Two good movies

I watched two movies in the last two days.

Yes Man

This is a hilarious comedy starring Jim Carrey. It is about a man who became very lonely and inward-looking after his girlfriend left her. He became very pessimistic about life and denied (say no to) every opportunities presented to him. One day, he met a friend that introduced him a new philosophy of life called "Yes". In the first seminar he attended, the guru preached to him to make a covenant to "Yes". Basically, he is supposed to say Yes to everything.

A lot of funny things (both good and bad) happened when he said Yes to everything. He found his new girlfriend, got promoted in his job and helped a few people big time by giving them hope. By saying Yes to everything, he also bumped into some troubles. He was arrested by the authority for being a terrorist suspect as he learned flying, dated with Iranian woman, confirmed his flight and destiny at the last minute, etc...

There are some truths in the “Yes” philosophy. The believers must be positive looking but not blindly say Yes to everything. They must also make sense of the things to make the good judgment. He finally realized that he only graduated from the first lesson.


叶问

这部电影真好看。尤其是武打的部分，演员都打的很精采。它也是中国南部（佛山）武林功夫的一些写实。

我最欣赏的是叶问对朋友的谦虚和忠诚，对国家和民族的爱护和忠诚。他的价值观和做人的原则从不被外来压力动摇。

我去年到过佛山工干，只可惜我没时间去了解当地的武林历史和文化。

With God all things are possible...

Two happenings which I think worth remembering:

Shisha - I was spending time with some of my colleagues in a pub at Arab St on Friday two weeks ago. I tried Shisha. They use charcoal to burn with the selected flavour to create smoke which is filtered by the water in the bottom of the piece of equipment. We have to inhale the smoke through a pipe connected to the equipment. That night, we ordered two Shisha, one is rose flavour and the other is cherry flavour. According to Thiru (my Indian colleague), smoking Shisha is Middle East style of socializing with people.

Sundramoorthy - I played futsal soccer at Farrer Park last Thursday. I didn't know that one of the player in the opposite team is Singapore soccer legend Sundramoorthy. He is now the Young Lion coach.

Last but not least, I like this year's verse at Tang's Shopping Mall. It reads, "......WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE - MATTHEW 19:26"

Christmas Dinner Party - Christmas In The City (New York)

"Christmas In The City" was held at Dome located at Singapore Art Muzium on the 13th Dec. I helped in the RSVP, admin & registration of the event. Our goal was to hit 70 people attending this event. I was not encouraged when we barely had 40+ confirmed RSVP at the end of Nov. The leaders knew the situation and encouraged the people to pray & fast, and work hard.

As the event date drew closer, the number skyrocketed to 70 in days. On the actual day we have 80 people attending the event! We were desperate and God gave us a miracle!

We had game (drawing the meaning of Christmas), caroling, song presentation, sharing, testimony, dance (this part was the funniest), food & city light bus tour.

Christmas Meals

Christmas isn't a Christmas without a good Christmas meal for most of the Singaporeans. During this festive season, I have already had several Christmas meals with friends and colleagues to date. Here I recalled them:

1. Fig & Olive at Vivocity (with QA department) - They serve Halal Western food. I took their BBQ chicken served with pasta. The food is ok. However the service is thumbsdown. The last few persons who got their foods had waited for more than 1 hour after the first few persons got theirs. Because of this unpleasant experience, we decided to "ban" this restaurant for future departmental lunch.
2. Warunglele at Arab St. (with colleagues) - They serve Indonesian Ala Cart Buffet food. The food is tasty and the service is excellent. The price is very reasonable.
3. Dome at Singapore Art Muzium (with church friends) - They serve buffet food for 80 people at our Christmas Dinner Party. The food is plain. It could have been better. The cutlery, bowl and plate used are all plastic which doesn't quite match the standard we expected. Furthermore, there is only one male and one female toilet. People are jammed there for long time. We concluded that this place is not suitable for big event like ours.
4. Grand Copthorne Hotel (with EHS committee) - They serve buffet lunch. Most of my colleagues like the big raw oyster and one of them ate 12! I didn't eat much as my tummy was not well. But I was glad I could take my favourite Jap food - the sashimi. Overall, it is a good and sumptious meal.

Stanchart Marathon 2008

I ran the 10km Stanchart last Sunday. I was excited because it was my first time running such a long distance. My target was to complete the 10km within 1 hour without stopping. I didn't stop throughout the race. However, my timing is 1h:11m:49s (gun) / 1h:8m:42s (net), slightly falling short of my goal. Jian Ming and I ran together at the beginning but we parted after about 2km.

I think my regular training before the event helped me to finish the race well. I tried to jog 3km at least once a week. In this way, I trained my stamina and maintained a healthy lifestyle. While I was running the race, I was thinking whether I should sign up half-marathon in 2009. If I were to sign up, I will need to jog at least 8km to train up my stamina.

I was later told that Hope Church (the organization I registered with) got 6th place in the Non-profit Org Distance Challenge and it is the only church that receives placing.

Learning from two good books

I read two good books last week. The first book is Joyce Meyer's "Battlefield of the mind". This book talks about our freedom in Christ in the mind. The content is very practical and useful for personal life. The second book is "The 4th Dimension" authored by Dr David Yonggi Cho. This is a very powerful book for personal life and ministry.

Here are my take-home points from these books:

Battlefield of the mind

1. The smoke of cigarette is disgusting to people who do not smoke. Negative thinking is best illustrated as the smoke of cigarette for those who have the mind of Christ. In order to live a victorious life, we ought to fill our mind with the thoughts of Christ through knowing His Word. Spend a lot of time in reading and studying His Word!
2. When we have judgemental thoughts toward someone, we become a god to the person we judge. Don't choose to become a god to other people, rather learn to love people. Judging people is not our job; it is God's job.

The 4th Dimension

1. The law of faith - a) When we pray, we must pray very specifically. Don't pray vague prayer. Pray and ask God to answer our specific and clear-cut goals. We will know that it is God's answered prayer only when we are clear what we pray for. b) Pray for strong desire to see things happen. c) Pray until we have great assurance from God that he is going to answer our prayer.
2. The 4th dimension - There are 3 dimensions in the material world. The 1st dimension is a line. The 2nd dimension is a plane. The 3rd dimension is a cubic. But it is in the 4th dimension God's spirit works and creates. Our faith also operates in the 4th dimension. We can experience this by creating and envisioning clear and vivid mental pictures of what we want to see happen in our lives. When we do this, God will work through our visions and make things happen.
3. The creative power of the spoken word - Don't always beg with God. We have to learn to command things to happen according to God's word and power.
4. Rhema - Ask Holy Spirit for guidance and direction in our specific situation. Wait upon Him. When God speaks to our hearts He can in one second do far greater than we could do in one entire year. Don't hurry to do a lot of things using our fleshly effort.
5. School of Andrew - Think big. Think miracles. Persevere on when we face troubles and obstacles. In the story of Jesus feeding the 5000, Philips thought of the impossible. In contrast, Andrew had the possibility thinking. He gave to Jesus what he had though he doubted. God can use the little one of us to do the impossible!
6. God’s address – He dwells in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We can tap his endless resource, power and authority to overcome any life challenges.

Improving our languague and communication

We observed that a lot of people in Singapore like to speak Singlish. What is Singlish? Basically, it is English that is greatly influenced by the Singapore culture and languages. Common words used are "mah", "leh", "lah", etc...People here especially the students love to use words such as, "right?", "like" when they construct their sentences. Honestly I sometimes get irritated because a supposedly beautiful language has been poorly spoken and used. In my opinion, the government should create more awareness in the proper use of English.

Speaking proper English is only one of the communication skills. I am not a language expert or gifted communicator. And I only started to use English more frequently when I came to Singaore in year 2000. However, as I want to improve my communication skill, I set some standards for myself in the following areas:

1. Speaking clearly - Don't have to use bombastic English to get our points across. But using the correct word is important. It is fun to learn and discover how one English word can be used in so many ways.
2. Creating simple sentence - Use basic and correct sentence structure. Try not to construct lengthy sentences as it will confuse people. Do away with redundant words. The most basic sentence consist of a noun, a verb and an object.
3. Listening & understanding - Pro 18:2, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions". I learned the truth of this verse in the hard way. I seldom sought to understand and clarify other people's point. I focused on airing my own opinions and I always spoke rashly. Now, I make sure I am fully clear of what people say. If what they say is vague, I will seek to clarify and question what was being spoken. In this way, I not only know the issue clearly, but also help people to clarify their own thoughts.

I believe communication is an art. It requires life-long learning process to improve. We can gradually improve through diligent and active listening, speaking, reading, writing (like what I am doing now) and practising.