Thinking aloud

This post was inspired by a recent reply to a Bring it to Big Bro article concerning the aforementioned title above. (the actual relevant page is the latter part, not the one concerning the school head prefect issue)

Now this is 'common' in M'sia being a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. I say 'common' in inverted commas not because it happens every other day but because we would hear of it often enough.

The consensus, among young people, evidenced from the advice and reply to the girl's problem is that it is ok to date another person from a different faith. Parent's have no right to dictate who or whom they child can date. In fact, it is argued that marriages of inter-religious nature tend to build a more harmonious and tolerant society (which is important in a non-homogeneous society like M'sia).

Those that read my blog are mostly Christians, I think. But it would be interesting to see a sampling of opinions regarding this issue. In a sense, instead of me speaking my mind, why don't you all speak you mind! Feel free to comment or use the tagboard.

Cheers!

I just found out moments ago that my assigned academic mentor is A/P Ng Tze Beng. Needless to say I have never contacted him or even stepped close to his office. He lectured me for MA1102R which was like 3 years ago. Gosh has it been that long. But anyway....

I know, I know this is getting unbearable....

...BUT Prof Berrick proved a lemma in the most beautiful, cute, sexy and charming manner.

The lemma is :

Every submodule of a finitely generated module is always contained in a maximal submodule.

Aaahh....can't stand it. Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes...

Currently the one track that has been on my WinMedia Player playlist is the Canon in D by Pachabel. Don't know why, but it is soooo irrisistible....

Anyway, this marks the 300th post. Target achieved.

Sometimes I ask myself, at the end of 4 years here in NUS, what's the punchline? If I were to give a title to the story of my first 4 years in Singapore, what would it be?

Do you know?

It's so true, I tend to take people for granted. So like for instance, I really appreciate my parents only when I'm down south. Parental presence has it's comforts and security (and I make no apologies for that).

Every conversation counts...

Ok...stop being mushy, time to crack coconuts!

Well, Malaysia Night is over, and I took away from it a 6-pack tissue paper prize for being a marksman, popping a ballon using a blowpipe.

The food was okay, but the interesting part, (and a departure from previous years) was that we ate while the performance was taking place. Not a bad idea actually.

We had a lucky draw, of which I won nothing. But overall an enjoyable evening.

Had group theory class in the morning (urghh...!!) and then a little reading in the library before heading down to lunch with Faith, Annie and Nicholas whence I made my way to Borders to get myself some CD's concluding my little excursion around Singapore by a nice long nap in the comforts of my room.

Dancing with Beethoven right now....

Yep, the numbers are rising. Then I can treat myself to Genki or Muncie...any takers?

Even though I may get frustrated with unsolved problems, I'm reminded once again the reasons why Mathematics is beautiful.

1. The formal proof Rouche's Theorem uses a division trick and a cute observation that brings a smile to my face.

2. The Galois correspondence still takes my breath away. *Marcus! you absolutely must take Field Theory*

3. The fact that Q/Z is isomorphic to the group of all rotations of finite order on the unit circle.

Yes, something substantial after a spate of nonsense from me.

Purpose, why did I choose to blog in the first place?

I guess the purpose constrains what I put up here. If it is a food blog, makansutra goes up here. If this were a photoblog, photo's would come up.

But this is a blog for my thoughts, hence the title. It's where I post on my thoughts, my feelings, my sickeningly-soppy poetry (cos that counts as part of my thoughts).

Significant events would come up here, cos I really want to look back one day and see a gradual unfolding of a story.

This is a blog of my life, one could almost say, I structure my life around what I can blog about. (HORROR!!!) But it's true, ever since I started blogging, things rarely seem to spiral out of control. (My emotions still do, but that's a different matter).

I enjoy blogging and reading blogs. Period. The insight into people, their motivations, the things that make them click is invaluable. The objection of pretending doesn't even figure, cos people don't blog to pretend, they blog to release.

If there was one thing I wish I was, but am not : = I wish I was some kind of super genius, where every question was a triviality, every conjecture solved immediately.

I basically wan't to be a big-pain-in-the-ass know-it-all so that I can boss around like nobody's business.

AAAAAAAGGHHHHH...now that I've let it out...what the heck!!!

Wah, suddenly after the Epi supper on my way back to hall, was suddenly out of breath. My pulse quicken like nobody's business. Feeling really tired right now. Don'y know what happen. :S

Jennifer Saunders - Holding Out for a Hero 2 Lyrics

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night toss and turn and dream of what I need

(Chorus)
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat
It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet

(Chorus)

Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I would swear that there's someone somewhere
Watching me

Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like the fire in my blood

*I just love the movie sequence and accompanying song sung by Jennifer Saunders. If I were only Shrek, rushing to save his damsel (in distress?)*

Sometimes, eerily, my (biological) father's advice are just soooo prophetic....

...freaky.

Frederica Mathewes-Green

Yet the most important thing pregnancy centers provide will always remain the individual friendship support that a pregnant woman needs. When I began research for my book, "Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion," I had the goal of discovering the main reasons women had abortions. I thought that if we could rank-order the problems women faced, material, practical, and financial, we’d be able to address them more effectively.

To my great surprise, I found that these practical forms of support were only secondarily important. Over and over, women told me that the reason she’d had an abortion was that someone she cared about told her she should. The people she needed to lean on for support in a crisis pregnancy, like her boyfriend or mother, didn’t supply that support, but instead encouraged her -- and sometimes, sadly, coerced her -- to have an abortion instead.

*You can get to the whole essay by following the link essays->Three Bad Ideas*

Group theory tutorials, Graduate algebra tutorials, Complex analysis tutorials, New media readings....

...and my FYP...

Wah, syok man.

Anyway, good luck Allan. I really doubt you would even chance across this blog, but I wish you all the best in UK. Acturial science is not easy, but heck..its worth it, even the admission into LSE. Wow!

( hehe, I still remember the time when I had a little chat with an insurance agent who was persuading me to buy her policy. I told her I wanted to study acturial science, she was sooo surprised and told me how that one day I would become her boss. Flattery works because I ended up buying the policy in the end.)

*Allan is a first year in hall in case you want to know. *

He still doesn't get the hint!

The thing is.... if you are not going to wake up when your alarm rings, why do you even put it on in the first place!!!!

I'm the one suffering because of it! What the heck!!!!

We only have so much time. Divide a quarter and you get an eighth. Perhaps it is the pressure, perhaps it is the urgency. Perhaps because of friends, daresay I because of the status?

Division.

I feel a little detachment from hall life (this includes CF). Not being in the loop of things, I feel as though the times has passed me by too quickly. Not that I want to return back to the past, but there are some things I would have rather not done, certain decisions I wanted to retract.

Hmm...

Memory.

Thick swingin'. No longer playing.
Round we go the merry-go-round.

Play a little dirge, on the mellow silver flute,
dance and dance, fly if you can.

" I tried, I tried but I really couldn't find it,"
said I, a little sad, maybe a little regretful.

" No matter, I'll help, but..."

There always too little time, our tempers surprise us.

Yeah, just take it away!
Fries, a hot dog with mustard,
Just take it away!

Yum, no particular reason,
to dig in. Just take it away!

Slurp the juice in your mouth,
Drink it, savour it
Just take it away!

Eat, eat eat.
You'll never taste anything
like it again!

With regards to the outburst yesterday, dun worry me cool down already. He're the proof.

Cute leh!

I'm aiming to complete 300 posts by the end of this month.

But for no particular reason I feel like ranting out aloud. I just wish to shout out loud:

BEING UNEQUALLY YOKED IS SO PERVALENT IN KE7CF THAT IT'S NO LONGER A LAUGHING MATTER ANYMORE.

(of course it never was) but I'm just ranting aloud. Comment away! I don't care liao. I sorta know who reads my blog, but of course they're always those that 'stumble' upon it. Whatever...

There's always Grace. Pls remember that...He's there's always, scanning the horizon for his long lost son.

Indeed He is risen...

Throughout all our despair, our discouragement and stress,
Remember our Risen Lord,
Remember that He is mighty to save,
Remember that He came to redeem that which was lost,
Remember.

We live in the long shadows of history,
We live in the finality of his victory,
We live in the security of his hope,
We live, indeed we live because He lives in us.

³ For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it ^[c] will certainly come and will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3 Or Though he linger, wait for him; / he

Seems that the haze is getting better. Praise God.

Gombak 234
Pelabuhan Kelang 529
Petaling Jaya 349
Country Heights, Kajang 189
Shah Alam 371
Kuala Selangor 531
Kuala Lumpur 321
Putrajaya 364


The air situation is BAD . Period. Pls pray.

Port Klang air quality at hazardous level

Pray for the haze in parts of Klang Valley. It's getting really bad. Pray that God will send wind and rain to clear out the sky. But perhaps more importantly to stop the bushfires and illegal burning that is causing this haze.

The ear-phones was on my ear, and listening to the soothing melodies of Michael Buble's Try a little tenderness, followed by one of Joe Hishiashi's composition for Howl's Moving Castle. Really got me thinking about stuff...my mind was calm.

Then

Uh huh, this my sh*t
All the girls stomp your feet like this

AARRGHHHH ...

I mean no offense to fan's of Gwen Stefani, the song's good-in it's proper context lar.

I had queued it in my WMP playlist and forgotten about it, wah kau- imagine the transition from calm to angst.

It is interesting to note two very different perspective on the recently concluded FOP (Festival of Praise) held in the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

On one hand we have people who have been genuinely blessed and enriched by the experience. They had a great time worshipping God. Period.

And on the other hand, we have people who have attended the occasion and reflected upon the utter emptiness of the event: ' She said, “I don’t find any meaning in the whole thing. It was just noise; I find no reason behind it and I find no contentment at all." ' taken from a blog. To the extreme, I have read somewhere (again on a blogsite) that the FOP had " outlived it's purpose."


Amazing 'rite how much brothers and sisters in Christ can differ in opinions held even though we love and serve the same Master.

It was raining just now. And what remains is the steady gust of wind that breathes through my window. The low hum, like music, putting me slowly but surely...to sleep.

That's the potrait of a lazy day. It doesn't help that my FYP is going nowhere. Argh I hate myself...

...so goes the song by John Lennon ( I don't know, howabout John Lemon :p. Pardon the irreverence)

What can I say, I should have posted yesterday, if not that I was sooo sleepy for the first half of the day and was at FOP (Singapore Indoor Stadium) for the other half, effectively taking me away from the computer.

I have classes at 2 (supposedly have one at 10, but doesn't start until next week) so that leaves the entire late morning- noontime free for me. Think I'll just hop over to the library to study.

Now why the title? Somehow, even before my troubles (trials-lah) begin, there is this dread expectation, year after year-there is a story to tell-a conflict, a tension that matures me and it is with a mixture a anticipation and trepidation that I await what the Lord has in store for me.

It is going to be yesterday's story soon enough.

School is starting soon. Life begins anew. The young shoot springs forth.

Seems like there's a new feature in blogger. Yep, no need to go to an external hosting site; they've started to host pictures on thier own servers now. Much more convenient.

The picture here was taken from deviantart.com.

Now I hope that I don't loose this post. I have been losing posts when I publish them. Seems that something is wrong. Frustrating.

But tomorrow's rag day. Hope that the FLOATers manage to get something for thier hardwork. The dance is impressive.

Lazy day ahead.

Finished the Rough manga today. Great story...with a open ending.

Recieved an email from the Science Dean's office concerning the passing of a fellow science coursemate. Seems that she was involved in a motorcycle accident. I don't know her nor the family, but whoever happens to chance by this blog and knows Audrey Leo, my condolences to family and friends.

On another note, heard from my mother that my brother got into another car accident. Luckily he's still ok. Drive carefully lar next time!

I can say that in terms of action, cinematic depth and epic scale destruction, nobody, not even the 'kings' Jerry Bruckenhiemer and Michael Bay can compare to Katsuhiro Otomo, who is the creator of the anime and manga masterpiece Akira.

What Steamboy lacks in emotional development and characterization is sort of filled in with spetacular set pieces and beautiful art.

The interplay between Scarlett and Ray is sort of underdeveloped, though I wouldn't say its shallow. It lacks the oomph and punch of a well rounded relationship. Hayao Mizaki's Chihiro and the Water-God was more developed as with Princess Mononoke and Prince Ashara.

There are genuine questions on science, power and progress and the movies ends on a note of hope.

Gonna watch it again...

...Aiyor...my stomach. Why lar? Why are you so uncomfortable, make 'lau sai' onli..

*rushes off*

That's the title of the Medsoc play, which I went for last night

(missing Prayer Meeting in the process. Sorry Joshua! I thought I could make it, but the play was sooooo looong)

That's right, it was almost 3 hrs long including intermission. Not to say it's boring, but somewhat a little draggy, though of course, each scene a pleasure to watch. Outstanding performances by Ian Matthews as Bernard and Ivon Ho as Mr. Black.

I was a funny play and the script well written. The cast acted well and the characters really came through, I really could identify with some of them.

Overall worth the $20 I paid.