I phone

Su bought me an iphone today. Its a 3g iphone with a black back. I was there when she bought it and the only thing that I could think off was that that iphone is going to blow our budget way off course! But it was for my birthday and I happened to mentioned that I like it. I know that she liked it too. Anyway, I've been using my motorola v3i for the past several months now and I like it so much. It may be old but it works. And it really is cool to flip it open in front of so many people, especially when there are many teenagers around.

I hate the teenagers of today. They are loud, boisterous and spoilt. Its like they seem to be living in a parallel universe where everybody else is invisible. I was at this eating place called Magic Wok Express and me and Su were having a late lunch when all of a sudden, these geeky, female teenagers walked in and treated the place like their own home. They helped themselves to the drinks without waiting for the waiters and drag and push their chairs as though we are not there. If those teenagers are reading this, I would just like them to know that its never cool to be rude. It was just rudeness on their part, plain and simple. And to think that they came from one of the elite girls school. I fear where Adam is going to thread.

Adam seems to be doing fine in school. He brought a paper flower from school today and he painstakingly sticked it onto a straw and some green piece of paper to make it looked like a stalk of flower. It was so sweet of him. And to think that the flower was given to him by a girl in class. Heh heh...Like I said, I fear where he is going to tread.

What I planned to do today, did not materialize or did not occur in its chronological order. I planned to bring Adam to East Coast, together with Wawa and they could both cycle, while I complete a much needed walk. What happened was this:

1. Su called and said that she was done.

2. I picked her up leaving Adam at home watching Cicakman 2.

3. Went out for a late lunch with her.

4. Went to Singtel and bought an iphone.

5. Went back home for dinner.

6. Went through Adam's spelling words.

7. Brought Adam cycling downstairs.

8. Su went to www.storyonline.com with Adam.

9. Su went to sleep in Adam's room leaving me alone to gripe about the very rude teenagers.

Oh well, at least Adam cycled.

Notes from my reading; Religions and Science in Context

The contextual study of science and religion is an objective study of religions and science. The implication is that whether this is possible.�

Would a person without faith or even an individual with faith be able to study a religion or a religion aside from his faith and yet be able to achieve an objective point of view? In so doing, one needs to be an outsider looking in. Implication would be that one need not be a scientist to study the history of science, one need not be religious to study religion as one is merely an outsider looking in. This could provide conflicts with the insiders or those who practise a particular religion or in the case of a studying the history of science, the insiders would be the professional scientists.

Insiders VS Outsiders

1. Outsides depend on the insight of the insiders, thus the information that he derived is second hand. He can only give an account based upon �observation and testimony from a third party.

2. Outsiders may only be able to rely on abstractions and generalisations, possibly from the sacred books as they do not or maybe could not participate in rituals in which they could have access to direct experience.�

3. Outsiders do not accept whole truth. They read them in context. For example, the truth of god or even the existence of god. They investigate as to how this claim exist.

4. Religion refers to a totally distinct unique discovery of human experience which is beyond human comprehension and thus outsiders being non practitioners are not able to experience it.

5.Being an outsider, one would be able to study religions and not just one religion.

6. Outsiders avoid premature judgements.�

What is Religion?

In answering this question, we need to look at the characteristics of religion. Would it be the same for all religion. For example, the believe of a supernatural being. Would the believe of the presence of a supernatural being be the main factor of a belief being a religion. Thus is this the reason as to why Scientology is not a religion? What effect would this supernatural being have on its devotees. Could that effect be derived from somewhere else?

Would any of the characteristics of religions be similar to an activity such as watching a soccer game? Thus would soccer be a religion? Why is it or it is not?

Many mainstream religions rely on the authority of a sacred book, the authority of which is not recognised by followers of other faiths or by people of no faiths. Thus under whose authority does the authority of the book is recognised? It is this fact, that does not allowed the outsiders to fully experience and understand the faiths.

Can religions be harmful?

Examples would be the mass suicides of various religious groups.

Does religions have boundaries? For example boundaries to state as to what is and what is not a religion? Or boundaries to state as to what is and what is not part of a particular religion.

To be continued after Friday prayers.

Satay

Its 15 minutes to ten in the evening now and I've just reached home. We had dinner at Jalan Kayu and it was a nice way to end the long weekend. We had chicken murtabak ($6), mee goreng ($3.50) and Adam ordered prata kosong and prata plaster ($0.90 and $1.50 respectively). An interesting addition to the menu at JK was the appearance of Satay. We ordered 20 sticks of chicken satay ($10.50) with a serving of rice cakes. It was worth the wait if I do say so myself.

Adam going back to school tomorrow and I guess my routine will be go back to normal. He seems full of spirit and he managed to complete all the homework which was given by his teacher. Too bad he could not be at the BBQ I had with my Holy friends. We had that BBQ at Changi Civil Service club and although the view was fantastic (it was sea facing), the day was quite warm. It took alot from me as I really was begging for more sleep throughout the day after. I'd would take pictures if not for the fact that I was the principal BBQer. Generally, it went well and it ended when it should, that is around 11 pm.

I think I'll drop by JB for petrol tonight seeing that the tank is already at its three quarter mark.

Engaged

Engaged is the key word now in the education sector. Its not merely facilitating or even teaching, its engaging the pupils. Its not easy, that is for sure. To engaged a set of 10 minds would be a daunting task and to engaged 40 would be a tremendous task indeed.�

Primarily, it is to set the pupils mind and body to the activity on hand. It is of my opinion that once engagement is done and sustained, only then can meaningful�teaching and learning takes place.

Adam has been staying at home for the past three days and to get him, just him, engaged is really an uphill task. Its like trying to fill a pail with a hole at the bottom with water. If you are not fast enough, it'll emptied itself. Then the pail will not lose its function and purpose. Looking at things, I'm very glad that the hole in Adam is small, yet is present.

We have made a parachute, and from that parachute, he made a kite. We made a pizza and from that pizza, he made me do it. He practised on the piano and during his warm up, he came up with the tune of twinkle-twinkle stars. Now he is doing his homework which I picked up from the teacher about 3 hours ago.

We set up a blog and he told me to take a picture and he inserted it into his blog. Set up an email account to email his mom and after he emailed his mom, he emailed his cousin.

What is the point I'm trying to say? The point is simply, once you can get engagement, development come along with it, and fortunately for me, Adam is easy.

Context

Context to anything is important especially in an argument. If an argument is taken out of context, then meaning is lost and the argument becomes invalid. Ever more so if one is trying to prove a point.�

We were watching the news yesterday and the newscaster mentioned that anybody who has the flu and quarantined, if they were caught flouting the quarantined order, they would be fined a significant amount of money. Here, the context is the swine flu. Something that my wife forgot to mentioned to Adam as she happily rephrase the news to him.

It became apparent when today, as I told him we would be going out grocery shopping, he went into the room and confided to the maid. He does not want to follow and he felt awkward in telling me so. The maid told him to talk to me.

Well, he did. He said that he is afraid to follow me to the store as he'll be caught by the police and made to pay $10000. Sheesh.

I clarified that to him and finally, I went to the store alone. His limp though is getting worse and although he does not show it, I'm sure the pain is killing him.

Shingles

Its five minutes to 9 in the evening and I'm sitting at the dining table looking on at Adam and Risa playing Ben 10 monopoly. Can't believe that they can be that noisy. I hope this noise would not be replace by wailing or crying tomorrow. Adam has been infected by Shingles. It is caused by the same virus as chicken pox. Unlike chicken pox, blisters in Shingles will not appear throughout the body. It'll appear only on the path of the nerve that is infected. As for Adam's case, his blisters is appearing in his right leg. It is at the back of the leg and stretched from his calf to the area around his anus. The blisters looked quite bad and I read that soon it'll be filled with blood. I'm afraid that since Shingles affects the nerve, it might cause Adam a great deal of pain.

We went to the doctor today. As it was a Monday, the clinic was quite busy. We waited for some two and a half hours to see the doctor. After diagnosing Adam, she gave Adam 7 days of medical leave. I'm sure any parent would be taken aback by the number of medical leave given. Being a non-medical person, the length of medical leave would correspond to how serious the sickness is. The longer the medical leave, the more serious is the sickness.�

We got a scare in the evening, Adam cried saying that he can't walk. I was psyching myself up to spend the rest of the day at the hospital. As it turned out, it Adam's crying for attention from his mother who has just returned home. It was comical, the dramatics and the reactions from both mother and son, but it was very apparent, the concern faces of Risa and Su.�

He is limping now, walking on the ball of his right feet. I hope he'll be better.

The cases of swine flu around the world has really given me the jitters. During SARS and the bird flu scare, I wasn't this afraid. But after feeling what I felt when I first heard Adam's diagnosis, I know I could never empathized with the families and loved ones of those that were infected with the diseases.�

I pray all goes well.