Room Restoration Day

Just spent the last couple of hours packing my room. It was a feat. It was a record. I really deserve a prize.

You see, for the past couple of weeks my room has been as unsightly as a horse's shiny chocolate behind sticking out of a lorry transporting a herd of them to the racetrack. Not a common sight in Singapore, but you might catch a glimpse of one of these if you've been on the highway long enough. {Not that I have. [I don't even drive. So I guess I got (un)lucky.]}

Anyways, it's interesting how one thing leads to another. At first I was only looking for my USB wireless-mouse-detector-thing to begin re-exploring photoshop. I found it quite quickly actually. But in the search I'd created a couple new stacks of dusty papyrus and blurred out even more right angles. So now it looked like two shiny chocolate behinds instead of one shiny chocolate behind. Well, enough was enough.

So I started with the table first. Because everything was on the table, pretty much like this old meme, if you can remember it. I found a couple of things I thought I'd lost for good - a trusty plectrum, and the Hendon camp letter that actually makes people feel thankful, happy and all those other positive emotions for regular BMT. They really know how to play with your mind. I still think a red beret looks cool. See?

Then I sifted through two stacks of files and papers towering like the Petronases right below my window. This was a memorable excursion, whence I re-promised myself to buy three huge ring folders to get them all organised for a less frustrating life. That's because most of them were either Dom7th's anthem scores from the past couple of years, or that of our worship band rehearsals. I suspect there are a lot more in my guitar bag, that music shell-scrape. But with the dust in the wind, the find that really put a smile to my sneezes were the 领唱 scores. Many of them were filled with scribbles, mostly in Shorts' handwriting, occasionally in Muscle Girl's, who didn't like to bother, and my own. Haha, those were the torturer's torturous days. Definitely worth keeping.

Finally I tore down the sheets of white paper that were white-tack-ed to the back of my glass cupboard to reveal my vibrant encyclopaedia plus action figurine collection. You see, I'd converted the cupboard into a makeshift whiteboard for the exam period; one of my newer studying methods. I guess I'll find out in January if it really works.

Of course, all of this was done with both ears pointing toward my speakers, which were playing Hello Hurricane. Goodness that album is so brilliant it deserves another post all by itself. Go get it even if you're broke. Besides, at least you get free food in jail.

Well, we're spick and span now. Two full dustbins of two years in black, white and assorted colours.

Now if only the other things in life were that easy to throw away.

Today is the day...

...that the Roman Emperor Vespasian was born, in 9 AD that is. According to a few scholarly sources, the claim that he converted to Christianity during his reign is becoming increasingly credible. Interestingly, he afforded the Apostles and Jews relatively more peace in comparison to his predecessor Nero, who accused the Christians of the Great Fire of Rome, or his successor Titus, who besieged Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple. Hmm...at 9 AD, Jesus was probably around 12 years old, and so should have just visited the Temple Himself. A snowball of revolutionary phenomena crescendoing slowly in His little adolescent mind.

...that Mary I of England died, in 1558. She was also known as "Bloody Mary", an underestimated misnomer for the patron apparition of frequent forward-this-message-to-72384-people-or-die-at-12-midnight chain emails. She earned the name for orchestrating the Marian persecutions, in which about 300 protestants were burned at the stake and hundreds more were exiled.

...that the Suez Canal was opened, in 1869. The waterway of today is not to be taken lightly. It has survived as the landscape and the reason for two bloody conflicts of the 20th century - the Suez Crisis and the Arab-Israeli wars. Inextricable from the friction and from the Suez would be the country of Egypt, the other amazing land of biblical wonder. Accordingly, it is said to have seen three major religions, but I would argue five. First, Egyptian paganism (excluding Ham, son of Noah); second, Judaism from the Mosaic era; third, Roman paganism from Roman conquest; fourth, Christianity under Roman shelter; and fifth, Islam from the Ottomans.

...that the world continues to be a crucible of faiths. One religion can be voraciously eager, while another can deny that it is in fact a religion. Some people can believe in one and tune out the rest, while others can tune in to everything and start writing books about why what they're tuning in to are really hallucinations. There are yet others who believe in the absolute golden rule that you shouldn't stop someone from believing what he believes, unless he believes in stopping someone from believing what he doesn't believe. Now that's a pretty shaky belief.

The generic, man-centred purpose of any religion is to answer two questions: 'How did we begin?' and 'How will we end?' In simple words: What happened first and what's going to happen eventually?

So the real question is this: What's going to happen when we breathe our last and fall over the precipice of eternity?

Well, in the end, all of us will find out in at least one of two ways. If the scholars are right, some of us will be asking Vespasian, and some of us will be asking Bloody Mary.

...that we should all start thinking about these things, while we've still got the time.

Goodbye IB, Hello Hurricane.

There can be manacles

when you believe.

03/11/09 - 1pm: Chemistry HL P1; 3pm: Chemistry HL P2

04/11/09 - 8am: Chemistry HL P3

05/11/09 - 1pm: Mathematics SL P1

06/11/09 - 8am: Mathematics SL P2; 7:30pm: Choir Practice

07/11/09 - 9am: Discipleship Class; 4:00pm: Choir Practice; 7:00pm: SAT

08/11/09 - 10am: Cell Leading; 11:30am: November Anthem

09/11/09 - 1pm: History SL P1; 3pm: History SL P2

10/11/09 - 1pm: Biology HL P1; 3pm: Biology HL P2

11/11/09 - 8am: Biology HL P3; 1pm: English HL P1

12/11/09 - 8am: English HL P2; 8pm: Youth Worship Committee Meeting

But there can be miracles

when you have faith

(which is already one in and of itself).

Chemical Neussense

I'm currently hours away from my first IB paper (second, actually; CLB last year) but I'm already getting bored, somehow. It's an ambiguous sign, but it explains why I'm here.

Anyways, two days of hardcore chemistry revision has helped me to realise something quite irrelevant to my syllabus. Ironically, this was done through reading Geoffrey Neuss' Chemistry Course Companion, which was specifically written for the IBDP. Apart from Iron Man's notes, Neuss' book is one of the most comprehensive texts that I've ever read in my life. But that's not all.

It is an understatement to say that the way in which the book has written epitomises the inter-disciplinary nature of the IBDP. No, it is the very embodiment of the IB ideology. And yes, that I noticed with a great sense of comedy, but not without appreciation. So how is this the case? Well, let's just say that the book is littered with...riveting anecdotes that I'm sure would placate any IB student who is on the brink of getting 3 points for HL Chemistry. Here are three examples.

First, on page 87, Neuss discusses the molecular orbital theory of hybridisation from a 'biological perspective'. Have you ever heard of what a dzo is? Well, what better place to find out than in an IB chemistry textbook! Neuss writes "By crossing a yak with a cow a new hybrid animal called a dzo is produced, which combines the docility of a cow with the load-carrying capacity of a yak." And then he goes on to make the link, "this concept of hybridisation has been extended to atomic orbitals..." Oh, but male dzos, unfortunately, can't mate. They're sterile. It's a result of heterosis. Poor animals. Now I wonder how that might extended into orbital theory.

Second, on page 223, Neuss talks about condensation polymerisation with the example of nylon, whose repeating unit is formed by alternating diamine and dioyl dichloride monomers. He then discusses the economic importance of condensation reactions. And as if to add the final touch, he includes an epic black and white picture of two mountain climbers against a snowy backdrop, one of whom is holding on to a dark, thin and taut rope, both of whom are smiling blissfully at the camera. The caption says "Two IB teachers roped together with nylon climbing rope on the summit of the Wilde Spritze in the Austrian Alps (photo by Geoff Neuss)." I nod my head in agreement.

The third one is actually pretty cool. On page 27, Neuss talks about C-14 dating. He raises a historical example, namely, the "Shroud of Turin". He wrote "People have claimed that this shroud, kept in Turin cathedral in Italy, was used to wrap the body of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion in the first century CE, and shows an imprint of his face. Carbon dating has dated the shroud as no earlier than 1260 CE." The picture is quite compelling, actually. And Neuss was clearly trying to maintain a neutral stand.

Well, I can conclude at least one thing from this. If the IB system does in fact manage to inculcate all of its values into an arbitrary student, that student should grow up and write textbooks to proliferate the influence. *grin*

Girl Power

Just bought two albums last Saturday - Introducing Joss Stone by Joss Stone and Brand New Eyes by Paramore.

They belong to slightly different genres in comparison to the ones I usually listen to. But I thought, why not widen my palate? And I had good reason to take the risk.

You see, there's currently so much male voice in my library that I've almost forgotten about the beauty of melodies in the next octave (with the exception of Adam Lambert). Clearly a legit craving for a new kind of feistiness and style.

It's also interesting to note that in music, the male and female voice is in no purport dichotomous, which would restrict the listener to one of two opposing landscapes. Admittedly, it is more often than not an either or. But even so, what might be ridiculously suggested is that listeners have at least a 2^n number of choices, where n equals to the number of existing genres. And we haven't yet taken into account choral music and instrumental music, or gone into specific artists and collaborations.

That's why I took such a long time sifting through the iTunes store before I decided on Joss Stone and Hayley Williams, the lead singer of Paramore.

Joss is R&B; something that I took to quite quickly because of my existing niche in the blues. More importantly, her vocals are as luscious as her looks, if not more. And uniquely, she's a British soulstress capable of owning American music. Yes, she owns; I mean it in that sense.

Paramore is more pop punk and emo rock, which isn't my usual cup of tea. So I got it almost only because of Hayley's voice, which is really outstanding, especially for a genre in which guys rule the roost. Far better than bands who write songs that have fifteen-word-long titles, heh. They should just fall out of business.

Also, it's hard to believe that Joss and Hayley are only 22 and 21 respectively.

So as of now, I'm still listening to the two records, and I'm quite pleased with both so far. Check out the two videos below if you're interested to find out how talented Joss and Hayley really are. Also, just to stand up for the guys a little here, be sure to check this out - "the world's greatest band on the world's largest stage", live yesterday on YouTube. Absolutely brilliant. I was unable to work for a couple of hours after the catching the live stream.

Finally, a list of upcoming albums I'm intensely looking forward to:

27/10 Full Circle by Creed

02/11 Colour Me Free! by Joss Stone

03/11 Play On by Carrie Underwood

10/11 Hello Hurricane by Switchfoot

17/11 The Fall by Norah Jones

17/11 Battle Studies by John Mayer

23/11 For Your Entertainment by Adam Lambert

01:25

Behold! Behold! The Bridegroom comes!

A scurry of sleepy devotion, a handful of dazed

Shrieks - panic from nether dreams,

Incubi make their last claims tonight.

Come out to meet him!

Trim the wick

Clean the soot

Pupils widen

Light the glim!

A quintet of

Eager souls in

Groaning flesh, anticipate a coruscant countenance that penetrates

Into the dark

Oh how the maidens have

Waited for

Heavenly consummation!

Pour for us a portion of your oil, for ours shall run out too quickly!

The prudent refuse, for the wick is

Sealed

By Elijah's Spirit,

Whose blessings overfloweth - their lamps runneth over from within,

Whose covenant endureth for eternity,

Whose radiance reacheth from everlasting to everlasting.

He comes at this very moment.

Go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.

They depart for eternity's sake.

Incubi act. Dreams precipitate. Doors shut.

The moon is gone but

Darkness remains,

The heart of the earthly present unclothed by grace,

Feeble shadows in motion, cast by lamps that are wasting

Away all over again.

Lord, Lord, open up for us!

Fair knuckles bleed against gristly wood.

I know you not, verily I say.

For many are called, but few are saved.

~tc