john the baptist

today's gospel reading is about some guy called John the Baptist... what's so important about him?

well, he is important to me... as a teacher, he tells me that some people who will end up learning from me will be greater than me. he tells me that i am not worthy to undo their sandal straps but they will allow me to annoint them with whatever i can teach them and i will hence try to teach them the best i can...

Anyway, we should all be like John the Baptist... we should all go and try to be like John the Baptist... not that we should go and baptise the world. that would be great, but difficult yeah... no. we should go out and make our lives point towards Jesus. We should go out and make sure that when people view our lives, they will be guided towards the direction of Jesus...

I did a module recently which taught me about the importance of the northern star, plus I was in the navy for a bit and thus know how important the stars are for navigation... well, there are many people out there who are sailing on this sea of life and need direction... let us then be the stars for Jesus and lead them to the right path... I think that is what we are all called to do, to lead the lost back to God... So let's all raise our fingers and point to the God who will save us all, so that other people know where he's at, ya...

hypocrisy

today's reading tells us, hypocrites suck...

if you believe in something enough, i think you should do what it tells you to do...

Being catholic, do i believe in catholicism enough to be a good catholic? do i do what is required of me to be a good catholic? well, do i? do u?
And, do i turn others away from catholicism? do i make life difficult for other catholics? do i place burdens on the backs of good catholics and put them on trial in an earthly court?

freedom is...

freedom is...

the ability to choose,
with one's own will,
what to be enslaved under...

working in the fields

Whenever I read today’s Gospel, I feel for the workers who have been working right from the start. It seems like they put in so much more work than the rest of the workers and yet get the same thing. It just isn’t fair.

But we need to know what it is they are working for and what they are working for is God’s Kingdom. Thus those of us who have been working hard for it would hate it if somebody who just doesn’t work as hard gets exactly the same as we do. That is normal when we talk about work in a normal sense but this is about God’s work, which is very different.

In my opinion, when we do God’s work, we actually help ourselves more than we help God. We should delight in doing His work and so we shouldn’t complain about the results since we are going to get what we were promised anyway. You see, we have had the good fortune to spend all that time in the presence of the God we love and who loves us. We should just enjoy working for Him.

Another thing is that all we hear about the work was that they had to do it in the heat but what was the work? Maybe the work was playing soccer or singing or dancing around? Maybe it was painting a wall. You see, some people might paint a wall for money and those people would hate that other people get the same money as them who didn’t do the same amount of painting. Let us be the other group who knew what we would get for painting the wall but do it also because we want the wall to be pretty and colourful and because we just like expressing ourselves through painting walls.

quotable quotes

This is a quote from the movie Akeelah and the Bee and I just wanted to share it with you guys cos I don’t think anybody’s gonna watch the movie. It’s a good movie but it isn’t a blockbuster and if I wasn’t held hostage by boredom on the plane, I probably would not have watched it. I thought about sending it to the rag people but I kinda figured it was too late cos by the time I landed it was like in the late night of Friday Singapore time so it would not have been useful. I think it illustrates one of my core beliefs in that nothing is as important as facing our fears and living our dreams.

"Our Deepest Fear"
by Marianne Williamson from "A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles"

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

shortest post

reflection for today,

Impossible is nothing... for God

my brevity shocks me... :)

Aug 21st

Ok, I really cannot relate to the first reading of today. I think that this is because it is a very Old Testament reading. The God that is represented in the Old Testament is a very different God than is represented in the New Testament. He is shown as an angry God and a jealous God. So what changed? Why the one God at the start and another God after that?

I don’t know. But it does seem strange does it not? I keep wondering if I am reading everything out of context but I read a little before and a little after the passage and what I am struck by is how God judges us. Did God have to be so cruel to show us how merciful He can be?

Well, I think He probably had to. I think that He had to show us how much we did not deserve it but that He did it anyway. The New Testament completes the Old Testament in that the OT shows how man in general continued to disappoint Him and how He in general continued to show us how much He loved us.

I guess the best way to describe it in my own terms and in my own experience is by comparing it to, big surprise, my own father. When I was young and I did foolish stuff, I would get punished by my dad. But as I got older, I learnt from all the silly things I did in my past and I endeavoured not to do them again. But you know what, it was when I really understood the extent of his love for me that I began really understanding why the crazy things I did hurt him so much. Only when I learnt how much my own father sacrificed for me, did I really know how much I disappointed Him.

I guess in a similar way, God behaves just like a father to all of us. When I was watching “The Passion” and I saw how much Jesus was suffering, the thought that was ever present in my mind was how much hurt and pain I had caused Him. Every lash of the whip was a representation of the sins I had committed. Every Nail that pierced His flesh represented the good acts that I chose not to do. God sacrificed Himself for me. I don’t think anybody else believes that their God sacrificed themselves for normal ordinary human beings.

But we are different. We believed that God sacrificed Himself for us. The thing is, He did not sacrifice Himself for any ordinary human beings, He sacrificed Himself for us. We are His chosen people, His royal priesthood, a people set apart. Set apart from what? Set apart from everybody else. God did not sacrifice Himself for anybody. He did it for us. So why did he choose us?

I don’t know. Seems like that’s a common thread today yah? Let’s see, so I don’t know and I am lazy, sounds just like me. Anyway, I don’t know because I think only you and God know why you’re chosen. I remember someone, I think it was Leo, who said that the two most important days of our lives were, firstly, the day you came into this earth and second, the day you discovered why.

How true is that? In my last reflection, I wrote about how we are all searching for the Way. So it is very understandable that I think that the day we figured out where we are going to be one of the two most important days of our lives. It sucks to not know where we are going because it feels like we are doing all this work for nothing. When we figure out our direction then everything begins to have meaning. And when everything starts to have meaning then we will look forward to everyday.

When I was helping out with the Rag presentation thing for my hall, (we lost by the way. I am sad.) I remember coming up with the catchphrase that everyday was not just another day. I felt that that was a very important idea to bring across. Everyday brings opportunities for us to take advantage of and we need to realise that. We tend to get caught up in the routine of everyday and so “everyday” becomes a bad word synonymous with being boring and mundane.

Everyday is so much more than that. Everyday becomes mundane only because we make it so. (Oh yes, another theme you will see a lot in my writing apart from the facts that I don’t know and that I am lazy is my staunch belief that everything is a choice.) We have to choose to make everyday special and do that.

In every good relationship, the partners have to make each other feel that everyday is special because they are with the ones they love. That is why one of the most important tips in men’s magazines, (I’m just guessing ‘cause I don’t read such trash, bah.) is to surprise your loved ones on ordinary days. Yes, anniversaries are important but it’s the everyday that is most important.

Yes, Sundays and Days of Obligation are important but it is serving God everyday that is most important. There is a need for all of us to delight in the everyday because everyday is another day spent with the Lord. When Belinda Carlisle sang about Heaven being a place on Earth, she probably did not know how right she was. Heaven becomes a place on Earth when we spend it in God’s presence because a simple understanding of Heaven is a place where our souls live in unison with God.

So, when we read in the Gospel of the day that Jesus tells the rich man’s son that the only way to heaven is to give up all his riches, this might be what he means. The man in question had to give up the everyday and live the Everyday. He had to give up the life he was living and start living with God as his sole focus. It was not enough that he kept the commandments and it would do us well to remember that. Keeping the commandments means nothing if God is not the centre of our lives.

I was once told by a wise teacher of mine that it is not the sins we commit that we will be judged on but the good works we omit that will decide our fate. When our lives revolve around God, we will do the good work we are given a chance to because we are told that whatever we do to the least of the brethren is done unto God. Joan Osbourne said it best when she sang “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on a bus? Tryin’ to make His way home…”

Well, forget “what if” because he is in our midst. Every time we give somebody what he or she does not deserve, we must remember that our God has given us what we do not deserve. He sees beyond our faults and our transgressions and sees instead who we really are and what we really need. He is truly our father and he treats us like any good father would treat their children.

foolishness

Aug 20th

Today’s first reading contains a line that I should use as my life’s maxim. “Forsake foolishness (immaturity) and live, and walk in the way of insight (understanding).” And that is the line running through the readings of today.

So, what is foolishness? To answer that it is important to ask another question, that is, what is insight or understanding? Insight or understanding is the comprehension of God’s will for us. Thus, foolishness is acting against that comprehension. Funnily, following the wisdom of God would be associated to following foolishness to most other people. This is because we as human beings cannot fathom the depths of the wisdom of God.

When we are told to forsake foolishness, we are in fact told to follow God’s way. In Buddhism, the Way is the Middle Path. In Taoism, the Way is the Tao. In Christianity, The Way, along with the Truth and the Life is Jesus. And this triple threat actually completes another of Christ’s teachings, the teaching on “Seek and you shall find”.

You see, many people doing are searching for something and how do we know that? Because many people would describe themselves as lost. Many people live their lives one day at a time with no sense of direction. They can’t see where they are heading and they think that this is because they just do not know the way. It now comes to be our task to go up to the lost sheep and reintroduce them to the way again. That is so much easier said than done.

But why, if there are so many people lost and looking for direction would they not go towards The Way. I think Jack Nicholson said it best when he said, “The Truth? You can’t handle The Truth!” Yes, many of us are looking for The Way but we just can’t handle The Truth. This is because The Truth is also our truth. When we look at Jesus, we cannot but see ourselves. We feel inadequate next to him and feel like we aren’t worthy. So what are we to do now? We want to know the way but we are afraid of the truth.

For this, we need to realise that there is a third aspect to Jesus. He is The Life. When Adam and Eve first sinned against God, they were forbidden from eating from the Tree of Life again. When Jesus came down, He was hung on an ordinary tree that became the Tree of Life for on the tree hung Life itself. And the new Tree of Life re-establishes the situation of the Garden.

So in other words, God has already forgiven us. He’s given us back the Tree of Life and so now all we have to do is to eat from it. And now we come to the Gospel. The people in the reading just could not accept that Jesus would give his flesh for us to eat but we have to eat it because He is The Life. If we do not eat of Him then we have no life within us.

Now, what does it mean to eat of His flesh? Whenever we eat, we process our food in different parts of our body, and when everything is finally digested the nutrients we obtain flows to the parts of our body that need them the most. We need to put our food through a process of digestion because the morsels are too big to enter our bloodstream. Now, when we eat of Jesus do we do likewise? We need to spend time to break down Jesus so that we can understand Him better. He is beyond the understanding of our finite minds because He is infinite. After breaking Him down and understanding Him, we need to put Jesus into the parts of our lives that need Him most. And the parts that need Jesus the most are the parts of us that are dead and need The Life.

Now that The Life is fully working within us, The Truth becomes easier to bear and The Way becomes much clearer. We are no longer lost because Jesus our Good Shepherd has found us. And we have found Him. We now know the Way and thus should follow The Way. And when we choose not to follow The Way then that is foolishness indeed.

reflection for 19 Aug

I was just reading the readings for today and I decided to write a little about what I thought about them. I like to try and find common denominators so that I can understand what the day’s readings are about and I think today, we should reflect of judgements.

The first reading deals with an ancient Jewish belief that a father’s sin is automatically imposed upon the son. This means that whatever judgement is put upon the father passes on to the son. The prophet Ezekiel tells us that this is not so and possibly pre-empts the statement from Jesus about whose sins had caused God to take away the sight of the man born blind. That’s what I know about the reading.

This is what I feel about the reading. I feel that the reading tells us not to blame others for our own wrongdoings. In this modern day, people too often blame things beyond their control for whatever wrongs they committed. This is just pushing the blame and the first reading today says that we can not just shift the blame like that.

There are many instances in our lives when we do something wrong and blame it on the circumstances. Yes, peer pressure is a problem and it can influence our decisions. But we must remember that we have a choice and many times, the choice we know will please God tends to be the unpopular choice and so that is the reason we give in to temptation.

This desire to be popular is inherent in all of us but I think more so in the youths. Adults tend to be more secure in their positions and so do not give in as easily to peer pressure. However, the youths and teenagers just do not have it as easy. As a young person, everybody wants to fit in and be part of a group. The problem here is that there are more groups doing the wrong things than there are doing the right. For every youth division of the Legion of Mary, there are probably about 50 cliques meeting on the very same days to do things that are or could be harmful to the spiritual or even physical wellbeing of the youths.

Maybe one way to counter this would be to have more youth groups catered to the youths looking to further their spiritual lives. This would be a good idea but it does seem like something that needs something else to work. I think that having more youth groups is a good thing but the more important thing that needs to be done is to encourage the development of the characters in the youths who join the groups.

I know that in many churches, there is a boom in the numbers in youth groups just before confirmation and that this boom lasts about a year at the most and then tends to fade. This needs to be addressed because it seems most people leave with a bad impression of these groups and this starts their falling away from the church. This is the first snowball per se. I know because that was the excuse I used when I was falling away from the church.

I was very active as a teenager in youth groups in the church. One day however, I just stopped because I felt there were other better things to do. I also felt that the group was getting too cliquish and I just did not feel a part of it anymore. There was also that wonderful catholic youth group thing that kills many catholic youth groups, politics. I shall write my views on that some other time but suffice to say, it made me leave that group.

That was not the end of it though. When I left the group, I started becoming what I swore I would never be, a Sunday Catholic. I had been serving the church since I was about 10 and without anything to do in church I suddenly felt lost. I went to mass every Sunday but it just did not mean anything to me anymore. I was falling away from the church and what did I do? I blamed the catholic youth groups.

No, I did not blame the group I had been in, I blamed every group out there. I was convinced that every Catholic group was the same and I wanted no part in them. The sad thing was, I knew that joining a group would be good for me. I knew that to stop the rot I needed to join a group but I just could not because I did not take responsibility for what I had done on my own accord. The group did not force me to leave, I did that on my own.

Now, I shall go into the point of that long spiel. Firstly, we as catholic youth groups need to keep onto our members. This is something we need to learn from the protestant churches. We tend to think that our church is so great that we don’t need to do that. Well, we’re right, we don’t need to. But we should anyway. We need to show concern about everybody who joins us. Yes, people might abuse this but do it anyway. We need to show that although the head of the Catholic church is in Rome, the heart of the Catholic church is in each and every one of us. We need to start caring.

If, when I had just started to fall away from the group, someone from the group had called me to see what was going on, I don’t know what the result would have been. But, nobody called and thus I am writing this. Maybe if in our groups, we don’t see somebody for a while, we should just call them and see if anything is the matter. We need to take the initiative and go out and help without others needing to come and ask us for help. Somehow, we are all good being reactive, a little too good maybe, but not really good at being proactive.

So that’s the first thing, be proactive when we see a fellow brother or sister start falling away. Oh, and in order to do that, we need to notice people. That is not usually done in most cases. We always tend to notice the prominent people but those guys don’t need to be noticed. We need to start noticing the quiet ones. These are the ones who won’t ask for help and the ones we won’t notice when they leave. We need to note their presence and approach them. As mechanical as this might be, we need to take down when they are there and when they are not. This will make them feel special and make it seem like the group really cares for their individual well being.

Besides keeping onto our members, we need to encourage them to participate more in ways in which they can contribute to the group. By giving them tasks to do that they’re good at, they might start to feel a stronger sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is important as if you read up on gangs and other entities of their ilk, you would realise that that is what keeps youths from leaving the gangs.

I realised I got a little sidetracked. I was talking about judgements and pushing the blame. Well, the parts above are like how to avoid getting the blame pushed upon youth groups but they seem to have nothing much to do with judgements. No worries, I shall touch on that now.

The Psalm for today tells about what kind of sacrifices God desires from us. From the psalm, we are told that the best sacrifice to offer God is a contrite heart. Why is this so? Well, a contrite heart is malleable and it tells God that we accept him as our Lord and God and commit all that we do to his hands. He does not need anything we give Him. He needs us. So by going to God with a contrite heart, we are in fact offering him ourselves.

Lastly, we reach the Gospel. The Gospel today was really short and talks about little children. Jesus accepts the little children because of what we are told in the Psalm. Little children admit that they are weak and thus give themselves fully to Jesus. As children we allow others to lead because we know that we do not know. We acknowledge or fallings and realise that there is someone else who can help us. When we get older, pride tends to get in our way but as children, this pride is not a major consideration at all. Thus, when we are told to be like little children, we need to understand that we need to chuck our pride by the door and let God lead our lives.

That was my convoluted way of reflecting on the bible verses for today. I hope this was beneficial. If not, I will promise you that I will practice until it becomes beneficial.

Mahalo

awesome blossom

This is the AWESOME BLOSSOM from chilli's...

shopping

Hello people,

Well, on Tuesday I went out with Ruth and Fai after orientation. We wanted to go to a club called the Pipeline Café. I thought I was underdressed cos I was wearing boardshorts and slippers but the 2 of them assured me that this is Hawaii and that is the dresscode. They were wrong. I got thrown out of the club. But it’s ok, Ruth got thrown out too cos she didn’t bring her ID.

So we ended up going to Ward to catch a movie. We watched You, Me and Dupree. It was quite interesting cos the first part of the movie was in Hawaii and we were like we need to go to wherever the plane landed cos it was a stunning location. And the movies here are really expensive.

Anyway, yesterday we decided to embark on that all too Singaporean activity, bargain hunting. We went to a collection of outlet stores and spent just way too much money. The problem of outlet shopping in the states is the need to do mental calculations whenever you buy anything, which of course is not good for me considering my allergy to numbers. But some of the things here are mondo cheap man. Well, everything but the food of course.

Let’s see what I bought. I bought 2 pairs of levi’s and a pair of dockers berms and that came out to about $100 Singapore dollars. And one of those was a pair of 501s that costs way more in Levi’s Singapore. I almost bought a pair of Van’s shoes but decided against it after considering how I was going to bring them back home. I also bought a couple of t-shirts. One was for me and the other was something which made me think of Kudus. It read “It’s good to be the king” and had a picture of a guy lounging with people serving him beer. How can someone look at that and not think Kudus?

Then we went to chili’s to eat. Damn was the food there good. The best thing about the meal was something called awesome blossom. It’s just this enormous onion deep fried in batter and served with some sort of sauce. It was the best onion I’ve ever tasted cos it was just so sweet.

Oh, I got a message form my friend Leonard asking me to try krispy kremes. Well, I asked Sheri where the nearest Krispy Kremes was and she said that Hawaii only has 1 in the entire state and it happens to be on Maui. But Leo, rest assured that I will try those super donuts. Now I have even more reason to want to go visit Maui. And no, do not think that’s where Maui and Sons comes from and even if it was, big deal cos I don’t really like their stuff.

I visited Borders here and I almost bought a book called Da Jesus Book. Da Jesus Book is a version of the New Testament written entirely in pidgin, which is like the Hawaiian version of Singlish. It was pretty funny and interesting but I did not buy it because I saw Da Jesus Story which was a CD. I figured this would be better cos now people can actually get to hear what pidgin sounds like. I will definitely bring them down to the Friday Prayer Meets when I get back.

I think that’s all for the moment. I will blog more soon.

some really cool photos

OK, spent a whole day in school just now. had orientation and met lots of exchange students. for some strange reason, even though everybody is on exchange, everybody still clings to the people they're most familiar with. the Aussies hung with the kiwis, the europeans with the europeans and we the singaporean hung with the thai people. they were actually very nice and were from thamassat if i spelt that properly. they also had cool nicknames like benz and top and mas which is good cos probably nobody can pronounce their names.

met very interesting people at orientation like the hot russian girl who speaks about as much english as i could when i was 7 months old. guess what, she even has the most russian name on the planet, tatiana. and there was also the german guy who translated everything for her, oskar. now that guy was interesting. he can speak russian fluently because he lived in kazakhstan for 10 years. this is because he is totally ethnically german and hihs family used to live in russia. confused yet? anyway, during world war 2, his family was considered enemies of that state and hence got kicked out of russia and had to live in kazakhstan because if they went back to germany, they'd probably be considered traitors too. so that means that oskar is cool cos he's probably got lots of stories to tell. i need to get to know him better cos i like stories.

joel told me to put more pictures of birds on my blog but i figure, look, there are lots of birds everywhere you look and you know what, the birds in hawaii are pretty much very similar to the birds in singapore. i mean if i have pictures of birds then i'll put them here but i won't go and purposely take bird photos. i like scenery. i wish i could master my camera so i can take really good shots but then again, the place is so pretty, even my crap skills can't spoil it.

Here are the uber cool photos...




OK, these are pictures of the sunset taken at the lookout point on waikiki beach. waikiki is super touristy but its also the safest beach on which to learn how to surf. there's lots to do there and it faces west so it's got the best view of sunsets. i like the fact that there is a mountain right next to the sunset. SO PRETTY...





OK, these are the photos or the sheri's place. the top one if of her super steep driveway. i climbed up the driveway last night and i almost died. i climbed down the driveway in the afternoon and i knew that one wrong step and i'd be humpty dumptying all the way down. the one with the bright red plant is at the top of the driveway. she calls that the shower plant cos when the flowers fall, it's like a shower of pretty red petals. And the last one is the view of the mountain next to sheri's place taken from the busstop.

newspaper

I some how managed to get myself into the Hawaiian papers after being here for only 4 days. not bad eh? i've been in Singapore for 23 years and haven't even made an appearance on anything...

anyway, this is the newspaper cutout for those who wanna check it out...

http://starbulletin.com/2006/08/14/news/story02.html

it's kinda annoying cos it says that places are opening up. they should have told me that before i signed my lease payment but ah well, c'est la vie no?

sunday morning

As for today, we went to church. it was really different from attending mass in singapore. firstly, there is no procession. the priest just walks in and straight onto the altar. then, before the processional hymn, which is strange cos there is no procession, the priest asks if there are any visitors or first timers in the congregation that day. i stood up and they asked where i was from and then they gave me an aloha welcoming lei. also, the wardens for the mass were all youths and were all Sheri's friends. so at least it isn't as bad as the state of the church in australia since there were a few youths there. it was a really small church though. it was about maybe three times the size of the SJI chapel.


Next, when the mass began everything was normal until the Eucharistic prayer. they don't kneel. they stand through the parts that we kneel through in Singapore. Even after communion they stand and wait until everybody is done and then they sit. OK, some people do kneel during that part but not many. they also sing a version of the lamb of God which is about 5 or 6 stanzas long and doesn't say lamb of God til the last one. and for communion, they don't use the host but actual brown bread. i wasn't sure if i could bite the bread but it was really dry and so i felt like i had to. sorry Jesus.

After communion they had a family prayer where a family would go up and receive a blessing for the whole community. i thought that that was nice. that was the thing about mass here in hawaii. it was just so comfortable and family oriented and everybody smiles. widely.

anyway, after mass, sheri and i went to meet up with her friends for lunch. we ate at a place called jack in the box which was like burger king just slightly different. we bought the paper but didn't see the article or our pictures on it. oh thinking about the article reminds me of the photographer who was really friendly and told us of like his life story and how he spent 10 years in UH and was studying for his masters in zoology but realised that he was making too much money taking pictures and so he quit school and began working as a photographer. he also told us that within walking distance was a place called mcgoo's which serves the cheapest beers on the island. i know now where i'll be spending just a little bit too much of my time in the future. he said the most expensive thing there was a pitcher of guiness which goes for about 8 bucks. my eyes lit up and i was happy. hahaha...

after the lunch, we went back to sheri's and she took a nap cos she's not feeling well. she showed me the soccer channel and they were showing the community shield. i am worried that jose has spent so much on attack that he has neglected his defence. i hope gallas changes his attitude. we need him bad. after watching the match i just decided to start writing my blogs for this past week so i have nothing left to clear when tomorrow begins.


oh, remember in a previous post i talked about going to a christian bookstore? well, Sheri's friend Clyde works there and can give me a discount on the books there. so if anybody wants a book u can tell me and i'll tell you how much it is and you can wait til january to get it. deal?

Oh yeah, talk about localisation... Mother Mary's wearing a lei...

alright, i'll sign off now...
tata

stuff i did yesterday

Ok, I’ve been told to keep my blogs short cos it’s difficult to process so much stuff without really getting bored. Also I think there was way too much detail in the last posting.

Fai asked me if I was loving Hawaii yet and in all honesty, I really wasn’t. Maybe it’s cos I just had like way too much on my mind. Trying to find a place and all has been rather tough and I thought that school would be easy but I can’t get most of my modules. In fact, the only module I got easily was the theatre module. All the history modules were closed cos they were popular but luckily the history professors were really nice and they said they’d see what they could do to squeeze me into their classes. For lit, which they call English here, the literature of jazz was closed but I kinda felt like taking the one on the history of poetic form instead. The problem with that one was that I could not register for it because I didn’t meet the pre-req so I emailed the guy to tell him that I did and he went to have a check and said I had to see him again on Monday to check it out again. So that’s the module thing.

Next is the housing thing. I was very worried that I might not find a place to stay for the semester and the fears got even worse when I checked out craig’s list which is some sort of an advertising website thing. The places were all way over my budget and they weren’t really near the school at all. So on Saturday, me and Fai and Sheri went to check out a place called Kalo Terrace which is about as near to the uni as sheares is to arts. So the location was good. As for the facilities, they seemed alright. I mean they weren’t up to the nus hall standards but apparently they were pretty high on the UH dorm standard. But I didn’t mind. They have wireless in every room and a tv with cable in the main hall of the apartment and a laundry room with washer and dryer which I don’t think you can cheat (damn). They even have a swimming pool. Ok, in my mind I was thinking like why would you need a pool in Hawaii then I saw some hot European chicks sunbathing at the pool and I became enlightened. I signed up for a room right there and then. Hahaha… well, this was also because Sheri’s sister is in real estate and she said that the price I was getting it for was very decent for the location and I let the Singaporean in me take over cos it was a good deal and WE don’t let good deals go by easily. Ooh, they gave us free pizza too cos it was like their open house that day and the R.A.s were nice. RAs are like block com back home but they get to stay for free cos they take care of everything. Think Block com with twice as much work though.

We then hung out at Jason’s place. Jason is Sheri’s boyfriend. Anyway, he let all of us crash at his place and we waited for Ruth. Ruth came after having a horrible time cos of some asshole who was a total bastard to her when she went to diamond head. When she came, we cruised for a while before we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant, which served the best miso soup I’ve ever tasted. And the rest of the food there was pretty superb too. I think I’ll never go to Japan now that I know you can get really great stuff in Hawaii too.


Since we’re on the topic of food, let’s talk about Hawaiian food. And if kudus is reading this, no, I’m not just talking about Hawaiian pizza although the pizza we had at Kalo, none of them were Hawaiian come to think about it. Anywho, I’m talking about real Hawaiian food. Poi, which is sort of like a yam paste is the staple for the Hawaiians. It’s bad. Really. I’m not kidding. I stuck my spoon in it and when I took it out I knew I wasn’t in for a treat. It’s cold and sour and icky. Sorry if I have insulted anyone out there but I have one thing to say in my defence. I had it at Poi Bowl at Ala Moana centre so it was bound to suck. This I had been told by Sheri’s friends after I told them that I went there. Everything else though was alright, just a little salty. There was kalua pig, which is just strips of pork in some broth thing and Laulau which is pork cooked with spinach and tea leaves. There was also some salmon thing and chicken long rice which was all pretty ok. And the best part of it was a hapua dessert which is this coconut jelly thing. That was yum.

That was Saturday. I kinda forgot to take more shots of Kalo Terrace but I’ll definitely get a chance to again soon. And I’ll try and get a newspaper report that I’m apparently on as well. Some reporter came and interviewed me and Sheri and Fai about housing in UH or the lack thereof and was asking us questions and taking pictures of us. Cool huh? I might get into the papers in Hawaii before I get into them in Singapore.


Oh, here's a bottle of belgian beer i drank at Ryan's when i went there with Sheri's friends after Ala Moana. They were having a beer fest there and had beer from all over the world. This one that i had was very heavy at about 10.5% alc and was dark with a fruity aftertaste. it was no stella for sure. i'm thinkin about heading off to Ryan's for more before beer fest ends...

more words now

Hey people, this is don here trying to get a blog up and running. This blog has been set up as a way to keep connected to the rest of the world that’s not in paradise at the moment. For those who are in paradise with me, what are you guys doing here? Don’t you have better things to do?

Anyway, time to tell you how things went. Oh by the way, I’m not writing this on Hawaii Day 1 but Hawaii Day 2. The thing is, I had realised that when I arrived at Sheri’s place last night, I had been awake for about 48 hours with only fleeting sleep on the plane on my way to Hawaii and a short nap when I was in Narita.

Firstly, Northwest is not exactly the best way to fly. The journey from Singapore to Narita was not a very comfortable one. I am very ashamed to say that I got air sick in the plane and that it was the first time in years. I didn’t even get airsick when I was travelling on the flying coffins of Eva and China Airlines. (I didn’t really like Eva but I thought China Air was pretty decent.) Heck, I didn’t even get sick when I was on the Charlie 130 to erm, I think it’s an open national secret but a national secret nonetheless so I shall not say where I travelled to on the Charlie. In fact on the flight to Narita, they served food barely better than the SFI food served on the Charlie 130. The one good thing though was the personal TVs. I was really afraid of having to sit through a super long journey without a personal TV and my friend Chris had told me that Northwest didn’t have personal TVs, so I was really relieved to see a TV behind every seat. And they had pretty decent programs too. I watched “Thank you for smoking” but I fell asleep halfway because I wasn’t feeling too well. Oh, and I just remembered that it took me a bloody long time to find the freaking earphone jack for my seat. If anybody from Northwest reads this, or anybody who works with airplane companies for that matter, please have something telling patrons where the bleeting earphone jack thing is. After taking an uncomfortable nap, I decided to watch “Over the Hedge”. That went pretty good at first but then, they stopped the movie halfway to say that we were about to land. By about to land, I mean 30 minutes from actually landing. And then, they didn’t continue it at all. OK, well, they did but without the sound. Genius.

Next was the adventure in Narita. Thank God for travelling companions. I was travelling with Fairoza who is also going to be studying in Manoa with me and Ruth who’s gonna study in Austin but came to Hawaii for a weeklong break. So we decided to hang together in Narita while we served our time there, which was a pretty impressive 6 hours. First off, we decided to be Singaporean and look for food. Being in Japan, we decided to look for sushi. Guess what? There’s no sushi in Narita when you’re on transit. So we decided to settle for Macs. But we compromised for our own dignities and got burgers unavailable in Singapore. Then we headed to one of the lounges that had Internet connections and decided to hang there for a bit. After finishing our food, Ruth went online at a rate or 100 yen for every ten minutes and Fairoza went online at a rate of 100 yen for like ever. Apparently there was something wrong with that terminal but who cares. Anyway, while they were online, I decided to take a nap on the desk. Only after I woke up did I realise that I could have just as easily gotten to sleep on the seats there that could accommodate me lying down. Anyway, about an hour before we had to board the plane, we decided to go around Narita one last time just in case we missed anything and guess what? Yes, there is sushi in Narita, in a Food court behind the FaSoLa duty free thingie. And there was a Starbucks there too and a really cool place that sold really nice bags. Unfortunately, I could find anything that sold “Hard Gay” stuff so sorry guys.

Soon after that we had to board the plane. Fairoza grabbed a coffee from Starbucks cos she wanted to stay awake so she could watch Thank you for Smoking. Well, we got on the plane and then I noticed something very troubling. THERE WERE NO PERSONAL TV SETS!!! ARGH!!! There wasn’t even any music for much of the journey. They played Akeelah and the Bee on the shared TV and that’s a pretty good movie. I strongly encourage people to catch it. There was a pretty good quote on it about Fear that I can’t remember word for word and even if I did I would share it cos I want you guys to go watch it. But this time, the flight was a lot more comfortable and the food was much better. I didn’t get sick on this flight. However, the best thing on this flight was the landing. As we were about to land the lady next to me opened the shutter for the window to reveal the most spectacular view I’ve ever seen from an aeroplane. I think it was Maui or the Big Island we were flying over but it was Gorgeous. I got off the plane really excited cos I just wanted to see more of the beauty of Paradise. And then I had to pass through immigration, which was a rather pleasant experience. The Border and Immigration Control officer was very nice and made things very easy for me. The shite part came when I had to go get my luggage. I waited and waited and waited. And then I saw my bags by the side of the carousel which was just too packed with people and so after about 25 minutes of waited for my luggage I was finally able to pass through customs and out into the bright Hawaiian sun!

By this time, I had already lost Ruth and Fairoza. And that was pretty bad cos we had no way of getting in touch. I decided that I should get a pre-paid card and then tell Fai my number through email or something. But that is another adventure I’ll get to later. First I had to find Sheri. I was pretty worried cos it was already about 930 when I cleared everything and I told her my flight was arriving at 850. But my worries were unfounded. As I approached the arrivals area she just ran up to me and gave me a huge Aloha hug. It felt good to see her after all these months. We tried looking for Fai and Ruth but then just decided to give up since Fai was probably with her host family and Ruth was probably on her way to her hotel room. Then Sheri and I walked over to her car. She had to rush off to class and I was afraid that picking me up would make her late but apparently, she just made her class. So she went for class and left me to explore the university on my own.

My first stop was to see the exchange coordinator and on the way there, a lady stopped me and asked me for directions. That so made my day. Hahaha. Anyway, after that I went to the Health Centre and the Student services centre. There I found out that I still could not register until I could break my holds but that would have to wait for day 2. After that, I met up with Sheri and we went for lunch at L and L’s Drive Inn. We had a boxed lunch, the first one ever for me in that way. Dr Barnard recommended that I try one and so I did. It was pretty good but I still wasn’t feeling too well from my plane ride and stuff so I could not finish everything. After lunch, Sheri had to go to work and so she asked if I wanted to hang around Ward for like about 5 hours before she picked me up again. I said I didn’t mind and thus my Ward adventure began.
The adventure was because I had to get a pre-paid line for my phone. This is something we probably take for granted in Singapore cos there’s always a singtel or m1 or starhub somewhere around. Over here, nobody really knows where T-mobile and Cingular are and they all say it’s pretty near but their near is kinda far. Anyway it started of by a lady telling me to walk to someplace called CompUSA cos she said there was a T-mobile there. It took me about 20 minutes to walk there and when I got there and asked where the T-mobile was, I was told that the nearest one was in the downtown area about a 45 minute walk away in “thata” way. So I walked in thata way until I reached ward again and I just gave up. I went into another shop in the ward warehouse and asked where the nearest T-mobile or Cingular was and this really nice lady gave me pretty clear and accurate directions to get to a Cingular which was just a ten minute walk away. So I happily walked there and got me a pre-paid line. The charges there are pretty interesting going at $1 a day on the days you use your phone, so if you don’t use your phone, you don’t have to pay. And calls are at $0.10 a minute but the best thing is that calls from Cingular to Cingular are completely free. And that is really cool cos Sheri and Fai are both on Cingular too. I do realise that this is not much of an adventure but you have to remember that by this time, I had been awake for about 36+ hours with only fleeting sleep on the plane and the nap in Narita so there were times when I just had to take about 30 minutes to rest and just gather my wits. I was very tempted to just co to the ward Cineplex and pay about US$6.50 to sit down in a cinema and sleep but then decided it was against my principles. So I just went shopping. I bought a pair of boardshorts and got a free t-shirt so I thought it was a pretty decent deal. I also bought lotsa stuff to drink cos I was just so thirsty that afternoon. I mean it doesn’t feel as yucky as the weather back home but it is awfully dry and so you really need to hydrate yourself. I also went to check out a Christian bookshop and it was pretty good. The books there I have never seen in Singapore and I think they are pretty cheap comparatively too. There was a book called Grace Gone Wild which I picked up because of the catchy title and it was about how we tend to misunderstand and take for granted God’s graces. After that, I took some pretty random photos and then decided to wait for Sheri at the L and L’s.

So at about 5 in the afternoon after being awake for about 40 hours, Sheri picked me up. Then she asked my whether I’d like to join her boyfriend and his friends in a game of soccer to which I replied that I probably couldn’t play without dying but I didn’t mind watching. She told me it was a real sort of game so I decided to check it out. So we went to Jason’s apartment, which was a pretty nice place and then went down to the field. The field was very close to diamond head and so I just had to take some photos of the beautiful promontory instead of watching the game. The fun thing was that next to the guys playing soccer was a bunch of guys playing touch and I think they were all kiwi or something. The public fields there are free and have lighting at night. How different is that from back home where sometimes you have to pay for fields and then bring your own lights. Anyway, after the game I finally had a chance to go to Sheri’s place and have a good rest.

When we got to Sheri’s, I found out that it was on top of a super steep hill. And I mean super steep. When we got in I met Sheri’s sisters Cari and Christina and her parents and nieces and brother-in-law too. Her mum cooked for us and we had nice Asian food for dinner. In all honesty, the food here was a lot better than at L and L’s. Sheri then showed me to where I’d be putting up for the rest of the week and then I took a shower and prepared for bed. I checked my email and stuff and sent an online sms to my dad telling him that I was doing well and then I just fell asleep. Sleep felt so good especially after the Longest Day Of My Life. Officially I think the day lasted for about 42 hours of which 20 were spent in Limbo. Anyway, I think that the 10th of Aug 2006 will go down as the longest day and probably will never be beat. And I figure that the 9th of Jan 2007 will be the shortest as I leave Honolulu on the 8th and arrive in Singapore on the 10th of Jan.

Anyway here are more photos.



this is a picture of the view from the university. It's called the University of Hawaii at Manoa and it's in Manoa Valley. Since it's a valley, ergo, there are 2 mountains it's in between. here's one of the mountains. I don't know what it's called but i'll try to find out and tell you guys some other time yeah?



ok, here's the thing... the palm trees here are pretty sweet so there will be quite a lot of photos of palm trees. they really are pretty aren't they...



here's a picture i took while i was in sheri's car. yup, there sure are lots of mountains here. kinda feel strange though. it's like i'm more interested in going to the mountains than going to the beach. I mean, the beach seems blah compared to the mountains...







alrighty and these are pictures of the view from sheri's place. you know, it would be so cool waking up to this every morning. anyway, i just took these photos today cos it's like the first time i've really had the time in the day to take pictures since i'm normally rushing off somewhere in the early morning and only return like way at night. i kinda want to climb further up the mountain she lives on and then take more photos. damn i like my camera and i think he likes me lots now cos he can take really power shots and live up to his billing as a powershot...
ok, forgive the corn...

1st attempt at blogging

hey people... How you all doing? anyway, i'm just trying out this whole blog thing and seeing how it goes... i've taken some nice photos and these here are done with my phone... the one's on my camera will be uploaded some other time when i really do figure out how to exactly use this thing... anyway, i hoe you enjoy these shots...



here's a shot of palm trees... there are lots of them in Hawaii and they're all taller than the buildings man... but they really are very pretty and building deserve to be dwarfed by them...





this is a random picture of where i went to watch the soccer game with diamond head overlooking the field. i really wanna scale diamond head but everything in its time yah...








ok, this one is diamond head again but closer to sunset now...














and this is the super long Hawaiian twilight... for those who took heavenly math last year, longer sunsets rock man!!!






Ok, this is my first entry... later entries will have more pictures and more of me thinking too... it's getting kinda late now so i think i'll say goodnight to you peeps now and i'll try to post more when i can...

MAHALO

ALOHA