Mars Attack

Normally I cared as much for science as I do for basket weaving (i.e. not very much) but a recent documentary I watched on National Geographic piqued my interest big time. It depicted the challenges which confounded brainy scientists at the Jet Propulsions Labs (JPL) in the US. And their mission? The easy-as-pie feat of constructing two Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) which can take high-resolution colour images of the red planet, investigate geological samples, chart temperature profiles, determine the mineralogy of the terrain, collect magnetic dust particles, and so on. The last I checked, the MERs aren’t quite able to fry an egg automatically yet, but the list still looks pretty impressive.

To add, they look as cute as a button. Beats Star Wars' R2-D2 any day, eh?

Them MERs look like something kids would trample on with glee.



In fact, they look so fetching that I wouldn’t mind having one in my kitchen to help with the carrot-peeling.

Plus, they come with their own names to boot. One is called Spirit, and the other, Opportunity. Way better-sounding monikers than the worst name on earth, Jar Jar Binks, I'd say.

I was in California when the news of the exploration broke in 2003, and I wasn’t all that intrigued. After the much-vaunted success of the space outing, what I gathered was that Mars looked like a massive dune of Milo powder. Very scintillating stuff indeed.

Move over, nothing to see here.



But what was remarkable were the seeming insuperable challenges that confronted the scientists. First off, the scientists squabbled over how to compress the rovers in the most space-efficient manner, quite like a family bickering over what to pack for the summer hols. The rovers were eventually elaborately folded, the appended parachutes pressure-packed, and everything fitted into a neat lil package. Then the team had to launch the MERs within a narrow window of opportunity when Mars and Earth’s orbit paths would bring the two planets within the closest distance of each other. After a launch marked by much fanfare – a colossal explosion of sparks and smoke, plus wailing bagpipes in the backdrop – an arduous seven-month voyage commenced before landing occurred. And when them nifty rovers finally sent a signal to indicate they were in good working order and were soon hard at work taking pictures and sending post-cards of Mars back to Earth, the entire lab erupted in a rapturous euphoria. Man, I can’t ever recall seeing a bunch of scientists showing so much emotion.

Scientists testing the recalcitrant parachute. It took several attempts to get it to work, and you would have thought sewing a piece of cloth was the easiest part of the spacecraft!



By far, the most hazardous part of the MERs’ journey were the last 5 minutes before landing. When a MER neared to within 10 km of Martian surface, the external heat shield, which protected the rover from over-cooking, peeled off. What was left was the rover stowed away in a shell, together with an assemblage of other components.

A synthetic parachute then popped up to aid descent. But as the atmospheric density of Mars is less than 1% of that on Earth, the parachute alone could not slow down the MER sufficiently to ensure a safe, viable landing speed. Throw in a few Rocket Assisted Descent (RAD) motors which fired a tripartite rocket of sorts to create inertia and stabilise the spacecraft before landing. Add to that a cluster of inflated airbags which looked like a giant ball of grapes cushioning the precious rover as it touched down and bounced and bounced – and bounced – and the landing was, finally, successful. Whew.

A simulation of the descent.



As one beleaguered scientist put it earnestly, there was an incredible amount of chance involved. Science could only do so much – to simulate the conditions on Mars to allow for testing, to conjure all possible snafus, to build in devices to counteract them – but ultimately, all the scientists could do was pray that it wouldn’t screw up. After all, the cost was a cool US$820 million. Blah! Less than what you’d spend in a week in Iraq.

Tags: Mars, Mars Exploration Rover, Rover, Spirit, Opportunity, Jet Propulsion Labs, Space Exploration, NASA

Seeing The Method In Their Madness

I read with great interest the recent furore over the nuclear tests conducted by brinkmanship extraordinaire, North Korea. I’ve been wanting to pen down my thoughts, clobbered together by old research and whatever I can recall of articles I’ve read, on the matter.

Since its inception in the 1940s, North Korea has adopted a posture of intransigence and xenophobia. Media perceptions of the regime are overwhelmingly negative, often portraying it as an international pariah or rogue state whose obdurate isolation has caused widespread starvation and the alleged deaths of three million citizens in the 1990s. It is also depicted as a belligerent state which has crafted a deliberate, systematic campaign of connivance and bluster over its nuclear programme, and which has flouted international rules with spectacular brazenness.

Indeed, it is tempting – and almost logical – to conclude that North Korea is simply an irrational nation headed by a deranged dictator with a predilection for military bravado and a blatant disregard for human life.

However, I often ask myself whether there is a different springboard form which we can view its actions rather than relying on the simple assumption of irrationality. Are its actions carefully calibrated? How does it rationalise its seemingly ruinous strategy? Is it possible, to quote Hamlet, “to see the method in (their) madness”?

A Historical Perspective

History serves an instructive prism with which to view the North Korean psyche. In 1945, after North Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial clutches, the Communists enjoyed unimpeachable patriotic credentials. Not only did they not plunder poor villages, their guerrillas had put up fierce resistance to the Japanese, helped peasants fight the landlords, weeded out and punished collaborators with the Japanese and rectified social ills such as superstition, illiteracy, gambling and opium addiction. Notably, Japan’s constant harping on the menace of communism led the Koreans to identify communism with Korean resistance and patriotism.

North Korea was also birthed in a tense atmosphere of hostility and mistrust towards its neighbours and the US. Needless to say, Japan was loathed for its cruel and exploitative rule. North Korea also condemned the US for its imperialist designs, and deemed South Korean leaders as lackeys subservient to the US. While it shared ideological comradeship with China and USSR, history was replete with examples of the Soviets and the Chinese selling out the Koreans. For instance, after Japan evacuated her troops from Siberia in 1922, USSR promptly expelled the Korean reactionaries who had fought alongside them against Japan.

With no previous experience of independence, North Korea’s infant steps as a sovereign state were, lamentably, saddled wit the historical baggage of betrayals and subjugation. As such, its paranoia and xenophobia is to some extent the product of its checkered history, and not necessarily one borne of derangement.

Ideological Hot Air

North Korea is a regime buttressed by a vast apparatus of myth and fabrication. Its leaders, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jung-Il, are deified as paragons of wisdom and infallibility, and are even rumoured to have supernatural powers. Hyperbole and irrefutability are the order of the day – the Kims spoke of the “essential superiority of socialism” and urged the people to “regard it as their moral duty to defend (communism)” even though it is little more than a obsolete ideology.

Myths extolling communism have been the ideological hot air that has staved off the deflation of the North Korean regime. How does one explain its dogged belief in such twaddle? I’ve blogged about this in a different context, but I find it germane here. There are, essentially, two types of truth – 1) the empirical truth, which is proven on empirical grounds and bears relation to reality; and 2) religious truth, which is absolute, incontrovertible and whose veracity is contingent upon one thing: it’s source. It’s like how, in respect of Christians or Muslims, if something is from the Bible or the Koran, then it must be true.

North Korea’s perception of truth bears greater semblance to religious truth than empirical truth. Their beliefs are assumed a priori, because it is almost impossible for them to test their beliefs empirically. Simply put, they have no alternate truth to base their beliefs on.

A Zero-Sum Proposition

But why would, North Korean leaders, who are presumably more attuned to the external world, propagate such an outmoded worldview? The likely explanation is that the leaders are only too acutely aware than opening up North Korean society would unleash the centrifugal forces that would ultimately precipitate the collapse of the regime. They may have gleaned some lessons from how Gorbachev’s experimental policies of glasnost and perestroika discharged a tide of change that splintered the Soviet Union, as Coca-cola and jeans stormed into Soviet markets and the people clamoured for greater political liberties.

In other words, isolation is paramount to survival. The political and social constructs of North Korea are inimical to the notion of reform and modernity. To open the country and allow comparisons between North Korea and the external world would be political suicide. Moral commentary aside, given the ramifications, it is perfectly rational to remain hermetic and preserve the leadership’s unfettered power.

Racing towards the Nuclear Finishing Line

The North Korea nuclear crisis has been characterised by a leitmotif of deceit, flagellation and bluster. There are many theories purporting to explain why North Korea covets nuclear weapons. It may desire them as a bargaining chip, as a hallmark of prestige and to arm-twist the US for economic benefits. But more meaningfully, given that it cannot challenge US military preponderance in conventional warfare, nuclear weapons remain its best bet to develop asymmetric counters to a US which it cannot hope to defeat in symmetric warfare.

The US’ policy of pre-emptive warfare and regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq would presumably be radioactive to the North Koreans. Military prowess and the ability to wreak considerable damage to US interests would insure against confrontation by an increasingly hawkish Bush administration. As Krugman observed in 2003, “the best self-preservation strategy for Mr Kim is to be dangerous.”

However, it would be erroneous to whitewash North Korea. Firstly, the 2002 nuclear crisis 2002 was not caused by a change in Washington’s stance – the crisis arose when North Korea was caught cheating by erecting an illegal uranium plant. It remains highly doubtful that North Korea would reveal the programme had it not been uncovered.

Bereft of Allies

Finally, there are no allies which can meaningfully engage North Korea. China, whilst being the arbiter of the 6 Power Talks, is wooing two of Pyongyang’s biggest adversaries – the US and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Given China’s burgeoning ties with these nations, future Chinese policy is likely to be aligned with the strategic interests of Washington and Seoul, which implies that Pyongyang would be increasingly marginalised. Already, China's shrill rhetoric over the recent tests signalled this shift. More importantly, a feeble Chinese response towards North Korea may embolden Japan to go nuclear herself, which would be anathema to Beijing.

Russia remains at best, a fair weather friend. Further, the prospects for engagement with Japan remain bleak. Historical animosity notwithstanding, Japan is deeply suspicious of North Korea and its reactions to escalations of tensions have been largely alarmist. The ROK is also an unlikely ally, for Pyongyang continues to insist on the illegitimacy of the ROK government as a puppet regime installed by the US and has missiles facing the south across the Demilitarised Zone.

As such, mired in extreme poverty, bereft of allies and proffering a bankrupt ideology, North Korea comes across as an enigma that confounds and exasperates. It is easy to dismiss it as a bellicose, anachronistic regime that has stirred for itself this cup of bitterness through its irrational pursuit of ruinous policies. To a certain extent that is true. Yet it bears to remember that Pyongyang leadership cannot engage in meaningful reform without sealing the nails in its own coffin. Reform is fatal to the regime.

As such, it is more apt to see North Korea not as a product of irrationality, but a case of a rational mind operating in a highly aberrant environment. To quote Bradner’s astute observation, “Herein lies the tragic dilemma of North Korea’s existence. What is medicine for the populace is poison to the regime, and the interests of the rulers and and ruled are opposed as in any ancient despotism.”

Over The Weekend

Hibernating Between Duvet Covers

Apart from spending one morning clonking out a rather useless piece of work (thanks to the epidemic of email), I’ve been spending my weekend holed up like a hibernating squirrel, snuggling in between thick layers of duvet, reading. One fabulous thing about the haze is that it gives me the excuse to keep the air-conditioner on all day.

Methinks some day I’m gonna ratchet up my short-sightedness by few hefty notches cos I never read sitting up straight, but it’s a bad habit which I currently do not have the resolve to correct. When I read, I look like a slug buried under a duvet. The only thing I don’t read lying on my bed are newspapers, and that’s cos I can never manoeuvre them papers without them falling all over my face.

Anyway, I’ve been reading The Case For Faith by Lee Strobel. Really glad I bought this book cos my PC is down and I’m feeling like part of the Flintstones – I actually had to check my email using phone connection, which is about as slow as a koala bear on medication. So sans PC and with me loathing the outdoors cos of the haze, I spent much of the weekend hitting the books.

Although I did manage to muster enough energy to venture outside on two occasions:

United VS Pool

On Sunday evening I joined some of the unit guys and their pals at Chjimes to catch United VS LiverPoo. It was a pretty decent game, although the second half was a tad boring cos Poo had turned pretty suicidal after conceding two goals and had resorted to spraying erroneous passes all over midfield. I was really pleased for the Ginger One for scoring on his 500th appearance for United, although I must say that the goal by Rio Ferdinand was quite a cracker. I wanted to catch Real VS Barca after I got home, but I was so knackered I fell asleep.

Anyway, I haven’t been to a pub for some time. I used to go at least twice a week when I was studying in London, during mid-week to catch the Champions League matches and on weekends to catch the Premiership fixtures. My fave is this one called The Euston Rocket along Euston Road, about five minutes’ walk from King’s Cross station.

Pubs in London and those in Singapore are quite different. For one, crowds in Singapore pubs don’t really sing and chant cheers. They don’t cuss as much too. And pubs here don’t reek of cigs. I think of late the UK has enforced stricter smoking laws in pubs but when I was a student, I would go home smelling like a chimney with my hair and clothes reeking of cigarette smoke. Though I kinda miss the feeling of walking into a dingy, musty pub with tatty sofas flecked with cigarette and puke stains. There used to be one such pub along Tottenham Court Road called the Ee Ol’ Surgeon which sold fish and chips for 2 pounds; a complete bargain. It has since been refurnished and renamed, unfortunately.

One thing though - I absolutely hate it when people scream in pubs whilst watching footy matches. It's perfectly ok to cheer, jeer, holler, bellow - I wouldn't half mind if some folks vociferate a few less-than-kindly words at the referee - but to scream like a little girl watching Scary Movie 3 is the apex of irritating. Football matches are not the equivalent of Backstreet Boys concerts, and anyone screaming like a fangirl during matches should be locked away henceforth in a cell with nothing but Posh Spice albums and Jose Mourinho for company.

Scarred Angels

Watched a movie called Scarred Angels which was showcased as part of the Japanese Film Festival. Taeko and I met up over dinner and strolled to the newly refurbished National Museum to catch the screening. It was a charming film starring Mitsuru Kita, Maki Claude and Toyokawa Etsushi. The movie depicted the dicey fortunes of a detective, his sidekick, and the young son of a murdered yakuza. It was rollicking, uproarious fun for most part, especially a side-splittingly wrestling scene, but there was an undercurrent of darker themes threading through it. The protagonist’s eventual death, though hearkening to the beginning of the film, was almost completely random and you wonder if the protagonist, himself a capricious chancy guy who relished living life with a wild abandon, would have seen it coming.

Movie aside, I was pretty impressed with the museum’s new look. The stately colonial façade and its state-of-the-art interior were somewhat incongruous, but it was still a pretty cool hangout.

An unintended arty-farty effect cos I was using night mode and the cars just wouldn't stop zipping past.



This pic's tilted cos my camera was hanging precariously off a window sill while taking it, and I can't be arsed to photoshop the picture to correct the angle.



The building's interior.



Pretty solemn and stately, eh?

Motley Ramblings

Am in a kinda incoherent state of mind now... I was fixing up this huge spreadsheet at work and trying to decipher the macros and equations (aarrggghhh!!!) and staring at the laptop screen for hours on end has positively burnt my retinas to a crisp. Although working with mammoth spreadsheets and hundreds of rows of data can be quite satisfying (!!!)... I was absolutely chuffed to bits when my equations finally squared off, man I feel like doing a little jig to celebrate or something.

Anyway, my brains are pretty addled now and I couldn't think about anything meaningful to write (wanna blog about North Korea but I shall not attempt that at 1.40am) so I'll just blabber.

Watched Signs and Internal Affairs on Sunday. I knew Signs was a crap movie, but I didn't expect it to be this horrendous. It was just so bad I couldn't quite make sense of it - it was as if they just took random pieces of uncorrelated morsels (an asthmatic boy, a girl with a penchant of leaving unfinished glasses of water strewn around the house, a washed-out baseball player, and some aliens looking like emaciated folks in green spandex suits) and weave them together in a bid to procure some artful twist to the story. It was such a poor attempt, it was almost beggarly. And if them hydrophobic aliens are dumb enough to try to conquer a planet that's 70% water, they deserve to be annihilated.

Joaquin Phoenix is about the only reason to watch the movie. He's great, and of course, extremely good-looking. Him, Edward Norton and John Cusack are the three best-looking guys in Hollywood, oh and Gary Oldman too.

As for Internal Affairs... well the first hour absolutely sent me to Snoresville... men decked out in ominous black suits and fancy shades sauntering about on roof-tops with the winds tossing every artfully styled tendril of hair doesn't make for scintillating stuff to me. But thanks to Tony Leung, I stayed awake (though I felt like the protagonist in A Clockwork Orange, I almost had to pry my eyes open to keep watching). But the final 45 minutes were pretty good. I didn't think that plot was all that but it still more than made up for a nondescript first half.

Movies aside, my eyes and throat have been dry and itchy the past few days cos of the haze and I was actually conscientious of my own breathing as it felt belaboured, even though I was holed up in an air-con room the whole day. The view from my workplace felt kinda surreal, as if a deathly pall that has cast itself over the city. My colleagues would do a sealed first-price auction every day to bid for the PSI reading, and the person with the losing bid, i.e. the one with the bid furthest from the actual reading, would be tasked with buying snacks and tea for the whole gang. The things people do when they are bored haha!

A pic taken from Raffles Place on Tuesday... the ECP was almost completely obscured by the haze, and it was actually worse on Monday.

World Trade Center Review

Watched World Trade Center with my colleagues on Monday at Vivocity. To be honest, I was hugely skeptical and half-preparing for a train wreck of a movie bellowing at full volume an almighty racket of jingoistic propaganda and gratuitous bravado.

The problem is, when one is presented with the material that is 9/11, there is just so much tendency to go over-the-top. Exploiting the tear-ducts. Fancy CGI schtick depicting the imploding inferno. Sanctimonious political commentary on good ol' Uncle Sam versus the evil Islamists. Throwing in dozens of cardboard cut-out characters with the emotional investment of a Hallmark card and then proceeding to make human chowder of them in a bit to solicit Pavlovian tear-jerky reactions from the audience.

But Oliver Stone (director) side-stepped political partisanship and kept sentimentality at bay in favour of an old-fashioned tale of courage, hope and love. It reminded me of an incident that took place after myself and a few university course mates had finished our last exam of the semester. We celebrated by driving to a town near San Fancisco and dining in a posh Chinese restaurant. The orders piled up fast and furious - all exotic big-ticket dishes like braised duck's tongue, abalone, snow lotus stuffings and the like - and when it came to my Swiss friend's turn, he chimed in innocuously, "Sweet and sour pork."

So instead of going for the high-octane, the holier-than-thou and the mawkish, Oliver Stone opted for a piece that's subtle and reserved, reductive even. And curiously, it works.

I'm not sure if I'm giving Oliver Stone too much credit here, for any human being with a modicum of respect would have steered clear of making a blockbuster outta wounds which still remain unhealed. But I like the movie, so I'll be nice.



World Trade Center depicts the fortunes of two New York policemen John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) on the fateful day. You probably know the works by now - they rushed into the building to save others, but instead ended up victims as the towers' structures buckled and caved in on them. Pinned under a heap of rubble, they exchanged perspectives on life, professions of love, a Starsky and Hutch theme song and tips on kitchen cabinets in a bid to keep each other awake from the sleep that they feared they would never awake. Eventually, they were rescued and viola! happy kisses all round.

Sounds trite, right. But by filtering out the extraneous and the pompous and instead focusing on a tightly knit narrative portraying the two cops and their families, Oliver Stone kept the storytelling intact and elegantly forceful. Had there been other attendant mega-themes - and 9/11 can easily cough up a few - the story would have frayed beyond measure and ended up a desultory salmagundi that is neither here nor there.

To add, the acting was superb. Even Nicolas Cage was bearable and at times, pretty masterful... or perhaps it was his grime-smeared face hiding the bad acting (sorry couldn't resist a dig, he freaks me out every time - and him growing a moustache just about makes him twice as sinister). Michael Pena was great as the rookie cop who compliantly asked for his Sergeant's permission to stop twanging on a stray pipe to rouse attention because he was dead knackered, and he played the role with child-like alacrity without being annoying or unbelievable.



The wives, played by Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal, were compelling in their own right. Bello's scenes were unfortunately interlaced with a fair dose of cliches, but I could overlook that. One of the most memorable scenes for me was when one of Bello's female friends almost had a neverous breakdown as a police car ominously loomed into view and parked outside their house, as she thought the police had come to tell her that her husband was dead. Methinks that's actually the scariest scene involving a police car ever.

There were a few scenes depicting a water-bottle-proffering Jesus, and whilst I could identify with that, my fellow audience certainly didn't as the cinema erupted in muted outbursts of incredulous "huhs" and sniggers. Quite frankly, those scenes could be done a little more masterfully but I'd was refreshingly surprised that they kept that bit in the movie at the risk of folks branding it a right-wing fundamentalist venture.

The sequences in the rubble were the best, particularly when all the two trapped men could do was stay immobilised as fireballs and errant pieces of metal rained upon them like hail and brimstone. The cacophony of clanging metal was so compelling, I felt repressed and actually recoiled in my seat.



There was one niggling bit though. An ex-marine, played by Michael Shannon, headed to ground zero to aid excavation efforts after declaring he was on a mission from God, and was eventually one of the key men who located Will and John. While I could believe the miraculous timing, what bugged me was the exaltation of Shannon's character as the chivalrous, all American soldier with the austere, staid mien. That characterisation skewed the movie into right-wing territory for me, and all the more so in one of the ending sequences where Shannon stood as a lone figure atop the wreckage and columns of smoke, a scene which felt like it had been pilfered from Terminator: Rise of the Machines. And suddenly there was a discomforting gravitation towards Good America VS Bad Islamists, a slippage which was unfortunate.

But in all, good movie. Go watch it.

Tags: World Trade Center, Nicolas Cage, Oliver Stone, Michael Pena, 9/11, Twin Towers

Weekend Musings

This weekend's been a very busy one. But for once I'm glad to say that it ain't busy with work. Well, there's still tonnes of work to be done and I'm gonna spend the rest of Sunday evening working on a policy paper but hey, at least I had time to rest. Today Pastor Jeff shared that we must be intentional in our growth and not merely expect earth-shattering events to swing by in our lives to give us a good kick up the arse (I'm paraphrasing on the arse bit ;P). Methinks I also gotta be intentional in my rest - cos work outstrips even the Energiser Bunny - the deluge of to-dos just doesn't stop. Well I figured that if that's a given, then rather than wishing and hoping that the work would go away or stop somehow, I'd better start thinking about how I'm gonna utilise my time more fruitfully amidst it all rather than use it as an excuse to procrastinate putting first things first.

Still Ain't Over My Mooncake Rant

Friday was the Mid Autumn Festival and our care group as well as Irving's headed to the Chinese Gardens for the lights display. The last time I treaded into the Chinese Gardens, I was about 6 years old. Unfortunately my second visit was kinda marred by the choking haze, some rude people we encountered as well as the big steaming pile of flagrant commercialism of it all. I was expecting the evening to be more acquainted with the Mid Autumn Festival, you know, the historical basis of the event or some of the quaint little traditions associated with the festival but what transpired were shops fleecing people by selling drinks at cut-throat prices, tacky displays depicting the Seven Wonders of the World and retailers like OSIM hawking their wares (beats me what has massage chairs, Egyptian sphinxes and A Bug's Life cartoons gotta do with mooncakes and lanterns).

Handicraft made from coloured dough.



Jon prepares to go Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre on the mooncakes.



That's the Taj Mahal in the backgound.



Jon, Taeko and myself with a blackened pagoda in the background.



One display particularly stuck in my mind. It was supposed to portray the Great Wall of China, but came complete with a phoenix and dragon thrown in for good measure. Ok, them two mythical creatures are paramount to Chinese culture so it's still not that incongruous. But there were also faint Egyptian-looking images plastered on the Great Wall, and their relevance I couldn't quite fathom. Top that with a crucifix at the apex and a swirl of gentle doves circumventing the display, and it was like a hodgepodge of Chinese mythical folklore, random Egyptian imagery and Pentecostal undertones all rolled into one. I gave up trying to figure the meaning behind that one, cos I realised I was just wasting my time.

Why can't people just enjoy traditions as they are, traditions? Why must they feel compelled to add some new twist (read: half-baked, preposterous schtick) to time-honoured and simple acts of celebration such as eating mooncakes, sipping tea and enjoying the unassuming effulgence from quaint little paper lanterns? It completely robs the soul from whatever vestiges of culture and respect left in the way we purport to profess pride in our heritage. No, now it's all about fleecing those hordes of dumb people who bother to turn up only to get roasted in the heat and crowds and steam in the ubiquitous artificiality of it all. It's ironic ain't it, that even though it attracted scores of people who turn up in spite of the haze, the event was very much bereft of meaning.

Leadership Meeting At Chris' House

On Saturday we had a leadership meeting at Chris' house and we had a quiz testing how well we really know our leaders. It's kinda like those celebrity facts quiz that feature on mags such as Smash Hits and Big (yesh, I used to spend my pocket money on them trashy British entertainment mags when I was in secondary school, plus countless copies of Shoot and Match for football fodder). A sample of the questions:

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?
A) Go to toilet. B) Brush my teeth. C) Turn off alarm clock (and so on... tellingly, nobody chose the "Say Hello to Abba Father" option! Hahaha!!)

Bottomline: Well, all three teams failed the quizes but I guess one takeaway is that leaders in church are just everyday fallible folks, and what I really appreciated was that they chose some hilariously and refreshingly honest answers even though there were the options proffering the standard, germane spiritual replies. I appreciate people being the genuine articles that they are.

Chris complains about the giant plank in his eye.



Sabre-toothed Tiger?? Heheh... not that his teeth are sharp, but that's the first phrase I thought of when I was trying to fuse teeth and tiger.



Elaine and her muah chee which she specially made for the meeting... good stuff!



A Complete Riot Of A Wedding

After celebrating Chris and Yihong's birthdays I nipped down to Harbourfront for a colleague's wedding. This has gotta be the most fun wedding I have ever attended. The novelty of having it on board a cruise vessel aside, the rambunctious and raucous atmosphere was terrific. Three reasons why it was such a smashing wedding:

1) One of the guests was my ex-principal who as a family friend of the couple's. And during the party the emcee had everyone standing up to do the Chicken Dance, which entailed shaking one's bottom and flapping your arms to some nursery rhyme tune. And I got to watch my ex-principal do this. It was freakin' hilarious!
2) I got to see my colleague's funky dance moves. He's really good!
3) When the emcee asked for 5 male particpants for a game, the groom's dad gamely volunteered. Cool, apart from the fact that the game involved the bride being blindfolded and having to feel up each of the guys' tushies to guess which one was the groom's. What a great way to get inducted into the family - feeling up your father-in-law's derriere haha! And in the end when asked to guess which pair belonged to the groom, the unsuspecting bride chose her father-in-law's instead. We totally twisted our insides laughing... it was a complete riot!

Re-Appreciating The Trifling, The Nondescript And The Banal

Well, that's just Friday and Saturday. Sunday, by contrast, was a day of contemplation. Not the typical kind of quiet introspective day - on the contrary it was a day of meetings, catching up with people and such so I was hardly alone. But along the way, my heart was tugged in myriad ways as we talked about having an all ladies discussion, promptings and teachings from God and reflecting on growth, both on a corporate and personal level. I took with me a miscellany of ideas and thoughts with me, but they're still not exactly cogent and methinks I need to mull over them more before putting them in writing.

But I realise I'm a lot more reverent in the way I approach church matters nowadays. I don't mean to dichotomise between church and non-church stuff, but whilst God can have different spiritual training grounds for different people, much of our growth is inextricably linked to our church and its community of people. So yeah... I'm much more ruminative and serious about certain things in my life nowadays, quite to the point that sometimes it brings fear, not a worldly fear, but a reverent, penitential and humbling type of fear. And a wariness against lapsing into the "been-there-done-that" mode and of treating even seemingly done-to-death activities like care group roles and Holy Communion with a flippant or jaded attitude.

I recall once while having care group in London, I was sharing for Holy Communion and my fingers grasped the tiny cup and I pondered what it means to be really having the blood of Jesus on my hands. Suddenly I was awash with an acute sense of reverence and I started to tremble. Not from scares or the cold, but the sort of trembling that comes when one's heart is seized by something divinely fearsome. And I knew it was not over the tiny cup of Ribena that I was trebling over, but that it was holy blood I was holding in my hands.

And now everytime I find myself reading the bulletin or texting messages or just doing something else during Holy Communion in church, I would use this incident to remind myself to put those things away. For we're not talking about an act which we have engaged in countless number of times and that we can carry out unthinkingly when blindfolded. It's an act which, if you really perceive the underlying essence, engenders trembling and an acute sense of reverent gratitude. There are days when it still slips my mind and I start whipping out my phone to text a message or something - but that fresh perspective that God gave me to regard even the most hackneyed act was, quite simply, as keen as a lance.

So that's where I am at - re-learning and re-understanding the import of the things we do - however trifling, nondescript and banal.

Tags: Mid Autumn Festival, Mooncake Festival, Mooncakes, Chinese Gardens

Barking Into The Microphone

It's been three weeks after the IMF and World Bank meetings and I'm revisiting it cos I wanna blog about just how exceedingly good God has been to me. Joy overflowing like too much ice-cream on a rootbeer float kinda good. That entire period was one phrase personified:

I can do all things through Christ who strenthens me. -- Philippians 4:13

I just wanna share one incident - out of many, may I add - that illustrates God's blessing in my life. I was sitting innocuously outside a ballroom waiting for my VIP to finish a conference. That day's schedule was particularly packed, and after that conference we had to zip off to another venue for yet another meeting. In the morning I was assailed by a barrage of questions from some of my fellow S2006 colleagues, so I was particularly enjoying the respite, and the phone stayed mercifully quiescent. Those days, I cringed whenever the phone rang =(. So there I was, sipping my glass of cold water which one of the organisers had proffered to me, and he even offered me a seat! Must be thanks to the fact that I probably looked like a sweaty cow in a suit gasping for air from all that hurtling around.

Suddenly, the phone rang. It was the driver. To cut a long story short: the car, which should have been parked nearby on stand-by to be activated once the conference was over to fetch the delegation to the next venue, was not available. No fault of the driver's, but it was then at a location that's about as far away from the hotel as the trifling distance between Earth and Pluto... well, to me at least. Reality pounded on my eardrums as I started making mental calculations on travel time.

Deep down I knew it was utterly impossible for the car to reach the hotel by the stipulated time, BMW 7 series notwithstanding. I was dead meat. No driver, no car, the conference was ending in less than 10 minutes and the delegation was bound to be late for their next meeting. I started whipping out my two mobile phones and simultaneously dialing two numbers - one to the transport hub, and the other to a cab company.

Me: Hallo hallo? Transport hub?? Can you arrange another limo for me?
Poor random guy #1: Huh? Why need another limo?
Me: No time to answer your question! I need another limo in 5 minutes pleeeeeshh!
*Switches attention to the mobile phone plastered on my other ear*
Me: Hallo hallo? Cab company? I need a Mercedes cab in 5 minutes at XX hotel!
Poor random guy #2: *in an infuriatingly polite and dawdling tone* Certainly, Miss Yeo. Would you like to have a normal cab if we can't get a Mercedes cab for you, please?
Me: NOOO!!! I want a Meerrrzzzzz!!!

And so I continued my conversations in a high-octane frenzy as the seconds ticked away. I called heaps of people - the driver, transport hub, cab company, limo service personnel, my S2006 supervisor, etc. I figured that I ought to get insurance payouts from the amount of mobile phone radiation that fried my brains and ears during those few days.

A few minutes later, and the replies came. No limo cos it would take 30 minutes to activate another driver. Cab was despatched, but there's a high chance it would be subjected to lengthy security checks before it could enter the hotel area cos it was not an accredited official car with the dandy car plates and all. I was completely stonewalled.

At this moment, the doors of conference room creaked open like a resounding, screechy death knell. Folks started streaming out and I braced myself to inform my delegation that there's no car (and for the possible resultant hair dryer treatment). But there was an cortege of press folks surrounding them and I couldn't burrow my way in. Finally as the crowd panned out I wanted to apprise my VIP of the situation but then some pow-wow looking dude in a dapper suit started talking to her, and he looked pretty important, so I felt it was not apt to interrupt.

I was then ushered away to the front and thought, well I'll make my way down these escalators really slooowwwly and hope to nick a moment to speak with my VIP. So the delegation started descending on the escalator but still, the VIPs were talking. I was now quite far in front and with the gaggle of folks surrounding her I was never gonna get my chance to talk (where on earth did these people come from anyway?).

Escalator coming to an end, and the delegation was heading for the glass door which led to the front porch where the car ought to be waiting. I thought, "Don't move forward anymore... there's no carrrr..."

Delegation proceeded past glass door, and stepped out into the open...

Just this very instant, I spotted a shiny black BMW coasting up the driveway. Really, it was like the sight of a lifeboat to a shipwrecked sailor. If ever there was a knight in an eye-blindingly burnished armour riding up on a noble steed with his sword unsheathed, this was the contemporary equivalent, surely. I wanted to hug and kiss my driver. But most of all, I wanted to hug and kiss God.

And so I opened the car door for the VIP and tucked the delegation into the car. They were all smiles. The whole process went on without a glitch - delegation stepped out into the open and right that very moment the car cruised up the driveway to pick them up. The timing was impeccable. It was so smooth... kinda like haircream.

Moral of the story is simple: God is in control, always. And them phone calls ain't worth the radiation.

During that period, I would fix up the next day's schedule before I hit the hay each night. There were myriad details to work out, right down to travel time, possible security screening, lunch arrangements and such. So I'd have a slovenly scrawl of a timetable done up every night, and then I'd endeavour to pray through the listof to-dos and events. Funny thing was, when I got down on my knees, my prayers always ended up being a wellspring of thanksgiving to God for His sustenance and protection rather than a lengthy supplication for the next day's events. In fact, when I finished giving thanks I'd get a prompting, "Now that you've thanked God - go to sleep! God would take care of tomorrow."

I guess in my strive for a flawless, indefectible order of proceedings, I have made the mistake of seeking even to dominate my prayers with what I want to see happen, how I want to complete my tasks and by when. I was preoccupied with reciting a litany of requests, hoping that the more prayer requests I utter, the less scope for things screwing up the next day. In the end, I ended up praying prayers saturated with myself - my worries, my concerns, my deadlines, my ideal outcomes and my worst-case scenarios.

And I sought to fight my battles with my own strength, quite oblivious to a phrase in the Bible that Jahaziel used to encourage Jehoshaphat and his people when the vast armies of the Ammonites, Moabites and Meunites were propelling headlong into war to fight Judah:

Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's. -- 2 Chronicles 20:15

Jehoshaphat's own entreaty quite neatly epitomises what ought to be the right response:

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. -- 2 Chronicles 20:12

In my feverishly assiduous mind which was swamped with countless to-dos and memos, I have allowed the day's exigencies to strew my attention helter skelter. I forgot about the heart of prayer - praise and thanksgiving, and aligning myself to God's will. Quite simply, I forgot to focus my eyes upon Jesus.

I don't mean to say that we should not present specific prayer requests to God. We should, and one of the joys of doing so is that you get to see your prayers answered specifically - like a tailor-made pressie from God. But our desires are really anxillary in the grand scheme of things. Prayer is not about us - it is chiefly and fundamentally about God.

Of this, I just want to end with a fitting metaphor from Edmund Chan's book, Growing Deep in God, and he in turn paraphrased from Leroy Eims, "God does not use a spiritual microphone, but a spiritual stethoscope when He hears us."

From now on, I'll stop barking with a microphone into God's ears and instead learn to pray Spirit-led prayers that pulsate with God's heartbeat. =)

Archive Of Favourite Posts

After a year of blogging, methinks some housekeeping is in order. Have been wanting to create an index to an archive of posts for some time, and finally, here it is. Am also linking this page to the menu bar on the left.

THE SILENT MUSE

The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. ~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

When I paint, the sea roars. The others splash about in the bath. ~ Salvador Dali

Poem - For You, And Goodbye
Haiku - Time
A Vainglorious Undertaking?
Artwork - Flowers
Poem - Glen VS Pila
Artwork - Samwise Gamgee
Poem - Tiny Hands
Music Review - Frightfully Unhinged Songs
Recording / Unearthing Old Pictures
Christmas Through A Child's Eyes
Top Crimes Against The English Language
Poem - Tripping
The Silent Muse And Some Grubby Drawings
Chronicling The Mind's Behest
Motley Ramblings
Jiang3 Hua2 Yu3
Chinese Translation Of My Blog

POPULAR CULTURE

Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it. ~ Mason Cooley

Chivalry Is Dead
Sautee Thine Eyeballs
Year Of The Dog (And Of Unfettered Daftness)
The Modern Cavewoman
A Purist's Rant

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Five days shalt thou labour, as the Bible says. The seventh day is the Lord thy God's. The sixth day is for football. ~ Anthony Burgess

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that. ~ Bill Shankly

Stand Up If You Hate ManYoo
South Park Footy
The Fellowship Of The Cup
World Cup 2006 - The Saneness Is Driving Me Mad
Azzurri To Beat Les Pensioners, But This World Cup Is A Damp Squib
World Cup 2006 Final
Blight To Vision - Football Kit Shockers
Eating My Words
The Good Run Continues: Blackburn 0 - 1 United

COGITO ERGO SUM

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it. ~ Henry Ford

It's on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly. ~ Claude Monet

I've learned from my mistakes; I can repeat them exactly. ~ Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore

Unearthing... Me
Big Soft Mush
Breakthrough - Internalise, Personalise, Characterise
Being Brutally Honest
Let There Be (No) Light
Pablo Aimar Or Cristiano Ronaldo?
Anachronism
Through The Looking Glass
Big Fish
Morose Musings
Miracle, Me
This Is My Life
Barking Into The Microphone
The Proud Man's Contumely

CARE GROUP & CHURCH

"I carry my own church about under my own hat," said I. "Bricks and mortar won't make a staircase to heaven. I believe with your Master that the human heart is the best temple." ~ Sir Authur Conan Doyle

The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will walk carefully. ~ Russian Proverb

Farewell B1 - Sentosa Weekend (Parts I, II)
Crabs Galore
Church, Interrupted
Hope Choir - the True Story
Healing Conference
A Kopitiam Christmas
More Post-Christmas Rumination
God's Classroom - Care Group
National Day 2006
WOMAD 2006
The Enclave Of The Wild
Traversing The Annals Of History And Watery Tunnels
Farewell Dinner For The Germans And Hope London Gathering
Catching Up
Singapore Biennale 2006

FROM THE COUCH

The television business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ~ Groucho Marx

Don't you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work. ~ Gallagher

Passion Of The Christ
Introducing... Jeff Corwin
Elliott Yamin And American Idol Bytes
American Idol - Totally Useless Post
X-Men - The Last Stand (Thank Goodness)
The Hodgepodge We Call Home
World Trade Center Review
Mars Attack
Introducing... The Thirsty Traveler

NO BORDERS

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~ Plato

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. ~ Sir Winston Churchill

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. ~ T.S. Eliot

The reason there are so few female politicians is that it is too much trouble to put makeup on two faces. ~ Maureen Murphy

Goodbye Lenin
No Borders
My Toilet Flush Is Kaput - Blame The MP
The Proxy Battlefield
Seeing The Method In Their Madness

FAMILY & FRIENDS

No man on his death bed ever looked up into the eyes of his family and friends and said, "I wish I'd spent more time at the office." ~ Unknown

Of Birthdays And Weddings
My Private Junkyard
Chinese New Year Musings
Dad
When The Curtains Do Not Fall
It's Over... (IMF and World Bank Meetings)
Mid Autumn Festival
The Most Back-Breaking Work In The World

WINDS IN THE SAILS

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust

If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. ~ Will Kommen

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. ~ Oscar Wilde

EURO 2004
Bullfighting
Thailand Missions Trip (Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI)
Siem Reap, Camobodia
Rock Of Ages, The Angkor Wat
My First Snowman and Old Photos Of Romania
Pulau Ubin
Club Med, Bintan
Melbourne and Hankering For A Past Life

Pui Ming's Farewell

Last Friday marked the last day in office for one of our beloved *much retching, wheezing and barfing into the nearest paper bag* colleagues, Pui Ming, otherwise known as PM Ho.

Well he's quite a fossil going by my company's standards (heheh!), having spent four years here. Beneath the goofy madcap exterior there's... hmmm... an even goofier guy? Ok, besides being one of the resident jokesters, he's also an incredibly helpful person (some credit is due after the many times I've pestered him with a litany of questions on risk-based capital calculations).

In fact, I find my colleagues a gregarious and jocular lot. During Sunday service last week Pastor Jeff mentioned that colleagues, or the human element in one's work life, can be a surprising recompense for other factors such as wages and job scope. I do enjoy my job, but not every day is a foray into Teletubby-land. When the deadlines were breathing down my neck like a smelting furnace, and work seemed to be stacking up on my desk by the truckloads, it was the offers of help and the plethora of inane jokes from my colleagues that kept me sane.

I recall back in the July/August period when we were inundated with projects and reports and were literally breathing outta a snorkel to keep from drowning. Back then we spent days chomping on packet lunches and dinners in the office (it’s sad, but breakfast was the only meal I had out of office those days, and it didn’t even last 10 minutes), making jokes that made me laugh till my sides hurt, and I was really touched by the offers of crisps, dim sum and other treats whenever we worked late. There’s this great feeling of solidarity (and shared suffering, perchance?)

Below is a sample of the wisecracking gags that go on in my office:

*Ian slams a drawer shut, which almost clips his left hand*
Ian: Omigod I almost lost my left hand!!
*Contemplative pause*
Ian: So does that mean I’m always right??
Pui Ming: A ten!
Cecil: A nine!
Peishan: Perfect ten!

Bryan: Yo, what’s up?
Cecil: (rapper-style) SFD… SFD…
*An in-house gag; we're on the 24th floor by the way*

Some pics of the farewell:

Lunch at Thanying's in Amara Hotel.



Now this one looks suspiciously like the scenes from Abu Ghraib.



Pui Ming's sizes up the banana chocolate confection from Awfully Chocolate. Their chocolate ice cream is superb - and this is coming from someone who doesn't even reckon herself to be a chocolate fan. Try it - you won't regret it. =)