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...
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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.
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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.
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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"
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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*
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We're All In This Together
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
at
11:35 PM
And so the biggest photography project that I've done has now come to a close (short of processing the photos that I took). It was an epic whole day event that just demanded every ounce of creative energy out of me. Frankly speaking, I don't think I am cut out for the impromptu stresses and pressures of doing the actual wedding day. It is so so soooo hard just to get the moment down, let alone make it look nice. And for some reason, the facial expression that happened to be engraved in my SD card were all not particularly nice. Although I have to say that I'm exercising the flash unit I bought from my former housemate. I think the thought of regret for selling the flash to me has crossed his mind because I used it so rarely. It's been good that I'm kinda practicing some of the techniques that I've learned from a professional wedding photographer that I've been following for quite awhile now.
But enough about the crappy photographer talk. The venue was nice and the chapel was even nicer. Though it was small, it was very cosy once filled up with people all waiting to celebrate the union of the two people they've known and love. I've never been the best man or anyone who would see through the entire wedding procedures, so being the (secondary) photographer gives me a whole new appreciation for the many things that go on leading up to the actual ceremony itself. It's hard not to have fun, I tell you. There are times where I just wanted to put down my camera and just join in. Then I remembered, I have a job to do. I think it is also doubly fun that I've known the bride and groom waaaay even before they were an item and how they each behave. They were certainly a fun couple and I think that makes a lot of difference for something as big as a wedding. Really really fun day but it's super tiring. How can anyone be moving at the end of the day, especially the bride and groom who by then would have been awake since the crack of dawn? And how is it possible that there's this expectation that the newly wedded couple would have *ahem* done stuff that same night? I remember some of us were joking about this at another friend's wedding a few years back and someone said "Later when they will sleep together, I mean they will literally sleep on the same bed". And not some other connotation.
On a separate note, I've seen how God work just to bring some encouragement into one's life at a seemingly random time. After class one day I went to some grocery shopping. There I saw someone who I recognize but have no idea of the name. She on other hand did. So we started talking at the checkout and ended up chatting outside the checkout for about an hour. We then moved to my place since it's just across the road and talked for the next 3 hours. We talked a great deal of things but mainly intellectual stuff. Any normal person who have died in that room for the sheer amount of brainy talk and analyzing many things. Turns out that's what she needed at that time, good intellectual talk. So she left with this refreshed mind to face the world. And that was it. It just seemed so random that I will be talking to this person and so happened to give what she needed. I don't think that was mere coincidence. Just so that you people don't get the wrong idea (yes, I'm looking at you Sie Ming. Especially you.) nothing else happened after that.
Let's see what else...oh yeah. Singapore Film Fest in Melbourne, people! Go for it. Get your tickets here. Movie synopses here. Support these people!
What else...? News.
Hangman's apparent hardest word is shorter than you think. Seriously shorter.
Neil Perry, Guy Grossi and Guillaume Brahimi are Australia's Iron Chefs? I can't see anything good to come out of the Australian version of Iron Chef.
I shall now relabel myself as a digital minimalist, instead of a middle-class hobo. Has a nicer ring to it.
God solves a Rubik's Cube in 20 moves.
Digitizing our cars may not be such a good idea after all.
If this is true, to be comedic is human. As in a sinful human. Maybe that's pushing it a bit.
I've yet to read this in its entirety (because it's 10 freaking pages long), but I do believe I'm in this category. Only thing missing is to move back in with my parents.
Like I've always treated blogging, it's like a diary. Micro-blogging on the other hand seems to be very transient.
I've always thought about what would it be like to be a father. Yet at every time, the conclusion that I will arrive at would be that I will be terrible at it. Seems like according to this, I won't know the real answer until I actually become one.
Moral of this story: Don't let your child watch Iron Man.
Isaac Azimov was correct in predicting our future lives that is today. Have we lost the meaning of friendship in our semi-futuristic today?
Fluidic motion of a glass juggler. And I love that song. That song is here. Too bad that song is not available on iTunes Australia. Rats.
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Yeo, Myojo!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
at
2:28 AM
A great deal of stuff has happened lately but I'm not exactly sure of the potential of things to come. So many new opportunities has been popping up like mushrooms which seems to detract me from what I wanted to do originally. Whether it is a good thing or not is yet to be determined. At times, it is very exciting and can't wait for me to jump into it but at the same time scared because of the whole long list of Asian tradition and conservatism that goes against some of the things that I want to do. Plus everything that I've studied up till this point might have been all gone to "waste". So hard to think of what to do.
Last Saturday was one of the craziest days I've come across in a long time. Quite random actually but at least we had a good laugh at it in the end. At least for me. It started off with a bad sleeping start Friday night/Saturday morning when I couldn't sleep until around 6:30. Woke up two hours later to go for a friend's graduation. It's been a long time since I've caught up with this friend of mine so it was a good chat plus photo taking. I thought my graduation had a bad turnout (Ok, to be fair, I kept it to a low profile), but her's was less than mine. But I'm sure it doesn't really matter as long as there are friends and family on this occasion. Went back and tried to start on my work when a rather desperate request for help from a friend who is involved in doing an event here in Melbourne. Basically, we had to transport drinks and instant noodles from point A to point B. Sound simple enough until I saw 51 cartons of packet drinks and about 20+ cartons of instant noodles. That was no joke. On top of that, because we couldn't find a vehicle from friends big enough to transport all of this stuff in one shot, so we had to rent a car. Not the most spacious of cars but it will have to do. In the end, we had to make two trips because the drinks alone put so much weight on the car that the back tires were starting to touch the underside. Fierce man. Each trip takes half an hour one way. It is a good thing that I had my friend company/keep me awake when driving. 2 hours of sleep plus warm late afternoon sunlight facing you are prime factors for putting me to sleep while driving. Not something you'd mess around with. Thank God we managed to get everything together in one piece. Along the way I met some pretty cool people involved in the event which is always good.
Had dinner outside the city since we had the car for the day and ended up going on a random drive around. We were pretty much turning at a whim until someone noticed that I was really driving to my friend's workplace despite never driven there at all. Quite fail but still fun. Came back home at around 10 something and just as I entered my apartment, another call came for hanging out. Since I've been out like literally the whole day, I might as well make the most of it. Hanged out while some friends have food before I still decided to be crazy enough to go and perform my church cleaning duties. At this point I'm like super tired and when I entered church, there's rubbish everywhere and bins were filled to the brim. Great. Finished cleaning before I realized that it's another 4-5 hours before I have to come to church for music practice. So tempted to sleep in church but I didn't.
And there you have it...the craziest day so far. I hope not to break that level. Ever.
The other good thing is that I'm looking forward to my friend's wedding next week. I guess it is because that I've poured in effort in doing my part for their day (or the days leading up to this day) that it is natural to just look forward to it. I think it is also the accumulated expectations from various things that contribute to how it is all going to be. It is also the first time that I will be taking the photographs for one side of the wedding party. Plenty of things to get excited about but like all things related to my photography, I'm just going to be scared shitless. This is THE big day, miss something and you won't be able to recreate it. While the last two weddings that I've shot, I was merely the ninja shooter where there's not much of that kind of pressure going on, now I will be going into the nitty gritty things of the photographers that do this for a living. Not something I'm comfortable with first time round. Also not helping in the self-confidence issue (I've always not have any but it can still make it worse). Will see how it goes.
And now the piled up news on my ApiMusang browser...
Awesome photos of New Orleans post-Katrina
Judge Judy earns more than David Letterman? Seriously?
Why is there a research like this, I have no idea. That means I should be getting a lot of it. That's clearly and obviously far from the case.
Are we wired for cute?
Iron Chef Australia? They better not kill it with unnecessary pointless drama like the US version.
Democracy in churches is not the way to run a church.
Sam Mendes. That is sooooo not cool.
So it seems that the American education system, in some sense, is no different from our "lowly" Malaysian/Singaporean system. Ultimately, we still suffer the same thing. The funny thing is that my mom keeps praising the States or Australia for having a much better system than the crappy system back home. Reality is that we are pretty much on a level playing field. Ish.
Roald Dahl = James Bond? Who'd knew?
I'd never noticed the rather dark themes of Mary Poppins even though I've only watched it just this year. Interesting. And I should have a look at the musical here. Hope it's not like Wicked, I loved the music but never got to see the actual show.
Why are people so stupid? Just because there's a lot of people on Facebook doesn't mean that you can hide behind the numbers.
So wrong on so many levels. And this is seriously not the way to do it man. What is wrong with you?
Superman saves the day. Literally.
Singapore hating Anwar? Whoa.
There's a purpose that I have a sister...to keep me sane.
Quitting job Win! But colleague fail.
I've always been on the side that photos have to taken with deliberate intent to convey a story. Lighting, facial expression, framing etc all taken into account by the photographer to produce one photo that tells more on the image than words can do. This however makes me rethink that strict policy. It's not enough to abandon my core beliefs of how I approach photography but rather be more open to the idea that the deliberateness of intent of the photo is not so much in the photo but what surrounds it, before and after the shot. And that may be enough reason and consideration to take a photo of a potted plant.
Last Saturday was one of the craziest days I've come across in a long time. Quite random actually but at least we had a good laugh at it in the end. At least for me. It started off with a bad sleeping start Friday night/Saturday morning when I couldn't sleep until around 6:30. Woke up two hours later to go for a friend's graduation. It's been a long time since I've caught up with this friend of mine so it was a good chat plus photo taking. I thought my graduation had a bad turnout (Ok, to be fair, I kept it to a low profile), but her's was less than mine. But I'm sure it doesn't really matter as long as there are friends and family on this occasion. Went back and tried to start on my work when a rather desperate request for help from a friend who is involved in doing an event here in Melbourne. Basically, we had to transport drinks and instant noodles from point A to point B. Sound simple enough until I saw 51 cartons of packet drinks and about 20+ cartons of instant noodles. That was no joke. On top of that, because we couldn't find a vehicle from friends big enough to transport all of this stuff in one shot, so we had to rent a car. Not the most spacious of cars but it will have to do. In the end, we had to make two trips because the drinks alone put so much weight on the car that the back tires were starting to touch the underside. Fierce man. Each trip takes half an hour one way. It is a good thing that I had my friend company/keep me awake when driving. 2 hours of sleep plus warm late afternoon sunlight facing you are prime factors for putting me to sleep while driving. Not something you'd mess around with. Thank God we managed to get everything together in one piece. Along the way I met some pretty cool people involved in the event which is always good.
Had dinner outside the city since we had the car for the day and ended up going on a random drive around. We were pretty much turning at a whim until someone noticed that I was really driving to my friend's workplace despite never driven there at all. Quite fail but still fun. Came back home at around 10 something and just as I entered my apartment, another call came for hanging out. Since I've been out like literally the whole day, I might as well make the most of it. Hanged out while some friends have food before I still decided to be crazy enough to go and perform my church cleaning duties. At this point I'm like super tired and when I entered church, there's rubbish everywhere and bins were filled to the brim. Great. Finished cleaning before I realized that it's another 4-5 hours before I have to come to church for music practice. So tempted to sleep in church but I didn't.
And there you have it...the craziest day so far. I hope not to break that level. Ever.
The other good thing is that I'm looking forward to my friend's wedding next week. I guess it is because that I've poured in effort in doing my part for their day (or the days leading up to this day) that it is natural to just look forward to it. I think it is also the accumulated expectations from various things that contribute to how it is all going to be. It is also the first time that I will be taking the photographs for one side of the wedding party. Plenty of things to get excited about but like all things related to my photography, I'm just going to be scared shitless. This is THE big day, miss something and you won't be able to recreate it. While the last two weddings that I've shot, I was merely the ninja shooter where there's not much of that kind of pressure going on, now I will be going into the nitty gritty things of the photographers that do this for a living. Not something I'm comfortable with first time round. Also not helping in the self-confidence issue (I've always not have any but it can still make it worse). Will see how it goes.
And now the piled up news on my ApiMusang browser...
Awesome photos of New Orleans post-Katrina
Judge Judy earns more than David Letterman? Seriously?
Why is there a research like this, I have no idea. That means I should be getting a lot of it. That's clearly and obviously far from the case.
Are we wired for cute?
Iron Chef Australia? They better not kill it with unnecessary pointless drama like the US version.
Democracy in churches is not the way to run a church.
Sam Mendes. That is sooooo not cool.
So it seems that the American education system, in some sense, is no different from our "lowly" Malaysian/Singaporean system. Ultimately, we still suffer the same thing. The funny thing is that my mom keeps praising the States or Australia for having a much better system than the crappy system back home. Reality is that we are pretty much on a level playing field. Ish.
Roald Dahl = James Bond? Who'd knew?
I'd never noticed the rather dark themes of Mary Poppins even though I've only watched it just this year. Interesting. And I should have a look at the musical here. Hope it's not like Wicked, I loved the music but never got to see the actual show.
Why are people so stupid? Just because there's a lot of people on Facebook doesn't mean that you can hide behind the numbers.
So wrong on so many levels. And this is seriously not the way to do it man. What is wrong with you?
Superman saves the day. Literally.
Singapore hating Anwar? Whoa.
There's a purpose that I have a sister...to keep me sane.
Quitting job Win! But colleague fail.
I've always been on the side that photos have to taken with deliberate intent to convey a story. Lighting, facial expression, framing etc all taken into account by the photographer to produce one photo that tells more on the image than words can do. This however makes me rethink that strict policy. It's not enough to abandon my core beliefs of how I approach photography but rather be more open to the idea that the deliberateness of intent of the photo is not so much in the photo but what surrounds it, before and after the shot. And that may be enough reason and consideration to take a photo of a potted plant.
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