Treasures

It's been another week since my last ponders appeared here, and looks like it was far too long for anyone to bother reading, much less to even comment! haha, not that i'm fretting over it, but i guess it wasn't generally persuasive enough to start a conversation about what people think about equilibriums in life other than in the context of economics. Just this past week i was reading about how a rugby league player was kicked out off the sport for punching a woman's face and breaking her nose. I'm against violence against women, but being de-registered from the sport, banned from joining any other club, is similar to a capital punishment. Is that too harsh, or the perfect message to spread about the extend that society is willing to punish violence against women? I'm saying that because some other criminals do get a 2nd chance at life too. Too bad we don't live in a perfect world.

Now, the past week, God has been really kind to me. To some extent, work was kind to me too. The exquisite thing about working at Chinta Ria is that you can meet some very prominent people in Sydney, i won't name names just yet, but last Monday i was introduced to some very extendingly kind people. It was fun joking around with them, tempting them with more beers every passing glance, since it was one of the blokes' birthday. A real welcome indeed, at the fore of it, when the birthday bloke was taunted by his mate saying, "Do you wanna start with 5 beers while waiting for the others?".

"That's deadly," i said, and subsequently whispering, "mate".

I won't bore you with further gibberish, but i felt more than content to serve them, almost a pleasure with their constant laughter and fun-poking involving me as well. What further filled my day was the fact that while collecting their bill, i was to find out from them that they were themselves owners of a nice establishment with a firm group of supporters around Sydney. Strangers With Candy. It's rather catchy, and jovial, i can almost picture the atmosphere that would surround the place.

It may not be much, the extending of an invitation for me to spill back the tips they so gracefully offered, but it just made my day. It's like one of those times, where you found a terrific secret that you can't just keep to yourself, the times like finding a place where you would be so excited to explore about. It's almost like finding a treasure if i may say so, that you would like to discover it once and for all and then tell others about it and bask in all the glories of having found a beauty of a thing.

Some thing of this magnitude came upon me that time i was in Watson's Bay, Sydney. Absolutely beautiful, it's not the best, but beautiful nonetheless. And some things you just feel like it. Don't ask me why.

But tell me other enthusiastic explorations you have gone for just based on your gut feelings. To stumble upon something that stirs up this kinda feeling is just treasure to me.

A free day to ponder about life finally!

Tonight has been a long time coming, a night where i find solitude in the comfort of my own home. Not that i'm saying that my housemates are getting in my way all the time; they've been anything but that really. They've actually been great for the last few months and i'm working in the same place as one of them too. So now, i've concluded weeks of assessments, quizzes and the like that are often juggled up by the seasoned uni student during this time of the semester.

At the end of my taxation law quiz, i didnt feel like i aced it, but in somewhat fair circumstances i think i did alright. I was to reiterate that fact at my interview with Maybank, who was up at the Sydney Hilton conducting with graduates and soon-to-be-graduates like myself, about baffling subject contents within the tax regulations and auditing guidelines. I found myself explaining bits and pieces of the tax legislation in a bid to convince him i would WILL be graduating at the end of this semester.

Though i am expecting my audit assignment to taste a battering, and be a brain cell killer for my tutor. It will perplex him to no ends, trying to consider the flow of the whole assignment being pieced together by 4 individuals, one of which was a total recluse who was not only uncontactable, but was unable to confer to us that she was not able to timely dedicate herself to working on the assignment because she was either sick, moving homes, or changed her bloody phone number.

And now i'm done complaining. Time to do some serious pondering while i sip my $8.00 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc. I dont know much about wines, or its significance with the names but for $8.00 worth, it was well and truly good value. So yea, while i was busily sipping my eyes was feasting on a real pleasure of a movie, Being John Malkovich.

Now it's an easy premise to determine that the movie would talk about you being in someone else's shoes or position. Being someone else. Is it totally cool? There are two things in life you wished you could do at least one point in your life. First, people have also been fascinated with the idea of being someone else. The latter point, refers to immortality. The movie addresses them both with certain interesting side points.

One of the points i took note of is the impotence of the 'free markets' regime which dictates supply from demand. We see this fallacy in the regards where the fact exists that a nobody like John Cusack's character, yet embellished with an enthusiasm and genius for puppeteering can only vividly imagine his immense success in his own workshop, devoid of any glamour and attention. On the other hand, when his phenomenal strengths were exposed as John Malkovich, all hell broke loose.

Am i missing something here? Yes, credibility often comes with effort, and Malkovich has pawed his way to fame as an actor. A capitalist is usually one who invests money, but what about the vastness and richness of human capital? We see here Malkovich unleashing his 'immense' talent in puppeteering, greatly revolutionising the entire genre, going to even inspiring the world with his apparent groundbreaking achievements in his artistry. Finance economists will have you know that capitalism is a great way of determining what people want, and economics affects lives and behaviours and for markets to be efficient information must be readily available.

My question is just how did the world come to realise to accept the works of a John Malkovich indulged in puppeteering so monumentally more than a someone else with his rightful claim to the performing talent? You say you trust your eyes, and what your eyes see is evidence, but how your mind portrays inside of itself performs the greatest bias of all, which no one else can see. How did you come to like what you like? Are we imagining that through the course of one person's life, his past dictates his future? That a John Malkovich can unleash just about anything with a great deal of effectual success due in large through his recognition as a person, yet no one knows what another person with less grandeur in stature is like.

The economics of opportunity, a synonym of chance, is just that. Chance. Luck. Fallen from the stars. Anointed by God. Maybe. If there's one thing i shall assume after 2 hours of looking at someone looking at the life through someone else's life, is never to take your own overly ambitious desires to levels beyond your control. If you want the power to do anything, pray.

Reminiscence from another world

This is quite a commentary. A bold uncompromising Christian living beside compromisers speaking his mind. and the truth too might i add.

For your convenience, if you don't feel like clicking the link, this is the part i really like from the article:

"The problem with the progressive wing of today’s Church is not that the devil makes us do bad things – “smoke, drink, chew or go with boys/girls who do” – but that we are so damnably quiet, so status quo subservient in our niceness, that we ignore the Spirit’s leading and play patsy with the most seductive temptation of all: namely, to go along in order to get along, which is natural for us and all human beings, given the innate hunger for bread, power and entitlement all of us harbor." – Joseph Sprague

It's not Greek nor is it hard to understand what implication this paragraph serves to show. It is true that people value companionship with high regards, that some people would go a certain distance for a friend. At times for us as Christians, it goes beyond what we are supposed to do. We compromise, we keep quiet, we stand back, stand still, tremble, we ignore, we contemplate, we question ourselves, we accept, and we allow the feeling of being accepted to forge ahead of our priorities in life.

Do not misinterpret me. I am not asking people to sever any ties with people who do not share the same views or hold the same beliefs as you. But rather to speak up, aloud of Christ and do not be ashamed of Him who is greater than all of us. Why do some of us profess our faiths so timidly as without regards for the Saviour who purchased our souls with blood? Why do we keep the knowledge that Jesus came down to save us from eternal flames to ourselves?

Our Bible is being defiled, our rights to voice as Christians are being limited, the Bible is being disregarded with many of people's own interpretations and yet our community is so damnably quiet. It's like we're sitting here basking in all the pleasures and glories of this world, forgetting we serve a sovereign God. If we sit tightly and quietly too long, we risk losing our voice to voice out the truth later on.

And i'll be first to admit, this at times includes me.

I salute you

Been starting work for almost 2 weeks now, and not that i've worked every other day that i'm not having classes. Just that the whole idea of balancing work, play, friends, and living in alone in a foreign country is a little new to me.

I have to face the facts. Facts are; i've never worked before in a formal job description anywhere in the world, except for the odd jobs here and there to have some extra income to buy my desires. And not that i'm carrying a big job description over my head now, i'm just a waiter. In a Malaysian restaurant on Cockle Bay Wharf, Darling Harbour.

My point is, it's not easy to be balancing work, play and studies all at the same time. And i salute those who can. And i'm not bragging either, i'm just starting out, and transforming my life to take into account more responsibilities in my life. By now, i'm probably talking like a kid who's been living with a silver spoon all his life, but my yes, i may have been pampered for far too long.

But i'm happy to take up this challenge, and only with God's help i can truly be able to cope with it. Using all my strength in pursuing the ends of everyday may only result in gruelling fatigue, and totally devoid of anything else. Anyway, everyone has to go through the stage where one shifts from being a full time student to a full time employee or employer. And i salute those in between, the part-time student and part-time employee, who makes ends meet, who bears more burden than others yet still excel in school.