If you don't get what you truly need - then its obvious you are going to get what you don't want.

But some people don't know what they need or want.

Goodbye my friend

The main thing for me in the year 2006- was falling in love with my friend, CQ. This eclipsed all other events for me this year.

You know the person is right for you when you simply enjoy being in that person's presence.We enjoyed each other's company and even the silences between our conversations.

Unfortunately circumstances back in Singapore spun things out of control. I really should not have choose to go back and help a relative - who was beyond help. But duty dictated that I return.

Things got fubar after that. Due to my relative's influence I got sucked into the market in August and I couldn't pull myself out of the financial disaster of 2007 which have us totally exposed to the GFC train wreck of 2008-9.

I am a hopeless man. I didn't have the strength to get myself out of that mess. And CQ wasn't as encouraging either, even during the good times she kept on trying to break up with me. She didn't trust me fully. And she kept on assuming I would become like her ex.

I have failed her. But looking at the relationship now - maybe it was doomed to disaster.

We parted on a quarrel. Then exchanged text messages saying sorry. But my affection for her died that day. I stood in front of her car and she told me to get out of the way. I did and then I realised we were totally wrong for each other.

I wish her all the best and hope she finds a better man.

"Things you normally don't hear"

"Things you normally don't hear"

- I'm going to smuggle this pineapple tart through customs even if I have to hide it under an SIA girl's skirt.

The Bible and my Christian faith

Recently I went back to Singapore and worshiped at my old family church. Its a very old church - created a long time ago primarily to witness to the Malay people. But the Malay Christians were few in number and the converts were mostly Peranakan Chinese - Chinese people who had settled in the Straits Settlements and spoke Malay as their first language.

Some changes unsettled me. They had removed the old ornate church pulpit from its position in the left side of the sanctuary - cut off the small connecting staircase and the wooden carvings - and stuck a new simple plywood construction in the middle of the sanctuary.

Now I understand why they did that. In a lot of churches - they believe that the preaching of God is central to the Christian faith.

Personally I think that idea is in error. I believe it is the worship of God that should be central in the service. Moreover by alleviating the preacher's status - it is also giving too much emphasis upon the Bible and upon the preacher - ie its human centric.


We don't worship the Bible. We worship God the Father. The Bible should only be seen as a means to get to know God - not the focal point of the believer.

We read from the Bible how to pray - ie The Lord's Prayer. But that requires us to focus not so much on the words but on God.

Another issue is the whole idea of preaching - I don't know about you but I often find that most of the sermons are absolutely meaningless - a pure waste of time as we sit in the pews, staring into space while the preacher drones on and on and on and on upon some obscure theological issue or simply torturing the words in the scripture to squirrel out some facet or nuance that caught his idea.

I'd rather if the preacher has not much to say - that he just say a few meaningful words - and then allow the congregation to spend the next 30 minutes in silent reflection in the House of God.

30 mins? Most sermons run way way too long. I've been to some services where the sermons ran for over 4 hours - the preacher really didn't prepare anything to say and what just talking off the top of her top. They called it inspired preaching.

But was it inspired by God or by a human being's inflated sense of self-worth? Were they channeling the Spirit of God or their own ego?

I place great importance on the preacher - they are representing the mouth of God, the word of God incarnate and they jolly well better take that position with seriousness.

Unless the preacher has something really meaningful to say - and they often don't - I think most sermons could be done in 10 minutes.

The other major flaw in Princep church's preaching is that its simply too academic. It runs like a university lecture. I'm not sure whether they realize this but when Jesus preached - he kept the message simple - and he often used real world examples that his listeners could appreciate.

What really saddens me is that the preachers often fail to appreciate the gravity and importance of their position - they are speaking on behalf of God. When they speak nonsense or cleverly thought up academic dissertations on the scripture - they are just pushing people further away from Jesus.

Mysterious case of a missing diver

Although news paper reports claim that she was an experienced diver who had been diving for many years - apparently the number of dives that she clocked was just 50 - which actually isn't a lot. That's like saying a person who has driven a car for 50 hours in x number of years is experienced.

But I find this story of a missing diver particularly haunting - esp when I read about how they recovered her dive gear which was found all in one location - apparently stacked neatly in one pile. Then I read that it was her BCD, her air tank, her camera and mask/snorkel.... if this was the case then its not so strange. The BCD, air tank are connected together - the camera was probably also tied together with the BCD as its commonly done. The mask/snorkel are also attached. Divers who panic sometimes pull off their masks, esp if they get flooded with water.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/how-could-experienced-diver-karen-lee-simply-vanish-doing-the-thing-she-loved/story-e6frf7kx-1226426210415

Although the sea was calm - the visibility underwater was not so good - about 5m. 


From the Herald Sun

A YABBY in a tank on her dining table. An injured pigeon in a borrowed humidicrib next to her bed.
Stray cats - a black male she nicknamed Giovani - and a tabby that climbed through her kitchen window for a daily feed.
It seemed every time Karen Lee chatted to best mate Nina Gondos, there was a new animal tale.
The menagerie wasn't confined to the cramped ground-floor Preston studio where Lee, 42, lived alone, far from her homeland Malaysia, which she had left aged 14 when her parents split.
Once she came across a paddock with about a dozen sheep and, fearing they were hungry, returned each weekend to hand-feed them a bale of hay and two kilos of apples.
The toxicology officer at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine was also a trained snake-handler, a step towards her ultimate dream of obtaining a PhD in poisons.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURE: Exploring the sea was one of Karen Lee's passion. Source: Herald Sun

 

The job wasn't highly paid, but it offered her flexibility to juggle study and indulge one of her passions - exploring the sea.
"She lived in a tiny apartment, crammed full of belongings." Nina recalls.
"I never bought her anything big for a present because she had nowhere to put it.
"I think she loved diving because it was her escape. It was her way of being free and getting out."
SOMETIMES fate is cruel. There shouldn't have been any trace of Karen on a Dive Victoria trip to the wreck of the SS Coogee.
Friend Nina says Karen originally booked for June 24, but shifted to last Saturday when her dive partner cancelled.
They set out in perfect conditions: zero swell, bright sun, no cloud cover, a light breeze and water temperatures of 11-14C.
The group set off after lunch at Portsea. At 2.25pm, splash. In they went.
By 3.15pm, Karen Lee had vanished.

Police divers finally found a neat pile of her gear the next day, resting on the sea floor 30m down, about 50m from the wreck.
Karen's single air tank, a weight belt, and buoyancy gear sat atop each other, with visible cut or bite marks hinting they'd been gnawed by marine life.
Still attached were a camera, a furled inflatable "safety sausage", a lead pencil, and a slate marked with the pre-dive plan but no other messages.
A mask and snorkel lay about 4m away. There was no sign, though, of Karen. Or her thick wetsuit. Or her flippers.
The pile baffled Acting Sergeant Ryan Hartshorne, of Police Search and Rescue: "I've never been down to find someone's gear and they're not there."
Photos from her camera show postcard-perfect shots of her adventures - coral, the shipwreck, fish and other marine life. But not a single frame of her.
MARCO Di Leo was resting on the deck of the Ocean Diver when the alarm was raised.
Karen's bewildered dive buddy reported seeing her just two arm-lengths away from him, at a resting point about 8m from the surface.
Mr Di Leo and another on the ill-fated trip, Kylie Sargent, were the only ones with enough air and experience to jump straight in and begin a search.
At best, Mr Di Leo hoped he could help rescue Karen. But he was also prepared for the possibility he might have to drag up a body.
With their own clocks ticking before they ran out of air, they trawled along the shipwreck thinking Ms Lee had become caught on it or some coral.
Out of air and out of time, they surfaced with no clues.
Soon three boats, a helicopter and more than 40 pairs of eyes scanned the still water as their minds turned over the possibilities.
Had Karen had an equipment failure? Had the occasional asthmatic suffered an attack or another medical problem? Become disoriented? Lost buoyancy? Been snatched by a shark?

EXCLUSIVE PICTURE: This was Karen Lee's favourite holiday snap - a playful kiss from a beluga whale. Source: Herald Sun

Searchers scanned the sea for hours on end but reported no signs of blood, wetsuit or any other items on the still surface.
Ms Sargent sat with Karen's distraught dive buddy - who has since been questioned and cleared by police of any involvement - for much of that time.
"We wrapped him up in blankets, put him in dry clothes and I put my arm around him," she says.
"I couldn't say everything would be all right because we knew there was a chance it wouldn't be."
NINA Gondos met Karen during the Black Saturday bushfires, when the Wildlife Victoria volunteer helped rescue koalas from burnt trees.
"We worked up to 16 hours a day, and at night she would study in her tent," Nina recalls.
Helping people and hard work were her nature.
The day after the ill-fated dive, Karen had promised to help a friend scrub the deck of a boat in Leongatha.
The committed State Emergency Service volunteer spent four years with the Northcote unit assisting at countless home and flood emergencies.
Come this week, her SES comrades were called on to find her.
They walked for kilometres looking for her with a belief her body has been washed up on a local beach, even using excavators to move seaweed.
SES unit controller Chris Patton told of their heartbreak for a staff member so keen she rang up and offered to work even when rostered off. "She has done the same SES beach searches in her time and it was quite emotional and moving to watch SES members search for one of your own," Mr Patton said.
SOME people live for animals. A dog to cuddle or a cat to stroke. The pet yabby in the tank on Karen's dining table - which some of her SES friends have now vowed to adopt - was a replacement for another that died.
A particularly treasured item was a photo, taken during a work trip to the US, of her cosying up with a rare beluga whale. Her face beamed with delight as the majestic white seemed to lean close for a kiss.
Another favoured possession was a ring with her name written in Egyptian, virtually her only piece of jewellery, stored in a ceramic, shark-shaped box on her desk.
Nina is adamant Karen wouldn't want a witch-hunt or a blame game over her death.
"The last thing she would have wanted is for anyone to be blaming a shark," she says. "Animals were her life."

 More information here:
 http://www.australianmissingpersonsregister.com/KarenLee.htm

Hobbit: Unexpected Journey - Misty Mountain Cold

In short: I liked it. I didn't think it was too long.

Based on Tolkien's first Middle Earth novel: Hobbit - it incorporates other stories from other writings and notes by Tolkien so please don't get your knickers in a twist just because so and so character appears in the movie but not in the book.

I watched the movie twice already.

And above all I love the haunting music which took part of its lyrics from the Dwarf's song Misty Mountain Cold.

Here it is in its entirety:

Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold

To Dungeons Deep and Caverns old

We must away ere break of day

To find our long forgotten gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There lay behold a gleaming hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

 
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

The Pines were roaring on the height

The winds were mourning in the night

The fire was red, it flaming spread

The trees like torches blazed with light

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

Beautiful things: Hand drawn calligraphy of Silmarillion

Beautiful things are a joy to look at. They lift your spirits up. They fill your mind with positive energy.

I read this online- a graphic illustror decided to do a calligraphy book of the Silmarillion for his thesis project. I think its just so beautiful.

You can read it here. Below are two works done by the artist: Benjamin Harff. All praise to him.