Sunday, 24 February 2008

Dusted sandals

This is what the LORD says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. (1 Chron 17:4)
-
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. (Matt 10:14)
-
sighz... its not an easy choice
but perhaps
its time for me to move on from choir... 
and let others fulfill the ministry
-
yet perhaps, I still want to do FOA
maybe... 
-
but clashing commitments, bad relationship with Teacher i/c, and an overall sianness
-
and where is God in this ministry?
-
but I'll just entrust the people into His hands
ah well
pray for them
and maybe after I'm gone, perhaps...
-

pseudo choir camp
morning to BB
drill
sizing syndrome, irritating... pfff
-
and LM and petrina crowded around me later, petrina wisely parted me from amanda
they were at YLS
-
ah well
when will the friendship be restored, so much for us being so cold to each other?
sighz
eitherways
-
youth leaders summit
a number of ppl werent around
-
charles Ng Bday
lol
-
bethany
BS - a conviction that scared me to the core
-
a crying man
reading chinese prayers, distributed by Grace Methodist Church interestingly
-
later back in school
-
eating w/o appeitite
-
nadine sprawled at the fountain... lol she looked like a corpse
-
_________
_
walking to tim's place
primers room with dan, fab, petrina and amanda
-
Oliver Twist Loke by Charles Dickens Ng
lol
-
Dan's chips
-
photos of heart shaped chips
-
haiz
somehow
the cold attitude still hurts me
althought I alr got over it
-

choir camp:
went over to join them for day games
and apparently they werent expecting my arrival
-
and maria conviently left out my stuff
after the really shocking conviction I had gotten earlier to share
-
anyway
I left them at that moment
went back to the primers room to pray
and got the 2 verses above
was already expecting that
-
went over to tims
-
EE
oliver's party joined by evelyn and dan
-
translations, apparently evelyn still refuses to talk to me
-
the food was REALLY GOOD
-
ah well
made up for the wasted $15
-
fusion last part
-
and although I was still a little sceptical
-
remebering XL's vision:
Old Audi packed with people worshiping the Lord
-
remembering:
if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.(Luke 19:40)
-

QT for 1 hour with tim
-
walking tim back to his house
-
hiding from ranjee
talking with ding
-
sleeping in the primers room with Mr Alan Lee( who conviently koped both sleeping bags)
church on sunday

ah well
got a new pair of sandals =)
lol totally random

Thursday, 21 February 2008

Underscores

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
(Ps 27:4)
-
and no one else could ever compare to You Lord
and no one else but You
-
sighz
I wish I wouldn't think so much about some stuff
-

let say we play a game of mahjong
completed all 4 combos
now left the pair
one has been waiting for the pair to complete
yet after many rounds, of drawing, waiting, the pair refuses to come
-
and only after one decides to give up  that particular tile and try the next one
and one sees, the completing tile turn up after that
-
hypothetical situations
-
yet I wonder sometimes
-
I dunno 
not a good idea to wonder too much
although apparently I guessed as much
-
"the only 2  reasons why students this age get depressed is either grades or BGR"(me to azmi)
-
and yet it is so possible for me to be totally deluded
-
maybe I'm out of my mind
-
sighz
wish I knew who...

Wednesday, 20 February 2008

that we may sing praises and not be silent...

the choir motto, years back...
-
sighz
-
it always makes me wonder, why am I still in this dying ministry of choir
-
although i guess there are stuff to look back on 
-
choir used to be fun, I remember the years of sec1-4, 
1)Perth trip
2)carolling
3) choir camp games
4) Haven
5) mugging in the choir room before O levels
6) Alto ASL
7) SYF GOLD 2005
-
of course there were not so nice times
1) SYF 2003
2)vocal training
-
but I remember those days
-

Jeremy Goh was a person who was an inspiration to a sense, to learn to pick up keyboard, to be more passionate about showing Christ to the choir members
and there was also Collin Ho
and others

ah well they're all gone
all's left is Martin,
Shaun changed
Han An quit
Issac poh quit
Luke quit
-
John See lost faith
Ti Wan Feng lost faith
-
Rodney/Levin still remain the same, good friends , yet I wish they knew Him
-
Jeremy left(graduated)
Kenneth Yeo left(graduated)
Collin Ho left (graduated)
-
Christine Lek quit
-
and now Felicia quits
-
nothing much to say
choir hasnt been as fun as it used to be,
-
I remember the last choir camp
the saturday in which the primer(y5 then) had trouble praying or somthing
the saturday in which I wasnt around
the saturday before... it all began... sometime I wish, I didn't miss that parade, a part of me blames that day for everything that happened... 
-
sighz
As I look, as most of my friends slowly left
and when I given up so much already
perhalps its natural that I would one day go as well
leave this dying ministry behind
-
yet maybe, Ding has been encoraging many a time
-
and maybe I should remain faithful to the task which God lead me to years ago
"the night is darkest before the day breaks"
-
or maybe God wants me to move on...
I dunno
-
perhaps
this choir camp
would You make an impact?
-
yet 
if none of us seek You
how can You come down?
-
sighz

Monday, 18 February 2008

a game of hearts

ah well
one wonders
a game where you try as much as possible to know you opponents cards
without revealing your own
-

right tim
:\
"gg" to dan?
nice lah.... rarr you
-
but so far so good, the game is played fine so far
no one really knows
ah well
-
LimClaNstruMMeR~†timLim~God Chaser~LimIDTS`'- says :
oh gosh
you're a mix OF EVERYTHING
stop it
-
haha
X D

A card to play in the audi:

Lua and a bunch of ppl in .2 were giggling a bit
-
Zhe Xian:
You know Shaun Wong likes *** , dont get between them
-
Me(with an incredulous expression):
Are you trying to mean I like ***? well I dont...
-
Zhe Xian(startled):
you dont ar? oh....
-
seriously, that wasnt very nice , both for shaun, and her
and that all I could say anyway, which is true...
I given up anyway, haha
-
ah well, as for you, try to guard people's hearts
and yours as well
and stay close to God :)
-
I dunno if a friendship is worth keeping
but I guess I trust God will take care of you, wherever you may go

chips & outreach
-
ee blues
-
more...
oh well
perhaps its a game of samsara... 
argh... siddartha is killing me
-
keep me close to You Lord

Sunday, 17 February 2008

Priorities

and an argument before church... about HW priorities...
-
"God made you a student... blah blah blah..."
"focusing on things that are not important"
-
eventually the work will get done
and by His Grace... the results will get through
a rather naive understanding
yet God's grace has already been so evident in many ways
child-like faith
-
yet...
sighz
and Pastor Seet's msg about the parable of the rich fool
about being rich towards God
-
yet one must remember to read verses in context
and not cherrypick on what one wants to hear
-

"service excellence model"
"not turning up for prac is not acceptable"
"we cant keep using Emil"
-
"EMIL YOU ARE LATE FOR PRAC !!!"
-
while emil the clicker stones later doing nothing much
-
sometimes, you'll should remember, I am not obliged to help out in church that much, after all it is only God's secondary calling for me
besides being notified within a day's notice
-
I have BB commitments as well
-
and what was I doing in 79 anyway?, downloading the software to upgrade the computer at the sanctuary
not like I was slacking off
and I already said I would be late
-
was really disced off...
-
besides already having some negative experience previously about some "friend from hillsong" keyboardist the last time
-
heh
-
eitherways
today wasnt too bad
did a lot of experimenting with the camera and video functions
-
and being commended later
I guess in life , one always gets that
occasional recognition of contribution
but most of the time one's service goes relatively unnoticed, or even criticised
But I guess, God knows it all, and thats all that really matters sometimes

Shine

....shine like stars in the world...
(Phil 2:15)
Light of the world
(Matthew 5:14-16)
-
Somehow I wonder... how many of us take this command to heart, a call to be different, a call to be different, to be a source of hope and truth in the world of darkness
-
life is too short to be living any less than it should be lived out... the recent event in school which sobered up a lot of people
-
heh reading through the blogs
-

Light

Verse 1:
There is a light
That shines so bright
A light for all to see
Jesus who came
To lift our shame
And to set us free

A light that brings hope
To a broken world in need
So help us be Your hands and feet

Chorus:
So would you shine your light on us
For its in You we trust
Would you show us Your Glory
So we can tell the world Your Story
Of your Love

Verse 2:
You are the Light
Darkness cannot hide
So help us to walk in You
You made us clean
Took all our sin
and took the darkness away

You're light that brings hope
To a broken world in need
So help us be Your hands and feet

© 2008 Emil Ng
(1 John 1:5-7)

and unfortunately this time I did the words before the music,unlike the the previous songs I did
hence at the moment I'm stuck trying to fit music into words(its way easier to do the converse)

first Full U parade
-
helping a dozen new people fit on their full U properly(including improvisations for missing belts, haversack clips etc.)
-
drill
-
Little annes
-
FireAC meeting, radical changes to be imposed
-
ah well, we need to be careful though...

Friday, 15 February 2008

Sizing Syndrome

FireAC today:
and i didnt really check my msgs yesterday heh
-
lol
I usually dont get so many
sighs, sometimes, I dunno whether to feel happy or sad or confused about some stuff
-
I remember songs... the context when I lead them in previous sessions:
Made me Glad - when I was sad yet experienced His Joy...
With all I am -  when it was all about surrender, about making Him the first love, ah well...

oh well
marching
shouting timing to drown out the band
shortness of breath 
keith tan in lala land
-
lua swanning me on the usual stuff, I feel strangely detached though
-

and the primers room...
ahh... its been a tiring day

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Our Hearts, Our Hopes, Our Aims, forever

and yesterday at the recording studio
-
wasting a matter of 8 hours away (2-10pm) simply waiting while the girls and basses did their stuff
-
yet haha, I dunno... perhaps.... and perhaps not... seeing the crazy Y5s mugging, and even deciding to study rather than go home lol...
-
lol - laughter... 
I wonder, while I complained that I wasnt really bothering to do work(i.e. the horrible state my work was in), riddiculus when they seem to be so on about work.
-
remember... a Charles Ng email a few months back? haha
-
and cutting into Shaun Ang... embarassing myself by showing what a horrible teacher of Stinking Petrifying Dreadful Freaking(SPDF) chem I am, yet...
-
perception is subject to interpretation... dont make the fallacy of hasty generalisations
-

spend the first hour of Valentine's day erm... well... showing our love for the school? lol singing the school anthem repeatedly
-
and perhaps the irritating block nose had to interfere a bit
-
and back home so late, oh well, wanted to make some stuff for people... oh well
-
singing telegrams...
I wonder, why does ET have a tendency to stick with my friends?
-
suicide case
sobering up
oh well
sighz
why do people do such silly stuff... for a moment of impulse to "end suffering", for an eternity in hell
-
a card... haha, thanks =) sorry I dont have one to return =(

I guess...

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

You

you arent  a perfect person... no one is... sometimes emotions can blind many
-
but I dont need you to control my thoughts and feelings... its nice to make you happy, yet at times you simply annoy me also... heh
-
heh I will let go... after a year has passed... =) maybe you'll get something , maybe not
but it has been bittersweet
time to move on, trusting that everything is In His hands
-

yet I dont want to commit this mistake
of letting anyone other than God fill that space
-
yet I wonder... what there is in friendship, in love, ?
prayfulness
Child-like faith
-
and the council agape week initiative is VERY annoying
1) an over blown up v'day
2) extra work for me... rehersals for singing telegrams, STUPID CUPID(lol)
-
so few people today during rehersal, talk about unproductivity
-
who are you anyway?
-

evil comments about evelyn.t by evelyn.y
-
lol
yet sighz
you know... you dont leave a really good impression
by being nasty to me
-

and theres the Biggest You

You made the heavens and the earth... ...
... ...what is man that You are mindful of him?
-
well in 2 days time there is going to be a day where you see people declaring "I love you" whether superficially, or otherwise
and so do I
-
"I love You"

Monday, 11 February 2008

I want I want I want !!!!

Updated my Profile Page haha:

Name:EmilNg
Birthdate:03/11/1990
School:ACS(Independent)
Msn:lime_sherbet_gin(at)hotmail.com
Email:Lime.email.cocktail(at)gmail.com
Saved by Christ

Loves
Christ
Boys Brigade
Church
Choir
My friends and Family
You =)

Likes
Strumming guitar
Playing the keyboard
Listening to Hillsongs
Singing
Good Food
Computor electronics
Shopping

WishList(notice the increasing prices)
Taylor Solidbody Classic Electric($2200)
Boss DD6 or Line6 Echopark Delay Pedal ($300)
M-AUDIO NRV10 Recording Mixer ($1200)
Macbook Pro ($3k)
KORG X50($1000)
Baby Taylor($500)


Emil seems a little greedy over here doesn't he?
haha
dreams may become realities someday... haha(I got the 2 stuff I never thought I'll get)

haha
dream Big... 
-
okay
oh well
There are some things money cant buy, for everything else... there's always begging and bargaining
-
oh well
We'll see

Sunday, 10 February 2008

logical love

okay first stop CNY 3rd day:
my aunts place again.... watching a pirated DVD of Ratatouille  ,,, a fitting start to the rat year?
-
eitherways... I see why my schoolmates were crazy over it a few months back... oh my...  Remy is so CUTE....
-
but nice FAT brother rat called Emile
I am so glad I didnt go and watch it in the theaters with my friends... already charecters called "emily" are a source of jokes... 
-
and the movie was funny... typical pixar movie
-
lol
haha

remember reading this little short story of sort when the english teacher... Lisa Lai in sec3 if memories serve me well... was handing out booklets on how to write a good argumentative.
-
revisiting that again during some ToK material handed out about logic
-
haha.... it made me laugh a lot when I first read it.... 
rereading it again... makes me smile haha
-

Love is a Fallacy

by Max Shulman

 Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen.

It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it—this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.

One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I’ll get a doctor.”

“Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.

“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.

“I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.

I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”

“I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”

“Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”

“All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”

“In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.

He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got to!”

“Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. They’re unsightly. They—”

“You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?”

“No,” I said truthfully.

“Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”

My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.

“Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.

I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.

I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.

I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.

Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings.

Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut—without even getting her fingers moist.

Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.

“Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”

“I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”

“Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?”

“No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”

“Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”

“I guess so. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing , nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.

“Where are you going?” asked Petey.

“Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.

“Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”

“I may do better than that,” I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.

 


“Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.

“Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.

“Would you like it?” I asked.

“Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”

“Your girl.” I said, mincing no words.

“Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”

“That’s right.”

He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly.

I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.”

I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn’t turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.

“It isn’t as though I was in love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.”

“That’s right,” I murmured.

“What’s Polly to me, or me to Polly?”

“Not a thing,” said I.

“It’s just been a casual kick—just a few laughs, that’s all.”

“Try on the coat,” said I.

He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.

I rose from my chair. “Is it a deal?” I asked, extending my hand.

He swallowed. “It’s a deal,” he said and shook my hand.


 

I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner. “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,” she said as we left the theatre. And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.

I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl’s lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be taught tothink. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort.

I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. “Poll’,” I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, “tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.”

“Oo, terrif,” she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.

We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked.

“Logic.”

She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.

“Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight.”

“Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.

I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”

“By all means,” she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.

“Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise.”

“I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything.”

“Polly,” I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualifythe generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?”

“No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!”

“It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. “Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can’t speak French. Petey Bellows can’t speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French.”

“Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?

I hid my exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion.”

“Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing even.”

I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it rains.”

“I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic—”

“Polly,” I said sharply, “it’s a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn’t cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.”

“I’ll never do it again,” she promised contritely. “Are you mad at me?”

I sighed. “No, Polly, I’m not mad.”

“Then tell me some more fallacies.”

“All right. Let’s try Contradictory Premises.”

“Yes, let’s,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.

I frowned, but plunged ahead. “Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won’t be able to lift it?”

“Of course,” she replied promptly.

“But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He can’t make the stone.”

“But He can do anything,” I reminded her.

She scratched her pretty, empty head. “I’m all confused,” she admitted.

“Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?”

“Tell me more of this keen stuff,” she said eagerly.

I consulted my watch. “I think we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home now, and you go over all the things you’ve learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”

I deposited her at the girls’ dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.

But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try.

 


Seated under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”

She quivered with delight.

“Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”

A tear rolled down each of Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.

“Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed, “but it’s no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?”

“Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered.

I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a carefully controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldn’t students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?”

“There now,” she said enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in years.”

“Polly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren’t taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you can’t make an analogy between them.”

“I still think it’s a good idea,” said Polly.

“Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next we’ll try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.”

“Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s reaction.

“Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the world today would not know about radium.”

“True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”

“If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have discovered it. Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can’t start with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw any supportable conclusions from it.”

“They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him any more.”

One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well.”

“How cute!” she gurgled.

“Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t believe a word that he is going to say.’ ... Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What’s wrong?”

I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the first I had seen—came into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?”

“Right!” I cried exultantly. “One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start ... Polly, I’m proud of you.”

“Pshaws,” she murmured, blushing with pleasure.

“You see, my dear, these things aren’t so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Think—examine—evaluate. Come now, let’s review everything we have learned.”

“Fire away,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.

Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without letup. It was like digging a tunnel. At first, everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.

Five grueling nights with this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled children.

It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I decided to acquaint her with my feelings at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.

“Polly,” I said when next we sat beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.”

“Aw, gee,” she said, disappointed.

“My dear,” I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.”

“Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.

“I beg your pardon,” said I.

“Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates?”

I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand in a tolerant manner, “five dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.”

“False Analogy,” said Polly promptly. “I’m not a cake. I’m a girl.”

I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper word. Then I began:

“Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish. I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.”

There, I thought, folding my arms, that ought to do it.

“Ad Misericordiam,” said Polly.

I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me; at all costs I had to keep cool.

“Well, Polly,” I said, forcing a smile, “you certainly have learned your fallacies.”

“You’re darn right,” she said with a vigorous nod.

“And who taught them to you, Polly?”

“You did.”

“That’s right. So you do owe me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn’t come along you never would have learned about fallacies.”

“Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,” she said instantly.

I dashed perspiration from my brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn’t take all these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.”

“Dicto Simpliciter,” she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.

That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady with me?”

“I will not,” she replied.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because this afternoon I promised Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.”

I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! “The rat!” I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf. “You can’t go with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a rat.”

“Poisoning the Well ,” said Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.”

With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You’re a logician. Let’s look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Bellows over me? Look at me—a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Petey—a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?”

“I certainly can,” declared Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat.”


haha... i guess before EA1 starts screwing my head and I analysis it on a basis on literary value... use of irony,a twist... foil?, blah blah blah...
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oh well... I need something to smile at sometimes
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most of you probably read this before
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ahh well...

Friday, 8 February 2008

AEF - random ramblings

activity evaluation form
AEF on Cny
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borring
nothing but eating and ang pows
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CNY eve:
woke up around 12 nn
walked out of my room... hmm... my father's old stereo hifi system... expensive stuff, which sits outside collecting dust....
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so I begin a massive campaign... rearrange my room to fit the stuff
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haha.... now my room looks like some music studio of sort... i just need a nice recording mixer
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angpow shopping list:
1)guitar rack( 2 stands cant fit my 4 guitars nicely)
2)RCA cables... (the house cables are in disgustingcondition)
3) recording mixer :)... the M-AUDIO NRV10 looks nice , about $1200 from sinamex apparently... but I guess I'll ask wesley first and see what he thinks... maybe I'll try to get it 2nd hand
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along with the other stuff in my wish list for a long time:
Bass guitar, electric guitar(lol if i get a taylor Solidbody) 
eitherway grrr... XL has both of that... pleah.... I want
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but I have an X50 and a PSR E403 haha
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and maybe:
Boss DD-6 or Line-6 echopark (i need a delay pedal... would be useful for keys also haha)
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and to take a break off music stuff:
Macbook PRO RARRR
(mum said wait till I back up my comp data.... Now i alr did... now gimme one haha)
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lol... day dreams.
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anyway... to my cousins house for erm... reunion dinner? with just me, my mum,. my 2nd sis(the other having dinner with BF and family), my aunt(my mum's younger sister) and cousin(eating porridge from having braces done the previous day , ouch),
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heh... reunion dinners have been a sad affair since sec 1... since we broke off connections with my father's relatives

Day 1:
woke up sneezing... the dust upsetted from messing around the room the previous day...
KFC lunch from my sis
stone till evening
dinner at my other aunt's(my mum's elder sister) place... elder sis again with BF family the whole day
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heh, few angpows
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(to)day [2]
woke up
backed up my disk at last
now this wreck of a comp can be sent to repair and reformatting
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I want my mac....
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and ppl over at my place today... more angpows
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oh well... ... 
CNY isnt as happy as it could/use to be
when emil was just a small primary school kid
and dressed up in all manner of weird NEW clothes(tie, shoes everything) going visiting... playing RA2 with cousin Javier... or sega game console(they didnt have game cubes, xboxes or PSes then) 
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heh... old clothes for CNY
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oh well...
wonder why
hmm
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can I claim CAS for this? after all I need creativity to spend the hours away... action from eating up all that food, service from... erm... rearranging my room to benefit.... MYSELF
wheee
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oh well
sighz

Wednesday, 6 February 2008

raindreams

the wind blew, howled, screeched... the sound of approaching rain
down at tim's place, ground floor lobby, stretched out over  table, wrapped in a class hoodie
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escapism.... sleep
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the only time when all seems well, no worries... occasionally seeing people long lost.... people you can only see in one's dreams... people you want to be with... dream people...
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and the rains fall... pitterpatter.... before it pours
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the sound of pouring rain
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...
wonder when CNY will ever feel like CNY ever again...

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

Fallacies

when logic doesnt work out....
Sorry about the ToK references for those who are still working on your presentations and essays(I took a break off ToK... EE is starting to kill me)
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sighz... its been tiring... choir...  CNY... more
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and no recording... bleah.. the studio having renovation... what a perfect time
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"wait"
the problem with language... a "way of knowing" 
is that a simple word like that
can have so many different connotations
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the problem with logic
is that logical deduction is easily skewed by emotions
it is possible... to argue for both sides
and sufficiently skew an argument in favour of one side
sufficient empirical evidence is needed however to determine truth... (correspondence theory?)
empirical evidence... from perception
perception can be skewed by emotions
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*random points extracted from a essay half on paper and half in the head:

  • 10.     “There can be no knowledge without emotion … until we have felt the full force of the knowledge it is not ours” (adapted from Arnold Bennett). Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotions

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yeah... 

perception... I wonder... and I know from experience... that it tends to be interpreted by emotions... leaving a warped perception
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but one thing is obvious... someone seems to be harvesting friends in a bid to draw them away from me?
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or maybe it just... a warped perception
wish I knew

Monday, 4 February 2008

mile-S

the weekend.... was tiring
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with a matter of:
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friday afternoon(2-6pm live praise prac)
lost my temper at XL... bleah...
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friday evening (8-10pm Gracestar prac) 
David leong... Luke.... Guoshen ... Juniper
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saturday morning(live praise)
pseudo electric guitar is fun
and a lot of pads 
too tired to play war games
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JY prac later
FL on r/s again... a depressing topic
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shopping at vivo with my sisters to buy their clothes
bought huck finn from sans bkshop
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Sunday
JY
hmm... 2 songs... small setup (acc guitar  and keys)
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did the piano low bass sound and covered the highs with pads (double rack with a electric piano and X50)
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commendation haha... by Kevin and Jocelyn... that was nice... haha
the honor shd go to God though... for giving me those gifts
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GS 
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and lunch... then home... sleeep
rAHHH
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and math blues

heh
i guess... it seems like a travelled a hundred miles... been literally burnt out
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heh..
and CNY concert
disconcerting... a glance, a bright smile , another look, and again the same
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and sighz
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one remembers daoing a person last year... early in jan
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one wonders if history repeats itself with different people... so much for chng
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but again..  it doesnt mean a thing... again there is P.R. 2
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I dunno  really... but its scary... so much for chng
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and choir ends at 7 today... a different sort of assurance :) ... and a ride home with rodney talking again about Christianity and all that... although I'm not yet targeting the root... but I dont really have much time left... yet I guess... its not an overnight thing... it has to be a slow and steady walk... in the sense that I already can talk very openly about stuff
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we'll see ... I guess... time will tell...