Advent

Christmas is coming! The sense of expectancy in the air is there and I now wait like a child for christmas. I've been helping with the household preperations and of course one of my favourites is putting up the advent wreath and the tree. This year sadly because of the renovations ongoing in my house, we have no room for the rather delicate crib (might get broken if out) and will not be able to hold our usual large hearty christmas party.

Nevertheless, I'm in a very holiday mood and have been getting my christmas shopping done. I will also need to do my christmas confession, never the pleasantest of exercises, but nevertheless which leaves my soul feeling squeaky clean. And then there are my christmas cards to write, late as usual, but well, christmas does last 12 days, so many people forget this...so you see, I'm really not late...

Anyway, to all readers, may you have a very blessed advent season!

Little Old Japanese Sensei

Tamura Sensei came along to our dojo to conduct a seminar. Tamura sensei is a slightly built, 5'5" 70+ year old aikido shihan (very senior teacher) who's 8th dan (8th grade black belt). He has enormous power despite his size and it's one of the big reasons why I picked aikido as a martial art, that there were all these little old Japanese guys able to floor guys less than half their age and twice their size. Tamura Sensei is one of those little old Japanese senseis who can do that. He was sent out to France many years ago to start aikido in France and much to his credit, aikido is now flourishing in France.

I spent much of my time during the seminar trying to figure out his techniques which were slightly different variations from the ones usually taught. Naturally the easier he made a technique look, the harder it was in practice. He came with a small contingent from France and visitors appeared from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and Thailand, such is his fame and pull in the aikido world.

I am still waiting for the photographs of the seminar to turn out and will post at least one on this spot. However for those of you who might be curious as to what aikido might look like, do visit www.ueshibaaikido.org which is the website of the dojo I normally practice at.

Bellini Room, St James Power Station

The Bellini Room is a jazz bar at the newly opened St James's Power Station at Sentosa Gateway. I went there with a few friends last night who wanted to go karoke and despite my not particularly liking that activity, figured it was worth checking out St James' Power Station and I'm glad I did.

The highlight for me was the resident jazz band and singer, the Bellini Room Band. A 7 piece band of mainly local jazz artists, it's led by a very strong music director, keyboardist and singer. The two older musicians, the drummer and the trumpeter both wear these fedora hats adding to the mood. The saxophonists are much younger and do excellent technical renditions. The singer that night was what really made the band stand out much more: a young Aussie jazz singer called Dylan Foster originally from The Flying Pickets in London.

I somehow really liked this guy's performance. It helped that he was cute and could engage the audience with ease by doing the occasional stroll amongst them to get a little audience participation. He really does as he says: put the soul back into swing. Best at the more soulful jazz numbers, he excelled at the more urban pieces as well as the latin jazz ones. He then unfortunately did a Michael Buble number at the request of one of the members of the audience in the exact same style of Michael Buble. While it was a very good imitation, its a bit sad that he felt he should imitate Michael Buble and I hope in time that he will do less of that and more of his own style which has enough individuality to make him stand out.

He then switched to some rock and roll numbers but despite his ability to belt them out, his personality so did not go with them so I hope he sticks with what he does best: soulful swing and latin jazz. And I hope he sticks around. There aren't any other singers like him on the Singapore scene that I know but I figure he's good enough and young and ambitious enough that he'll move on to better pastures soon.

Zaru Soba

In quest for a healthier lunch now that the healthfood store next door to my office has doubled its salad prices, I have decided to try cooking a little at lunchtime. Nothing major ie boiling soba noodles for zaru soba which I love.

I managed to find chasoba noodles at the Holland Village Cold Storage which come prepackaged into little serving sized bundles. I also managed to find tsuya which is the soy based dipping sauce for noodles and a tube of wasabi. I stuck religiously to buying only Japanese brands with ingredient labels in Japanese, and the odd sticker of English translations as to my dismay, any Korean or chinese or even some Singaporean brands have been adulterated to local tastes.

Chasoba is made from buckwheat and green tea so maybe it'll even help me stay awake after lunch instead of falling into a postlunch stupor. Soba is also rich in fibre and selenium and vitamin B...apparently it is the noodle of choice of health conscious Tokoyites.

I boiled this together with some Chinese watercress and rinsed it. And discovered that one rinse with tap water is insufficient to remove all the starchiness. I have a wonderful bottle of australian made organic brown rice miso which I added a tiny teaspoon of to the mixture as well as of course the dipping sauce and gobbled it all up in 5 minutes.

Taste-wise, I need to either go really pure and eat proper zaru soba or convert it into hiyashi noodles, as there's something missing or which doesn't quite gel although overall it's not bad. Hiyashi noodles however is usually made with ramen, though in the interests of experimentation, I can always try a soba version. Overall, I think what's missing is a bit of protien for both taste and nutrients so next time I should try some cold tofu dish topped with bonita flakes in some soy sauce or add slices of omelette and ham.

These however are strictly for alone eating. I don't think it's the sort of thing I'd inflict on anyone else other than myself for a quick working lunch.

Aikido Grading

Grading for aikido ranks is generally a very helpful affair although it's still tense. I arrived just as the white belts were starting out but didn't really watch them as I was distracted with talking to my friend who was grading for her 2nd kyu (black belt). It's always nice to have a friend to go through these milestones with. It's also we had a pact that we would uke (attacker partner) for each other which was possible since we were grading one after the other.

Turned out fine on the whole. I uked (partnered) for my friend as her first uke. I think I ended up making 2 mistakes as uke but corrected them immediately and fortunately these didn't unnerve her. I have to say my friend was quite composed, far more than I was when I was doing my grading at her level.

When it was my turn, I had three very nice guys be my ukes one after the other after sensei (instructor) made my friend step down as uke as she had just completed her grading. Usually at this level the gradings are longer, so ukes tire out and sensei changes them. The last guy I had was a very nice shodan (dan grades are the grades beyond black belt) and he was great as he's got beautiful ukemi (partnering techniques). We ended with tanto (wooden dagger) techniques which were a surprise...shows you how much I've been paying attention at gradings! I should have realised there were going to be these techniques.

The funny thing is now I actually like the freestyle (respond how you want to an attack) section best which is the bit I used to be the most wary of. It's partly that I'm less nervous than the last time, and partly that I know I can't forget a technique since I'm allowed to employ any aikido technique that I know. Whereas now there are so many more techniques that I can be tested on, I could easily forget some of them on the spot.

And of course the best thing about it all is that it's over and generally while I don't think I did that well technically, I'm unlikely to fail. So I'm pretty happy.

Confessions of an Aikido-holic

I'm an aikido-holic. I practice aikido 3 times a week, two hours at a time. When I can't practice you may notice I begin to display symptoms of restlessness, inattention to whatever is at hand unless aikido-related, a predilection to thinking in terms of blending and movement and in extreme cases, a dashing off in the direction of the dojo.

Tomorrow is when I grade for what they call first kyu which is the last stage of learning the basic movements in aikido. Everyone sits in this very large glass walled hall, where the parents, friends, supporters can sit outside and watch. But in the hall itself, it's generally quiet and discipline that rules. They call the white belts up first and then it proceeds up the ladder of seniority. People grade in groups before a large grading panel of sometimes up to about 8 examiners. I'm always hoping that I won't have to be lined up right under the noses of the examiners. Then they call out for ukes or attackers to partner the candidates and off it starts.

I'm grading at intermediate level so it means I sit on the mat for an awfully long time before I get called....that's bad for me because I get increasingly tense and the adrenaline starts flowing but has no where to go. By the time I get up there, I'm so pumped and jumpy I tend to forget movements. not good. But after it's over, everyone is all smiles and saying what they did right or wrong, and since in the time I've been there no one has ever failed, usually everyone is happy although the formal results don't come out for a month.

So wish me luck!

Ribboned Courts

What a woman wants: comfy fun shoes to wear on sundays or working days that don't scream work or sensibility but are still a hoot to wear and won't give me blisters after a 20 minute walk.

Found: fun pair of shoes which however did not quite pass the blister test of a 20 minute walk from buona vista MRT station to my office in Holland Village. Too bad...but I'm still hoping to break them in.

At any rate, these shoes were discovered at a sale at one of my one-time favourite shoe stores called Pretty Fit and since they only cost just under S$30 I figured they were a good buy even if they didn't pass the blister test. Needless to say, I did try to then buy some cushioning for the edges of the back of the shoe but the supermarket only had those little edge things in black. Alas, clearly supermarket stockers (undoubtedly male) have no clue that girls' shoes come in many colours other than black. What's a girl to do??

Musica Antiqua Koln

Me, various members of my extended family had to privilege of attending Musica Antiqua Koln's concert in Singapore at Victoria Concert Hall last Thursday evening. It turned out to be a superb performance of baroque period music by a quintet of 2 violins, 1 cello, 1 double bass and a harpsichord. The harpsichord was what I liked best because it is rarely heard in performance in Singapore. As a little aside, my friend who was from the organising team that brought them into Singapore, has the task of transporting this harpsichord up to Macau for the concert there this Sunday.

I have to confess, that I have a very narrow band of classical music that I like and will listen to, and an even narrower band of tolerance for live performances. I do not have a particularly sensitive ear for classical music. And I was never a very good music students particularly at composing. While doing music exams, the part I I knew I had no clue at was composing a few small bars...I would simply put notes together almost at random and hope that my music teacher would declare it music. Fortunately for me, most of the other parts of the exam were very analytical so I could get past those as a swot.

The one great classical composer that I do understand to some degree however, is JS Bach. For some reason I react to him as I do to virtually no other composer and I am very particular about intepretations of his works as a result. To me, his music has an undertone which is always there of the joy of creation. It is for me a deeply catholic work, written by a man who understood the deep stability of creation being held lovingly in God's hand. I hear it most clearly in his smaller pieces...pieces that were written not as large orchestral pieces but small groups or even just the one player. I hear it in his brandenbery concertos, in the inventions, in the concertos etc. I think it is because I tend to like smaller groups of people in general. I love Glenn Gould and yes, I can hear him humming in some of the recordings.

The musica antiqua koln's performance was technically superb as I would have expected. And I predictably reacted best to the Bach pieces. Nevertheless, I think in order for me to fully appreciate their intepretations of Bach, I might have to listen to some of their recordings. Somehow I find I'm a lot more sensitive to recorded music. Perhaps it is simply because I need more time to decide whether or not a piece will really grow on me or not. But yes, Bach has been with me since childhood listenings of Walter (now Wendy)Carlos on the Moog synthesizer on a vinyl LP. I have listened to that umpteen times and it was with regret that i realise that the new recordings on the supposedly improved moog synthesizer do not somehow have the same emotional depth of intepretation despite the new sounds.

Reactions from my family to it varied: for some, like my 7 year old nephew it was their first time ever hearing a chamber group live. Worth at least that experience and I actually rather suspect he has probably a better sensitivity to music than I do since although he looked like he slept through the second half, he came out with some intelligent comments on it the day after.

To those who are interested, this is the link to Antiqua Musica Koln's site
http://www.musica-antiqua-koeln.de/

Alice in Wonderland a la Dali

Don't dilly - dali is what I imagine dali would have said to alice in wonderland...this is his portrait of Alice. I liked the face: it was composed of leaves. It made somehow the whole thing so much more tactile. It was also just very whimsical which is my favourite kind of art. Also not really typical Dali.

One half of the Two Cows

The Catholic variant of the two cows was to have a cow and a calf reminescient of the mother and child images. But yes, to all ye doubters, there really really was a cow present at the St Francis day celebrations at St Mary's and here's the picture to prove it. The cow was set up with its little calf at a milking station and brought into the piazza for the blessing of the animals. It sure smelled of the country there!

Poor cow was a bit stressed by the time I got to see it though but it was a nice touch. And I sure hope the kids finally know that milk comes from cows as opposed to packages in the supermarket.

I have to say it's really nice to have the animals welcomed once a year in this very urban society called Singapore. We have become so very detached a lot of the time from nature with many mothers teaching their children to be afraid of animals in general so that the next generation will be completely unable to talk to the animals.

Transitus of St Francis

In honour of the Feast of St Francis on 3 October, the local franciscan community at St Mary of the Angels blessed all creatures great and small in the piazza of the church. This is the resident franciscan beagle and his franciscan friar.

Unicorn Falls

In Love. This is the Dali statue that stands before guess where: the UOB plaza. The innocent virgin and the piercing of love at the basement of a bank. Was the irony lost on the sponsors?

Dotty Dogs

A lazy Saturday morning...my dogs sure know how to enjoy it!

The Little Nun Who Could

Meet Sr Rosalind, the nun at one of Bintan's girl's hostels and schools. She runs a spick and span operation, licking a bunch of 20+ girls into shape and maintaining the hostel without running water, a little infirmary and helping teaching with the help of two other nuns plus four lay staff.

Here she stands in front of the new well which has yet to be paid for. Apparently on Bintan, she's been able to persuade many suppliers to extend them credit so now she has been raising funds to pay off the tradespeople who've given them the well, plus for other things such as new cupboards for the girls.

A little missionary group from the parish church Immaculate Heart of Mary went to pay a visit to assess their needs and are now in the process of seeing how they can assist with financing some of the girls' education. Not all of them can afford the fees.

chicken tikka masala

I could not resist taking this photo as I was walking through Changi Village last Saturday. It looked so much like char siew but I realised when I walked closer it was chicken tikka which I also love eating. This Indian stall served it along with other roasted meats and breads. Unfortunately by the time I saw it I'd already filled up for tea on kaya toast and I think my friend would have been horrified if I'd suggested we eat a full blown meal on top of that at 4pm in the afternoon. So alas, this yummy chicken will just have to wait for the next time I'm there.

Changi Village Gentrified

Changi Village is slowly undergoing gentrification. I went there with an old friend today and we sat and caught up in a flourescent bright cafe eating kaya toast and drinking homemade barley. After the rain stopped and we wandered around outside, I was was enchanted to find little bohemian touches such as this shopfront shutter. It had been merrily painted with a sitcom like mural. It sat along the main road in the village and along side it was a fully stocked happy liquor store, also shut, but one that had an array of liquor to rival an American store. But brighter and happier looking rather than seedy. That store even had Skyy vodka which I'd been looking for as the very interesting inventor of this liquor had it made to be hangover free.

Then we walked along the boardwalk which reminded me a great deal of the East Coast Parkway area. A lot more paving, and lo and behold, ferries which even departed for Pengarang, Johor. Maybe the word is more bumboats than ferries with the fare a mere $7. One wonders at that rate how long the journey would take.

I certainly wouldn't mind going back. My friend was making plans to stay at the funkily coloured Changi Village Hotel, fka, Changi Meridien, in December for a short break.

Authenticity

I have been asked both by a non-Christian friend and by Catholic friends what makes the writings in the bible stand apart and why are they regarded as the Word of God?

Very good questions. The answer is that all these writings, each of the different books which form the canon of the bible, have passed the three fold test of apostolicity, catholicity, consistency.

Big words, what do they mean?

Apostolicity: the writings are traceable for the new testament writings, directly back to the apostles. Either writen by the apostles themselves of direct disciples of the apostles.

Catholicity: "catholic" in its wider sense means "universal". The test of catholicity refers to widespread useage by the early church.

Consistency: that the content and teaching of the book do not contain anything which is inconsistent with other church tradition and doctrine.

Hence all the writings in the New Testament as we know it pass all these three tests. They have been historically traced by biblical scholars back to the apostles, known to be in widespread use by the early church as divinely inspired and all their teachings are consistent with each other. Note that the tests all have to do with chuch tradition. Church tradition is the basis for establishing the authenticity of the bible.

Next question: What about the old testament canon? Clearly they don't pass the test of apostolicity right? They were in existance long before the apostles as writings regarded by the Jewish people as coming from God. So is there an alternative test for apostolicity?

Seek and Ye shall find

I started thinking about the canon as in the canon of the biblical books when one of my non-Christian friends started asking about what constituted the books of the bible and how do we know they're true? I also started thinking about it as some of my Catholic friends were also around the same time asking me to explain why things like the Da Vinci Code are not the truth. My general reaction to the latter has been to fall off the chair laughing and tell them that I find it so obviously false that I cannot believe people can be this gullible. That naturally did not go down well.

At such moments, I'm inclined to remember the scene in Mel Gibson's the Passion, when Pontius Pilate's wife looks at Pilate when he askes of her, "What is Truth?" and she says to him, if you cannot recognise it, then I cannot tell you what it is. (parapharse). That's a reaction I tend to agree with but of course that sheds my hapless questioners no light.
I do have to say though that I was more impressed by my non-Christian friend than my Catholic friends in this respect. He showed a greater desire, a greater willingness to work to find the truth and I am very sure that it is he who will be rewarded with the truth first. If we have this hunger, Christ Himself will find us, after all, did He not promise, Seek and Ye shall Find.

Nevertheless, in order to avoid further criticism of my intellectual hubris, and to respond more sensitively to the requests of my friends to write this all down, I start here with the notion of canonicity.

The Greek word, kanon, originally meant a straight rod, or bar, used for measuring. The metaphorical meaning building on that literal meaning, indicated a measure, a standard. Occasionaly it also simply meant series, or list. It is in these two sense of the word that the "canon" of the bible is used. Nowadays, in Roman Catholic usage, it is used to denote the list of books belonging to the bible. And these books are sacred and inspired by God as opposed to other holy writings or other writings of the time.

Closing question: how is it these books in the bible are recognised as holy and inspired by God and not others, like the Gospel of James, or Judas?

Death the Reaper

Death is the great leveller, the one who comes to take us away to a better place, but to face the journey into the unknown is not always easy and the death of those whom we know always makes us pause.

Death's shadow is hanging over my uncle's mother and took one of my former bosses just last week. Her death was a shock to all who had worked with her as she'd died of stomach cancer but had told very few people. She was a 40-something year old woman with three children and normally a fighter, vibrant and full of life.

It made me treasure the place I used to work in even more when I saw the reactions of all the people who'd worked with her. Several of them flew up to Penang, Malaysia to attend the wake and of course brought contributions for the funeral with them from all of us.

It was a moment to pause and take stock of life, to wonder if we'd been present enough to each other in our daily lives, and to whether we'd loved each other enough while we still could.

Maybe these moments will change our lives maybe not, but I think for many of us, we were touched by her life, the joy of her presence, both at times when we may have been annoyed with her and those times when we were inspired by her. It made me reflect that very often, the most precious gift we can give to each other is simply our presence and our love. And at death, nothing is more precious than the sharing of grief through our presence. That's what it all really starts and ends with, our presence, and in gathering this we share life, love and joy.

I hope for me that such events continues to inspire me to be more aware of how much I need to appreciate all the moments, both the highlights as well as the ordinary moments I get to share with each of the people I know in this life.

There are none so Blind as those who will not See, Deaf as those who will not Hear

So it's over, Singapore's elections have returned the status quo.

The best thing about the elections to me was that the best piece of political satire turned up in podcast form and it's the funniest thing I've heard in years. It's the famous no bak chor mee which you can find on www.mrbrown.com

The hard thing for me this elections is seeing how little people think about the election process and about politics in general. It's the 20-something year old tertiary educated students who are my friends who don't even know what a by election is that scare me, and it's the ones who think, oh, just so long as I have a roof over my head and stay out of trouble, that's what counts. It's the 30-something year old ones who doesn't want to talk about politics or money because they think it's "dirty" and that it's much better to meditate on other things, it's the ones who are scared of any change at all...they're grateful for walkovers so they don't have to think about it. These are the ones that scare me. The ones that know what they're doing, regardless of whom they vote for don't get me worried, I always figure, well at least you made your choice knowingly. It's the ones who insist on remaining politically immature, who refuse to grow who scare me most. They're the proverbial frog who gets cooked as the temperature of the water is increased degree by degree. The warm comfort of the pot will be their death.

But, and there's a big but, there incredible number of blogs and of persistantly non political podcasts that have turned up is heartening. The democratisation of information has indeed begun to be felt on these political shores.

a fresh start

It's Easter week, the holiest happiest week of the year when the cross is over and the new life springs forth. Hooray! And I start my blog. I wanted to do something new, grow something from within that would bear fruit for my friends and family and anyone else who cares to read. I wanted to do something to water the soul. So here it is, my precious grain buried no doubt beneath a handful of chaff and I trust my dear friends and readers will blow gently away the bad and keep the good. So to all: a very blessed Easter. To those who believe, the Lord is Risen! And to those who don't we can still celebrate life and love and all that is dear within, as that is in the end what it's all about.