Control.

Hey. to whoever is reading, if any at all. I AM BACK! Ahknow, once again, it has been ages since I've blogged. And again I will say, I do blog within the confines of my um. local hard drive (though even those have become rare nowadays), but last night I was inspired to blog more frequently. HOW i was inspired, you may ask? Perhaps to your dismay, nothing spiritual, nothing big or dramatic, nothing awesome, in fact, I almost feel silly and superficial for saying it. You'll understand why in just a bit.

It happened as follows:
It was probably around 12.am and I decided that I was way too bored from reading about netart, how to use notepad++ and how to code javascript, sooo i succumbed to looking at what blogs i had bookmarked in the past. I glanced over the "blogs (others)" category under my favorites. you know. the bloggers you don't personally know, but want to follow - NO. I am not a stalker :) I know it must be running through your head as you read. I am sure you guys wouldn't label a Piper-Blog-follower a stalker right? Right. Rats, I probably should not have given such a "holy" example. Well, as Guh listens to Ne-Yo while Justin listens to hymns, others follow Piper's blog while I... well. decided to go on Daniel Wu's alivenotdead site. If you do not know who Daniel Wu is (perhaps only Terry Chow would be extraaa familiar with him hahaaa), though he sounds like any average Asian guy you can pick up from the street, he is neither a friend, nor an acquaintance. In fact he does not even know that I exist. ha. This Daniel Wu guy is an American Born Chinese actor who is reasonably involved in the Hong Kong Show Biz. Oh, I advise you not to google-image him. I tried before, and some slightly crude, vulgar, scandy-candy images showed up. On a side note, he is a canto celebrity, who for some reason, after being involved in HK showbiz for quite some years now, still has yet the worst American accent EVAR. So there you go, my inspiration ran oh so deep. I was inspired to blog more often, all thanks to a Canto celebrity by the name of Daniel Wu.

But hey, if you read into some of his blogs, they are quite hilarious I must say, and I would deem them quite interesting, humorous yet to the point. I especially like his collaborative architectural project, "The Stage", which is now an installation in HK for the HK/ShenZhen Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture. You can read about their design statement from the last entry on the first page linked right up there under his big name. I particularly enjoyed his insight on acting as a career vs. being an architect (which is what he was going to pursue). Both allowed for creativity through different mediums and it is quite interesting how his intended career now became a hobby. He gets the benefit of both! It never was the plan. Funny how life pieces the puzzle together.

Here is a short documentary on the project. I love the concept behind using bamboos and LEDs. However, this structure does somehow remind me of the Bird's Nest in Beijing.

The Stage: Short Doc from Daniel Wu on Vimeo.

So anyways, I digress. After I read his post on how "having lots of money doesn't make you rich" (funny read, very true, but kind of mean on his part at times), I realized how much I let life fly by. Rarely do I take time to reflect on my day. Rarely do I take time to even process the small events that happen throughout my day, and there are so many that are extremely interesting and thought provoking! It is possible that I avoid much of this because sometimes, it just requires too much mental and emotional capacity that I rather not deal with - not necessarily a good thing. WELL, here i am - inspired, so I shall write something. Or else, I'd be writing about how i was inspired to write about NOTHING :)

Today, in my Vis141A Class - the one I was reading netart, notepad++, and javascript for, our professor introduced a guy who will be sitting in on our class for the rest of the quarter, in hopes of understanding more of the technical side of things, while scouting out volunteers from my class to help him develop his 199 independent studies project with my professor. Apparently the project is an experimental performance arts piece based off of the concept of "self help through the internet". Essentially, he would have his friends help him choose one random person over the internet (i suppose of the ones that do apply for this "position") who will dictate his course of actions for the next month and will do so by texting him the commands. Freaky, is it not? Oh, that person would also have control over his online identity as well - ie: facebook, AIM etc. Of course, there will be boundaries. He obviously would not go punch someone in the face if the dictator commands him to do so. But still, I cannot even imagine! My initial thoughts were man, what kind of FUNDED project is this? then came, what is the point? this is SO absurd! However, I later find out the undeniably personal aspect to this concept. He explained how he was failing all of his classes last quarter, and wanted to play on the "asking for help online" idea in this particular project. My heart kind of sank when I heard that. Self help books, in my opinion, are stupid. Having some other human being control your life FOREAL, is even worse! scary and also kind of. i don't know ): it is so sad! What if mr. mrs. dictator is a jerk? Perhaps I should apply and make him read the Bible :) hope & cure for the SOUL are there, not in self help books or in google search, or in another person for the matter. What more would he be than a robot, or some kind of puppet? In the end, what is it all? Superficial, temporary happiness and satisfaction? I am glad that my life is not in the hands of another person, technology, or even in my own hands, but in God's. What an awesome reality to live in, to know that God - the Creator, the loving Father, the Sovereign, Gracious & Merciful - is the one who dictates my life. I can trust Him. I have His promises to cling to. I have the hope of the Gospel. It is a reality I constantly need to remind myself of because so often, I find myself worrying and stressing about the future. I was very blessed by CJ's sermon on The Troubled Soul (Psalm 42). It did much for my soul and in times of discouragement and frustration, God put things back into perspective.

"The Psalmist may have felt abandoned by God, but the Savior was forsaken by God. The Psalmist's soul may have felt downcast and troubled, but the Savior's was crushed. The Savior's soul was uniquely troubled and tormented so that the soul of sinners like us would know freedom from the fear of eternal torment in hell. He was forsaken so that we might never be forsaken"

Spurgeon also encourages us to "cash the banknote of Divine Promise"!
in Psalm 42, the Psalmist says "Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him".
what hope we have in the midst of a troubled soul.
The future may be unclear, but slowly I am learning to entrust it into God's hands.
In the beginning of the post, I mentioned that it was funny how life pieces the puzzle together.
Well, there is nothing really funny about that because God is a sovereign God :) and for that.
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" - Phil 4:4

This is getting quite long. again.
Perhaps my blogs will become shorter if i post more frequently.

I shall leave you with a very cute song.
I did not notice how cute it was until i listened to the lyrics carefully!
This is from his very first album, over a decade ago :)
i believe I was still in elementary school back then! ROFL.



So you think you haven't seen WLH 王力宏 in my statuses, profiles etc. for a while?
And you may comment, "you're STILL in the WLH 王力宏 PHASE????"
let me clarify things for you so there is no further misconception.
there is no phase. I am way past the phase.
because he is permanently in van's book of most admired, talented, favorites :)
never going away! heeehe.

here's the translation for those of you who do not understand.
you have to read all of it. it's not as shady and bad as it sounds :)

You care less on how jealous I am,
you also ignore my protests
He is your constant subject of conversation
I suffer in abundant grief because of him,

you can be as late as you want
whether your mood is rain or shine, it doesn't matter
is that enough to exchange more of your time
so we can have some alone time

anyone would want their lover's entire heart
don't say I am childish
if there is someone playing the piano crazily outside your door another day,
don't doubt. it has to be me.

i don't fear going against stronger love rivals,
they must defeat me before they can steal you away
but when it comes to Ludwig Beethoven
all I can do is shake my head and sigh.

你不管我有多妒忌　也不管我怎麼抗議
他永遠是你說不膩的話題　你讓我為他受盡委屈

愛遲到多久都可以　你陰晴不定沒關係
夠不夠交換你多留點時間　讓我們兩人單獨一起

誰都想擁有情人完整的心　別說我太孩子氣
改天你家門口有人瘋狂彈琴　一定是我別懷疑

我不怕跟再強的情敵試著比一比　打敗我才能搶走你
碰上了LUDWIG BEETHOVEN　卻只能搖頭嘆氣

the end! :)