Just Pray.

I arrived in Singapore from Malaysia this sunny afternoon. Apart from the jam at JB and the radiator scare, I had quite an enjoyable ride back. I think the radiator nearly blew its stop upon reaching the causeway coz’ I was averaging 130km/h on the highway. We had to endure the sweltering heat from one end of the causeway to the other just so the car won’t “blow up”.

Church was, as usual, my most favorite time of my Sundays. Pastor Rony is really trying to drill in the importance of prayer into every lighter because he spoke of the “Conditions of Prayer” tonight. He named 8 conditions and I would like to share it with my readers.

1. Condition of God’s protective will (Our prayers will be answered at the most suitable time).
2. Condition of a clear conscience (When you pray, that is).
3. Condition of the relationship (Between you and God).
4. Condition of glorifying God.
5. Condition of praying in the name of Jesus.
6. Condition of abiding by God’s word.
7. Condition of faith and work.
8. Condition of persistence.


I will now proceed to updating my Blog for the "happening happenings" that took place for the past two days in Malacca …which I think might pose some interest to a few of you.

Day 1, Malacca.

It has really been a heart-wrenching experience just watching my grandparents so loving again. Indeed they say in times of difficulty you really learn and remember how to cherish your loved ones is true. My grandma, who is suffering from dementia, was holding the frail hands of my visibly traumatized grandfather as all of my relatives encompassed his bed; a rarity for the both of them because they’ve seldom been known to be so loving towards one another. It was a “Kodak Moment” but my “most intelligent” brother said that he didn’t think bringing the camera would be such a good idea (well, he did regret too though). Perhaps before we left Singapore he, and including myself, did not realize the seriousness of my grandpa’s condition and the gravity of the situation. My eyes were soon welded up with tears as I saw the both of them holding each other’s hands so lovingly. In fact, I think half the room had people raring to let go of those tears we found it so hard to keep from flowing.

Good to see all my uncles and aunties together again. Due to job commitments and geographical reasons, most of us have not been able to see each other very often. Despite the long period of time apart, we could feel the closeness we once shared the moment we walked into grandpa’s hospital room. The air of emotion intangibly present in the room made it easy for all of us to pick up from where we left off effortlessly. 2nd uncle lost a lot of weight thanks to Yoga but he sure hasn’t lost his ability to positively influence those around him (which I will elaborate on later). Little aunty has yet to offer me a test-drive on her Z4 while I, on the other hand, have yet to visit her shop at FEP which is closing down soon. Little uncle’s kids are looking nerdier each year (but at that age, who isn't?! haha) but he sure is generous about offering me some Oakleys from his shop (of which I have politely declined). 4th uncle, once again, never fails to impress me with his eloquence and interpersonal skills. I’m glad God gave me the opportunity to visit my very inspiring relatives once again.

Before you get the wrong idea, my grandpa isn’t gonna die or anything. You see, it was a simple operation on his gut to eliminate a simple problem. Thanks to either the incompetence or the negligence of the doctor who performed the surgery, my poor grandpa has to suffer more pain that he should. Either way, my uncles and aunties have decided on two courses of action.

1. Report him to the medical council, demand an apology, charge him for the medical bills of the second operation which failed under a private settlement.

2. Sue his pompous ass through a good Indian, litigation lawyer. This, however, is an alternative solution because getting another doctor to testify against another is difficult because it’ll be hard to find someone willing to bear witness against a fellow professional (it’s just like that, unless you’re a lawyer of course). And we can’t get the doctor whom we consulted in Singapore because of political implications. In fact, the doctor we consulted urged us against suing this Dr Chua (the fool).

We all felt that we had to take action not only because we wanted this arrogant person to learn his lesson, we also wanted to further prevent his future actions from hurting other patients. Whether he couldn’t care less or whether he was careless, he did not show any remorse or sympathy for any of my family members and my grandpa. He must have thought that we were trying to get a free-lunch out of the operation when he questioned our ability to pay the bill. Not knowing that most of my relatives could easily be more well off than he is. Nevertheless, he has to understand that no amount of money compensated can ever bring my grandpa back if he were to leave us. He has to understand that by pushing forward the operation without the knowledge of my relatives, he could easily have deprived us of last look at our grandpa alive. He did not have the basic courtesy to keep us informed or the professionalism to ask for our permission! He even had the cheek to charge my uncle for a consultation fee when he asked for an explanation. I am just tapping my fingers on the table now just to see how my uncles are gonna fix this guy good and proper.

In my opinion, he deserves it. For now I only pray that if my grandfather is in pain, Lord Jesus will relief him and if he must have pain, then I pray that the duration be shortened. Whether he stays or goes, I leave it in the almighty hands of our Lord.

Day 2

My grandfather’s condition is improving. He even had the energy to regale us grandchildren with his stories and life’s experience. Through his tales, I could tell that my grandfather was a person who took life as an adventure to be enjoyed and not a problem to be solved. Even in times as such, he is optimistic of his recovery. Even if he goes, he claims that he knows he has accomplished enough to say that he has not wasted a lifetime. He also awed us with his memories and accounts of Africa and the Taj Mahal. Before this, I didn’t even know that you could see a visible line separating the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean from the southern tip of Africa. Apparently, different oceans have different properties, that is why one is darker than the other and you can thus see color differences. His journeys made us salivate with the desire to travel and motivated us to work harder in life.

My relatives had a meeting with the doctor today. I decided not to follow and stayed behind with my grandfather together with my cousins and some aunties because I did not want to undermine the credibility of the group since I had zilch to contribute anyway (let the old people handle this one); notwithstanding the fact that I would have very much liked to see what transpires from the meeting.

After the meeting, I could tell that the doctor’s attitude problem noticeably and, not to mention, surprisingly disappeared (I wonder why). A few things happened from the meeting I think we could use to incriminate him if we deem necessary.

1. He showed us a VCD of the operation and believes that it will exonerate him. On the contrary, my relatives disagreed and think it’ll only get him into bigger trouble.

2. He admitted that he had been careless and promises that he will not be so cavalier in future towards other patients. My uncle thought Dr Chua was precociously adorable when he resembled a little boy confessing his mistakes. Evidently, he was beginning to crack.

3. My dad asked him a simple question, “What would you do if an accountant did a statement of account wrongly and asked you to pay for the time he takes to make the corrections? Would you pay for the second time since he needed to make corrections?” He meekly replied, “No.” He then linked that analogy with our situation and indicated politely that we, like any other sensible person, do not wish to pay for the second operation.

We have really got this Dr Chua by the “short and curly” this time (which means by the balls).

Day 3

Further probing into the details allowed us to discover even more alarming information. It was initially discovered, in an x-ray done prior to the operation, that a bullet-shaped object was found somewhere in the intestine. Instead of immediately doing a biopsy, the doctor proceeded with the operation as if he could tell whether the object was cancerous just by looking at it. It is entirely absurd to say that with the naked eye, one could tell whether it is malignant or benign.

We will continue to seek our Singaporean doctor, whose reputation spreads across both countries (even Dr Chua knows him) for his expert opinion this week again.

Meantime, it's a long drive back to Singapore.

Sentosa's Sakae Sushi - Highly Recommended. If you're driving, go on weekdays. 

Lions roar once again.

What joy it brings to me to be able to see Singapore soccer team in one of the pinnacles of Asia’s soccer scene once again. Our team’s years of hard work and determination to build a team of quality and zest persevered throughout the years of skepticism and doubt from their very own country. In retrospect, I think all those criticisms and disbeliefs for the national team only further reinforced the player’s resolve to make Singapore proud again and prove the critics wrong. Without which they may and may not have won the Tiger Cup again. Let those people who doubted the abilities of their very own countrymen eat their words for now.

Apart from the packed stadium, vibrant atmosphere and the air of nostalgia, coming back to the National Stadium to watch a soccer match once again was to be much less enjoyable if it weren't for the good company, good food (KFC, Macs, beat that) and a sublime performance from our boys. I couldn’t have asked for more. What made my blood boil though was the poor management of the queue for the food stall during the half-time break. Not only did the vendors not refuse to serve those who cut queue, they did not make an effort to give priority to those who took the effort to queue. At one point in time, people who were in the queue started to cut queue as well because those people surrounding the stall got their stuff much quicker than those who were in the queue! I felt idiotic just standing in a queue that was hardly moving. Almost the equivalent to a night at Mambo.

In the afternoon, I had a soccer match at a pitch where I used to play at during my secondary school days. Somehow, I tend to enjoy playing at that pitch regardless of its condition. No fights or quarrels this time. Played with a bunch of Thai construction workers whom we initially thought would give us a good lashing. To our surprise, we were leading by two goals at first then got complacent and ended the game 3-3. All of them weren’t wearing any shin guards and when they kicked us with their shins (shins which I felt were more suitable for Thai boxing...) our shins hurt even though we wore pads. It was a good game and I enjoyed it coz’ it was such a challenge.

“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31

Warming up those smiles for what was to come during the celebrations later.... 

My prediction of the aggregate before the game..... yeah right. 

Scrabble at Brenda's place. Singlish style. 

Presenting the new Mac Mini. Gotta get this one. 

MSN Messenger.

A conversation I had with my friend from the Philipines...

panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
I STUPID
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
I MOP PLOORS.
AbsolutelyDennis says:
haha
AbsolutelyDennis says:
maria
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
yes marm
AbsolutelyDennis says:
oei!
AbsolutelyDennis says:
didnt i tell u marm is for woman?
AbsolutelyDennis says:
sir is for man?
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
marm this sunday can i go lucky plaza marm?
AbsolutelyDennis says:
cannot
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
i promise u marm i clean the windows and mop the ploors
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
BUT WHY?!
AbsolutelyDennis says:
you'll start flirting with those construction workers again
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
no marm
AbsolutelyDennis says:
and bring home baby
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
i wont marm
AbsolutelyDennis says:
yes you will
AbsolutelyDennis says:
last time our neighbour saw you smooching indian man
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
noooo
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
not indian marm
AbsolutelyDennis says:
now you want fillipino?
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
my man is bery handsum marm
AbsolutelyDennis says:
must be chinese then
AbsolutelyDennis says:
or gay
AbsolutelyDennis says:
but still cannot
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
u so bad marm
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
i jump down?
AbsolutelyDennis says:
and u better wash the car tomorrow
AbsolutelyDennis says:
or i burn you with iron and kettle
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
hahahah
panadol whore-coughin my damn lungs out. says:
walau i pity ur future helper

Do women have a distinct nature?

Forgive me for I haven’t been able to find proper time to fill in any readable contents because I have been rather busy with homework. But I thought that if I wrote so much for philosophy and nothing here then it would be being unfair to Blog (shit, that is so gay). So due to my perpetual laziness, I will just pick an excerpt from my project and place it here so it won’t be wasted. As a result, I have chosen a part in which some of us may be interested to have a read.

“…..some traits that women lacked of men were exposed as pseudo-scientific rationalizations of cultural prejudices. Every individual is different from each other in an assortment of ways. There are indeed certain traits more present in each sex such as men being more prepared for aggressiveness and women having a greater need to be close to people. However, empiricist bias makes it very difficult to determine a relationships for these discovery because there will always be the occurrence of exceptions. There are specific and variable human behavioral traits which are clearly under genetic control but there are also cases in which societal norms have caused changes in natures even if they have no biological effects. In fact, differing forms of human labor in the society in which the individual indulges and involves his or herself in specifies our point. Different type of labor causes the physical and mental capacities of human beings to change. There will always be some transhistorical features of human beings but there will also be some psychophysical structures of people who do very different types of labor and modes of production. Nature is not fixed and it is inevitable in some cases but natures can surely change. The crucial determinants are social, not biological. In a nutshell, this will simply say that neither man nor woman will each have the same distinct nature due to gender although there will always be several innate and similar psychic structures distinctive of the sexes which generate a particular cluster of traits…..”

Just wondering but…if green were so good for our eyes, why don’t they print newspapers with green ink?

Just found a pic that was taken at the Standard Chartered Run. Thought I leave it here before deleting it. The guy on my left and I raced to the finishing point.  

Warm and Fuzzy amidst the chaos...

I just got back from church. Today was especially pleasant because Noel, Brenda and Sue came along. You see it’s just good to have people you care about around you when you’re in church. I have been trying to get my parents to go to church but I guess they’re too embedded in their beliefs to even accompany me to church for two hours. Nonetheless, I’ll keep on praying.

Today’s sermon was good. Pastor Rony was at his humorous best tonight and service ended much later than usual. Well, I doubt anyone minded coz’ the sermon was meaningful and contained a lot of stories we could learn from and relate to. Morale of today’s sermon? Simple. Pray when you’re sad, happy, worried or in any need whatsoever. Believe in him no matter what and keep the faith. You know what? We may not be the holiest people around but just like any loving father, God will continue to forgive us, take care of us and provide for all our needs as long as we prove to him that we deserve it. And that goes the same for anyone who reads this.

Yesterday’s clubbing experience turned out to be better than we thought. The disappointment at “Gotham Penthouse” threatened to spoil the night but the fun we had at “Attica” and “Attica Too” gave the saving grace. Here's a summary of that night. Mitchell got drunk and we had to send her home half-way through the night (poor girl). Xinlei didn’t lose her phone this time (she lost one at liquid room and another one at Zouk in the span of two weeks). Jiayi lost her camera cover after we took pictures near my car (her turn). And I finally managed to outlast Winkie in clubbing (So much so that she and Xin had to take their heels off to walk to the car after leaving the club.) It was a night well-spent. Noel and Zhiwei would have regretted not staying on longer.

My first niece, Lauren! She's beautiful... 

Age requires no respect if it has not acquired wisdom.

I just returned from a soccer match against a veteran team. Since it was such an interesting encounter, I guess I’ll just Blog the damn experience. Playing for New Creation Church, I think the difference in our average age could well be above ten years. Nevertheless, I was exceedingly disappointed in the way these veterans handled themselves as well as the game. They lacked the wisdom they were obviously supposed to possess. And by saying this, I am not referring to their skill level or their lack of tactics and strategy. Now these veterans are mostly in their 40s, probably married with children of their own and tasted more bitterness in their lives than most of us put together. In spite of their “impeccable credentials”, I saw ill-discipline, unnecessary lost of tempers and flying tackles in reaction to what they perceived as malicious challenges from our players. Most of the time they even had the cheek to tell us that they’re old and slow. That reason, I found to be an extremely poor excuse and blatantly insulted our intelligence. Furthermore, the game was almost abandoned half way through. Ken, our player-manager, attempted to kick one of the opponents fell to the ground after he gave a swooping kick at his unprotected shin (how smart right, kick people then fall down) That resulted in a free-for-all melee between livid players from both teams. Even the referee, I felt, succumbed to their profanities thrown at him by the veteran players that his balls shrank and he kept as quiet as a mouse throughout. We took like 10 minutes (everything happened so quickly that you sometimes feel it's longer than it took) to cool everything down and played on of course. Despite the never-ending “slow” but high tackles and the “gentle” shoulder nudges, we persistently showed our maturity and immaculate skill which allowed us to satisfactorily win them by a 6-1 score line. The goal we gave away was obviously a consolation. I guess we gave the goal away because we appreciated the time they took off to come and show us their own brand of soccer while apparently neglecting their duties as a father and breadwinner. In all games I believe we must compete only in the spirit and willingness to bring out the best in each other.

Going to Gotham Penthouse soon. Friends only called me coz’ it’s ladies night and it’s free for them. I was flatly denied when I asked if they would pay for my cover. Call themselves friends….

Cafe Cartel, Serangoon Gardens. After wakeboarding at Punggol Marina. Actually, Hannsern and I didn't get to wakeboard coz' by the time it was our turn, it started to rain. Now why does my left eye look bigger than the right one?  

Sabbatical

My Blog has been neglected. It has been silently vying for my attention since NYE’s entry. Attention that is spread across pretty meaningless activities like LITERATI and especially my impossible homework. I need to get back to my normal schedule quick.

Today is Thursday 6/11/04 and I am proud to say that I am an uncle. My mum and dad just got upgraded too. They are now grand-uncle and grand-aunty to my very first niece in Australia, Lauren. Isn’t that a nice name! Congratulations Peter!

2005!

As usual, Zouk was a place where you’ll meet old and occasionally some new friends. Invariably, last night was good because NYE was spent with pals, old and new. This was despite the fact that everyone had to temporarily vacate Zouk, Phuture and Velvet to allow licensing officials to do a tedious headcount. Zouk, being the “law-abiding” company they always were, was allowed to continue with the party only half an hour later. Fortunately for some of my friends and me, we were comfortably sipping on ice-cold barley and gleefully munching puffs at the Zouk Deli while everyone else had to wait outside in frustration. After some eager anticipation, the officials left while the high spirits of festivity stayed. Putting the lukewarm intermission aside, we grooved with verve and style to the slew of R & B tracks till dawn.

So much for a toned down New Year’s Eve celebration. The Tsunami-stricken countries of Asia scraped their NYE celebrations because of the recent disaster which caused prevalent death and impending disease. For those who read the news, the Singapore government actually asked the people of Singapore to tone down their celebrations. Don’t think anyone at Zouk last night read the news though. We had a smashing good time.

But no, in no way, is that intended to poke fun at their misery. As much as I enjoyed myself, I would have pretty much supported the Singapore government if they wanted to scrap all NYE celebrations too. In fact, I was telling my friend that I would consider going to those countries in need to help out with the humanitarian efforts. Just a thought but I would seriously consider if I don’t have to pay for my own expenses.

Happy New Year everyone!

Candid, honest.