hello world

yup, i haven't blogged in a while. been working on a few things here in beijing during my free time from work, including a wikipedia article about my dad! i'm quite proud of it (just google my dad's name) but i've been hard pressed getting secondary sources to prove that the article is worthy of inclusion in wikipedia... well, that's all i wanna say now. gonna fry or microwave some chicken i bought, then shower, then fetch candice back from the gym. goodnight, world.

China experience: day 40-something out of 70

marble arch

listening to "hallelujah" bu rufus wainwright.

it's an amazing song; so many meanings to it. it's one of those songs that can either make you feel like holding your head high, or feel like crying.

reading in beijing

my two books from amazon.com have arrived!! a terry pratchett book and a mathematics book :) shows how varied my reading interests are huh?

they don't believe in learning on the job

so there are now three interns in my team. one of them is new (she only came in last week), and there's a beijing resident who's an undergrad from a canaian uni who's been here 6 weeks, and then there's myself, who's been here 5.

they're sending us for a 3-day training next week. like... what? they're sending me for training, after which i'll only have 3 weeks left with the company? it's hilarious :) big waste of their resources...

:)

China experience: day 37 of 70

both sides now, again

i just watched the "love, actually" scene where the president's wife just finds out that her husband was cheating on her. really really love the whole scene. it's like, "here i am, this innocent, sweet, kind housemaker, who never suspected my spouse of doing anything like this behind my back. and yet..."

cracking into mars

i've been following the phoenix mission on mars, and read a funny line from one of the news websites:

"After trying to crack further into it, the arm became immobilized, which is the expected programmed reaction for when it hits a hard surface."

:)

god and science

i've always felt that given enough time, physics will one day show itself to be linked to christianity. it's a sneaking suspicion that has shaped a lot of my personal decisions.

i've known since very early on that there is definitely something beyond the material world. i've seen far too much - from the possibly mundane, like events too coincidental to be true, to the possibly explainable, like prophets who literally saw into my life, to the shocking, like demonic manifestations.

all the evidence i've seen has kept me stuck to christianity because it is the only supernatural belief system that is, as far as i know, coherent and makes sense within itself. that's just my opinion... but opinions are the basis of faith.

but while i believe strongly in the supernatural, i also have a great interest in the natural world, especially physics. to me, physics is the most fundamental of the sciences because it explores the smallest (photons and such), the largest (the universe as a whole), the earliest (the birth of time), and the latest (the end of the universe). and all the study is guided by scientific principles, where theories and laws are built on concrete proof and experiment.

many people feel that god and science cannot be reconciled. i understand that view. it's easy to notice that so far, god has not "appeared" out of the equations, not to mention the fact that biology as we know it does not require a divine being. but if you ask me, i'm completely fine with the fact that physics has not proven god exists even though some think we are extremely close to a complete understanding of the universe.

no one said that science has to "prove" god! i don't believe that god is so messy that he would interfere with the universe, change stuff around, or put the phrase "BELIEVE IN ME" in some equation, just to prove to us humans that he is real. i believe that god is not someone who needs to prove himself. he told us in the bible, why show miracles? why give a sign?

i believe that by the mere nature of science and the laws he created for our universe, god has already revealed himself. one of the most "miraculous" things about physics, to me, is that it is even understand, and that it is neat (or elegant). when you see that the fundamental particles in the universe can be categorized into neat groups that are related with equally-neat mathematical equations, you wonder why, ask yourself is there more to discover, and wonder what the big picture is.

our understanding of the universe is now that of a few understandable and implausibly elegant theories. each theory explains a large range of observation. for example one simple equation (the einstein equation - not e=mc2, the other one) governs gravity, the expansion of the universe, and etc.

one great thing about physics is that the theories can be unified. in other words, as scientists get better at understanding the world, they often realize that the equations of 2 or 3 or 4 theories are actually the same thing, expressed differently in different circumstances. so physicists are slowly cutting down the number of theories.

today, we are left with two basic theories that no one has managed to combine - general relativity (governs the very big) and quantum theory (governs the very small), and scientists believe that we are very closely to coming up with one single theory that explains everything in the universe.

what does this have to do with god? why does it matter since science is already showing god? it matters because physics categorises our understanding of nature. with a final theory, we shall find out how the universe as a whole is organized, maybe even how the universe began. with that, we shall see the hand the made the initial push to begin the universe, and we shall see a complete picture of the heart and mind that went into creation.

so if physics is allowed to advance far enough, we will see the hand, heart and mind of god. yes, it is possible for me to return to a path towards physics research. it may be a difficult journey should i leave the beaten road and head down that path, but i'm keeping that option open. *wink*

orange thing + about work

there's a budak pantai song playing in my head... fann's song. i've always wondered why they called it that. anyway...

i have the spore creature creator! it lets you create almost any creature you can imagine. start with a spine, add limbs and parts, paint the thing. it's serious fun, although i might get bored of the concept soon heh. that thing below is one of the first things i made :)



work has been getting more interesting. i suppose the team trusts me more, so they've been giving me more to do. for instance, i now know how to use the company printers, fax machines, photocopiers and scanners! and scanning is really fun hurhur. oh and of course i've also been doing the standard stuff like checking figures, tallying reports and so on :)

and there's a new intern in my team, which makes 3 of us. quite funny cos when the team heard that there was a female intern coming, the ladies got pretty excited for the guys in the team...

anyway, time to sleep. miss you all!

China experience: day 32 (i think) of 70

flying without wings

i suddenly thought of the phrase. was it from a song?

and i'm suddenly wondering about myself. i think i'm a strange person. i like seeing new places, but i miss home a lot. i like being with people, but i don't like crowds. i like familiar situations, but..... whatever.

thinking about that beach again... will be nice if i dream of it. goodnight...

a little fall of rain

spore!

ok i've been itching to get spore. what's spore? if you haven't heard of it you must be uninterested in astronomy, cosmology, and strategy games :)

imagine a function 3-D model of a whole galaxy, complete with stars, black holes, nebulae, planets and quasars, right in your desktop, and being able to explore every one of the 5 million solar systems modeled in the galaxy. and throw in the ability to create content, all the way from microscopic bugs to creatures to buildings to spaceships. and imagine that millions' of people's creations are all stored on a central server ready to the downloaded into your galaxy, for you the explore.

to me, that's not a game. that's a tool for teaching creativity, astronomy, cosmology, biology, and well the list goes on.

so if you play the game some day, and see a herd of bright orange, big-bellied, button-nosed creatures in the distance, give them a hug and check out their orange houses.

for the love of...

love music.

fields of gold, tears in heaven, glasgow love theme, both sides now, try a little tenderness.

songs that can make you think and cry and smile all at the same time.

i'm smiling now :)

where i am now

i like photos. they remind me of the journey i took to reach wherever i am now.

when i was 13 or 14 i put together an album of my most precious photos. they're still in my room somewhere, way back in singapore. this may sound weird, but that album told a 6-year-long story of my journey with my first crush through my first church.

i think i'm one of those emo people who care a million times more about relationships than career success or studies. when i look back on my short little life i think about people precious to me - my dear family and all the ups and downs we went through together, all my childhood and "teenhood" crushes that gave me the whole spectrum of emotions from hope to frustration to love and to regret, my crazy army buddies and all we went through together, and the dear friends i have walked with - the people i cried to, jumped for joy with, sang with, comforted, fell in love with, walked down the beach with, watched movies with, offered an ear to, and grew up with.

there's something lovely about seeing your life as a collection of relationships. it makes looking back like reliving every moment with each friend. but memory is like a double-edged sword because the joys are tinged with the sorrows.

not that i mind, because to have lived through a sorrow with a previous friend is better than not having had that friend at all.

i feel like i live in emotions sometimes. as if in everything i do i try affirms that i am a living, breathing human with the whole spectrum of feeling. an inexplicable joy in sorrows - filling your heart with tears knowing that they will one day rush out like a waterfall. and perhaps the sun will be up to cast a rainbow while the tears are at it.

today some of my most precious photos today were those taken at east coast with my greatest friends. it was along that beach that we walked through, together, some of the most down periods in our lives, and some of the greatest joys.

so here i am now. a people-loving bag of emotions trying to walk through the unfamiliar path of corporations and office life. it's a difficult journey in which everyday i feel more convinced that corporation-life not the future i want for myself.

you know the song "fields of gold"? really love it

China experience: day 23 of 70

wide open spaces and moisturizer

ok thought i'd put photos here tonight since it's been a little while since i last blogged :)



i had a nice walk down wangfujing some time last week. i like walking down wide open spaces - especially when it's breezey - and especially when the place is quirky haha



there's the foreign language bookstore. it has a small but nice selection of books. and it's a bit surreal to see beginner's spanish lessons... in chinese. and in the last 10mins of closing time, a really loud voice blasts on quick repeat that they're closing soon. quirky stuff. and i'm tempted to buy their whole collection of Dune... heh...



starfish, millipedes, pupa. not to mention other more gross stuff not in the picture. the funny part is watching the stall owners yell to caucasians that yes, they do have _________ (insert gross object) meat here!!!!!!



and for the first time in my life i'm taking moisturizer seriously...

China experience: day 23 of 70

poor neon things

i am running out of colourful neon post-its. bah. and they're supposed to be unavailable in this country.

in other words, probably ONLY bunch of colourful neon post-its in this country is about to be depleted. *grumbles*

and why won't photobucket work here? *double grumbles*

China experience: day {{man how may days has it been...}} of 70

a thought in the food court and korean dramas

today i noticed the sounds of the food court over lunch. it was a bustling, busy sound of hundreds of people talking, walking, eating... i got lost in it for a while, like a droplet falling into water. for a moment i felt that it would be so easy to lose myself in the hustle and bustle, so blend with the crowd, to merge into the scenery.

in fact, it's so easy to become the background, to detach myself from things and people and watch the ups and downs with the attitude that it no longer matters to me. but somehow i don't. somehow i'm here, in the midst, the one living this life, the one feeling the emotions, the once acting out the drama.

i am Prospero, needing to find strength. i am Dream, crafting my own death and denying that i am. i am Arwen, making the mortal decision. i am Death, learning about people as my apprentice ends the world. somehow we remain the protagonists of our little comedies and tragedies - ones usually made for an audience of one.

our lives really are like korean dramas. we can walk off the stage or stray from the plot anytime, but we choose to stay, acting out our little defeats and joys and victories and sorrows. perhaps this willingness to engage our emotions is what makes us human - things that laugh, cry, share, love, and hold.

bargaining and gnomes

ok so last weekend we visited Ya Show, a place supposedly famous for being a bargain haven :) i was very pleasantly surprised that it was not as crowded, noisy and stuffy as i thought it would be. in fact it was actually fun to walk around watching people bargain :)

i think i'll be a terrible bargainer... i mean these people really play with emotions. now i'm not someone who falls for the "please not so low, i need to make a profit" rubbish, but i get very affected when shop owners act hurt or angry. like omg is she *really* angry?? i better just buy it and be done with it!! haha...

and anyway i had a nice time at the place thinking of a game-theoretic approach to bargaining... maybe i'll write a book on it one day haha... and it can be my PhD thesis... The Art of Bargaining: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Making Profits by S.T. hahaha...

and in my free time i've been having a nice time fleshing out my long long "gnome" story. the (very long) history is done and, of course, full of the obligatory inconsistencies and logical fallacies of an initial draft :D i'm also been trying to write a portion of the story in dactylic hexameter (the meter of poetry used in the ancient greek epics)

pictures another time cos i'm at work now :)

China experience: day 17 of 70.

A Song on the Plain

Close your eyes and find your rest in the long refrain of the heartbroken piper and listen: as each haunting note caresses your fragile, sobbing heart like petals falling on a still, clear lake, each one hurrying ripples of change across the still waters, night falls.

Walk down the plain like a clothes-tattered vagabond as the teardrops of heaven begin cold, tentative kisses. Ones soft, others blinding, as from lovers and loves, within and without, the brush of lips removed from their meaning on your cold, trembling skin. Through leaden-step wandering and silken-hand grasps, find solace.

Shiver and hide from the winds of the plain that cut: now as a butcher, then with his knife, to your heart of hearts. Pull that comforting, worn, rain-soaked cloak around like a shield. A familiar barricade of burdensome armor from the world, its wetness clings like a lover; retreat.

Search for the song in the depths of your soul: one note and a hum and a minor-key strain, and close once again those red-tearful eyes. Now dance: so slowly in the secret ballroom of your innermost nights with a dream-partner lady so close, so tight, and smile: through tears and fears and bone-chilling cold, there was peace.