Tuesday, June 30, 2009

a very significant day in my life. i ve been waiting for today for the whole month! but when today rolled by, i was anxious and excited, ruffled and restless.
was tempted to think i was making a mistake.

this is the turn of the chapter. no turning back.
deep calls out to the deep.
i know deep inside it is right.

Saturday, June 27, 2009


i am saddened by Michael Jackson's death. what a life. so many people "love" him, have him "with them as they grow up", "day and night" but he has.....??

here's "heal the world"


little girl talking

((i think about the gererations
and thay say thay want to make it 
a better place for our children & our children's children
so that thay thay thay know it's a better world for them 
and i think thay can make it a better place))


There's A Place In
Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could
Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need 
To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow

There Are 
Ways To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

If You Want To Know Why
There's A Love That
Cannot Lie
Love Is Strong
It Only Cares For
Joyful Giving
If We Try
We Shall See
In This Bliss
We Cannot Feel
Fear Or Dread
We Stop Existing And
Start Living

Then It Feels That Always
Love's Enough For
Us Growing
So Make A Better World
Make A Better World...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

And The Dream We Were
Conceived In
Will Reveal A Joyful Face
And The World We
Once Believed In
Will Shine Again In Grace
Then Why Do We Keep
Strangling Life
Wound This Earth
Crucify Its Soul
Though It's Plain To See
This World Is Heavenly
Be God's Glow

We Could Fly So High
Let Our Spirits Never Die
In My Heart
I Feel You Are All
My Brothers
Create A World With
No Fear
Together We'll Cry
Happy Tears
See The Nations Turn
Their Swords
Into Plowshares

We Could Really Get There
If You Cared Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
To Make A Better Place...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children

Saturday, June 20, 2009

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama got a basketball, his first name and ambition from his father. Little else.

The son gave back more than he received: a lifetime of ruminations about the man who abandoned the family, a memoir named "Dreams from My Father," and endless reflections on his own successes and shortcomings as a parent of Sasha, 8, and Malia, 10.

As a candidate and now president, he's been telling men what sort of father they should be. It's become his Father's Day ritual and he's not shy about it.

He's asking American men to be better fathers than his own.

The president showcased fatherhood in a series of events and a magazine article in advance of Father's Day. He said he came to understand the importance of fatherhood from its absence in his childhood homes — just as an estimated 24 million Americans today are growing up without a dad.

Fathers run deep in the political culture as they do everywhere else, for better and worse. Michelle Obama has said many times how her late dad, Fraser, is her reference point and rock — she checks in with him, in her mind, routinely, and at important moments.

Obama's presidential rival, John McCain, called his own memoirs "Faith of My Fathers," tracing generations of high-achieving scamps. The father-son presidencies of the George Bushes were bookends onBill Clinton, whose father drowned in a ditch before he was born and whose stepfather was an abusive alcoholic nicknamed Dude.

A Kenyan goatherder-turned-intellectual who clawed his way to scholarships and HarvardBarack Hussein Obama Sr. left a family behind to get his schooling in the United States. He started another family here, then left his second wife and 2-year-old Barack Jr. to return to Africa with another woman.

His promise flamed out in Africa after stints working for an oil company and the government; he fell into drink and died in a car crash when his son was 21, a student at Columbia University.

"I don't want to be the kind of father I had," the president is quoted as telling a friend in a new book about him.

His half-sister, Maya, called his memoirs "part of the process of excavating his father."

Obama now cajoles men to be better fathers — not the kind who must be unearthed in the soul.

His finger-wagging is most pointed when addressing other black men, reflecting years of worry about the fabric of black families and single mothers, but it applies to everyone.

Father's Day 2007: "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."

Father's Day 2008: "Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Father's Day 2009: "We need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what's going on in their lives."

He doesn't hold himself out as the ideal dad. No driven politician can.

"I know I have been an imperfect father," he writes in Sunday's Parade magazine. "I know I have made mistakes. I have lost count of all the times, over the years, when the demands of work have taken me from the duties of fatherhood."

He volunteered for those demands, as all people do when they want power. His years as a community organizer, Illinois lawmaker, U.S. senator and presidential candidate often kept him apart from family.

At the same time, he went to great lengths in the 2008 campaign to find time with his girls and wife, and now considers the routine family time one of the joys of living and working in the White House.

The new book "Renegade" by Richard Wolffe recounts strains in the marriage early this decade, arising from his absences and from what Michelle Obama apparently considered his selfish careerism at the time. The author interviewed the Obamas, friends and associates.

Obama himself attributed his "fierce ambitions" to his dad while crediting his mother — a loving but frequently absent figure — with giving him the means to pursue them.

"Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes," he once wrote, "and I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else." By malady, he meant the will to achieve.

Obama was a schoolboy in Hawaii when his father came back to visit. He gave his dad a tie. His father gave him a basketball and African figurines and came to his class to speak about Kenya. He was an impressive, mysterious figure whom Obama found compelling, volatile and vaguely threatening.

The visit took a sour turn when Obama went to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and his father made him shut off the TV, saying he watched too much. Obama slammed the bedroom door; a loud argument ensued among grown-ups.

Not the quality time Obama has in mind in asking dads to turn off the TV now.

___

n oh, Happy fathers' day.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

"Humble pie is something that from this day on I'll be eating for breakfast for the rest of my life." - British celeb chef Gordon Ramsay on his attack on Tracy Grimshaw. 

i think it is a good practice for me too. do it b4 something i do makes me regret. 
Channel NewsAsia - Thursday, June 11

SINGAPORE : A couple, found guilty last month of distributing seditious or objectionable publications, has been sentenced to 8 weeks jail each.

50—year—old SingTel technical officer Ong Kian Cheong and his 46—year—old wife, UBS associate director Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, had been found guilty on four charges each of sedition.

For two decades, the couple spread their faith by handing out religious pamphlets, and then by dropping tracts into random HDB letterboxes.

From around 1998, however, the couple, both Protestant Christians, mailed them to addresses picked out from the telephone directory — those of Muslims included.

They "clearly did so with the intent of convincing the Muslim reader to convert to Christianity", a district court found.

For distributing and possessing seditious and objectionable publications, husband and wife were sentenced to eight weeks’ jail each on Wednesday.

Such "intolerance, insensitivity and ignorance of delicate issues concerning race and religion" in Singapore "clearly warranted" a custodial sentence, said District Judge Roy Neighbour.

In the first full trial heard under the Sedition Act, the married couple of 24 years was found guilty on May 28 of the charges.

In 2007, Mr Irwan Ariffin, 32, and Madam Farhati Ahmad, 36, received an evangelistic comic—style booklet titled The Little Bride through the mail while Mr Isa Raffee, 35, was sent Who Is Allah?.

After a complaint to the police, an ambush was laid and the pair was arrested on Jan 30 last year.

Found in their condominium in Bukit Timah were 439 copies of 11 seditious tracts.

During the 11—day trial, it emerged that the SingTel technical officer and his wife, sent out about 20,000 publications in seven years.

Produced by an American firm called Chick Publications, the fundamentalist Protestant materials were "not only offensive for religious content but also have a tendency to promote feelings of ill—will or hostility between Muslims and Christians in Singapore", said Judge Neighbour.

By distributing tracts with "callous, denigratory, offensive and insensitive statements on religion with aspersions on race", the pair had committed "serious" offences that "have the capacity to undermine and erode the delicate fabric of racial and religious harmony in Singapore".

Common sense, he said, dictated that religious fervor to spread the faith, "in our society, must be constrained by sensitivity, tolerance and mutual respect for another’s faith and religious beliefs".

Ong and Chan were expressionless when sentenced.

Their lawyer Selva K Naidu told the court that they had filed a notice of appeal against the conviction last Friday. He was awaiting instructions to proceed.

The pair faced two charges of distributing seditious publications each, and one each of distributing an objectionable publication and possession of seditious tracts.

They got four weeks’ jail for each charge — two of them running consecutively and the remaining to run concurrently.

They could have been fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed for up to three years for each of the two charges.

The possession charge carries a maximum fine of $2,000 and/or jail for up to 18 months. Distributing objectionable publications is punishable with a fine not exceeding $5,000 and/or up to one year behind bars. — CNA /ls

Monday, June 01, 2009

ran sundown yesterday. was a v hot n windless night despite the route taking us thru open spaces, beaches, lagoons and reservoir. but this year's tee is nicer. and thank God it didnt rain (last year i was drenched thru n thru near my house! ) the volunteers were nicer than last year's as well as stand chart's. i think they did a gr8 job encouraging the runners. and the runners themselves were way nicer too - encouraging pp as they overtook them, cheering others on: a number of ultra-marathoners n cyclists running past us, seeing me struggle said, "good job gals! 3k more!" etc. these pp have better athlete's ethics and they understand pain n perseverence. (i like sundown more cos i cant stand standchart marathon cos of the sun n the pp who dun have running ethics!) i got applauded alot of times. the atmosphere was incredible. one of the things the world needs - more cheerleaders. 

sis waited to "send us off" at the starting point. but was a little too distracted then to appreciate her better than a "thanks thanks." 

this was the 1st time some1 walked wif me and had to support me alot. i ve had done so for others so it was a nice "turning of table" situation for me. was humbling but like i said above, it was nice receiving. thank u jo!

she ran ahead of me 3x n twice i overtook her as she took a toilet break, the other time was wen she missed a turn at the bridge (d volunteer sitting at the railings of the bridge failed to direct her) n run on to downtown east. good thing she realised soon enough that there were no "red shirts!" and called me. so by the time she came back, i reached the bridge and we went on together. she laughingly said she has to run more distance in both marathons she took part in. 

there was this gal who wore a "perth marathon" singlet. she kept overtaking us 5,6 times. got us scratching our heads cos we never knew we had even overtaken her at all! (we were only walking) incredulous when she ran past us about the 6th time, we burst out laughing. 

anyway, this is my last marathon for a long while to come. maybe i shall re-attempt marathon-ing in my late thirties or fourties.. =) giving my knee a good long break. my mum was so happy 2 hear dat this is my last. she jus couldnt understand y i put myself thru such misery.

there's gonna b a big change in my life soon. i m stepping out of the boat. gonna try some "walking on water". tell u more later this week.