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Love you Queensland

2011-01-20T18:10:00.003+10:00

A colleague and good friend from school, Maitlohn Drew, arranged this for Harvest Rain Theatre Company. Great arrangement and rendition. If you buy it on iTunes 100% of the proceeds go to flood relief.

Heartwarming seeing Queensland stand up together and for each other these past few weeks.

Scale of universe

2011-01-20T14:40:00.001+10:00

A really cool interactive scale putting into perspective the sizes of things in our universe.

After a "brief" hiatus...

2011-01-04T23:25:00.002+10:00

I've decided that I will start blogging again. After almost a year. I have just had a bit too much on my mind recently that I felt like sharing, and since this platform exists, I may as well use it.

Blogging is such a funny activity, really. You have to be a bit aloof to indulge in it too because you are assuming an audience that you can't actually see. Although that's the motivation behind most online social networking sites... we're all performers on a virtual stage. Takes away a lot of the original social intentions.

To be honest, I doubt that anyone still visits this blog anymore, so my audience could well be zero. Although if you are reading this, you have automatically disproved that previous statement! How's that for some existentialism!

I wonder if any of my students know of this website too. Oh well. Here I go.

Come Play! film competition

2010-01-30T08:55:00.003+10:00

As part of Australia's World Cup bid, the Come Play website is hosting a short film competition which, needless to say, I couldn't help but enter. Here is what I made, with the help with some church friends who have great soccer skills, both now and potentially ;)

Australia's FIFA World Cup bid

2010-01-25T00:09:00.002+10:00

When I was 9, I used to play soccer almost every day at school. That was when I lived in Maracay, Venezuela. Since then I've never been a regular soccer player, but I've always been a huge fan. There's something about the simplicity of the game that completely warrants, imho, its title of the most beautiful game in the world. It truly is.

I can't wait for this year's World Cup. It's definitely going to mean late nights! But perhaps even more exciting is the possibility that Australia is going into the bid to host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. The decision will be made by the FIFA committee in December 2010. You've no idea how excited I will be if we win the bid. It'll be a dream come true.

Here's the film that launched it all. Shot on location all throughout Australia. Absolutely stunning.

And here's the bid video, spoken by Nicole Kidman, that was apparently shown to FIFA in Cape Town, South Africa in December 2009.

And you can join the bid too! Sign the petition and get involved at http://www.australia2018-2022.com.au. Let's make it happen!

Homemade Dolly Test

2010-01-23T12:15:00.006+10:00

I mentioned a little while ago that I was building a few video camera rigs, spurred by my video buddy Andrew Gentle. Those included a simple steadicam (which still needs much work), a "pooper-scooper" rig (which allows really low ground shots - you'll see this in action in an upcoming soccer film I've made) plus a dolly!

A dolly is basically what cinematographers use to film smooth camera movements. If you've ever been in a studio or seen behind-the-scenes footage (go DVD extra features!) you may have seen something like this:

Unfortunately a professional dolly rig like that is way out of the league of amateur videographers like myself. I probably don't earn enough in a year to buy something like that (doesn't help being a teacher in Queensland too :P).

Thankfully, there are DIY shops and resources like these which allow me to make something similar, albeit much less professional. So, after a few trips to Mitre 10 and Bunnings, I'm pleased to present you with my homemade dolly!

A work of beauty, if you ask me. A regular tripod, mounted on a strong wood base fitted with 8 skateboard wheels on an aluminium track. My original set-up used PVC pipes as tracks, which proved to be much too flimsy. I found the aluminium track (a right-angled frame) this morning and knew I had struck gold. Firm yet light.

And of course, I had to film some test footage rightaway, so here's what I've just made. My apologies for the generally uninteresting footage - my home isn't very exciting! I was happy with being able to squeeze the dolly through doorways though. Can't wait to use this on a next film.

Meeting people

2010-01-20T22:28:00.004+10:00

I would describe myself as an introvert. That might surprise many, because given the right situation, I am anything but. I am well aware that I often seem comfortable under the spotlight and am willing to embarrass myself more than an introvert might. But I still maintain that given the choice, I lean towards keeping to myself.

In general, I dislike meeting groups of strangers. I dislike not knowing anyone at a party. I dislike having to speak to several people at once (i.e. a group sitting around a bar having a drink). That's not to say that I'll never do it, of course.

But the corollary is that I quite enjoy meeting new people, individually. And interestingly, this is something I've only recently discovered. Everyone has a story to share, and when I put my selfish self aside and actually open my ears - what a privilege it is to enter someone else's world.

The last new person I met was at a combined lunch held for the staff at Northside Christian College and Nexus Church. She was a past student of Northside and graduated several years ago. This was her final year at her course in Uni and she decided to work part-time at the church as well. And boy did she have an interesting story.

After graduating from high school, she spent a year in East Timor with World Vision. She's also been to Uganda and PNG on mission/aid trips. Her eyes lit up every time I asked her to tell me more. I could tell she still remembers every one of her trips as if it were just yesterday. She had a passion to see communities redeemed and changed, but not just on individual levels.

"Mission organisations", she commented, "seem to either focus on converting individuals to Christianity or on just helping to establish infrastructure to support developing communities. Why can't they do both?"

"Building wells and schools, that does seem like it would go further", I cleverly added.

She paused. "Yes, but I believe that the only thing that will transform any life is Jesus."

This time I was quiet. She couldn't be more right.

In the conversation that ensues, I experience her contagious passion for reaching and redeeming people for Christ, not just their minds but their hearts and bodies too. She really cared for them. She had found the truth and had to share it, but was not content simply transmitting information. She also loved them enough to want to improve their quality of life now and give them paths forward for the future. And she was willing to sacrifice any of her comforts to achieve that. Such was the influence Christ had in her life.

Her story-telling eventually had to end; how I wished it didn't have to. With a goodbye, I returned to my world, which looked a whole lot more plain all of a sudden. But the beautiful thing was, I had changed ever so slightly for having been in her world, even if only for a while. And that meant that my world would change too.

I wonder sometimes if this would be a part of what heaven will be like. A sharing, a celebration, a brilliant conglomeration of stories all wrapped up in that divine Story of creation, fall and now redemption full and complete. Perhaps even eternity won't be long enough for us to hear, really hear, everyone's stories. Stories of the Father's unchanging love through every trial, the grace of Christ redeeming every stain, the nudge of Spirit at every turn. Or perhaps heaven might indeed only be the start our stories, ala CS Lewis' Narnia, where all of life is but a cover page to the great story that will never end, in which each chapter is better than the one before.

In the meantime, I'm gonna continue stepping out of my shell and meeting new people. And who knows, just some of them might let me into their world, even if only for a moment.

Tasmania photos

2010-01-20T22:20:00.003+10:00

Claire and I recently spent 10 days in Tasmania. Absolutely beautiful place. It had rich colonial history, breathtaking scenery, wildlife, beaches, caves, mountains, vineyards, you name it. It was quite a trip. What I enjoyed most about it was just spending a long uninterrupted time with Claire, and constantly marveling at God's creative genius. The world is spectacularly designed!

I have since uploaded about 130 or so photos onto Flickr, which you can see here. But more excitingly, all of those photos were geotagged, which means they can be viewed on a map! I'll put that map up shortly.

Here are a few snapshots to whet your appetite.

Younger

2009-12-22T11:01:00.000+10:00

I love this quote.

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again," to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again," to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

G K Chesterton

Blogging from my phone!

2009-12-17T23:45:00.001+10:00

Man it's been a while! Definitely my longest hiatus from my blog. Much has transpired since i last posted. But i'm currently playing around with blogging from my nokia n82 because claire and i are going to tasmania for a holiday soon and i want to see if i can blog from my phone while i'm there. So far it looks like i can. Lets see if i can attach a photo too.

Anyway i'll post some real stuff up here soon. Stay tuned.

Useless Superpowers

2009-06-09T23:58:00.004+10:00

Threadless, home of the world's best t-shirts, recently came up with this design:

How cool would that shirt be. Cooler still would be having some of those superpowers. Turn into a laptop forever would be my favourite, personally. Which superpower would you want? :p

Cadbury Eyebrow Ad

2009-05-28T22:38:00.005+10:00

This has to be one of the strangest ads I've seen. It's obviously very effective though, because it's left quite an impression on me.

Funnier still are all the spoofs being made of it. The first one I saw was one made in my school, as an ad for a Film and TV Competition.

Then I saw another one on facebook, advertising this year's Mid Year Camp (run by Evangelical Students, a university christian group). Not sure if this link works, but here goes:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=204124330542&ref=nf

What next!

Not hope at all

2009-04-25T09:53:00.002+10:00

A stop-motion photography video that my good friend made. Great piece of work.

Darwin's God

2009-04-18T00:47:00.006+10:00

If you do not want your belief in evolution to be challenged, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!

Written by Cornelius Hunter, Darwin's God explores the relationship between the theory of evolution and its metaphysical assumptions. Hunter argues that the core of evolutionary theory hinges on presuppositions about the nature of God. Evolution, fundamentally, is thus very religious.

Having read several books on evolution and design, I still never cease to be impressed by the ideas these authors have to offer. Personally, this is probably the strongest book I've read that exposes the weaknesses and frailty of evolution. It does not offer an alternative solution, but this was the author's intention (he does so in his second book, Darwin's proof). Hunter very bravely tackles the most common and powerful arguments for evolution, and (even to my surprise) dismantles them within pages.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the evolution/faith debate. It's written with accessible language, and basically cuts to the chase by engaging with evolution at its very heart. Strong evolution supporters will probably find this book very unsettling, if only because of how deep it cuts. It's hard to describe just how revolutionary it's been in my own thinking. I'm happy for anyone to read this and discuss some of its ideas with me. Let me know if you'd like to borrow it.

These quotes (on the back cover of the book) summarise it very well:

Biophysicist Cornelius Hunter argues perceptively that the main supporting pole of the Darwinian tent has always been a theological assertion: 'God wouldn't have done it that way.' Rather than demonstrating that evolution is capable of the wonders they attribute to it, Darwinists rely on a man-made version of God to argue that He never would have made life with the particular suite of features we observe. In lucid and engaging prose, Hunter shines a light on Darwinian theology, making plain what is too often obscured by technical jargon.
- Michael J. Behe

This wonderfully insight book will prove pivotal in the current reassessment of Darwinian evolution. Darwinists argue that evolution has to be true because no self-respective deity would have created life the way we find it. Hunter unmasks this theological mode of argumentation and argues convincingly that this is not merely incidental but indeed essential to how Darwinists justify evolution.
- William A. Dembski

Old desk, new desk

2009-04-15T21:42:00.005+10:00

In 2005, I started my first year at UQ and lived in a little rented apartment in Station Road, Indooroopilly. My room came with a queen-sized bed (a very springy one), which was nice, but it meant that there was little floor space. The only way I could fit a desk into my room was if it was no more than 1.1m long.

At IKEA that year, I found the perfect fit - the Mikael workstation.

It fit in the room like a glove. It had a nice amount of file storage space at the top; I could put CDs and my printer on the shelves, and it even had a built-in whiteboard! The only problem was that I had a CRT monitor then (about the size of the one in the picture), and it meant that I had very little actual desk space. It was nearly impossible to do any work on the desk.

A few years later I bought an LCD monitor, which improved things.

I now had some desk space, and so could actually complete uni assignments on time. Mostly.

Then I became a school teacher. Believe it or not, marking large amounts of papers is one of the job descriptions, and I found myself forced to use the dining table, or my desk at work. Claire and I moved house, which afforded us more space for a larger desk, but I could not find anything suitable that wasn't extravagantly priced.

And then came Edison (from Super AMart)!

Edison was shorter than Mikael, but provided more than 3 times as much desk space! And the best thing was, at the time, it was reduced from $299 to $199! I grabbed it as soon as I could, and, after about 6 hours of assembly, it now stands proudly in my (still unpacked) study.

Built-in CD rack, filing cabinet, keyboard drawer, cupboard, plus a huge desk extension...it's almost like having two desks rolled into one! What a beauty. I can enjoy my computer workstation on the right, plus the massive space on the left for marking and writing reports and generally being messy. Mmm. I hope to have this desk for a long long time.

And since I like doing this, here's another desk challenge for you. You'll need to click and enlarge the last picture for this. Can you find on my desk the following:

Box of cadbury roses
Your rights at work sticker
A pair of scissors
My gorillapod
Warcraft III box set

Up & Go!

2009-04-14T10:37:00.005+10:00

It started some time early last year, when I discovered in the cereals aisle of the supermarket a new product called Up & Go, by Sanitarium. It looked just like any ordinary popper (packet drink), until I read on the back that it had the same amount of protein, energy and dietary fibre of Weet-Bix and milk! It came in several flavours (at the time) - vanilla ice, strawberry, choc ice, banana, and banana & honey. It also apparently had:

Less than 1.5% fat
No artificial colours
10 essential vitamins and minerals
e.g. 50%RDI calcium, 50%RDI folate, 50%RDI vit B12, etc.

I was very intrigued. And so I bought a packet to try.

One thing you should know about me is that when I get up in the morning, breakfast is the last thing I want. I need around a good hour to be conscious enough to tackle a meal. Cereal is my usual breakfast, and is not the most appetising thought when you're groggy. Having said this, I do actually like big breakfasts, like bacon and eggs and hashbrowns etc. But I still need time to work up to it.

The problem comes with my waking up lifestyle, because I usually don't give myself much time in the morning before I have to leave the house. Typically, if I need to be out the door at 8, I'd get out of bed around 740. I don't need much time to get ready in the morning. And you can see why that's at odds with breakfast.

Up & Go tastes like a thick shake. It's best served chilled (said the packet, again) and takes about a minute to finish (brainfreeze notwithstanding). And it's actually pretty good. It took maybe a few mornings for it to grow on me, but now, I'm hooked.

Up & Go was definitely made for people like me. For lazy morning people who can't be bothered to make a big breakfast, and so grab a little packet just before they leave the house and have their breakfast while walking to the train, or on the bus, or when they reach work/school.

Choc ice ended up being my favourite flavour by far (banana/honey second), and it's hard to believe that I can drink a little packet of chocolate milk every morning and have a (relatively) complete breakfast! The most amazing thing about this is that I actually feel full for the rest of the morning. It's like cheating! Only not!

Up & Go, however, is a bit more expensive than your regular breakfasts, on the shelves for around A$1.50 a packet. But every now and then, a sale will bring it down to A$1 a packet (in packs of 6) and that's when I stock up. I mean, $1 breakfasts are great! And so...with slight embarrassment, here is my current Up & Go stock in my pantry cupboard:

Yum. You can see I'm branching out to try different flavours.

Having said all this, I typically only have Up & Go on school mornings, because I usually go quite early to prepare for the day, and can easily have breakfast then, or even as I walk to school. I recently brought Up & Go to my minister's house for a planning meeting, and he went: "You're becoming like those overweight people in Wall-E who drink all their meals!" He's right, but hey, only for breakfast! So far :p

Too much growth!

2009-04-13T00:44:00.005+10:00

Last year I made a two-part timelapse video of a seedling germinating, titled Gives Growth and Gives More Growth. (Gives Growth is perhaps my most favourite video that I've made.)

The plant I used came from Australian Geographic, and came in the package of a little can called "Message Bean". It said nothing about what type of plant it was - only that once germinated, it would have a special message imprinted on its seed-leaves.

Anyhow, some of you might have wondered what happened to that plant after my 14-day project. Well I ended up planting it in a wheelbarrow in my garden (in Indooroopilly), and basically left it alone :p I also stuck a wooden pole for it to climb up around. At several points over the next few months it looked close to dying. I watered it irregularly, figuring that I didn't have any use for it anyway.

A few weeks ago, as we were packing up our unit in Indooroopilly and clearing out the garden, this is what greeted me:

The monster! Untangled, it had probably grown to about 6 metres long, with vines and branches reaching all over, all through the clothes line and even across into the neighbour's yard! Madness. Imagine time-lapsing that. Sadly I had to take it all down. It's amazing how life just keeps on going. God is incredibly clever.

Hercules - the Legend

2009-04-13T00:30:00.001+10:00

Not Hercules the greek god but Hercules the Mazda 2, our beautiful car.

Hercules has saved our life more than once, most outstandingly during the cyclone that hit The Gap in November last year where we were trapped in church without power and without any road access. Hercules took a huge hit for the team - a massive tree landed next to him and a big branch flew towards the church. If not for Hercules who happened to be parked right outside the church sliding doors, the branch would have smashed through the glass and seriously injured 5-6 people who were standing right there, including 2 young children and Claire.

What a legend.

The storm damage really dealt a big blow to Hercules, but thank God, Suncorp decided not to write him off and fixed every panel that was damaged! We ended up with an almost brand-new car!

Another incredible thing he did for us lately is move practically our entire house. Two weeks ago Claire and I moved from Indooroopilly to Everton Park. This was mostly because I started teaching at Northside (I can walk to school now in 12 minutes!) and our church is in The Gap, which is northwest-ish. We ended up having a delivery truck to help with the really bulky stuff like the beds, fridge, dining table, sofa set etc, but apart from that, we managed to move everything else through Hercules! Not in one trip of course...maybe about 20 trips in total :p But still!!

Because the Mazda 2 is classified as a fairly small car, it's assumed that it would have a small storage space too. You couldn't be more wrong! Once all the seats are down, Hercules has more space than many medium to large sized cars. He even has enough length to move my full sized digital piano.

Everything you see in these next few photos was all transported to our new house through Hercules over a period of 2 weeks.

What a legend.

I should mention that our place looks a lot nicer than that now :p Our getting it was yet another story of God's grace. More on that another day.

The mouse that changed my life

2009-04-13T00:10:00.000+10:00

A mouse entered my world a couple of months ago, and ever since then, my life has been changed for the better, forever.

Enter: the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000! (a mouthful, I know!)
Allow me to explain.

I just began teaching at Northside Christian College this year, and over the summer holidays they installed in every classroom a projector, a set of speakers, and a simple trio of cords (VGA, LAN and 3.5mm audio) for easy laptop set up. In addition to that, they also gave every teacher this year a new laptop (thanks in part to Mr. Rudd) - a DELL Latitude E6400. To be used for school purposes of course.

All this has meant that I can walk into class and have the powerpoint presentation for that lesson up and running within 30 seconds, if my laptop is already on. And boy has that influenced my teaching. During my pracs last year I taught mostly without powerpoint slides, which has it benefits too. But if you know how to use them, having visual slides are pure gold.

Anyhow, I found that during my lessons, I was often locked within a 1m radius of my laptop, because I needed to hit the spacebar to change slides. I figured that a way I could free myself from this was to get a wireless mouse, so I could operate the slides from anywhere in the classroom.

Most wireless mouses have an operating range of about 1-2m. If you want anything beyond that, you'd have to go bluetooth or 2.4Ghz, and that costs upwards of $60. And then there was the issue of battery life, the type of tracking technology, etc. After a lot of homework, I ended up with the best mouse ever.
Microsoft has a large range of keyboards and mouses, but in particular has designed one mouse that suits every need of the presenter. And that is the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. Here's a quick run through of its features:

10m wireless range, thanks to its 2.4 Ghz bluetooth transmitter
High definition laser tracking technology
Dedicated buttons for presentation (in particular Powerpoint)
Media remote control functionality
A built-in laser pointer (!)
An on/off switch

By this point, you should be lying on the floor in shock.

So on one hand, this mouse looks just like any ordinary mouse (bar a cord), with a couple of extra buttons on top. And indeed, it works just like a mouse, except much smoother, and from up to 10m away from the computer (which is ages!). But turn the mouse upside down, and voila - it turns into a remote control, or a presentation device! If you're in windows media player, those buttons will move back or forwards through tracks, play/pause, even adjust the volume. If you're in powerpoint, those buttons will move back or forwards through slides, and even blank the screen. And if you press the yellow sun-like button, it becomes a high-powered laser pointer! How crazy is that?

This means that in Mr. Ting's classes, he can roam around the whole classroom (very effective for controlling behaviour - proximity) while keeping total control of the presentation of his lesson via his wireless mouse. I've even been able to give the mouse to students while at their own desks for them to "write" stuff on the screen (using powerpoint's Digital Ink - aka the pen tool) or complete drag and drop activities, etc.

Even cooler is the fact that my laptop has an inbuilt bluetooth receiver, which means I don't even have to plug in the bluetooth receive dongle! I just turn my mouse on and go!

And to top it off...this mouse retails at A$130, but I got it for $50! :) All thanks to internet shopping (never pay retail price!), plus a cashback offer that microsoft was offering earlier this year - 25% off retail price for all keyboards and mouses. Beautiful.

I absolutely love my mouse, and amusingly, so do my kids. (When I first used it, one grade 8 stared at it for ages before finally saying - "that is so cool".) It's made my lessons very flexible and dynamic, which is something I strive for.

If you're someone who needs to do a lot of presentations and like to move around, this is definitely a mouse for you. Otherwise, stick to your own mouse. It's probably all that it needs to do for you already. I just wanted to share how this mouse has changed my teaching life ;)

Using the holidays wisely

2009-04-08T22:16:00.004+10:00

And I'm on holidays again! Well, it's my first holiday as a teacher really. Term 1 just ended last week, and I have a 2 week Easter break! (Yay for private schools! :p State schools only get 1 week for Easter, usually.) A necessary break, it is, though. Term 1 was rather tiring. I've been told that term 1 is often the busiest term in the year, for teachers. Especially so at Northside, where almost all the school camps fall in term 1. And the first term is even crazier for brand new teachers, apparently. I've definitely had my ups and downs, but so far absolutely no regrets about doing teaching. It's never boring!

There's lots on my plate this holidays (which is already 1/4 over, really). This is roughly what I plan to do, although I'm aware that I'll probably won't finish all of it:

On a personal level

Reflect and pray and read the bible
Spend good time with Claire

With regards to church

Work with my minister on planning the Good Friday and Easter Sunday services
Letterbox drops in The Gap, advertising the above services
Start teaching the drums to a kid in church
Lifegroup social!

School work....

Write unit plans for term 2 (not a small job!)
Finish tabulating results and writing reports for term 1

Day-to-day stuff

Unpack the many boxes that still litter my house
Start exercising!

Leisure! (aka computer games)

Finish Lego Starwars II
Begin and complete Red Alert 3: Uprising
Begin Warcraft III (kinda old game, but still good! I started it in 2002 when it first came out but didn't get far.)
Blog more

I'm going pretty good so far... here is proof :p

Not bad huh. The stud sprouting fountain made of gold studs is what you get when you complete the game. Plus a big sense of satisfaction.

Stay tuned.

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

2009-04-03T18:14:00.002+10:00

My desk

2009-04-02T14:35:00.005+10:00

I'm currently in school, in a spare period, marking 30 grade 8 exam papers. Fun fun fun. This is what my desk looks like right now:

Yup. On the top left shelf are the other 100 or so papers I had to mark over the past two weeks. Man it's tiring. Although, having said that, once you get into it, it's actually...almost fun. It becomes routine, giving the ticks and crosses... and it's quite nice reading responses and seeing your students think and realising they did actually listen to you in class. A bit.

And you may have seen it in the picture, but look what else I got today:

Pretty sweet hey. I knew there would be something good about teaching...

Anyway, here's a challenge. Try to locate the following items on my desk (you may need to click to enlarge)

Cenovis multivitamin bottle
Clone trooper
Lego batman

Tell me if you find any! Back to work for me.

Jersey

2009-03-31T22:07:00.003+10:00

That's right.

England's new football soccer jersey, with my name on it. For more info on Umbro's new project, click here. Kudos to Liwei.

This blog has been pretty stagnant lately. There's good reason though. Over the past two months, I have:

Been on a week long grade 8 camp
Had to write an exam
Moved house
Moved church (location, not the church itself)
Had mountains of assignments/tests to mark! (all self-inflicted, though)

I've completed most of those things (apart from the marking...and unpacking), and have lots to share! I'm also going pretty well, and am still loving teaching! Life's been quite challenging, but God's been good. I also really love my new house, and the camp I went on, and my church, and my wife. And even the exam I wrote :p

Back to marking now. Next week is holidays (for 2 weeks!). Can't wait.

Thoughts from a one month old teacher

2009-02-14T13:42:00.006+10:00

What a journey this year has been. I began work this year on 15 Jan with teacher in-service training, and on 28 Jan the students started back at school and the real teaching began. This year I have 5 science classes - a year 7 girls class, two year 8 classes, a year 9 class and a year 9 science extension class. My class sizes range from 21 to 30. Fairly decent. Honestly, the thing which I found most daunting was having to memorise over 100 new names. Because this is not my strength, I made it my top priority, and am pleased to say that after two and a half weeks of actual class teaching, I know at least 90% of them by name. Maybe 50% by their full name. It's a start.

So far all we've been covering is pretty introductory stuff - establishing the fundamentals of science like the scientific method, what makes a test fair, etc. I'm looking forward to getting deeper into specific content, and in particular with exploring the philosophy of science. I really want my students to not only do science but also to think about science. And by that I don't just mean thinking about scientific things or thinking in a scientific way, but thinking about the nature of science and being able to perceive its presuppositions and limitations. How I will achieve that, I'm not actually sure, but it's my goal nonetheless.

Northside Christian College is a fantastic school. I don't know if it's even possible to communicate just how great a school it is. I'm aware that I don't really have many schools to compare it to, but from what I've heard, it doesn't get much better than this. The staff are overwhelmingly supportive, yet not dominatingly so, which means every teacher has the freedom to spread their wings and really fly, yet not fear that they will ever find themselves with no one to turn to when they're lost. It's truly hard to imagine a safer work environment.

Again, while I have only been in this school for a month, it appears to me that this unity is not superficial. What ultimately binds and bonds everyone in the school is their love for Jesus and their commitment to kids. Our principal told us at the start of the year that if we do nothing this year but love God and love the students, we've done pretty well (my paraphrase). I can't agree more.

Full time work has been tiring though. Having been on holidays for about 4 years straight (ok, uni did have its hard times, but on a whole, uni students can't complain), it was quite a change, but I'm getting used to it. In fact, I'm quite enjoying it. I've eased quite comfortably into the routine of sleeping at 1045pm and waking at 645am. I woke up today at 830 which was quite a sleep-in! There's this sense of satisfaction after having done a hard day's work, and understandably so since God did create us to work and find fulfillment from it. Given that your work is God-glorifying, that is.

So that's how I've been, on the teaching front. In a couple of weeks I'll be off on a year 8 camp, and 5 weeks from that I'll have a two week holiday over Easter. Can't complain ;) I'll really be needing that break though because Claire and I are planning to move house over those two weeks. Hopefully we manage to get some rest too.

It's funny to think how many highs and lows I've already had in my teaching career - the whole 3 weeks of it! You can have fantastic lessons one day that make you feel on top of the world, and then horrid lessons the next which make you wonder why you ever chose to become a teacher. Very weird. But I've been well prepared for this, so it didn't take me by surprise. I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that teachers generally put a lot of themselves into the lesson (plus the hours preparing for it) so if the lesson doesn't turn out well, it feels like you've failed. It's kind of like your moment on stage - stuff it up, and it all feels like a waste of time. Conversely, if it goes well, you're as happy as can be. I'll gradually need to learn to not stake so much of my feelings into my lessons, and judge my sense of worth from my perceived performance! It's not about me. Yet (and this is where I detract from many people) it's not even about the kids either. It's all about God (because if he exists, then life is all about him), and about whether I gave a lesson that glorified him. I still have a long way to go, but I'm looking forward to the adventure.

Bible in 90 days - my next venture?

2009-02-14T11:26:00.004+10:00

Having finished biblein2008 last year, I have now read the bible three times. Yet every time I read it, it felt like I was reading it for the first time. There were countless passages that seemed completely new to me, and even still when I hear passages preached on or quoted, many of them feel unfamiliar. No doubt this is due in part to my poor memory and the largeness of the bible, but I think it's a good reminder that you can never get enough of it! Hudson Taylor, the great English missionary to China, read the bible more than 40 times in his life. And what amazing things God did through him!

To me, it's about putting your money where your mouth is. If you have heard of the historical account of Jesus and have been convinced that he is who he said he is, you'd only want to find out more about God, and what better way to do that than by listening to him! If the bible is really God's word, why wouldn't you read it? Even if only to see if it makes sense. Even if only to check that it holds together and paints an accurate picture of our world today. Not reading the bible is possibly tantamount to you seeing God speak and purposely covering your ears, so that you can continue on your way and say you never heard him.

This might be my next venture, some time this year. About 15 chapters of the bible a day, with the view of completing the entire book in 90 days. I might see if I can get some friends to do it with me. May I encourage you to consider this too in your churches, small groups, or individually. The Bible in 90 Days website has lots of resources to support this.

Trip to melbourne

2009-01-20T18:08:00.002+10:00

Last week, Claire and I made a short trip to Melbourne to visit my cousin Val, who will be teaching English in Central Asia for the next few years. We will miss her. We didn't get to see much of Melbourne, which is fine cos that wasn't the purpose of our visit, but I did get the chance once to take an early morning walk (Val didn't wake very early, although she was sick :p) which allowed me to take most of these geotagged photos!

And if you've been following my blog, this completely goes without saying, but these geotagged photos were taken with the mighty Nokia N82. And here's where I learned to put geotagged photos onto Google Maps.

Click on any of the blue round thingies below to see the photo I took at that spot.

View Larger Map

Lost Generation

2009-01-20T17:31:00.000+10:00

The big transition

2009-01-10T17:02:00.003+10:00

In a week or so, I will have had my last holiday as a student. I realise that this will only be followed with many holidays as a teacher, but let's not spoil the moment here. It was an eventful holiday, really. Claire and I got to live through a cyclone, went to Singapore for a couple of weeks, and I completed Red Alert 3 twice. We also got to spend good time with family and friends, which is the most important thing.

At the start of the year, I decided to make a reading list for myself, and pulled out the following books from my shelf. The aim was to finish the pile before school starts. Well, I've less than a week to go, and I've only read 3 of those. But it's still been good. I'll see how long I take to finish all 10.

It only just occurred to me too that I haven't actually announced on my blog that I got a teaching job for this year, let alone what school it is. And it's no secret, obviously, because I'm bound to blog about it in the years to come. The school happens to be...

Northside Christian College!!

Which, I may add, is a fantastic school ;p From what I've heard and seen, it looks like a really supporting and caring environment, which will be a great place for me to begin my teaching career. And I'm gonna really love teaching in a Christian school, where talking (or even thinking) about God isn't a crime. I was open to working in non-Christian schools too, of course, but things turned out the way they were meant to.

I can't wait to begin! I'll be teaching science to grade 7s, 8s and 9s this year, which will be a fairly new experience, but one that I'm excited about. I also have year 7 and 9 sport, which will be interesting.

It's funny, writing this post on this date, wondering whether any of my to-be students will find my blog and read these words sometime in the future. Based on previous experience, I am fairly certain that this blog will be found, but that doesn't really bother me. Gone are the days when teachers could choose to be two-dimensional characters, with the majority of their lives hidden from their curious students.

I am happy to be transparent with my students. It's not merely a personal preference, but something I think that will enhance my teaching. My students needs to know that I am a real person, who goes through ups and downs in life and thinks and does the same ~~useless~~ things they do. A person who too was once a student, and spent a lot of time wondering what to do with his life, because he wanted it to count for something. A person who has people he loves and hobbies he enjoys and a Saviour in whose footsteps he tries to walk each day, even though he doesn't always succeed.

Of course that's not to say that there's nothing that should be kept private. But regular readers of my blog know that I don't use it to air rude and private rants and thoughts. It would be totally contrary to my purposes for beginning this blog anyway.

Anyhow, that's where I'm at, right now. At the brink of becoming a real teacher. It's pretty scary, but I have no regrets whatsoever in going down this path. And I have a feeling that this year will only confirm that even more.

Hyatt Saber

2009-01-04T18:31:00.001+10:00

For our one year wedding anniversary, Claire and I spent a night at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Hyatt offers their guests light sabers in each room, presumably for self-protection. You gotta see it to believe it.

Atheism: the new killer?

2008-12-19T16:13:00.006+10:00

Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'

A New York man is linking the suicide of his 22-year-old son, a military veteran who had bright prospects in college, to the anti-Christian book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins after a college professor challenged the son to read it.

[read more]

* * *

I can kind of see both sides to the story. On one hand, this quite demonstrates the meaninglessness of atheism and God-rejection. A world without God offers little comfort, the religious will be quick to say, and leads naturally to despair and hopelessness.

On the other hand, it could well be argued that the poor boy was headed this way already. Suicide is rarely an impulsive action; often much thought and planning preceeds the attempt/event. The boy was obviously struggling with far more than what we could see, and probably found himself being tugged in too many directions.

Besides, atheists would say, for many, a world without God is rather liberating! Far from being hopeless, you find yourself free from the ridiculous shackles of religion, and free to live how you want and how you think you should. Notice also (I imagine they would say) that the boy found himself convinced by Dawkins' book. Even if a world without God offers less comfort, it doesn't mean it's not the truth.

Fair enough.

My personal opinion? I agree with both sides. I'll explain what I mean by that, because on the surface they appear anything but complementary.

I agree with the atheists who say that the boy would probably on the path towards suicide anyway. I don't think we know enough to pinpoint the specific triggers. I also agree that life without God can appear liberating, free from the shackles of man-made man-controlling religion. And I definitely agree with the fact that the most comforting worldview is not necessarily the right one.

In other words I don't think we can say for sure that atheism was what pushed the poor boy over the limit.

But I don't think atheism did (or could have done) anything to protect him.

What does atheism have to offer to someone looking for meaning, purpose or goodness in his or her life? Without God, the aim of life is simply to live it. It's as profound and as shallow as that. Some might add that you should live it in a way that makes you happy, or that you think is right. Live for your family. Live for your friends. Live to make a difference in this world. Live to experience. Live to enjoy. Live for what's good - the hedonistic cry.

But what is good? How do I know whether something I'm doing is good? Perhaps if it makes me happy. But is being happy good? Well, let's take the biological angle. Since we all evolved to survive, then whatever I do that promotes my survival must be good! Afterall, that's my evolutionary purpose.

But is surviving good? Just because it may have been what we evolved to do doesn't mean it's good, or right, or meaningful, or purposeful. Without God, "good" can mean anything you want, but it can't mean any one thing. "Good" is simply a social construct. There is absolutely no anchor or foundation for what "good" means, if you believe that God is simply a delusion.

With God, however, everything is different. (At issue here is not whether God exists, but rather what the implications are if He exists.) If God told us what was good and bad, then there would be a clear and objective definition of good and bad that transcends mere opinion and social interactions. Good would always be good. Bad would always be bad.

I'll borrow an analogy from mathematics. Say you had to plot a graph. Imagine if you had to do so without any reference point; for example, the origin (0,0). It's not that the origin has not been specified and you can place it wherever you want; it's that the concept of the origin doesn't even exist. You can still try plotting your graph and making meaning out of it, but at the end of the day, all your inferences are at best guesses.

With God, the graph has an origin. The playing field has boundaries. The ship has an anchor. The universe has laws. And life has meaning, because good and bad do exist and there actually is a right way to live.

Of course, that also means that there is a definite wrong way to live. But we don't test the truthfulness of a claim based on how comforting it is to us, do we? :p

* * *

The article is a chilling reminder that life without God, at its very heart, is empty. It sure seems liberating - you make your own rules, do what you want, live for enjoyment - but when pressed for answers and for truth, it falls utterly short. If goodness can mean anything, then goodness means nothing.

I believe that there is a God who has told us (through the Bible and through Jesus) what is good and bad, and what is the right way to live. Far from being restricting, this completely frees you to live life the way you were made to - we can't even imagine anything better. Maybe it's time for us to stop thinking we know what's right for us. Let's start listening to our maker.

Make your own Google map!

2008-12-18T17:53:00.002+10:00

I've been making personalised maps using Google Maps for a number of years now, and it only occurred to me recently that many people don't know how to make one, let alone know it exists! I was just about to make a video tutorial explaining how to do so when a quick youtube search showed me that Google had already made such a video, which saves me lots of effort. Watch, learn and use!

Dec 08 update

2008-12-14T15:57:00.006+10:00

Man it's been a while. The last month or so has been a crazy ride. It began with the big storm, not having Hercules (our car) for a few weeks, preparing for our church's Carols Service, and spending the last two weeks in Singapore. During which both Claire and I got pretty sick :(

But otherwise, we're ok. And we're back in Brisbane. And we've got lots ahead of us! Namely, the Carols Service this Sunday evening (for which I probably have a practice every night this coming week), and for Claire, a thesis. One big fat masters thesis, due early February. Poor girl. I'll be free after this Sunday until mid Jan which is when I'll be starting school. This really deserves its own post, but by God's amazing grace, I got a job at Northside Christian College (which only just happens to be the coolest school ever :p). The classes I was given for next year are year 7, 8 and 9 science. Should be interesting.

So in the 3-4 weeks that I have between now and then, I'll be busy preparing for classes, cooking and making life easy for Claire so she can concentrate on her thesis, playing Red Alert 3, having friends over, learning a bit more jazz piano, and I might make another video should the inspiration come. Sounds good? I think it does.

I'll end with this - a random video of an unusual "massage" that Claire and I had in Singapore.

It was at a random shop at the Night Safari, and Claire and I thought, why not! $10 for 10 mins. Enlarge the picture below to see what the sign on the tank said.

Shortchanging the Good News

2008-12-14T15:44:00.002+10:00

Written by Lee Strobel

Hollywood-bad-boy-turned-Christian Stephen Baldwin raised more than a few eyebrows when he dared to question U2's seemingly sacrosanct front man, Bono, in his book The Unusual Suspect (FaithWords).

“Look, Bono, I'm a huge fan of yours,” Baldwin wrote. “I just think ... that you would do far more good if you preached the Gospel of Jesus rather than trying to get Third World debt relief.”

Some people said Baldwin went too far. But did he?

We're seeing increased social action among evangelical churches. There's a heightened interest in addressing poverty and injustice on the other side of the planet—as well as on the other side of the street. American churches have launched major initiatives to help deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

As Newsweek observed, megachurch pastors who built their congregations on local evangelism over the last three decades “are turning their focus further outward” and addressing “larger issues worldwide.” The reporter wrote: “New life [is] being breathed into the evangelical community by ... people who are making social causes ( Africa , poverty, HIV/AIDS) the centerpiece of their faith.”

Obviously, it's a good thing when influential Christians bring help and hope to those who are suffering. After all, Matt. 4:23 says Jesus went around “healing every disease and sickness among the people.” He called his followers to be compassionate toward those who are in physical need.

But that very same verse also says Jesus was “preaching the Good News of the Kingdom.” He knew that tending to the sick and disenfranchised would provide only temporary relief. Indeed, every person Jesus healed is long dead. Ultimately, their biggest need was spiritual, because they would be spending a lot more time in eternity than in this life.

In short, this is a “both/and” issue, not an “either/or” proposition. Should we care about Third World debt, rampant disease, illiteracy and the ever-multiplying number of AIDS orphans? Absolutely! And should we be concerned about the eternities of people in India , Indonesia and across the street from us? Of course!

But problems occur when the scales tilt too much in either direction. When we reach out to help others but don't tell them about their need for a Savior, we're cheating them out of an opportunity for the spiritual healing that they may not even know they need. And when we preach the Gospel of love but turn a callous eye toward human suffering, we're failing to live out the compassion of Christ as he told us we should.

Christian leaders should carefully monitor how those scales are balanced in their own church. In some cases, I'm troubled by how the evangelistic value has dramatically dissipated as churches move toward a “social Gospel.” After all, there are always subtle pressures to slack off on evangelism. Why?

First, the media and community applaud pastors who lead teams to serve the poor. Public recognition feels good, and this can reinforce pastors' commitment to social action. But let's be clear: The secular world sees zero value in bringing the Gospel to the spiritually needy.

Second, it's often easier to motivate church members to serve the poor in Mexico than to share the Gospel with their colleagues at work. I've seen far too many Christians who are more than willing to travel halfway around the world to volunteer for a week in an orphanage, but who cannot bring themselves to take the personal risk of sharing Jesus with the co-worker who sits day after day in the cubicle right next to them.

The truth is that when we serve others as Jesus did, we also open up more opportunities to share the Gospel. As the old saying goes, “We have to be good news before we share the Good News.”

But we must share the Good News! Otherwise, we're merely humanitarians who are no different than the Kiwanis Club. And our mission is infinitely more important than that.

http://www.leestrobel.com/newsletters/2008DECEMBER/shortchangingthegoodnews.htm

Caught in a storm

2008-11-17T11:03:00.003+10:00

Claire and I were at a church service last night when the storm struck. Most damaging storm in Queensland in 25 years, an expert said. High speed winds, lightning strikes and hail the size of golf balls left more than 230,000 homes and businesses without power, according to a news report. Gold Coast, Brisbane, Logan and the Sunshine Coast were all affect, but the Brisbane northern suburbs were hit the worst. Which is exactly where our church in The Gap is.

I'm not too sure how much I should say on this blog just yet, due to insurance and safety concerns; I might wait a few days. Apart from a few scratches, Claire and I are both safe, as are all the people who were with us. And boy do we have a story to tell about God's amazing power and protection.

Read more news stories here.

Lego Batman

2008-10-31T20:31:00.006+10:00

The recent series of Lego video games have been my favourite games by far. First were the 2 Star Wars trilogies, 6 episodes each with 6 levels to play through. Then came Indiana Jones. 3 movies with 6 levels each to play through. Then, just last month - Lego Batman.

Oh yeah. In Lego Batman, you could play Hero or Villian levels. There were 3 stages in each, each with 5 levels, making 30 levels in total. Just like all the previous Lego video games, Batman was pure fun - lego characters, lego worlds, exploding lego blocks, hilarious cutscenes.

In the game, you get to play a huge variety of famous characters from the Batman tradition - Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, Catwoman, the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Dr.Freeze, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Alfred, etc. And every one had a different ability or skill, which you needed to use to get through levels or find hidden goodies. On top of getting through all the levels (which was totally fun on its own) and playing out the story of the game, you could replay the levels in freeplay mode, which let you change characters during gameplay to unlock rooms or find hidden stuff. There were 10 minikits plus 1 red powerbrick in each level to locate. Each one unlocked an extra power, like "faster batarang" or "immune to freeze".

And within the Batman world, the creators of the game would put all sorts of silly things in that you can discover (usually in the places where the special stuff are hidden) like dance floors or bumpercar competitions. (There was even a bonus level where you played batman in a mario-esque environment.)

(As you might guess, Poison Ivy was my favourite character to play. It was basically because she ~~was pretty~~ could jump really high.)

Batman and Robin themselves had special suits which they could change (if suit swapping facilities were available). Different suits granted different abilities, such as being able to glide, having a sonic gun that breaks glass, being able to swim underwater, having magnetic shoes to walk up metal walls, etc.

And after many days of hard work :p, I'm proud to say that I reached 100% completion! Woohoo!

A happy moment it was, although sad at the same time cos it means my Batman gaming days are over :p I'll probably "rediscover" the game in a few years. If I'm not too caught up in the future Lego games, that is ;)

Oh, and for the record, I played all these games on my PC, which was a brilliant "console" for these games. I don't own a playstation or xbox or wii, and function perfectly fine! Just thought I'd make a little stand for my fellow console-less people :p Controller wise, the computer keyboard is not bad, but I personally use a wireless controller that I found at Harvey Norman Indooroopilly for A$25 (normally $60!) - the Logitech Rumblepad.
There she is. A beauty. With full vibration and a crazy battery life. I used 2AA batteries to complete the entire Batman game. Who needs a $600 console when you already have a computer? $25, and my computer becomes a console.

And that's that. I'll end with a family picture.

A walk from Indooroopilly to The Gap

2008-10-28T11:23:00.002+10:00

Last Sunday, I decided to walk to church from home. According to the route Google Maps suggested, it would take about 2 hours 27 minutes to cover the 11.3km from Indooroopilly to The Gap, so I left home at 6am, expecting to reach church at 8:30am.

Would you believe it, I made it to church at 8:05am! Either I walk faster than I realise, or the route was shorter than Google Maps estimated (I'm going for the latter). A few years ago, I could have run that distance quite easily, but not anymore. Walking, however, is a totally different story. I'm not sure if it's just me, but walking the 11.3km ended up really refreshing! I even brought a 400ml waterbottle with me which I didn't need at all during the trip! Weird hey. It was a nice time in the day to walk though, with the sun out but not too hot yet.

And because I could, I took geotagged photos with my n82 along the way, which I imported onto Google Maps. The cool is that it shows you the route I took too. Have a look (click on the blue markers to display the photo I took at that point).

View Larger Map

The only cons of the long walk was my ending up quite tired later in the day, and aches on the next day. But I'm considering doing this more regularly. It's a pretty simple way to exercise. Having said that, if I hadn't had my mp3 player along the way, I would have gotten pretty bored walking for 2 hours. On my playlist that Sunday was:

Hillsong United - My best friend
A sermon by Rev David Jones
A sermon by Pastor John Piper

And then I got to hear another sermon by my minister, Chris Perona :p Which, may I add, was excellent, and 100% definitely worth listening to. It was on the bible and slavery, based on Ephesians 6:5-9. Visit here to download the sermon as an mp3 or a mov file.

Find my photos on Google Maps!

2008-10-20T10:07:00.005+10:00

My photos have made it to Google Maps! And I'm not talking about finding my account and looking for the photos that I posted onto the map. I mean going straight to http://maps.google.com, searching for Indooroopilly (Brisbane), then clicking Photos (under More) and seeing my photos right there!

They are on display to all the world! Although with the arrival of street view, it's probably not as exciting, but I still reckon it's pretty sweet. These were photos which I took during a walk in mid July this year (took 3 months to reach Google Maps!) where I was playing with the photo geotagging (adding GPS data) capabilities of my Nokia n82 phone.

Some background info. If you don't already know what Google Maps is, you've been living under a rock. And you wouldn't even know where that rock is either! In July 07, Photos was introduced to Google Maps, which meant anyone could upload photos which would be tagged onto Google Maps and come up in searches etc. Of course it's a bit more complicated than that - typically a camera with geotagging capabilities is required, plus a Picasa or Panoramio account.

And this has seen the uploading of thousands and thousands of photos from locations all around the world! Going to Google Maps, zooming out to the world and clicking on Photos shows you something like this:

Pretty crazy. Who needs travel anymore? You can see amateur/professional photos from virtually every spot in the world. Just keep an eye on your internet usage.

If things go my way, you're gonna see lots more of my photos when you search in Google Maps ;)

Australia vs Qatar

2008-10-20T09:56:00.002+10:00

Went with James last Wednesday to watch the soccer match between Australia and Qatar in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers - a great night. Apart from the fact that it pouring like crazy before the match started and we were quite drenched, it was thoroughly entertaining and Australia won 4-0! Here were some of the match highlights:

I didn't take as many photos as the last time, but I did try out an application on my Nokia n82 called Panoman which let me take this great shot:

Go the socceroos!

Why is science so scared of creationism?

2008-10-05T22:08:00.002+10:00

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | 'Creationism' biologist quits job
Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Professor Michael Reiss has quit as director of education at the Royal Society following the controversy over his recent comments on creationism.

Why is science so scared of creationism? Or perhaps, why are scientists so scared of God?

It's almost as if they think that letting God into scientific thought will completely revolutionise and change the "science" that know and cherish. It's almost as if they can sense how compelling and potentially intellectually-sound it is to posit a creator God in science, and are thus fighting frightfully hard to avoid the prospect.

But surely that isn't the case! Surely science is robust enough to withstand creationism, that half-baked pseudo-science, with hardly a fight? Why all this, if I may, extravagant effort in trying to debunk creationism and keep it far away from our classrooms? Why work so hard at ostracising any scientist with even the tiniest bent on creationism? Surely, untouched, creationism will die its slow and certain death.

The way scientists are acting, it almost makes you think that they've underestimated the strength of creationism. But surely not...

Jedi Cosmo

2008-10-04T17:56:00.003+10:00

I had to do it!

Floating top

2008-10-04T16:54:00.002+10:00

A few years ago I wrote a post about a magnetic spinning top which I have - http://mingdao.blogspot.com/2006/05/ufo-top.html

I recently dug it out again and this time took a video of it. And as a bit of an experiment, I used a few new features that YouTube offers and swapped the audio with a free music track and added annotations. This is the result.

My new budgie!

2008-10-02T13:58:00.005+10:00

As of Thursday the 25th of September, Claire and I became the proud owners of a budgie!

Well, Claire has had many budgies all her life, really. This is my first bird. The only other pets I've ever had were a german shepherd (in Venezuela) and a couple of terrapins in Singapore.

After obtaining permission from our real estate agent, landlords and body corporate (which took about a month), Claire and I trooped off to Petworks at the Great Western Shopping Centre in Keperra. There we found a beautiful baby boy budgie, who we could already tell was going to be sweet and good-natured. Cosmo was what we named him.

The first couple of days, Cosmo was quite shy and avoided us when we went close to his cage. Which was normal for a budgie (said Claire and other budgie owners). Budgies can take months, even years to become friendly and tame, if at all. Cosmo spent quite a bit of his day climbing around his cage trying to look for an escape, even digging down into his seed/grit to possibly burrow his way out! Yet he was never very flustered or flighty - he always remained fairly calm and easy going. Whenever he heard any other bird (even the slight hint of one) he would chirp as loud as he could. Claire guessed that it was because he missed bird company; his cage in the petshop had about 15 other budgies. Here's Cosmo and his cage (he's normally inside it :p).

Then, amazingly, he began warming up to us! Claire would take him out of his cage for a little bit each day to let him grow comfortable being near us, and for the first few days she'd have to catch him with her hands to return him to the cage. But on day 4, she managed to get him to hop up onto a chopstick, letting her put him back in the cage! The same happened on day 5, but this time, Cosmo even let Claire use the chopstick to scratch his neck! We couldn't believe it!

Not one to let moments like these pass, I whipped out my video camera. The result was Cosmo and the Chopstick (coming to a cinema near you).

Today (day 7), we had another breakthrough - Cosmo hopped onto Claire's finger! We thought it would be months till he would be comfortable to do that, but it happened after a week. He even hopped on to Michelle's shoulder for a few minutes too! Amazing. He's still not completely tame yet (obviously), but he's making great progress, and we're really happy about it. God made birds really special, and it's cool to be able to appreciate and enjoy it through this little budgie.

If things go my way, you'll be seeing more Cosmo videos in the time to come ;)

The Wheel of Brisbane V

2008-09-26T13:05:00.001+10:00

At long last, I have done it - a ride on the Wheel of Brisbane! Here's a video of my experience.

The Gorillapod

2008-09-25T18:46:00.006+10:00

I've had my eye on this for a while now, and just this week, I spotted it at Harvey Norman for $34.95. The gorillapod! What a beauty.

So what is it? Basically, it's an extremely versatile tripod. It's made of about 30 fully articulating ball and socket joints, with soft rubber rings around each one and rubber feet. This means that it can be mounted onto basically any surface, or from any thing that it can cling on! The original version was made for light-weight digital cameras, but there are heavy-duty ones for SLRs too.

The main things I'm gonna be using the gorillapod for is for taking timer photos from almost anywhere without having to ask a stranger to take the shot, and possibly for more timelapse videography from cool positions. Here are some pictures (taken by my phone) of my gorillapod in action:

And here are some of the results:

Check out its website for more details. I highly recommend it!

A late September 08 update

2008-09-25T18:15:00.005+10:00

Whew, quite a bit has happened recently.

I finished my 7-week teaching prac at St Laurence's College just last week. It was a good experience. Ended in a pretty fun way - I joined a bunch of grade 10 boys on an extra-curricular enrichment activity which lasted a week - Rich Tasks, it was called. The activity I joined was 3D Game Design. Pretty cool huh. We basically had a few talks on 3D animation and game design, and all got to design our own computer games using a program called gamemaker. I was gonna make a pinball game based on n-gage's mile high pinball, then I switched to a game based on popcap's mummymaze, and eventually created a game in the style of the classic tank game. Because it's a program I created, I'm completely free to distribute it for others to download and play. Might clean it up a little and showcase it on this blog some time perhaps. Here's a picture of a few kids playing my game.

This prac also saw me exhausting almost my entire repertoire of magic tricks - I showed the other prac teachers one magic trick each day as lunchtime entertainment. It kept them going, and it kept me going, really. Not sure if this link works, but I recorded my trick on the very last day: link.

I'm currently on holidays. Classes resume next week (I think) and go for a couple of months more, and then I'll be finished with my teaching degree! Quick hey. I only just started it 8 months ago. One big project I've given myself to complete over this week long holiday is the building of several video camera rigs. Namely a dolly, a camera stabiliser (like the steadicam), and a rig for doing low/ground shots. I'm using a book which I borrowed from my video buddy Andrew Gentle - Killer Camera Rigs That You Can Build. It's going well so far. I'll take some sample footage when I'm done and post it here.

Oh, I've also finally taken a ride on the Wheel of Brisbane!!! But I'll talk about that in its own post ;)

Followers

2008-09-14T18:37:00.002+10:00

Just added a new gadget in my sidebar -- followers. Basically informs both me and you who's following this blog. I have a feeling it's only for other blogger users though. You may notice too that is has replaced my tagboard (not in function, but in position :p). We'll see what happens.

The Wheel of Brisbane IV

2008-09-13T13:33:00.003+10:00

Last night, Claire and I were on a date at South Bank, and guess what we saw?!

The great Brisbane Wheel in all its glory. It was looking magnificent and brilliantly lit, and best of all, it was in operation!!

A 12-15 minute (giving 3-4 rotations) fully air-conditioned ride costs $15 for adults ($10 for kids), and $95 for a private gondola. Already, the queues were long.

So how did I find it? Well, ~~Claire didn't let me go~~ we decided to go another time (it was late) and perhaps in the day when we would be able to see much more of Brisbane. It would make for cooler shots too when we're in the gondola. So...stay tuned!! :p

In the meantime, here's a video of the wheel in action.

http://www.ourbrisbane.com/see-and-do/things-to-do/wheel-brisbane
http://www.worldtouristattractions.co.uk/wta_wheel_brisbane.php

Nokia N82 still the best camera phone

2008-09-05T21:28:00.002+10:00

Both of those photos were taken with my Nokia N82 phone, boasting a 5.0mp camera with Carl Zeiss lens and a xenon flash.

You may say I'm biased, but I'm still convinced that the N82 has the best camera of any mobile phone by far. For one thing, 5.0 megapixels is currently still as high as it gets on camera phones. (altho Sony and Samsung have announced 8.0mp camera phones soonish.) Secondly, it has a xenon flash! That means I can take photos in complete darkness and you wouldn't even know. Most other camera phones have an LED flash, if at all. They're not too bad, but they produce slightly unnatural looking photos and don't do well at all in the dark. Check these links out to see what I mean.

At the moment, I can count on one hand the number of mobile phones there are which have a xenon flash. The Nokia N82, Nokia 6220 classic (new) and the Samsung G800! Please correct me if I've missed out any, but I'm pretty sure that's it. The LG Viewty has a strobe flash, which still falls short. What really boggles me is why we're not seeing the xenon flash on more phones. It's obviously obviously what every camera needs! ALL of Nokia's upcoming high-end models (N96, N85 etc.) have 5.0mp cameras with LED flashes. WHY?!

Oh well, that just means my N82 gets to be reigning camera phone for longer. It's weird that this phone didn't made it big here in Australia. It's so incredibly good! Wi-fi, a-GPS, 2.4" screen, 3.5mm headphone jack, s60 OS, the N-Gage platform... sigh.

Ok I'm done.

Batman Snacks

2008-09-05T18:59:00.003+10:00

I saw this in Woolworths (a supermarket) last week. Personally, it's going a bit too far. Although admittedly, I really wanted to try it. Only thing was that I'd be paying $8 to buy these oddly shaped things that probably don't have any space for real chicken inside.

You really wonder how people get these ideas. Hmm...the Dark Knight is doing well...let's capitalise on that by producing chicken nuggets in the shape of Batman! Of course! We'll be rich!

You're quite a religious person, aren't you?

2008-09-04T12:06:00.005+10:00

Oh, if I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me...

I'd probably only have about $5. But that's often enough to make me wonder what spurs this question and what response I should give.

I personally find it a very hard question to answer. I can't quite say no, because that would be giving a wrong impression. Yet I'm so hesitant to say yes, because of what that would be implying as well. The word religious is such a hairy one; what is it really describing? Are you religious if you pray at least 3 times a day? Are you religious if you go to church or a temple service weekly? Are you religious if you read your holy book regularly?

Imagine if I told someone outright "I am a very religious person". Think about all the implications and connotations that immediately conjures. I may as well have said "I am a bigot". Or "I am holier than thou". "I am a fundamentalist who will never budge from my beliefs". Well, that's what I'd think anyway.

But then again...some people describe themselves as religious in with the intention of distancing themselves from organised religion (another phrase that I dislike). "No, I don't believe in any particular religion, but I am religious." Religious, in that sense, is synonymous with spiritual. Or at least, spiritual as we know it today. So is that what I'm implying if I agree that I'm a religious person?

How am I meant to answer that question, if religious can mean both fundamentalist and vague spiritualist? Am I religious? Well, what does that question even mean?

I love Jesus, and I am not ashamed to say that. I am completely convinced by overwhelming evidence that there is a God, who has revealed Himself through His word and His Son. I am convinced too that Jesus is the only way to salvation, and that if you believe otherwise, you are wrong.

FUNDAMENTALIST!

Well, if the above fits your definition of a fundamentalist, then I must admit that that's what I am. And indeed, I do believe in the fundamental tenets of my religion.

But I am not immune to argument. If you can convince me with solid evidence that my beliefs are wrong, I will choose to believe in truth. I believe in God not because I have to (or I inherited my religion) but because I choose to.

And I do not think I am holier than anyone. I will be the first to admit that I am sinful. I don't think that believing in God makes me better than anyone. It just means I have been forgiven.

But you believe that your beliefs are right and that everyone else's beliefs are wrong!

What's wrong with that?

As in literally, what is wrong with that belief? If you don't believe in an objective right or wrong, how can you even say that that belief is wrong?

There is nothing wrong with believing that your beliefs are right. But there's something wrong if you believe that no beliefs are wrong.

Think about it - who doesn't have a belief about God/god and our purpose? Everyone believes something, whether it's that God is there or not there or good or bad or a he or she or distant or one essense with us; or whether life is about just being happy or minimising suffering or obeying a divine will or obeying your own will. Human beings aren't just occasionally religious; we're incurably religious! We can't help being religious!

I just happen to have a set of beliefs that fits the current narrow definition of religious - I believe in God and try to let my faith affect my life.

So you are religious.

If you're really just asking whether I'm a non-atheist (and I suspect that that's what most people mean), then the answer is yes, I am religious.

But if you want to be pedantic, so are you ;)

Thoughts from a pre-service teacher in August

2008-08-30T14:33:00.004+10:00

Man it's been a tiring few weeks. I've just finished week 4 of my second teaching prac, this time at St. Laurence's College. It's an all-boys catholic "private" school with a student population of about 1400. It took me a bit longer to settle into the school and feel comfortable (as compared to Brisbane State High), but I've kinda got there and it's going ok. I'm teaching three classes - year 10 science, year 10 maths, year 11 biology. Good lessons, good kids.

And that's about all I have to say about that, really. This prac hasn't felt as exciting as my previous one, but I need all the teaching experience / feedback that I can get, so it's been still valuable.

I have just begun applying to schools for next year. To teach in state schools, you apply to Education Queensland (EQ), who after interviewing and approving you will pretty much chuck you into any state school in the state. The thing about EQ is that they require all their teachers to have taught a few years in a rural/remote school, that is, far away from Brisbane. That's because many schools outback are fairly understaffed and not doing well attracting teachers to them. So what else can EQ do but make it compulsory. Now that's not actually a bad thing...except it means having to uproot myself (and Claire) and move someone pretty remote for a few years. I'm not closed to the possibility, but you can see how it will be challenging.

There is a way to "escape" this, however (again, not that it's the worst thing), and that is to teach in private or independent schools. The tricky thing is, applications for employment in 2009 in all these private schools close either this past week or this coming week, and I only just found that out 3 days ago! So I've been pretty frantic lately, putting my CV together, finding referees, getting references, filling forms and shooting these off in the mail. There are about 60ish private schools in the Greater Brisbane area, and perhaps 30 of them in a 15km radius of my residence in Indooroopilly. After going through lots of school websites and looking for employment vacancies, I have decided to apply to 7 of those private schools (over the next week or so). These schools are (in alphabetical order):

Brisbane Boys College
Brisbane Boys Grammar School
Brisbane Girls Grammar School
Hillbrook Anglican School
Northside Christian College
Somerville House
St Peter's Lutheran College (my high school)

My reasons for shortlisting these schools are a mixture of location, vacancy, familiarity and interest. 2 of these 7 schools aren't actually offering positions for science teachers, but I thought I'd give it a shot. The way I see it, it's better to over-apply, because at most I'll just have to choose between several job offers. And I'd be pretty happy to work at any of these schools really. Some more than others, admittedly :p

Having said this, if I don't get offers at any of these schools, it would be fine too, because I'm really quite ok with teaching in state schools. Since science teachers are in such demand, I apparently shouldn't have too much difficulty getting a job. And if everything they say about our massive teacher shortage is true, well I shouldn't have to worry too much.

Although, because I know God is in control, I really shouldn't be worrying at all. It's not a blind hope that some invisible force has determined my fate - it's an evidence based belief that a loving God has my life in His hands. So while it may seem like I pick schools and schools pick me, it's really God who's calling the shots. And that's a good thing to know.

A man’s heart plans his way,
But the LORD directs his steps
Prov 16:9

Abort73

2008-08-26T21:40:00.002+10:00

Because enough is enough.

abort73.com

The Wheel of Brisbane III

2008-08-06T16:46:00.004+10:00

This was taken on Sunday 3 Aug 08 (so it's probably already outdated) but check out the wheel's progress!

Pretty cool hey. The structure of the wheel is fully in place, all 360° of it, and if you look closely, you can see that two carriages are already up! With the remaining carriages patiently lined up, all ready to go.

Exciting stuff.

Google Street View hits Australia!

2008-08-05T22:55:00.002+10:00

The title says it all. What hit major cities in the USA on 25 May 07 has now well and truly arrived in most major cities in Australia - Google Maps Street View!!!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you should know by now how Google Earth/Maps has revolutionised how people see the world (quite literally). From the comfort of your bedroom, you could now see any place on earth, albeit only from a birds' eye view. With Street View, you can now using Google Maps to drive through those very streets, and see everything you would be seeing if you were literally there on that street! An all way spherical 360° view. How crazy is that?

No more wondering how a certain place is meant to look if you're driving there...no more wondering where the bus stops are along roads. With enough patience (and bandwidth), you can sightsee through all of Brisbane (and Australia, and the USA, and Japan, and France...at the moment) from your computer. And Google says it plans to street view the whole world.

Enough of me talking, check it out for yourself. Be warned though that it's just about as addictive as Google Maps/Earth was when it came out (and still is).

For more info on the project, check out wiki's article.

The Wheel of Brisbane II

2008-07-31T20:37:00.003+10:00

Check this out. It's only been 3 days from my last post, but look what I saw this afternoon:

Looks like they finally got their act together and have been working! Won't be too much longer, hopefully.

The Wheel of Brisbane

2008-07-28T21:23:00.005+10:00

Lookie what I saw today.

A partially built ferris wheel. An unusual sight, and in the middle of South Bank no less. After a bit of ~~googling~~ research, I discovered that what I had seen was the embryonic form of the R60 Big Wheel, the world's largest transportable ferris wheel, now in Brisbane! Fully assembled, it soars 60m above the ground, and has a maximum capacity of 336 people, in 42 air-conditioned gondolas. Pretty impressive.

What was not impressive, however, was the fact that the wheel was scheduled to be completed by May 10 this year, in time for celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the World Expo '88. Then in early June, an article by the Courier Mail reported that the opening of the Wheel had been delayed once more; the next best estimate was late June, said Stuart Schramm, GM of the South Bank Corporation. Well, it's almost August! What's going on?

Having said all that, I am rather excited about the Brisbane Wheel. I don't think I've ever been on a ferris wheel before; definitely not one of this scale. $15 for an adult ticket gives you a 13 minute vertical ride offering stunning views of the Brisbane river and CBD, so it boasts. I think I'll give it a shot, if they ever finish assembling it.

For those of you who can't wait, here's what it's meant to look like. And once it's ready, you can find online booking details and forms here.

Kidmapped Trailer

2008-07-28T11:13:00.002+10:00

One of my current subjects is an introduction to teaching junior highschool mathematics, that is, grade 8-10 maths. For a recent group assignment, we had to create a maths resource using ICTs. Kidmapped was the result - a choose-your-own-adventure styled video activity, where students would solve maths problems and choose which paths to take based on their answers. It was hard work creating it, but it was well worth it.

Here's a trailer of the whole kidmapped video series.

ESREVER - Backwards Video

2008-07-22T20:51:00.003+10:00

This is an ingenious video that my friend Andrew Gentle made. Using videos to manipulate the length and even direction of time is magical, in my opinion.

"ESREVER" Backwards Video - video powered by Metacafe

Still thanking

2008-07-06T21:35:00.002+10:00

It's still going!

thankgod.blogsome.com

Fish and rainbows

2008-07-03T20:37:00.004+10:00

Just a couple of cool photos my nokia n82 allowed me to take recently.

Lu Ke Wen - Australia's prime minister

2008-07-01T21:42:00.002+10:00

I've known for quite a while now that Kevin Rudd (Australia's current prime minister) could speak Chinese; funny thing is, I've never thought much about it. Last week I randomly decided to see if I could find anything on youtube showing Rudd speaking Chinese, and well, I was fairly impressed.

I continued searching, and found a whole interview with him in mandarin. He's completely fluent!!

I was extremely impressed. I myself had to watch that interview 3 times to understand most of it. And even still some bits of it evade me. Most peculiar though was the whole Lao Lu and Xiao Rui business. I figured that Rudd was Lao Lu because his chinese name was Lu Ke Wen, but Xiao Rui?! Someone please watch that interview and see if you can make any sense of it.

Meanwhile, I better start brushing up on my mandarin. My prime minister has inspired me!

Gives more growth

2008-06-22T20:58:00.002+10:00

As promised, here is part two of my Gives Growth video, a continuation of day 11-15 of the seedling's growth. Like the previous video, it was captured by a Nokia N82, taking 7200 photos at 10 minute intervals over the 5 days. Enjoy.

The first video is still my favourite, but this one is still pretty magical, with that curious tendril like stalk growing out between the leaves! So interesting, how it twirls round and round relentlessly, probably looking for something to cling on to. I used the 3rd movement of Rachmaninoff's same piano concerto (no.2 in C minor) for this video; it suited the frantic nature of the growth quite well I thought!

I'm planning on planting this seedling in my garden; will get to it some time this week hopefully. At present that tendril is about a metre long! I hope I'm not inadvertently introducing some pesky weed :s

An evening in suburban Indooroopilly

2008-06-17T19:09:00.003+10:00

I went for an evening run/walk today, armed with my Nokia n82. One feature the phone boasts is photo geotagging, which is basically using its GPS receiver to tag locational information onto the photo it takes. Today I gave it a test, and am very impressed with how it worked.

Use the buttons on the top left corner of the Google Maps applet to move or zoom in and out, and click on any of the blue tags to display the photo I took at that location. See if you can tell where I was pointing the camera!

View Larger Map

For anyone interested in how to embed geotagged photos onto your blog, check out this article by Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog.

How to prevent electrical death

2008-06-16T10:10:00.007+10:00

Winter has arrived. I was just about to plug my heater in yesterday when I noticed something weird.

A dodgy as plug. I wasn't taking any risks. It was time to get the toolbox out.

Step 1: Chop the old plug head off.

Step 2: Strip off 5cm of the outermost layer to expose the three wires underneath.

Step 3: Strip off 8mm of each wire to expose the copper wires underneath.

Step 4: Connect the wires to a new 3 pin plug, being 100% sure of the connections. Here in Australia, the longest pin is earth (green/yellow wire), and looking from the back, bottom left is neutral (blue wire) and bottom right is active (brown wire).

Step 5: After securely attaching the wires, seal the plug with the supplied covering, and voila, a new plug head! Congratulations, you have circumvented death!

Questioning your beliefs

2008-06-15T22:21:00.003+10:00

When it comes to the deeper things in life like the existence of God or the purpose of man, everyone has a belief. Every person believes something.

The question is, do you believe what you believe because:

you've never questioned it,
it's what you want to believe, or
you've found it to be the truth?

If the truth matters to you, then there can be no option but the last. If you've never done it before, start honestly questioning your beliefs. Test them to see how real they are. Search for the truth; don't simply pick what's convenient for you, or what will best fit the life you want to live. The truth has to be true, whether or you not you want it to be.

If the truth really matters to you, then search for it with all your mind and heart. And if there is a truth that can be found, you'll find it.

Indiana Jones

2008-06-11T21:22:00.003+10:00

Although I've never been a huge fan of the movies, I haven't stopped humming the theme to Indiana Jones the whole week. It's completely stuck in my head, and I'm actually really enjoying it! It's a clever catchy tune, and written by John Williams, arguably the best and most famous movie music writer of all time! (He wrote the music for all Star Wars episodes, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, etc.)

It started on Monday night when I went to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The poor movie hasn't received very good reviews, but it's probably cos people were expecting a lot. I simply expected an adventure and action movie, and it was exactly what I got. So I wasn't disappointed. CG animation was great, and I was impressed by how much 66 year old Harrison Ford still had in him. Probably won't rate it as one of my favourites, but it was still enjoyable.

And what did I do next but get my hands on the Lego Indiana Jones game (for PC)! Woohoo! I was completely in love with the Lego Star Wars game; it's possibly the most satisfying game I have ever played. Kid friendly, very entertaining, not extremely challenging, but very fun if you know and love Star Wars. And being able to control Lego characters...there isn't many things cooler than that.

So far, Lego Indiana Jones is proving to be harder than Lego Star Wars. The levels are a lot more challenging; it feels at times like I'm doing an IQ test of some sort! But I do enjoy a good challenge. And being able to use a whip :p

Ok, back to lesson planning. Hmmm mm mm mm.....

What would it take?

2008-06-09T11:00:00.003+10:00

Sometimes, it's really hard to believe that God is there when I can't see him. They say you need to operate on faith, but how can you have faith in something that's invisible? Is God in the wind? Is he in the waves of the sea? Is he in the rain? Maybe once, long ago, but we know how those things work now. Besides, if God was only in the wind, does that mean he's trapped in it? God has to be bigger than that. But where is he?

Show me a sign that you're there! We hear this cry in stories and movies, and I suspect in many of our hearts as well. I know, because I have said it before, more than once. Surely if God was there and heard that cry, he would respond! Why would he remain silent? If he wants people to believe in him, can't he see that this is the best time to prove it? Proof, that's all we need. Solid evidence. Why doesn't God pick a packed stadium and reveal himself in an awesome blaze of glory? That would convince thousands! Isn't that what he wants? Why is he in hiding?

Then I think for a while more, and start wondering - what would it take for me to believe? What would I consider as unshakable proof that God is there? If he performed a massive miracle in my life? If he raised one of my grandparents from the dead? If he gave me straight As in my exams? Or how about if he audibly spoke back to me from heaven when I prayed? Or if he appeared before me whenever I snapped my fingers - 24/7 on demand! There's no way I could doubt his existence then, right? Right?

Then I think for a while more still, and start wondering - if he did exist, what would God want from us anyway? Would he want people who constantly demanded miracles, happiness, signs or visions to guarantee their belief in him? Would he want people who treated him like a divine vending machine? Would he be bound to operate only on those peoples' terms, since he wants them to know he's there?

Would he want people who believed in him only because they had no other choice?

It's not wrong to think that it would be easier to believe in God if he showed himself to us. The mistake comes in thinking that that's the only way we can believe in God. If God exists, and if the bible is indeed an accurate record of the history of God's interaction with man, then let's consider what light it reveals on this issue:

The bible says that God is spirit, while the world is physical. That doesn't mean that God is less real than physical reality; indeed the spiritual world may be more real than the chair you're sitting on! We humans are both physical and spiritual, which is why we can exist in this world, and yet relate to God. But that's why we can't see God with our physical eyes (which only sees visible light!).

The bible also says that God wants us to know that he's there and that he loves us, so we could love in return. Indeed all those crazy requests I was making before - for God to answer me from heaven, or appear magically before my eyes, or raise people from the dead - if the bible is true, God has done them all, and more! Surely all who witnessed those incredible miracles would not have had a single doubt about his existence!

But they did. Think back to the Prince of Egypt movie; you know, God doing crazy miracles through Moses and freeing the Israelites from cruel slavery under the Egyptians? God even showed himself in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night! Imagine that! Yet what was the result? The people were joyful and praised God, then within weeks, began questioning his motives and goodness. God's miracles satisfied their doubt, but not for long. And this pattern repeated itself through history, culminating in God ultimately revealing himself through Jesus, through (really crazy) miracles and incredible words of wisdom... and what resulted? The people killed him.

God spoke, but the people covered their ears, refusing to listen.
God acted, but the people shut their eyes, refusing to see.
God reached out, but the people pushed his hand away, deliberately choosing to disbelieve.

Maybe, just maybe, the reason why God is invisible is that he knows that given the nature of our human hearts, seeing isn't always believing. Maybe he doesn't speak to us from the clouds, because he knows full well that it's not going to guarantee belief or faith. Maybe he doesn't perform every miracle we ask of him, because he knows it's not going to bring us to love him. We'll only be loving what he can do for us.

But maybe we know all that we need to know that God is there. Maybe the words in the bible really are his words, and maybe Jesus really is his son, and maybe that's enough for us to know that God really does love us, and that we should love him too. Maybe he's still speaking, acting and reaching out to us today, if only we had the eyes to see or the ears to hear or the heart to receive.

Maybe he still gives signs; just maybe not the signs you expect.

Still growing

2008-06-09T10:00:00.000+10:00

The Gives Growth video has been completed and produced, yet the project doesn't seem to be over just yet! Three things I thought I'd share:

1. While the video only shows 10 days worth of growth, the camera is still going, even as I type! It's currently day 14, and the plant has grown to a rather scary size. Its leaves are bigger than my palms and it's grown this tendril like extension that seems to be constantly moving about looking for something to cling on to. But while I'd gather footage for another few months, I'm missing my phone terribly, and will probably end the capturing tomorrow. I might upload day 11-14 as a separate video; I'll see how it turns out.

2. I showed this video to my year 11 students in school, and it seemed like they found it interesting (who knows what students really think). The best thing is that I told them that I filmed this project in a cupboard beneath the stairs, so now word is circulating around school that I'm the teacher who "grows plants" in his cupboard. Great.

3. But the most exciting this is that this video is being featured on The Nokia N82 Blog, which is the ultimate coolest and most comprehensive site there is for N82 owners. Check out my article there if you own an S60 device and are interested in creating a timelapse video.

Gives growth

2008-06-05T22:36:00.006+10:00

This is perhaps the most precious video I have ever made. I don't have words to say how excited I am to release it! Watching the finished product was almost a spiritual experience.

I was inspired to create this video a few weeks back while listening to Rachmaninoff's piano concerto no.2 in C minor, 2nd movement (the backing track of the video). For some reason, it stirred up in me sweet images of nature and plants, and I was overwhelmed with a strong urge to produce a timelapse of a seed germinating or flowers blossoming, with that music. It took a bit of scouting to find something appropriate to film, and a camera clever enough to be able to handle the big job. In the end, it was my Nokia N82 that qualified!

As documented in two earlier blog posts (here and here), I began my germination timelapse project on Sunday 25 May evening, with my Nokia N82 firmly attached in front of the planted seed, set to take a photo every 10 minutes until the memory ran out. This set-up was hidden away in my cupboard undisturbed, with a strong lamp positioned above the seed 24/7.

By day 6, the seed had only just bulged out of the soil, and I was frankly getting a bit worried. However, by the end of day 7, the seedling had shot out as if by magic, and continued to grow at a tremendous rate. By day 10, Wednesday 4 June evening, the seedling had grown beyond what the camera was capturing, and as such I ended the project (the first phase).

In 10 days, I had collected around 1400 photos, which I inserted into Adobe Premiere Elements 1.0 to make into a video. To balance the growth rates, pictures from day 1 to 6 were given a 1 frame timelength, while pictures from day 7-10 lasted 2 frames each. The final video was rendered at a 25 frame/sec rate. The result was 10 days of plant growth over 80 seconds. In other words, each second of the film corresponded to about 3 hours real time.

Watching the final product with the backing music was like a dream come true. Seeing a seed shoot out from the ground (did you see how much it wiggled?! phototropism?)... it truly is a spiritual experience. I love watching and performing magic tricks, but this to me is true magic. Nature has the best sleight of hand; if only we had the eyes to see.

I end with a few words of thanks:

Thanks to Claire, Michelle and Maxine for brainstorming with me and giving me good advice on how to take care of a seed. I have sure come to appreciate plants a lot more now!
Thanks to Nokia for producing such a brilliant phone - the n82 is a gem! So much more powerful than many ordinary digital cameras, and all packaged into one mean phone!
Thanks to BloomCan for providing me with the bean in a can, which grew beautifully.
Most of all, thanks to God who really is the reason why all things grow.

Salads

2008-06-02T18:52:00.006+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I decided to do something different for dinner. Cooking is something I really enjoy, but I was getting a bit tired with my usual recipes. Inspired by a Women's Weekly Salad recipe book that my sister got for her birthday(?), I decided to make 4 different salads for dinner. Much to my surprise, it turned out very well, and both Claire and Michelle gave the thumbs up. We ended up with so much salad, it became my lunch for the next few days, which was quite a treat. Anyhow, here are some pictures, plus recipes if you're interested. (Click on the photos to enlarge)

Spinach, bacon and crouton salad
200g baby spinach leaves
2 hard boiled eggs (sliced)
5 bacon rashers
Croutons (I used mini toast which I broke into pieces)
Dressing:
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 egg yolk
1/2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cream
1/8 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/8 cup olive oil (add last and whisk altogether)

This apparently was created for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

Coronation chicken
400g chicken breast fillets (cooked and shredded)
150g seedless grapes
1/2 cup walnuts (I didn't add this)
Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup mango chutney
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon curry powder

This was the only warm salad, which was meant to be achieved by mixing all the ingredients in a large pan, but I simply microwaved it.

German hot potato salad
2 hard boiled eggs (quartered)
2 bacon rashers
400g potatoes (cubed and boiled)
Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon lemon juice
chopped parsley

Chef's salad
200g chicken breast fillet (cooked and shredded)
3 tomatoes (sliced)
1/2 cos lettuce
100g sliced leg ham
50g sliced Jarlsberg cheese
2 hard boiled eggs (quartered)
Vinaigrette (aka dressing):
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
Cracked pepper

Australia vs Iraq

2008-06-01T21:39:00.005+10:00

Today I went to my first ever live soccer match - Australia vs Iraq, a qualifying match for the World Cup 2010. It was held at the Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, which isn't too far away from my home.

I went dressed in yellow, proud to be supporting the Socceroos! Getting there was a bit of a drama actually. On the way to the train station, I heard a guy on his mobile saying that the trains weren't stopping at my station, and that he was going to call a taxi. I decided not to take chances, so I went to speak to the guy (who was with two other girls) and they kindly invited me to share a cab with them. Yay! One of the girls told me that the other two had just gotten engaged today too, which was very cool. Congratulations Chris and Bec! (that's if I remember your names right)

It was a cool evening and although the sky did spit a bit, all up the weather was great. There were over 48,000 in attendance, probably 99% of them supporting Australia, with a poor Iraqi minority. The atmosphere was great, though.

Kick off was at 5pm, and the game was off to a fiery start. Iraq came the closest to scoring in the 4th minute, with the ball hitting the top post and bouncing off. The Socceroos had lots of energy, but didn't seem to be using it that well.

Half time came, and score was 0-0! I came expecting much more of the Socceroos, to be honest, and so far was not impressed. Their defense was quite lacking, although perhaps more surprising was the fact that Iraq wasn't exploiting it very well! The Iraqi team had, at several points, an open goal to attack, but let the ball slip right past them. Time for the second half. (You can see the time in the red digital clock above the screen in the pictures)

Australia played better in the second half, for sure, but not satisfyingly so :p Harry Kewell headed a beautiful goal crossed by Brett Emerton in the 47th minute, much to the delight of the crowd. However Australia wasted many of their corners which could quite easily have been goals, perhaps if the Iraqi defense wasn't so strong. Iraq gave a good fight to the end, but unfortunately couldn't outiwt Mark Schwarzer who gave some stunning saves.

After a good 90 minutes, the game was over and the crowd went wild. Australia 1, Iraq 0.

So the good news (I guess) is that Australia won, although the bad news is that it seemed to me as if we only just did. The Socceroos better make full use of their next 2 years to tighten up skills before the World Cup in 2010. I have high hopes!

All in all, I quite enjoyed the experience, but I must say I was surprised by the rudeness of many Australians supporters. Booing the Iraqi team when they were given free kicks or corners is one thing, but many fans around me often swore and gave the finger to the Iraqi players who got injured, even when they were on the ground and (in my opinion) appeared seriously hurt. Playing on your opponent's team's home ground must not be a fun experience. It's sad to see team loyalty override human compassion and empathy, though.

They've found me!

2008-06-01T20:32:00.004+10:00

Last week when I entered a class, one student piped "Mr. Ting, I found your blog!" Alarm bells went off for a second, then I calmed down again. All's good.

You see, when I decided to do teaching, I was well aware that it would not be long before students found my blog. How they actually found it, I have no idea, but kids these days are very clever. So I made sure that this blog would be clean and not reveal anything too incriminating about me, for example the time that I held an old lady up at gun point and demanded that she hand over her only umbrella to me because it was pouring and I don't like being wet.

Oh, and if you're one of my students, what on earth are you doing here!? As if you don't have anything better to do than to read your teacher's blog! You know full well that teachers don't have lives! Your teenage life is heaps more exciting, remember? Indulgence is the way to go!

Ok, now that I've shooed those pesky kids away, time to update you on more important things, like my seed timelapse video. In short, it's growing!!!! I'm not sure if it'll end up looking nice on video, but I'm quite enjoying watching it grow. It's been exactly 7 days since I started videoing...and to be honest, pretty much all the (visible) growth has occurred in the last 2 days!

I must say that I'm still missing my N82, but it's working very hard for me, having taken over a thousand shots already over the past week. I hope this doesn't kill it! That poor lamp has been on continuously too. And all for the sake my silly project.

I'm estimating that it should only be 3-4 more days till I can take my phone down and start putting the video together. But we'll see what happens. Seeing that seed grow is real magic, if you ask me.

Spot the odd one out

2008-05-26T22:11:00.002+10:00

One of these things is not like the others...

Lapses of time

2008-05-26T20:04:00.004+10:00

Time has been passing quick. I'm already in week 6 of my 8 week prac block at State High, and every week seems to be shorter than the one before. I'm really enjoying teaching science, and am impressed with the school - the kids are really quite good, behaviour-wise, and I feel like most of them respect the teachers and are actually interested to learn. I'm not sure how I'd fare in a school with tons of behaviour problems, but we'll see what happens. It's all in God's good hands.

I'll miss the school though, that I know.

Another thing I'm currently missing is my phone :( Not because I lost it, but because it's currently being tied up in video making!

See my phone? It's on the left, sticky taped firmly to a box.

I should explain. If you've seen any of my recent videos, you'd know that my latest interest is in time lapse videography. That is, taking really long videos and speeding them up a million times :p On one hand, its appeal reflects our arguably shallow instant results culture that hasn't the patience for enjoying the beautiful though 'slower' things in life. But there is something really special and magical about seeing things sped up...like flowers blossoming, or the sun taking its quick course through the sky. And, as I am finding out, producing these time lapse videos takes so much patience too!

Anyhow, what I decided to do was to create a time lapse video of a seed germinating. Courtesy of Australia Geographic, I got myself a completely prepared seed, all set to grow; just add water! (and sunlight, and oxygen etc.) The beautiful set-up (as pictured above) is currently located in the cupboard under my staircase, closed off from the cruel world. Everything has been firmly stuck in place. I have positioned a bright desk light above the planted seed to provide warmth and light, and my phone has been programmed to take one photo every 10 mins until the memory runs out (it'll last 2 weeks, I calculated). Later, I can put all the photos in sequence and play it as a video. Oh, and the phone is also being charged, so it won't run out of battery or anything.

The reason why I'm using my phone is that most normal digital cameras (would you believe it) aren't clever enough to provide the option of taking continuous shots at certain time intervals indefinitely. The Canon Ixus 70 (Claire's) allows me, at most, to take 10 shots at 30sec intervals. Useless! The Nokia N82, on the other hand, brilliant thing that it is, is perfect for time lapse videography, allowing me to take photos at 10 sec, 30 sec, 1 min, 5 min, 10 min & 30 min intervals indefinitely. What a beauty.

The only down side is that my phone is now unavailable to me until this project ends, which I imagine will be in a week. I have reverted back to my Nokia 6230i, but I sure miss the N82 :( I can make a very strong case for it being by far the most superior mobile phone in the world!! :p

Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I'm actually rather worried because I just have this bad feeling like it's not going to work (seed won't grow, phone not positioned accurately/steadily etc.). And it'll be a whole week (or more) wasted if it doesn't work! But it'll be a learning experience, I guess. I'm just going to have to wait and see.

I can't wait till someone finds a quicker way to create time lapse videos :p

Purposeless purpose

2008-05-26T19:59:00.000+10:00

"Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose?"

Sir John Templeton

Fixing Hercules

2008-05-05T11:41:00.005+10:00

Claire and I had an eventful weekend with our car, a Mazda 2 affectionately named Hercules. Late on Friday night, Hercules broke down on our driveway and refused to start up, making terrible clunky noises whenever I turned the key in the ignition. We called RACQ to get it towed out of the way of other residents in our set of units, but were informed that we only had one free tow per breakdown, and would need to pay heaps for another tow the following day to a service center (none of which were open that night). So we employed the help of my sister, aunty Suyan, and Ben (my cousin), and pushed the car out of the way. My only thoughts on that are that I wish I had had my phone on me (to take photos) and I really appreciate having power steering now :p

The next morning (armed with my Nokia N82 with which I took all these photos), we got RACQ to come and tow Hercules to Centenary Mazda, which was fortunately only a few km away from our house. Claire and I followed along in a car aunty Suyan lent us.

We were prepared to be Hercules-less for several days (Monday was a public holiday), but the guys at Mazda said that if we could wait a bit, they could just have a quick check to see if it's a problem they could solve on the spot. In the meantime, we could head over to the sales department to wait, where we could have a free breakfast. Guess what we did?

Yum. After about 20 mins (while we were eating coco pops) we were informed that the problem was simply with Hercules' battery! It had run dry. However, it was closing time for the service department and they did not have any new car batteries. Their suggestion was for us to drive home (they would jump start Hercules) and they would get the "Marshall" to come to our house soon to deliver the battery. We weren't completely sure what that meant, but we thought it sounded like a good plan. An hour or so later, who should turn up at our house but the Marshall!

It took less than 5 mins for the Marshall guy to replace the old battery with a brand new one. Now it was time for Hercules to be tested.

And Hercules started just fine; in fact, heaps better than before. The Marshall explained that car batteries typically last 2-3 years, or for about 50,000km. Hercules was 4 years old, but had only just passed 50,000km recently. We reckon he lived up to his name, though. Hopefully we won't be having anymore car troubles for a while.

Teaching buzz

2008-04-30T20:07:00.002+10:00

I finished school today with a buzz.

It was the last period, and I had a year 11 chemistry class. The topic for today was reaction types. Combination, decomposition, replacement, combustion etc. Pure theory. I must have written over twenty chemical equations on the board all together. It was a lot of content.

But I enjoyed it. The kids were kinda tired, but attentive. They followed my train of thought and the direction of my lesson. And by the end, I was pretty confident that they had learned all they were meant to. There were questions, some hard, some silly, but all good. There were laughs (I enjoy acting like chemistry is one of the most blessed things in the world; always gets the kids rolling their eyes).

And when the lesson had finished and the kids had left, I realised that I was really happy. It was an unexpected natural high. I was sleep deprived and tired after a long day at school, but I was feeling a buzz. It was a fun lesson, and I really enjoyed it. There will be many tough lessons, for sure, and tough students, but if I can still have lessons like these, every now and then, I reckon it's worth it.

I'm quite beginning to enjoy teaching.

Haircut

2008-04-30T19:58:00.002+10:00

I had a haircut on Sunday and decided to do something creative. Here's the result. It's pretty embarrassing, but it's interesting seeing my hair get trimmed so quickly. Would have been more dramatic if I had completely shaved my head though. Maybe next time :p It's weird seeing how often my face 'flickers' when sped up...it looks like my eyes and lips are just vibrating. Anyhow, enjoy the video. For a $35 haircut, it better be worth it! (I normally go for $15 haircuts at a barber in uni, but decided to be adventurous.)

One week in school

2008-04-26T12:13:00.002+10:00

It's been one week (minus Friday for Anzac day) in my prac school and it's been pretty good so far. Us trainee teachers basically have to shadow our supervising teachers, and eventually start teaching their classes (taking up to 50% of their workload). My supervising teacher takes grade 8 science and grade 11 and 12 chemistry, so that's what I'll be doing too. I'm much more comfortable teaching biology, which makes this a challenging and good experience for me. Chemistry isn't too bad anyway, once you get your head around it :p It's all quite logical. Physics...meh. Now that's confusing. I'm not sure how I lived through it in high school. Last minute cramming was my best friend, that's for sure.

I've also volunteered to help out in the school musical, which should be fun. We're encouraged to take part in co-curricular activities and the school culture, but helping out with music is never a chore for me. I'd teach music if I could! Although I'm not sure how I'd fare with music history, which is a big component of the subject.

Anyhow, 7 more weeks in the school and I'll be done. Sounds like I'm dreading it, but I actually feel like I'm gonna be quite sad when I have to leave. I'm already getting used to the school groups and students. Young people are so amusing. We'll see how this goes, hey?

Instant Burger

2008-04-26T11:41:00.005+10:00

Out of immense curiosity, I recently bought a frozen burger from Coles. It comes with a (quote) 'Magic Heating Tray' (unquote) and only needs 2 mins in the microwave before it's all yummy and good to go. This was the result. (video taken with N82)

Nokia N82

2008-04-25T16:11:00.006+10:00

After months of waiting, I'm pleased to say that I'm the happy owner of a black Nokia N82! For those who are surprised, then it's about time you found out that I have huge technology loving side (arguably shallow, but there nonetheless). I have always had Nokia phones (except for a few months when I took over my mum's Samsung phone...horrid experience) and would feel very disloyal if I ever strayed from them. The N82 model is a recent addition to their N-series collection, which majors in multimedia, imaging and gaming. Here are some key features of the N82 which I love:

5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and autofocus
Xenon flash (way better than an LED flash)
2.4" screen
Wi-Fi
GPS (with preloaded Nokia Maps)
3.5mm stereo audio jack (so I can use normal headphones)
S60 OS - very cool interface and suits tons of applications
Candybar form factor (I have a thing against slide/clamshell phones)
100mb internal memory plus 2gb microSD card included
TV-out function
and of course all the standard stuff like Bluetooth and USB 2.0 connectivity and a video player (RMP) and radio etc.

It's also surprisingly light, and looks ultra ultra cool, especially in black. The N82 was first released in silver but only just came out in black a few weeks ago. To be fair, here are some things I don't like about the phone:

Small keys, makes typing tricky although not as bad as it looks
Somewhat bulky (not as bad a N95 though!)
Must pay for voice assisted navigation
Relatively steep learning curve if you're not used to S60 phones

But as you can see, the pros completely outweigh the cons, which makes the Nokia N82 a five star phone, in my opinion. Highly recommended. It's sad saying bye to my faithful Nokia 6230i which has served me faithfully for many years, but it will not be forgotten. Here are more photos of the N82 plus a few photos I took with it (click to enlarge in full res). GSM Arena has a great review of the phone here.

This was at the ANZAC day service for Brisbane State High held at the Southbank Piazza.

This was experimenting with close up shots. This didn't have very good lighting but it still fared pretty well. Definitely good enough for what I plan to be using it for. Autofocus is just lovely on a phone. Hopefully this will mean I'll have better and clearer photos to put up on this blog from now.

The main thing I need to be careful of now is not letting this phone become an idol in my life. It's so easy to love technology (and what it can give me) more than God.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

2008-04-18T10:41:00.002+10:00

In Michael Moore style, Ben Stein exposes a huge conspiracy-like oppression that's going on virtually worldwide, yet almost completely unreported to the public. And that is the suppression of any opposing view to the theory of evolution. In the scientific community, you're allowed to have any view about evolution, as long as it's in support of it. Challenge the status quo, and you're doomed.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is being released today in theaters across US; I just hope it makes its way beyond that country and into the world, no least Australia! The scientific community is becoming a bit too much of a bully, in my opinion. But you do the thinking for yourself. Check out their website and these movie trailers: (The second one tells you much more but it's obviously longer)

Short trailer (1:28)

Long trailer (7:36)

Soon to be Mr. Ting

2008-04-17T16:35:00.004+10:00

I'm back! After quite an absence. I actually had quite a few things I wanted to blog about over the past month or so, but after a while it just doesn't seem as blogworthy :p But that's ok, it's not like I'm keeping this blog to please anyone. I almost forgot that I put ants in my banner and it actually shocked me for a split second just today.

Well it's been almost 3 good months in education and I have just about finished all my classes for the first half of the year! And that's because we're all gonna be on practicum where we get posted to a school for 8 full weeks as a trainee teacher. Our job will basically be to observe classes, and to conduct some lessons (up to 50% of a normal teacher's workload, they say). Fun fun fun. The school I got posted to is Brisbane State High School. Everyone tells me it's a great school and I don't have any reason to disbelieve them. But I'll find out for myself on Monday. Many of my peers are quite worried about this prac and standing in front of real live students, but I'm not really. Well, at least I wasn't until they started trying to reassure us so much till I'm wondering now what I should be worrying about.

I am technically 'qualified' to teach senior biology and chemistry, and junior science and maths. But they told us to not be surprised if we get chucked into other random subjects because of need. I just hope I don't get given German or Phys Ed or something :p

Anyway we'll see how it goes. It'll be a challenge for sure, with the many lessons to plan and names to remember and things to learn, but I have a feeling I'll really enjoy it ;) I'll let you know.

Mr. Ting. Better start getting used to it.

Students' science beliefs

2008-04-17T16:15:00.000+10:00

Got this in an email (a while ago now, but still good!)

Interpretations of nature from junior high, high school, and college test papers and essays submitted to science and health teachers (spelling errors preserved)....

"When you breath, you inspire. When you do not breath, you expire."

"H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water"

"To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube"

"When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide"

"Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water."

"Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars."

"Blood flows down one leg and up the other."

"Respiration is composed of two acts, first inspiration, and then expectoration."

"The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader."

"Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire."

"A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold."

"Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas."

"The body consists of three parts - the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five - a, e, i, o, and u."

"The pistol of a flower is its only protections agenst insects."

"The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana."

"The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have ben taken off. The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to."

"A permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines, eight cuspids, two molars, and eight cuspidors."

"The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight."

"A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is."

"Germinate: To become a naturalized German."

"Liter: A nest of young puppies."

"Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat."

"Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away."

Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky."

"Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot."

"Vacumm: A large, empty space where the pope lives."

"Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative."

"To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose."

"For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until the heart stops."

"For drowning: Climb on top of the person and move up and down to make artifical perspiration."

"For dog bite: put the dog away for sevral days. If he has not recovered, then kill it."

"For asphyxiation: Apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead."

"For head cold: use an agonizer to spray the nose untill it drops in your throat."

"To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow."

Ninja Proof

2008-04-02T18:46:00.001+10:00

Want Deeper

2008-03-27T20:08:00.004+10:00

A few sundays ago, I heard by far one of the most challenging sermons ever. I have three reasons why you should listen to it too:

It's only half an hour, and the Rev (Chris Perona) captures your attention for all of it.
It's about a topic that we all need to hear so badly - to live in a way not controlled by our feelings but by God's love.
It's a sermon that's hard to listen to, not because it's boring or irrelevant, but because it hits scarily close to home: deep in our hearts, and makes us uncomfortable with living in any other way than the best way - for God alone.

Please listen to it. You can download it as an mp3 audio or a quicktime movie file.

MP3 audio (14.9mb) | Quicktime MOV (74.1mb)

Here's the blurb to his sermon that Chris wrote:

James 4:1-10
Want Deeper
Someone who likes to work in silence is disturbed by noise. Someone who likes the company of friends is disturbed by loneliness. Someone who likes fine food is disturbed by an ill prepared dish. We pin our happiness so often on the wrong things. Too often we want only happiness for ourselves and this means we are very easily disturbed. If you would like to do something about this then listen to my message where I will teach you to master your feelings for Jesus Christ. the Rev

Being married is like...

2008-03-22T11:27:00.003+10:00

...having a never ending sleepover with your best friend.

Why I chose not to be a doctor

2008-03-07T12:30:00.004+10:00

This has somehow ended up being perhaps the longest post I've ever written! It's also perhaps my most honest post, and one that will give you a huge insight into me. If you want a simple summary, well the spoiler was in the title :p Otherwise, make yourself comfortable (get a warm drink) while I tell you a lot about myself.

* * *

It's about time I addressed this. As you may know, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from UQ last year, majoring in biomedical science. The plan was to head towards an MBBS post-graduate course at UQ, which would be an additional four years, on top of the three I had just completed. But midway through my final year of science, I seriously began to have second thoughts.

This wasn't anything new, really. I was never 100% sure of studying medicine. When I was young, the only thing I really wanted to be when I grew up was a detective. Complete with a hat and magnifying glass, thank you. I'd solve mysteries using clues which the bad guys always left around, usually in the form of a mathematical riddle. That phase didn't last very long, unfortunately.

Medicine was something that people suggested to me, not something I came up with myself. But I eventually began to think that maybe it did suit me. People said I had a suitable doctor's personality (whatever that means), and that I was clever and had good interpersonal skills etc. Also I did like biology, so it did seem to be a logical pathway.

After completing high school in Brisbane, I would have been all ready to enter straight into medical school, if not for the fact that I had National Service in Singapore to fulfill. I tried applying to several universities around Australia and seeing if I could defer my enrolment for two years, but it didn't work. The two years in the army ended up being pretty good (retrospectively), and it caused my relationship with Claire to blossom too, which may have been the best thing about it! And so the choice was pretty clear after the army - to return to Brisbane where Claire was. And enter UQ!

The only tricky thing was that UQ didn't offer medicine as an undergraduate course. You needed to complete any undergraduate degree, and then apply to enter medicine as a graduate course. This meant that the quickest I could become a doctor was after seven years (as compared to six or five in other Australian universities). But I was ok with that - I got to be with Claire (and other family) in Brisbane, would end up with two degrees, plus why the need to rush? Besides, since I wasn't even sure that I wanted to be a doctor, doing a bachelor degree first may give me more time to think.

The thing about me is that I often grow to like things. I knew that if I was forced to be a doctor, or a researcher or a banker or a lawyer or a farmer, I'd probably grow to be fond and passionate about my job, and eventually enjoy it. It was just a matter of degree - which would I find more meaningful?

I enjoyed my science degree, that much was sure. Learning about the human body was heaps of fun! I sat for the GAMSAT in second year, handed in my application in third year and was selected for an interview. I was on the road to becoming a doctor!

* * *

Then came a turning point. I can pinpoint it to a specific day, but it really was the accumulation of a lot of thinking and experiences. You see, my biggest passion in life is Jesus. I am convinced that he is exactly who he said he is - the son of God. I believe that I am a hopelessly sinful human who could never save myself, and it's only because of Jesus' death for me that I have been forgiven. Because of that, I owe Jesus my whole life, and have promised to live for him alone. It will mean denying my natural desires and wants, and doing things that the world will find really weird, but if by doing so I'm living life the way God wants me to live it, well, that's the best life possible! Full of struggles and denial and surrender, but full of peace and abundant joy (John 10:10). And I'm not alone in my journey; God's with me.

A few clarifications. The turning point didn't come when I decided to live for Jesus (I have been a Christian for most of my life). Nor am I saying that if you want to live for Jesus, you have to reconsider studying medicine! That's a lie too. Because God looks deep down, he isn't really as concerned about my career (for example) as he is about my attitude in choosing that career, and all the implications it may bring. God never said Christians can't take high paying jobs. But the bible makes it clear that God hates greed. Know what I mean?

Back to the story. Late one night, in I think August 07, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that many of my friends were lost without Jesus. Many of those friends would probably feel offended knowing that I think them 'lost', but that's because they reckon that my faith is good and right for me, and doesn't have to be right for them. But that's sidestepping the issue - logically, it's absurd! How can truth, the real truth, be relative? Those that claim that it is are making an absolute truth claim themselves! You can't live by that belief, and it's about time that we start discussing issues of faith with honesty and sincere consideration, without simply dismissing them all as true for some, or worse still, equal.

And so a huge sense of dread came over me, and got me almost depressed. Here I was pursuing my own wants and dreams, while a world was perishing without knowing the incredible (and tangible) love and freedom that comes through Jesus. These were strong strong feelings, but I did recognise that they were feelings (my faith isn't based on feelings, but what I was feeling that night obviously was). So I decided to wait a while to see if I still felt and thought the same in, say, a few days.

I did. And even after a week, and a month. But what was I to do with these feelings? It was becoming more a drive now, a stirring passion. Should I drop everything and become a missionary? That seemed a bit wild and reckless. Should I join a bible college and start my journey to becoming a full-time gospel worker? I prayed about it a lot, and decided that I didn't have enough wisdom to make this decision. I would consult with people that I really respected. And so I spoke to Claire, and to my minister, my parents, some elders in my church, and some people from ES. What an experience that was. I could write a million more words about that (uh oh, you're thinking) but I won't (whew!). Thank God for all these people though - they allowed me to do much soul searching and to check whether my feelings were biblical/Godly ones, or really just masked selfishness!

The main thing about medicine that deterred me was how much of a consuming career it was. Many doctors and med students themselves told me this. You have to really want it, and then it essentially becomes you. You become a doctor 24/7; it becomes a huge priority and goal in your life. Of course you will still have a social life (it's recommended, I hear :p) and time for other things, but significantly less so than in other jobs. At this point people will say "but there are all kinds of doctors and some can choose their own hours etc." - true, but rare. Also, we're talking about...at least 10 years of extreme busyness before you get there.

Why was time important to me? Because I really like it! ;) I want to spend lots of time with Claire. I want to have time to be with my family and friends. I need time if I'm to be involved with church and other Christian ministries. Time is so much like money really - except all of us are given the same amount, tons of it, and we have to use it well.

After consulting those people, the feedback I got was this (in summary):

This passion to live for God is right and indeed given from God
I am still young (or rather, I have many years ahead of me, God willing)
It's good to get life experience before entering Christian ministry (and indeed many do that)
I could still do a lot to share the love of Jesus through medicine and being a doctor
If I don't do medicine, it's not like my only option is full-time ministry. I could and should consider other jobs.

Fair enough. And so I started considering other jobs. Years before, I had written out a whole list of all the major jobs and areas available. I figured that if I couldn't pick something to study at uni, I'd find something by default. And so I crossed out all the things I knew I disliked, and those which I probably wouldn't have much passion for. Lawyer? Nah. Businessman? Nope. Engineer? Don't think so. Pharmacist? Maybe...but probably not. Guess what remained at the end of the list? Doctor and teacher.

Who'd have thought. At that time, I decided - well, guess it'll have to be medicine. Cos to be honest, I saw teaching as something that was a bit beneath me. I had bought into this deep seated belief (that virtually everyone subscribes to) that you have to maximise your results. You're simply obligated as a student to do the best subjects/degree that your results allow you to do. If you don't...well, you have just wasted your results! And there's nothing worse than that! Not even killing baby seals for pleasure.

But there I was, many years after that incident, realising that if there was any other job I was interested in, it was teaching. I'd still be able to use my love for science - by being a science teacher! And teachers are important...aren't they?

Here in Australia (and I suspect in many other countries as well), we're currently experiencing a teacher drought. It's so bad, training up teachers has been declared a "national priority". The funny thing is, we're especially lacking male teachers, and science/maths teachers! Hmm. But maybe it isn't so surprising that they're in need - teachers aren't paid that well in Australia, and are often portrayed fairly badly to the public. It's not uncommon to read in the news "as the pillars of society, teachers really ought to... blah blah". The important role of the teacher is recognised, but then used to complain and accuse. If students are misbehaving more than ever before; it's obviously the fault of the teachers, not the students themselves :p You get the idea.

Teaching...teaching. Should I really drop medicine and consider teaching? It would mean a lot more time...and it's still something I'm passionate about. Especially science teaching. I mean, the pursuit of science is such a Christian thing to do. Why would you explore the world and expect it to make sense, if God doesn't exist? I wouldn't need to mention Jesus in any of my classes (indeed I'm probably legally not allowed to) - God is implicit through so much of science! But more on that another day.

Most of the people I spoke to reckoned that teaching was a good option. Claire added a very good point, which was that if I were to pick teaching, it should be because I actually wanted to do it (and felt I could glorify God through it), as opposed to it just being a lousy plan B, a "second best" thing.

I thought back to all my teachers in school. I had some pretty bad ones, but also some really good ones. And I could remember them very well. Not so much the actual content of their lessons, but their character. Their personality, their values, their morals... and who knows how much of that has rubbed on to me! I have been inspired to embrace challenges, enjoy learning, think deeply about life, care for others, in big part due to them. These teachers have significantly shaped my life for the better, and I am so indebted to them. Would I be worthy to count in their ranks?

And of course there were all the other benefits to teaching, like holidays and being with young people (who are mostly fun :p) and I could be creative and stuff. But if I were a doctor...I could make a big difference in the lives of patients and be really intellectually challenged and have lots of money to give away and even go overseas as a doctor to third world countries... which was better?

I decided to let the admissions teams decide. I applied for both medicine and teaching, and waited for their response. It was all in God's hands.

Would you believe it, I was granted entry to both. Great! That makes it much easier :p Now there was a new argument on the side of medicine (although it was really just the 'maximise your results' monster in disguise) - you have already gotten in! Anyone can get into teaching...but medicine!? If they gave you a place, God obviously wants you to do it!

Really? I never knew the secret to ascertaining God's will was so easy. Just go through the door most unlikely to open! It's in the bible somewhere...isn't it? :p

So there I was on the crossroads. I knew that either decision was a big commitment. Of course I could go into teaching after some years of being a doctor, and vice versa, but those were less likely. I thought hard about this for many days and nights. Follow logic and do medicine, or do education and have more time? I must have swapped between the two a million times.

It was in early Jan 08 that I finally made up my mind for sure. It happened because I decided to ask myself a series of questions. Which course would allow me to be:

a better child of God?
a better follower of Jesus?
a better husband?
a better son?
a better friend?
a better church member?

Some of those questions had no answers, some had clear answers, but you know what I chose in the end anyway. I gave it away from the start. But you know what? The biggest thing I got out of this wasn't a decision. It was a big lesson - that God was sovereign.

Looking back, I reckon that the biggest thing that made this decision such a hard one was that I felt I was in control of my life. And if my life is in my control, and if God's glory rests on my career choice, well, I better pick the right one! If I make the wrong choice, how is God going to use me?

Silly me. I'd been told this from young, but it evidently takes a lifetime to really learn this: God is in control! He is the one who directs my life and uses me for his glory. He is the one who lovingly guides and protects and never brings me to a place where I am out of his reach. The choice between medicine and teaching wasn't a matter of which was wrong, but just which was better. God would 100% use me through both of them, because I was willing for him to. God was much more concerned about what was going on in my heart, rather than what my graduation certificate was going to say.

I began with the question: should I do medicine or teaching? God gave me a bigger question: do I really love and trust Jesus? My former question wasn't extinguished, only made much smaller, in the perspective of what really matters.

And that's why I chose not to be a doctor! Or more specifically, that's why Mingdao chose not to be a doctor. I'm not at all saying Christians shouldn't be doctors (indeed many should!) - this is simply why I, in my circumstances, decided not to. And why I decided to do teaching instead :)

Where will this take me? Only God knows. And I believe that with all my heart.

An astronomical perspective

2008-03-06T17:47:00.005+10:00

I received this in an email. Talk about changing your point of view.

So compared to our sun, we're pretty tiny. But our sun isn't actually that massive itself.

We're dealing with some pretty huge bodies here! And Antares is only the 15th/16th brightest star in the sky, about 600 light years away from us. Mmm.

This next picture is a Hubble telescope ultra deep field infrared view of countless "entire" galaxies billions of light-years away (or so the email said).

And if you zoom way in to one of the darkest regions of that picture above...you see this.

Countless galaxies! The arrow points to a galaxy a lot like ours, the milky way, in which our sun is but a tiny tiny tiny dot. And this is only what we have observed so far of our universe.

Humbling, hey? And more staggering than that is this:

He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.
Ps 147:4-5

If you want to know how great God is, well, look at the universe. He made every star in the universe, and knows them by name! God is extremely awesome and powerful. No wonder David wrote:

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
Ps 8:3-4

The God who made the universe cares for you. The creator of every star and planet has your life in His hands. Is there anything more humbling than that?

Find out more here.

Lifehouse's Everything Skit

2008-03-01T21:08:00.002+10:00

With over 5 million views on Godtube and 3 million views on YouTube, this may possibly be the most watched Christian skit ever. Performed by Mission Baltimore and with music by Lifehouse, this skit took off at Winterfest in Knoxville 2006. It has since touched the hearts of millions around the world, with many even being led to put their trust in Jesus, according to a report by CBN.

My personal take? I liked it, that's for sure. When I first watched it, I was definitely holding back tears - it was powerful. I love skits which can convey such a clear story even without using a single word. It had a magical beginning; portraying the perfect relationship that God shared with humans before the fall. Sin then got in the way, and it completely separated us from God. And how desperate life is, without God! The skit showed that really well. It may look glamorous and not lacking on the outside, but deep down, there's darkness, emptiness and meaninglessness. It's a downward spiral, and there's no saving yourself from it. In the climax of the skit, Jesus steps in and shields the girl from her tormentors, and overcomes them! A very powerful image of the salvation Jesus brings.

What stops me from giving 5 stars though is that I felt that the skit misrepresented a few things. First, while it did show the girl getting lured away from Jesus/God by other things, I felt it didn't make it clear that it was her fault. Our relationship with God is broken not by distractions, but by our intentional sinfulness - in our pride we reject God, and we can't blame anyone or anything else for it. Sin is our fault.

Secondly, I felt that Jesus was really misrepresented when he was shown 'trapped' on one side, unable to reach the girl because some tormentor things were blocking him. It did show Jesus trying very hard to grab the girl's attention, and also to reach in to save her and pull her out of the mess, but for the most part he was unsuccessful. You can probably see why this is inaccurate - Jesus isn't trapped by our sin, nor is he ever 'trying' to save us but not able to. Nothing should be able to block Jesus from reaching us; he's never trapped at one side trying to reach us unsuccessfully.

If I could rewrite the skit, it would start with God making the girl and them living in beautiful harmony, but the girl then willfully choosing to reject God and chase other things. Jesus would still try and get her attention, but would later just fade into the darkness, since he's pretty much out of the girl's mind. The girl would get entangled with everything and sink into despair, but her salvation would come the moment she remembered Jesus and asked for his help. Then, like in the skit, Jesus would suffer the punishment that was due to her, and overcome it, and they would live in harmony again, just like how things were meant to be.

That said, it's still an amazing and really moving skit, and definitely worthy of reflection. It powerfully portrays God's incredible love for us, choosing to take on our punishment and pay the price for our rebellion. One can only pray that millions more will watch this video and put their trust in the one who died for them.

Coolness

2008-02-22T18:37:00.002+10:00

Lots of cool stuff has been happening lately. For example...

As of today, I am a proud owner of a gocard! No longer do I need to mindlessly buy heaps of bus and train tickets - with this card, I can just tap and go when I get on and off public transport in Queensland! It's about time though - Queensland Transport promised this since 2004, and has taken AGES to get it launched. Singapore has already had such a system in place (the EZ-link card) since 2001, and it's been pretty successful. Let's hope it works just as well here too.

Another cool thing happened today while Claire and I were grocery shopping. We needed 200g of mushrooms for a pasta recipe, so I filled a paper bag with a handful of mushrooms.

Me: Mushrooms! We need mushrooms! (Runs off to fill a paper bag with a handful of mushrooms)

Claire: Hang on, the recipe says we only need 200 grams.

Me: Oh. Well... (lifting up the bag of mushrooms in one hand) I'll say we have... hmm... 235 grams!

Claire: Go and weigh it then.

235 grams exactly!! How cool is that! Or rather, how good are my estimation skills?! Mmm...

And the final cool thing...I went out with Nathan and Zaheer a few nights ago to play putt putt at the Victoria Park Golf Course. Heaps of fun. Here are some cool photos (check out the golf ball trail on my pic!)

Ok, enough coolness for one post.

The Vision Thing

2008-02-22T11:09:00.001+10:00

A moving article I read from Christianity Today.

Clarity came just as things got blurry.
Al Hsu | posted 2/21/2008 08:57AM

My vision has never been good. I've worn eyeglasses since second grade and contact lenses since high school. Once during a Little League game, a line drive smacked me right on the nose, splitting my glasses' plastic frames neatly in half. My vision was so bad that at optometrists' exams, the only letter I could see on the eye chart was the big E—and then only because I knew it was an E.

Read more...

I am 98.7% chimp!

2008-02-14T21:14:00.006+10:00

Yesterday at uni I saw a girl wearing a shirt which said:

I am 98.7% chimp!

I mused to myself: yup, 98.7% chimp, but 100% human!

Christians, in general, tend to be pretty scared of this observation. Looking at our genes alone, humans do indeed share anywhere from 90-98% of a chimpanzee's DNA. We are very genetically similar! Christians often feel quite threatened by this, as if it somehow challenges our core beliefs, and in a God who made everything in nature from scratch.

I have a couple of thoughts to counter this, and to explain why this really isn't that incompatible with the Christian faith.

This is rather controversial, but even if we were all indeed created through evolution, that doesn't kill Christianity. (Many would say it boosts it! Eg. Dr. Francis Collins) At the core of Christianity is Jesus, and his saving us from our sins by dying for us on a cross. I'm not diminishing the significance of creation and everything that entails, but it's sometimes good to realise what are core gospel issues, and what aren't.

If God did indeed create the universe in 6 days and not through total evolution, our huge similarity to chimps just means that God used the same building blocks! All organic life on earth is carbon based; every creature has a genome (consisting of DNA/RNA); why would it be such a huge surprise to find out that for creatures who look (morphologically) similar, their genes are similar too? Would you expect that the set of genes which encode for our fingernails would be that different from those that encode for a chimp's fingernails? It's really not that big a deal that our DNA is so similar to other animals - looking at it another way, wouldn't that be evidence that we had a similar creator?

Elaborating on the second point, I think the main reason why Christians are scared by this is because it kinda implies that we humans aren't as special anymore. If our DNA is pretty much identical to that of a beast...well, what happened to being made in the image of God (Gen 1:26)?

But that's misinterpreting the verse. Does God have a physical body? We know He can take the form of a physical body (Jesus, the word made flesh - John 1:14), but God's real nature is not physical. He created the physical world - how can He be a part of it? No, God is spirit (John 4:24), and the bible is very clear on that.

So, to be made in God's image is to have a spirit! An eternal spirit which gives us our true identity. Our bodies aren't our real selves. They're a real part of who we are, yes, but only inasmuch as our spirit is 'trapped' in them, and expresses itself through our bodies. So it doesn't matter if our DNA is 98.7% similar to chimps, or even 99.999%! We humans are still made in God's image, and what a privilege that is.

Our holiday in Tangalooma

2008-02-14T15:48:00.004+10:00

Claire and I went to Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Beach Resort last week, on Moreton Island, just off the coast from Brisbane. We got to feed dolphins in the ocean, snorkel, build sandcastles, go sand tobogganing, play croquet and mini golf... We had a great time, and I put together a little video to showcase some of our photos. Enjoy :)

My true friend

2008-02-08T19:30:00.000+10:00

This is pretty interesting. Communicates the truth in a pretty down to earth simple way.

http://mytruefriend.org/

Hand paintings

2008-02-08T19:12:00.000+10:00

Got this in an email. Is it amazing or what.

http://guidodaniele.com/bodypaint01.htm

How to assemble a shed

2008-01-31T23:10:00.000+10:00

I've done it, and I'm now a true man.

(One year ago I made an assembly guide video for a fan!)

A send off, long ago.

2008-01-31T23:04:00.000+10:00

I just found this photo on my computer yesterday - my foochow methodist church friends who came to see me off at the airport when I left in early 2002. Feels so long ago, but it's only been 6 years. Most of us look the same...except for Liwei. Haha :p

My wedding (in Singapore)

2008-01-28T14:17:00.000+10:00

On Saturday, 5 Jan 2008, I married my best friend, Claire, again :)

All photos courtesy of tngying.

This time it was in Singapore, a month after our Brisbane wedding, with the main purpose of sharing our joy with my relatives and friends back there. It was held in Foochow Methodist Church, and over 300 people came! The service was mostly similar to our ceremony in Brisbane, but without the official vows and exchange of rings. It was more a wedding celebration - a commemoration of a marriage just begun. We sang some of my favouritest hymns in the world:

Great is thy faithfulness
My heart is filled with thankfulness
When I survey the wondrous cross
In Christ alone

A close family friend, Tai Kok, officiated the ceremony and gave a sermon entitled Many waters cannot quench love.

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.

Song of Songs 8:6-7

We had several prayers of blessing, a special song item by my sister Michelle, and we renewed our vows - by promising new ones that we had written ourselves. All in all, it went beautifully, and we had a great time.

We had our wedding dinner two days later, on Monday 7 Jan 2008 at the Grand Hyatt. The setting and food was spectacular, the atmosphere magical and the evening very enjoyable.

It was very challenging in the planning, but it was very worth it, and our second wedding was definitely a success. I felt a tinge of sadness when it was all over - I must say I quite enjoyed being the groom :p But I'm glad that it's over - and the marriage is permanent anyway :)

We haven't received all our photos from our Singapore wedding yet, but our photographers will get them to us soon(ish)! These photos are just sneak previews from Michelle Tng. For a few more sneaks, check out her flickr album here.

How's married life?

2008-01-21T13:30:00.000+10:00

That's the most common question I've been getting recently. But this isn't one that I've found annoying - it's quite fun to answer really. I think this word summarises it the best : shiok! (which is Singlish for great, or good stuff!)

I mean, I'm still quite new to married life really - it's barely been 6 weeks. But what fantastic weeks they've been! Marriage is one of God's greatest gifts for sure - it's so perfectly designed for us, and satisfies this deep intrinsic longing for a lasting companionship*. It's just so right for a man and a woman to commit completely to each other and spend the rest of their lives together! It's so much more than a mere evolutionary adaptation to promote procreation and the continuation of the species!

* But marriage alone (or any other human relationship) will not satisfy it completely - our deepest longings for relationships were given by God and can only be fully met by God alone.

When I'm with Claire, I can see what God meant by it's not good for man to be alone (Gen 2:18) - I can just tell that it's right! I was meant to be her husband and she my wife, and for us to fully belong to each other. I can't quantify/measure this feeling, but I'm actually quite glad about that. It goes beyond...scientific enquiry! (science has clear limitations) But it's just as real. We were profoundly made for each other, and I'm so sure about it.

In preparation for our marriage, our minister told Claire and I that choosing to get married is the second most important decision we'll ever make in our entire life (the first being the choice we make whether or not to trust and believe in God). It's serious serious stuff! Marriage is sadly becoming increasingly secularised, but its roots are so spiritual. It's far more than a legal contract! (although even that's being challenged these days.) You don't get married just for pragmatic reasons, social requirements or legal recognition (or for government aid)!

Marriage is a sacred and holy act - the biggest promise to another person that you'll ever ever make. It's a promise that you will effectively unconditionally love the other person - that all you are will be theirs, and that you will be utterly devoted and faithful to them. Of course you can't know for sure whether you'll actually carry all that out - our hearts are treacherously sinful and notoriously deceitful. But you are promising that you will align your will in such a way that you will do it. Love is so much more than a feeling - it's a choice! And that means that on my worst days, when everything is going wrong and nothing in me feels like loving Claire, I still will, because I promised to, and I now choose to. That's why love is so powerful.

I'll tell what I personally love about being married to Claire (well bits of it). I love that she's the last person I see at night and first person I see every morning (waking up together is really nice). I love that being with her is now my default position - being away from her is unnatural. I love the permanency of being married, that our relationship has fully solidified and I don't have to worry about losing her because divorce is not at all an option. I love it that we're one family now, and she's taken part of my name. I love our wedding rings, and being able to wear them proudly. I love how we can now work on so many things together and, as a couple, help in church, spend time with friends, have little projects...all together! I love it that our waiting fully paid off, and we can now be intimate on every level, all in the security and safety of our marriage bond and promise. And I love it that I find Claire more beautiful everyday, and that our love isn't stagnant (as huge as it already is) but is still growing!

My advice: if you're in a serious relationship and there's no biblical reason to wait, don't put it off! Go for it! Think hard about the myths that our culture is selling you - that you must be financially secure and have a stable career and perfect successful plans for the future before you can even consider getting married - rubbish!! Yes money and jobs are a factor, but we give them way too much priority in our world today. Marriage is not about what's best or convenient for you - it's about making a serious promise of love to another person, which you can make as long (and as soon) as you know you can. Hear me carefully - it's not about knowing that you'll love the person unconditionally forever, it's about knowing that you're ready to promise it. And in God's grace, He'll help you fulfill that promise.

And those are my thoughts on being married and marriage in general :)