blood is thicker than water. anytime.

October 10th, Monday
wanna talk about something neutral today. every entry also talk about myself, even i also find it boring sia. haha. so shall talk about my family.

dad's a taxi driver. sole bread winner of the family. hardworking, self sacrificing, lives to provide. his idea of giving his kids a good upbringing is to provide for our daily living and to give us a good education. since i was young he would always tell me to study hard, excel in what i do because the best gift that he could give me was a good education and that i should treasure that and not take it for granted. he would remind me that he won't always be around and one day i would have to strike it out on my own, my education would help me to do just that. dad isn't too passionate about government, he's definately not a pap man, he's got this really cool pot belly, and his first reaction to a tight pair of pants is, "dear why you wash until my pants shrink". haha. yeah my dad's cool in his own way.

mom's a housewife. equally passionate and caring and self sacrificing in all she does. poor mom lives with 4 boys in the house. one big boy, one medium boy and two small boys. all these years she also never complain. when i was still a small boy, mom stopped working as a secretary(i think) to look after me. hee, of course mah. precious son. haha. in those days they had things called typewriters instead of computers and shorthand was still in vogue. mom was an expert typer. she could type a 10 page document faster than you can count from 1 to 10! haha. okay, not really. but she won a couple of awards in her company as the fastest typer around. dunno how many hundred words a minute. very fast lah. i rem mom saying that when she was younger she wanted to learn to play the piano because she liked the sound of it. but she didn't have the opportunity to learn, maybe thats y i was carted off to to learn the art of playing the piano when i was 8 or 9. child prodigy eh? nah. never really enjoyed it. although i have a grade 6. mom rules the house man, she cooks, washes, cleans, irons, folds, tidies, packs and organises the affairs of the house. sometimes i wonder if she morphs into an octopus when nobody is around. mom is always thinking of others before herself. she's always puts the family above herself, eat less food so that her 3 hungry monsters can eat more, wake up early to prepare breakfast and send these little monsters to school, go out and buy dinner for the hungry monsters when we are lazy and the list goes on. mom is great, i think she's the best mom in the world. (no offense). haha.

for a long time my best pals were my lego toys and he-man figures, playdough and ninja turtles. so you can understand my excitement when my first kid brother came out. i was so excited i went to help mom make milk, change the diapers when he poo poo, carry him, rock him to sleep, play with him, make a fool of myself just to make him laugh. (i was p6 then). haha. those were the days. then came along the other little monster, so now there are 3. (plus myself, that time still considered little lah. haha.) shall continue this entry at another time.........(to be continued)

what? ^%%$^@#$@

4th October, Tuesday
wah i tell you ah, this person really make my blood boil. really. first time ever, EVER i feel sooooooo hot in my life sia. and i din even see the person face to face. if he is in front of me i tell you. i sure give him one good KANA JI on the head. grrr. the person wrote the most out of whack thing i've ever read in my whole life, on his website and THAT really flamed me up man. its like i tell you, you know your mother right? the one who produce you? yah yah, that one. you know ah, i can prove to you using greek and hebrew words that she is not your mother. what you have believed in since you were born is all a LIE, is what the world has been telling you. so please open up your hearts and your minds and let the voice of conscience in your brain speak to you the truth that i am about to prove to you. walao! its like WAD lor -_-" knowledge of ancient languages very powerful ah, sorry lah i dunno, i'm stupid can? insult my religion, insult my beliefs, insult my intelligence, insult my church, insult my understanding of language!!!!!!!!ARGHH. wah i really buey tahan man. i read ah tay's blog that long email. i tell you the claims the guy is making is totally off! and i mean really OFF! its like huh? which bible you reading sia. the MOV one ah? My Own Version. no doubt he can prove this and prove that blah blah blah, and it is really convincing i tell you. but he prove already the conclusion also dun make sense at all. and after proving the only conclusion pple can come to is so not from my bible man?!! there's nothing wrong with my translation hello?! there's something wrong with your over doubting, over sensitive, over critical brain!

kay, calm down ivan. its been 2 days already and yur still hot about it?

YES I AM! i think it is irressponsible for a writer to make such claims and make it in such a convincing fashion that can easily mislead other people into believing the half truths he is presenting. OF COURSE I BUEY SONG LAH!!! grrrr. you tell me my mother is not my mother and when i ask you so who is my mother you say "DUNNO, but i just know she is not your mother" WALAO. the cheek of the guy.

kay, calm down ivan. don't make this a personal attack on the person, maybe he's made an honest mistake.

like that is waaaay no. i mean, i send you an email and ask you to explain the fishy part to me and you reply me with a cut and paste of basically every single article that is found on your website?! you think i'm dumb i can't go click the link myself to find the articles ah!? if i could find the answer in the mess of words you claim to be reliable articles then i wouldn't need to send you an email would i!! you know what? its as if the person is trying to confuse me in the mess of words he sent in reply to my query. like who replies an email that is worth 39 pages in a microsoft word document?! THIRTY NINE PAGES. font 12, new times roman. hello? i asked for a reply not a stoopid thesis for goodness sake. sheesh. some people, really have the knack of getting on my nerves.

kay. don't want to get a heart attack so young do you?

haha. okay, chill. hai. sigh. why do people like to complicate matters? why do they like to fish for sharks in swimming pools? why do they pick on the dirt in the sink that doesn't exist? i mean why are they sooo free to dig up contoverial matters and procede to spam their views on the internet. what happened to responsibility? sheesh.

in case yur still wondering why i'm cheesed of with this fella whom i've never met, here's why. he presents a half truth as the whole truth, supports the facts that favour his argument and conveniently ignore those that cast doubt on it. i can understand if you do such a thing in your own quiet corner, i still don't agree with it in principle but at least it only affects you. but if you paste it up on a website for all to see and claim that those who do not buy your idea are either A) blind, B) stuck in their ways, C) stupidly ignorant D) simply dumb, then i take offense to that. firstly you have been dishonest, secondly, intentionally misleading and thirdly irresponsible for trying to spread confusion. if yur a 5 year old kid who doesn't know better i can understand, but not from someone who claims to have done his homework for the past 15 years! i think all he's done the past 15 years is copy answers from the back of his assessment book. blehh. really cheesed off man. huff, puff, kay, i shall cool down now. grrr. buey tahan.....

ps: dear reader, please understand that when i gave the example of mother i din actually mean that those were the exact words that transpired in our email conversation. it was just meant as a figure of speech.

think of yourself less, think of others more

3rd October, Monday
in every person there are always many blind spots, whether you like it or not. faults in our behaviour and character that we choose to ignore or we rationalize away or simply never realize existed.

for example, a person who is naturally abrasive in his comments, if he realises it, may still choose to ignore the fact the he has such a problem. he may even rationalize it away by explaining that he is a truthful person and he can't help but tell the truth regardless of people's feeings. or perhaps he may not realise that his remarks are cutting and abrasive because it has been so much a part of him all his life.

then there is the example a person who is naturally lazy, if he realises it, my still choose to ignore it and continue to be lazy. he may justify his behaviour by saying that he was born that way, can't help it or he could give the example of people rushing around all the time in fast paced Singapore, not having time to slow down and smell the flowers and say that he doesn't want to fall into that trap therefore continues to be lazy. or perhaps nobody in his life cared to tell him that he has a problem with lazyness. all his life he has managed to clear his PSLE, O'level's, A'level's, Poly exams, Uni exams by slacking thru the term, studying last minute and getting away with excellent results because he is just smart.

what about a dishonest person, someone who has a knack for telling half the truth and getting away with it. he may realize that he isn't telling the whole truth and yet ignore it because telling half the truth always lets him get away with his mistakes. he may even rationalize his behaviour by saying "i'm not lying wad, still telling the truth but just a small part, not my fault that the other person go and make his own assumption. i din lie, i just didn't tell everything, even though i only mentioned one part of the truth, but still the truth right?" worse still, a person who lies through his teeth and does not know it. i seriously doubt such a person exists. -_-"

and you know what feeds this phenomenon? its when the person is self centred. anyone can justify basically anything if the reasons for his behaviour are selfish. but is this really the way God wants us to behave? selfishly? my school principal once quoted a famous man saying "don't ask what the school can do for you, ask what you can do for the school". being selfish means always asking what benefit you can get from something, someone, somewhere. to be unselfish means to ask what you can bring to a group, what you can do for someone, how you can help the situation, make things better. so clear is the distinction and yet most times we stop short at the selfish bit all our lives and we never move on to the unselfish bit.

which makes you wonder, if jesus thought selfishly the night before he died on the cross, where would we be? he could have snapped his fingers and disappeared into heaven never to be seen again, and he wouldn't have any problem justifing his actions because afterall he is the son of god, he could have saved himself and let us all perish, he didn't owe us a living and yet he did what he did out of unselfish love. are we then to model what christ has done or should we instead carry on living our own selfish, self centred lives. well, thats up to you to decide. ;)

disclaimer: i'm not trying to say that christians ought to be perfect please don't get me wrong. the writer of this blog is one perfect example of such a flawed christian. all i'm trying to say is this, think of yourself less, think of others more. its not easy, but everyone has to start somewhere eh?