Merry Christmas :)
So Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus. If I have to sum up what Christmas is, it’s probably spelt out as l-o-v-e.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
And that love is the force driving believers to share this good news, the joy, to the world.
Love is also very real, manifested in the people around us. Christmas gathers people who love each other together. Families, friends.
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matt 22:37-39
Results slash Mother’s Day
: 22 December.
Results were out two days ago, marking the really really end of my semester 7. I didn’t do as well as I expected, or I should say, the others apparently did better. But it was a good semester, still, I gave thanks and celebrated.. with sushi! I missed my cheap cheap decent sushi when I was out of Singapore. at 1$ a plate, it’s dirt cheap!
That day was also Indonesian Mother’s Day. The international one is in May right? Indonesian Mothers get celebrated twice a year, nicee.. I’m not sure why we have a different Mother’s Day, and so close to Christmas! Maybe it’s something to do with love or family gatherings, two things that are closely related to Christmas! My sis called at night and asked why I didn’t wish my mom, I really should have.
It was meeting SF’s Mother day too. Cute mother, good daughter, cute friend (me).
We went to see Doulos which is park near VivoCity, it’s a non profit bookstore on a huge ship that’s really old, traveling around the world and stopping at different cities. They have their own currency called units, 25 units = 1 SGD. Singapore is the last stop for this ship, they’re going to dismantle it and get a new one. Go and see to smell the history and get books at lower price!
Blue monkeys and humans
Watched Avatar in 3D last night. It was my first 3D movie!
At the start of the movie, the first few minutes was spent noticing and wow-ing the 3D effects (first 3D movie!). For the rest of the first half I was admiring the life and the nature in planet Pandora. It felt magical. Everything looked very very pretty in a bizarre way. James Cameron did a really good job here, in imagining all these and making them come to life in the movie. I guess they look much much better in 3D, all the magnificent colours and so-near-I-want-to-touch-it feelings (first 3D movie!).
The second half of the movie was kinda.. uncomfortable, to me. When the human starts to confuse his identity and lose the real one, when the heroes fight the bad guys who are OUR people (read: humans), when they touch on the spiritual, the worshipping and transferring of spirits. And I always feel some discomfort watching people (or/and non people) killing each other. In the movie, men were shown at their worst, all greedy, selfish and inhumane (when they are the humans), which is somewhat uncomfortably true.
Some people would say how Jake the human came down to the world of the blue monkeys was like the story of Jesus the Son of God who came to the world of men. They both were sent to “another reality” with a purpose, they blended in and lived the way the natives lived, interacted with and loved them, and saved the lives of the natives.
But that’s where the similarities end. The story of Jesus was far far beyond this science fiction. Jesus was good in His nature, He came with a good purpose, and He fulfilled it. He didn’t lose his identity, He knew exactly who He was and who the natives were, He was never clueless. And He died on the Cross, so His people may live.
The best part is, Jesus’ story was a True Story. Completely different.
After watching I actually got quite dizzy. A friend said it’s because we went to war with them (first 3D movie!) lol.
Weak yet strong
We had the Christmas Gospel Rally in church a few hours ago. Earlier in the day, we were informed that our pastor was not feeling well, too exhausted from all the traveling and all the preaching, and we were asked to pray for him. At such an old age, he still traveled to a few countries to preach weekly. He was having a pretty bad fever and flu, I guess he’s at a state where he could faint anytime, while he had two more services to preach in that day.
At the start of his sermon, I noticed how two guys from the choir, who were sitting on the stage, were suddenly positioned closer to him, just a few steps away behind the pulpit. It struck me how it could have been done to anticipate the pastor falling while he was preaching. He was probably that weak, physically. My eyes swelled as I again saw how he prioritised God’s work over his own interest, even his own health, and how despite being a spiritual giant, he’s still a created human being who needs prayer and support from others, from the whole congregation.
I knew a lot of people were praying for him the whole time he was preaching, it’s a spiritual battle indeed. The two guys who sat behind him were like a symbol of the congregation supporting him through prayers, and not going to let him fall. And he didn’t.
God did work once again. Soli deo Gloria.
FYPFYPFYP 4
“You will miss this period of doing FYP when you go to the boring working life.”
I couldn’t believe it when a more experienced friend said this at my most desperate, hopeless stage of FYP.
Well..
Stressful weekly meeting with professor, love-hate relationship with COMSOL, false hopes and true disappointments, long hours camp in the computer lab, shamelessly pestering my supervisor, complaining and whining in every way possible..
Maybe.
My childhood Christmas memories
I don’t recall when I found out the whole lie about Santa Claus, but I knew he did exist in my early childhood memories in kindergarten. We would have Santa with all the gifts in the school Christmas party, we even had the Black Pete, the guy who would put the naughty kids in his sack. I realised not many cultures know Black Pete, probably we inherited it from the Dutch. The whole thing felt real back then, I would never guess they were not.
Growing up, we almost always had a Christmas tree at home in December. It was really fun to set the tree up and to get new decorations to put on the tree. Sometimes the tree would stay standing til February simply because we were lazy to put it back in the box. Our piano teacher would teach us different Christmas songs to play which got harder every year. I still remembered how I loved playing Santa Claus is coming to town (I just heard the song this afternoon, and that’s why the post!).
We would also have Christmas celebrations, performances and masses in school, Sunday school, and church. Believe it or not, I was in the church children choir for quite a while! December would be a busy period where we would be practising for concerts and masses. I remember singing in the choir was not so much of serving the Lord, but more of putting on makeups, performing, taking pictures and running around backstage. It was always a lot of fun.
Christmas also means a long long holiday from school. The family would go to Puncak for a few days with some other families, or we would stay at home watching TV (lots of good shows on Christmas!) and eating my mom’s cooking.
And that’s pretty much what Christmas used to mean to me, aside from knowing that it’s Jesus’ birthday.
On distractions
Related to my earlier post, I read this to distract myself while waiting for my simulation to run in the lab yesterday:
“We live in a culture that does not value concentration. Distraction is the order of the day. Many will, for example, go through all the activities of the day and evening with the radio on. Some will read a book and watch TV at the same time. Most people find it virtually impossible to go through an entire day focusing on a single thing. We are the lesser for this dissipation of our energies.”
Was written by Richard Foster in 1989, still relevant 20 years later, especially with all the business of Putting the (Virtual) Spotlights on the Mediocres with the use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs (like this), which do not only distract users/readers, but also demand time to be spent for the not very significant stuffs more than they deserve.
“Constant distractions also make us stupid. Research clearly demonstrates that interruptions degrade accuracy, judgment, creativity, and effective management. The psychiatrist Edward Hallowell coined the term attention deficit trait to describe this phenomenon and found that it makes people perform far below their full potential.”
E-mail, tweets, and Facebook updates are destroying our productivity and our leisure
Now we all know why I’m rather stupid.
14 more days to Christmas, 26 more to FYP submission
Life pretty much revolves around FYP now, and I surprisingly find it bearable, in fact, quite enjoyable. I’ve always loved having my own time and space to work, and thank God for the many distractions that keep me sane. Roommate, SYTYCD (Ashleigh and Kathryn are my favorites!)/Scrubs/HIMYM/Glee, random people and random outings like a few games of Bang at The Dwarf House last night. Though I definitely need to know the limit, make these distractions worthwhile, and get back to work quickly afterwards.
I had a 5 minute consultation with professor this morning. Spent an hour contemplating to go or not to go while getting ready, half an hour on the bus to and fro, and less than five minutes actually talking to the professor. But I’m glad I did go and overcame my laziness (Yes I didn’t want to go because I was too lazy), the 5 minute meeting could probably have saved me from unnecessarily losing a lot, a lot of time that I don’t have.
