wo de jia

another bout of autumn rain quenching the drought, recalling...

i see these pictures of a faraway home and think of kit chan's song.

jalan remaja, hillview ave.

tracks, mrt. jurong east.

pioneer fields

a college running track

p/s: is anyone able to email me an mp3 file of her english & mandarin versions?

fog in the morning

it was the same sight i saw when i first arrived last july. the heart of urban winter, the start of a journey. it comes full circle today. the near-beginning of winter, the coming end of the same journey. tilting at nine degrees.



it takes awhile to befriend the fog. the grey whorls of unclarity hides what's merely metres ahead. familiar sights are blocked from view and sometimes one has little access to what we yearn to see. but wait a while longer and the fog takes on its own beauty. an invitation to wrap oneself in cosy blankets or to cusp a warm cup of aromatic coffee. the streaks of black birds cutting the citylines. a single drop of dew on single leaves. wetness on the morning sky. the heavy yoke and gentle smoke of fog. rest in the guise of perplexity, loss, and its witness to new births.

untitled

Me

As in me first and gimme, the pronoun has gotten a bad name over the years. It's other people we're told we should be thinking about. It's giving to them. But taken all by itself - just me - there's something rather poignant about it. Only 2 letters long. Barely one syllable. It looks as though it needs all the help it can get.

"Love your neighbour as yourself", we're told. Maybe before I can love my neighbour very effectively, I have to love me - not in the sense of blind passion but in the sense of looking after, of wishing well, of forgiving when necessary, of being my own friend.

f. buechner: whistling in the dark

-pictures from pjcodac mount kinabalu expedition nov.2005

remembering james

a small tribute to our brother james. written by tony.

He sat at the forecorner of our class;

Quiet, peaceful and with a welcoming smile;

He did not speak much but when he was asked to share he shared his

thoughts of God and his wonders, that moved me;

I watched him and one day when i talked to him in person I came to the

light to know that he was a man of God, who was living his life in

simplicity and love;

He never brushed down a request nor did he complain;

He showed me life of how a christian should live;

I became his friend and brother;

We met up many times, drove in his car, laughed over home made juices

and meals;

He used to advice me many times to take care of my health by living a

healthy and holy life;

The last I spoke to him, he never ceased to empower me with words of

encouragement, he never complained,  never sighed even when he was under

medical attention.

Today a good brother has left me and us;

But he is dearly remembered by all of us for the life he lived among

us;

We know brother, you are with God and we are happy that God is with

you... you will always be with us as a brother friend till we meet you one

day.

james quah & irene momo

james and irene...who passed away yesterday and today. both after a long battle with cancer.

generous, loving & gentle people who love God and life. you loved and helped me, as you do with countless others, along the way.

i give thanks to all that we have laughed, loved and shared.

our prayers & support remain with the ones you leave behind.

eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and let Your perpetual light shine on them.
they rest in peace, amen.

doings: four in the morning

after a night of procrastinated constipated work. the plain idling. can't sleep. to sublimate my energies, i cooked bak kut teh at 4 in the morning. so good it rivals balestair street's.

picnic at edfac

one of those once a month mornings where one of the modules we're taking stretches from 5-8pm on friday nights and 9-5pm on saturday. colossal seminars. tutor's a nice guy. barry woolhead lookalike dr drysdale provides us with tubs of biscuits, bottles of milk and ready-made coffee and tea for the helping. feeding restless postgrad kids who can't sit still even at that age.

lunch was 1.5 hours long. we might as well bring our own -

each brings a dish. dynas with chips boiled egg and presvien, with her grapefruit salads. xing yee's chickenroast and kit nam witha lump of pure green grapes. simple. i kay-kiang. woke at 6. boiled rice the night before, chopped garlic and onion and dumped them onto pan with wodges of olive veges and anchovies. homemade branded goodness plus 6 cobs of corn to add a much-needed dash of sunshine to some darkbrown dish. i snipped the fried egg too for garnish. and don't forget the spanish oilves. tang of the morning.

sat on the grass. made easy. something we never did in s'pore (perhaps only in botanic gardens). s'pore grass makes backside itchy. aussie grass, luxuriant and soft. we were able to scatter and play with fallen maple too. the kind u see on posters about maine and yellowstone. a longheld dream. the same leaves of sun coming through.

deep root

If Judaism is the religion of hope

and Islam, a religion of faith, then

Christianity is the religion of love...

6th sunday of easter. sermon.

newman chapel

spiderman 3... wowww...wheeeei

utterly thrilled and what a wallop of a movie! the audience here clapped in unison after the film was over and all left the cinema satiated... and satisfied...intellectually. bloody-good end to a movie, the sum of all 3. I think it's the best of the trilogies offered. It even surpassed x-men in terms of the themes explored and issues probed. psyche. ethics. the greyzones of morality. i felt much empathy for sandman from the start and glad my intuitions proved me right to the end. him holding his daughter's picture in a brooch constantly, signified the stubborn thread of humanity even in the worse of criminals. and some say we are saved by whatever little love we hold on to the end. it's true.

spiderman leaping across the american flag was a colossal let-down. a show of mythic american heroism at a time when bush is the main pollutant to much of the globe. toby skimming the city streets cruising with rogue mannerisms brought the laughs. and that naughty hairstyle. still why should the female gender be portrayed as hapless and hopeless all the time? there's spiderwoman in marvel's archives somewhere. bring her in. mj shows a remarkable sense of resilience. she should be the mother of all mascots for kiwi bungee-jumpin. many people would have fainted 101 times the moment they fall from multiple storeys from on high but mj smiles and survives. pigs do fly in hollywood.

the subtexts of male friendship was a rare inclusion towards the end of the film. so is the image of spidey confronting a severed conscience beneath the steeple of the cross. an obsessive return to clear christian themes. a little more subtlety would have helped. the audience laughed in response on the gay subtext in the butler's statements to goblin junior towards the end of the film. they should laugh at the bible too when 'love' repeats itself, sometimes between a male preacher and a bunch of roughshod fishermen. moans of regret when dark peter pushes mj to the floor. muddied male chivalry. intelligence gone wrong.

still, can somebody say why venom is repelled by sound of toll bells and mentallic audio poles?

can't wait for fantastic 4...after the silver surfer, hope galactus shows his bright cold face and slams cocky human torch to the depths of earth's concrete floor. invisible gal and mr fantastic. their nuptial chamber. great. teasers galore. one may not see the other and the other not knowing what to stretch and hold! pshaw!