DON'T ASK ME. I JUST WORK HERE!I woke up one morning and this website ended up as my homepage. I don't know how it happened or why it happened, but I thought it was fate. So here I am. Based on a true story. In case you don't know how to see the description of the picture. I know it's hard, so here it is. One day my toilet ended up on my back porch, so I decided to use it. Fair enough? More about me:TV shows that kick my ass:CSI, 24, Friends, The Simpsons(sucky they aren't around anymore)...I don't watch TV much these days. Time is precious so I decide to sleep more. My favorite animal:Cocker spaniel. Fell in love with one before. She's my friend's godbro's. So I miss her now. Hopefully my friend's godbro isn't beating her every now and then for being a naughty girl. She's just a kid. One day, I hope to learn her language and become her King! My favorite music:Lifehouse, Goo Goo Dolls, Blink 182, The All-American Rejects, Staind, Simple Plan, Green Day, Collective Soul, Guns & Roses, Remy Zero, Hillsong Australia, Chris Tomlin, Passion, Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, Planet Shakers, Sixpence None The Richer...and basically a little bit of everything!!! I'd take any music that's nice. Things I want to do before I die: visit New York, Switzerland, Sydney, star gazing under the Grand Canyon night sky, go skydiving, go skiing, bungee jumping, get married with that someone/have her kids, swim in the ocean with sharks that won't bite my ass, touch a whale's tongue, see a broadway show, visit the White House(for no reason), dine in a Parisian restaurant overlooking Eiffel Tower, watch Man U play in real life, meet Cecilia Cheungcause she's DA woman!, marry Cecilia Cheung's daughter(provided she has any and her hubbie is not a first-class dork), go to Monte Carlo, London, New Zealand, and yeah ...maybe milk a cow.
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Thursday, January 08, 2004
Hereby is an excerpt of an interview with Ben Carson. READ IT PEEPS!
It would take less than ten minutes of your life. But I truly believe that this man's life will inspires you for a lifetime. I must say this is the best read of my day. And well, made my day it did!
A Conversation With Ben Carson
The Power of a Changed Life
by Jim Dailey
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Neurosurgeon Ben Carson has been director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, since 1984. He has received dozens of honors and national citations of merit, and he is the author of many neurosurgical publications and three books. He also is a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. In October 2004 he is scheduled to speak at Prescription for Renewal, a seminar hosted by Samaritan's Purse at the Billy Graham Training Center, near Asheville, N.C. In the following interview, Carson talks about his faith in Christ as well as his medical work.
Q: Would you tell us about your experience as one of the lead surgeons on the team that attempted to separate the Iranian twins? It received an enormous amount of media attention.
A: These young girls had been desperately seeking separation for over a decade. Many people had told them there were worse things than being stuck to someone, and they should just deal with it. When I was first consulted about it, I felt an operation was much too risky and dangerous. As it became clear they were determined to have this operation, I consented to join the surgical team. I felt like I would be negligent to let it go on without my involvement.
When I met them for the first time, they were bubbly -- just delightful. There was an immediate connection, but there was also a deep and abiding sadness that was palpable. [I sensed] an underlying level of depression because they were so bright, and their aspirations were so different. At that moment I realized that no one in the world could possibly understand what they were feeling. I tried to be empathetic and imagine what it would be like to be joined to a person 24 hours a day.
As we were well into the operation, it became clear to me that we should stop the operation due to vascular complication. They were still in terrific shape, their brains were healthy, and we could study the vascular shifts and come up with a strategy. The family said, "Absolutely not! If they woke up and they were still together, the level of depression would kill them." The Singapore team had promised the girls ahead of time that we would go ahead with it, regardless. So we did, and it was really right up until the very end that things were good. But once we got to the place where all the vasculature had shifted to, the pressure in those areas was so great that we couldn't stop the bleeding. That is something that could have been dealt with, had we known about it. So significant lessons are learned in a situation like that.
Q: How do you keep your composure and sense that God is in control when faced with the enormous difficulties you encounter as a neurosurgeon?
A: It's easy for me because every single day I am dealing with complex things. I realize that disaster is just around the corner almost all the time. I think that's probably one of the reasons that neurosurgeons die early. The average age of death for a neurosurgeon is 59. You are dealing with stress day-in and day-out, all the time. For me, it's not nearly as stressful because God gets all the credit for all the good things, but He also is in control when bad things happen. The only thing He requires of me is that I do my best. That's all I have to do, and recognizing that takes an awful lot of stress off of me.
Q: How did your recent bout with cancer put you in a place of trust in God's faithfulness and sovereignty?
A: I obviously had to think a lot last summer when I got the diagnosis of high-grade prostate cancer. That throws a little kink in the works. I always get an annual physical exam and everything was normal, but I was feeling a bit of urinary frequency.
I went to a urologist who prescribed an antibiotic, but the problem didn't go away. They rechecked my PSA level, and this time it was elevated. They performed a biopsy, and the next day I got a phone call while I was in the operating room. The nurse held the phone up to my ear, and I got the report that I had a very high-grade, aggressive cancer.
My immediate thought was, "Let me finish this operation." I put it out of my mind during the operation, but while I was driving home that night, it really started to hit me -- I've got cancer; I could die! I started thinking about my family and what impact that would have on them.
As it turns out, I had a radical prostatectomy done, and it all worked out beautifully. We caught it in time, and I am cured. The Lord is good, that's all I can say. I kept telling everyone that God is too wise to make a mistake. If it's time for me to go, that's fine. He knows best, and I am OK with that. I had always wondered how I would react to such news, and I was pleasantly surprised by how peaceful I was.
Q: How do you integrate your faith with your work?
A: I start out every day with my own personal devotional time of praying, reading the Bible and contemplating. I just try to keep God on my mind in everything I do. I tell myself, "You are a Christian, and you represent Christ." This means everything that comes out of my mouth and every action I do must be affirming and positive to people. I try to keep it that way no matter what is going on and no matter what anyone is doing.
Q: How do colleagues react to your faith? Many in the medical world relegate faith to an entirely different realm.
A: A lot of people do, there is no question about that. But, by the same token, I find that a lot of my colleagues like to talk to me when they have a spiritual issue.
Sometimes I get so tired of people trying to apologize for having a relationship with Christ. I'm not ashamed of who I am and what I believe; I talk about it a lot. I think it's an important thing for our nation, because so many elements are attempting to erase the God connection. They want us to be completely neutral in everything. But to be completely neutral in everything means you don't stand for anything. And if you don't stand for anything, what do you mean? You mean nothing! I think the founding fathers would be horrified if they could see what is going on right now.
When they talked about separation of Church and State, they didn't mean that State should suppress Church, and they didn't mean that people should suppress their religion. We have forgotten that they meant religion shouldn't control government.
Q: Your childhood was spent in a seriously deprived and difficult inner-city environment, yet you wound up attending Yale University. That's quite an accomplishment.
A: I grew up in both Detroit and Boston. It wasn't a particularly pleasant situation. There was never money for anything. There were rats and roaches; sirens and gangs -- particularly in Boston, when we lived right in the middle of the tenements. Seeing people lying on the ground or dying was not uncommon. Two of my cousins were killed. I didn't anticipate that I would live beyond the age of 25.
When I was 14, I tried to stab another youngster. My knife blade struck his belt buckle and broke. I locked myself in the bathroom and thought about that. That day I started reading the Book of Proverbs, and I prayed a lot. The Lord took my anger away from me, and I also began to gather insight into who God is and into the incredible power one could have from Him. I had accepted Christ when I was eight years old at a church service, but at that point I realized that by developing the potential that God had given me, I could live in any kind of environment and do anything. The Lord had put that within me, as He puts it within each of us.
Q: There aren't too many teenagers reading Proverbs.
A: Proverbs has so many verses with so much wisdom and instruction. It talks about a fool, how his ways are right in his own eyes and how he won't listen to other people. In other words, the fool's way has always got to be the right way. That was me when I was young. By reading Proverbs day-in and day-out, I started saying, "Listen to your mother; listen to your teacher." When other people were saying, "They are a bunch of old fogies," I was saying, "No, listen." Reading all that wisdom every day gave me direction.
Q: And despite your environment, you came to Christ at an early age.
A: Yes. As an 8-year-old, I remember listening to the preacher tell a story about some missionaries that were being chased. They got to a cliff and found a cleft under the cliff that they were able to hide in. Their pursuers came and were right over them and couldn't find them. The preacher went on to make the analogy of how God is able to protect us from anything, even from seemingly overwhelming odds, because He cares so much about us. That grabbed me. That was when I decided I wanted to follow the Lord.
Q: Wouldn't it have been easy to feel victimized by those economic and social conditions instead of putting your faith in Christ?
A: I talk about the common attitude of feeling like a victim in my book "The Big Picture" and how that attitude robs people of their God-given potential. People who always feel victimized look for reasons for failure as opposed to mechanisms for success.
How do you get away from that? You start looking at positive examples. That's what I did. I would read about Booker T. Washington, who was born a slave. It was illegal for him to read, but he learned how to read anyway, and he read everything he could get his hands on. He ended up being an adviser to presidents.
I look at the story of Joseph in the Bible. It is my favorite story. Joseph made the best of every situation and recognized that God is in control. If you recognize that, as I did, many years ago, you'll say, "My Father owns the universe! He has the most power, the most money, the most knowledge, and He loves me! How could you be in better shape than that?"
Q: What excites you most about God today?
A: His love -- that's what really excites me. I couldn't tolerate someone who time and time again kept messing up. He loves us, and He sent His Son to die for us. Can you imagine having enough power to create the universe and having such love for your creatures that you're willing to be humiliated, spat upon, beaten, kicked and crucified, when you could have said "poof" and they'd be gone? That boggles my mind. I thank Him every day for His love. |
Words in red color are truths that:
1. God wants us to know.
2. therefore, we should never forget.
or either
3. whether it be truths or not, are inspiring to me nevertheless. :)
Posted at 05:08 am by VinceSnooze
Monday, January 05, 2004
Woo Hoo...it's Monday!!Again.
Time certainly flies. Literally.
To begin with, it's already 2004. New Year. Day 5 now. And for me, things are still looking bright.
I had a lab session this morning. Started on quite a bad note, cause the lab equipment seems to turn their back on us,I mean, me and my roomie, Clement. I should have figure out what actually happened there. You see, we are both admittedly smart. *Lotsa smugness here!!!:P* Man they were just purposely driving us to a certain point of frustration, in order to forbid us from getting back to our bed way too early so that we can catch up on lost sleep. Here, each lab session is 3 hours. Well for the first one and a half hour, we couldn't seem to get anything right. For some reason we don't know. So turned the equipments upside down. Connections checked. Breadboard, ah...maybe it's the breadboard. Got a new one. Wires, there were countless on our desk. Tried every one, yet again, to no avail. Alas, we reached the last straw. At times such as this, you just tend to get downright frustrated. And that's what happened to me and Clem. We are ashamed of ourselves. People were moving on like no shit man. On table 1, we were getting more pissed and pissed in a monumental effort to complete the first part. Oh..Great. With halftime approaching, our saviour came in the form of Mr Siew. Man, he's the only lecturer I know that smoked too much. Because of that, his breath kind of stinks also. ;P
Thanks to him, but not really anyway I guess because the source of our problem seems to be the Op-Amp we were using. He came to us with a new one nevertheless. From then onwards, everything took off the ground like no shit. You could almost hear shouts of jubilancy ringing throughout every freaking fibre of our DNA.
Kind of sucks eh.. afterall, it nearly dawned upon us that we were the idiots. 1 and a half hour! With not even one freaking part done. Then turned out that it was actually the Op-Amp playing a fool with us. Geez.
On a happier note, we finished on time, using only half the time provided for everyone. And were even faster than the two girls sitting beside us who started out quite brightly. Hehe. God really blessed us!
There goes the lab session. Come night time, there's the E-sensation Nite. This is going to be quite long. So I guess I'll just leave it for next time. Kinda exhausted. For now, goodnight world:). Sleep well everyone.
Posted at 09:30 am by VinceSnooze
Sunday, January 04, 2004
I was thinking about those nice little greeting cards people send their friends and families. You know the ones with the picture of them and their kids. I got a new and better idea.
This works perfectly if you’re a newly wed couple because this is almost expected of you. If you’re not a newly wed couple, pretend you are one.
Take a picture of you and your significant other having sex and then put it in holiday greeting card form. Then you send it to all your friends.
Now this doesn’t need to be a hardcore picture. It can just show all skin, but nothing too personal. Just enough so people get the idea and people know what is going on.
The initial shock value is what it is all about. You need to make sure both faces are visible so the receiver of the picture knows it’s you and knows you’re having sex.
Then when you go over that person’s house you check to make sure your card is with all the other ones. If it is, then it’s good laugh all around.
If it’s not, then you get to give that person shit for not caring about you.
It’s practically a win/win situation.
Posted at 05:11 am by VinceSnooze
Indeed indeed.
This morning was oh-so tiring. Especially the waking part time. You see,deep down I know that my Sunday is to be dedicated to Jesus Christ, who loves me like nobody else do ok. Well turns out earlier the night before, after turning into bed yet after another long night of chatting-cum-surfing marathon in this desert wasteland which offers me no other choices of fun and activity, and was definitely the number one reason why I succumb to this soul-drying marathon in the first place I tried hard to sleep, to no avail. So got up again, and play Vincent Freeman, manager of Man Utd in the realm of Championship Manager for some time. Some time turn into an hour plus I guess and the next thing I realised, it's near 7 am. ALREADY. Managed to calm myself down and turn into bed successfully despite the knowledge that having to wake up at 10 to fetch the fellas to church leaves me like only 3 hours. So Vincent Freeman won first the Premier Division trophy followed by the not-so-worthy Worthington Cup, then the FA, and finally you guess it, the European Champions honours. Glory glory Man Utd indeed! 4 trophies in one fling. Coolness Vincent Freeman and the best part was when we beat Liverpool twice in two vitally important matches. I guess two 1-0 wins over the reds, during the FA final and the European Champions League might be more than enough reason to get Houllier sacked. Ha ha ha. (Devilish Laugh)
Anyway, back in real life, I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to go to church the next couple of hours or so. Well I couldn't even seem to remember me feeling unconscious before Arthur buzzed into the scene and told me to wake up and get ready for service. "Hey hey, are you going to church?"
And I think my reply was, "Ah...my heart beats very fast now man". I was pretending to be sick for a while there. Wait a sec, not really. Seriously I tell you my heart was beating quite irregular beats at that time. The dub-dub sound was faster than usual. Anyway let's cut to the chase. I'm too lazy to go on anymore.
Just wanna say that eventually, God did brought me to church in a most inspiring way. Wish I can express how ironic it all seems. One minute I was stubbornly refusing to climb out from under the comfort of my sheets. And the next, I was singing 'God is Great' in PAA. So you see, God can do things in the most unexpected fashion. Wow... God is GREAT!
HELP!!!Help me God. Bring my soul out of this spiritual wasteland in ME. PLEASE. Save me. Whatever you do, please don't ever forsake me. Save me and make me new. And I pray all this in Jesus' name, Amen.
Posted at 12:32 am by VinceSnooze
Saturday, January 03, 2004
I woke up late today. The other day, I have to but wake up before 9 in the morning because of a stupid lab. So I guess this is reasonable. Sort of compensating for the lost sleep on friday morning huh. :P
On a lighter note, really have creepy fun yesterday watching Gangs of New York with one of my roomie Clement. The one other roomie of mine doze off earlier than was expected of him. Anyway, by the time I am writing now, I could easily make out that he was saving energy for another day-long marathon of RO. Now, let's enter Gangs of New York. WHy I say creepy? Well, almost throughout the entire movie, you can be rest assured that people keep dying. Violence was sizzlingly full to the rim. Precious human blood spurted like fountains everywhere. Kind of reminds me of the song by Black Eyed Peas..people killing people dying, Where is the love??!!~~~and there's this scene in the movie during which a uniformed army officer was kind of scrutinizing a paperlist of casualties. Here comes the amazing part, I guess they must have run out of reasons for describing the methods in which those soldiers finally meet their Maker. so simply for reasons under which they die their death, casualties were stated either 'dead' or 'killed'. I mean, what is the difference? Dead or killed? OK...does it imply that the label of 'dead' carries the meaning those fighting comrades just died of sickness or starvation due to lack of immediate health supplies to the front line? Or, they killed themselves or what. Etc whatever. Anyway I won't want to waste any further second deliberating on this matter from now on. It's awful, and sad, and devastating aight. Try putting yourself in the shoes of those who lived through that torrid ordeal. It's bound to get heart-wrenching even for robots man. At times like that, you just get a feeling that human life aren't worth more than that of ants that I'm getting less fond of killing every now and then. Somehow, those tiny creatures enjoy loafing around my desk all the time.Oh yeah...the timeline of Gangs of New York was set during the Civil War, during which bloodshed and death made everyday news.
Anyway I wasn't exactly sick this movie portrays more violence than other also violent movies which I had come across. As long as truth and reality is concerned, my opinion is simply that all the people involved did a good job. Plus, the soundtrack, although eeriely worth listening at worst, is not bad either. Gotta give the crews credit man!
Posted at 12:48 am by VinceSnooze
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Things I like:
1. The feeling of my head above my pillow when I'm dead-tired.
2.Girl(s) nudging my shoulder, or waist. Or in any case...any parts of my upper body except my cheeks of course!:P
WEIRD huh? Then, some external force is compelling me to be not afraid, go ahead and say out loud, "Well anyway I would like to make known to all you chics out there that, this is truly one of the ways to my heart. No matter what u do. Just go ahead and nudge me!!! Haha."
p/s: Oh no. Something must have gone loose in the brain.
3.A lovely girl from Penang. Speaking of which, she's never a thing. She's an angel.
4.The very unmistakable moment right after shower. Unless you dig me, it is one of the best moments in your everyday life. I will describe the feeling as 'your whole body just taste so deliciously clean you might even want to consider eating yourself.' To put it nicely, it's 'whoa!damn, fucking refreshing man!
You know, I guess I should remind myself of this more often. Since I bath like once a day? Ok..I must admit it's high time to keep up..hehe.
5. Porn?Haha no. But me being me, I can have fun watching lovely + elegant girls. How they carry themselves and all. Fascinating. I must say.
Posted at 10:51 am by VinceSnooze
So what am I going to do?
My new year resolution:
1.To stand up for the things I really believe in and trust God that no body is going to kick me ass for doing JUST that.
2.Make more girlfriends. Now I have only like..less than 10 girlfriends (minus my hometown church one's.) That sucks, in my opinion. As much as i enjoy mixing with the fellas I'm with right now, crappy but fun fellas...haha:P I would love mixing and talking to more girls. Don't bother to ask why. Simply because I find them intriguing creatures. Or maybe because I don't mix with them lots.
bla bla bla...i'm off to a break now, for REAL. too lazy to continue.
BUT
It's going to be cont'd anyway. At anytime I like. Weeeeeee!!
Posted at 10:34 am by VinceSnooze
yo..tis' me first blog.
First Blog.
COol ..
O_o
So tomorrow I have A lab session. Thank God it's only one STUPID LAB!
Goodnite world.
Happy New Year to everyone. Ok..it's belated though. =P
Better than nothing wart...(in Manglish effect)
Posted at 10:28 am by VinceSnooze
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