Two Sundays ago during mass, the communion hymn seemed to pierce my being. I’m sure the fantastic choir and the amazing tenor who sang the solo had something to do with it. But as usual, it was the lyrics, especially the refrain, that seized me. Only this I want But to know the Lord And to bear His cross So to wear the crown he wore (Philippians 3:7-16) “Only This I Want” – Dan Schutte ************** I’ve been reflecting a lot on […]
There’s something that very few people up to now know about me. Sometimes, when I’m alone at home, I dance. I’m not a skillful dancer, and I’m definitely an untrained one. But when I’m in one of those dancing moods, I dance with abandon and glee! I jump, I twirl, I pirouette… I do anything that keeps me moving to the music. And I laugh at myself as I dance. I don’t know if I dance with grace, but oh I certainly […]
There’s something that never fails to frustrate and nonplus me. Why, after a correspondence in which I have clearly signed off as “Ann,” do people reply and address me as “Anne?” And why do some people do it repeatedly after knowing me for a long time? Today I received yet another such e-mail, and Anne Shirley (of Green Gables fame) came to mind. As a child she thought the name “Ann” was too homely and made it a point to be known […]
I didn’t realize how tired I was until Yoga class this evening. For the first half of class, the teacher was covering basic movements and postures on the back. Every once in a while, I’d suddenly realize that I wasn’t doing anything, except lying there. And that although I could hear the instructor’s voice going on about what we’re supposed to be feeling etc, I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. Only then did I notice that I was falling […]
Mom left Toronto early this morning for L.A. And right at the moment when we hugged and kissed good-bye at the airport, it suddenly hit me how much I missed her already. The past 10 days were very special for us, because we rarely have such a big block of time to spend together anymore. And unlike in Singapore, when Mom’s so busy that us spending huge amounts of time together meant stressful and frantic catching up of work for her, she […]
It’s late, and as usual, I was feeling a little hungry. So I decided to get a cup of warm soya bean milk. Zibin decided to be a copy-cat and asked for a cup too. Then, he actually challenged me to a duel (by poking me), thinking I wouldn’t retaliate because he was holding a full cup of soya bean milk. He was gravely mistaken. I retaliated, and soon there was soya bean milk on the kitchen floor amidst hysterical laughter. ZB: […]
I accomplished quite a lot of work today. So did my mom. *grin* While I began work on the paper I will be presenting at the GSCOPE conference, pots and faucets in the kitchen were silently polished to a shine. Clean dishes and cutlery kept mysteriously disappearing into cabinets throughout the day. The laundry room got a rub-down while my laundry got done. The two drawers that I haven’t had time to clean out during my ‘spring-cleaning’ got reorganized. Cables and wires […]
This is my program’s latest advertisment post-card. I thought it’s pretty cool. *grin* For those unfamiliar with the philosophical reference, Socrates was described as a gadfly. I’m too tired and short of time now to give a more detailed elaboration, so you can check out wikipedia’s explanation of the term here. Seriously though, one doesn’t have to be a philosopher to be a gad-fly. Anyone who is serious in the pursuit of truth will definitely get to be one sometime, some place. […]
When I woke up this morning, Mom told me she didn’t sleep well last night. She kept getting interrupted. First by a phone-call from Singapore… and then later on, by a ringing phone she couldn’t locate. Well, she thought it was a phone ringing… in vibration mode. And she went all over my room trying to locate it. Turns out, it was me. Snoring. *laughs* Hey, that’s not too bad, don’t you think? A snore that sounds like a phone in vibration […]
It happened. Today, my mom and I broke our ‘agreement’ to not chat at length except in the evening. From the moment we woke up we started talking… and though I went to OISE to meet my supervisor (and my mom went too to say hi), the rest of the day was spent with my mom. We had hot-dogs, browsed the UT Bookstore, shopped at Kensington Market and Chinatown, and finally went for Yoga class (which is being taught in my building). […]
