for saying this, but I actually watched New Moon.

What’s more, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

It was SUPER girl (as Derek said it would be), but that did not make it any less interesting.

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Anyway, Alice Cullen is wayy pretty. Perhaps it’s the hair.

You know, I’m not quite sure what I want exactly.

I’m really not sure if it’s something all developing countries experience or if it’s just characteristic of this one, but the near-obsession and (rather insane) fixation on education stereotypes here in Singapore really gets at me sometimes. For example, I get rather tired of meeting relatives and acquaintances around nowadays, because the perfunctory conversation I subsequently am obliged to will revolve around answering the two enquiries they only ever make:

1) hey where are you now (in the army)?
2) where have you applied to so far (for university)?

Admittedly my lack of enthusiasm for the first topic may stem from largely personal reasons, but with regards to the second, well. Let’s just say I would have been far more sociable had these compatriots just enquired about my application process, or whether I had already secured a place. At least that way I’d be more certain they were enquiring out of genuine goodwill, and not merely to see how many brand names I had ‘achieved’, and subsequently conjecture my academic competency/ prospects on those grounds.

In any case, my distaste has reached the point whereby I dish out a rehearsed answer on such occasions – specially designed to be curt, cryptic, and basically rather un-helpful. This usually results in them walking away looking rather confused and unfulfilled, which can actually be quite amusing.

I still remember how it felt like – that last walk, on that last afternoon.

It was the 13th of November 2008, and my final paper had just ended. I recall the euphoric rush that came with the conclusion of my final examinations, made all the sweeter because my exam schedule had allowed me to end at the earliest possible time. But as I made my way out of school, along the familiar path beside the astro turf, I was struck by a feeling quite strange, all of a sudden.

Something was different. I couldn’t place my finger on what exactly, but I was sure of it. It stirred me enough that I stopped there, along the pavement, and turned around, looking for some new fauna, pruned trees, or something like that to explain this sense of ‘difference’.

But then, it hit me. As I turned around and saw the building where I had spent the past 3 years in; the grounds I had been part of for the last 6, and the happy boarders playing soccer on the turf, it hit me. It felt different because I was done. With the writing of that final word on my English A1 Paper 2 script; the return of that final script into the examiner’s hands, my business with the school was done. From that point on, I was no longer a student, and I no longer belonged.

Yea, I recall the feeling. It resembled sadness. It resembled pain. It hurt.

But I guess that’s life.

This all made a lot of sense, but I still had not made the connection to the word “hate.” Eventually I made the connection when I found this website. The author summed up his reason for creating the site and his dislike of women in one simple sentence: “I hate women because I want their attention and they won’t give me any.” So what a misogynist truly loves is the shallow image of women that exists only in one’s mind and is illustrated in society in such things as pornography or mainstream media that espouses that ideal. The hatred is directed at real women, for not living up to a misogynist’s expectations of women being easy to control and for not providing adequate stimulation for men’s interest.

Po sent me this excerpt awhile back and asked me what I thought. A couple of interesting ideas are brought up here, and in the chance that my readers have comments on this, i put it up. Cheers.

Books of the Week

Lewis, C.S., The Screwtape Letters, (London: HarperOne, 2001)

Sen, Amartya, The Idea of Justice, (London: Allen Lane, 2009)

Zamoyski, Adam, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March, (London: Harper Perennial, 2005)

The ESV Study Bible, (Illinois: Crossway, 2008)

Books of the Upcoming Week

Carpenter, Humphrey, J.R.R. Tolkein: A Biography, (London: Mariner, 2000)

Min, Anchee, Becoming Madame Mao, (London: Harcourt, 2000)

Sen, Amartya, The Idea of Justice, (London: Allen Lane, 2009)

The ESV Study Bible, (Illinois: Crossway, 2008)

1) Christians are not called to live by a ‘higher’ set of morals, nor should they be under pressure/obligation to conduct themselves in a manner ‘better’ than the rest. We have nothing to prove, and in any case these are not for us to judge in (perceived) superiority. Christians have weaknesses, insecurities, and inadequacies like any other human being; the difference lies in that we have God to entrust all these to, and to make up for them. It does us good to be reminded of that daily, and to live with that perspective.

2) God cannot be stereotyped, psychoanalysed, nor ‘figured out’. His responses can never be expected nor preconceived. It does us good, therefore, not to give up retreating into His arms, seeking His consult on matters etc., because He will always provide the best possible solution, the one that best meets our needs at that particular point. He is the Father that loves us, and that love makes him most wonderfully (and graciously) UNpredictable. Honesty, humility and pliability are the only requirements on our part.

3) Hanging around ‘fed’ and ‘healthy’ Christians for too long may actually be detrimental to one’s faith.

Being gloomy, emo, down and out ain’t cool.

So I’m done with that.

Pity I’m done with my ‘holidays’ too.

The past 4-5 weeks have been quite a living hell.

I’m not quite sure how to articulate it,

but suffice to say

I’ve had to confront (in a most unpleasant manner)

various things in my life:

Core Values

Belief Systems

Paradigms

Worldviews

that I had formerly taken for granted.

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Couple that with the writer’s soldier’s block that severely impairs one’s powers of thought/introspection, and yeah. you can perhaps begin to understand my state of grief.

and despair.

i guess i should be grateful though, that im beginning to see some sort of light. beginning.

please let it not be illusory.

which I will really get down to reflecting upon, sometime very soon (watch this space)

Christians, with regards to their passion for the kingdom of God, tend to live somewhere within the following spectrum. Looking at the diagram, where would you consider yourself to be?

This question got me thinking long and hard for various reasons. I didn’t expect it to have such an impact.

Which is why I really have to buckle myself down and ponder,

on another day when I don’t have to wake up early for church the next morning.