7th February 2012
August 27th, 2009
2 Peter 2:7 is interesting because it says lot was “just” which us not what we always hear about him. We usually just remember how he chose to live near Sodom and Gomorrah and how his wife was turned into a pillar of salt. I wonder how he felt after his wife became a pile of NaCl, or did they care so little about women that it was a matter of fact kinda thing. Anyway it’s too long and cumbersome to read on the train on my iPod in (oh man..) KJV.
August 24th, 2009
So me and zg registered for the same tutorial without knowing! Haha. So it of great interest to me what a trained philosopher (my tutor) has to say. I’ve been very intrigued by how everyone misrepresents each other in arguments whether or not they are right or wrong.
Much maligned in Christian circles are the study of philosophy and psychology who most basic premise is really acceptable just like the study of other humanities. The problems arise once people start building on their baseless fleshly assumptions then everything starts going wrong, much like any other subject including theology and bible studies.
Interesting to me is what my tutor says about philosophy being a study of the meta physical which basically means there is no physical proof for it all. Everything is all in the mind. So basically philosophy in its entirety is completely futile without a base set of assumptions and a foundation. That is something only the bible has claim to – absolute truth. Of course since it is self validating it seems foolish to philosophers. Still Who cares if they think it’s dumb? they aren’t the ones who will judge you at the end of your life, neither do thy have the power to change lives and save souls.
This will be a pretty interesting sem. Another thing that suprised me is why my tutor is studying philosophy. “so that I can know what matters and live a fulfilled life”. Nowadays more than ever everyone seems like they need Christ to me. I hope she one day discovers the only one that can provide her that is a life in Christ Jesus and his philosophy.
August 15th, 2009
Looking back at my first wedding stint, I realise my photography skillz have totally gone out the window. Not that I do worse now but I think.. I did really well that time. When I had no knowledge of so many “more advanced things” my photography was “like that” and now after a year and learning and shooting for so much longer it hasn’t improved and its still “like that”. That’s terrible! I conclude it must have been a few things:
So thats what I think it is. Now that I’ve picked up something new, I think the “novel equipment” effect is quite strong but I’m just not under pressure to perform that why I still produce point and shoot photos. Doing Benny’s wedding didn’t really do it for me.. felt my photos were blah actually. Possibly also cos I was always in a terrible spot that I couldn’t get anything anyway.
I need some jobs as a main photographer to kinda push me into the “mode” again, where I have the space and thick skinned rights to move around and stick lenses into people’s face because I’m the “official photographer” instead of having to wait around for the right angles to come to me.
Hmmm. I’m hoping that some jobs comes really soon as I actively search for them. Maybe its what I need and maybe its not (considering other things in my life) but whatever happens my God knows best.
August 11th, 2009
Was listening to the Herbster’s “The Love of God” today and this line caught my ear
When men who here refuse to pray..
then I thought.. oh man that’s me! and it makes me sad. Alot sad.
Thankfully its not the end of the song! Because
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
And its not just good to have his grace to rely on.. its imperative that I do.. haha.. so, does this describe you? If yes.. then lets start! if no.. then praise God for his grace so evident in your faithful prayer.
August 6th, 2009
This is my last week of holidays. I’ve gotten all the modules nailed down (thank God for the unknown that lies before me). I chose some modules which I am not too interested in but I know will buy me a little more time to work on other things like my FYP. Its going to be a very tough sem with 3 major commitments I can think of. My tuition kid, FBI, and my FYP. I’m still considering if staying in school for the second half of the sem will help and am currently undecided. I would like to do it but I think giving tuition will pull me home more often than I’d like. Still, its good to have a place to sleep when its nearing my exams..
I’m also currently extremely frustrated with giving tuition and am going to try changing it to the evening where he won’t be stoning and unable to answer or process any questions from me at all due to tiredness.. sigh.. I hate it when I fell like I’m talking to a brick. At least the brick stays quiet.. having misleading answers that prevent you from troubleshooting cos the boy was to tired to think about your questions and give completely unrelated replies drives me mad!
me: “how many percent is this?” (indicated clearly in the question in plain text)
boy: “oh.. minus loh”
me: “!?!?!?!”
Still, I find it so queer, I can be completely apathetic and just carry on giving in the afternoon. Why bother changing to evenings for his sake? and kinda making me get stuck at home? haha.. why do I choose to put his interests above mine? is it worth the money? or is it a sense of moral obligation? or maybe its religious upbringing and responsibility thing? why matters alot more than what!
However when in serious doubt I learned many years ago to tell myself “who cares why I do it? (for now) I already know the answer as to what and how to do it.. Col 3:23 tells me so.” Who cares what the reason I think it is as long as I put in my best to get the best out of him and follow instruction? Surely I can’t come up with a better solution than that.. I don’t think I’ll ever understand my flesh ever.. and its stupid to try when the end point of what we are trying to figure out is already served on a platter.
Its also been an extremely long starting half to the week and I’m still left in a daze wondering who I see in the mirror and feeling a sense of detachment between my will, emotions and logic. Its hard to describe but I cannot understand what I am doing or why I am doing anything. I am completely lost. I don’t know what is appropriate or not and can hardly think. I feel like I am 3 persons now. One thinker, one feeler and one do-er. All completely separate and independent. My roles as a person also suddenly feel dissociated. Son, brother, bf, church member, teacher, learner, clarinetist, web designer, photographer. I’m so lost I feel like I’m 14 all over again. I’m trying to be all at once while being a single person. I think I detect conflict in those roles but they are not apparently in conflict. Wonder whats the problem here. I also think I’m stepping through a transition without even knowing it or having arrived at the transition yet. It doesn’t feel good and I don’t exactly know what to do about it. Its kinda like the alarm bells are ringing but for who-knows-what? How do I fix it? Where’s the documentation? WHY DIDN’T ANYONE PROVIDE DOCUMENTATION? haha.. kinda like programmers always complain when they have to pick up a halfway project. (Well there is documentation I know, its at www.bible.cc)
Anyway one more verse caught my eye this week. Col 3:14 Well, its here in isolation because the point is simple. Be loving in my communications/actions and deeds because it binds everything in perfect harmony. EVERYTHING. I was just wondering how “everything” is “everything”? It does include husbands/wives, families I should think, how about strangers? Does it include unsaved people? and how about people who we don’t agree with who are born again? are people we do wrong really worse than unsaved brethren (oxymoron here)? and are unsaved brethren really that bad? How do we treat them? still with love right? “tough” only describes the action level and does not live in the heart.. hearts bleed when “tough love” is in action. Where’s your bleeding heart? Jesus Loved the WORLD right? oh man.. then it include everyone! haha.. or maybe it just refers to the attributes named before and that love binds all of it together!
Lastly some mean words I thought of in the shower. “The loudest religious blathering often indicates the biggest hypocrite” I always tell zg “you don’t talk nobody know you siao leh..” kinda along the same line. A minute part of the reason why I thought that is probably cos of the in-congruence I’m experiencing currently in my personal life and the majority I admit is just mean-ness.. haha.. Still, seeing differences between speech and action is more disturbing than actually suffering from it when it should really be the other way round. Its more smart to address your own in-congruence before pointing out others’. That’s what I’ll be doing.
Tough week.. and as the army likes to say, “the only easy day was yesterday..”
August 2nd, 2009
Well, I think I’ve just blamed the camera too much. Today I went out with my mom, dad and hannah and I shot a whole roll of 120 film in about 5-10 minutes. Shall post that up when that’s done. It was interesting to shoot medium format. Most of my shots were at 1/60s at f8. Don’t think there will be much nice round bokkeh but I do hope to catch sharp photos of my parents and hannah.
After I got done with the film and feeling weird composing photos in squares I used my G9 and got mostly rubbish. Until I went over to the dog swimming pool and set my camera to crop to 16:9 in-camera. Everything was very interesting from then on.. the way I composed photos, setting my camera to about -2ev consistently when in bright sunlight and -1ev when it got cloudy.. the photos came up surprisingly sharp, colorful and well.. nice. Didn’t notice the chromatic aberrations, fringing and other nonsense I usually notice.
So here are some of them I kinda like. Thought of doing something like a storyboard of movie stills but.. nah.. don’t have the time or energy.
