If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing.
If she's worth it, you won't give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy.- Some quote on Tumblr
Particularly the second part of the last line...
The Look of Love
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
at
11:46 PM
Particularly the second part of the last line...
|
0
comments
|
Taste of Own Medicine
Sunday, September 26, 2010
at
4:26 AM
Where is the line that divides between humility and false humility? Until recently, I've no clue as to where you'd draw such a line or if such a line ever existed. For example, I've a friend whom I've always blasted, whether verbally or mentally for being excessively "humble". This friend has always done well in anything and everything this person has done, as far as I know. This person has had little confidence in being able to perform despite the common knowledge/evidence that everyone holds about this person. Now being the rather naive person that I was back then (still am now, in my opinion) I offered wagers in order to bring some kind of "solace" knowing very well, with 99% certainty, that I will lose that wager. Which indeed I did. Which makes me very annoyed about the whole thing. I mean, we all like to stay away from arrogance but I would think that I would equally stay away from being excessively humble. The reason for this excessive humility was grace, that it was graciously bestowed upon my friend. In my head, grace does not equal excessive humility or belittlement. And that made me even more annoyed.
Now, I've been getting the feeling that I'm now in my friend's shoes (several years later). I have no confidence in some of the things that I do, in which some people have praised. Every time I set out to do something, I will lament about how bad things are going to get and that it will be a total disaster and all that rubbish. And when my friends finally see the fruits of the labour, they questioned why on earth was I so hard on myself. And I'm pretty sure that at some point they got a tad bit annoyed at my behaviour. The only difference between now and back then with my friend is that no one has offered wagers to me. Perhaps I'm not worth the loss. But that's not important. The other difference, and this is the difference that I think matters most, is the reason for my excessive belittlement. It is not grace. It's something else, I don't know what but it is something other than grace. Obviously, I've yet to comprehend the full weight of the meaning of grace which is rather sad actually. Grace that I've taken for granted in so many ways and yet I'm still standing here, still doing the things that I have absolutely no confidence in but for some reason, occasionally, deliver something of substance.
So, had I understood grace and told my friends that that was the reason for the excessive humility, would everything be better? It probably would, unlike how I reacted many years ago. Whatever the projected outcome be had I understood, the point being is that someone played the "so is your face!" card and I'm learning heavily from counter.
I know it's rather strange posting this at 5 in the morning with another 3 hours before I head off to church, but it's something that has been bugging me for awhile now. I like night time. It's the time where you have the chance to wrestle with yourself, with God, in the hopes that you learn something before you learn it under very different and possibly hostile circumstances.
There are only a few such people where I've had this sort of conversation in my head. Guess I'll never know if the feeling was mutual. Brilliant stuff I must say.
Now, I've been getting the feeling that I'm now in my friend's shoes (several years later). I have no confidence in some of the things that I do, in which some people have praised. Every time I set out to do something, I will lament about how bad things are going to get and that it will be a total disaster and all that rubbish. And when my friends finally see the fruits of the labour, they questioned why on earth was I so hard on myself. And I'm pretty sure that at some point they got a tad bit annoyed at my behaviour. The only difference between now and back then with my friend is that no one has offered wagers to me. Perhaps I'm not worth the loss. But that's not important. The other difference, and this is the difference that I think matters most, is the reason for my excessive belittlement. It is not grace. It's something else, I don't know what but it is something other than grace. Obviously, I've yet to comprehend the full weight of the meaning of grace which is rather sad actually. Grace that I've taken for granted in so many ways and yet I'm still standing here, still doing the things that I have absolutely no confidence in but for some reason, occasionally, deliver something of substance.
So, had I understood grace and told my friends that that was the reason for the excessive humility, would everything be better? It probably would, unlike how I reacted many years ago. Whatever the projected outcome be had I understood, the point being is that someone played the "so is your face!" card and I'm learning heavily from counter.
I know it's rather strange posting this at 5 in the morning with another 3 hours before I head off to church, but it's something that has been bugging me for awhile now. I like night time. It's the time where you have the chance to wrestle with yourself, with God, in the hopes that you learn something before you learn it under very different and possibly hostile circumstances.
There are only a few such people where I've had this sort of conversation in my head. Guess I'll never know if the feeling was mutual. Brilliant stuff I must say.
|
0
comments
|
Motivational Talk
Thursday, September 23, 2010
at
2:32 AM
Today was a rather mad rush of just trying to get everything organized. Had to ship off ton load of film from my place and fill in the paperwork for those films. Rather hectic considering that I made the call to make a booking for the films to be picked up 2 hours before they close. But it was all good. All I have to say is that DHL is very awesome. More awesome than UPS and FedEx. Period.
So I went to the new member induction for the Golden Key International Honour Society after that mad rush. Rather uninteresting one hour of sitting through speeches from various people in the university and other Golden Key committee members. One thing I noticed though about the speeches given is that there is a huge encouragement to take pride in our achievements, academic or otherwise. But mostly academic. Somehow, after that set of speeches, I finally understand how it is very easy to lose sight of God in the academic circles. It is where achievement is celebrated very highly and is even encouraged to build your own legacy around your achievements. All throughout the talks, the idea on how we should strive for academic excellence as well as strong leadership and community involvement. While those are good things on anyone's books, the ultimate aim, it seems, is that we can look back and say " Look! Look at what I have achieved". Surely we are missing the point here. But this is exactly how easy it is to forget about God in uni, especially if you are working in uni. We strive in the research in order to be known to all mankind on what great research we have done, what great leadership we have shown in a body and what great community service we have performed. So much so that that is the only thing we long for. Surely we are missing the point here. Now there's nothing wrong in all the above qualities I mentioned, but there is a line where it is going too far. No matter how subtly you put it, or how you justify it, that is not the end point in our careers. I find it funny that the universities from the western world have creeds or mottos that reflect God or have God in the picture but sadly is very lost in our secular universities of today. Surely we are missing the point here.
After the induction, I went to a friend's house for dinner and play with some lanterns. Although I think it is safe to say that we don't quite feel it like when we did as kids, but there's still some element of playfulness even in our adult state. We don't cry as easily (although that is debatable) or run around as much as kids but we certainly had our fun. As an aside, a friend who went for the dinner told me that he saw the pre-wedding photos I did recently and he say that he liked it. Liked it so much that, according to him, inspire him to do more photography. Whoa. I don't think I've ever get that comment. Ever. While you may think that may not be a big deal but this guy has a full frame camera plus one or two very high grade lenses to boot. It goes to show that people with equipment may not necessarily have all the answers when it comes to photography, and I don't claim I have either without equipment. To the "true" photographers reading this blog, you probably already knew the previous statement already and still say what's the big deal. Yeah, there's no big deal. Just surprised for this lowly amateur photographer to hear such things. By the way, I'm not dissing in any way or form. Just so you don't get the wrong idea.
Two assignments on Friday and a major class test on Monday. Rawr.
So I went to the new member induction for the Golden Key International Honour Society after that mad rush. Rather uninteresting one hour of sitting through speeches from various people in the university and other Golden Key committee members. One thing I noticed though about the speeches given is that there is a huge encouragement to take pride in our achievements, academic or otherwise. But mostly academic. Somehow, after that set of speeches, I finally understand how it is very easy to lose sight of God in the academic circles. It is where achievement is celebrated very highly and is even encouraged to build your own legacy around your achievements. All throughout the talks, the idea on how we should strive for academic excellence as well as strong leadership and community involvement. While those are good things on anyone's books, the ultimate aim, it seems, is that we can look back and say " Look! Look at what I have achieved". Surely we are missing the point here. But this is exactly how easy it is to forget about God in uni, especially if you are working in uni. We strive in the research in order to be known to all mankind on what great research we have done, what great leadership we have shown in a body and what great community service we have performed. So much so that that is the only thing we long for. Surely we are missing the point here. Now there's nothing wrong in all the above qualities I mentioned, but there is a line where it is going too far. No matter how subtly you put it, or how you justify it, that is not the end point in our careers. I find it funny that the universities from the western world have creeds or mottos that reflect God or have God in the picture but sadly is very lost in our secular universities of today. Surely we are missing the point here.
After the induction, I went to a friend's house for dinner and play with some lanterns. Although I think it is safe to say that we don't quite feel it like when we did as kids, but there's still some element of playfulness even in our adult state. We don't cry as easily (although that is debatable) or run around as much as kids but we certainly had our fun. As an aside, a friend who went for the dinner told me that he saw the pre-wedding photos I did recently and he say that he liked it. Liked it so much that, according to him, inspire him to do more photography. Whoa. I don't think I've ever get that comment. Ever. While you may think that may not be a big deal but this guy has a full frame camera plus one or two very high grade lenses to boot. It goes to show that people with equipment may not necessarily have all the answers when it comes to photography, and I don't claim I have either without equipment. To the "true" photographers reading this blog, you probably already knew the previous statement already and still say what's the big deal. Yeah, there's no big deal. Just surprised for this lowly amateur photographer to hear such things. By the way, I'm not dissing in any way or form. Just so you don't get the wrong idea.
Two assignments on Friday and a major class test on Monday. Rawr.
|
0
comments
|
Shallow Death Perception
Monday, September 20, 2010
at
12:44 AM
A common sermon illustration to serve as a motivation to live out Christian lives is the question on how will people be remembered when you die. Our lives, like the apostle Paul, should be overflowing with the gospel, something that I think many many of us lack. While the point is not about how you are to be remembered in this world, it is about how the gospel should be filling up every single aspect of our lives and the impact it has/is having/will have on other people as a result of having the correct application of the Bible.
Consider this a sermon illustration, to a much lesser degree. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what would happen if I died now? What sort of impact did I have on my friends while I was around? Will it be a loss to my friends because of who I am or will I just be another surprised look on people's faces when I'm gone? Now this is where the similarity ends as above. I've asked myself that question for a couple of years and the answers that I've been getting isn't very encouraging. Of the many people that have come and gone since my schooling days (and to a certain extent I still am), what are things that I've done? Well, there's endless amount of gaming, endless amount of debates/clashes of worldviews/conflicts in opinions/whether-that-blue-jacket-looks-good, endless amounts of stupidity and of course, lots of churchy stuff. At the end of the day, when the people I've met have packed up and left for their next stop on their road of life, I'm guessing that is all I am to them. Nothing more, nothing less. And most of the time, the feeling ends up being mutual, leaving a rather large void that should be filled with the stuff friends are made of.
So, who's fault is it? I can't say with absolute certainty that I'm in the wrong nor can I say that they are. I can't say that I haven't tried hard but I also can't say that I've tried hard enough. But in the end, does it really matter? Does knowing whose fault is it give some sort of closure to wondering "What happened to us? We used to do so much."? It is utterly frustrating when this cycle goes on repeat. It makes it even harder when people have moved on to better things while I am still stuck in whatever present day scenario, moving in all directions but a net motion of zero. The more I think of it, the more I think there should be a new class of friendships that will encompass me, the outlier. I call it the "disposable friendship". All the joys and conveniences of friendship but with the added advantage of "no real strings attached". But please, feel free to discard but do so in the appropriate bins.
There's got to be a fundamental starting point from which all of these frustrations started and there has got to be a fundamental lesson to be learned here. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what are they. Many times, I am tempted to implement a solution to my problems without trying to understand what went wrong first. It just saves a lot of the heartache and frustration which I think I've had a lot of it already. It's like starting to program from scratch because your previous program was too screwed up and debugging will take a lot of time, more time than rewriting everything. The flaw in that analogy is that you sometimes do that but that is assuming that you knew what went wrong in the program in the first place. But I digress. One such solution is to start with a clean slate. Uproot myself, ship whatever insignificant belongings I have and myself to some other place in the world, reformat the friendship database and hit the "execute" button. Realistically, that will be in the form of re-pursuing my PhD. What's that I hear? Escapism you say? Well I guess so, but it's more like restarting in hoping that whatever mistakes I've made in the previous base will not crop up again. It's holding down the "Esc + Power" buttons (I'm not quite sure what that will do to you machines).
The other one is give myself an ultimatum. For several years now, I was pretty close to committing in an ultimatum of x amount of years, that if they goals of the ultimatum are not achieved then I will just not care anymore. But I know that this is like threatening God to do something or else I won't care. And I know this is just wrong. The temptation is very real and while there's nothing wrong in the temptation itself (succumbing to it makes it wrong), it's just damn hard not to do it. We all like to be able to control everything in our lives, including the lessons that are to be learned. It's this control freak nature of being human (so to speak) that brought sin into this world and let's face it, who hasn't been a control freak in their own way. I like to be able to decide what is good for me. And that is a bad thing to have. So I'm just praying that I don't do brash things like these.
I ask myself the question, what good will come out of me still being in Melbourne after that failed attempt at my PhD. I'm glad to say that a great many good things came out of those years, which makes me think that God is really working behind the scenes. But for some of the hardships that I've faced, I am still waiting for the lesson to come. Many times, I ask God to just show me the lesson already so that I can move on and just be less of an ass. Or like just tell me what to do, God, so that I can put all these things aside (of course, in asking God to just tell me what to do, the hard part is that He might actually tell me to do it). God is teaching me something, I just don't know what it is yet. And while that is pretty annoying at times, a lesson will be learned.
Ok, enough of the emo/angsty/slightly morbid post. Oh...and I'm not suicidal. Not to my knowledge at least. I think.
Two tales of love. One of how they got together and the other on how they were separated.
To get into a relationship, two friendships are sacrificed. I'm guessing I'm one of the two. Disposable friendships I tell you.
Adaptive traffic control. It's about time.
Physics and soccer. Still can be used to write a paper.
This can't be good. If I do go back home after failing to remain here due to my mum's wishes thanks to stricter visa requirements, I'm just going to say to her "I told you so"
I wonder if this works the other way round Nah, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Been there, done that.
Consider this a sermon illustration, to a much lesser degree. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what would happen if I died now? What sort of impact did I have on my friends while I was around? Will it be a loss to my friends because of who I am or will I just be another surprised look on people's faces when I'm gone? Now this is where the similarity ends as above. I've asked myself that question for a couple of years and the answers that I've been getting isn't very encouraging. Of the many people that have come and gone since my schooling days (and to a certain extent I still am), what are things that I've done? Well, there's endless amount of gaming, endless amount of debates/clashes of worldviews/conflicts in opinions/whether-that-blue-jacket-looks-good, endless amounts of stupidity and of course, lots of churchy stuff. At the end of the day, when the people I've met have packed up and left for their next stop on their road of life, I'm guessing that is all I am to them. Nothing more, nothing less. And most of the time, the feeling ends up being mutual, leaving a rather large void that should be filled with the stuff friends are made of.
So, who's fault is it? I can't say with absolute certainty that I'm in the wrong nor can I say that they are. I can't say that I haven't tried hard but I also can't say that I've tried hard enough. But in the end, does it really matter? Does knowing whose fault is it give some sort of closure to wondering "What happened to us? We used to do so much."? It is utterly frustrating when this cycle goes on repeat. It makes it even harder when people have moved on to better things while I am still stuck in whatever present day scenario, moving in all directions but a net motion of zero. The more I think of it, the more I think there should be a new class of friendships that will encompass me, the outlier. I call it the "disposable friendship". All the joys and conveniences of friendship but with the added advantage of "no real strings attached". But please, feel free to discard but do so in the appropriate bins.
There's got to be a fundamental starting point from which all of these frustrations started and there has got to be a fundamental lesson to be learned here. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what are they. Many times, I am tempted to implement a solution to my problems without trying to understand what went wrong first. It just saves a lot of the heartache and frustration which I think I've had a lot of it already. It's like starting to program from scratch because your previous program was too screwed up and debugging will take a lot of time, more time than rewriting everything. The flaw in that analogy is that you sometimes do that but that is assuming that you knew what went wrong in the program in the first place. But I digress. One such solution is to start with a clean slate. Uproot myself, ship whatever insignificant belongings I have and myself to some other place in the world, reformat the friendship database and hit the "execute" button. Realistically, that will be in the form of re-pursuing my PhD. What's that I hear? Escapism you say? Well I guess so, but it's more like restarting in hoping that whatever mistakes I've made in the previous base will not crop up again. It's holding down the "Esc + Power" buttons (I'm not quite sure what that will do to you machines).
The other one is give myself an ultimatum. For several years now, I was pretty close to committing in an ultimatum of x amount of years, that if they goals of the ultimatum are not achieved then I will just not care anymore. But I know that this is like threatening God to do something or else I won't care. And I know this is just wrong. The temptation is very real and while there's nothing wrong in the temptation itself (succumbing to it makes it wrong), it's just damn hard not to do it. We all like to be able to control everything in our lives, including the lessons that are to be learned. It's this control freak nature of being human (so to speak) that brought sin into this world and let's face it, who hasn't been a control freak in their own way. I like to be able to decide what is good for me. And that is a bad thing to have. So I'm just praying that I don't do brash things like these.
I ask myself the question, what good will come out of me still being in Melbourne after that failed attempt at my PhD. I'm glad to say that a great many good things came out of those years, which makes me think that God is really working behind the scenes. But for some of the hardships that I've faced, I am still waiting for the lesson to come. Many times, I ask God to just show me the lesson already so that I can move on and just be less of an ass. Or like just tell me what to do, God, so that I can put all these things aside (of course, in asking God to just tell me what to do, the hard part is that He might actually tell me to do it). God is teaching me something, I just don't know what it is yet. And while that is pretty annoying at times, a lesson will be learned.
Ok, enough of the emo/angsty/slightly morbid post. Oh...and I'm not suicidal. Not to my knowledge at least. I think.
Two tales of love. One of how they got together and the other on how they were separated.
To get into a relationship, two friendships are sacrificed. I'm guessing I'm one of the two. Disposable friendships I tell you.
Adaptive traffic control. It's about time.
Physics and soccer. Still can be used to write a paper.
This can't be good. If I do go back home after failing to remain here due to my mum's wishes thanks to stricter visa requirements, I'm just going to say to her "I told you so"
|
0
comments
|
White-Black Trees
Saturday, September 11, 2010
at
1:55 PM
It's been awhile now since the last post and so many things have happened that I should say something before I'm thrown to even deeper levels of work. Since the wedding, there have been two events that just swamped me to high levels of work. One are the assignments. Painful for one of them as stuff keeps changing and not to mention how annoying it is to implement some algorithms, the amount of debugging time, the test cases and stress testing our programs. Not fun. But, the other event is one where I've invested a lot of man-in-the-middle energy to, the first ever Singapore Film Fest in Melbourne. Just the week before the event, everyone was kicked into overdrive, tying up loose ends, making sure that we have all (if not most) of the components for the fest. A friend and I help cater a food item for the fest and just general setting up for the event have been my primary roles albeit off the record. Even though I'm not directly a part of the team that organizes the fest itself, it's quite hard to not feel a sense of pride in not only that your friends who are doing this for the whole year and that they have done an excellent job but also for yourself for having to be a part of this inaugural event.
It's a shame that I couldn't get to watch the films that I really wanted to watch. For example, Singapore Dreaming was the film on the opening night but that I was clearing up from the opening event. The short films on Monday and Tuesday were a miss because I had class on those days. The ones that I did manage to watch were the ones on the last day. One was an experimental film and the other were a series of short films by Boo Junfeng. It was great to see some fairly insightful films from Singaporean filmmakers on various scenarios and topics on friendship, hardship, oppression and many others.
That said however, I don't think a lot of people share how I thought about some of the films despite me not being an avid film buff (indie or mainstream). Just because one doesn't see a point, doesn't mean that the director doesn't have one when he/she made the film. And I think some of us tend to be overly critical about it that we treat the director and his film as though we were playing poker. If we realize, by reading the cards, that a player has got nothing, we punish him severely for it. Similiarly, if we read that the film has nothing to offer, we will release all hell in the form of reviews, complaints and sometimes crude spoofs. Unlike poker though where it is probably more clear cut on whether you have good cards or not, films are gray. Makes it even harder that behind every film, there are possibly several ideas that give rise to film and is most likely presented in one form or another. Does that classify as offering substance to a film? Maybe. Can a grotesque film offer insights about the world? Perhaps. Can a 5 minute silence offer more than 5 seconds of speech/action? Point being is that while it is great that we form our own opinions about why we like a film or not, there is such a thing as going overboard with the negativity and to go as far as having "call the director's bluff". Reading too much into things goes both ways.
Alright, time to off load tabs here:
Great idea! Should do this some time.
Who or what is to blame here? Lack of teaching or lack of understanding?
Melancholy. Powerful force that if harnessed correctly makes great thinkers.
Is that seriously what the Australian Iron Chefs are wearing? Sorry, you've lost my vote there.
We guys suck. And I tend to agree because I suck too.
Many people have suggested or try to implant the idea that I should work in Singapore. But I feel bad that I will be contributing to the existing problems of Singapore. Plus I will need to own a boat sometime in the future.
Scott Pilgrim may not be for everyone, but like this film critic says "What is wrong with you people?". For the record, pretty much any film that I've watched that he has reviewed, he's spot on. For me at least.
I've posted this 10 page article in the last entry and since reading it, it has been quite insightful. I am soon-to-be a 26-year-old adolescent.
What this means is that I can now shape my daughters (if any) to my ulterior motives. *evil snicker*
It's a shame that I couldn't get to watch the films that I really wanted to watch. For example, Singapore Dreaming was the film on the opening night but that I was clearing up from the opening event. The short films on Monday and Tuesday were a miss because I had class on those days. The ones that I did manage to watch were the ones on the last day. One was an experimental film and the other were a series of short films by Boo Junfeng. It was great to see some fairly insightful films from Singaporean filmmakers on various scenarios and topics on friendship, hardship, oppression and many others.
That said however, I don't think a lot of people share how I thought about some of the films despite me not being an avid film buff (indie or mainstream). Just because one doesn't see a point, doesn't mean that the director doesn't have one when he/she made the film. And I think some of us tend to be overly critical about it that we treat the director and his film as though we were playing poker. If we realize, by reading the cards, that a player has got nothing, we punish him severely for it. Similiarly, if we read that the film has nothing to offer, we will release all hell in the form of reviews, complaints and sometimes crude spoofs. Unlike poker though where it is probably more clear cut on whether you have good cards or not, films are gray. Makes it even harder that behind every film, there are possibly several ideas that give rise to film and is most likely presented in one form or another. Does that classify as offering substance to a film? Maybe. Can a grotesque film offer insights about the world? Perhaps. Can a 5 minute silence offer more than 5 seconds of speech/action? Point being is that while it is great that we form our own opinions about why we like a film or not, there is such a thing as going overboard with the negativity and to go as far as having "call the director's bluff". Reading too much into things goes both ways.
Alright, time to off load tabs here:
Great idea! Should do this some time.
Who or what is to blame here? Lack of teaching or lack of understanding?
Melancholy. Powerful force that if harnessed correctly makes great thinkers.
Is that seriously what the Australian Iron Chefs are wearing? Sorry, you've lost my vote there.
We guys suck. And I tend to agree because I suck too.
Many people have suggested or try to implant the idea that I should work in Singapore. But I feel bad that I will be contributing to the existing problems of Singapore. Plus I will need to own a boat sometime in the future.
Scott Pilgrim may not be for everyone, but like this film critic says "What is wrong with you people?". For the record, pretty much any film that I've watched that he has reviewed, he's spot on. For me at least.
I've posted this 10 page article in the last entry and since reading it, it has been quite insightful. I am soon-to-be a 26-year-old adolescent.
What this means is that I can now shape my daughters (if any) to my ulterior motives. *evil snicker*
|
0
comments
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
