051006

verses read: Psalm 131-141

It’s been a while since I’ve wrote anything to this journal. But I really have nothing to write. Workload is really very high. It is already October. Time flies so fast, can’t imagine it has been almost one year since I’ve kept this journal, will be closing it down soon. And keep a hardcopy one instead. Going to finish the book of Psalms soon, that is quite an achievement.

Read something last December that I should not have read. And now, just read something that I wish I had not read; did not have the choice in this one, it literally popped up. I wonder what it all means, yet I choose not to read deeper. Been four months since I did, and I really don’t want to spoil all that now. It really like the song that goes, “you always do this every time I get back on my feet.”

But then perhaps it is another answer from God. And it is really the same reply since almost exactly a year ago. And maybe an answer to a more recent prayer; a prayer on what I should do next week, when a symmetry in dates approach.

250906

Verses read: Psalm 130

Almost through the book of Psalms, which I started around the time I went to USA. That’s really long. Longer than Jeremiah, although Jeremiah is a lot wordier. This section are the songs of ascent. Interesting that I’m reading this and heard the sermon CD about the songs of ascent just this morning. Really good timing.

Yesterday was a weird day. Or rather I felt quite weird because of a certain incident. I wanted to do something I would normally not do, but as a result I would end up not doing something that I would usually do. As things turned out, I did what I normally did, though I did not want to do it, and ended up not doing what I wanted to do but wanted to.

Was a little disappointed after that, and I wondered to myself why I felt that way. Strange. It’s like déjà vu, the last time I felt like that was two years ago when I had some company going to and from NUS. Well, I really don’t know what these feelings are all about.

I wonder still perhaps if is not the absence of feelings that I previously claimed, but perhaps I’m denying or suppressing what is there. There must be more to this than what can be seen.

UPDATED!!

The TOFU Blog that is... check it out...

120906

verses read: 119 (somewhere in that chapter...)

I am really very tired. School work has been crazy. Nothing to update really, nothing much has been happening. Maybe except that the TOFU Team has been formed, that will really be interesting to watch.

Thinking of changing my blog again. Don’t want some people to read all these posts anymore. Besides, once I run out of space in my softcopy journal, I will be switching to offline hardcopy ones. Somehow writing it all by hand is still the best.

On another note, the next Apple keynote starts in slightly over an hour’s time. Which means I will have to wake up early to see what is going to happen. A new iPod? Well, I have my W700i now, which is essentially a 4GB iPod now! So I’m not too thrilled.

Happy Teachers' Day 2006

I usually post a song on teachers' day. This year, I think I will do something different. No song, just a reflection of what I have observed the last few months.

I realised I never shared the 4 weeks I spent in Temasek Secondary, so I guess its appropriate to do so here. But I won't share about my personal experiences, but rather other observations. One common question I kept getting asked when I was there was, "Are you sure you want to do this job?"

All who asked were pretty senior teachers who had taught for years. They all sounded like they were trying to discourage me from going further, but then I realised something else. They were still teaching. No matter how much pain the students had inflicted, no matter how many curses and insults were hurled at them, no matter how rude students were to them, they were still there. To me, that showed that the rewards were well worth the sacrifice.

I asked myself, "why do teachers cry?". Now I know.

They cry not because they are too emotional. They cry not because they are scared of their students. They cry not because they have lost control. They cry not because they are discouraged. They cry not because they have been misunderstood.

But they cry because they love their students. They cry because they see a life they love head down the path of destruction. They cry because they really do care, even though they seem not to.

The speaker said something interesting today:

"Make your marking an act of worship to God."

I know that in theory, but having it explicitly told to me was something else altogether. Teaching is more than a calling, it is a sacrifice, where the classroom is the altar.

*dedicated to the teachers of Temasek Secondary School, who taught someone like me where my place really is and for teaching me the depth of sacrifice*

Ceasar Salad

This is a repost of a previous post. Anyway, this is the recipe of the salad I made for the fellowship dinner this evening. Hope you all enjoyed it.

Now, on with the old post:

This is a salad that I've learnt to make when I was like in Primary 4 or 5. It's not that easy and it sure isn't cheap to make it youself. In fact it is probably one of those dishes which actually cost less when bought at a restaurant than when you make it at home. This of course is discounting the volume. Also, the ceasar salad you get at the restaurant doesn't really follow this recipe, they play cheat by using cream or mayonaise.

Anyway, here is how I make it:

Ingredients for the salad
- Rommaine Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Olives
- Bacon bits
- Croutons

Unfortunately, when I was at cold storage the other day, they did not have a few of the ingredients above, so I had to improvise. Used, butterhead lettuce instead. And instead of using croutons, I prefer to us breadcrumbs, just put some stale (but not spoilt) bread in a food processor and spin away! And I ommitted the bacon altogether, due to excessive bak kwa during CNY. And I was just plain lazy to fry it. So here is what I used:



Combine the ingredients in a big bowl:



Now move on to the salad dressing. It's really expensive to make this dressing as anchovies are not cheaply available anymore. But I managed to find relatively cheap ones at the Kent Vale supermarket. So I bought like 3 tins! (Which would be the cost of one tin at Carrefour actually!) Commercial versions of this dressing use cream; that's wrong! Ceasar salad is an oil based dressing NOT a cream based one! The trick is making the oil look like cream, which I was unable to do until I acquired a food processor!

Here are the ingredients:
- Anchovies
- Capers
- One egg yolk
- Dijon Mustard
- Worcestshire sauce
- Red wine vinegar
- Olive Oil



I used to make this dressing by hand... to do so you will have to bash the anchovies and capers till they are totally in pieces. (Anchovies are the main ingredient by the way.) Add in the egg yolk and dijon mustard and stir until well mixed. Add in the worcestshire sauce and a few drops of the vinegar and mix well. Then as you are stirring, slowly pour in the in the oil; what you want to do is emulsify the oil, if this is not done correctly, the oil will seperate from the rest of the sauce, that is not what you want.

But with a food processor, I just replicate the above process, but in half the time and the consistency is a lot better. This is what you should get at the end of it all, as you can see the sauce will be quite creamy.



Add to the salad and toss it. The picture doesn't really do justice to it. It taste really good, you can ask my brother, I made this for Christmas as well, but with bacon.

Every beat of my heart

So here we stand
Anchored in hope
Letting the rain wash away every fear
Stars in the sky
Twinkle and shine
I pray they won't disappear
for the one who took the place...
Cos' I don't know where your journey goes
Or how long it will take to unfold
But as long as we keep this moment
Shining in the dark
I will be watching over
Every beat of your heart

I wish that time
Could be replayed
I'd keep you here with me everyday
They say that love is letting go
I hope that you find your way
...of the one who never was
Cos' I don't know where your journey goes
Or how long it will take to unfold
But as long as we keep this momemt
Shining in the dark
I know you'll be watching over
Every beat of my heart
...happy birthday Karen...
(C) Words and music by Corrine May

230806

Verses read: Psalm 101

Tomorrow is a rare free day for me. Better make full use of it before it disappears! Have to attend a meeting at the Bible House tomorrow. Tomorrow night is also the UDS, but I’m no longer in NUS, so I don’t think I will go down. Furthermore, don’t think I am prepared to go down.

The Fields Medal was presented yesterday to four (or is it three) young mathematicians. Was informed by A/P Fan during the tutorial today. He brought up the issue of the young 31 year old full professor at UCLA who got the medal and how he was a child prodigy and all and how me must spot such talent when we are in school and all.

Went home to read up on what happened, and what impressed me the most is not this 31 year old guy but the Russian mathematician who did not accept his medal! He’s mad! He was awarded the medal for a “proof” of the Poincare Conjecture. The “proof is still being refereed. I thought the Riemann hypothesis would fall before this one.

The conjecture states that every simply connected closed three-manifold is homeomorphic to the three-dimensional sphere. Amazingly, I actually understand that; not just that, it actually seems obvious, but yet has remained unproven for a hundred years, maybe till now. Well, if the proof is correct, he will be a million dollars richer. Even then, he was already awarded the Fields Medal. But his proof is actually even better, it proofs a generalisation of the Poincare conjecture. That’s pretty amazing.

But I’m still a little disappointed that this one fell before the Riemann Hypothesis. The effects of the Riemann Hypothesis would be more immediate compared to this one.

Anyway, another medal was awarded for bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry! A relationship between the latter two I can see, but between probability? That’s quite amazing! That will certainly change the texture of how probability is taught. Perhaps Bertrand’s paradox will be solved next!

210806

verses read: Psalm 95-98

Wonder why I’ve not updated for so many days. Anyway, the last few days have been quite eventful compared the rest of the week. God timing is really something.

Got a new phone. Quite an interesting story; it was a good deal too. Used my mum’s plan to get a new phone, traded in some very old phones, my mum took my 6230i and I ended up with a W700i. In my opinion it’s an iPod Nano killer. The equaliser actually works; and included earpiece is pretty decent. Will wait for the IT fair coming up before getting some accessories and the 4GB memory card. I really hope it will be cheaper there.

On Saturday. Words cannot describe it. Met Pastor Aaron again after more than 8 months. It was really good to bump into him at the exact same spot as last December. I’m really happy that he is going to be a father soon. It seems like at the end of things, I’m getting to meet all the people whom I seem to have cut-out from my life to forget what lay behind. But is it the end of things or the beginning of something new?

Yesterday. The National Day Rally speech was quite something. No goodies, but why should we expect any? Nothing much about the teaching profession but a lot of hints into which direction things are going to take. A lot of good policies, but in my opinion a lot of sacred cows need to be slaughtered in order for them to work. One that will definitely suit the mood of the speech is the abolishment of the national examinations and rely instead on alternative assessment. If that happens, then real learning will take place. But well, perhaps that’s too big a cow to take on, for now.

Today was a pretty slack day, but it will be my last one-lesson Monday. Woke up to quite a bad dream, spoilt my mood for the rest of the day. Really something I didn’t need to dream about. Next week my full schedule begins, and Monday will have a four hour break. Not funny. I’m actually done with my readings for tomorrow’s tutorials; I’m amazed.

Tomorrow is a long day though, 8.30am all the way to 6.30pm with one one-hour break in between. That will be a stamina test. But it will also be my last of such Tuesdays. Next week onwards it will be a three-hour break instead.

I wonder what all this is about. Is it time to move on? Or, it is time to move on. God has made some things fall into place the last few days. Time to knock the door, and ask for it to open. Or maybe it’s time for me to open up my door again. I don’t know. But now I see another dimension, many of my prayers were answered, but the effect was the opposite of what I wanted. Yet, so many prayers were answered no, yet the effect was what I wanted.

That’s the mystery of it all. Spent about an hour earlier reading all the posts in my private journal, even the private ones that never made the blog. And I see something, something that I never saw before. Something is happening, but I don’t know what it is yet.

*edit: so as not to confuse anyone... the Pastor Aaron in the post refers to someone else... not Pastor Aaron from PMC"

170806

verses read: Psalm 94

Didn’t get up to jog, will try again tomorrow! Instead, I woke up at 2.30am in the morning with one of the worst stomach aches I’ve ever had. It wasn’t fun.

I’m tempted to take that last sentence “it wasn’t fun” and decompose it into pronoun and verb group and all; but I shan’t. Seems like after one month of English grammar lessons, I have forgotten how epsilon and delta look like. Occupational hazard.

Met someone today, someone I have wanted to meet since the events last year. “How do you overcome such pain and hurt”, I wanted to ask. Apparently even after two years, the pain can still be there. I’ve only heard one side of the story, the “happy” side. But the sad side, I never heard till a few weeks before, and now that I’ve met him, there seems to be some common bond.

160806

verses read: Psalm 93

Today was a pretty boring day. Nothing much happened at all. My day starts in the afternoon tomorrow for a change; going to try get up in the morning to jog. Hopefully my body won’t ache that badly after that. Unfortunately, the late day means I will be missing a very important meeting tomorrow. Well, who knows maybe this arrangement will be for the better, and perhaps that why I’m doing my course now rather than next year. Once again, God’s timing is just beyond our understanding.

150806

verses read: Psalm 92

Either I was too tired to hear my alarm this morning, or too tired to switch it one last night. Either way, the net result was the same, I woke up late. But, by late I mean 6.10am, as my usual wake up time is 5.30am, so I still got to Simei on time.

Long day in school today, very long day. Tuesdays are killer days for me, thank God it will only get better. Today’s mathematics lecture was really good, I won’t say inspiring, but I think my MSN nick says it all. English lecture was way too fast, couldn’t keep up with what she was saying. Educational Psychology wasn’t so bad today, dry but not as bad.

*some parts in my private journal*

I really hope the heavy rain today washed down all the soot and dust in the air, my throat and respiratory tract were being hammered from all sides. Hot drink, that works wonders.

140806

verses read: Psalm 91

I’m really tired, probably going to sleep soon after writing this. Had only about one and a half hours of sleep last night. Blame it on the five hour nap I had yesterday afternoon. So, I ended driving to school pretty much in a daze, needed help from the noise of Planetshaker’s latest album to keep me awake. Thank God I have a lift to school tomorrow.

The haze is really bad, a combination of 7^th month and forest fires. My throat is starting to act up, which cannot be good.

Returned to the gym after a week’s absence. A new mp3 player would really be helpful during my workouts. My 6230i’s 256MB RSMMC isn’t really much use. Comex is at the end of the month, hopefully there would be some good deals. I’m actually quite intrigued to find out how much the N93 is being priced at.

130806

verses read: Psalm 90

Psalm 90, the “infamous” Psalm, at least among my CG in VCF. But it is really a Psalm that is most scientific in nature! It really requires a lot of deep thinking to understand.

“Teach us O Lord to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” – Psalm 90:12

I can still remember so vividly the sermon preached at FoP 1999, the first FoP I attended, when the speaker preached from this verse. And he did it in such an interesting manner, as he literally “numbered his days”. And I do that every one of my birthdays now; I should be reaching 10,000 in about two and a half years.

The last few days have been fine, finished with the Bible Olympiad. The adults did the photohunt for the first time, hence their enthusiasm, compared to one of the youth teams! At least the BB team was in the overall lead till the Bible Quiz round! A lot of good feedback, unbeknownst to them, Elijah’s Trail was pretty much a rip-off!

The past two weeks in NIE have been hectic, and only half my classes have started, it will get much worse in the coming days. But well, it is a post-graduate course, so not unexpected, and I’m being paid to study, so what can be better! Have an assignment due in a few hours, but it is all printed and good to go, so no issue with that. But there will be more to come, including a monster 70% weightage term paper! Anyway, 7 modules is madness by any standard.

Have to say that I am enjoying the course despite the hectic schedule. The NIE lecturers sell their subjects very well and really are really inspiring to listen to. Will see how much of this can be put into practice come February.

MADNESS!!!!!

Was doing "research" for a mathematics assignement, when I came across the following question. Any takers... for the record, the answer is 0.49. The question is easy, for me that is. But the most efficient method to solve it involves something I learnt only in F MATHS! This question was taken from a PSLE assignment book!??!!



Here is the solution. You will need to observe how to split each fraction up, that's the key step. The remaining part is just a lot of cancellation.

030806

verses read: Psalm 83

*A bit lazy to post the whole thing... anyway... just know that I've been updating my journal and readings very consentiously, just no inspired to post them. *

010806

verses read: Psalm 80-81

It’s already August! This years has just passed by so quickly. School has begun in earnest and it’s tough, I’m already feeling the strain after just 2 days. Today was an exceptionally tiring day, but well, it was nonetheless quite inspiring.

Pulled my hamstring quite badly today. Doesn’t help that the NIE campus and the NTU campus are connected by a series of really long flights of stairs, and it sure doesn’t help that I’m carrying something like 5kg on my back. Gym is out for the rest of the week.

home-made mayo...

Well Stef... enjoy! Sorry Nat...another night post! Anyway, this one was taken from an episode of Kylie Kwong. Simple, and pretty easy to make. Yet to get the correct consistency though.

You will need:
One Egg Yolk
Lemon Juice
Salt
Olive Oil
And a lot of arm power

Seperate the yolk of one egg from the white. And juice one lemon. What I did was I ran the lemon juice through a sieve to remove the flesh and seeds and all; so that I'm left with just pure juice. Actually, half a lemon would work better.



Beat it up a bit and add some salt.



You will need to make an emulsion, for that, you will need a whisk. Slowly pour in the olive oil while whisking the whole mixture. You will really need to beat in a lot of air into the mixture to make it look like the picture below. And electric whisk would certainly help. Apparently, it can be beaten till it's as stiff as merangue, but I lack that kind of arm power.



You basically have a mayonaise. But, if you eat it on it's own, it will taste horrible; and I mean, REALLY HORRIBLE and SOUR!

What I do is to bake some chicken fillets, then use two forks to shred them as shown below. Then just pour the mayonaise in. Trust me... it will taste exactly like chicken mayo from Delifrance or something like that.

260607

verses read: Psalm 76

Received a nice SMS from a good friend yesterday, it really helped me a lot. And prayers do come true as I was able to sleep well last night.

Today, tried out this really power yogurt based curry recipe, it was fantastic! Will try the same recipe with fish someday.

Just came back from the NTUCF FoC, tomorrow will be another day. Last night of the camp, talent night, I doubt it will be as crazy as the VCF one, but it should be fun. Tomorrow, orientation games, not looking forward to that, bad back and all.

when two or three are gathered...

... add a fourth... and you get...



was taken at a VCF Science Faculty Gathering...ooops... hehehe... my tiles are pretty decent huh? Too bad I lost this hand... no money involved though...

But check out this lamp... interesting gift got any of your mahjong crazy friends... but watch out.. it costs something like $280!