I hope I am finally learning Mandarin

I finally decided to purchase the RM105 Anki iOS flashcard app. It's crazy right? Especially when all three of the computer, web and Android apps are free of charge. 

I have never spent so much on an app before. The last time I spent about RM60 was on a GPS app, before Waze was available. 

I have decided to get it because I can see that it is quite a powerful app and I am actually learning a language. I found this free HSK1 deck that suit my needs and I ended up purchasing the whole set from HSK1 to HSK5. I got it with a very good discount from here. 

HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) or the Chinese Proficiency Test is an international standardized exam which tests and rates Chinese language proficiency. Here is a sample of one of its flashcards in Anki:

It comes with a recording of the sentence. Using the SRS method, if I got it right, I can either tap to review it again in one or four days time, depending on my familiarity with it. 

I like it that it presents the HSK characters in sentences rather than just words. I once bought the StickyStudy app with HSK1 but I found it so hard to learn it character by character. It was boring and I can't put them in any context and meaning. With Anki, I hope I will be able to at least learn some basic Mandarin within the next few months. 

I hope I will graduate from being a banana to not be one anymore! (Banana, being a Malaysian slang for "outside yellow, inside white".)

pearlie 

The Giver, by Lois Lowry - I'm finally reading again

The Giver

by Lois Lowry

I was bemoaning to myself in the last few months for not reading a single book this year. But when I read an article written by Neil Gaiman on Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming, I finally thought it was high time I actually got a book to read.

I needed something good, but something simple and yet profound. I actually googled for "need a novel to start reading again" and found a few interesting lists. I finally decided to read Lois Lowry's The Giver. 

I was totally wowed.

I wasn't expecting much but the book has a very interesting start to it that got me going and by the time I was halfway through, I was so captivated by the plot that I was looking forward to how it would unfold. In the beginning you'd feel it almost innocuous but soon you'll see how Lowry skillfully weaved it in its brilliance of a story. 

I must add that it was a very good thing that I did not read too much into the description of the book or checked it out in Wikipedia as I sometimes do. It would have spoilt it completely if I had. 

And I realized that the story was so interesting that a movie will do it no justice. (I know there is one.) This story can only be told in a book form. Read it and you will find out why. 

It is a short book and I finished it in a little more than three hours. I was so absorbed in it I didn't want to put it down. I wouldn't say however that I am so pleased with the ending though I'm not surprised at all. It was then when I discovered it is a quartet series, and the story will continue in the subsequent books. 

This is great! There are three more books and I am reading again! And what I also got out of it was what Gaiman said and what I had hoped: it gave me stuff to think about like how I now need to think about dualism, what it is, what it means and how it could affects what I think. 

pearlie 

Such amazing hope we have

The one piece which I like most in The Messiah is the soprano's I Know My Redeemer Liveth. We had a full rehearsal today, being the eve of the performance and we went through the entire work. And when I heard the soprano sang these lines, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God," I was mesmerized.

I even have goosebumps now looking those words penned by Handel. Indeed, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.

Such amazing hope we have in Jesus, that though the world is in a mess, with it being corrupted and in chaos, and though I will die, yet in my flesh--how amazing is that--in my flesh, I shall see God. 

That is the hope I am holding on to until I actually see Him in person, for I shall indeed see Him.

pearlie

The New Atria

My hubby suggested that we go to Atria for lunch today. I thought to myself, why does that place sound so familiar and yet I can't place it at all in my mind what and where it is.

It was only when we got there that I realized it is the good old shopping complex that I used to go to back on those days for get-togethers with my old friends.

And how different it is now. It was apparently under massive renovations since it closed for business back in 2008. It was reopened in May this year.

It has changed so much it is unrecognizable, and it no longer bring back any of those good old memories.


Before


After


Before


After

pearlie
Photo Sources: Julian Si, Go Where, Visit Malaysia , The Malaysian Insider

Amazing happy bunches of flowers

My colleague receive a bunch of flowers yesterday for her birthday, and I was then being introduced to flowers from Happy Bunch.

This is a very different online florist started by two friends. Their concept is very unique. Their product is simply the-bunch-for-the-day. They give a sneak peek the day before as to what flowers will be bunched for the next day, and all you have to do is order and they will deliver, but only in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. You will only see how it will look like late evening or the next day from their website or Facebook.

My colleague got this bright bunch of Lavender, Wheat, Phlox, Spray Pom and Ruscus:


I ordered a bunch for a good friend yesterday, with this sneak peek of the Lotus flower:


And it turned out into this amazing bunch of Lotus, Tuberose and Sanderiana:


My friend received it late morning:


Tomorrow's bunch of Agapanthus, Madonna Lily, Trachelium, Peacock and Monstera also look so amazing. Wish I would get one. Sigh...I have a sad story with flowers I will tell you another time.



pearlie

Jesus was here!

I was doing my devotional this morning when I read this: "We have the finished work of Christ on the cross more than 2,000 years ago."¹

My next thought really surprised me.

"Jesus was here!"

Wait, what was that?

Of course I know Jesus was here. I've known that all my life. And so why this sudden revelation that Jesus was here?

As I take time now to reflect on it, I feel that it is the prompting of the Spirit to me to the reality of God in my life.

I've studied Scripture. I've meditated on his Word. I've worked on obeying him and living my life according to his will. And now it is being impressed on me that God is real, in history, in time, in space, not just in thought and belief, if I can use the word.

This may not seem much to you. And yet, right here, right now, the realization that Jesus became man and lived among men, walked on this earth, breathed the air, amazes me. I don't know how else to put it.

God was here. In person. Wow.

pearlie
1 'Isaiah: God Saves Sinners' by Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., R.Kent Hughes, General Editor

Lessons from C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia

I have not kept up with my reading on C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series. I read them (the first two volumes) as children's novels and did not read it deep enough to see any messages in them; which is why when Christian writers draw lessons from them, I always end up in awe.

Raymond Ortlund did just that with this scene in The Silver Chair in his book, Isaiah: God Saves Sinner under the Preaching the Word series.

He wrote about "God's Surprising Strategies" on Isaiah 44:24-54:25. The lesson he drew from the passage was that God is bigger than we can ever imagine, though we more than often box him in our limitations. But God is great and he alone has the right to be God. God's will for us is better than we think and he invites us to turn to him and be saved, all the ends of the earth. But we are arrogant and we accuse him of bungling our lives, though we are far beneath God as clay is beneath a potter. However, God still invites us to rethink our lives and graciously receives us when we come to him. In his salvation strategies for us, he is both perplexing and faithful, because he is God. And we need to accept that.

Ortlund drove it home by ending the chapter with this:

C. S. Lewis wrote a series of children’s stories in which the Christ figure is a lion. In one scene a girl named Jill bursts into an opening in a forest. She’s thirsty. She spies a stream not far away, but she doesn’t rush forward to throw her face into its refreshing current. Instead she freezes in fear because a lion is resting in the sun right beside the stream.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. “Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh, dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

Wow...see what I mean? What an amazing close to the message.

pearlie
Source: Raymond C. Ortlund, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word, quoting C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (New York: Collier Books, 1970 reprint), pp. 16, 17.

My day like science fiction?

Talking about connectedness versus coincidence, I was working on some figures with my staff yesterday and an eerie thing happened.

We did two separate and unrelated calculations--I repeat, separate and unrelated--and we came up with the exact same figure.

1,206,415.49

Now, what is the probability of that happening? (My math skills has deteriorated to just the plus
-minus-times-divide kind, so I don't know the answer to that question.)

My day like science fiction? That's alright, as long as it is not the horror genre.

Oh dear...my neighbour's dogs are howling right now, as I write. I'm serious. I. Am. Not. Kidding.

pearlie

Book Review: Room by Emma Donoghue

Room
by Emma Donoghue

Just when I was contemplating if reading is a waste of time, of course it's not, I'm just being a tad more philosophical about it, I came across this book that when I read the last word of it, all I could say was "wow".

It is a gripping tale about a 5-year old boy who grew up all his life incarcerated in a small room with his mother. The story was presented from his perspective as the first voice, and you could almost get into his mind as he perceives his world within just the confines of a square room.

This is one of those extremely good books that creates images in your mind as you read without requiring much of an effort. The words just flow and you find yourself in that very room with Jack.

It's an amazing read. The best one I've had in a long time.

pearlie

Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

I learnt about this amazing orchestra today. And really, hats off to these young musicians who in their poverty in life are able to bring music to life.

pearlie