I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me
And I enjoy an accolade like the rest
You could take my picture and hang it in a gallery
Of all who's who and so-n-so's that used to be the best
At such'n'such ... it wouldn't matter much
I won't lie, it feels alright to see your name in lights
We all need an 'Atta boy' or 'Atta girl'
But in the end I'd like to hang my hat on more besides
The temporary trappings of this world
I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love? Did I point to You enough
To make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who
blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy
I don't have to look too far or too long awhile
To make a lengthly list of all that I enjoy
It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile
Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy
Not well traveled, not well read, not well-to-do or well bred
Just want to hear instead, "Well Done" good and faithful one...
hey, rem my entry earlier on the book " men are like waffles, women are like spaghetti"? haha.. i found an excerpt of it.. rather interesting.
Men Are like Waffles
We do not mean that men "waffle" on all decisions and are generally unstable. What we mean is that men process life in boxes. If you look down at a waffle, you see a collection of boxes separated by walls. The boxes are all separate from each other and make convenient holding places. That is typically how a man processes life. Our thinking is divided up into boxes that have room for one issue and one issue only. The first issue of life goes in the first box, the second one goes in the second box, and so on. The typical man lives in one box at a time and one box only. When a man is at work, he is at work. When he is in the garage tinkering around, he is in the garage tinkering. When he is watching TV, he is simply watching TV. That is why he looks as though he is in a trance and can ignore everything else going on around him. Social scientists call this "compartmentalizing"—that is, putting life and responsibilities into different compartments.
As a result, men are problem solvers by nature. They enter a box, size up the "problem," and formulate a solution. In their careers, they consider what it will take to be successful and focus on it. In communication, they look for the bottom line and get there as quickly as possible. In decision-making, they look for an approach they can buy into and apply it as often as possible.
A man will strategically organize his life in boxes and then spend most of his time in the boxes he can succeed in. This is such a strong motivation for him that he will seek out the boxes that work and will ignore the boxes that confuse him or make him feel like a failure. For instance, a man whose career holds the possibility of success will spend more and more time at work at the expense of other priorities. On the other hand, a man who actually falls short at work or feels he never meets the expectations around him may find out that he is pretty good at being lazy. He will then develop a commitment to being lazy because he knows he can do that today with the same proficiency as yesterday.
Men also take a "success" approach to communication. If they believe they can successfully talk with their wives and reach a desirable outcome, they will be highly motivated to converse. If, on the other hand, the conversation seems pointless to him or he finds understanding his wife impossible, he loses his motivation to talk and clams up. That is why men come up with profound things to say, such as, "Is there any point to this conversation? Is this conversation leading anywhere? Can you just get to the point?" These statements a man makes out of frustration because he doesn't know how to make conversation with his wife work.
The "success" drive is why men find it so easy to develop hobbies that consume their time. If a man finds something he is good at, it makes him feel good about himself and about his life. Because men tend to be good with mechanical and spatial activities, they get emotionally attached to building, fixing, and chasing things. Yard projects become expressions of his personality. The car becomes his signature. Fishing becomes an all consuming pursuit of the right equipment, the right fishing spot, and the right friends. The computer stops being a tool of work as it transforms into an educational, entertaining, even intimate friend. It makes predictable moves and gives predictable feedback. Because a man knows what he will get back from his computer, he spends more and more time with his keyboard while he spends less time face to face with his wife.
The bottom line with men is: they feel best about themselves when they are solving problems. Therefore, they spend most of their time doing what they are best at while they attempt to ignore the things which cause them to feel deficient.
Women Are like Spaghetti
In contrast to men's waffle-like approach, women process life more like a plate of pasta. If you look at a plate of spaghetti, you notice that there are lots of individual noodles that all touch one another. If you attempted to follow one noodle around the plate, you would intersect a lot of other noodles, and you might even switch to another noodle seamlessly. That is how women face life. Every thought and issue is connected to every other thought and issue in some way. Life is much more a process for women than it is for men.
This is why women are typically better at multitasking than men. She can talk on the phone, prepare a meal, make a shopping list, work on the agenda for tomorrow's business meeting, give instructions to her children as they go out to play, and close the door with her foot without skipping a beat. Because all her thoughts, emotions, and convictions are connected, she is able to process more information and keep track of more activities.
As a result, most women are in pursuit of connecting life together. They solve problems but from a much different perspective than men. For women to quickly solve a problem when the issues involved in the discussion are disconnected from each other is an act of denial. And so women consistently sense the need to talk things through. In conversation she can link together the logical, emotional, relational, and spiritual aspects of the issue. The links come to her naturally so the conversation is effortless for her. If she is able to connect all the issues together, the answer to the question at hand bubbles to the surface and is readily accepted.
This often creates significant stress for the couples because while she is making all the connections, he is frantically jumping boxes trying to keep up with the conversation. The man's eyes are rolling back in his head while a tidal wave of information is swallowing him up. When she is done, she feels better and he is overwhelmed. The conversation might go something like this:
Joan gets home and says, "Honey, how was your day? I had a good day today. We just committed to a new educational wing at the university, and I have been asked to oversee the budget. I am so excited that they didn't rule me out because I am a woman. You know women have been fighting for a place in society for decades, and it is good to see so much progress being made. I think it is neat that you treat the women who work for you with so much respect. Our daughter is so lucky to have you for a dad. Did you remember that Susie has a soccer game tonight? I think it is important we are there because the Johnsons are going to be there, and I really want you to meet them. Susie and Bethany are getting to be good friends, and I think we should get to know her parents as well."
As Joan is exploring this conversation, Dan is getting lost. He has no idea what the budget at the university has to do with their daughter's soccer game and their need to have a friendship with the Johnsons. He admires her ability to connect seemingly unrelated thoughts but he just can't seem to understand how she does it.
One of the characteristics that create havoc in male/female interaction is the fact that most men have boxes in their waffle that have no words. There are thoughts in these boxes about the past, their work, and pleasant experiences, but these thoughts do not turn into words. A man is able to be quite happy in these wordless boxes because the memories he carries in them have significant meaning to him. The problem is that he cannot communicate these experiences to others, and so his wife may feel left out.
Not all of the wordless boxes have thoughts, however. There are actually boxes in the average man's waffle that contain no words and no thoughts. These boxes are just as blank as a white sheet of paper. They are EMPTY! To help relieve stress in his life, he will "park" in these boxes to relax. Amazingly, his wife always seems to notice when he is in park. She observes his blank look and the relaxed posture he has taken on the couch. She assumes this is a good time to talk as he is so relaxed, and so she invariably asks, "What are you thinking, sweetheart?"
He immediately panics because he knows if he tells the truth, she will think he is lying. She cannot imagine a moment without words in her mind. If he says, "Nothing," she thinks he is hiding something and is afraid to talk about it. She becomes instantly curious and mildly suspicious. Not wanting to disappoint his wife, his eyes dart back and forth hoping to find some box in close proximity that has words in it. If he finds a box of words quickly he will engage his wife in conversation and both will feel good about the relationship. If he is slow in finding words, her suspicion fails to be extinguished, and he feels a sense of failure. He desperately wants to explain to his wife that he sometimes just goes blank. Nothing is wrong, nothing is in denial, and nothing is being hidden. This is the way he has been his whole life, but she cannot imagine it.
These blank boxes have an interesting characteristic that often gets in the way of meaningful conversation. In the middle of conversation a man will periodically be moving from one box to another, and in between two boxes of words he passes through one of these blank boxes. Right in the middle of conversation, he goes silent. He knows he should have something to say, but he is blank. He knows it is awkward to go blank in the middle of a thought, but no amount of effort has ever made it go away. It is an awkwardness he must live with and hope his wife adapts to.
Excerpted from: Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti by Bill and Pam Farrels. Copyright 2001. All rights reserved.
warning: this entry is a rather long one. read with caution. ha ;)
buddhism
just finished reading an article on a buddhist magazine abt their views on da vinci code. interestingly, this topic is so hot that even buddhist toks abt it coz in this movie, there is one sentence which is mentioned that is related to buddhism. robert langdon commented that they were not able to tell the buddhist, even if they have the evidence that buddha is not born on a lotus.. or something lidat..as i din watch the movie, i cant accurately translate here; however, if u do watch, u might be able to rem that line. ha. anyway, after reading that article or rather another article in the same magazine abt da vinci code, i realised that buddhism also have much mistakes in wat they thought Christians believe in. im not sure whether the buddhists when writing that articles did really study abt Christianity, but one thing im sure that though they are correct in certain ways... like Jesus died for us... but they are not correct in other things like Christianity is by faith only. well, the scripture in the Bible, even in this site do says that "we walked by faith, not by sight", but i have to emphasize is not ONLY by faith. if is obly by faith, i can firmly says that rightly from their article, it will be merely blind faith.
after reading a few books or even articles on buddhism, i guess this is the most mistaken concept by them. (and yes, i do read abt certain religions coz im interested to noe more abt them.) and i believe they do read abt Christianity in an objective way because after all, this is wat buddhism encourages. to find out the truth themselves, in an objective way. let me quote from the article(which is re-quoted from the buddha) -
"Of course you are in doubts. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. so in this case, Kalamas, do not go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ' This contemplative is our teacher.'"
and quoted from the article by the author
"simply because they are based upon his objective realisation of the truth and because he urges us to likewise objectively experience the truth for ourselves, to never by dogmatic - not even over his words."
For these 2 lines, im particularly bewildered and puzzled... simply by the terms, "objective" and "truth". how can a person be truly objective? and what exactly is the "truth" when looking via these 2 quotes. we are not to even believe by scriptures, by logical conjecture, by thoughts... but we are urged to believe by experienced the objective truth. well, im confused. coz these 2 lines from buddha is simply contradicting. there can only be objectivity when there is a absolute to measure from. and an absolute to where we can accurate measure from must be truth. so, if in this case, where can we find truth? and what is truth? buddha even says that he himself cannot be believed. well, if thats the case, mayb buddha isnt even sure if wat he is saying is right. ha.. hope im not inviting trouble when i say this.
well, i do think i understand what the above quotes are trying to say. not just believe by men's mere sayings but u noe it urself thru objective means, not bias, not prejudice. but if look in this way, it is also rather impossible simply because there never is a completely objective person because all men are prejudiced in certain ways. so, we need an absolute thing to be objective, just like in science, we nd something as a control when doing an experiment. and so, we find ways to double prevent that scientists themselves are not biased and prejudiced in the experiments.
the definition of "objective" taken from dictionary.com
ob·jec·tive adj.
Of or having to do with a material object.
Having actual existence or reality.
Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic.
Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.
so, wats my absolute and truth? i used the scriptures to measure up. and contrary to buddhism, i believe the bible to be the absolute truth and infallible. this in a way, is by faith. but also, there are many proofs that many things in the bible has proven to be true. even before the objectively truth that the scientist found. if u bother to look at the canonisation of the bible and how the various books come about, u will realise that the bible is never only a book written by fallible men. it is better than the objective truth u can find for urself in this world. i believe in the bible coz humans can never trust themselves (and unfortunately, this is wat buddhism teach as well). when u really looked objectively at urself, can u really say u can trust urself?
let us look at what the bible says:
"For out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies."
"The heart is deceitful beyond all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"
"For assuredly I say to u, till heaven and earth, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."
ok, i never knew this is going to be such a long entry coz i was only trying to gather my thoughts towards these articles. well, i guess things of religions can never be finished arguing and debating. ha. well, im never a debater but more of a thinker.
well, though this entry is titled "buddhism", i guess it goes further than just that. welcome to present ur views. if bothered and interested. :)
Jesus take the wheel Take it from my hands Cause I can't do this on my own I'm letting go So give me one more chance To save me from this road I'm on Jesus take the wheel
is 1 am in the morning. i ought to be asleep now as i have to wake up early in the morning tmr.. hm..but though tired am i, i just dun feel like sleeping..yar..im an owl. not a mrng person at all.. in fact, my frens commented that i look dead in the mrng.. haha.. by noon time, i look much alive.. tell u the truth, im most alive in the evening and at nite..haha.. but too bad, our body is not built to sleep in the mrng and wake up at nite. i used to think that it is just how ur body is accustomed to sleeping at nite and waking up in the day, but somehow, i just dun think so now. our body is built to wake up in the day and sleep at nite. y wld i say that? well, coz i was thinking even if u sleep a lot in the day time, by night time.. wee hours, u will still feel sleepy..ha.. ok..it is theory..may not be right afterall.. but somehow, i thot to look into the Bible for an answer for this. oh ya, i do believe Bible has all the answers we need to have.
alrite, im blogging rather randomly. i just thot to blog when i recalled something interesting my fren said to me ydae.. she said she read a book and the author says that 'men is like a waffle and women spaghetti'. wat he meant by that is that men thinks things like a waffle and women think things like spaghetti... meaning.. guys that think in small boxes and so can only see only in the limited vision and can only see that till they are connected to the next box. so, when u are toking to a guy, dun be surprise that they dun understand a lot of things and cannot understand the links of things. and yes, u got to tok directly to the guys coz they are only see so far, and they cldnt link things together. haha. and also, they will tend to SWITCH OFF the moment they dun understand or dun like wat u are saying to them. and, for gers, they link and connect everything together like spaghetti. so, they see further and interconnect things better and so, sometimes gers think too much and let their imagination run wild, and to the guys is also called 胡思乱想. haha. the difference in men and women. i believe is partly true. heh.
ydae, my frens and i went celebrating 2 cell members' birthday. it was suppose to be kind of surprise coz 2 of us arranged to meet the other 2 separately while the others wait at the restaurant, spageddies. so, the 2 of them doesnt know that we are mtg, and so when we reached, we pretend to be surprised that we met one another so coincidentally. ha. of coz, the 2 of them smelled something fishy abt all these. cldnt be so coincidental wat..haha... anyway, we had some food and we went on to the fireworks. whoa..it was nice, i took a short clip on my digicam.. but yet to upload on my comp yet. lazy... ut somehow, i just find the fireworks a real waste of money. my fren said that the fireworks cost 1.5m for 5min! the fireworks lasted for 15min. can u imagine the amount of money used!! i was thinking of poor countries and ppl... to think we actually splurge on such 无畏 stuff. ya.. singapore.. world class...
ok, ending soon.. i told is random. tmr im supposed to have an interview. but i dun think im going. sigh.. not that im not giving myself a chance, but somehow i just feel like thats not the job i want. but then, shld i go?? just go and take a look? im still praying for an answer and asking advices frm ppl. whether i shld work at CfaN? or i shld start off with a secular job? of all these, i thought i had an answer, but then after toking to some ppl, im not sure if i really ahve the answer. sigh..JOYCE! u got to be decisive!!
ok, i still have some time..before september is up.
update: ha..just got to noe agn ydae.. that i wun be replacin gmy mum to go for the tour coz when my mum tried to change my name at the tour agency, she was told that she still has to pay the 75% penalty fee even if im replacing her coz it is too late to change. apparently, another domestic flight is involved in this trip as well. so.. hm.. cannot change. and so, my mum decided to go coz she dun wan to lose that $3k for nothing. my mum now is a bit paranoid abt the terrorists in europe and the news abt war. apparently, she got a frightened after my mum's god mother who is fengshui master told her not to go coz of war going on... well, dunit to be scared lah. i definitely feel that nothing will happen.
on a happier note. my dad actuali came to my room and asked me to pray for my mum's safety while she is there. thats great! coz my dad has always been a staunch buddhist. to think he actuali asked me to pray for her is simply amazing. haha...
just got to noe that i will leaving for europe this coming friday, replacing my mum on her tour. not well and not able to put down her concerns for the biz made her stay back. well, i wasnt that keen to go. i am not all that excited to visit europe anyway. nevertheless i agreed coz cancelling it will not only forfeit the deposit my mum paid and also a 75% penalty of the tour fee. not only that, my mum's travelling mate will have to fork out an extra $900. so, i decided to go thinking that i may not have that chance to go anyway and will be a good time for me to relax and take a break. ha. something like a sabbatical for me. i hope something good will come out of this 16days.
one thing im not very assured of is to leave my parents coz they are not in good health. nt as if i can do much abt it really coz all i do when im at home is to face the computer most of the time. haiz. but i noe the mere presence does bring much solace to the ppl around though. really have to depend on my sister and of coz God. i nd the urgency to noe that they are facing hell at this moment of their lives and when they die, there will be no turning back for them. this somehow grips me everytime i think of it. but, fear gripped me too. aiya..noeing it is all but a tactic of the devil, i still have no idea y i fear? wat could be more impt than a human soul?
tired of myself. and the lack of faith. when can i have a breakthrough in this? this is something i nd to get out from. i noe if i can get a breakthru in this, i can do much more things. the grace of God - the divine enablement. combined with the human will. invincible.
p.s. if u think i need not pay for the tour...sighz..wrong. i got to pay back my mum... to think i chalk up such a BIG debt even before i found a job...