Cambodian Temples

I've realised that my blog had run out pictures, so I searched for a picture to put. This picture was taken at a temple ruin in Cambodia and this is apparently a spot where that Angelina Joli movie was filmed. Tomb Raiders or something? As you can see, there was quite a group of us there :p


Alot of the temple ruins look like this. Like crumbling rock. Cold and majestic, a sense of history and archaeic wisdom resounding in its porous, lichen infested walls.

When you walk into some of the smaller buildings, you feel like you're inside a cave. Some of the bigger ones had architectural genius in them. They were more airy and you couldn't help but feel almost reverant in them. And ALL of the temples were worshipfully decorated with carvings.

Beautiful carvings of gods, devils, dancing nymphs and alot of the doorposts were engraved with holy words written in sanskrit, an ancient language which formed pretty much most of the south east asian languages including Thai, Tamil and even Malay. In some rooms, stories of battle scenes were carved into the wall, end to end till the gruesome death and triumphant victory. Some other carvings told the daily lives of people who lived in that era, going about their agricultural ways.

Whats amazing is the amount of time, energy and care that they put into making these carvings...obviously quality works of art because even after many centuries, their features are quite prominent despite the wear and tear of nature.

Many of the temples also had huge giant statues. Some of the bigger temples had rows of warriors, guarding the temple, amongst other devoted sentry beings.

Most of the temples were built by kings of old, so they gave it lots of land. Many of the temples have huge grounds, even having seperate entrances for the heiarchy of society. And these are HUGE entrances...not just doorways but literally highways that stretch for like a kilometer or so. This temple is the famous Angkor Wat. It has two reflection pools at its main entrance. On such a beautiful day like this, you can see why it was called that.


Quite a fascinating place, I'd recommend a visit from backpackers. However, I saw far too many temples which confused me alot and personally, I would have liked to see more culture and less temple. Their temples are their prominent feature though.

Today

Today was such a nice day. Not as productive as I had liked it to be but neh.

Mike Kwan gave a talk on Catholicsm. I saved Tia and Sean a paper to read. Twas insightful.

I had a horrendous headache though. The migraine types that my sister often has but I have been lucky enough to not. Suffice to say I went home and slept for like 4 hours. So now I have 4 hours of study to catch up on. Medical Micro quiz tommorow... I dread it. :(

In fact, I dread the next 4 and a half weeks. I dread it I dread it I dread it.

BUT I will try to be positive. I will try to remember that God is on my side, working for my good. I will try to remember that I am blessed to have friends and an angel to support me. I will try to remember that studies/money/career are not the most important things in life.

My head still hurts though . . .

Before the throne of God above...

Before the throne of God above,
I have a strong, a perfect plea,
A great High Priest whose name is "Love,"
Who ever lives and pleasds for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is writen on HIs heart;
I know that while in heav'n He stands
no tongue can bid me thence depart.
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me.
to look on him and pardon me.

Behold him there! the risen Lamb,
my perfect, spotless Righteousness,
the great unchangeable I AM,
the King of glory and of grace!
One with Himself I canot die,
My soul is purchased by His blood;
My life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ, my Savior and my God
with Christ, my Savior and my God

Words: Charitie Lees Bancroft [Public domain]
Music: Vikki Cook ©1997 PDI Worship
Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved

10 seconds too much...

My krispy kreme doughnut had been sitting in my fridge for the past couple of days. My name was written on it. It was mine.

Today was the day I would christen my doughnut.

I came up with a brilliant scheme to stick it in the microwave for awhile, warm the doughnut up and increase its affinity factor. So I sai, 20 seconds should do it.

It came out lovely and warm and soft but then . . . slowly, deliberately, my icing oozed down onto the plate!!! NooOOooo.... I scooped up the icing with my finger and tried to plaster it back unto the doughnut to no avail.

Sadly I had to lick my plate of icing afterwards. Very elegant.

10 seconds should be a more appropriate time, I said. Next time my icing will stay intact.

Dilution Factor

Does it seem to you like I was more poetic before I started becoming obsessed with science?

Does it seem to you like I used to articulate my words more, like I had a wider vocabulary range, like each word of praise was a song in my heart, like the things I said were never repeated, never cliche and never boring?

Or did I just think more of myself back then?

I miss being able to spout out words at light years persecond, each with a different persona, a different effect, a different atmosphere, a different condition. It brought you to places, it made you think, ponder, laugh, cry, wonder, realise, visualise it permeablised right through your very existence.

And now all we talk about is science.

Surely there is more? But where? Is it still there, diluted out by all the science I've been taught... or has it been outcompeted and vanished, never to be seen (evermore).

Surely I have more to offer?

ARGH

omg total mental block... what the heck... T.T

lalalala 3.35pm...im running out of time >.<

mmm mocha tastes so yummy...yummier than either chocolate or coffee on its own.

its a synergistic drink!!!

I somehow feel unsettled... Lord, help me to be content... :(

25 Million Dollar Hoax

I was watching this show tonight. I wasnt planning to but I somehow ended up watching the whole thing cos i wanted to know what was in it for the people participating. And I cried alot because it was so touching because the family was sooo supportive and selfless and they really respected and loved each other. The parents were good parents and their kids were good kids and I must say that this family...that family was my ideal of what a family should be. They pray before meals, their kids have respect and gratitude for their parents, are selfless and loving, and the parents are supportive. Like even when the daugther did all these horrible things they didnt criticise her all that much, or scold her or anything. They were patient, waiting to see what would happen. Cos i mean, she's a grown girl and all.

It all turned out well and I think I really hope Im able to raise my family to that degree. I hope my kids grow up with an appreciation for life, with an appreciation of family and God and to grow up to be selfless and caring and hard working citizens. Raising a family is probably one of the hardest things ever and if you can pull it off, I think it would give you great joy to know that your kids are going to treat other people well. That they value other people more than themselves. I think that is a sign of raising a good family. After all, the way you raise your kids will affect their future so you have to teach them to be wise, otherwise they're going to suffer hard for the rest of their lives, and their kids after too.

And you gotta be a good example. Its kinda like that John Mayer song...

I think I'm in love . . .

Bah . . .

I'm in the uni library trying to get my report done. I've procrastinated it for far too long. I hate assignments. They make me feel so anxious and inadequate. And i dont procrastinate because I'm lazy. Rather, I think its because I refuse to start doing something which I know I wont be any good at. But when it comes to assignments...i guess I dont really have a choice. Maybe this is why so many people hate school/studying/their job. Which leads me to believe that the only people that enjoy work/studying are the people who are adequately equipped to sail through without too much sweat and tears. In other words... the Capables.

Not like us little minionic Incapables. . . .

:(

Aneroxia

I attended this free seminar yesterday on Aneroxia just for the sake of it. Professor Stephen Touyz (extremely well-known and a real expert on the topic of eating disorders) gave the talk. Again, I was completely blown away by the humility of these great scientists... how they bother to find the time in their busy schedule to give a talk in a dingy old lecture theatre to about 100 or so people. His talk was mostly on the therapy of this misfortune over the years, and he gave a thorough critique on the Karolinska Insitute (in Sweden) and their claim for having a 75% recovery rate. I will just jot down a couple of interesting stories/facts.


Can I just say that this is not beautiful. Its just sad and wrong. No one is going to love you more just because you have bones jutting out of you.

- apparently, people who starve themselves but are not within a certain body mass index (BMI) are not clinically aneroxics (even though they're clearly starving themselves!) Instead, they're put within the category of unidentified eating disorders or something... weird.

- a study was run and found out that aneroxics knew that they looked thin. In fact, they had spot on accuracy of just how they looked. The problem was, they still felt fat.

- a group of men who were supposed to be recruited for the army in the 80's were given the choice to take part of a study instead where they were starved for 4 months or so. They exhibited the same symptoms as many anorexics... depression, hypothermia, a restlessness etc. The results of this study is often used by the Karolinska Institute to prove that aneroxia is not a psychological illness. Instead, it is a medical problem.

- Hypothermia is one of the symptoms of anorexia and there was this one girl who felt so desperately cold that when she was in the shower, she kept making the water hotter and hotter until finally she burnt herself because she just couldnt get warm enough.

- There were these prisoners in a war that had to build a bridge or something? And they had sooo little to eat and were constantly starving such that they even looked like anorexics but some survived. When they were finally rescued, the one thing that they really wanted was food. But when they ate the food, they started dying! And nobody could understand why they could survive through the war in such terrible conditions only to die when they were rescued. It turns out that when you starve yourself, your electrolyte levels drop and one of the most important one is phosphate. Phosphate is needed in a number of physiological functions, including digestion. So these guys had such low phosphate levels that when they started eating all this food, all the phosphate got sucked up for digesting so they died!! o_O

Anyways I could go on but the log would get too long. I wasn't too interested in the treatment bit but the bottom line of his arguement was that the Karolinska' Institute's claim was not backed by good and firm scientific evidence. He also mentioned a huge study run by this other dude in South Australia who said that anorexia cannot be treated. Professor Touyz took the middle ground.

Cal frognapped this little guy but then set him free again. He's so small!! kewt . . . ^^

Update

1. Uni is tiring. I'm never gonna get this assignment done ;.;

2. The weather has become chilly o.o

3. I'm teething xD My wisdom teeth are poking out

4. Tet is sick ;.;

5. My family went apple picking and picked 10 kgs of apples!!

6. I'm feeling decidedly dumb

7. I'm so hooked on to Lost and Full Metal Alchemist xP

Did you know...

... that kiwi juice is a milky green?

I have only just noticed it today while wrestling with my half ripe kiwi.
Its not the easiest fruit to handle.