Tonight i considered how one might kill oneself swiftly and painlessly.
i considered jumping into the pool and forcing myself to stay underwater for more than a minute, but that wouldn't work 'cos i can swim and i hate the feeling of water gushing up my nose (it gives me a sore throat).
i considered jumping off the top of my building (from where i stood the roadside scenery looked beautiful in a surreal way) but sunshine plaza is only 12 storeys high, anyone who tried jumping off it would probably just end up in hospital with a thousand casts and spend the rest of his life in utter physical misery.....why would i want that man.
What about the tallest building in Singapore? The Westin Stamford? i remembered attending a v good friend's wedding at the top of the Westin many months back, there is a helipad on top of the roof and when you stand there and look at the world out there, you feel dizzy and ecstatic at the same time.
Would jumping off a building as tall as the Westin guarantee instant, painless death?
How to watch a child die By Amanda Chong (Raffles Girls' School)
Avert your gaze from his eyes, even if they plead for you to be drawn to their depths. Instead focus on his sallow complexion the sun crawling on his aged skin, the colour of the well-trodden carpet in your living room; the spot where your son once threw his football boots and you missed bleaching for the past few years.
Do not try to guess his age or say, he is older than he looks as you study his brittle bones, too-large head and the empty basket of his ribcage.
Think instead of the sound they may make when his body is thrown into a ditch; the sound of rain whipping through branches, the crackling of a creek before thaw or your antique vase crashing into smithereens from its place on the mantelpiece.
Turn away from the blank faces of your own children and make no associations. Pretend you do not notice how your teenager leaves her food uneaten on her plate. (Convince yourself you are not an escapist) After all, this skeletal child is merely a marionette in a macabre fairytale.
Now, ignore the queasy feeling in your stomach as you get up to dish out the dessert. Resolve to write to the authorities to complain for showing such disturbing footage during dinner.
Be blind to the broken birds of the child's hands as they reach out pleading to be held, the rolling whites of his eyes, the bruised animals of his lips, parting, as he takes his last...
Turn off the television set.
Children should not know that (in some very remote parts of the world) they may die before their mothers.
The girl who wrote this poem is only 16 and she won second prize in this year's Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award!!!
And she's from my alma mater too! *beam with pride*
the numbness of separation, borrowed affections, unforgiven betrayals and lost promises.
if i could dissolve any wrinkle from the fabric of my body, i would erase the deepest furrow in the depths of my heart the cavity within which your memory fell when you pierced my soul a long time ago.
Earthquakes in Various Places By Richard T. Ritenbaugh (Forerunner, "Prophecy Watch," March 1995)
One of the most frightening moments a person can experience is being awakened from a sound sleep by the jarring jolts of an earthquake. The feeling of helplessness and panic are indescribable. The most solid substance we know—the very earth under our feet—is shaking! No place is safe when the earth is reeling.
Then, when the quake is over, come the questions, the doubts, the uncertainties. Is everyone all right? Did the house sustain any damage? Will there be any big aftershocks? Is there electricity? Water? Food? Was this "the big one"? Are there gas leaks? How are the roads and bridges? Is it really over?
Anyone who has survived a major earthquake will confirm that this is only the beginning of fears, worries, headaches and frustrations. Conditions will not return to normal for days, weeks, months or years—and who knows if another quake will strike before then? Some must rebuild not just their homes, but also their lives.
It is no wonder that God uses earthquakes to get people's attention. One's feeling of security vanishes. Thoughts of being strong and safe against disaster cease. Realization of weakness and vulnerability dawns. Understanding of need and true humility can now follow—if one realizes God is warning His people.
Some may scoff, saying, "These are just natural events. God has nothing to do with it!" But notice what God says:
Psalm 18:7: Then the earth shook and trembled, the foundation of the hills also quaked and were shaken, because He was angry.
Isaiah 24:20: The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and totter like a hut; its transgression shall be heavy on it, and it will fall, and not rise again.
Isaiah 29:6: You will be punished by the Lord of hosts with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire.
God uses earthquakes to warn and punish!
Is it coincidental that, of the eleven strongest earthquakes to rock America this century, six have occurred in close proximity to abortion- and homosexual-related activities? Astoundingly, five have happened since April 1992! The McAlvaney Intelligence Advisor (June 1994, pp. 4-5) lists these six quakes and their corresponding events:
1. June 28, 1992, Southern California: Fourth strongest quake this century. This was Gay Pride Day across the United States. The next day the Supreme Court decided not to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973.
2. October 17, 1989, San Francisco area: Fifth strongest quake. This occurred two days after a huge pro-abortion march in San Francisco.
3. April 25, 1992, Northern California: Sixth strongest quake. This quake struck during a fierce counterprotest against Operation Rescue in Buffalo, New York. Ironically, that same day, the Los Angeles riots began, the worst in the U.S. since the Civil War.
4. January 17, 1994, Northridge, California: Seventh strongest quake. It struck the day after Sanctity of Life Sunday and five days before the twenty-first anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Also, eighty percent of the world's pornography production and distribution businesses lie within five miles of the epicenter.
5. June 28, 1992, Southern California: Ninth greatest quake, an aftershock of # 1. These quakes were felt as far away as Idaho.
6. April 23, 1992, Southern California: Eleventh greatest quake. Occurred the day the Supreme Court heard Planned Parenthood v. Casey, an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Unfortunately, the warnings went unheeded. However, the thought that God was behind these earthquakes crossed the mind of at least one pornography executive, but he quickly rejected the notion. "‘These religious fanatics may think it's the Lord's way of telling us, "Hey, straighten your act out,"' admitted Lenny Friedlander, president of New Beginnings, which distributes adult videos, magazines and sex toys" (Associated Press, January 28, 1994). The article later relates that the industry was back in business only a week later.
Not Just California
California is not the only state to contain earthquake fault lines. In fact, smaller earthquakes can do greater damage in other places because of soil conditions, earthquake-ignorant building codes and unprepared populations. And because the earth's crust features major and minor faults all over, and several new ones are found each year, no place is earthquake-proof.
Jesus Christ promised "great earthquakes in various places" (Luke 21:11; cf. Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8), and they are fulfilling His words. Kobe, Japan, the latest place to be hit by a great earthquake, suffered over five thousand deaths and over $100 billion in damages. Fifty-five thousand plus died in Armenia in 1988, and over forty thousand died in Iran in 1990. Thousands have died in dozens of quakes since then all over the earth.
We have several earthquakes of biblical note ahead of us. The Sixth Seal, which we have called the "Heavenly Signs," contains "a great earthquake" along with the more astral phenomena (Revelation 6:12-14). There will be another huge temblor at Christ's return. As Zechariah describes it,
And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. . . . And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two. . . . Thus the LORD my God will come, and all the saints with You. (Zechariah 14:4-5)
Revelation 11:13 describes an earthquake that strikes when God resurrects the Two Witnesses. Verse 14 places this quake at the end of the Sixth Trumpet or the beginning of the Seventh. The saints will rise at the last trumpet (I Corinthians 15:52), so this may be the same quake as mentioned in Revelation 11:19, when the reign of Christ is announced. And since the saints rise to meet Christ as He returns (I Thessalonians 4:16-17), this may also be the same quake that Zechariah describes.
Another earthquake occurs at the pouring of the Seventh Bowl, or Vial, of God's wrath. This last biblical quake is described as "such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth" (Revelation 16:18; cf. Isaiah 13:13). It is so powerful that "every island fled away, and the mountains were not found" (verse 20).
He will finally get the world's attention! Yet they will continue to blaspheme God because of His wrath against them (verse 21). Will man never submit? God will eventually resort to the sword to subdue rebellious man (Revelation 19:21).
God is using earthquakes to warn of His displeasure! Conditions are becoming increasingly more anti-God and anti-Christ in the world, Israel and the church. He is giving the warning now so that people can repent of sin and rebellion before the calamity strikes (cf. Amos 3:1-8)!
Amos, though he writes mainly of the terrible punishment coming upon Israel, also tells individuals what to do to avoid it. "Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gate. It may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph" (Amos 5:15).
today is the day that we found out the sex of our baby: BOY!!! C'est un garcon!!!
everyone went ballistic at the clinic when it was first announced; my mother, grandmother and husband had all come along with me because they didn't want to miss the moment...hung and i shared the moment quietly at first (sniggering away and making jokes about the picture on the screen) then he called the two old ladies into the room who were squealing with excitement at having their suspicions confirmed that it would be a boy...
the baby brouhaha was followed by a very nice mother's day lunch at lao beijing dining hall (there was one located in novena square where hung works)...and the rest of the day's conversations was filled with nothing but - you guessed it - talk about the gender of the baby! my mom was especially pleased that she was going to have a grandson because my stepfather was so upset when his only son's wife gave birth to a girl - she couldn't wait to tell him that she was going to have something that he couldn't have!
"By far, the most magical and memorable pregnancy first will be feeling and recognizing those first kicks and movements from your baby. The first perception of your baby's kicking and movement is referred to as quickening. Quickening usually appears between 14 to 26 weeks of pregnancy. For a first time pregnant mother the time frame is more like 18 to 22 weeks.Veteran mothers tend to feel their baby's movements earlier than first timers. The reason being that the uterine muscles in second or subsequent pregnancies are not as tight as during a first pregnancy, so this mom may be more sensitive to the soft, fluttery kicks associated with early pregnancy. Plus when a mother already knows the pregnancy drill she can easily tell the difference between baby's kicking and movement versus hunger or gas pains. Another thing that can vary the perception of quickening is that the mother's physical build may have something to do with when first movements are distinguishable.
Women with smaller frames tend to feel movement earlier than women who are larger or overweight. No one can tell a first time expectant mother exactly what she will feel because it's different for every mother. With this said, those first movements and kicks may feel like a light, delicate tapping with almost a fluttery feeling. As you get further along the sensations will definitely intensify to being good firm kicks, elbow jabs and a little swishy or sloshy feeling when your baby decides to move it's arms and legs at the same time. You will swear your little one is already trying out for the Olympic team! Always keep in mind, an active baby is a healthy baby, even though you may feel like a personal punching bag from time to time." - PregnancyWeekly.com
i still remember when i felt my baby's first quickening movements. i think i was having bible study at the time and when i moved around in my chair, i thought i felt something bubbly deep, deep down inside my tummy - like butterflies fluttering around in the deepest abyss of my abdomen!! this happened about once every 2-3 days (starting from my 14th week!), then once everyday, and then - for the first time, i thought i felt a light thud under my skin one night as i was preparing to go to bed - i patted back on the spot where i'd felt the movement and...the baby kicked me back!
since then, life has certainly become much more exciting and entertaining... :b i've discovered that my baby loves to stretch his arms and legs just before i go to bed at night (which provides me with lots of fun patting him on the tummy and getting "patted" back), jump around again in the early hours of the morning (when my husband is getting ready to go to work) and kick me hard when i'm either cooking in the kitchen or listening to someone playing the piano. i've also noticed that when my husband is talking and then leaves the room, the baby will also start kicking me!
sometimes when i hug my bolster tight in bed at night, i can feel the baby tossing and turning in my tummy as if he's trying to get a better sleeping position for himself too! and once, just once - he kicked me REALLY hard when i was pressing hard against my bolster which forced me to turn over to the other side!
[latest exciting news: 3 days ago, i woke up with a particular strong bout of movement in my abdomen and took a peek at my tummy - i could see the skin moving and 'jumping' where the baby's legs and hands were prodding me!]
Why Citibank is run by a bunch of loose-headed, incompetent & dishonest swindlers
i've always had a strong bias against grouchy salesgirls, golddigging beauticians and dishonest bankers, but never in my life have i felt so strongly against one bank that i feel compelled to publish all the dirt i can about it on my blogsite...
Just the other day, my husband and i met a very good friend of my father's - a prominent banker who had left Citibank in one of the most extensive exoduses in the bank's history. Together with many others who had shaped the landscape of Citibank's corporate history through the decades, he decided it was time to leave an organisation which did not recognise and reward the successes attributed to his hard work and to employ his talents elsewhere.
Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that Citibank must now be overrun with ranks of incompetent, arrogant and uneducated Ah Bengs who think that their customers are equally uneducated and helpless, ever-willing prey to their unethical and underhanded tactics - well at least this is what we experienced on the ground anyway.
My first brush with their destructive duplicity was when i accompanied my mother to see her personal banker at the very "exclusive" Citigold Wealth Management Banking department. When i asked the banker what this department did for its customers, my mother exploded, "Wealth management, my foot! They only know how to make you lose money!" i knew exactly what she was talking about. During my five years in the UK, these "Wealth Management Experts" had constantly barraged my mother with phone calls to invest all her savings in tech stocks which were clearly heading for a downfall in the late 1990's. If i had been around to advise my mother, i would have told her to disconnect the phone line and tell these uneducated folks to get lost. But she didn't know nuts about investing, so she plunged a sizeable amount of her savings into these vacuous stocks and made her banker an equally sizeable amount of commission. Today, the value of those stocks are less than 1/4 of what my mother had originally invested in...
Then came the time when my husband and i both applied for the Citibank Tangs credit card. A few weeks after our application was approved, some annoying folks from the Telesales Department kept calling my husband about an insurance plan which he had absolutely no interest in. He made this clear to the "Acquisition Officer" (a.k.a. "Salesgirl") who had called him. One month later, however, they sneaked in charges for TWO insurance plans into our credit card bill and this went on for two months (and several phone calls) before we could finally get them to cancel and reverse the charges!
The same thing (only more insane and absurd) happened after we had refinanced our mortgage to Citibank last year. Under the new mortgage arrangement, we have to pay a fire insurance premium of $77.24 to their good friend, the RSA (Royal Sun & Alliance) every year. After the first $77.24 was deducted from our bank account, i noticed another entry hidden away in the fine print - almost imperceptible to the naked eye - of $36.75 also under the dubious heading of "Fire Insurance". When I called Citiphone up about this, i was told to call RSA because they might have deducted a second premium from my account by mistake. When i called RSA, however, they insisted that there should have only been one charge so Citibank must have made the extra deduction by mistake. After bouncing the ball back and forth between themselves for a while, they finally reversed the $36.75 charge made to my bill.
Another thing which i hate about their marketing tactics is the way they try and push their credit cards to you. After a day of shopping at Tangs for our wedding day, we were told to redeem one of our lucky draw vouchers at the Citibank promotion booth outside. There, a whole battalion of Ah Lian-looking promoters (who probably attended Ah Lian schools) began attacking us with application forms for new credit cards. When we said that we were not interested because we already had our Citibank Tangs card, this Ah Beng guy offered us free gifts if we signed up for two credit cards. With nothing to lose, we filled out the forms for the cards. What made us piqued, however, was that after we submitted the two forms to him, the Ah Beng had the cheek to say that we didn't qualify for the free gifts!!
What other deceitful and misleading tactics have the Citibank charlatans used on us helpless and innocent customers? If i were to list all of them here, including the ones which have beguiled my friends and relatives, i am sure that even blogger or google could not contain them all on their server...
But the one which really distressed me most was when my husband and i recently paid for our air tickets to Cairns using our Citibank Gold Mastercard (incurring a 2% extra charge but which we didn't mind because of the "Travel Inconvenience Insurance" which supposedly came with it). This insurance program is supposed to "lessen the frustration and inconvenience" due to unforseen events such as delayed flights, etc. Well, as it happened, our flight back home was delayed for 8.5 hours so we were covered under this program which was supposed to reimburse us for the cost of "meals, refreshments, hotel accommodation, telephone calls, transport charges to and from the airport as well as purchase of essential clothing and requisites..." Now nowhere on the brochure did it specify whether it covered only foreign airports, airports at both departure and arrival points or only home airports. In fact the identical program run under the Citibank Clear Card even states "transport charges to and from airports".
When we finally arrived back in Singapore, it was 3.30am in the morning and we had to take a taxi back home (thus incurring midnight charges etcetc). If this was not a "travel inconvenience", tell me what is! Now before we hopped into the cab, we checked the brochure one last time and saw the part which said "transport charges to and from the airport". Cool! So now what we had to do was to charge the taxi fare to our Citibank credit card so we could claim it from the insurers later on! This incurred an extra 15% charge on our already exorbitant taxi fare, but never mind!
When we tried to submit our claims to Alexander Forbes (another good friend of you-know-who) a few days later, we were so peeved when they told us that this taxi fare would not be claimable!
1. If you were an educated and intelligent life form like me, i'm sure you would agree that you would have considered taking a taxi from Changi Airport a "transport charge to/from the airport".
2. Since there was no indication as to whether only foreign airports were covered under this clause, any reasonable person would have been led to believe that this included Changi airport as well, since we were suffering from a "travel inconvenience" as a result of the flight delay.
3. If their argument that the policy applies only when one is "stranded" overseas were to stand, then customers whose flights out of Changi are delayed would not be able to benefit from this "travel inconvenience insurance" at all, even if they have to purchase extra meals, drinks, etc while waiting at Changi Airport! And what if they have to take a taxi home to wait out the delay - would that be covered as well?
4. The most annoying fact is that NONE of these qualifications were printed on the brochure - did they expect us to call them up at 3.30am in the morning to verify each clause before executing our every next step??? What was worse, we were misled into paying our taxi fare with a credit card which imposed an extra 15% fee when we could have simply settled it with cash!! Where is the justice in this world??!!
In two simple words: CITIBANK SUCKS.
***Do humankind a favour and spread this to all your friends!!!***
i feel excited to have finally passed the first trimester into the second: actually that happened about 3 weeks ago :) now i'm just looking forward to the next ultrasound scan where my doctor can tell me whether i'm going to have a boy or a girl!!
everyone's been telling me that they think i'm going to have a boy first...well actually i was secretly wishing it would be a girl, because (i) girls grow up to be more filial and emotionally close to you when you're in your twilight years; (ii) girls are more fun to dress up and buy toys for..heehee; and (iii) as long as i have at least one girl i'll be happy, so if the first baby turns out to be one then i don't have to worry about the rest! :)
- Names for a boy baby: Gabriel & Gareth
- Names for a girl baby: Naomi & Nikki (alliteration effect here - hey!)
just last night, i received an email from babycenter.com telling me that my baby was now the size of an avocado. blimey!
"If you could see your baby, she would also be playing with her umbilical cord, sucking on her thumb and practising her breathing skills by inhaling and exhaling the amniotic fluid around her. Some of her more advanced body systems are working now too, including the circulatory system and urinary tract. You'll soon be in for one of the most exciting moments of pregnancy — feeling the baby move. Some women notice quickening, as it's called, between 16 and 20 weeks. (Although, if this is your first baby, you may not feel anything for another few weeks or so.) You may feel these first womb wiggles as a rumbling in your stomach. Once you realize it's really the baby doing backflips, note it and tell your healthcare provider at your next visit."
since chinese new year (which was circa week 6), i thought i would never recover from the constant bout of nausea (usually triggered by some offensive food or smell such as spinach or fish ball noodles), extreme fatigue (suddenly 5-hour naps became the norm every afternoon and i could still hardly lift a finger to brush my teeth) and hourly romps to the ladies' room... tortured by the perpetual beckonings of hunger, i had to scour for food every few hours and yet, with my erratic reactions to food, i couldn't eat most of the time and this left me in a very miserable state... :( poor hubby came home almost every night from work only to hear me whining, "honey, i'm soo hungry but i can't eat!!! *stomach growl*..."
the other phenomenon which really overwhelmed me was the incredible fatigue...from the moment i opened my eyes in the morning, i was tired...too tired to even lift my body up from the bed and to the toilet...simple acts like brushing my teeth and taking a shower suddenly seemed too energy-consuming and sometimes i didn't even have the energy to make my own lunch/dinner! dishes suddenly got piled up in the kitchen and the bathtub would remain dry for days...my emails went unchecked for weeks and i was now falling asleep in the middle of my favourite tv shows...for the first time in history, i went to bed regularly before midnight which my hubbie was glad for!
which came as a surprise, then, that friends and relatives started commenting that i was losing weight...were they blind? could they not see the bulging tummy i was trying to hide under my clothes and other parts of my body which were beginning to balloon? but they were right; just after christmas, i was about 47kg (thanks to all the festive binging!) and now, by week 10, i was about 45.5kg, almost lighter than my weight during jc days! this was weird...i was eating almost every other hour, sleeping like a pig and hadn't visited the gym in weeks, yet i was getting smaller! perhaps it was true - that the baby was an alien living inside of you, sucking all the energy and nutrients out of your body so it could grow on its own!! haha.....
i didn’t realise my friends actually read my blog until the other day when one of my girlfriends, Christina, bumped into me at church and exclaimed, “i read your blog! And i really liked your article about xxx and that joke about zzz…” i stood there and looked at her in a daze. that joke had been written almost half a year ago and I couldn’t remember the contents of it! :b
this meant only one thing: i had to blog more often. and what else to blog about than something which would be on my mind constantly for the next nine months: a baby!
which brings me to that fateful morning when, for the umpteenth time, i had to drag myself out of bed at 6am in the morning to empty my bladder (something which i never had to do before in my entire life)…as i sat over the toilet bowl with my eyes half-closed, i thought, “what the heck, i’ll just do the pregnancy test now!” 2 weeks before, i’d told my mom I was dying to find out if i was going to be a new mom this year and she told me not to take the test so early, or i might be disappointed… one week later, she bought me a clear blue test kit and told me to wait until i was at least 5 weeks past my LMP. and now, at 6am in the morning on the saturday just before chinese new year, i was 5-and-a-half weeks past my LMP and just dying to find out if my daily romps to the toilet in the middle of the night had anything to do with a baby in my tummy…..
i opened the box and the insert read: Collect a sample of your urine in a clean, dry container and hold just the Absorbent Sampler in the urine for 20 seconds only. A blue line in the End Window shows that the test has worked and is ready to read. This should appear in about 1 minute.
with trembling fingers (maybe!), i dipped the sampler in and waited for about 20 seconds before lifting it out again. my eyes widened. there was a big, fat +PLUS+ sign already sitting in the window!!! and it wasn’t just light blue colour, it was a deep, dark shade of blue! i couldn’t believe my eyes. i stood there staring at it for a few more seconds before reality sank in and i jumped to my feet and squealed with glee. i ran back to the bedroom, where my grandma had already been woken up by the noise and asked me what had happened. i told her. then I went outside, grabbed my friend’s lomo camera (my 15-year-old pentax wasn’t working anymore) and started snapping away at this beautiful piece of art in my hand (hey, how many momentos do you get to make and keep for your descendants-to-be?!)…then i tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t. i mean, how could anyone sleep when one has been praying for a baby for months (since august to be exact), hubbie is always traveling for work and you know that God has promised you a beautiful, wonderful baby to hold in your arms but you just didn’t know when! i was flabbergasted. when november came round the corner i had asked God to give us a christmas baby…and He really did!
not being able to fall back to sleep, i grabbed my handphone and sent SMSes to all my close friends and relatives…
what a way to start my day. i had to meet joo kim and adeline at california fitness at 1 but was already starving by 11am…so i called joo kim and told her the good news (which made her absolutely ballistic!) and we agreed to have lunch first before working out. then i made a phone call to adeline to tell her there was a change in plans and asked her to meet us at lau pa sat instead. over an extra large bowl of fish soup noodles and yong tau fu, i told her the reason for our sudden change in plans and she was thrilled!
we continued with our plans for the day. working out at the gym was fun but i couldn’t really run/cycle as much as i used to as my body started to ache and fatigue was beginning to set in. the club street fair was fun too but a little too loud for my liking…ad gave me a lift to aunty becky’s house before heading for james’ mother’s birthday dinner and aunty becky gave me a great big hug to congratulate me! dinner was delicious with sautéed broccoli and portobello mushrooms (my favourite!).
A News Anchor's Perspective on "The Passion of the Christ" Jody Dean
Dallas/Ft. Worth anchor, CBS News
There have been tons of e-mails and forwards floating around recently from those who have had
the privilege of seeing Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ prior to its actual release. I
thought I'd give you my reaction after seeing it last [week.]
The screening was on the first night of "Elevate!” a weekend-long seminar for young people at
Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. There were about 2,000 people there, and the movie was
shown after several speakers had taken the podium. It started around 9:00 and finished around
11:00...about two hours in length. Frankly, I lost complete track of time - so I can't be sure.
I want you to know that I started in broadcasting when I was 13-years-old. I have been in the
business of writing, performing, production and broadcasting for a long time. I have been a part of
movies, radio, television, stage and other productions - so I know how things are done. I know
about soundtracks and special effects and make-up and screenplays. I think I have seen just
about every kind of movie or TV show ever made - from extremely inspirational to extremely gory.
I read a lot - and have covered stories and scenes that still make me wince. I also have a vivid
imagination, and have the ability to picture things as they must have happened - or to anticipate
things as they will be portrayed. I have also seen an enormous amount of footage from Gibson's
film, so I thought I knew what was coming.
But there is nothing in my existence - nothing I could have read, seen, heard, thought or known -
that could have prepared me for what I saw on screen last night.
This is not a movie that anyone will "like". I don't think it's a movie anyone will "love". It certainly
doesn't "entertain". There isn't even the sense that one has just watched a movie. What it is…an
experience - on a level of primary emotion that is scarcely comprehensible. Every shred of human
preconception or predisposition is utterly stripped away. No one will eat popcorn during this film.
Some may not eat for days after they've seen it. Quite honestly, I wanted to vomit. It hits that
hard.
I can see why some people are worried about how the film portrays the Jews. They should be
worried. No, it's not anti-Semitic. What it is, is entirely shattering. There are no "winners". No one
comes off looking "good" - except Jesus. Even His own mother hesitates. As depicted, the Jewish
leaders of Jesus' day merely do what any of us would have done - and still do. They protected
their perceived "place" - their sense of safety and security, and the satisfaction of their own
"rightness". But everyone falters. Caiphus judges. Peter denies. Judas betrays. Simon theCyrene
balks. Mark runs away. Pilate equivocates. The crowd mocks. The soldiers laugh. Longinus still
stabs with his pilus. The centurion still carries out his orders. And as Jesus fixes them all with a
glance, they still turn away. The Jews, the Romans, Jesus' friends - they all fall. Everyone, except
the Principal Figure. Heaven sheds a single, mighty tear - and as blood and water spew from His
side, the complacency of all creation is eternally shattered.
The film grabs you in the first five seconds, and never lets go. The brutality, humiliation, and gore
are almost inconceivable - and still probably does not go far enough. The scourging alone seems
to never end, and you cringe at the sound and splatter of every blow - no matter how steely your
nerves. Even those who have known combat or prison will have trouble, no matter their
experience - because this Man was not conscripted. He went willingly, laying down His entirety
for all. It is one thing for a soldier to die for his countrymen. It's something else entirely to think of
even a common man dying for those who hate and wish to kill him. But this is no common man.
This is the King of the Universe. The idea that anyone could or would have gone through such
punishment is unthinkable - but this Man was completely innocent, completely holy - and paying
the price forothers. He screams as He is laid upon the cross, "Father, they don't know. They don't
know..."
What Gibson has done is to use all of his considerable skill to portray the most dramatic moment
of the most dramatic events since the dawn of time. There is no escape. It's a punch to the gut
that puts you on the canvas, and you don't get up. You are simply confronted by the horror of
what was done - what had to be done - and why. Throughout the entire film, I found myself
apologizing.
What you've heard about how audiences have reacted is true. There was no sound after the film's
conclusion. No noise at all. No one got up. No one moved. The only sound one could hear was
sobbing. In all my years of public life, I have never heard anything like that.
I told many of you that Gibson had reportedly re-shot the ending to include more "hope" through
the Resurrection? That's not true. The Resurrection scene is perhaps the shortest in the entire
movie - and yet it packs a punch that can't be quantified. It is perfect. There is no way to
negotiate the meaning out of it. It simply asks, "Now, what will you do?"
I'll leave the details to you, in the hope that you will see the film - but one thing above all stands
out, and I have to tell you about it. It comes from the end of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness -
where the Bible says Satan left him "until a more opportune time." I imagine Satan never quit
tempting Christ, but this film captures beyond words the most opportune time. At every step of the
way, Satan is there at Jesus' side - imploring Him to quit, reasoning with Him to give up, and
seducing Him to surrender. For the first time, one gets a heart-stopping idea of the sense of
madness that must have enveloped Jesus - a sense of the evil that was at His very elbow. The
physical punishment is relentless - but it's the sense of psychological torture that is most
overwhelming. He should have quit. He should have opened His mouth. He should have called
10,000 angels. No one would have blamed Him. What we deserve is obvious. But He couldn't do
that. He wouldn't do that. He didn't do that. He doesn't do that. It was not and is not His character.
He was obedient, all the way to the cross - and you feel the real meaning of that phrase in a place
the human heart usually doesn't dare to go. You understand that we are called to that same level
of obedience. With Jesus' humanity so irresistibly on display, you understand that we have no
excuse. There is no place to hide.
The truth is this: Is it just a "movie"? In a way, yes. But it goes far beyond that, in a fashion I've
never felt - in any forum. We may think we "know". We know nothing. We've gone 2,000 years -
used to the idea of a pleasant story, and a sanitized Christ. We expect the ending, because we've
heard it so many times. God forgive us. This film tears that all away. It's is as close as any of us
will ever get to knowing, until we fully know. Paul understood. "Be urgent, in and out of season."
Luke wrote that Jesus reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread. Exactly. The Passion Of The
Christ shows that Bread being broken.
Go see this movie.
Jody Dean is theDallas/Ft. Worth anchor for CBS News.
Thought this article was funny, especially since my husband and i have been planning to start a family for ages... :b
Kidding Ourselves into Delayed Parenthood By Cheong Suk Wai of The Straits Times
AT 16, my game plan was to be a housewife and write on the side.
At 21, I was still bent on marrying a kind man, having two children, and banging out the Great Asian Novel when the dishes were done and they were tucked into bed.
Now pushing 34, wishing that aloud always sends friends and family into fits of laughter. They say they can sooner see me moving pawns than peeling prawns.
God, too, had other ideas.
So here I am, without a mate or mite, trying to figure out why young couples these days are reluctant to have children.
I think my Singaporean hostel mate - let's call her Pippa - said it best when we were debating for the umpteenth time the pros and cons of bringing another baby into a world where millions of children are aborted, orphaned or abused.
After I pushed my case once too often, Pippa sputtered in exasperation: 'How do you expect me to have children when I'm a child myself?'
That shut me up.
Pippa is but one among the world's growing number of kidults, or adults who wear the mask of maturity but prefer to pander to their inner child.
Those I know, like Pippa, say they feel ill-equipped for parenthood, because they don't see what values or lessons they could honestly pass on to their progeny, besides self-centredness and a passion for the good things in life.
Writer Kara Baskin summed up their free-wheeling angst in The New Republic magazine last October when she characterised them as 'a generation raised with more creature comforts than any other (but) lacks the purchasing power to acquire peace of mind'.
To get it, she said they are trying to live by not acting their age.
So they party hard, have chips and cola for breakfast and tune in avidly to taped episodes of Spongebob Squarepants, a chirpy cartoon character who looks like a wedge of Swiss cheese on its way to Sunday School.
No wonder the latest Nickelodeon TV survey shows that more than 30 per cent of Spongebob's fans are 18 or older. But even if their tastes run to more sophisticated stuff, their yen to abdicate bigger-picture responsibilities rages on.
As Ms Jane Ang Guat Peng put it in her letter to The Straits Times Forum page on Dec 19 last year: 'I am married, in my late 20s and enjoy a lifestyle most other married graduate couples enjoy: wining and dining, tasteful clothes, travel and a career. Why give up all these for a baby?'
Why indeed. More than ever, this planet is a 24/7 fairground of luscious and luxurious attractions for all to sample at will.
Yet, how many stiff drinks, late nights and beds can one quaff, dance away and conquer before the thrill of postponed adulthood begins to wear thin?
Sociology professor Frank F. Furstenberg Jr of the University of Pennsylvania told The New York Times recently: 'Ask most people in their 20s whether they're adults and you get a nervous laugh. They're not sure.'
He said this was because the longer transition to adulthood reflected a global economy in which people chased more paper to get better jobs that would comfortably support middle-class living.
As copywriter Tan Yen Nee, 24, told The Straits Times recently: 'We can't expect a decent standard of living with a child. We've got our housing loan and we are saving up for a car.'
So, many like her postpone parenthood till they get that vital MBA - or is it a doctorate now? - or that plum job.
Meanwhile, their once-healthy sperms weaken and good eggs rot in an ageing cycle no antioxidant, Botox jab or scalpel can stop. Being a kidult is not all about being selfish, though.
With the untold uncertainties of war, fluctuating markets, disease and terrorism, many see this world as a poor place to live in, let alone bring kids up in.
This seems especially so in urban living. All anyone wants after a long, hard day at work is some peace and quiet, and a bawling baby or pillow fight is anything but.
My primary school classmate, Jenny, mused recently how our friends living in small Malaysian towns were onto their second or third kids, while she and every urban dweller she knew couldn't see how to fit even one child into their lives.
'Tells you something, doesn't it,' she said ruefully.
That seems borne out by our parents' experience. Those among them who had no silver spoons had to grow up and leave home in a big hurry.
Their pay packets were that much harder to stretch, yet somehow people saw the worth of investing in children first; TV set, car and everything else second.
Maybe there weren't as many entertainment choices - at least not those they could afford - so unprotected sex was pretty much the height of recreation.
Maybe they just loved having children around.
Or maybe, in their own way, they wanted to leave the world a better place than they found it.
That's how you, I and everyone we know have had the chance to breathe air, touch grass, see sky.
I think our parents understood that just being alive was an experience worth passing on.
The Little Prince Wow, did an 11-year-old write this book review? Pretty impressive...
This thought provoking allegory of the human condition is about a lost airman and a little boy.
The boy, who is from another planet, tells the airman all about his intergalactic travels and how the different adults on different planets view the world.
It reflects on the stereotype of adults living in the world today, especially powerful, business-like intellectuals who spend all their time working, working, working. From the boy's point of view, they are all mushrooms.
The book also talks about uniqueness through friendship. A person may just be like any other person living on earth. To others, we are like a million other people. But if we make friends, we would be unique to each other.
Towards the end of the book, when the boy has to return to his planet, he tells the airman that since there are so many stars in the sky, they mean different things to different people.
For some they are nothing more than twinkling lights in the sky. For travellers they are guides. For scholars they are food for thought. For businessmen they are wealth.
This story is rich in imagery and punctuated with light fillips of humour and will appeal to both children and adults.
Wah seh! So fast year too-zeeloh-zeeloh-forr aleady ah.....time to make my ten leh-so-loo-shun hor.....
1. Go jogging at Fort Canning Park at 7am every morning (yah rite!)
2. Master the art of Body Combat and impress the Spinning instructor
3. Go on at least one missionary trip to Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand
4. Know the bible front to back, back to front
5. Sleep before 12am every night (no eyebags!)
6. Eat more organic food
7. Pursue the heart of God
8. Learn how to wakeboard and lindy-hop
9. Finish at least 75% of my book
10. And lastly, most importantly, to contribute to the "50,000 births Singapore needs annually to replace its population naturally and to have enough manpower for the economy, defence and other needs" by having one of my own. Ha ha!
I was misinformed about the information revolution By Richard Tomkins, Financial Times
What has the internet ever done for us? All right, so it has facilitated the spread of global terrorism, given rise to an enormous expansion of the pornography industry and introduced the words "spam" and "penis enlargement" into everyday speech. But where is the revolution we were promised during those wildly optimistic days of the 1990s dotcom frenzy?
Next Thursday, the Economic & Social Research Council, a body funded by the British government, is planning to launch a GBP6.5m programme of academic research into the ways society has been changed by the internet and the digital age. It claims it is the world's biggest such project.
With the ordinary arrogance of a columnist, I am tempted to say I could have saved the ESRC the bother. If it is a revolution the council is looking for, it will search in vain. For all the hyperbole over the internet, its effects on society have been insignificant compared with those of the industrial revolution's great inventions and discoveries such as electrical power, the telegraph, the motor car and television.
Unlike the damp squib known as the information revolution, the industrial revolution physically and tangibly transformed the lives of ordinary people. Agrarian, handicraft economies that had stayed unchanged for thousands of years were transformed into economies based on industry and machines. Mass production brought huge increases in the output of material goods. And the revolution was accompanied by sweeping social and political changes resulting from mass migration to the cities, improvements in transport and communications and the growth of international trade.
When the dotcom boom started, people thought the internet would change the way people lived, played and worked, too. Online commerce and media would replace conventional shops and newspapers, it was said. The internet would allow office workers to work from home, eliminating the daily commute. Digital technology would produce labour-saving devices such as smart fridges that would go online to replenish themselves.
For many seers of the internet age, that was just the beginning. Since knowledge was power, and the internet spread knowledge, traditional social forms in which people were ruled by governments would be undermined and disappear - as would the traditional nation state, its boundaries rendered meaningless by the networked reality of people now more closely bound to virtual communities than to physical ones.
And what happened?
First, let us acknowledge that the internet has at least made a difference to big business. The reason is that business is information intensive, so improvements in information technology have allowed companies to manage supply chains, logistics, inventories and data more efficiently - though the savings obtained should perhaps be balanced against the cost of running big IT departments and the time wasted by employees surfing the web, sending e-mails and dealing with spam.
But if we are talking about social change, the most striking thing about the internet is the sheer banality of its effects on the lives of ordinary people. When electricity came along, it gave rise to countless other inventions that transformed society, such as light bulbs that turned night into day, machines that helped people with their work and media such as radio and television that entertained and informed them. The internet, in contrast, just lets people do things they are already doing in a slightly different way: they download a piece of music instead of buying it from a record store, e-mail a friend instead of picking up the phone and buy an airline ticket electronically instead of calling a travel agent. It is useful and convenient, yes. But revolutionary?
This, surely, is the point about the information age. While business is information intensive, our personal lives are not, so the information revolution has left us almost untouched. For all the feeling of hectic change that the dotcom boom once generated, the world around us has changed much less in the past 50 years than it did in the 50 before that. We still drive cars powered by the internal combustion engine, a technology dating back more than a century. Most of us live in houses built generations ago. We still go to work, come home, eat dinner and play with the children. We still go shopping, read newspapers, wear clothes, sleep in beds, vacuum the floors, eat off plates and wash with soap and water.
To be fair, the internet has made one difference: it has made our personal lives a little more information intensive than they used to be. Few people with access to the internet would visit the doctor or buy a car without first doing extensive online research. And many derive comfort from networking with others on websites set up for people who share common interests. Examples include www.restrooms.org, which provides solutions to common public lavatory problems; www.whosoever.org, an online magazine for gay and transgender Christians; www.showmeyourwound.com, where people compare stories and pictures of injuries they have sustained; and www.dullmen.com, where boring, mild-mannered men share thoughts and experiences.
In that context, perhaps the ESRC's most interesting area of research will turn out to be whether the internet's benign effects outweigh the bad. We can probably all think of ways in which the web has made our lives a little easier or more enjoyable. But we cannot ignore the fact that much of its content ranges from the lowbrow to the thoroughly debased. Unlike other media such as newspapers and television, the web is neither edited nor regulated, so it has become a free-for-all for every imaginable kind of deception, depravity and stupidity as much as for information, enlightenment and engagement.
I know what the seers will say: it is early days yet. Perhaps the democratising effects of the internet will eventually lead to a revolution as information-empowered web surfers seize the reins of political power. At the moment, however, they seem more intent on stealing music and peeking up Anna Kournikova's skirt. It is not a promising start.
