Life, Travel, GRACE

“Unlike an office complex or gymnasium, which have no value if people do not inhabit them, creation can glorify and bring God delight apart from human presence. Flora and fauna exist first and foremost not for human use or enjoyment but for God’s pleasure.” Rodney Clapp Just as the world was crafted especially for man, man was fashioned and placed into the world for a specific role and purpose. Creation, as spectacular as it is, was not the apex of God’s creative work. The heavens and earth were but a setting to display the wonder or wonders of God’s work. The intensity of this anticipation and delight is reflected by the threefold usage of the Hebrew word, bara , (created), in Genesis 1:27. The poetic structure of this sentence attests to the incredible emotion of wonder and joy that God had in creating man. The whole stage was now set. Now He was ready to place something entirely different and wonderful onto center stage. The world awaited the one who would bear the image of the invi...

It was Sunday afternoon. While driving along Jalan University, there was a car hesitated to cross the road. As I was moving fast, I gave her a honk. Nevertheless, the car still came out. Bang. Collision between the two vehicles. Well, it was not a head-to-head collision. My car's front left part was hit (you can see from the picture below). With this accident, I have to car-pool with my friend and colleague for a week. I got back my car in 8 days. This was the fastest repairment I've experienced. All the procedure went very smooth. I did not need to do much. The workshop guy was quite skillful in dealing with such accident claim and report.

After a long wait and some few corrections, finally I have submitted the hard cover copy of my thesis. This should be the final copy. Graduation should be granted upon Senate's approval. I am waiting for the confirmation letter.....

Remember the Iraq war in year 2003? US proposed for war in Iraq but few countries objected. One of the countries was France. As a result, the US government showed some symbolic protest against France. This is what the documentary all about: Freedom Fries: And Other Stupidity We'll Have to Explain to Our Grandchildren . First of all, they wasted the French wine. Then they renamed the French fries to freedom fries. This included French toast, but not French kiss (wonder why). Such a symbolic gesture, but it gave a big meaning (to them). But why they protested France as there were few more countries objecting the war? The government also urged those who supported the troops to Iraq by putting up a car bumper sticker and national flag (not knowing that these are made in China). All you need to do (if you are a US citizen) was by displaying the sticker. Easy patriotism. Next the US government encouraged their citizen to spend more. Consumerism is the new patriotism. They bought items...

Bali island is located in east Java, Indonesia. As Indonesia has thousand of islands, Bali offers one of the best. Despite the bombing tragedy in previous years, tourists still choose Bali as one of their destination. Bali offers good sandy beach, world class surfing (you can't find this in Malaysia), Hindu culture, temples, rain forest, volcanoes and Bintang beer. As I have not much prepared for the trip, I looked for recommended itinerary from Lonely Planet show. As the show is not available for showing in my local TV channels, I've downloaded it instead. The rough guide was excursion around Kuta, stopped at Ubud, scaled the volcano mountain of Gunung Batur, chilled out in less touristic beach and temples visiting (see map for road traveled as indicated by red line). SY and I started the trip from Kuta. Then proceeded to Ubud - a place full of arts and crafts. After that, we traveled north to Lovina and finally came back to Kuta. Stay tune for more stories..... BTW, the word...

After had the celebration in "grand" scale, we had it again with the bible study group. This time the crowd was smaller. We had home style steamboat dinner. Though no game and calligraphy writing, we chatted a lot and made fun.

We organized a new year celebration earlier February (think it's not too late to wish Happy Chinese New Year). As usual, we had dinner (a sumptuous one). Then there were calligraphy writing and pictionary game (same version of "win, lose or draw") to kill the time. We had a great time though....