cooking class

J2 shows me how to mince garlic. there! she says. you should be able to do this yourself the next time. i don't think i can get it quite so minced, i protest. you've got to take pride in your work, mom. you'll be able to do it if you tell yourself you won't settle for less.

mind who you're talking to, young lady. besides, i make a killer instant noodle dish.

cas-pah

the tombstone extravaganza award for this year:

ethics - d bonhoeffer (1962 ed.)

does a man write a book such as this today? what he discusses are not comfortably dealt with in bullet points and abstracts and case studies. they are too radical and intricate and discursive and compelling. does a man conceive of such a work in his mid-thirties?

the sword can never bring about the unity of the church and of the faith. preaching can never govern nations. but the Lord of both kingdoms ... rules the world through the office of the word and the office of the sword. (p.95) we would do well, i think, with our ideologies and our tea parties and talk of fairness and affirmative action, to remember. 

pop!

against medical advice, for the first time since i hit puberty, i pop the little blackhead on my nose. there is an immediate egress of a black pinhead followed by a nice bead of pus. this is a terrible thing to admit doing but an eminently gratifying one.

it will be great to say goodbye to hormonal cycling among other things when i hit that time of life.

song of praise

i stand at my kitchen window and watch the leaden skies the rain beat down and the leaves eddy in the wind. there is a glorious and awful majesty to effortless beauty that one has to see to believe, and in believing, to bow.

he puts eternity into our circumscribed hearts.

prepare ye the way

here's a sample of letters to the editor of the premier english language daily in singapore today:

SGH team (part of a letter)

why he chose public over private hospital

medical students to the rescue

patient's honor roll at hospital

that's out of fourteen letters.

one does not recall another occasion one saw such an exuberant explosion of compliments to such a nicely balanced range of health care personnel. so one naturally wonders, what new policy change is afoot in the ol' republic, that the paths are made straight and swept clean? or does one simply witness the gracious flow of the milk of human kindnesses?

tidiot*

the 'phone rings. that lowest life form, the telemarketer, greets me. she's a machine activated by my hello. this call is for anyone who is interested in affordable dental insurance.

what i say is, it appears they are fast scraping the bottom of the barrel here. machine. wide net. random subject. this is non-targeted marketing at its most non-discriminating.

*telephone idiot, not necessarily human.

the agony & the ecstasy

what i'm reading this week:

is the same as last week. see here. the days are getting shorter.

dyspepsia

body curling awful.

i have a sneaky suspicion this is related to the sudden injection of the large dose of buffalo wild wings into a genteel bland diet. bugger the grease.

aptness

to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.  

- eccl 3:1

deliberate resolve and action, rest as well as work, purposelessness as well as the fulfillment of purpose, inclination as well as duty, play as well as earnest endeavor; joy as well as renunciation.  

- bonhoeffer, ethics (chap. vii, p. 260)