Dororo

"It's strange... The pain in my heart... Doesn't go away"
-Hyakki-maru 百鬼丸

A great first Japanese movie for me! Succinct, witty, funny, heart-rendering while not cliched; it's been a while since I've enjoyed a movie this much. Shibasaki Kou's portrayal of the mercenary, yet innately kind hearted imp-ish thief is a side I would have never expected from only hearing her J-pop songs.

Home Almost Alone

It's day one since my parents and my second sis flew off to Israel, leaving me and big sis at home. The perks of having the home to ourselves include (not in any order): we get to eat out, sleep whatever time we wanna, live without concern nagging etc. Of course the flipside is we have to clean up and do the laundry ourselves. It's great to report that 18 hours after they have flown off, we are still alive, the house is still in liveable condition, and we haven't spent all our money.

It's been an awfully long while since I've been to IKEA. I've been meaning to get a nice chair to use at my computer for the longest time, thus I jumped at it when my sister asked me if I wanted to shop at IKEA. Anyhow, I finally got a real computer chair and I can say hastalavista to this excuse of a computer chair that I've been using for the past decade or so. Walking around IKEA makes you think there are so many nice things in life that you don't really need, but really wouldn't mind having. It doesn't help that they arrange their displays really nicely. Then again, I don't think I would want my parents coming home and think they entered the wrong house in two weeks time and besides most of the things at home are still in usable condition. I wouldn't want them leaving home again just 5 minutes after coming back or finding their old cupboard outside waiting to be thrown away and deciding to crucify me on it.

The Start

Just finished my 5th Haruki Murakami book. I think there aren't anymore in SAJC although he has written a few more titles. Well, I hope there isn't so I would not spend so much time reading and probably begin to study for A levels, seriously. Every of his books has been great, with my favourite being Norwegian Wood. Much has been said about this author already so anything more would be verbose and unnecessary. I fancy his stories to be more of poetic and philosophical than rather being stories per se, which incidentally, end up semi-fantasy-like. It's the kind of book that just bulldozes your pre-conceived ideas and values and gets you thinking. This is not to say that the stories are nothing to speak of; but rather they take a backseat when compared to Murakami's free-flowing and thought provoking prose.

It finally appears that there is nothing left on my plate besides the A levels, with my 3rd reflective service playing the violin over. I think my playing messed up the sound a little but hopefully I didn't interrupt anyone from worshipping God since that would be disasterous.

With 5 weeks to go before my A levels, hopefully I'll be able to start the ignition for real and get myself going academically and work my rusty study-engine for real since my O levels.

Waves

If everyones' life could be compared to something, I think mine could be compared to a wave; a wave that continuously beats against the shore. In many ways my existance is as measured as a wave, consistently moving forward and then pulling back. Yet such a seemingly uncontrolled movement is restricted by the drift lines, or boundaries I set for myself. Wittingly or unconsciously, under normal conditions, it is unlikely that I will cross this zone of content. As I remain in this mode, there is this bugging feeling that impending storm will come; a storm that will surge me past the driftline into some foreign place. And yet with the removal of the storm, an equilibrium is quickly restored, where I once again beat upon the shore with a predictable rhythm

Promises

I remember when I was playing studying in kindergarten, there was this fad that came about, where all promises required the prefix "I swear". Somehow, in the absence of the term "swear", suddenly whatever the person said doesn't really count. So, in a sense, swearing gave someone alot more credibility in his/her words.

I guess in those innocent childhood times, swearing was some kind of ultimatum we gave ourselves, that we had to do that something that counted. Nowdays, adults, sophisticated people they are, do not find swearing that credible (anyway, adults just like doing the same things children do, albeit differently and insisting so) and instead prefer to waste monies hiring this guy in a suit to write down what they intend to do so that they will do it. Well, after all the economy is all about creating wants that didn't exist before and then finding people to fulfil them, aka redundency. The reminiscence of those much more senior than us is that in the past, everything was sealed with just a handshake (though I suspect everyone was carrying some form of weapon in their other hand). That, in today's context, sounds like folklore not unlike vampires or witches who flew on broomsticks.

Receiving promises is a really beautiful thing. However, the pain associated with unfulfilment more than negate all the joy the promise brought. Hence, those around me would be quick to point out it is rather difficult to illicit a promise from me, since I hate breaking promises a little more than broken ones. I believe many of us (or if none of you, then just myself) trust and love people based on their fulfilment of past promises. Keeping a promise, no matter the size, shows that the beneficiary of that promise is in some way, or another, important to us. Granted, there are some people who have a memory of a goldfish and knowing so, we can't really hold it against them.

This post seems to be taking the form of a [broken] promise already: an earnest start, with no concept of fulfilment or conclusion (oops!).

Well, it's just a random thought

So think hard before you promise someone something because it may mean alot!

Tomaso Antonio Vitali - Chaconne in G minor for violin

It isn't very often that I find a musical piece I really really like. Granted, there are many songs that I think sound nice but that's pretty much it. Even though I play the violin, most of the songs I truly appreciate are actually recent Japanese compositions *whips open an umbrella before a barrage of stones arrive* that have a hint of melancholy in them. Although they are far less technical than many of the classical compositions, they have beautiful melodies. Throw in some decent accompaniment and I am suckered hook, line and sinker.

The classical pieces that I really like number few. Those that have brought a tear to my eye when I'm listening are even rarer - just 2; Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D, third movement and the one that is the subject of this post.

If I ever made a movie where someone close to the lead had to die. I'd probably play this song during that scene. Although it's disputed if the original score is anything like the one we hear nowadays or Vitali's original work has been grossly mutilated, the intepretation I heard by Sarah Chung just blew my socks off. Intensely charged, passionate, virtuostic, it's got to be the best song for any tragedy.

If I am ever going to fulfil my secret morbid dream of being a funeral violinist, this song definitely has to be in my repertoire. As such, this is the first piece in I don't know how long I'm going to seriously work on, unlike all the other songs that required a skill level high above mine that I attempted to learn and then gave up.

Till then, none of you is allowed to die.

Psalmist Retreat 2007

This retreat was a great time for us to come together as a ministry and and have a time for fellowship, laughter, fun, and not to mention eat nice food. Kelvin brought his wii and we had a great time playing on it of which tennis was the most popular and boxing was the most entertaining. Vincent and many others put in a labour of love this time to prepare each elaborate meal for which they are to be greatly appreciated.

What I believe many of us gained from, besides the fellowship, was certainly the time of sharing by pastor Chi Shyan. On the first session he shared from Exodus 17 where Moses and Joshua engaged in combat. Unlike Joshua who was in the frontline of combat, Moses was on the mountain top lifting up his hands and interceding for God to help. Although most of us can relate to being in the frontline as Joshua was, we sometime may forget that someone has to pay the price of intercession in the fight and how these roles, neither of which are superior, are interdependent for the battle to actually be won. God has given us different gifts and callings and thus we are independent of the mode in which He has called us to serve for God's glory to be manifested. Another important lesson was later in the chapter, where after the successful battle, Moses returned to build an altar to God to give thanks. Personally I can relate to Moses before an uphill task like the battle Israel faced. More often than not, I forget God's provision soon afterward and sometimes even forget that God was the one who has blessed and me and start to have illusions that it is by my own strength that I completed the task, when it was insurmountable when I called out to God in the first place. Hence, this lesson was really instructive and relevant to my life.

The next chapter pastor touched on was Exodus 24, where Joshua was willing to go where God led. Being a worship ministry, Psalmist is essentially asking the congregation to come up to worship God and encounter his presence. As an analogy to where God leads us to; from the peak of the highest mountain, the other mountains appear insignificant. Hence in His presence, our previous circumstances or past seem insignificant. However, the call to go is not an easy one to fulfil. Often we are eager to ask people to come; which is spurring them on to achieve certain things that we may have experienced and would like to share with them. The call to go, is fraught with uncertainty and thus it takes a much greater deal of effort. Joshua was about 45 at this point in the Bible, thus it is a lesson that age is not a factor when it comes to God's plan to using us.

Dallas shared that evening, getting us to reflect on our offerings to the Lord. The first part called us to reflect on who is our empowerer. In this rhetoric, the answer should inevitable be God but in our circumstances, it could be other reasons. The second part was whether our hearts were willing to respond and do God's work with the skills that God has endowed them with. The third got us to think about our own personal response and how we treat our offering to God.

The third and final session was this morning, by pastor. Sharing from Exodus 33, it was a chapter where Moses set up and used the tent of meeting to encounter God. The lesson here was that like Moses going up to the tent of meeting, for us to meet God or be set apart by God, besides aspects of the spiritual, physical effort is also needed for us to prepare ourselves. To want and achieve this communion with God requires from us time, energy and discipline. He shared on 2 groups of people who come to church on a given sunday morning during worship. The first is that of spectators, who are just there to observe the worship and not actually engaging in it, which is on the entirely superficial level. The second is a group that is dependent on the annointing of the worship leader or team. This is not something for us as a ministry to judge but rather to answer God's call to improve our serve to lead His people into worship, not just as musicians, but as worshippers. However, despite ample preparation or planning, not everything always runs to plan. This could actually be a humbling experience that God wants to impart to us, and perhaps could be His way of leading us to enter unchartered waters. Many of us view the people of that time to be much luckier than us, as they were able to see the manifestations of God. Despite that, they still hardened their hearts time and time again and turned away from him. We sometimes despise them for their weak will and their inability to remain faithful despite the experience of what God did for them. Thus it could be our argument that if we were living in those times, we would certainly not have any such premonitions to turn away. However when we consider what they experienced, even extraordinary things that happen regularly in their time, could well soon become ordinary. Hence, we may not require such manifestations of God in this day and age, where He has provided us the bible which is a rich source of His word. The questions pastor posed us to challenge ourselves were: 1. If there was something we desire in our ministry on a personal or ministry level that we do not have now. 2. If we were going to do something about it.

Pauli's Exclusion Principle

No two electrons in an atom can be at the same time in the same state or configuration.

One thing many students, myself included, find frustrating while studying science at the lower levels is that it has no application in our lives. This is ironic, since science essentially tries to explain the phenomena that we observe and helps us to understand it better; and yet we find this study totally detached from our lives.

The rare occasions that we see the congruence of what we study and what we actually experience or observe brings delight to many of us. I believe it is for this reason that some among us have chosen to make the pursuit of science their life.

I, however, belong the the thick-skulled variety who until now, am hardly impressed to what this pursuit has to offer. Having said that, I still appreciate science at a level that some may regard as blasphemy.

I came across this principle sometime in my physics syllabus. My reflection on this has led me to stray quite some distance away from the original definition. I muse at how in many ways we humans behave like these electrons - particles of such miniscule proportions that they do not seem to affect our lives at all. By ourselves, we behave in a certain way when nobody is watching and our actions seem to be of no consequence of others. Coming together, we appear to change very drastically, taking on characteristics that were unknown to our private selves and start to behave differently. Yet once again as we come apart we return to this familiar and comfortable state. Unlike from a scientist's viewpoint, I do not have theories to prove why this is so or seek to explain it. All I have to offer is my appreciation for this strange, inexplicable, yet inherent phenomenon in our daily lives

Bedřich Smetana - Vltava

The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St. John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Elbe.
-Smetana

One of my favourite classical pieces. Smetana fulfils exactly what he promises, invoking vivid imagery into this symphonic poem which is recreated by just an orchestra.

This musical piece is a great inspiration for those who have forgotten how beautiful and meaningful music can be.

First post

This is my second attempt at starting a blog. The first fell flat because I basically stopped posting. Thus, with a renewed vigour in sharing my thoughts once again, I decided to start a whole new blog which I will try my best to update.

Till next time.