EAT

Q: Doctor, I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio? A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program? A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! ..... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans ! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

And remember: 'Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO, What a Ride' AND.....

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fatand suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fatand suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.Speaking English is apparently what kills you.



Water? What water?

In light that most of us are graduating this year, heres something insightful from David Foster Wallace

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If at this moment, you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude -- but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense.

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real -- you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues." This is not a matter of virtue -- it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often described as being "well adjusted," which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.Given the triumphal academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default-setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal-arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: "Learning how to think" really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master." This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in, day out" really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home -- you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job -- and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the ADHD kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day-rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your check or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etcetera, etcetera.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid g-d-people.

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks, and so on and so forth...

Look, if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do -- except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: It's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am -- it is actually I who am inhis way. Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have much harder, more tedious or painful lives than I do, overall.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line -- maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept. who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible -- it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important -- if you want to operate on your default-setting -- then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars -- compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship...

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.

ITS ON part 2

Venue - Chua Chu Kang CC
Time - 7.45 pm to 9.45 pm
Day - Sunday
Date - April 4th 2010

Line up

Chan
Peiwen
Maurice
Lionel
Kevin
Daniel
Jarvis
Jonathan
Matthew
Hana

Regards
Chan

The Pope, the Prophet, and the religious support for evil

theres alot of religious problems in the UK and nowdays when Lao Lee says we take our racial harmony for granted... I agree with him rather than scoff. Anyway, another even bigger issue is religious tolerance... and this article gives an interesting insight into the modern European mindset.. (abit of a sweeping statement but none-the-less rather common)

What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion. In the past week we have seen two examples of how people can begin to behave in bizarre ways when they decide it is a good thing to abandon any commitment to fact and instead act on faith. It has led some to regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand "respect" for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children.

In 2005, 12 men in a small secular European democracy decided to draw a quasi-mythical figure who has been dead for 1400 years. They were trying to make a point. They knew that in many Muslim cultures, it is considered offensive to draw Mohamed. But they have a culture too – a European culture that believes it is important to be allowed to mock and tease and ridicule religion. It is because Europeans have been doing this for centuries now that we can no longer be tyrannised into feeling bad about perfectly natural impulses, like masturbation, or pre-marital sex, or homosexuality. When priests offer those old arguments, we now laugh in their faces – a great liberating moment. It will be a shining day for Muslims when they can do the same.

Some of the cartoons were witty. Some were stupid. One seemed to suggest Muslims are inherently violent – an obnoxious and false idea. If you disagree with the drawings, you should write a letter, or draw a better cartoon, this time mocking the cartoonists. But some people did not react this way. Instead, Islamist plots to hunt the artists down and slaughter them began. Earlier this year, a man with an axe smashed into one of their houses, and very nearly killed the cartoonist in front of his small grand-daughter.

This week, another plot to murder them seems to have been exposed, this time allegedly spanning Ireland and the United States, and many people who consider themselves humanitarians or liberals have rushed forward to offer condemnation – of the cartoonists. One otherwise liberal newspaper ran an article saying that since the cartoonists had engaged in an "aggressive act" and shown "prejudice... against religion per se", so it stated menacingly that no doubt "someone else is out there waiting for an opportunity to strike again".

Let's state some principles that – if religion wasn't involved – would be so obvious it would seem ludicrous to have to say them out loud. Drawing a cartoon is not an act of aggression. Trying to kill somebody with an axe is. There is no moral equivalence between peacefully expressing your disagreement with an idea – any idea – and trying to kill somebody for it. Yet we have to say this because we have allowed religious people to claim their ideas belong to a different, exalted category, and it is abusive or violent merely to verbally question them. Nobody says I should "respect" conservatism or communism and keep my opposition to them to myself – but that's exactly what is routinely said about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. What's the difference?

This enforced "respect" is a creeping vine. It soon extends beyond religious ideas to religious institutions – even when they commit the worst crimes imaginable. It is now an indisputable fact that the Catholic Church systematically covered up the rape of children across the globe, and knowingly, consciously put paedophiles in charge of more kids. Joseph Ratzinger – who claims to be "infallible" – was at the heart of this policy for decades.

Here's what we are sure of. By 1962, it was becoming clear to the Vatican that a significant number of its priests were raping children. Rather than root it out, they issued a secret order called "Crimen Sollicitationis"' ordering bishops to swear the victims to secrecy and move the offending priest on to another parish. This of course meant they raped more children there, and on and on, in parish after parish. Yes, these were different times, but the Vatican knew then that what it was doing was terribly wrong: that's why it was done in the utmost secrecy.

It has emerged this week that when Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich in the 1980s, one of his paedophile priests was "reassigned" in this way. He claims he didn't know. Yet a few years later he was put in charge of the Vatican's response to this kind of abuse and demanded every case had to be referred directly to him for 20 years. What happened on his watch, with every case going to his desk? Precisely this pattern, again and again. The BBC's Panorama studied one of many such cases. Father Tarcisio Spricigo was first accused of child abuse in 1991, in Brazil. He was moved by the Vatican four times, wrecking the lives of children at every stop. He was only caught in 2005 by the police, before he could be moved on once more. He had written in his diary about the kind of victims he sought: "Age: 7, 8, 9, 10. Social condition: Poor. Family condition: preferably a son without a father. How to attract them: guitar lessons, choir, altar boy." It happened all over the world, wherever the Catholic Church had outposts.

Far from changing this paedophile-protecting model, Ratzinger reinforced it. In 2001 he issued a strict secret order demanding that charges of child-rape should be investigated by the Church "in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret." Since it was leaked, Ratzinger claims – bizarrely – that these requirements didn't prevent bishops from approaching the police. Even many people employed by the Vatican at the time say this is wrong. Father Tom Doyle, who was a Vatican lawyer working on these cases, says it "is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse and to punish those who would call attention to these crimes... Nowhere in any of these documents does it say anything about helping the victims. The only thing it does say is they can impose fear on the victims, and punish [them], for disclosing what happened." Doyle was soon fired.

Imagine if this happened at The Independent. Imagine I discovered there was a paedophile ring running our crèche, and the Editor issued a stern order that it should be investigated internally with "the strictest secrecy". Imagine he merely shuffled the paedophiles to work in another crèche at another newspaper, and I agreed, and made the kids sign a pledge of secrecy. We would both – rightly – go to prison. Yet because the word "religion" is whispered, the rules change. Suddenly, otherwise good people who wouldn't dream of covering up a paedophile ring in their workplace think it would be an insult to them to follow one wherever it leads in their Church. They would find this behaviour unthinkable without the irrational barrier of faith standing between them and reality.

Yes, I understand some people feel sad when they see a figure they were taught as a child to revere – whether Prophet or Pope – being subjected to rational examination, or mockery, or criminal investigation. But everyone has ideas they hold precious. Only you, the religious, demand to be protected from debate or scrutiny that might discomfort you. The fact you believe an invisible supernatural being approves of – or even commands – your behaviour doesn't mean it deserves more respect, or sensitive handling. It means it deserves less. If you base your behaviour on such a preposterous fantasy, you should expect to be checked by criticism and mockery. You need it.

If you can't bear to hear your religious figures criticised – if you think Ratzinger is somehow above the law, or Mohamed should be defended with an axe – a sane society should have only one sentence for you. Tell it to the judge.

-J

source: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-pope-the-prophet-and-the-religious-support-for-evil-1923656.html

ITS ON

Venue - Joo Chiat CC
Time - 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm
Day - Sunday
Date - 21st March 2010

-----Line up---- -

Chan
Daniel
Lionel
Lionel GF ( i think shes coming?)
Mau
Matthew
Peiwen

-------------------
Regards,
Chan

ps. it will end like this

Seraphim Falls: A good movie that reminds us in Life, the Bad guy always wins

I decided to take a break from studying today.... but there was nothing to do.. London is cold and rainy at the moment and I didnt feel like spending money...

So I decided to see what was showing on BBC and came across this movie- Seraphim Falls

In all honesty, for a 1hr 45 min movie... it was terribly boring.. we basically had one dude (Liam Neeson) chasing another dude (Pierce Brosnan) for the whole show... there was no explanation why the chase was on.. or what was the motive for revenge.

So for 1hr 20 mins, I wasted my life thinking that the character played by P.Brosnan was the good guy since he was on the run while the other fella was some maniac trying to kill him...unfortunately for the latter, P.Brosnan was always able to out-smart and outwit the minions of his counterpart and kill them with quick efficiency!

However, theres a twist at the end when the two men go toe-to-toe. It turns out Liam Neeson was the good guy but in a series of unfortunate events, he lost his humanity and became a revenge-hungry monster. This was actually due to P.Brosan killing his entire family in some American Civil War 3 years ago. Since then, Liam Neeson has been on the hunt for revenge.

Its thought provoking in a sense because if P.brosnan not kill the family of Liam, apart from the obvious fact that there would be no storyline, more importantly, Liam Neeson would still be living that carefree life in some paradise farm setting we so often see in movies. To cut a long story short, this movie tells us the paralysing effects revenge can inflict upon an individual and make the good be perceived as a villian.

Amazingly, at the end of the story, P.brosnan still manages to outwit Liam and shoot him. The ending basically shows the good guy dying in a pool of his own blood in the desert, while the bad guy walks off... free as a bird with no remorse or anything.

The funny thing was that the good guy was close to victory... he actually had his gun at the head of his nemesis... however but the bad guy let loose the words "Im sorry".... this in turn made the good guy stop in his tracks (for reasons I cannot fathom) and subsequently, he paid the price for his hesitation.

==================

While watching this show, I remembered how possibly 2 years or more back.... Ton and Chan and me were at some MacDonalds and I said something about retribution. After a long discussion, it was concluded that RETRIBUTION is BULLSHIT. The BAD GUY ALWAYS WINS and the only way to destroy... is to become the beast yourself... that is the only way one can overcome evil and that is to become more evil itself and DESTROY.

There must be no room for forgiveness or mercy. BLOOD for BLOOD.

I have decided to share this with one feather-ed friend and my bros because this is something very true in Life.The bad guy always win. The best example is my family!! DESPITE ALL THE SHIT & EVIL my shameless step-mum has done, she still living happily, good health, feeding my brother with all the best food and giving him the best things. When I went back in December, I was foolish to think that peace was ever possible.

I have seen the light and I know the evil that lurks. I wish to destroy it but I know I am not capable of being more evil than her either.

So in conclusion, life is about lan lan suck thumb. Too bad. Life sucks.

Keep It Real.

-J

p.s I dont recommend that you watch this movie but perhaps if you do decide to do so... you should fast forward to the last 20 minutes of the show where everything is explained.

THE MOST SCREWED UP PRACTICAL IVE EVER DONE...

This week was one of the most sien week of my life. Apart from the no-replies from the graduate schools (which most probably means I am in the waiting list pile or rejection pile according to my cousin) ... I spent this entire week doing electrophysiological experiments on cockroaches....

Firstly, I had to gas those bastards with CO2 then chop off their limbs and wings

Then I pin em down onto a conductivity box and stick 2 pins onto their backs along their central nerve (note they are alive...) before connecting 2 electrodes on them

Just some basic biology 101, you should know we have electrical currents running through our neurons and these when stimulated can produced what we call Action potentials... heres a graph showing normal responses and heightened activity when the roach was given a stimulus...

Red boxes was when the roach was stimulated !!!!

Then LOL.. to show some autonomous behaviour... we had to chop off the roach head to show that activity can still occur....

-Josh

SG SUN

jon when will u RM SUN? XD
-m

4 more days...

I HUNGERRRRRRRRRRR

-J

=']

-chann

sexytime FAIL

from the movie "Siddhartha". the guy in the clip is supposed to be Buddha




FAIL x 4325784362854693921408321985091865932769032
-m

The lurid sky is still tearing me apart

Its still fucking my mind.

RUN

RUN RUN RUN

MORE MOTIVATION FOR JOSH

JOSHUA TO PSYCHIATRIST: "YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME. I KEEP DREAMING ABOUT FOOD, CONTINUALLY DREAMING ABOUT FOOD."

DOCTOR: "DON'T YOU EVER DREAM ABOUT GIRLS?"

JOSHUA: "YES BUT I KEEP POURING KETCHUP OVER THEM."

SEE U IN DEC. XD

My Home in France

This is my 6 months worth of food supply and u dun see my maggie mee yet :P
Hidden elsewhere.

This is for u Josh !!

this is my home in France !
A simple room with a toilet. One bed, one study table.
There u see my food supply XD
Cosy and comfortable place to live in.
Now is the transition from Summer to Autumn.
Getting more and more cold by the days.

Jon

to women ...MONEY PWN ALL

For all marriage fans

"I have heard about President Sukarno of Indonesia. He was strictly a sex man, strictly a libido man, strictly Freudian. He could never pass a statue without patting it on the derriere. All his conversation away from the affairs of state -- and he had some of the greatest affairs in his state -- was always about the ladies. Here is his description of women:

A woman of twenty is like the continent of Africa -- wild and untamed.

A woman of thirty is like Asia -- hot-blooded and passionate.

A woman of forty is like the U.S.A. -- overly-trained and too well-techniqued.

A woman of fifty is like Europe -- decaying and falling apart.

A woman of sixty..... is like Australia -- everybody knows where it is, but who wants to go there?"


from: 'The Discipline of Transcendence vol.4'
m

doing the job for yang jie

I have read the chinese article bird posted and shall spare YJ the trouble to translate this:
changes are in red

Life slips away as we wait…

“I’ll relax myself when I complete my studies”

“Ill travel round the world once my business is on track”

“I’ll be filial to my parents once I start earning my keeps”

“I’ll stop and enjoy life once I get my house”

Waiting… Waiting… We are constantly telling ourselves that this is just a period of waiting, constantly putting hopes and dreams on hold to the unknown future. Almost like our whole life is wasted on waiting…

There were 2 such young men, a Chinese and an American. They worked in the same company, with the same position and pay but their lifestyle differs greatly.

After working for a year, the American used up his entire savings and bought a beautiful house, enjoying every moment of life. The Chinese, on the contrary, lived in a one room apartment in an old building, with dark and old rooms that seemed like it may collapse anytime.

The Chinese scrimped and saved while telling himself that he will buy a beautiful house and enjoy life once he earned enough. 20 years later, he finally fulfilled his dream and bought a house next to the American.

Unfortunately, less than a year into moving in, the American because of overspending, entered into what is known as the greatest finacial fiasco of the 21st Century. Banks have collasped, lives have been ruined and the American dream is in tatters.

And this is the plight of the Sad American. Remember the Chinese Parable of the Butterfly and the Ant? In the end, the butterfly got WTF-PWNED by the cold winter, while the Ant had food. Some might lament the difference between a Chinese and an American whereby the Chinese tend to worry a lot, constantly putting their life on hold; while a Westerner believes in seizing the moment and enjoying life as it is now via living on credit.

it is good to note that If the Chinese did what his American counterpart did, China would still be the sick man of the East and not one of the new emerging economies to watch out for.

The American argues "Everyone wishes to sarcrifice now for an unknown future. To sacrifice money earned today, to exchange for future security. However, instead of waiting for our life to fall into place, to become ideal and perfect like we imagined it to, why not start appreciating and enjoying it every moment now.

I’ve always felt that life is like a one way train ride. Time lost will never be recovered so don’t ever lose precious and beautiful moments of your life on waiting… Seize the moment and enjoy NOW, for NOW is the most precious thing in your life. "

The chinese man retorts " take off your shirt and look at the label. It says MADE IN CHINA whiteboy!"

my lab

pic of my desk which I share with the Msc student.

my lab bench.. pls ignore my tummy... : (

love for thought

A person that I truly care for asked me the following: "Do you believe in marriage?"

Rather taken aback by the question, I replied foolishly," No I do not. It is just a piece of paper. I do not need to validate my bond with my life partner with a piece of paper and vows."

Well, after giving it some further thought, I realize that the reply I gave was an exemplary case of self-deception and when pride gets the better of someone. Though I feel that the reply I gave is true, it is but a fragment of the bigger picture, one when considered fully, one realizes that this particular fragment holds less weight.

So, after much consideration, I think that marriage is very important to both her and I. True, a bond between individuals need not be validated via vows and documents, but what I failed to consider at that time was the fact that marriage in itself is more than me and more than her. Misunderstand me not, we are still the main cast, but more is at stake now when the concept of 'future' is thrown into the fray. It represents a binding of our fates and everyone that we are associated to. It is more than us. We cannot be selfish as to state that marriage only concerns the individuals directly involved. What about our families, relatives, friends and most importantly, our children?

The institution known as a 'family' in most cases, requires marriage as the fundamental stabilizing pillar. It ties all of us together and reminds us of our commitments, responsibilities and the people we truly love. Someone could argue that such things should already be ingrained into our moral and physical fiber. However, fuck ups are very real in life. When unfortunate incidents occur, with adrenaline pumping through our veins, instinct and rashness take over. We don't think straight and do things that we regret for the rest of our lives. Marriage, I feel, helps to some degree in bringing our mind back into reality. The very presence of that ring on our hands carries a weight in its own right, and that weight tells us," Do not destroy everything that you have worked for in one moment of foolishness. Think of everyone else that is at stake here: Your kids, your family, your friends." In short, it is a symbol of our life's work, our devotion, our raison d'etre, our being. And do not deny the weight of symbolism to us human beings. You know as well as most people that symbols play a huge part in everyone's life. Some emotions and feelings are so heavy that the light web of memory is insufficient in fully expressing those emotions. Symbols act as a tether, instantly relating to our memories, emotions and thoughts. Why do we treasure gifts given by our loved ones? Why do our habits and nuances get influenced by our loved ones? Why is it that sometimes, we feel closer to someone by simply being somewhere he/she found important? Marriage is a symbol, and a darn important one at that.

Call me foolish, call me slow, but that very person that I care about so much recently gave me perspective and enlightenment in defining the stages of a relationship. We start with dating, then we see each other, followed by going out with each other (upon which we are bestowed with the titles 'boyfriend/girlfriend'), and this in turn is followed by engagement and finally marriage. After exploring this idea a bit more on my own, I realize that there exists a plethora of 'sub-stages', so to speak. Small but critical steps that define the relationship and binds two people closer together. This is another reason why marriage is important to me. It is the next step.

One could argue that one could live with their life partner without getting married as long as they are comfortable with each other. However, in my opinion, marriage is similar to a leap of faith. And without taking that leap of faith, without taking this big AND critical step, there will be a missing piece in my life partnership. I could trust her completely, but without us taking this step, there will undoubtedly be a niggling voice of doubt in some corner of my ( and most likely hers too) heart. The voice that says ," Why hasn't he/she committed to me yet? We are perfect for each other, so why can't we just bind ourselves for eternity and establish our own institution?"

People with stronger and more independent minds will most likely scoff at my last statement, but deep down inside, you know that it is true. As humans, we are all insecure and unpredictable. We all have our flaws and we fear exposing them to others. When someone we love leaves our side for say, business reasons, we might say that we are perfectly fine with it, but somewhere inside us, there exists the What-If element that, in most cases, strengthens our self-denial.

There is this said phenomenon among couples, that individuals in a relationship usually show their best sides when they are dating/seeing each other/ going out with each other. It says that most people withhold their true selves from each other, and when marriage happens, these flaws expose themselves in a short amount of time, often to devastating effect. (As I found out to my own expense, elaboration later) The point here is that marriage strips us bare to the bones, eventually. In my opinion, assuming we chose the right person to get married to, this will and should be an enriching and critical step in a relationship. In a nutshell, it allows for the ultimate level of intimacy in all aspects and thus, completes the very definition of a life partnership, again, with time. And this, I believe, is a very precious and important element in a relationship. Once again, these arguments will sound highly idealistic, but I do believe they are the framework for the issue. For instance, if we our special someone cannot deal with our flaws, work on the flaws together with patience, and not break it off on a moments notice.......... I find it hard to put my thoughts into words regarding this matter....... Okay, consider this, the start point of an arrow is the beginning of a relationship, and consider the a life partnership and mutual bliss (Isn't that what we all want? ) as the end point. Only the start and the end matters. Everything else that leads to destruction is irrelevant (ignore what we do not want). The paths will differ by individuals, but in my opinion, the one common point in all these paths is marriage.

Regarding what I have said, I cannot help but insert a disclaimer that these, in my opinion, applies to the majority. There are always exceptions. Always. In everything. Paths differ, and given enough time and effort, someone is bound to find (or have found) a road not taken. Furthermore, opinions too, change with time as they are shaped by our experiences and the people around us. People are meant to influence each other, for that is how learning takes place. In short, nothing is final. But for now, this is what I feel marriage could bring to me. And to ignore it over pride will be foolish.

PS. As I mentioned earlier, I think that marriage opens up all our flaws to each other. Thus, I have come to recent realization that the earlier I start opening myself and my flaws (and strengths) to the person that I care most about, the better. This is because it is an eventuality that my flaws are brought into the light. If she is comfortable with them, then its fine. But they will have to be dealt with eventually, regardless if she is comfortable with them or otherwise. Flaws are still flaws. Which brings me to the incident that I most regret. I failed to recognize this fact quickly enough, which lead to me thinking that I should and can get away with being something that I am not. The consequences I shall not elaborate, but I accept my mistake, and will work for my redemption and her forgiveness.

Dune Du Pyla - France Bordeaux

The Start of a Painful journey to the top !

From the top you get a superb view over the bay of Arcachon and the forest of the Landes stretching away to the south.

Sorry Josh ! I stolen your trademark pose !
hahaha..

Dune Du Pyla

At over 100m it's the highest sand dune in Europe – a veritable mountain of wind-carved sand.
I went to this place last Sunday with my colleagues. We brought a bottle of champagne along to cheers as we appreciate the magnificent view of the bay.
From the bottom looking up like insane height ! Walking on the steep slope of fine sand up to the top took great effort and about 20mins. Super tiring for the leg, but good exercise.
Its summer, so people go all the way to the top to sun tan.
Enjoying the sun, as well as cool wind that blow endlessly.
Comfirm must go up again, really shiok !!

Cheers!
- Jon Sim

Don't waste life on waiting...

I came across this article that i've kept while cleaning up the room recently. Thought it was really inspiring and very beautifully written so wanna share it with you guys as well...

Article's in chinese but for reading convenience, i've translated it to English to my bestest ability (haha, don laugh at the grammatical errors and all!), hopefully you guys would appreciate the article as well:

Life slips away as we wait…

“I’ll relax myself when I complete my studies”

“Ill travel round the world once my business is on track”

“I’ll be filial to my parents once I start earning my keeps”

“I’ll stop and enjoy life once I get my house”

Waiting… Waiting… We are constantly telling ourselves that this is just a period of waiting, constantly putting hopes and dreams on hold to the unknown future. Almost like our whole life is wasted on waiting…

There were 2 such young men, a Chinese and an American. They worked in the same company, with the same position and pay but their lifestyle differs greatly.

After working for a year, the American used up his entire savings and bought a beautiful house, enjoying every moment of life. The Chinese, on the contrary, lived in a one room apartment in an old building, with dark and old rooms that seemed like it may collapse anytime.

The Chinese scrimped and saved while telling himself that he will buy a beautiful house and enjoy life once he earned enough. 20 years later, he finally fulfilled his dream and bought a house next to the American.

Unfortunately, less than a year into moving in, the Chinese passed away from malnutrition and exhaustion from accumulation of fatigue from the past.

And this is the plight of the Sad Chinese. Also, the difference between a Chinese and an American. Chinese tend to worry a lot, constantly putting their life on hold; while a Westerner believes in seizing the moment and enjoying life as it is now.

If only the Chinese did what his American counterpart did, wouldn’t he have been able to enjoy the fruits of his labour since 20 years ago?

Everyone wishes to sarcrifice now for an unknown future. To sacrifice money earned today, to exchange for future security. However, instead of waiting for our life to fall into place, to become ideal and perfect like we imagined it to, why not start appreciating and enjoying it every moment now.

I’ve always felt that life is like a one way train ride. Time lost will never be recovered so don’t ever lose precious and beautiful moments of your life on waiting… Seize the moment and enjoy NOW, for NOW is the most precious thing in your life.

{YJ, feel free to alter the translation if you think it is inappropriate!} =)

Carpe Diem!

~Bird

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish

In OCS, they make you keep a journal. Something like what Pat Chan made us do when we were sec 4. Some people did it seriously, some of us write some b.s, some pasted stuff into it (e.g like Chan's guitar scores LOL). I was glancing through it... and I found something I'd like to share. Its an old newspaper clipping that I still kept because at that point I was deciding Uni and what did I really wanna do with my life...

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

-J who aims to make studying his career.