In which Choon types the title AFTER typing the post, and realises this post is rather long. Incoherency is COOKIES rampant in WHEE this ^^ post.Saturday, July 12, 2008
at 10:17 PM;
Aaaaand I'm back.
Yay.
Anyway, this week has been really tiring, what with the stepping up of strenuousness (yes, it is the correct form of the word) of trainings for frisbee. Stress in school has been stepping up TWO. Mind the pun.
Anyway, Choon is pleasantly surprised that Chinese has become his highest scoring subject. Which, if you know Choon, is saying a lot. Like, a lot. Like candy. Which Choon happens to like. But which unfortunately makes Choon hyper. Bah.
Training today was fun, what with spammage and spammage and spammage of drills and drills and drills. We strangely finished the passing drills really fast, which was a huge relief.
However, after that we had drills in pairs, which were like the 1-2 drills described 3 posts back, except one pair marks/stalls the other pair while they try to get to the end without disc drops. In a psychotic, homicidal gesture of utter disregard for the sanity of the team show of magnanimity, Cat said that we'd keep doing it till we get ZERO disc drops. Plus the pairs on defense were not slacking. At all. Whatsoever. Zhang Kai and I were first to finish an attempt with zero drops/intercepts. Excuse me while I gloat.
MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA.
Well. Anyway, after training we went off to eat at J8 Food Junction, where I made an epic mistake by ordering $7.50 omelette rice which did not fill me one bit. I ate another large bowl of beef noodles to sate my hunger.
Then off home to shower, during which I probably killed all the neighbours with my horrible singing. Yes, yes, I sing in the shower. Just like everyone else. *grins*
Off to church for youth service, then to toa payoh for some nice kway chap and durian with the older youth/young adults. Strangely, lots of people weren't at youth service today. Oh well.
[start rant]
Well, one thing I've noticed about many Christians, including myself, is that we tend to stop at the "getting saved and going to church" part. Okay, maybe some go a bit further by helping out. But what really disturbs me is how people can just go on with their lives as per normal after they are saved. There's a lot more than just accepting Christ and going to heaven.
In fact, what many concentrate on is how God is loving, how God is a provider, how God "will never leave you or forsake you", or whatever. One thing I wish to say about that.
So?
God is not a vending machine, where you simply meet the requirements like inserting change, and you get what you want. Jesus is a person. There's far more to knowing Jesus than just Him dying on the cross and saving us so we all go to heaven blah blah blah, hallelujah. In fact, I quote this from an undisclosed MSN screen name in my contact list:
Christ became, sin for us, took the blame, bore the wrath, we stand forgiven at the cross. Amen.
What sort of crap is that? If so, there's pretty much no difference between the Lord Jesus my Savior, and the cab driver who so kindly waived about a dollar off my fare just now because I didn't have enough money on me. Without the grace of both, I'd be in deep trouble. Both took the cost upon themselves. I benefited and either got or am going somewhere.
Jesus doesn't just want us to accept Him and go to heaven. He wants to know us, to be an integral part of our lives. He wants us to spend time with Him, either in prayer, reading the Bible, worship, or whatever other way. And one thing about worship music. It's not just the tune, the instruments, or whatnot.
The important thing is the heart. Music is simply one form of expressing our love for Him, of spending time communing with God. And I don't know about you, but if someone guaranteed my salvation from eternal hell, I'd want to spend all my time thanking that person. That person is Jesus.
Probably that's why being Christian means so little to people nowadays. Seems like anyone who goes to church or has gone at some point or other calls themselves a Christian, when they don't know a tenth of the things said in any one of the books in the Bible, when they don't even spend time in prayer. I mean, come on. Five seconds saying grace? There's 86400 seconds a day. Do the math. You call that spending time in prayer? That's a whole load of bull, even if you say grace three times a day.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not flaming people. I'm just saying that it really saddens me when such stuff happens. Not saying I'm super holy or whatever, it's just kind of a wakeup call which I got a while ago, and I want to share it.
To refer to Rev Jacob Koshy (affectionately known as Kuya Jacob by the Cebu missions teams), Christianity is not religion. Religion is not important. Christianity is relationship. It's not about how you spam Bible verses, how much you know about the different denominations, whether you know that the Bible is actually scientifically accurate (it's called a miracle for a reason when it's not scientifically possible), or how good your worship music is. It's how you show the love of God to everyone around you, how you live a life as a representative of Christ (we represent Christ), now that's real, effective ministry.
If you're a Christian, and you find that your life is no different from the nonchristians around you, there is something really, really, really wrong. You might as well become one of them if you want to be Christian and yet not change your lifestyle.
And above all, remember. God did not say that once you accept Christ, life will be smooth sailing. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Oh, by the way, for new Christians, I suggest you try to read Matthew 5-7 if you're looking for basic guidelines to living a Christian life. Then go on to Paul's letters. If you don't know, they're all the books titled Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, and so on. That doesn't mean you should neglect the Old Testament as well. Or spending time with God. And when you read, read intelligently. There's a HUGE wealth of information in there.
Bah. Enough for now, before your brains melt.
[end rant]
Phew. Anyway, here's something to keep you entertained. I didn't write it, Young Yi Yong of Hwach did, in 2006. It's quite funny, and I think he won't mind me posting it here, since I'm giving him credit. Minor editing by me. Here goes.
[start article]
Blogspotting - Young Yi Yong
As humans under the influence of the herd instinct, drugs and reality TV, we tend to do stuff for, bluntly put, the heck of it, and of course to fit in with the crowd, blend in, and make merry. So blogging's one of them. This post is about Blog-spotting.
Hurrah Intro.
There's a few types of bloggers.
• - Average
• - School or Work
• - Publicity Related
• - Community-based
The Average
The type who writes about snippets of his/her life, with commentary. And occasionally random ramblings and other off-tangent schtick. These included things like:
• If they use English in an informal way - "Today I went to the market. Rather interesting."
• If they use English in a formal way - "Today, I paid a visit to the wet market. In was, in my humble opinion, rather interesting an experience."
• If they use English and chatspeak - "2dae go market lol got fish lol"
• If they don't use English - How do you expect me to know?
Average bloggers tend not to update often, even though they have well coded blogskins, special scripts and the like.
The School or Work
These bloggers use blogs as project journals or diaries. They talk about homework, a new thesis - little lies to harm small children, hamburgers and other types of fast food. This type of blogger is boring, approach with extreme caution. They only use formal, or close to formal English, with posts like:
"Reflections on my work: I feel that that this experience has been amazingly meaningful and I will remember the lessons I've learnt for the rest of my life"
It is compulsory for all posts to be written on the day before the assignment involving the blog is due.
The Publicity Related
There are two sub-breeds of this type, the self-complimentory and the defamatory. Self-complimentory blogs tend to involve pictures, touched up with Adobe Photoshop, Picture Editor and Microsoft Clipart Version 1.6. All the pictures involve heavy make-up, as the online community finds joy in laughing at others. Posts tend to be narcissistic in nature, with words like:
• "damn" or "very" or "very the"
• "in my humble opion" or "IMOH"
• "Chio" or "pretty" or "shuai"
• "lawl" or "lol" or any emoticon which exists to act cute and annoy.
• "cute" or "kawaii", with the latter used wrongly.
Defamatory blogs are the opposite, aiming to ruin a person's reputation. These blogs enjoy touching on subjects like:
• Preferential Inclinations, terms include:
• "gay" "ghey" "gh3y" "lawl" "les" "lez" "lol" "fag"
• Hereticizm, terms include:
• "cult" "gang" "anti" "hell"
• Mental states, terms include:
• "stupid" "idiot" "dumb" "brain" "lawl"
Self-complimentary blogs tend to be written in relatively average English. Defamatory blogs are usually in informal, chatspeak or non-English.
The Community-based
These blogs are written by groups of people, done to bond, make friends and create internal strife. Language can be anything from Binary to Click. Usually, the blog enjoys a myriad of posts and endless traffic for the first week or so, before it dies down to a post per week, or less. Subjects are usually related to the event that resulted in the meeting that spurred people on to create the blog. Possibilities include:
• Camps, residential or outdoors
• Workshops, with grouping systems
• Competions, with group members banding together
• Online Games, usually linked to guilds and other stalking methods
These blogs are fun to read at the beginning.
Blog-Spotting for Beginners
A basic blog-spotter's kit includes:
- A notebook and writing materials
- A computer and related appliances
- A portable power generator
- A shotgun, with at least 6 rounds
- A pair of binoculars
- An internet, available at Walmart.
- A pickaxe
"So you wanna be a blog-spotter!"
First, it is important to practise setting up the internet, computer and generator with haste and much speed. Practise setting up on various terrain, such as:
- On the plane, when you've run out of peanuts
- In bed, when you're supposed to be sleeping
- At the desk, when you should be doing a math worksheet
- On a camping trip, when you're asked to scale a rockwall
Remember that you have, at times, to deal with hostile blogs. These are defended with Firewalls and Portable Hydrogen Projectiles, PHP for short. When a blog is on the offensive, we say it is "on fire", and is hence starting to burn, or flame, others. It is important not to panic. If you have been flamed, remember to Stop, Drop and LOL.
STOP what you are doing.
DROP the computer down a 10 storey building
LOL at the dead passer-by. Alternatively, ROFL.
If that does not work, unload all the shotgun's rounds on the monitor. Fret no more! The blog has miraculously vanished before your eyes, a black void replacing it.
Also, remember to record your findings and keep tabs on all blogs. This is called tracking, and the binoculars is useful to improve your image, while simutaneously branding you an absolute retard. Should a blog you track freeze up and stop updating, it is your obligation as a Blog-spotter to lift your pickaxe and hack the blog.
Finally, keep in mind the golden rule of the Internet:
All your base are belong to us.
[end article]
Epic win.
the rest is silence;
