richard

Not one is righteous.

2010-11-07T21:48:00.002+08:00

things happen. things that shouldn't.
when they do.. i fall and my knees and cry out.. God. i'm imperfect.
I'm still a sinner..
there are times when a sin leads to more sin because the first sin dosn't allow us to come to terms with the fact that Jesus is more than able to forgive them.
I believe there are two ways of looking at sin.
One is.. if u can't beat it.. just do it..
the other one is.. i know i can't do it.. but Jesus already died for my sins hence my only option is to come back to Jesus's feet and ask Him to forgive us and take us back into His arms.

Of all the lies in the world.. i believe the one that almost everyone is deceived most by.. is the fact that they aren't that sinful.. that they are ok.

Some may say.. i do good deeds. others say.. i've been leading a good and moral life. Hence i should go to heaven.
however.. when we examine these statements.. we have to realize this.. who has the ultimate right to say what is good or bad? when we look at the world.. we realize firstly that.. what u think is good may not be what i think is good. so who are you to say that my life is sinful?
What right do Christians have to say that others have sinned and that others need God? Well.. they don't. but they only say that all have sinned because of what is said in the bible.

Now.. the problem most people have with Christianity is this.. Christianity perhaps out of all the other religions, is the only religion which has a firm stand on what is right and wrong and what u need to do to go to heaven. The bible more than any other religion states clearly in black and white the laws that almost every successful country's law is based on.. The basic human rights, how to decide penalties for certain crimes.. The bible is perhaps the most instructive book on what is right and what is wrong. And it is the most definitive religion about how we can go to heaven and what we need to go to heaven because the God who wrote these laws is a just God. How can a just God not tell people plainly and simply what needs to be done to go to Heaven? To quote an example from Andy Stanley.
Imagine a classroom scenario and the teacher is in front of the class.. enters the class.. and says "good morning.. next week we will have a test. U either pass or fail. That's all. class dismissed."
imagine how bewildered these poor children will be. They don't know what to study for.. they dont' know how to prepare for this test.. how can they pass if they do not know what they are being tested about??

but virtually every religion other than Christianity has absurd rules and criteria for getting to heaven. Rules that only benefit a certain group in the society while excluding the lower social castes. Jesus is a just God. Because He makes it so clear and so simple that the way to heaven is through Him. To believe in Jesus and what He has done on the cross for our sins.

Not one is righteous.
Not one is without sin.
Yet.. in God's eyes.. only the sinless can enter heaven..
not one sin can God tolerate in heaven.
Hence.. by default all of us have no right to be in heaven.. unless this heaven is something we imagine.. where any tom dick or harry can simply go into heaven. What an unjust heaven that would be.

No one can fully comprehend the extent of our sin and the extent of God's mercy to the human race. It is a mystery that only God chooses to reveal. But not many are even interested to know this mystery of the sinister nature of sin. how it slowly erases all hint of Godliness in us.

Only one perfect can die for someone imperfect..

God.. give me more insight. i need more mercy.

2010-07-20T10:33:00.003+08:00

ask me why i'm a Christian.
i'll tell you. God is real.
Ask me how i know?
i'll tell you stories.
Ask me again how i know they point to God.
i'll tell you that the bible said so.
Ask me.. how did i become like this.
i'll tell you God loves me so much.

failed my driving

2010-06-25T21:06:00.003+08:00

i failed my driving.
nothing much to lament about.. cept that it was raining.. and i didn't really have luck on my side. traffic was heavy.. people were squeezing in and out.. the tester couldn't take it.. first try.. at driving. fail.

well i was really disappointed initially. and i was really asking God. why??
the instructor was nice in the end.. he bothered to explain why i didn't pass. well.. end of the day.. i couldn't hear much of what he was saying.. the fail word on my paper was screaming out at me. " FAIL!!! "

thoughts were going through my head ' what would people say?? haha richard u failed ure driving! "
Eve probably would be gloating.. cuz she got her driving on her first try. and i can think of a few more people who have gotten a pass for their first driving
yeah.. i really thought i would be able to pass this driving test..
i mean if the rest could why not i?
i had thoughts of inferiority. thoughts that.. Richard.. u failed.
somehow... the results came out too fast for me to react to it.
i was asking God.. why?
i was looking forward to driving the family for breakfast in the morning. but it seems that it wasn't God's timing for me.
i was asking why God?
I kina secretly prided myself that i could learn fast and pass on my first try.
but i felt really humbled.
for a while.. i felt a pain i havn't experienced in a very long while.. the pain of longing for victory but failing. at that point.. i really felt like.. man.. i wana go home and mope and shut the door.. shut everyone out...
i didn't have any heart to go down to help the crusaders with the stamping of the 4000 publicity mailrun for the Crusade FOC.
But then i decided in my heart..
no matter.. what.. in all places,, in all circumstances that i would praise God. That i would honor my promise to Yong Chean to go down to help out whether i felt like it or not. It was probably like a scene out of a korean drama..
the weather was grey sky.. the rain was rattling on like a dripping tap. my heart was exactly that way.. full of regret that refused to be shaken off.

i read the bible and chanced upon the psalms.. breezed through it.. didn't really help.. yup.. went to sch.. eventually.. my toes.. filled with water.. socks... wet.. i just stepped into a puddle of water.. and my shoes were soaked.. i was feeling wonderful. started listening to a sermon about the destructive nature of sound. it was really interesting to know that sound actually affected physical matter.. through resonance. and there were experiments where human organs exploded because the sound that they used was the same frequency as the organs.. the only reason why it wasn't developed as a weapon is because it also killed the person who activated the weapon.. it was omni directional and couldn't be channeled.
i thought that was really interesting too..
slowly.. i forgot how hard up i was over the whole thing. Eve msged me and asked me how my results were. she was really comforting too :) yeah :) i miss her though. yup. she's one of those women who really captivate me in a way no other has. Her character.. is alive. anyways.. yup.
for a while.. i couldn't look at cars on the road and not think about how i failed my driving..
never thought failure could hit me that hard.. after all ... i'm quite used to it.
but anyways..
yup went down to help with the crusade stuff.. and .. felt really much better after that.. somehow.. :) just the presence of other people made me better. :)Didn't feel like my whole world was crumbling. :)
anyways..
i'm deciding to start a bible study regime.. attempting to wake up every morning to do a bible study. :) been reading RA torrey. Gift from my mom. awesome book. Really so much stuff to learn. :)

Anyhows.. :) yup
this holiday has really been a heck of a blast. so busy that i have barely space to breathe!!!

Yet another video upload. wonder wall. just monkeying around with the new wireless headphones that is also a mic.. so u can now hear me singing louder

2010-06-18T17:47:00.001+08:00

2009-10-25T03:53:00.000+08:00

awesome week

2009-06-16T15:14:00.002+08:00

my past few weeks were awesome.
for one, i got my paycheck 2 weeks ago..
i got 200 bucks for my ippt silver.. (far cry from last year)
i got my birthday presents..
went for a wonderful church camp.. celelbrated my bdae with my church pple.. celebrated my birthday in singapore before i went for church camp with my family..
got so many b'dae wishes on face book...
my dad gave me money to learn driving...
i'm going to get my seba skates this fri..
things are looking great.. never been better! :)

Just came back from malaysia with my fam .. yesterday..
and well.. God is certainly moving in my family..
my mom's really being touched by God and is infecting my dad and my aunt in m'sia..
funny thing is.. sometimes i feel uncomfortable and even .. wary.. and i guess that should be normal.. because suddenly what i'm reading about in books, i'm seeing happening slowly in my family..

i passed my driving theory.. :) hooray! started studying 1 week b4.. :) and i was the 5th fastest guy to get out of the exam room. !:) LOL i take pride in these kinda stuff.. :) yeah..

life is looking good.

i'm contented and blessed. :)

and all i can do now.. is uplift everyone of these blessing to God. cuz he's my provider..
i've hardly done anything to earn so much of these blessings.. and i'm thankful. so thankful :) :>

God cares. so much that you can't ignore him.

My dad's probably feeling that too :)

i went to church in malaysia for the first time with my mom and dad.. .. and it was one of the most special feelings.. to have my parents sitting and listening to what was spoken on the pulpit..
in my heart.. i kept telling myself.. to keep these memories in my heart.. treasure and savour everyone of these moments.. that i got to spend with my loving parents..
love them sooo very much..

Eve.. of course i didn't forget you too ... i miss you so much..
miss touching your hand.. miss argueing with u.. miss hanging out and slacking and eating.. and feeling like lazy pigs.. miss your kisses. :>
there isn't anyone i'd rather be with than with u :) love u

beatboxing..

2009-06-06T18:36:00.004+08:00

finally.. i have something decent to blog about that is to me enthralling.
BEAT BOXING>. it started with some random beatbox video that i decided to watch for fun..
it started with ROxOrloops... who won the belgium beatboxing championships because he could do an echo.. if ure wondering what that is.. Dig THis VIDEO DAWG! (sorry.. just had to type that out for my own amusement)

aweSOME!..
and u know.. the thing that really got me hooked for a while watching the beatboxers is the fact that singapore also has a beatboxer who is recognized world wide for his beatboxing technique.. .. This guy called darhni.. MAXIMUM RESPECT!

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

2009-02-24T07:54:00.002+08:00

i had no choice but to change this blog web address for primarily one reason.
i've stopped being sentimental about my old blog..
and i cannOT POST PICTURES USING PICASA IN THIS BLOG ANYMORE BECAUSE I"VE EXCEEDED MY QUOTA! :( BOO BOO BOO:(:(:(:(

anyways. here's the new blog address. DO POP BY! :) nyeheh :>:>

http://richardyewrulz.blogspot.com/

2009-02-21T20:26:00.002+08:00

there is a fire in my heart.
set in place .
it burns.
it burns.

it needs to be quenched.
only Jesus.
only Jesus.
the heart feels burdened.
i feel unaware of what others think about what i do more.
Nor do i really care.

it makes me feel embarassed at times.
but i don't feel that embarassed too.

My heart .
It aches.
it throbs.

for something more than just a normal life.

i look around me.. and i see meaninglessness in the things of the world.
ultimately moth and rust will destroy. So what if u were famous? so what if u are successful as an architect? so what if you were intelligent? so what if you are rich?
Can anyone escape death?

What matters at the end of the day.. is having eternity set in our hearts.
don't u have the nagging feeling in your heart that your bests efforts are never and never will be good enough to earn you the right to be perfect. The mini skirmishes in our lives.. the little feel good moments.. the times where we get good grades.. or perform well in sports.. why does it seem like just another cycle of activities that occupy our time?

more..
in our hearts are placed thoughts of greatness. thoughts that there is someone greater than our situation. someone who exists who loves us.just the way we are. sinful. thoughtless. selfish. lustful. angry. slothful, prideful.

Jesus.

If the world needs an answer for anything. Jesus is it.

In the ZZZZ Zone

2009-02-10T23:42:00.002+08:00

i'm in studio.. wondering why i'm in studio instead of going home to sleep. i feellike sleeping now.

my minds dead.
can't think of anything else.
my brain's exhausted.
can't b bothered to think of anything else.
been reading John Sung.
The Billy Graham of China.
someone u don't expect to be a pastor..
more like a hooligan.. but still God used him..

i'm gona sleep.
BUT.juswana say..
nights! :)

2009-02-07T07:48:00.002+08:00

i can't explain why..
but i'm feeling kinda.. agitated.
been really... on the edge of my seat...
feeling weird, awkward..
i felt so angry...
particularly at the bus driver at the marina barrage.
what a wimp.
aparrantly it wasn't such a big deal actually..
what happened was that we were at marina barrage waiting for the shuttle bus.. and its super slow... so waiting in the rain.. and finally the small shuttle bus came.. so like.. all of us arki pple who went for the field trip boarded the bus.. thing was all of us could squeeze in.. but the uncle was like.. no standing.. . and like.. everyone had to get down..
i simply was so irritated he didn't let all of us get on.

yeah..
now that i think about it.. he was just doing his job..
but i was so pissed about it yesterday.

and i find it weird..
cuz normally i wouldn't get so worked up..
so something's up with me..
but what.?

i need to lean on God for understanding.

clueless

2009-02-06T08:28:00.002+08:00

its 830am on a friday morning.
i'm sitting in front of the computer.
and i don't know what to do.
i feel i ought to be doing something useful.
alas...alas...
time is precious.
my heart kinda is running to and fro.
wondering what i shall devote my attention to.
i cant sleep again.
our hours are so limited.
but still i guess most of the time,
the excuse of 'i don't have time' seldom holds.
its just whether we really want to do something.
or not.

do we have the guts to stick to what we want to do?..
or do we have the discipline?.

personally. i lack discipline..
but lately.. this voice in me keeps keeping me in check.
and i've been slowly trying to avoid ignoring it.

i read that life's biggest mistakes are often what makes us wiser.

its the little things

2009-02-06T01:41:00.002+08:00

i was on the bus home frm eve's place today.
was one of the most thrilling bus rides..
partly because i missed the last bus at Eve's place and i was trying a totally different path. changed bus 3 times. and.. each time i almost missed the last bus.. so imagine.. i was hopping around.. trying to catching the last bus home.

well.. dosn't sound like much.. but it was exciting. cuz every bus that i took was the last bus.. so there was the very real chance that i would have to walk back home from one of the bus stops that i had dropped off at.. either that or i would have had to take a cab back..

*yawns* im tired.
gd nite.
good day.
happy valentines.
;0
:Z

Christianity a partner finder?

2009-01-30T08:16:00.002+08:00

i heard a particular someone say this not long ago.
all of us have qualities that we pride ourselves on.
for me.. it probably would be me fitness that i would pride myself on.
If God were to take that away, what is gone? Our pride.

how do we normally look for a girlfriend or boyfriend?
well, first we size ourselves up. and see and judge for ourselves if we kind of 'qualify' to be with that person. so.. when God takes away my fitness, would like i still qualify to be loved?

And also, what if being a Christian becomes a pride issue that makes us seem a 'class higher' so to speak than the normal guy?
to a Christian girl, or guy, his choices in finding a girlfriend or boyfriend are limited to just Christians. why. its not so much a pride issue, but more a God issue. the only thing that makes a christian different from non christian is the person Jesus.
Not too many people accept this 'christian' Jesus. This weird guy who goes around telling everyone he is God. not many people accept that this Jesus, who is a man, is a God, the God.
There are then again many Christians who call themselves Christians but don't have Jesus in their lives. They might study the bible day and night and live religiously, yet not know God in an intimate way... perhaps not the way a person who sins in the area of porn and knows how easy it is to fall back into bad habits.

The thing about being a Christian, which many people i feel misunderstand is that Christians are big sinners too. You don't have to be perfect to be a Christian. Jesus preached to who?, the lost, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the con men, the swindlers, the people whom society judged to be unworthy. And what,. they became christians.

The common misperception of a Christian too often is some holy too shoes guy/gal who has no sense of humor and enforces and demands that everyone has to be a Christian or he would burn in hell.Of course that is true. people wouldn't love the hellfire and repent message.

The Christian guy/gal is simply described as someone who has Jesus. All else matters less.

The problem that the church has is probably its use of lingo. Sometimes, in a church, an newcomer would feel completely alien. Its as if in church you have to learn a whole new way to talk. Like.. every word has to be followed by a 'halleighluya!" or. .. amen.. and if u are religious you have to do this and that.. and it makes Christianity seem like some sort of rules u have to follow to attain nirvana.

again i repeat. A Christian just has Jesus.

and Jesus is who?..
i like the way pastor Mark Driscoll describes what Jesus isn't.
Jesus probably wasn't good looking.. there isn't anything in the bible that says Jesus was a handsome man, with long hair long robes, looking like a hippy. Jesus probably was a normal man in appearance. Just think... along the lines of... a carpenter, cuz thats what Jesus was working as when he was alive. He probably had short hair, cuz long hair would get in the way if he was hammering wood. just imagine... a hippy attempting to swing a hammer...all the gangly hair.. flowy robes.. Jesus probably wore short sleeves and was quite toned. He walked alot,so he was lean. but thats about it. Jesus was a normal guy.

He even had friends who saw him grow up like you and me. They obviously didn't think he was God because he was too normal to be anyone other than a man. they had seen this man, Jesus grow up. Yet these were the very men who couldn't believe that Jesus's claims about himself being God were true. Imagine me...
telling you i'm God.

ya right.. go tell the mountain to me and i want to see that happen too and i'll believe you are God.

i've always wondered why people would be so wary about Christians. they are like salesmen who come knocking on your door..
* Knock knock*
*Door opens*

CHristian:.. hi, i'm so and so... My God is so big and you are so small, my God is right and you are wrong and there is nothing you can do about it. My God can cure all diseases, heal all sicknesses, make the blind see and the lame walk. He can even ressurect.if you need any help or advice, give me a call have a nice day!
*door slams*

my point is this..
The issue non-christians have with God probably isnt' Christianity itself or even Jesus as a man. I mean, to them Jesus is probably like Ghandi or Mother theresa or dalai lama or buddha.. he's just another man who teaches to be good. of course with one difference.

Jesus claimed to be God.

THat was the main reason why the religious priests crucified Jesus. And it was the only reason they could think of to crucify him because he was faultless in every other way.. they tried to trap him using the law of Moses and failed miserably... the crowds who followed Jesus were so big initially and he was definitely more popular than any of these boring, stern priests who are totally no fun.Jesus even performed miracles.. he provided for the needs of the people...but still .. these priests, instead of seeing the proof being laid before them of Jesus's divine nature, the priests could only see that they were given 2 choices. They either believed the miracles were really from God and that Jesus was God and worshipped him, because priests by just being priests have to worship a God, or they would simple have to ignore the miracles, the proof of Jesus's divine nature, and accuse him of blasphemy. Ironically, the clubbers, the smokers, the hookers. these probably weren't the people who wanted Jesus dead so much..

its funny.. how i started off writing about Christianity being a partner finder.. and ended up talking about Jesus.. but...
thing is.. at the end of the day, its all about Jesus.
This man who is God, who is our attorney on the day of judgement.. this man who is the son of God in heaven..
This man is called Jesus..

Everything in Christianity hinges on just this person. Everything.
Which is why the da vinci code was so controversial amongst Christians. Everything i believe in about Christianity falls as long as you can prove undeniably that Jesus didn't raise from the dead. You'd just need to prove that and all christianity would be just a pathetic religion that has been nothing more than another altruistic reinterpretation from another philosopher. And only then, will i stop becoming a Christian.

Chronicles of a christian.

2009-01-29T23:32:00.002+08:00

yup.. thats me! :) a Christian.

i just came back from a reunion dinner with my crusade friends.
:)
its interesting to see new faces. quite a delight actually. but with the new faces come a certain awkwardness and unsureness of how to react. i for one want to just go up and say hi. yet.. there's this other part that just looks out for some familiar face to talk to like David or Joel or Janice or Eudora or Michelle or Sam or Jo or Rudy .. basically the more senior crusaders. << that probably is the number one causes for segregation within the church as a body. the fear of just saying hi to someone you don't know. amazing ya? how something so seemingly harmless has such big implications.
there was this group of exchange students whom we met from Iowa..acctually i didnt' really meet them.. i just saw them.. didn't say hi or nothing..
it was weird. how i wanted to say hi, but i didn't want to. and i could run this in my head over and over again.. but at the end of the day.. hmmm i guess i just want to know them and find out about these angmohs who have so rarely popped by for a crusade event. i was happy that today was such a boisterous day.so many people turned up for the crusade new year dinner.

but this incident kinda strikes me in an unexpected way..

kinda gave me a better idea about my introverted self.

i find myself weird sometimes.. how one moment i could be so high.. and the next.. feel like.. a worm. wanting to hide in the soil.
all these happening within the span of just minutes.

anyways, aside from that, i talked to vic today. was delighted to see him at SDE block after his crusade LM. yeah. its kinda cool cuz somehow, now, when i see him, i see someone who's growing from the pain he's experienced. in fact i feel more comfortable talking to him than i ever did.

Its wonderful when you have a friend. :)

:) and may i add, a friend from God.

welll..i think i should sleep. i'm not exactly the most fun person to be around with now. i've been sleep deprived. GIMME SLEEP! :)

i think i behave different when i don't get my sleep.

oh.. this thought just came into my head. sometimes, live just feels much more free when you don't give too much of a damn about your self image.

emo

2009-01-28T17:24:00.002+08:00

it feels weird sometimes when i read my blog.. especially if i've written an emo post.. on hindsight.. most of the time my emo-ness seems kinda silly and uncalled for. and reading that makes me feel silly too.
but its weird though.. how powerful and strong those feelings felt at that time.. even though they might be illogical and irrational.

Feelings.

2009-01-28T09:20:00.002+08:00

The emotions are running wild.
You don't know if they are your instincts trying to protect you or just something you shove at the back of your head.

I"M FEELING SO STRESSED OUT>well in korea i dont feel this way..
anyways.. YOU KNOW this feeling??..
when you think you've got something really important you need to do??
then a hundred million other worries just whiz past your head.. and sujddenly.. that important thing you needed to get done.. does not seem all that important.. and... you start worrying liKE CREAZY!!!

Thats how i'm feeling now.
gosh.. and i'm like saying to mjyself.. rich.. u need to do this and that and this and that.. and.. thing is.. i havn't done nothing..
i've just read my bible.
argh...
MY attention span seems so short..

also had this other feeling before?
you worried soOOOOOoOooOO much about something one day.. and the next.. you don't even think about it.
and you wonder.. whats wrong with me? was that thing i was worrying about even worth worrying about???
ok.. now i'm inspired to turn back o the bible.

if ican make it through tomorrow.. which is kind of a dooms day for me.. then.. good. yeah.. :)
sometimes i hate myself for being sooo slack.

well but i'm not actually slack. i procrastinate too much.. hmm...
i think thats the same with Eve too.
URGHHH!H!H!H!!

GOTA CLEAR MY CRAP!!!!!!!!
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

*richard goes for head banging session*

ok.. i need to remove this .. think... part in my brain..
everytime i tell myself.. "i think i need to do this" i never really get down to doing it.
instead.. i have to start saying stuff like " i'll get this done by today by hook and by crook.. and it will be my excuse to focus less on everything else" or wait. that don't sound too nice.. like.. i'm gona put myself in a trance that makes me a robot instead of a human.. okokokok!??!?!?
so how???
KK.. how about does this mental note sound ? " once i accomplish this task.. i don't have to think about it anymore.. do it once do it good."

yeah sounds good.

if u asked me hows God in my life today?
i'd tell you .. not very good.
been letting some comments said get into me over the new year and my brains been kinda fuddled up.. having some momentary identity crisis. YOu know.. i suddenly had an epiphany. at the end of the day everyone needs to remember the image he has of himself.. and not the image that people have of him. and that image of ourselves usually is the image that God gives us. on my part.. i've been getting comments that i look like a korean ever since i went there. hmm.. i don't know.sometimes i get drawn into that train of thought.. and think myself different.. and special.. blabla.. but at the end of the day i'm still Richard Yew the Singaporean guy born to my mom who's peranakan and my dad who's a malaysian but became singaporean.i've got 3 awesome siblings. 2 lovely sisters and a wonderful bro. Have a lovely girlfriend who is always bubbly and energetic so much so that at times.. she's like a hyper active child.

well i think i needed that self reminder.. but for now..
ITS TIME TO WORKK AND WELLL GOD HELP! !!! :)

Chinese new year

2009-01-28T09:19:00.001+08:00

Got two cows

TRADITIONAL CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create clever cow cartoon images called 'Cowkimon' and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION

You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch..

A SWISS CORPORATION

You have 5,000 cows and none of which belong to you.
You charge others for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them..
You claim full employment and high bovine productivity.
You have the newsman who reported on the numbers arrested.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You worship them.

A MALAYSIAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
You signed a 40-year contract to supply milk at RM0.06 per litre.
Then midway through, you raised the price to RM0.60 or you cut the supply.
When the buyer agrees to the new price, you change your mind again and now want RM1.20.
The buyer decided you can keep the milk and they go look for milk that comes from recycled cows or the cow urine instead.
Your two cows retire together with the Prime Minister.

And last but not least,

A SINGAPOREAN CORPORATION

You have two cows.
One cow-peh and one cow-bu.

Thanks Gilbert for sending me this brilliant email.. cheered me up

The list of people i call friends.

2009-01-17T02:21:00.002+08:00

hmmm..
shall i be a mean ass and start listing down publically all the people who mean anything at all to me?

Well.. maybe i shouldn't write down who i think are my friends..
but.. as i was reading the blogs of people around me..
church friends, archi friends..

i felt lucky that i know these people personally.
people whom i thought were difficult turned out to be the very people i have grown to be fond of. I always smile at the thought of these precious friends. i feel happy.
God has placed these people who are genuine and unpretentious. Aware of their faults and sometimes unabashed about them. Sometimes i look at people who call themselves Christians.. and i think i'd rather hang out with my non christian friends who are more truthful to themselves. Who says you need to be a christian to teach someone to be more Godly. God can use anyone to teach u about Himself.
but of course then, my heart for my non-christian friends is that they would also come to know the God that i am still learning about. Jesus. The person who died so we could live. if that even makes sense.

point of the matter here though is that, i would just want to thank God for the friends i know now. My ex studio mates, my fellow exchange archi mates, my church friends, my family, Eve. i smile each time i think about u guys. and each time i think about u guys, i'll compare myself to u guys and think... how lucky i am, to have a friend who is better than me in someway. yeah. i could be hanging around with one of the most brilliant people to be in Singapore, or Korea or who knows ???

so yeah.. a pretty emo post. but heart felt too. so u shld b honored to be my friend ! Waha!

where does your confidence come from?

2009-01-17T01:54:00.003+08:00

as i write this post.. i'm going through what i feel is a crunch time.
i feel this is the time where i can't afford to b a kid.
gota b responsible.

but, i will need confidence first..
so where does my confidence come from?
it came from man.
and it still does to a large extent.
but slowly, i'm seriously rethinking my whole idea of where my foundations are.
where have i been building my foundations so far for the last 23 years?
foundations in terms of what has been the major factor that has been driving me to make my decisions. the major foundation that i rely on when i need to interact with people. to a certain degree it has always been a mixture of what the bible says, coupled with my fear of man. that's how i interact with the people around me.the want to impress.

it sometimes seems cool to be oblivious to the talents that God has given us. but it is not that cool.

the christian life always says, God's first.

but it is always in the crunch times that we see how far this Christian motto holds true in our own lives. I've not had many crunch times. but during many of these crunch times, i'm not proud to say that i didn't put God first. for if i did, it would have been very clear from my actions.

why am i writing this post.
to be honest, i'm requestioning myself and asking myself the fundamental questions of how far am i going to be a Christian?
how am i going to be a christian to other people?

Like Andrew, who very honestly and objectively stated that he had to get right with God before he decided whether or not to go back to the worship ministry, i too have to get right with God once again. i was very encouraged when i heard Andrew's reason for stepping aside from band for a period of time. What he said i felt was from his heart.

its a pain.. when i think about all the work that has to b done in the midst of the new year preparations. My school work.. my portfolio to prepare.. church commitments... family, friends, loved ones. God. Juggling all these at once...

Only God could do that..
but yet, i am hopeful.

things will work out. i'm sure.
because my spirit tells me that.
and.. i'll have to learn to trust the instincts that i've been given.

i'm back in Singapore

2009-01-08T19:41:00.002+08:00

I'm back! :)
in Singapore.
yup i've been back from Korea 11 days counting today.
celebrated my 4th year anniversary with Eve and her birthday on the first of Jan 09.
and number one question that i've been constantly bombarded with is ..
how is Korea?.
and most of the time.. i don't know what to say..
its ok . its fine. are my usual replies.

i've not really sat down and evaluated my stay in Korea.

if u asked me.. i think it was a fruitful stay for a few reasons.
the people i met in Korea.
and the experiences i had.
Travelling from place to place. working in an overseas architectural firm.
aside from that.. hmmm Korea really reminds me of Singapore in more ways than one..
we aren't really different when u put aside our language difference.

i was in minds cafe too at clark quay. with my ex studio, Fabian, KaiLun, Ying Ying, Yu Mei, Mark . yup. was really fun. we were playing who's the boss...
which really is fun. :) lol if u have v interesting people around.
anyways.. its dinner time now..
:) yay.
i'm so hungry.

excited

2008-12-18T11:36:00.002+08:00

its been a long while since i felt this excited. :)
Eve is coming over to Korea:>
though we had a rough patch a few days ago but we worked things out.
i'm so happy ;) and i just can't wait for her to come over.
hugs. :>
4 years together already..
and haiz. :) i'm feeling all warm and tingly thinking about how we can just be crazy around each other once again. this little girl who had unlocked my stiffness and taught me to be more and more myself. :)i love u darling :)
lets really enjoy our stay in Korea

Matthew 16:28

2008-12-17T07:42:00.003+08:00

I was doing my qt.. when i saw something strange.

Matt 16:28
I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

If the 'Son of Man coming in his kingdom'refers to the second coming of Christ, this could mean that one or 2 of the 12 disciples are still alive today and have been granted temporary immortality till the day Jesus comes back on earth.

Matthew 16:27 confirms that Jesus was referring to his second coming when he told his disciples that maybe one or two of his 12 disciples are still alive today..
"for the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done."

where are the disciples?
could they be the two witnesses that God talked about in revelation 11?..
i somehow believe this to be true. because both seem to fit to each other..
when will these two witnesses start prophesying.. ?..
THis is soo. weird..

what if fat = pretty?

2008-11-23T01:49:00.002+08:00

i was thinking to myself.. as i was showering.
If God made all men equal.
why are there relative terms like.. more beautiful or more handsome..
these kind of words?
and.. i was thinking.. it would be unfair.. if only the pretty women were sought after.. the rest of the women would feel like crap.

but.. i've heard of the phrase, all women are beautiful.
I'm sure there are people who find fat women attractive.
or i'm sure there are people who find girls who have a bulge in their tummy attractive.. or they could be like.. pillows so that their boyfriends can sleep on them.
i'm sure there are people who find women too skinny revolting.and people who think otherwise.
and... there are people who simply think that women whom the press define as pretty simply aren't attractive to them. Leme give an example.. do u think Devon Aoiki is pretty?.. i duno.. take away the make up. she's a plane jane with a good figure.

so the question i'm raising is this.
is the media playing too big a role in defining for us what pretty is?.Or what perfect is? the perfect body. the perfect lips
the perfect abs.. the perfect package.

so..
what if. one day.. fat is pretty?
:) what if fat nose is pretty?
what if fat stomach is pretty?
what if everything we thought to be detestable became thought of as desirable?
anything is possible

something close to my heart.

2008-11-18T20:47:00.002+08:00

i just thought i ought to share something about myself.
regarding the issue of pornography.

http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/toc.php

By some chance, i came across this website that dealt with the issues of pornography.
I think its a serious thing that affects guys of all ages. Though of course some women do watch pornography as well.

The above article spoke well into me.
i know how pornography affects me.
I'm not to sure what i should write and what i shouldn't.

Yet.. i felt really inclined to rethink this whole issue of pornography and how deeply it really affects us guys. It isn't something to laugh about. It has been a stone that has been stopping so many Christians from speaking out boldly against it. i doubt there is a single Christian man who has not watched porn in his life in this era. So we all know how shameful it is. How that short pleasure we gain from obtaining an orgasm through watching porn and masturbating at the same time.
No its not just me. No its not just that brother.

Its probably an issue God really wants to address to His men. A secret sin that eats from the within. our shame that hinders us from growing nearer to Him.
It startled me to consider that the act of masturbation is not very different from homosexuality. monosexuality. i duno.

This is one of the things i feel that is so close to my heart. the sin of pornography. i've struggled with it for more than half my life. and i'm just 23.
its probably something thought of as normal now.. but the more i think about it.. the more i wonder.. what exactly is normal about pornography? The herd mentality? Everyone is doing it.

How did something so obviously wrong become obviously right.

Pornography scratches just the surface of how serious the implications on our society is. Like a crack in a glass that weakens the entire structural rigidity of a window, is pornography that affects men from young to old. not one is spared. A crack in the conscience.

Pornography, an industry that supports prostitution.
Prostitution, an industry that supports human trafficking.
Human trafficking, an industry that ends up with young women who could be your sisters forcefully taken away, beaten up, and raped, degraded, ignored and abandoned.

whats with me you might ask.
i'm asking myself this too.
why do i write this?
because it has to be written.
Something just has to be said about this wound that has been allowed to fester and grow. we have something more disastrous than global warming happening right at our door step and we don't know it.. an eroision of our hearts.

2008-11-12T16:53:00.003+08:00

Inner Scream

2008-11-11T19:04:00.002+08:00

you wana let it out,
but you just don't know what.
you feel like you're gona expload for a moment,
and then u feel ok. like nothing's ever happened.
a comparison, followed by
a disappointment.

Whats worth brooding over?
What's worth competing for?
Envy leads men to build great things.
Everything is meaningless.

Everyone will die.

What we've been working to build up in our lives will be handed on to the next generation..
is number one everything?
there are so many people aiming for one spot.
Just one spot..
If life is like this.. then life is pointless.

Why is it when we are children we never care about such things?

my heart is stirred.
by something i do not comprehend.
I'm unbalanced for now..
wondering why i feel unbalanced in the first place..

I feel out of place so often.
somehow.. it just don't feel right.

perhaps now.. i just need to be alone.
hearing people commenting about how they need to be better in their school work.. need to study.. blabla.. somehow turns me off.. somehow makes me feel like running in the exact opposite direction..

somehow part of me always tries to runaway from whatever the crowd is doing. its been a while since i've had these kind of moments where i really pause and wonder.. what the heck am i now.. now.. i still don't know.. i do know though that i belong to Jesus. Its hard to admit it and just say it out loud sometimes. Sounds so cliche.. sounds so.. zealotish.. sounds so cheesy.. its weird.. why i should feel this way.. especially knowing when people who may not know God would read a post like this.

Its specially hard when we are alone.. among non-christian friends. THe word Jesus is a landmine.. you don't know if it would explode or not. There really is power in that name. Try explaining this.. Why Jesus above all names has been the object of ridicule and mockery for so many movies? Why don't people yell.. "Buddha!" when something bad happens? Why just "Jesus Christ"? Just that name causes so much controversy.
Why not a common name like... Edward.. or Matthew or.. some Chinese like Confucious? Or Muhammad or Gopal. It just has to be that name..

As in most of my posts i don't have any intention behind writing all these.. or maybe i subconsciously have some motives. its just been a while since i've had this urge to write .. and do a verbal diahorroeah.

My blog is for me.

And generally i write anything that comes into my mind.

when i see people discuss about.. how capitalism is not producing any of the sweet promises it claims. i wonder whats the point in that..
People already know how it works. A necessary evil maybe?.. if you cut down the weeds with the grain,, you lose the harvest. So.. jjust wait till harvest time.. the weeds will be weeded out.

All the talk.. about.. how this is wrong.. and that is wrong..
is that all necessary now? Yes, there is value when we need to bring justice to the evil, the wicked..
What really is necessary?..
is the important question..
a question that will determine our fate for eternity.
Better is one day in your courts, then a thousands elsewhere.

i'm thinking of doing something i've just thought of ..

2008-11-02T23:07:00.002+08:00

it came to my mind while i was talking to marc on the way home from church today in Korea.
i was thinking about the power of verbalization.. the power of imprinting a deeper and clearer impression on yourself. a step to remembering things better.

quote of the day.. " sometimes,it isn't just the thought that counts, do it like you mean it" -anonymous-

lessons in life

2008-11-02T23:01:00.002+08:00

things i learn the most aren't in books.
things i learn and enjoy learning most are from friends.
thing that i wana really learn.. is to use my 2 ears well

Looking back

2008-10-10T01:39:00.002+08:00

i think its always good to look back at my blog and the pictures i've posted..
i was looking through all the pics i took with Eve, my friends, my pti friends.. Church friends.. and suddenly i feel like.. i've come such a long way..
so many things have happened..
now i'm in Korea on a student exchange program in architecture.
and i'm 23 years old.
older than i was 5 years ago.
My name is richard.
my blog posts now compared to last time are like.. so much shorter.
times have changed i think.
its so interesting to think about how far i've come since i was a child..
who are the friends who are still close to me?
who are my new friends?
then i realize also how long i've been together with Eve.
The little precious gem who has always been by my side.
though she maybe a little hmm.. more chunky than she was last time..
but we 've been together for 3 years and a closing to 4 years together.
i've never really understood how long 3 years was.
so many memories..
so many different hairstyles.
I think i've really been blessed through the years.
especially when i look at my blog..
its more for me than for anyone else...
a visual diary..
of things and thoughts that cross my mind..
i doubt i'd be bothered to read my ultra long and probably childish and emo thoughts.
i get goose bumps just trying to read some of my early blog posts..
squeemish in fact.
BuT i realize how mjuch i've changed since then..
for the better.:)
thankfully.

and yeah.. suddenly i feel the urge to do proper blog posts once again :)

when i look at my counter.. and i see.. the total number of times people viewed this site .. about 9000 times.. i think back in amazement...wow... thats quite alot.. for a nobody like me.

anyways..
korea is nice..
i'm missing home.
and mjy friends in singapore..
and i'm missing Eve .
wish she could be here with me in Korea...
land of the couples..
i've been here for close to 3 months..
so far i've spent under 2 k.
which is pretty reasonable i think :)
i've got pictures of my family pasted infront of my desk.
i treasure them.
love them so much..

Thank God for all of them.
people who made an impact on me and taught me things.
feeling nostalgic and emotionally high. :)

awake in the morning at ansang campus

2008-09-10T07:45:00.003+08:00

i'm awake. feeling somehow that i should be doing work but i'm not.
not a nice feeling. like an invisible pressure..
i'm supposed to have done my history assignment.. its crappily done because i just copy and pasted the qn from my dear friend wiki.

wiki.. a convenient source of information .. so conveniently irritating because it also is a convenient source of information for many other students.. which does not make it an exclusive information source.. but the information there really is good.
better than most information you can find online.
wiki.. a bane or boon?

well. its time to do my quiet time b4 i study.
take care of yourself ok darling?

In korea

2008-08-29T11:59:00.002+08:00

i'm now in Korea. At Ansan campus at Hanyang University.
i'm going to leave my room soon. the room number is really nice and easy to remember. room 456.
in front of my laptop are pictures of my family, my dad and me when i was just a baby.

its a rare chance that i am alone in my room.
and i think it is good that i have time alone.
i enjoy such moments because they are times of rest.
I can be with my father in heaven.
and it is exciting what He has revealed to me over just these two days.

so far i'm really enjoying my stay in Korea.

although at home.. Eveleen, and yaosheng and everyone else is studying and working real hard.. my family.. my dad n mom. my younger sis who just started her school in laselle.
Everyone seems to be having it normal.. and mundane..
i wonder sometimes.. what did i do to deserve this good time.. this time of relaxation and rest while everyone else around seems to be working so hard.

i thank God for He really has blessed me.
Its not like i am worthy of his blessings.
its just that he loves me soo much. Thats why.

like i said..
i enjoy having time to myself.
not that i want to be alone.
or that i'm a loner.
its just that after all the activity.. travelling all over seoul.. when i can just sit down and be by myself and with God.. not really talking to anybody.. just walking around by myself..
not caring how i should behave...
i feel free and alive.

i don't feel like a foreigner in Korea.
perhaps thats what i really like.

God i wana thank you . and ask that you take care of everyone back in Singapore.
thank you for being so patient with me.

ok. i should b headed for lunch now :)

Emo time over!

love is.

2008-08-27T00:15:00.002+08:00

its been a long day.
and i have been feeling really sleepy.
dear though u may have pimples u are pretty. though u may not think u are something, i still love u.
take care always honey.
and i love u

the due post

2008-08-06T21:19:00.002+08:00

ive not blogged here in a while.
N some people have been complaining that i don't blog about "HER". that some people is actually one person.
to the little cute nongst who makes me smile.. whose cute and piercing voice screams into the mike when i'm sleepy on the webcam.. this post is for u and u alone.
the girl who can make me laugh just by being herself cuz she is so cute.
pretty princess when she is sleeping. talkative little monster when awake..
i actually posted one blog about her.. but it was gone.. no idea why.

She'll b coming over in december..
it will be fun.. i can finaly hold her hand.. and hug her again.
:) Meanwhile keep fit in Singapore and may God be with u always in Australia, in Korea, in Singapore.

Sarang heyo
I love you Eveleen Sng.

2008-08-04T09:15:00.003+08:00

people don't appreciate a picture till they see themselves in it
-richard yew-

2008-07-20T01:05:00.002+08:00

i feel tired..
these past few days are really quite something..
i feel happy.. as i've told Eve n Yaosh..
that i've got friends.
not that many that i can boast about.
but i feel blessed because i have people around me who care and support me and encourage me.
so .. i want to thank everyone who has made me feel so special before i go Korea..
:)

Thanks and thanks:)

*happy*

*sleeps*

its been a while

2008-07-09T16:40:00.002+08:00

its been a while since i last blogged.
i'm back from thailand bangkok. And what can i say i enjoyed myself :) like jint said, its quite surprising that i don't really feel the jet lag.. its as though i've taken a trip to pulau tekong and back.. you don't really feel the distance travelled.

a 2hr plane ride.. and.. lots of money spent...
its scary how fast money gets spent.. even in thailand..
the things are cheap.. but still.. u gota bargain for it..
and i am not cut out for such bargaining..
for one.. i'm the kind who is willing to pay more for something i like. and.. bargaining for one or two dollars less seems.. a little redundant ...
considering you are already getting and 80% discount from most singapore prices for shirts, food, sunglasses..

i've been also taking pictures like crazy...
really... loads of pics..

watched the thai girl show . Calypso at our hotel ; asia hotel.
watched men who become girls dance.

no matter how hard i try to look.. they still are guys... when they start talking and moving.. their gait... their face shape..their smaller hip to waist ratio.. their broader shoulders still resembles a mans slightly. there are traces. slight but undeniable.. and this is despite their aggressive attempts to become as feminine as possible..the fake boobs. the choreographed sway of the hands.. and calculated movements that men regard as 'womanly'.everything about them is appearance.. observing these men just a little more reveals all that they are not. they are not women.

i felt an instinctive uneasiness throughout the whole show.. it just was so wrong.
i don't know why.. but.. instinctively.. it was revolting.. seeing men.. flashing their artificial tits.. it was like an insult to the woman's body. however seamless the breasts seem to fit these trannies, the word fake ultimately diffuses to the minds of the audience as they watch the thai girl show. Consciously.. and subconsciously.. revolt.. as men attempt to be something entirely different from who they are supposed to be.. pity.. and.. disgust for these people coexist at the same time. They are a figment of the fantasies of men. Created for a show. The perfect man is not a man. it is woman.

they claim they are what they chose to be..
some of them have done so much plastic surgery that they cannot even smile naturally.. its as though they are smiling through a mask..
underneath the thick makeup.. these men are still unable to remove the imperfections on their face.. upon closer inspection the flaws on their face only show how human they are. the pock marks.. the rough skin on their face..

they can only do so much about their appearance.
but the problem lies in the belief that their appearance is who these men are.
however warped this ideal is.. these men believe it to be true.

i can only stand back and look.. and wonder why or how it has come to these. that a man should abandon his identity for something less..

who am i ?

not many really know the answer to this..
how such a simple question of sexuality has become a complicated struggle for self identity. no one can justify why he is a man or a woman. he just is.

its amazing... how when told enough times... anyone can be convinced that shit is gold and vice versa.

are we all settling for what the world says is in demand and giving up a joy that truly is worth much more than gold?

Of course i'm talking about Jesus.

religion does not equate to Christianity as many people think.its a relationship. Does a mans clothes make him more of a man in the midst of a hurricane?
does a label or a lifestyle dictate that one man is greater over another?
does knowing more make a professor more of a man than a little child?

communism attempts to absolve this stupidity. Democracy strives for himself. Religion
dictates that you have to be good enough for heaven.
But none of them have really answered the question to why men can't live without war, strife..

what i'm trying to get at is that there is no institute that man has come up with that really made the whole world a better place.

even as i write all these.. i'm wondering who am i to write all these down.. what am i trying to say.
i don't know. its just that i see too many discrepencies with the world.. to trust that there is such a thing as a self made man..

ok.. i feel that i've no more juice to think..

anyways.. i'll put up pics from the thailand trip..
and.. gosh.. i hope i've got space for all the pics...
:)

Thanks ...
Jint, MarKus, Ah Loong, DZ, Yings, yumei...
really enjoyed myself.
even though i worried so much about even being able to go to bangkok at all and enjoy myself.. he irony is that i probably spent the most there too...
you only get to do things so many times.. so...
make the most of it.

HEhe.. anywyas.. now that i'm back in singapore.. its time to unpack.. and be santa claus to the people around me..
slowly.. but surely.. i realize.. how much i need the help of people around me to succeed.

i simply cannot survive on my own.
i'm glad God has placed friends in my life who really care.

i'm comforted that i've a circle of friends who see the stupidity of the world and its superficiality.. the disgusting aspect of business that degrades the whole art of designing architecture. architecture no longer is architecture but a whim.

food for thought

2008-07-03T06:26:00.002+08:00

i just thought about it..

i'm always fashionable because i follow my own sense of fashion.

and i like the thought of it..

sometimes thoughts are meant to be indulged

my thoughts with regard to the earlier post about google making us stupid

2008-07-03T00:29:00.002+08:00

i think its not just google that is causing us to have a lack of focus and concentrated..
much of our concentration is to dispersed... the myriad of channels on TV..
yes.. they are good.. but.. how much do we cling on to that information?

i agree when the article mentions that our concentration becomes pathetic..
and we are not only what we read but how we read..
i remember being able to read a book or a novel that was 1000 pages. now.. i get by with just 1 chapter..
i could be absorbed in a book.. flipping page after page.. even forgetting dinner..
no way that i could do that now.

images capture and convey more than ever.. however.. because there are too many images.. we aren't given sufficient time to appreciate every picture.
The composition... the subject.. the expression.. details...

now.. just an overview is needed.. no need to be indepth.. why? because people wouldn't really have the time anyway to really understand and comprehend the thoughts behind a piece of work...
with that being said.. there are so many things in this world that steal our time and attention..

but i've just been pondering over this question.. what deserves our attention?
is it the PSP? an inanimate object? or the father or mother next to you.. the brother sleeping beside you..

each man has a limited amount of time..
i went to gym with ilango, vic and jason today. on the way back.. ilango was adamently demanding why the singaporean system recognizes people who are book smart and neglects those who may not be as book smart but are EQ smaart..
is it because there are too many smart people?

people can't be bothered to take the time to screen the people and look at their hearts instead of the paper which represents them..

although it is resentful and detestable that a piece of paper justifies our worth in monetary value, thats the way the world works..

people like Ilango still have fire which i admire in them.. the defiance to look for their own opportunities and the wisdom to say no to the system. the inhuman system that dictates that without education you are nothing. a system which says that you deserve to be rewarded based on how hard you work.

anyone knows that this is not true.

everyone believes that to survive you have to be cunning. ruthless. merciless. lying..
no one really cares much about their own dignity.. and they are willing to lie at a moments notice so that things would turn out the way they want it to.

i find it painful and heart wrenching when i think about this.
more so because of the fact that i feel powerless to change this system , a great wheel that has been set in motion.

But greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.

May i cling to this hope. and cling to what man call foolishness...
this hope that doing the right thing is more important that doing the thing that feels right.
a greater destiny and painful path face those who dare consider this..

i .

want to be able to walk this path.

God.. though i know i'm not able.. i think you are.
but it is not enough to just think you are able to help me..
but help me "KNOW" that you can..

i'm feeling kind of trodden. with the sudden avalanche of events happening that i've never foreseen. all demanding my attention. i feel so stretched now.. my time suddenly feels too little..
i've never really been awaree of this aspect of my time..
sudddenly when i'm going to leave singapore for thailand and korea.... suddenly... i've discovered there are is so much unfinished business..
makes me feel so stressed and burdened.. i just wana shout.. and sleep and shut everything off..
but it dosn't help me at all knowing that i can't just bury my head in the sand and wish my troubles away..
i need someone to carry me now.

and that someone.. is u
My God. My Jesus..
the faithful to the faithless

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

2008-07-03T00:27:00.000+08:00

From Atlantic Monthly

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?" So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial »

brain. "Dave, my mind is going," HAL says, forlornly. "I can feel it. I can feel it."

I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn't going—so far as I can tell—but it's changing. I'm not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I'm reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what's going on. For more than a decade now, I've been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I've got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I'm not working, I'm as likely as not to be foraging in the Web's info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they're sometimes likened, hyperlinks don't merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they've been widely described and duly applauded. "The perfect recall of silicon memory," Wired's Clive Thompson
has written, "can be an enormous boon to thinking." But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I'm not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they're having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon.
Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. "I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader," he wrote. "What happened?" He speculates on the answer: "What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I'm just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?"

Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. "I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print," he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a "staccato" quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. "I can't read War and Peace anymore," he admitted. "I've lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it."

Anecdotes alone don't prove much. And we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition. But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think. As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited "a form of skimming activity," hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they'd already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would "bounce" out to another site. Sometimes they'd save a long article, but there's no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it. The authors of the study report:

It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of "reading" are emerging as users "power browse" horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. "We are not only what we read," says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. "We are how we read." Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts "efficiency" and "immediacy" above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become "mere decoders of information." Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It's not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains. Experiments demonstrate that readers of ideograms, such as the Chinese, develop a mental circuitry for reading that is very different from the circuitry found in those of us whose written language employs an alphabet. The variations extend across many regions of the brain, including those that govern such essential cognitive functions as memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.

Sometime in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter—a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, to be precise. His vision was failing, and keeping his eyes focused on a page had become exhausting and painful, often bringing on crushing headaches. He had been forced to curtail his writing, and he feared that he would soon have to give it up. The typewriter rescued him, at least for a time. Once he had mastered touch-typing, he was able to write with his eyes closed, using only the tips of his fingers. Words could once again flow from his mind to the page.

But the machine had a subtler effect on his work. One of Nietzsche's friends, a composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic.
"Perhaps you will through this instrument even take to a new idiom," the friend wrote in a letter, noting that, in his own work, his "'thoughts' in music and language often depend on the quality of pen and paper."

"You are right," Nietzsche replied, "our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." Under the sway of the machine, writes the German media scholar Friedrich A. Kittler, Nietzsche's prose "changed from arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns, from rhetoric to telegram style."

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable. People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by the time we reached adulthood. But brain researchers have discovered that that's not the case. James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, says that even the adult mind "is very plastic." Nerve cells routinely break old connections and form new ones. "The brain," according to Olds, "has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions."

As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our "intellectual technologies"—the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies. The mechanical clock, which came into common use in the 14th century, provides a compelling example. In Technics and Civilization, the historian and cultural critic Lewis Mumford described how the clock "disassociated time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences." The "abstract framework of divided time" became "the point of reference for both action and thought."

The clock's methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. But it also took something away. As the late MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum observed in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, the conception of the world that emerged from the widespread use of timekeeping instruments "remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality." In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.

The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating "like clockwork." Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating "like computers." But the changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to our brain's plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level.

The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition. In a paper published in 1936, the British mathematician Alan Turing proved that a digital computer, which at the time existed only as a theoretical machine, could be programmed to perform the function of any other information-processing device. And that's what we're seeing today. The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It's becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV.

When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net's image. It injects the medium's content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we're glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper's site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

The Net's influence doesn't end at the edges of a computer screen, either. As people's minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience's new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets. When, in March of this year, TheNew York Times decided to devote the second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director, Tom Bodkin, explained that the "shortcuts" would give harried readers a quick "taste" of the day's news, sparing them the "less efficient" method of actually turning the pages and reading the articles. Old media have little choice but to play by the new-media rules.

Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that's been written about the Net, there's been little consideration of how, exactly, it's reprogramming us. The Net's intellectual ethic remains obscure.

About the same time that Nietzsche started using his typewriter, an earnest young man named Frederick Winslow Taylor carried a stopwatch into the Midvale Steel plant in Philadelphia and began a historic series of experiments aimed at improving the efficiency of the plant's machinists. With the approval of Midvale's owners, he recruited a group of factory hands, set them to work on various metalworking machines, and recorded and timed their every movement as well as the operations of the machines. By breaking down every job into a sequence of small, discrete steps and then testing different ways of performing each one, Taylor created a set of precise instructions—an "algorithm," we might say today—for how each worker should work. Midvale's employees grumbled about the strict new regime, claiming that it turned them into little more than automatons, but the factory's productivity soared.

More than a hundred years after the invention of the steam engine, the Industrial Revolution had at last found its philosophy and its philosopher. Taylor's tight industrial choreography—his "system," as he liked to call it—was embraced by manufacturers throughout the country and, in time, around the world. Seeking maximum speed, maximum efficiency, and maximum output, factory owners used time-and-motion studies to organize their work and configure the jobs of their workers. The goal, as Taylor defined it in his celebrated 1911 treatise, The Principles of Scientific Management, was to identify and adopt, for every job, the "one best method" of work and thereby to effect "the gradual substitution of science for rule of thumb throughout the mechanic arts." Once his system was applied to all acts of manual labor, Taylor assured his followers, it would bring about a restructuring not only of industry but of society, creating a utopia of perfect efficiency. "In the past the man has been first," he declared; "in the future the system must be first."

Taylor's system is still very much with us; it remains the ethic of industrial manufacturing. And now, thanks to the growing power that computer engineers and software coders wield over our intellectual lives, Taylor's ethic is beginning to govern the realm of the mind as well. The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the "one best method"—the perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we've come to describe as "knowledge work."

Google's headquarters, in Mountain View, California—the Googleplex—is the Internet's high church, and the religion practiced inside its walls is Taylorism. Google, says its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, is "a company that's founded around the science of measurement," and it is striving to "systematize everything" it does. Drawing on the terabytes of behavioral data it collects through its search engine and other sites, it carries out thousands of experiments a day, according to the Harvard Business Review, and it uses the results to refine the algorithms that increasingly control how people find information and extract meaning from it. What Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind.

The company has declared that its mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." It seeks to develop "the perfect search engine," which it defines as something that "understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want." In Google's view, information is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can "access" and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers.

Where does it end? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gifted young men who founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer science at Stanford, speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains. "The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people—or smarter," Page said in a speech a few years back. "For us, working on search is a way to work on artificial intelligence." In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin said, "Certainly if you had all the world's information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you'd be better off." Last year, Page told a convention of scientists that Google is "really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale."

Such an ambition is a natural one, even an admirable one, for a pair of math whizzes with vast quantities of cash at their disposal and a small army of computer scientists in their employ. A fundamentally scientific enterprise, Google is motivated by a desire to use technology, in Eric Schmidt's words, "to solve problems that have never been solved before," and artificial intelligence is the hardest problem out there. Why wouldn't Brin and Page want to be the ones to crack it?

Still, their easy assumption that we'd all "be better off" if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google's world, the world we enter when we go online, there's little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.

The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network's reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It's in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.

Maybe I'm just a worrywart. Just as there's a tendency to glorify technological progress, there's a countertendency to expect the worst of every new tool or machine. In Plato's
Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue's characters, "cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful." And because they would be able to "receive a quantity of information without proper instruction," they would "be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant." They would be "filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom." Socrates wasn't wrong—the new technology did often have the effects he feared—but he was shortsighted. He couldn't foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).

The arrival of Gutenberg's printing press, in the 15th century, set off another round of teeth gnashing. The Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico worried that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men "less studious" and weakening their minds. Others argued that cheaply printed books and broadsheets would undermine religious authority, demean the work of scholars and scribes, and spread sedition and debauchery. As New York University professor Clay Shirky notes, "Most of the arguments made against the printing press were correct, even prescient." But, again, the doomsayers were unable to imagine the myriad blessings that the printed word would deliver.

So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism. Perhaps those who dismiss critics of the Internet as Luddites or nostalgists will be proved correct, and from our hyperactive, data-stoked minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom. Then again, the Net isn't the alphabet, and although it may replace the printing press, it produces something altogether different. The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author's words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.

If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with "content," we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what's at stake:

I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and "cathedral-like" structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the "instantly available."

As we are drained of our "inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance," Foreman concluded, we risk turning into "'pancake people'—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button."

I'm haunted by that scene in 2001. What makes it so poignant, and so weird, is the computer's emotional response to the disassembly of its mind: its despair as one circuit after another goes dark, its childlike pleading with the astronaut—"I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm afraid"—and its final reversion to what can only be called a state of innocence. HAL's outpouring of feeling contrasts with the emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they're following the steps of an algorithm. In the world of 2001, people have become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine. That's the essence of Kubrick's dark prophecy: as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.

Lunch with Dad

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MY siblings

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Terry

me n my sis

Chicken Rice

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More pics of the house at Kembangan.. which we eventually didnt' buy

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House at Kembangan

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at the house at kembangan.. but in the end we didn't buy it

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Bye bye Year 2 studio.. HELLO KOREA!!!

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when people give you stares like these.. you just feel unwanted..

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THese were taken on the last day of year 2 sem 2 :(

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will miss you room!

Don't take me when i'm gruMPY!

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besides me lies the biggest worm in the world

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Darling and mE :)

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how i look like when i am EMO..

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Kensington park

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My brother and Xin Yi

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It seems like ages ago since i took this pic.. so much has happened since then

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the only thing that she likes about my school is the pull up bar...

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This is Eveleen. probably one of the most interesting girl i know

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stylo MILO!!

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SMC drumlets

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Richard

Jeremy Chia

Matthew Yong (King BOss)

THe drUmleTS

Drumlets

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Michelle

Clara

Simon AKA Boss

Jeremy Wong

The sky is as beautiful in singapore as it is in everywhere else in the world.

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Singapore from my apartment balcony

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This is the pic Erik took of me! :)

studio 10 & 11 outing with Erik :)

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supper club

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more pics.

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arki

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Jint n kai Lun at my place before we went for chia ling's archi party

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12 may micro blades.. lovely.

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Next time i go fish and co.. i'll just eat new york fish n chips.. wow. the rest are really filling!

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fish N Co with my brother and sisters at Parkway parade :) lovely

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JIAM 2008. Japan international apparel machinery trade show

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The Stitch Times

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carls junior at star bucks

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YUMYUMYUM

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onion rings!

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Before meeting for newsletter team

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Old lady who can do flash step at Vivo

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Expo MRT

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Mr Anurag Swarup :) worked for him at expo :) interesting

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agApe Youth Musicians

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The Agape Youth :)

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worship for youth service on the 18th of may

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Admiring my Micro Sp500 blades. Bought on 18 may? 2008

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through the looking glass

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At home in the morning

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Timothy.. the dog my mom spoils

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Timothy

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Jint Vs DeZhi

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Jint

Fabian

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Dezhi

Kai Loong

Mark

Ying Ying

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dinner at.. Waraku.!

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Sho-U is a jap restaurant designed by Colin Seah, one of the Archi year one tutors :)

through the tunnels to central mall

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