lamh

pffffffff

2009-11-19T14:13:00.000+08:00

grrr
zzz

units

2009-10-21T12:44:00.001+08:00

starting to measure assignments based on
whether it is worth an all-nighter, and how many.

stop whining.

2009-09-22T11:10:00.001+08:00

such a despicable show of pride.

he has made everything beautiful in its time.

2009-03-28T15:22:00.002+08:00

its been long.
i'm still alive.
and well.

so my wallpaper has ecc 3:11 on it.
and just the other day when i see it for the nth time i realized it said
he has MADE.
past tense.

in other words.
everything will be beautiful.
a good thing to keep in mind yeah.

i kinda worry for singapore.
don't know why, just kinda do.

all so surreal

2008-12-31T11:36:00.002+08:00

its been about 4 months
and i've been through a fair share of
ups and downs, hard work, good fun,
but sometimes it all still seems so surreal.

not quite "i'm going to wake up anytime now",
don't need a reality check.
its like i haven't quite grasped the impact, consequence, the entire circumstance.
there's still this wonderment walking through the campus
i'm still hyped up of being in university. (wow university)
and there's only a limited number of semesters left, oh man.

HAHA. i guess my mind's still stuck at 18 years old.
i hope the number of posts on your facebook wall doesn't become a measure of a person's popularity in the high school world. by the hammer of thor facebook is becoming so official and powerful its scary.

Harry is staring at his wall waiting for you to write on it so he can reply with more than a "thank you!"

OH THE IRONY

2008-12-11T02:32:00.000+08:00

out of the bluest blue david hoe started a conversation on msn.
and pointed out that
its 21 days till 21!

now how often does a person go through that?
nope. not often at all. today's a special day!

and by mathematical induction,
if x is special
and x+1 is special.
and k is special where k is any real number,

then everyday is a special day!

romans. lend me your years.

2008-11-16T22:34:00.000+08:00

please excuse the title. due to the lack of river valley alumni in montreal (one, actually) harry has been lacking in the lame jokes department.... hurhurhur

i really do enjoy taking the architecture history course. while being reminded of age of empires and trebuchets chukonus priests ballistas big daddys and all that, learning about greeks, romans, and constantinopole does prompt a few "so this is what it was like with paul" at the same time.

so during the research for my paper i came upon this:
"Emperors tried to minimize contact between army and civilians, perhaps for fear that city life would soften soldiers. Thus the army had developed its own societal system apart from the rest of the population."
which led me to think about
"no one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs- he wants to please his commanding officer"
(and be glad that saf gave bookouts and night outs, but wonder if that was the cause of nasi lemak's escape, but that's another matter)

and i can't help but think wow. God must have put a lot of faith in us when he lets us undisciplined, untrained soldiers live in the city. the balance between reaching out, not being softened, and hardening yourself is mind boggling. which kinda goes back to explain why God chose to do it this way, doesn't it.

recent probable blog titles

2008-11-01T10:02:00.001+08:00

IT SNOWS IT SNOWS

the beginnings of the architect's life

how to make average tomato chicken soups, japanese curry and other random dishes

Canadian Cantonese Language Education Better than Singapore?!

architecture history midterm exams induces age of empire cravings

mont royal is higher than bukit timah, for shor.

"oh REAlly?" -david militello

yes i lost my accent, LAH

no, 'singaporean' is not a race, i'm chinese.

we speak english in singapore. national language? that's complicated. but everything's in english. yes, you can survive in singapore come, come!

WHO IN THE WORLD INVENTED TIPPING

-note: daylight saving on sunday. if i pushed that daylight saving hour two days early, it would now be 1154pm, therefore not november 1st yet, therefore i'm just on time.

first blood (+200 gold)

2008-10-01T19:49:00.000+08:00

red and white

2008-08-29T00:51:00.003+08:00

i have a weird affiliation with red and white. singapore = red and white = njc = red and white = mcgill = red and white = canada. what are the odds... anw here's my first post in canada. i'm now in montreal, a city in the province of quebec, in the country of canada. montreal's towards the east of the country, and google map tells me its actually a couple of kilometres directly north of new york.

i've been here just a bit more than a week (my flight was businessly great). i share a 3 room flat in a brand new student apartment which looks something like

haha. go figure (its a 360 degree picture). if you look carefully you shd be able to see my precious stock of instant noodles too!

montreal really is an interesting place. sometimes its really hard to imagine this city being in the same continent as USA cos its so french! (then again it is the second largest city in the world after paris) thankfully almost everyone is bilingual, so its easy to get by with just english. now its close to the end of summer, so mornings could be about 13 degrees, but afternoons are at least 26. its like experiencing four seasons in one day (which means its too cold for just tshirt and jeans in the mornings and its too hot for tshirt and jeans in the afternoon). and when the cold wind blows (echo!), when the cold wind blows, when the cold wind blows, ITS COLD. hahaha. i get by with berms and a jacket. its not as bad as it sounds.

harvard is america's mcgill. (that's what the tshirt said).
well, over here there are students from all over the world. its quiet awesome. just two days ago i had dinner with ppl from china, yesterday i was hanging out with malaysians, i've met ppl from dubai, france, britain, lisbon, australia. woohoo! and i hear there's starbucks and subway on campus. double woohoo! and because of a levels i skip foundation year, triple woohoo! faculty orientation is going on just as i type, and i'm sure they're all happily getting themselves drunk and wasted. uh, woo. well. a picture speaks a thousand words (OH THE IRONY) so here's a couple more

oh right. i got a phone number here so 9853 will soon be receiving its last message (9 years.... that's a long time). its gna be +1 (514)-569-4786. messaging here ain't cheap though bleah. well well. school starts next week! can't wait. (actually. i could. x))

a thousand words speak a picture

2008-07-14T01:33:00.000+08:00

i did this in one day.
its actually a cbd skyline. yea i know its nothing like it. made of the encouragements that i got from my last few days sporing. so don't read it.

more than anything else its a form of reminder.
but its also a thank you to everybody.

haha. here goes nothing.

LAST

2008-06-26T09:31:00.001+08:00

last last last last last last last last last LAST Last LAST Last last last Last LAST last last LAST last Last Last last last Last Last LAST LAST last last Last last LAST last last Last Last Last Last Last Last Last Last LAST Last LAST LAST LAST LAST LAST last last last last last LAST Last last LAST last last LAST Last Last Last LAST last last last last last last LAST Last LAST Last last last Last LAST last last LAST last Last Last last last Last Last LAST LAST last last Last last LAST last last Last Last Last Last Last Last Last Last LAST Last LAST LAST LAST LAST LAST last last last last last LAST Last last LAST last last LAST Last Last Last LAST last last LAST last Last

hah.

i just thought of spamming the word so much so that i won't recognize it anymore.
maybe if i found some media agency and spammed it all over the internet and televisions and radio stations the word would cease to exist and be taken out of Oxford Cambridge Longman Dictionaries.

hah.

Last Lsat Lazt?

stare-into-blank-space-and-rot-ness

2008-06-25T03:50:00.000+08:00

ict was eckk.
made worse by the fact that i really couldn't figure out anything i could possibly get from it.
(the $123 is pointless)

the same hard manual labor, same issues with men (just that now they're all older than me, which only served to worsen issues), same problems same troubles.
so whats there to learn?

nothing.

but between the preparing and the keeping (the only tough parts) was a day or two of stare-into-blank-space-and-rot-ness. so i thought. well. only God can salvage this situation and make it all worthwhile.

"whaaaat. work so hard for a retreat with God?!?!"
and why not?

and therein lies my salary for that week of work.

the white city

2008-05-30T12:50:00.000+08:00

twas 1893.
an era where men walked around in suits ties suspenders and hats.
no airplanes. just ships, horse pulled carriages, trains and bicycles.

it was the age of thomas edison, nicola tesla, helen keller, mark twain, woodrow wilson, scott joplin, frank llyod wright, theodore roosevelt. (people whose names sound distinctly familiar)

in 3 years, chicago planned and staged the world's columbian exposition (otherwise known as the chicago world fair)
a fair to showcase anything and everything around the world.
brought chinese, japanese, egyptians, africans, javanese, cannibals, cowboys, indians (native american indians that is) etc etc all together.
built 200 builidings in 600 acres (abt 10 vivocities).
they had cowboy shows, displays, dancing, ship rides, restaurants, museums, the list goes on and on.

and its impact was tremendous.
the AC electricity and the light bulb were popularized because of the fair.
Walt Disney's father worked at the fair, which became inspiration for him.
George Ferris constructed the world's first ever Ferris Wheel.
The first ever postcard
Scott Joplin became famous with ragtime music.
Chocolates introduced to America
First Pledge of Allegiance written.

and i wonder, how'd they do all that without handphones?!
never knew human beings were actually so powerful. to do sth equivalent in today's world is like staging a universal alien world fair using the entire singapore.
so anyway. wots the next big thing?

"make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood."
Daniel H Burnham, Director of Works, World Columbian Exposition 1893.

am i my brothers keeper

2008-05-24T01:14:00.000+08:00

isn't that rhetoric

china two

2008-05-14T10:26:00.000+08:00

my month long trip was long over (can't say break. cos i'm still having my break. haha.) but i can't stop wondering,

what's in a holiday, when you're on your own?

you either

explore and go for an adventure

or slaaaaaack till you can't slack no more.

but i had the whole beijing to myself for a weekend. can't waste that chance no?

i never was much of an adventurer. (i just like to do random stuff that's all)

but there's no point slacking in the hotel - might as well slack at home.

so i went out. and here's what i got.

that's an aerial view of the forbidden city. cool ain't it. i'd love to say i took a helicopter to take that pic. but i'm not so rich. that's just a model in a museum. they had the whole beijing as a model.

and the other is the prestigious tsinghua university. where only 1 out of 1 million applicants get in. hahah i just like that little boy walking away from it. btw do you wonder why in the world of alll places i could go i visit the univerisity? beats me.

walked passed a park. imagine west coast park. but look what i saw: table tennis tables! as if that's not amusing enough, they used cements bricks as their nets. AND they're being used! unlike certain *ahhem* facilities *ahhem* you see around *ahhem* *ahhem*

on the right is the two most famous olympic structures: the birds nest and the water cube. aka the stadium and the swimming pool. i find it interesting how they're widely known and called by their nicknames. you don't often hear people saying "ever been to the durian lately?" around here do you.

this is the greatest amusement. do you see a cctv camera in that sentry house? yep. i tell you. that's how china won their wars against mongolia and other countries during the han dynasty. CCTV.

so what's in a holiday when you're on your own?

you think abt what you can blog abt.

or you open your eyes and wait for God to talk to you about anything under the sun. through anything that your eyes happen to chance upon. this i learned from mr lau hanyang.

april 32nd

2008-05-02T23:41:00.000+08:00

i meant to blog before the end of april
and i meant to blog abt my month long trip to guangzhou/beijing/hk/thailand
but my com is ill and emotional.

my apologies.

and my photos are in that com too. ah bummer.

hahaha i can't believe myself. but in guangzhou half my mind was constantly wondering (what can i blog about....) . but i didn't write any of those down, so i forgot most of them already.

tho i don't understand why the internet in guangzhou doesn't allow blogs and wikipedia.
nor why one shopping mall can have 5 adidas AND 5 nike shops inside.
nor why my umbrella was useless to such a fine furry drizzle that it is blown horizontally.
nor why the tips and only the tips of people's shoes (including mine) get dirty.

haha and i bought 2 chinese books abt chinese architecture in guangzhou.
hopefully it would add a certain amt of culture flavour during my studies.
hahahaha in my dreams.

ahh right. a thought did come to me one day when i was walking along a road.
a very very busy shopping road. packed with chinese people. disgustingly packed.

if anyone has even a wee little bit of burden for any chinese,
multiplied by the number of chinese in just guangzhou (i'm not even thinking of the entire china)
its still one heck of a heart wrenching passionate burden for a state (not to mention country)
*shudder*

stranger than fiction

2008-03-17T15:19:00.001+08:00

(wow harry, on a blogging spree?)
just watched stranger than fiction on hbo.

"It's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die... then dies. But if the man does know he's going to die, and dies anyway... dies willingly, knowing he could stop it... you tell me...
isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"

mister god, this is anna

2008-03-13T10:40:00.001+08:00

going around borders i found so many books that i don't mind reading. don't mind meaning probably at the end of the day i'd just forget about reading these books hahaha.

like mark haddon's new book. he's the author of "curious incident of the dog in the night time". oh. which derrick said was the perfect autistic book for the autistic me. or or "the logic of life". which is an economics book, written by the same author as "the undercover economist". or malcolm gladwell's "blink", jostein gaarder's "sophie's world".

haha don't bother reading that.

all this and i haven't even walked through the christian aisle.

but the problem is, i'm currently stuck in this book. stuck not because it has a 1000 over pages or that i'm determined to finish a dead boring book, but because seriously i don't mind reading it over and over and over again. i don't want to continue reading before i digest what i've read, but that won't do too. so i've decided to transfer what i've read to another stomach- here!

so here's quotes.

"love me, love them, and love it, and don't forget to love yourself."

"people can only love outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its different."

"Mister God is different from us because he can finish things and we can't. I can't finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the same kind of love, is it?"

"Humanity in general had an infinite number of points of view, whereas Mister God had an infinite number of viewing points."

"It isn't the Devil in humanity that makes man a lonely creature, its his Godlikeness. It's the fullness of the Good that can't get out or can't find its proper 'other place' that makes for loneliness."

"The instructions weren't to be good and kind and loving, etc., and it therefore followed that you would be more like God. No! The whole point of being alive was to be like Mister God and then you couldn't help but be good and kind and loving, could you?"

"we simply had to admit that Mister God was quite empty. Not empty because they was truly nothing there, but empty because he accepted everything, because he wanted everything and did not reflect anything back!" (referring to how lights and colours work where the colour that we see an object is the colour that 'it doesn't want' and therefore the light of that colour reflects into our eyes")

and i'm not even half way through yet! pfff. before i figure out what each implies i even have to think about whether its worth figuring out in the first place. hurhurhur.

rate your household chores!

2008-03-10T09:23:00.002+08:00

alright alright i know.

everytime i go online i pass by this place and think "oi you're post is wayy overdue. and that january post doesn't even count as a one!"you're not the only one k? so here goes.

haha. i koped the idea from xkcd but i thought of rating all the household chores. its more or less what i've been up to anw (i mean chores. not rating them)

well, tadaaa. maybe i shd add a "enjoyability factor" but you can more or less predict the enjoyability according to this graph. i realise there's a slight trend where effort is proportional to time taken, with cooking as an anomaly. i guess its bcos the more something takes, naturally the more effort required. and ironing is off. the. charts. altho it is the only chore where you can multi task and watch tv at the same time, but urrrggghh. or maybe its bcos i iron 2/3 batches of laundry in one go. hahahahaha. oh and if you haven't noticed, "cleaning my room" isn't even in this graph.

well mr zachary young went to auckland for missions for a month. he's going into his 2nd week i think. the farewell was neat enough. hahaha. and true to hope culture we stood in a circle and chat even before he went into immigration. we might as well be standing in the first floor of cuppage after service where he has to run off first. but i like it that way yea. its like it happens all the time. i'll probably see him even before i meet up some friends i've not met since jc (and i didn't have a big farewell for them). but its impolite to leave without saying goodbye i suppose.

and he's staying with the soh's! how cool is that. thinking of them always brings back memories of taiwan, tho right now with my memory failing i can't seem to put a finger on exactly when and where. its amazing how God works with connections. never would've thought i'd meet them again. the same probably goes for people around me right now. haha it pays to have good memory.

DEVIANT

2008-01-22T00:12:00.000+08:00

i'm an official deviantart-er!

http://rrylam.deviantart.com/art/all-about-me-75195108

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

uuaarrggkk.

2007-12-16T02:01:00.000+08:00

i feel like drawing a dainty picture
and post in on this place
or lay my body on a bed with
a pillow under my face

but dang my heart is heavy.
and i brought this upon myself.

i shan't deny, i can't deny
cos if i do i might as well die.
my body's weak, my mind weaker
and my spirit ever so sluggish.

the world crashes;
effects, consequences, outcomes,
the reapings of my sows.
oh no no no no noooooooooo.

and there i go
i just wasted another 20 on this post.
tickety tock, dickory dock.
the only sound coming from my mouth
or more like the depths of my stomach:
uuaarrggkk.

need

2007-11-02T13:14:00.000+08:00

i say more?

what do i do all afternoon?

2007-10-19T16:04:00.000+08:00

haha.
taken from xkcd.com

here's a quote

2007-09-30T20:09:00.000+08:00

quoted by ravi zacharias.
i don't know where the original came from...

"when God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man;
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part.
When He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man,
That all the world might be amazed;
Watch His methods, watch His ways.

How He ruthless perfects whom He royally elects.
How He hammers and hurts him, and with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay that only God understands
while his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands.
How He bends but never breaks when His good he undertakes,
How He uses whom He chooses and with mighty acts induces him to try His splendor out.
God knows what He's about."

I haven't thought it out quite through yet, but I think on hindsight we could never live out of God's plans. I mean, He's got the whole world in His hands, how could anyone live out of His plans? (it rhymes!) what in the world can we do that will shock the Omniscient? I guess the clearest way to put it, is to look to the past. obviously, in the past I've thought of wrong things, done wrong deeds, etc. at that point in time (if i knew it was wrong) I would have thought its not according to God's plan. I mean, how could it be? but looking back, I realise I've learned from those times and I would not be where I am if I had thought/done otherwise. would I have been better off if I did the right thing? who knows. perhaps better off in one way, but i worse in another. I suppose what's "best", in its most objective sense, only God knows.

Its like, as much as He's been to the future, He is the God of the present. That's how we have free will to make our own choices. the fact that we've made certain choices show our character such that if you turn back time and made the other choice, that flaw is would still be there. anyways if we were all able to turn back time we would be in our earliest age of sanity living life to the fullest. but that would be boring.

ayy. I almost forgot to add what it all means to me. its comforting to know that God's always in control. i don't need to be afraid if choices i make "are part of God's plans." of course, that is if, and only if, i truly and humbly want to do it for Him. even if it is "wrong", as long as i continue to find Him, He'd bring me back. 1 tim 2: 4 says God "...wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." but if pride or ignorance, laziness, bitterness, yada yada yada takes over (especially if its for the rest of your life), thats when things goes wrong.

OH. haha. disclaimer: I THINK.