Late Night in Punggol

Fat

I think it's important to remember that the word... "fat"... is not in itself hurtful; 

It's all the things that you attach to the word "fat".

Call me lazy, call me unmotivated, call me ugly, 

call me sloppy, call me unhygienic; 

call me all these other things that people associate 

with the word "fat"- that is not true.

The #1 Meme

The last one. Oh the last one. Yes.

My Flag

I designed this on the morning of Corrinne May's concert.

My own flag.

This flag represents me, and took years in the making.

(It's really difficult to represent yourself in symbols because you really need to know who you are and what you stand for.)

So here's what I have thus far:


Black symbolises God. I know it's not the usual symbol for God, but I don't really want to use a generic symbol like white to represent something that is so personal to me. He's a God that defies human understanding or representation, so I use the colour of the unknown.

The people remained at a distance, while Moses 

approached the thick darkness where God was.

-Exodus 20:21

I find God in the darkness. I'm closest to him when I feel fear; I'm attracted to the darkness for that very reason. Where there is real fear, there is real faith. God's the priority of my life and thus forms the top of my flag.

I will follow you into the dark.

The next colour is my favourite colour. Some call it magenta, some call it maroon; whatever the case, it's hard to put a label on the colour that represents me because I'm complicated. I like the colour because it's deep and passionate, like how I wish to be. It's positioned between the colour symbol for God and the colour symbol for man.

"I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall 

and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I 

would not have to destroy it, but I found none.

- Ezekiel 22:30

Turquoise is the last colour and it represents the people around me I'm reaching out to. Turquoise is the favourite colour of several of my friends that I've been helping lately (yes, my doppelganger's favourite colour is this). It also represents, in the long run, the marginalised and the subaltern whom I want to fight for.

All in all, the flag represents my relationships in life. God is head and he is my strength and motivation to help others. In a way I'm but a channel for him to reach the rest if you look at it from a top down approach.

We love because he first loved us.

- 1 John 4:19

From a bottom up approach though, I think that the turquoise, which compliments my favourite colour, also represents the life partner I seek, who will be someone willing to follow me into the dark, as I seek to follow my Lord in this difficult life I'm called to, to whatever end.

Nothing gets me...

...like a picture of the disempowered standing up to fight their oppressors.

On Sunday at service I had an interesting feeling

I felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be in this phase of my life.

I had been seeking God's direction for years, and although I have a long way to go to become the man I want to be, I felt that at this point in my life, I was on the right track.

It was an incredible feeling of relief mixed with satisfaction that I can only call...

Peace.

Meanwhile In Canada...

The Dark Knight Rises...

The Dark Knight Rose

The Dark Knight Rises was one of the best movies I've seen in my life.

No spoilers ahead.


It is not what you expect of a superhero film. It's not a story of a superhero.

It's a story about a fight much bigger than that.


I will blog more about the film's plot and characters more next time after more of you watch the film, but for now I'll just tell you why you should watch it.


The cast was incredibly strong since Batman Begins. But this finale to the trilogy by Nolan pushed the actors and gave them such a good script to work with that the range of emotions they could portray was incredible. The movie was no simple popcorn action flick, but something much deeper than that, because the actors were given the space to explore their characters, and they did that with such finesse.


Plot wise, this movie was so strong. I greatly feared for this movie after the successes of the first 2. How do you possibly top a brilliant psychopath that Ledger played? But Nolan pulled it off by shifting from a psychological maniac to a more sociological revolutionist. Now there are bigger things at play than just the 2 masked characters fighting like in every other movie.


The movie fit so perfectly into the other two that it felt like it was planned from the start to end this way; The 3rd film references the first 2, starting exactly where the second ended and picking up the pace from there. The last time I saw something this consistent was The Lord of the Rings, in which all 3 films were filmed back to back. This film was not planned for until long after the second movie was done, and that just shows the genius of Christopher Nolan.


This movie is worth a re-watching, unlike The Avengers, which was fun, but didn't make you think much.


And one more thing...

Cat Woman > Black Widow

More Memes

It was one of the most memorable lines in movie history.

"This is madness!" said the messenger of Xerxes.

And King Leonidas replies,

"THIS IS SPARTAAAA!!!"

And that was that, Hollywood history.

Then it got on the internet...

And then there was another line that the king was remembered for. 

It was his final speech before his squad marched to their deaths.

"Tonight, we dine in hell!" 

Hmmm... These seemed funnier when I didn't explain them.

Bleargh. Next week I'm not gonna explain the meme I'm posting.

A Blade of Grass - Brian Patten

You ask for a poem.

I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.

I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

Toy Reviews

I dropped by Kiddie Palace one day to see what are the new toys for kids.

The first thing that caught my eye was this set:

It looks so cool!

I mean seriously, a train set that transforms into a battle station for real?

This must cost a bomb man!

What?

Usual price - $119.

Current offer price - $15.


I was seriously considering buying this.

Oh the places my imagination would take me with an awesome toy like this!!!


Anyway... I found some cool new Batman toys.

The first was a Batman Nerf lookalike gun.

It's shaped like the grapnel gun used in the first Batman.

But it's way too overpriced.

Then I came across this...

Which is actually quite clever.

I would not have thought of using a mechanism as simple as that.

In fact I took a while to figure how to open it.


Anyway, those were some of the cooler toys I found.

The rest were just rubbish.

Corrinne May in Concert

Gardens at the Bay opened with 2 concerts.

I attended the second one with Corrinne May performing.


First, the Gardens at the Bay are incredible.

I mean seriously, what is this huge monstrosity that we've built?

We build giant man-made trees because we want to be close to nature but natural trees are too small and grow too slowly for our liking. Singaporeans like things big and expensive.

But I digress.

The concert venue was packed!

I really should have arrived earlier as this was a free seating concert.

I ended up way behind and the atmosphere wasn't all that great so far behind.

So the concert started with Corrinne May singing Love Song For #1.

This came as a surprise to me because I expected her to start with a bang. But i guess she was slowly warming up the crowd that was still streaming in from the city.

Her second song picked up the pace with one of my favourites from the tv show Chase that I so loved in my younger days, Save Me.


2 things hit me. The first was immediate.

Her voice live is exactly what you hear on her CDs. She's really that good.


The second thing took a while to hit me.

She sounds exactly the same live as on CD.

I don't just mean her voice.

Her song arrangement, her backup vocalist, her musicians... it sounds exactly like I'm listening to her CD. I'm not saying she lip-syncs - she definitely does not and her imperfections on stage show how real she is - but this is probably the exact same team that recorded the albums and they were playing in the exact same way.

It's not a bad thing, they were very professional in their musicianship, but I was expecting a little more for the price of this ticket.

The NDP rehearsal fireworks provided quite a beautiful backdrop to the concert and most of their bursts were timed quite coincidentally at the end of her songs. But more than once did they distract the audience from the concert itself.

The thing is, her concert was not particularly exciting. For one, she did all her songs exactly as we know them. For two... she was not a very charismatic person between songs and didn't work the crowd very well. And yes, after 6 or 7 songs, you begin to realise that all her songs sound quite alike, and most of which are slow tunes.

I got quite fidgety almost an hour into the concert. I didn't want to feel this way, but I guess it didn't help that I was seated so far back and people were not the most enthusiastic around me. So I too stopped screaming my head off between songs.

She had just finished playing 5 Loaves and 2 Fishes and began the piano introduction to the next song that made me sit up and listen hard. This was a tune I could not immediately place, but the moment she started singing her first line, I knew something was just about to happen in me...





This was one of her most powerful songs. And it brought 2 images to mind. The first was that of leaving my parents, as I had done when I first went to India alone. It was painful, but it was what had to be done.

The second image was from the movie that I had just watched that afternoon - The Kite Runner. I cried my eyes out at the end of the movie over the incredibly pervasive and debilitating injustice in the world. Fly Away brought images of the kite motif from the movie, along with the whole host of heavy emotions, back to mind.

And the two images came together to remind me of my calling to leave my family and this beautiful land of giant trees to go to where injustice is great and fight for the rights of the oppressed.

I said a prayer by the end of the song, recommitting my life to that call.


Then she started singing her next song...



Let me be Your instrument
Let me be Your voice
Let me be the reservoir
Where thirsty hearts rejoice
Let me be the hand
That wipes the tears away
Oh Lord,
If it be Your will
Let me be Your Song


Her words echoed my prayer a few seconds before.

I was very moved and felt so ministered to.

In fact, from that moment, I was at peace.

No matter how many more songs she sang that sounded the same, I loved every single moment there.


I think that's the way Corrinne May's music works. She isn't a performer in the true sense of the word. No, she's a singer-songwriter, and she's very good at her craft. But there's something about her music that goes beyond notes and tunes. She sings of life, and her songs grow on you and touch you over time. So at this concert she played her songs just as they were, just as is familiar to you, and in doing so brings you back the sweet memories that come with hearing her voice in these heartfelt songs.

She was no great performer, but she was far more than that. In reaching for something beyond this world, she let God use her songs to touch people's souls, as mine had been refreshed today.

This was something no professional band could do on their own.

I was glad I went for the concert.


And I'm sure I was not the only one touched;

No one left after the concert for a good few minutes, so Corrinne May came out and did an encore of the song I wanted to hear most:





It was a nice concert. Not a great one, but one that ministered to the soul.

I kept thinking about what I experienced today as I passed the great trees that had now taken on an alien form on the way out.

My first trailer mash-up

I saw how similar Transformers 3 and Avengers were.

So I downloaded 2 of their trailers, and put them together.




All in a night's work.

Memes

There are some Memes (pronounced meems) that are hard to understand.

But they are often rewarding once you figure it out.

It's like when you finally understand a joke.

Try figuring what this one is getting at:

I judge you,

More than anything,

By your ringtone.

Mom

I love how poignant that conversation above (that I found online) was.


Now for another one that captures the heart of every little boy...

Who wants to buy a new toy.

I was leaving Punggol Plaza after lunch...

...when a kid about half my height approached me.

"Excuse me, how much does that cost?" he asked, pointing to my waveboard.


I spoke to him for a while and he asked if he could try it out.

We went outside and I let him have a go.

He had one, but wanted to try out this other brand of waveboard I had.

He was quite impressed and thanked me.


As I got on the board to ride home, he asked me another question:

"Are you in secondary school?"

Almost perfect

The team leaves for Chiang Mai this morning.

One week ago, I took a flu jab at the SengKang Polyclinic. 

To be honest, I was surprised at how quickly it was done. The clinic had a lot of people but I jumped the queue and was treated by a friendly and pretty nurse. The jab didn't even hurt. 

Everything was going perfectly.

And then...

Oh the tragedy.

This guy is good

Ask you a question:

Do you think I'll make a good vlogger?

Me in real life:

The most tragic hero

...is the one who knows not if what he does is good.

What is a girl like you doing in a place like this?

Late night supper after fencing training at a little coffee shop near Holland V.

As we entered, I noticed a well dressed and made up girl with a nice figure and long hair queuing for food. I didn't get to see her face except from the side, but I could tell she was above average in the looks department.

I bought my food and drinks at another stall, and realised she was still queuing with her back to our seating area when I returned.

Curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see how she looked. So I went to the coffee shop toilet in front of her, knowing that when I came back out, she would be facing my direction.

I washed my hands and came out quickly. What I saw surprised me.

Her looks were as I had expected - she was pretty.

That was not what surprised me.


From where I was standing in front of her, I noticed most of the guys in the seating area behind her had their eyes glued to her.

Seems I wasn't the only one whose eye she caught.

It was actually quite a cute scene to see.


I wished I could have gone up to her and told her that she was pretty enough to make the heads of most of the guys behind her turn. I wanted to tell her because most guys would admire her from a distance without ever complimenting her and it was very possible she would never know how attractive she really was.


You know what? I could have done it.

I did something like that before.

But... I need some advise here.


You see, I'm so afraid that in complimenting a girl for her physical beauty, she might begin to feel that what is skin deep is the most important thing to beauty. This is what the world tells women, which i really don't agree with.

Is there a way to compliment her looks without making her feel beauty is skin deep? Or should I just shut my mouth as I have done for the past year or two?

Like a Horror Movie

Marianne and I were eating dinner in the living room when she noticed something crawling below the TV.

It was the biggest, baddest ant I've seen.

3cm long, big red mandibles, green abdomen.

Marianne asked me to not wait and get rid of it.

I took a picture and quickly threw it out the window.

It was scary cuz unlike a spider or a cockroach, this was an ant.

And ants... don't travel alone.


But this ant seemed to be alone.

I found no other like it around.

That was some relief.

I later posted the picture on FB.

Then... someone identified it.

Queen.

Queen. 

Queen.


It was the Queen of the big red ants.

It felt like the moment in a horror movie when you realise that the monster never left the house.

(It didn't help that I had just watched Prometheus that night.)

I slowly approached the TV cabinet where i last saw it.

By now... any eggs it had laid would have hatched.

I took a deep breath and yanked the cupboard doors open...

Music to my ears