Entries for October, 2005

October 3rd, 2005

wuxia affair

watched condor shooting hero last saturday.. well i know i made the rite choice, better than watching Man Utd winning at craven cottage..
top-down list from my most to least fave when it comes to jin yong's trilogy::
1. heaven sword and dragon sabre
2. return of the condor heroes
3. condor shooting hero
er not sure bout the english title translation but well..
so guo jing's story is the one i dislike most for some reasons:
1. the intimidating presence of guo jing's blind teacher who never taught him much anyway.. grr.. that man is a total headache
2. yang kang is the worst opponent you could face when you are guo jing.. yang kang would be history much earlier had he faced linghu chong
3. i couldn't and still can't stand the sight of hong qi being bullied when he suffered from some inner injury or poison (can't remember) towards the end of the story..  well at least he didn't die..

but all the same time.. here are some reasons why i think condor shooting hero is so unique it shouldn't be compared to any other novel

huang rong is the only smart, pretty, and all-knowing woman who fall in love with a man who has nothing. guo jing did turn into the most formidable person in central plain but when she first decided to love him, guo jing was simply an honest (or dumb) man. he doesn't has yang guo's charm, or linghu's playfulnes, or wu ji's good look.  what did huang rong see in him? 

xiao long nu, though for good reasons, turned yang guo into a lost man who could think of nothing but finding his beloved teacher. zao ming, though wu ji's lack of leadership quality didn't help, cost wu ji his credibility among the ming sect members and in the end, wu ji chose to walk away with zao ming instead of leading the sect to drive mongols away. of course none of these women were at fault but compare them with huang rong...

huang rong is the main and only key to guo jing's impressive rise from a nobody into the great hero who guarded xiang yang against mongolian's invasion times and again. hongqi didn't teach guo jing his xian long shi ba zhang just bcoz guo jing was a good man.. he taught him the skill because he like them both so much.. wu mu yi art of war wouldn't be put into good use if not for huang rong's brain.. together they are the perfect combination.

ah so much left to say but enough blogging.. back to work..
 
Posted by phoenix_chix at 05:26 PM | Add a Comment

October 7th, 2005

haeh..

I don't know why people commit suicide. Giving up? Escaping? Hurt? Or simply, too weary to carry on.. all of which probably mean the same really. But I can feel for them. I think sometimes you are just so eager to push the abort button. Abort everything and let everything end.  But then, I guess it makes you look bad when you end it with a suicide. Don't you want a glorious death?

Maybe life won't hurt that much if we don't put on too much pretention. Cut the act. Spill it out. Looking good on the outside is hard when you are crushed inside. Why try to please everybody? But pity yourself not. You can be sad and weep and strong at the same time. But self-pitying makes you weak.

And letting go, ain't that hard? But if he has to go, he has to go. I've seen fathers leave, mothers leave, husbands, or wives, or children, and yes.. friends.. Not everyone stays forever with you. Not everyone says proper goodbye when they go. Some are meant to vanish in thin air. Some are meant to leave you with seemingly incurable wound. Probably I've grown into a cold being but I do really think there's life after every goodbye. So I told her 'Fear not. You'll be fine when he leaves.'  I don't know how much she believes that.

A friend once said 'It must be hard on you'. Well I don't know. I guess I've practiced so hard to nullify all the pain, so much that sometimes I feel numb.

Maybe a partner is what it takes to stop this wall from getting taller and stronger. Or maybe that partner will never come. Whatever.



Posted by phoenix_chix at 10:17 AM | Add a Comment

October 11th, 2005

should bloggers be jailed?

the two poor sporean bloggers finally got jailed for their racist remarks.. i think the malay girl was right for reporting them, i think they should've realized that they are living in SG and not US, they should've taken more measure in blogging.
but i think the government was wrong for jailing them (geez.. will i get into court for criticizing the govt.. now people really dunno what not to say or write..)
govt should've exposed their blogs, bring them into the spotlight, put together a discussion panel and ask them why they wrote such things.. govt may got more insight into current's society if they do that.

shutting them up and jailing them will only stop people from putting up racist remarks on the webspace, it won't stop people from being racist towards each other.
what's the point of looking good on the outside? we should've addressed the root issue instead. the inter racial harmony sporean are so proud of may not be that solid anymore, though it's still there. 
one thing i hate from our eastern culture is our hesitance to tell the ugly truth. we love to wrap it with nice words and warm gestures. but u can't hide the truth forever.
so when eastern turn bitter, they are really bitter.

i dunno.. maybe spore govt are happy with sporean who juz zippy their lippy when it comes to the so-called sensitive issues (and i think those who think race is a sensitive issue are racists) and pretend to be happy with everything.. 
pretention is apparently of so much value to this world. sad thing.

Posted by phoenix_chix at 12:13 PM | Add a Comment

ops.. how to what to.. brrr

my almost perfect camouflage of hardworking and intelligent developer is about to be exposed.. this is no good.. no good.. im gonna enroll in 2 days apple developer training with my colleagues and i guez, my supervisor.. oh no... checked out the training schedule, apparently its more than juz talk n eat n talk..
the first day got 3 hrs plus 'Coding Time' session nailed into the schedule, the 2nd day is even worse, almost whole day 'Coding Time'.. gosh.. what to code !@#$%
i'm fully depending on google to code so far, almost 50% of the stuff i wrote, i dunno how it happened and why it worked, i only follow the sample, tweak here n there and tadaa.. magic.. or shall i say miracle?
now if i were to sit there, and code.. i dunno what i'm gonna do..
oh this is the suffering at its purest form..

then i asked my supervisor, what to prepare.. n he said 'juz ask questions u want to know about cocoa'..
and thats gonna be worse.. while people come up with the issues such as how cocoa perform in intel-based mac machine, i may come up with issues such as 'how to do drag and drop?'.. so i think i should adopt silence strategy.. people will think u know everything.. maybe i should yawn for several times during the training, that makes u look all-knowing..

ah well.. this is a big hurdle.. Ur helping hand gonna be badly needed my Best Fren..
maybe we shall start with the big question of how im gonna wake up early to reach yio chu kang by 8 AM!!! such an ungodly hour..

but this will turn good, this must turn good.. come on God ^^
Posted by phoenix_chix at 05:32 PM | Add a Comment

October 12th, 2005

should corruptor get death penalty?

ah.. i'm getting political lately.. well can't help it.. love life ain't blossoming.. wat to do..

juz read an email from an apparently smart lady in our mailing list, she was replying to someone who claimed that corruptor should get death penalty in indonesia.
she said, death penalty is too good for the offender, the offender should instead be jailed for life, enduring life without clean water, decent food etc etc (which i assume gonna drive the person into suicide anyway).. or get the person to work for the poor (another suicide motivator).. or cut off part of his body (began to sound like the european's dark age torturing).

the whole idea was to expose the corruptor's suffering to the public to emphasize the law's strong stand against corruption.

i dunno.. something juz dun seem right to me..
might as well punish him to death.. why torture human in such a way?
my and ur dad might got no chance to get involved in corruption (too bad hor..), but u see.. most corruptors also got family.. 
yes.. probably consisting of glamourous wife who couldn't care less bout the poor when she shop around orchard road.. and children who drive sport cars and spend their money on drugs..

but when it comes to seeing their husband or dad being tortured for life in such a way.. i bet they will still be hurting. ain't u planting an everlasting thorn in their hearts? hang the offender and let the family live on, would u?

'but if such torturing would stop others from even think of corrupting.. ain't that worth it?'

i dunno.. i'm not an all-knowing sage. but imho, either you give that person a real 2nd chance or nothing. to live on without hope is worse than dying.

'yes.. that's the point!! to make him suffer like hell'

i dunno.. i juz think that forgiveness n love is what it takes to make this world a better place, not sadistic torturing.. well i might be wrong..

Posted by phoenix_chix at 04:47 PM | Add a Comment

October 17th, 2005

What are you looking at?

*yeah.. ultra long blog on monday morning

This is not bitterness, this is called 'yearning for the truth'. This is not judging my fellow Christians, for I am not anywhere better than them, this is simply stating the truth. And nothing that I say here shall change or even discredit the God we have been worshipping together. If anything, it goes to show the grace of God in action.

Once I was told the apparently widely known story of Mahatma Gandhi's interest in Christianity. Jesus' love and teaching deeply impressed him and inspired him into rallying for the non-violent movement. The story goes that he once wanted to enter the church and join the service. But the church at that time had strict dressing code where men had to come in nice suit or something like that. Obviously we all know what Gandhi wore everyday and he was denied entrance into the service by the ushers. It was THE RULE you see. And that was the first as well as the last time Gandhi ever tried to come to church. 

I don't know how true the story is but I am certain that there must be many other Indians who tried to come to the church and got rejected for what they were wearing. It seems laughable that the so-called redeemed people were acting like some Pharisians Jesus despised the most. Of course I am not gonna find such act in my Holy-Spirit-filled church, am I?

Er... not so.

I was asked yesterday to go up on stage and give some announcement regarding our Youth Ministry's event. And representing youth service, I should look like youth right? So I just came in DECENT tshirt and jeans. I went over to the brother in charge and told him that I need to make announcement. Unexpectedly, or maybe expectedly, he told me:
'I can't let you go up on stage with this attire. I can let you on any other Sunday but today we've got our Pastor X (the so-called CEO of my church) preaching. You have to change your attire ( by that he means suit on top of my tshirt as minimal requirement)."

My friend offered me his suit but I was too disgusted (yes God, I am sorry that I am still disgusted now) to even think about obeying that. My youth pastor thought that RULE was ridiculous and he told me to just go up with my original attire. I ended up going up on stage without any suit on and man.. I could see his face boiling for few seconds. Again, I am sorry for enjoying that moment. 

When I got down he said to me 
'Who allowed you to go up just now? No, you can't go up on the next service unless you change your attire.'
And for the fun of it I asked 'So I can't go up?' To which he replied in annoyed tone 'No'.
And that's it for me. I let my emotion control me and I just walked off and decided not to stay inside. God wouldn't like to see me in that condition.

My youth pastor tried to console me and reminded me that we thrive in persecution. I've been thinking since yesterday and I really think it's one thing to persevere but it's another thing to let such Pharisian RULES stay in this church. Some people just walked away the way Gandhi did. Some people just tried to understand and adapt to THE RULES. I won't. I would rather talk it out and be thrown out of my church for doing so. I would rather do it Martin Luther way.

Yesterday I said in emotion to my friend 'I won't bow down to such rules'. Today I say with pure conscience 'I won't bow down to such rules'. Yes I won't. 
But there is no point in confronting that brother, arguing and ended up with bitterness. What I want is to see my church learn from mistakes and get better. There is a time for everything. There is a time to stay silent and there is a time to speak out. God's time. I will find a good time to talk to him and reconciliate if possible.

I remember the story of David who danced naked with his servants as he brought God's tabernacle back to Jerusalem. I couldn't imagine what today's suits and ties churches gonna do to him. They could probably go further than his wife did. But David knew he was glorifying God in his nakedness. And his wife, for all her pretty gown and dress, weren't. And David knew you don't go to the Pearly Gate with suit and tie. Worldly speaking, you walk into the heaven naked. 

Just remember that no matter how disappointing your fellow Christians are, never let them be the reason for you to walk out. They need you and they need God. And if anything, we have all been called and redeemed by the sweet grace of God. Forgives.. ah.. that's the magic word.
Posted by phoenix_chix at 09:47 AM | Add a Comment

October 18th, 2005

hepi betsdeii owen!!!!

ya.. she wun be reading this blog actually but still, heppi betsdei wenn!!!
owen is a super nice and frenly sister of mine, in Christ, who is crazy about peter pan's vocalist, ariel, n is having her birthday today. as usual they celebrated her bday yesterday but i didn't join them as my longlasting flu is still attacking me.. o God.. enough of flu please..
i guez they really impressed her judging from her msn nick today n ya.. she deserves it... 
pray that all ur dreams come true ya !! ^^

4 days ago, was vera's bday. i went over with joan n cha2 n well.. we planned to tie her up n then do all kind of stuff to her, by that i mean throwing egg, pouring our magic mixture of egg n flour n etc etc on her head n other decent stuff la..
but we didn't tie her up tightly so she managed to escape n in the end, she was the one having fun, stealing our eggs amunition and chasing after all of us.. she looked really funny and girlish n yes.. pretty.. did i mention that she's one of the most impressive girls i've ever known?
Posted by phoenix_chix at 10:56 AM | Add a Comment

October 19th, 2005

october sky is

beautiful...

so calm, so lonely, so cold... imagine what it looks like in a four-season-country. must be mesmerizing. 

but not all is nice n well with october, i've spent 1350$ to date !@#$, it's few days past the half month and i've spent that much.. this is dangerous.. need to activate my budget conciousness.

anyway.. realized that i found myself very often amused by the so-called family n frens who gradually dispersed, distance growed n we walked our own life n we are like strangers but for some 'hi' n some fun we have occasionally.. but no one care for anyone beyond that.. but life rolls on.. n on..

the next crap has arrived:::

----- october sky -----

the wind blowing, a bit unusually cold,
october sun looks sad, too much cloud suffocates,
the world in slow motion, everything turns black and white
wonder what it's like seven hundred years ago

maybe they were also searching and waiting,
maybe they also thought this world is too boring
but maybe they know not the moon isn't as beautiful
and the stars don't fulfil our wishes after all

i thought i wanna sing of the october sky,
and pretend that i have much to think of
but i closed my eyes and it haunts me yet again
the thought that all i want to sing of is you




Posted by phoenix_chix at 10:21 AM | Add a Comment

October 21st, 2005

an apple a day

so my worry turned out to be yet another pointless thought.. these 2 days apple training turns out to be far from being tense n scary.. i spend these two days trying hard to kill time simply bcoz i got NOTHING to do.. 

can't reveal what we are doing here out of respect to whatever agreement i've signed yesterday but well.. this is really boring..

n of course i prefer this haha..


there's this very nice apple philosophy that i gonna quote here but next posting i guez.


it's strange how life works.. very often, when u r so confident that things will be fine and under control, problems arise n u r left scratching ur head..

yet when u r so nervous n fear for the worse, things turn out fine n again, u r left scratching ur head..

after a while u do find out that the best approach is to be calm and composed..

avoid being so confident that u think everything is under ur control (guez God prefer us to remember that He is in control)

n at the same time, avoid being so worried that we can't be sure whether God will deliver us thru it all (coz God will deliver us after all)..

not easy really..

Posted by phoenix_chix at 02:38 PM | Add a Comment

October 24th, 2005

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

thank God the Youth Nite 2005 is finally over. 
thank God for sending me such a capable team 
some pic of youth nite 2005 here : xanga.com/sil3ntprayer

iot n rachel were awesome MCs, really appreciate rach's effort to come despite her mum's sickness..

felix n bella were equally great as gamemasters, the banana surgery is really fun!! oh n bella is one of those who will be leaving SG.. my first n last opportunity to work with her though we've been in the same church for years, a very nice n modest person she is just perfect. 

thx bonar for the really nice trophis though i win none  n thx for the 'revealing' pic u accidentally sent to me, i still kept them in my gmail bro 

n rita n meli for taking care of the most important thing in any event, da food..

n anchiang for taking care of the votings n hey.. perez's drama were really hilarious

rut n lena for ensuring that we got the 6 FAs performing, whats Youth Nite without the performance? oh and FAITH came out as the winner in the talent show, congratz guyz!

n who could ever forget the bold red banner on the stage, kudos to vera n others who painted that


n a very very special thank you to the person who
1. come up with such a sweet theme: Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I am Yours
2. n also the idea of giving out wristbands with cool writing: 'i am yours'
3. n that super cool Flash advert which i couldnt put up often enough to justify the effort the person has spent to make the advert, sorry bout that 
4. n calling up people, help out with the banner, get all things done, even till the day itself, never stop getting involved 
5. n breathe that air of confidence i never had in managing such event. u make me believe that i
could really do it. but then maybe that's because i know u are there to cover my 
6. is simply inspirational

that person is no other than my co-leader in charge of this event, Joan, who i never knew well before but after all these, i found out to be just as impressive as her best friend who i mentioned few blogs ago, vera. i owe you one, sis'.

*******************

still on the Signed, Sealed, n Delivered theme, i've got great news. my dad got baptized today!!! yay!!! finally, 4 out of 4, God has delivered my family!! n what a year 2005 has been.
it took lotsa pain, and even now we've got a huge problem in our hands. or maybe few huge problems. i don't know. i can't imagine what kinda twist and storm we will encounter later on but.. i know that when my household belong to the Lord of Host, I can sing 'my Deliverer is coming.."
so, be strong mum, n dad 

after all, this family has always been storm rider 
Currently listening to: jay chou - xing qing
Posted by phoenix_chix at 10:29 AM | Add a Comment

October 26th, 2005

pulank indo!!

so.. lusa pulank indo!!!! ga excited ampe gimana2 jg seh.. cuman emank lagi bosen kali ya di sg, pengen pulank bentar buat have some fun. tapi.. pembantu juga mudik, ga bisa ngerasain idup sebagai 'tuan muda' d di rumah   nvm, tetep semangat!! 
tetep bisa karaoke murah, tetep bisa makan macem2, tetep bisa ke bandung.. cuman ga bisa maen bola pagi2 ama si ceph n pulank dgn baju, celana, n sepatu berlumpur.. mesti cuci ndiri !@#$

oh ya, cerpen bagus hasil karya linda::
http://rumahlinda.blogspot.com

jadi makin percaya myer-briggs thu cukup akurat, somehow kalo baca blog linda, rasanya thu 'gua bangett'.. gitu. eh tapi gua blom bisa nulis cerpen sebagus itu. nulis cerita silat aja ngadat mulu. kurang motivasi. anyway kita sama2 INTP, sebangsa ama er.. Einstein dkk kynya.

kemaren cel group gabungan, quite fun, quite miss the time kita maseh bareng2, skrg seh keliatan bgt uda ada that separating line. that's life kali ya.
the fact that temen2 seperjuangan yg dulu sama2 berjuang buat youth nus malah temen2 yg skrg ada di FA satunya lagi juga.. well.. ironi.. 
 
Currently listening to: savez' album
Posted by phoenix_chix at 09:50 AM | Add a Comment

The Writing on the Wall

Some nice writing I found in Apple Centre:::
=========================================
Here's to the crazy one,
          the misfits
                the rebels
          the troublemakers

The round pegs in the squareholes
                        They are not fond of rules
And thy have no respect for the status quo
=========================================
You can praise them, disagree with them,
                                 quote them, disbelieve them,
              glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them,
                                because they change things.

They invent, they imagine, they heal.
                    They explore, they create, they inspire.
They push the human race forward.
=========================================
                                                      Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory of wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.
      While some see them as crazy, we see genius.
               
                          Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world
                          are the one who do.

Posted by phoenix_chix at 10:01 AM | Add a Comment
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