority' over all nations and kingdoms does sound 'tempting' to God, who could actually have claimed that authority easily.

That was what the temptations were all about.

~

Still, in the end, God gave us free will and kept his miracles as secretive as possible, throught the days he walked the Earth as Jesus Christ.

And he chose to be nailed on the Cross to reconcile us back to him, the slow and painful way.

In Full Bloom

I need to feed my fetish once in a while you know...

One of my neighbouring brown blocks

Anyway, good to be back posting again, after going through this mood swing and that (like, what's new). Much of my life now revolves around NUS and Buona Vista (which is - trust me - not much), my renewed passion for Mario Kart, and the Easter mood.

So it's nice to see "familiar faces" in the NUS Medical Museum just below my office.

Shuyi-lookalike. Don't you think?

~

Jiansheng had this rich kid tuition student (wow) who just came back from Japan (WOW!) and brought home some products. Jiansheng shared with us one of those weird stuff he got.

It says "Shiitake Cha". Yes you got it. it's Shiitake Tea

Hold on, Shiitake tea?

Made a cup of it, and boy it smells great! Just that after all the novelty and excitement over it I realised it tasted just like your instant noodle soup with mushroom flavour. Weiqiang was, like, "The tea's actually salty?!"

Mushroom bits included.

~

Due to the recent bout of rain, we see supposedly evergreen roadside trees actually flower!

Shots taken at Buona Vista

As if that's not enough, my Easter skit required me to get roses for props. My first time getting stuff from the florist, and it's not even for a date... :(

Rose, rose, I love you...

Language of love

After so many years, there's still this one part in "I'm not Stupid 2" that I'll never forget.

That's where the gruff father, in a moment of emotion, tells his son the very simple 3 words,

"I love you."

The awkwardness that followed was actually hillarious. A tragic joke I guess, on the disability of some of us to convey and feel love.

There are times I'm so overcome with emotion I just wanted to give someone a hug, but how abrupt and awkward would that be!

Everybody loves Chris

At least for today :P

Today our cell celebrated his birthday, and this year we did a roster for the planners, and I'm the planner for today!

Well... since he has a thing for print tees (he's got a couple of quite wacky ones) I thought it would be nice to get him a scripture tee, since I know of a source.

Ta-dah!

Indeed, we are redeemed by the blood of Christ.

安心上路

常言道，死有重如泰山，也有轻于鹅毛。

在电影里， L 的死，实在有够壮烈。原著里的 L ，去得有点太冤枉了。

能够在银幕上送他最后一程，感到很安慰。

:)

I'm glad I took up the tuition job.

Seeing your student come to an understanding, being able to help... it's really quite a joy!

Made my day, man. I just hope I'm really of help.

~

I'm much better now, compared to earlier in the day when I really felt like shit. In fact I felt like God when he flooded the world in Noah's time.

I hate you

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.

You all are the same.

Just like us.

We all are the same.

I don't trust you anymore.

I don't trust ANYONE anymore.

Damn.

I hate you.

I hate me.

I hate the reality.

I want out.

Losing faith

I never thought a movie could make me emo like this. Never. Before I begin, let me make this clear: I'm trying my UTMOST not to be vulgar. Now let's begin.

~

It all started when I watched this movie called Sky of Love, a considerably tragic love drama. Weird thing is, the couple was supposed to gain the most sympathy and encouragement from the audience (which I suppose is the case) but no, my sympathy was all for the rebound guy. None for the lovey dovey-

-OK allow me, pleeeeese! I know it's wrong to call them-

狗男女。

I know it's wrong of me to feel this way. When they tell you who are the main characters, you listen. You cry for them, root for them, and they're always right, even when they're wrong.

And the supporting characters? Don't even give a damn about them lah. Look at how poor thing our hero is!

OK Let me put it this way.

~

Whitehair, you've been with your girl through the toughest of times, though you took *that* away from her a bit too early. Fine. And when the bad thing happens to you, you leave her. OK. You don't want to be a burden. That's being noble and all. I say you've merely CHICKENED OUT!

And then when girl found out the truth about your plight, she realised how much she'd let you down, and how she should have been by your side and all. And true, you've been thinking about her every single day.

AND THAT'S THE BEST YOU CAN DO!!!???

Fine. In the end you still got the girl. Congrats, should I say?

Girl, you've been through the most terrible things that could have happened, and Whitehair never forsook you. It's totally like a dream.

Then when you've finally got better, he just walked out of your life like that.

You told yourself never to believe in love again. Then Rebound Guy comes in, and you realised that it was more than mere coincidence, and you decided to give love a chance again.

He salvaged your parents' marriage and put that smile on your face once again, and you finally decided to make the promise of the lifetime. Then you found out the truth about Whitehair.

Amazingly, within hours, what you've just said to Rebound Guy, flashing the ring and all...

"It's a promise!"

Could turn into the typical Jap Drama line, this time to Whitehair

"If it's not you, it just won't do!"

I'm VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU. Rebound Guy restored your faith in love. In return, you've crushed his.

Seriously. I almost walked out of the theater.

Now for the Rebound Guy... you've been bringing her to the commemorative place of her previous relationship year after year, running the constant risk of her digging up her past emotions.

And finally, shortly after she promised to be yours and only yours forever, you lost her.

I was happy for you only for one thing. When she said "I took the long way back (to Whitehair) again", I'm glad she wasn't saying it to you. It would have HURT so much more.

You're just the long way. The footpath. To be treaded upon. 是被踩在脚下的。

And you're merely given seconds to cry.

You did the right thing. Cast the ring away. She's not worth it.

~

P.S. Contrary to what love stories should do for the target audience, this film made me lose my faith in romance even more.

In Yuu (the Rebound Guy) I saw the whole uncertainty of it all - that you can invest the best 2 or 3 years of your life in a relationship that could be dismissed that easily as the "long way round" to her "true happiness". Are all girls like that?

幸せになってね、優。

Anyhow write

I love 8 Days because of the wittiness and wordplay you can find almost in every issue, but just one thing: the writers apparently do not have very extensive understanding of Chinese Pop culture, but insist on putting down their opinions.

There was once when they were giving their, well, "first impressions" on album covers. One of which was Rynn Lin's (林宇中) "Rynn in the Rain" ("淋雨中").

One simple dismissal: "Copywriting. Hopefully some Rain fan will see the 'Rain' word on the album and pick it up by mistake."

Totally oblivious to the wordplay, I daresay.

This time they decided to do an article on starlets ('cause of Gillan Chung's involvement in the photo incident) and whether the writers are convinced by their portrayed images. Here's one of them.

The end of the article says, "Time's up. She's reached the end of her virginal girl-next-door lifespan. Time to grow up and have (screen) sex."

Underinformed. Didn't even know of her acclaimed drama, 爱杀17 ("Bump Off Lover"), where she played an internet prostitute.

P.S. They've once commented on 王传一's "KingOne" being a ridiculous English name. This time I had to agree, though I still suspect they didn't see that it was derived from his Chinese name. Never mind.

Write away

For donkey years I've never been in a situation where I had to write in Chinese. So during the past 2 weekly baptism courses (conducted in Chinese of course) where I've got to jot down stuff in fill-in-the-blanks format, I got slightly stumped.

If there's really a Chinese tuition job coming soon, I'd better use my spare time in office (between snanning documents) to do some writing practice.

In fact I was so enthusiastic, I began scribbling all over my baptism course notes -- all of which were repeats of characters which weren't nicely written. I think I'm a bit obsessed with that.