I Kissed Dating Goodbye 3

In my reading of I Kissed Dating Goodbye today, Joshua Harris describes and contrasts two relationship stories. In the first one, a man named Jeff was boasting about his sexual exploit with Gloria to the author. Jeff was expecting the author to be impressed, but instead, the author was taken aback and in disapproval of Jeff’s actions, and reproached him. But Jeff cuts him off, telling the author that if the author ever fell in love, he would understand. The author describes that four years later, Jeff was in a college, and this time, he was engaged to another girl named Debbie. Jeff was telling the author this time about how his is so in love with Debbie.

In the second story, the author relays his conversation with a man named Eric, who was married to a woman named Leslie. The author describes his observation of the pair as “you two can’t keep your hands off each other”. He asked them, “was it difficult keeping the physical side of your relationship pure while you were engaged?” Eric answered “ Of course the desire for that was present – it will always be. But no, it wasn’t a struggle. Leslie and I decided very early in our relationship that we were going to refrain from physical contract until we were married. Our first kiss was at the altar”. He continued, “We both decided waiting was what we wanted to do. It was a way to show our love, to protect each other before we were married.”

The second story does describe very well a friend I have in church, who avoided a physical relationship with his girlfriend, even such as holding hands and kissing. I had thought that it was quite unromantic to be so averse to a physical relationship. Perhaps abstinence from kissing is understandable, but from holding hands as well?

I am curious about the attitude towards sex amongst youths in Singapore. I used to think that as Asians, we are conservative, and most of my peers around me practice abstinence. But as the proverbial Chinese saying goes, I truly suspect I am a frog in the well, ignorant of the reality. After all the headlines making its way into the national news about sex scandals such as the one involving the law student Darinne Ko and her professor Tey Tsun Hang, and another regarding the sex blogger Alvin Tan who also happened to be a student at NUS law, I must be naïve to think all Singaporean youths are conservative.

Once, I was sitting in a criminal law class, and a fellow female student was giving her presentation. She was talking something about how the law should change to reflect the liberality of sex amongst youths in Singapore. I was taken aback, because I was wondering how she would have such an impression of a sexually liberal Singapore. I don’t want to be judgmental, but it is said that people form their impression based on their own lifestyle and those they hang around with. Or perhaps, she knows better about the state of affairs than I do.

How I spent my Chinese New Year

I didn’t go to visit my relatives and my grandmother in Malaysia during this Chinese New Year. I had decided to stay at home with my mum so that I could try to catch up on my law studies. But I don’t think my studies were very productive. I felt like my eyes were simply breezing through the materials but mind was not absorbing or internalizing it.

I never like to allow work or studies to creep in on my lifestyle commitments, like my Christian activities, or my traditions like visiting my relatives during Chinese new year. I wish I were smarter and more efficient in my work and studies, so that I can do more in less time, and spent more time doing the things I like and spending it with the people I love.

Nevertheless, I spent the my Sunday afternoon touring Orchard with my mum. I didn’t expect that the shops would all be closed. I had wanted to visit Kinokuniya bookstore to browse through books. But Ngee Ann City, where Kinokuniya is situated, was closed. There were quite a lot of Filipinos at Orchard that day. I guess that they are the maids who had been given the day off and they had decided to spend it shopping at Orchard. But there wasn’t much for them to do when the shops are all closed as Chinese business operators go visiting during Chinese new year.

Varsity Christian Fellowship - Daniel 5

We went through Daniel 5 for varsity christian fellowship cell group meet last Wednesday. I was supposed to lead cell group meet for that session for my cell group as my co cell group leader was away to India for a mooting competition. I am not quite confident of myself in leading cell group session by myself, and I was preparing the previous day about how I should be going about leading the session. Lo and behold, we had a combined cell group session with the other cell groups because there were too few people. The year 1's had a make up contract lecture. So all 4 cell groups of the varsity christian fellowship had a combined cell group session that day. It relieved me of having to lead cell group because another cell group leader from another cell group did most of the talking. I was in some sense disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to try out leading the cell group by myself.

The pedagogy of cell group session has been kind of a question and answer session on the passages of Daniel. For the session on Daniel 5, one of the issues raised was why King Belshazzar offered to make any person who could interpret the apparition of the hand writing on the wall the position of third highest ruler in the kingdom instead of the second highest ruler in the kingdom. The guess put forward by a member was that King Belshazzar was first in command, and his queen, second in command, and thus, he was only willing to offer the third position of the kingdom.

I did a quick search during the session for commentaries on the passage of Daniel 5 and came to this website. There was previously skepticism by bible scholars as to the historicity of Daniel 5 since historical records demonstrate that a man named Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon and not Belshazzaar. But the discovery of the Nabonidus Cylinder reveals King Belshazzar to be the eldest son of Nabonidus. So the website listed above suggest the possibility of King Belshazzar being co-regent with his father, which explains his conferring of third position in kingdom as he could not give the first or the second, which is him and his father. I suppose another interesting question to ask is why the bible passage calls King Belshazzar the son of King Nebuchadnezzar. I think from my study of Daniel in Central Bible Studies, I have come to interpret the Book of Daniel in a less historically literal manner, and wouldn't be too critical at the this apparent historical deviation.

What I found interesting about the Nabonidus Cylinder was the inscription that was on it. The cylinder states: "As for me, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, save me from sinning against your great godhead and grant me as a present a life long of days, and as for Belshazzar, the eldest son -my offspring- instill reverence for your great godhead in his heart and may he not commit any cultic mistake, may he be sated with a life of plenitude."

I am not sure which god King Nabonidus is praying to. There are a pantheon of gods which the Babylonians worship. But the words above suggest some sort of concept of sin when it comes to the religious doctrine of the Babylonian religion. It interest me to know how similar is this concept of sin of the ancient Babylonian religion is with that of the Jewish and Christian religions. Do they have the concept of atonement of sins as the Judaism and Christianity?

Another question raised in the cell group session was why God would have King Belshazzar killed and his kingdom overthrown instead of treating him more leniently as King Nebuchadnezzar. A member brought up the paradigm of culpability that we study about in criminal law. In criminal law, a person is deemed culpable of a crime if there is the actus reas (act) and mens rea (mental) components of the crime. In this case, Belshazzar's act of using the cups of gold and silver that were taken from the Jewish temple and drinking it in praise of foreign gods of gold and silver was suggested to be a grievous trespass against God. That would be the actus reas. The mens rea lies with the knowledge that King Belshazzar had towards his action. In verse 22, we read of Daniel telling King Belshazzar that he had not humbled himself despite knowing of the incident regarding King Nebuchadnezzar being struck with madness.

A member in the group thought that it is a strain to bring in the concept of culpability from criminal law when evaluating the actions of King Belshazzar though. He says that in the bible, we pretty much see God punishing people for what would seem to contemporary human minds to be disproportionate punishment. He cites the instance of God striking dead the ox cart driver who had used his hands to block the ark of God from falling off the ox cart as it was being transported into the city. He says, to our human rationality, it would have been preferable for the guy to prevent the ark from falling onto the floor. But he conceded later that there was culpability involved as the israelites should have placed the ark onto something more honourable than an ox cart.

Another issue brought up was why Daniel initially refused to accept the gifts offered by Belshazzar but relented in the end. A member referred to the accounts of Daniel 1 where Daniel and his 3 friends had reused to eat the royal food, and suggested that the reason could be that of not wanting to defile themselves with the culture of the Babylonians. I gave the hypothesis that given what Daniel knows about the impending downfall of the Babylonian kingdom, the gifts would have been worthless to him. But I would refrain now from my answer as it suggest a condescension on Daniel's part towards the gifts offered.

To wrap things up, our Exco leader talks about how we view the actions of a person with the lens of how we perceive the character to be. She mentions her observation about how we were coming up with suggestion trying to portray the actions of Daniel in a good light because we believe him to be a good character. She ask that if it were the case that we know of another person whom we do not like who would have done the same thing as Daniel, would we be so generous with our interpretation of his actions?

I do remember reading somewhere about how we accrue a positive interpretation upon the actions of biblical characters, and how this could be a wrong way to interpret actions. In that article, it talked about how David resorted to actions like feigning his madness in order to escape the captivity of a foreign King, and conspired with a foreign army to attack Israel. The author said that these actions by David were not condonable, but indicated his flaws as a character in relying on his own strengths instead of God. I do recognize the portrayal of David as a flawed character in the bible. I am not sure about these other biblical characters like Daniel though. It would be interesting to know what flaws he has.

I Kissed Dating Goodbye 2

I continue with my reading of I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris.On page 38 Joshua Harris talks about the problems with the dating system as expressed in modern day culture. He says that even Christian couples today with good intentions find their relationship on their culture's defective attitudes and patterns for romance. He lists some of the defective attitudes towards relationships inherent in dating culture today. 1. Dating tends to skip the friendship stage of a relationship. 2. Dating often mistakes a physical relationship for love 3. Dating often isolates a couple from other vital relationships 4. Dating can distract young adults from their primary responsibility of preparing for the future 5. Dating can cause discontentment with God's gift of singleness 6. Dating can create an artificial environment for evaluating another person's character, and 7. Dating often becomes an end in itself

I am not exactly sure what the dating culture is like in America. From my impression from watching American movies and television shows though, it seems to be a kind of 'I ask you out' after a 'love at first sight' encounter. Now, here in Singapore, I don't think there is the same kind of 'I ask you out' kind of dating culture. If I may surmise a description of the romance culture, people in love here would prefer to keep it subtle. The mutual acknowledgement of attraction comes in the form of subtle exchanges of romantic gestures. Guy gets all cocky and funny in front of the girl, and girl respond in some reciprocal form. And the romantic relationship is impressed upon the two parties by the mutual friends amongst them, who would tease the pair. This becomes subsumed into the psyche of the pair and fans the expectation that there is indeed a form of romantic relationship between them.

I may be wrong on the matter as I don't hang out with social groups with girls in them. And as with every stereotype description, there are exceptions. But personally, I have a fear of being too suggestive when it comes to interacting with girls. It makes things awkward. I would actually like to believe that romance would blossom between people that are meant to blossom without needing for overt actions on either part. I believe in fate and God's will. It makes things so much less complicated.

I like what Joshua Harris says about contentment with God's gift of singleness. He says, "Though it isn't true of all relationships, dating relationships are often fueled by impatience, and we can directly relate many problems with dating to wrong timing. We want what we want right now...But God wants us to appreciate the gifts of the present season of out lives. He wants us to learn the patience and trust necessary to wait for His perfect timing in all things, including our love lives."

I got to say that I feel quite worried about myself when I see all my peers in relationships. And even if they are not, they are at least actively socializing with people of the opposite sex. It does make me feel as if there is something wrong about myself. And indeed, one thing that makes me unhappy in life is my difficulty in interacting with members of the opposite gender. I think I lack the natural social intuition that is imbued in normal people around me. Well, there is something comforting about being told that God has a time and purpose for everything. I suppose I will try to look on the bright side and enjoy my carefree days of single-hood.

Discussion for Legal Case Studies on possible business arrangments

I just had a discussion with my groupmates for the Legal Case Studies module. A little background story about my group – My group is composed of me and two other GLB students. They are not people whom I had known in the law faculty. I had to form groups with them because the people whom I am friends with in law school were not in the same group as me for the equity module and one of the rules stipulated for the formation of groups for Legal Case Studies is that people within the group must be from the same group for the module on equity.

In the end, I formed group with people who are relatively less well-socialised in the law community. One is a man who is a GLB student who had taken a one and a half year break from law school to engage in some start-up. He is married, in his 30’s, has kids, has a degree in engineering and a Masters in Business Administration, and is a member of one of the opposition political party in Singapore. He decided to come back to law school after venturing into business and not really succeeding there.

My other group mate is an Indian national woman, also married, without kids, had a business degree, probably in her 30’s or late 20’s. She has an Indian national husband who works in Singapore as a software app developer, the kind which designs all those funky apps that you find on your Smart devices.

We were suppose to discuss on the various possible business arrangements that our fictious client should take in a hypothetical scenario. We were representing AMG, a giant corporation in the healthcare industry that was interested in operating healthcare services and facilities in a plot of land owned by a sisterhood. The sisterhood which had a charity home for the aged, had run aground into problems after the trust manager of their trust funds absconded with the money. AMG, wishing to seize the opportunity, wants to strike a deal with the sister to acquire the piece of land and set up its profit-making retirement home for the elderly rich.

Back to the discussion, I would say that I was pretty much quiet when it came to contributing to the discussion. Most of the contributions were done by by two groupmates. But I could see their business minds at work when it came to thinking out ideas for the possible arrangements for the business operation.

I don’t know why, but it seems like my mind finds it hard to conceptualize information relating to the possible network of business arrangements. At least, I do understand what is spoken across in the discussion, but on my own, I don’t think I have the ability to think out ideas on how the business relationship can operate amongst the various parties.

So in this hypothetical scenario, you have the Sisterhood, AMG, and the trustee who for the sisterhood. You have issues that arises in the situation such as what sort of corporate entity would best serve the interest of the client, and how obligations, profit-sharing, and management would figure into the business relationship. There are questions arising from the structuring of the deal, such as whether AMG has to negotiate with the sisters for the land, or can they simply negotiate with the trustee who owns the land for the sisters.

The male GLB student seems to have a knack in conceiving all the possible designs for the business arrangements. He presented everything from a private limited, to charitable trust arrangements. I think I get the picture. I don’t know why my mind seems so paralyzed when dealing with these information about business and corporate structure. I didn’t experience such mental states when studying for my science and social science subjects in high school and junior college. Perhaps, they may be something about the operation of the real working world that my mind doesn’t seem to ready to comprehend, or I may have lost a certain ability to process technical information after roughly 3 years of not studying.

Maybe law just isn’t for me.

I kissed dating goodbye 1

A friend of mine at discipleship group passed me the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris quite some time ago. I have heard quite alot about this book in my Christian circle at church. I thought I would give this book a read because I have been interested about relationships recently and I thought that perhaps, this book would give me some good sound Christian advice about how to approach relationships. I am not sure how appropriate this book would be to my needs though. For one, I haven't even greeted dating hello! But maybe it is better to start off that way. Perhaps there may be something questionable about dating as our cultural paradigm towards relationship.

Now, what describes my reaction when my Christian guy friends tell me that dating as a concept to approaching a relationship is wrong is, "How are you going to find the person of your dreams if you stop dating?" Joshua Harris has a reply to that on page 26 where he was appearing a guest on a late-night television show called Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Joshua says, "Well, it's not quite as simple as just 'not dating. The idea is that a lot of the things we do in relationships today are motivated by selfishness. We're starting what we can't finish, we're pursuing romance when we're really not interested in commitment."

Joshua Harris lays down what he call the Little Relationship Principle: The joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment. He elaborate by saying that this little principle is a practical way to practice the Golden Rule in romance - it's deciding to do what's best for others by never asking for intimacy that you're not able to match with commitment. It doesn't mean that he has no relationships with the opposite sex or no intimacy, but rather appropriate relationships and appropriate intimacy. So a guy and a girl meeting over lunch isn't the issue. The issue is whether the intimacy in your relationhsip is appropriate to your current level of commitment.

Joshua makes the point, dating tend to skip the friendship stage of a relationship (page 38). Have you ever known someone who worried about dating a longtime friend? If you have, you probably heard that person say something like this : "He asked me out, but I'm afraid that if we start actually dating it will change our friendship." What is this person really saying? People who make statements like this, whether they realize it or not, recognize that dating encourages romantic expectations. In a true friendship you don't feel pressured by knowing that you "like" the other person or that he or she "likes" you back. 

With regards to Joshua Harris' point, I ask, how can relationships form without any initiative on either party in making romantic gestures? If I just sit back and take no romantic initiative towards a girl whom I am attracted to, will things naturally proceed towards a relationship? Some of my guy friends would use this term 'friendzoned' to describe the ossification of a platonic relationship where it would be then become impossible to ever get into a romantic stage. I am not sure how right they are, but I suspect that they got their idea from watching too many episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Can I just be myself and hope that I shall find romance? I suppose I find myself having mixed feelings about such an approach. On one hand, I believe and trust in the will of God and his providence, and I don't want to come off as aggressive on things pertaining to relationships. There are certainly things about a relationship that are not within my control. On the other hand, there is just something about just being myself that I think is kind of too passive in nature and not conducive towards romantic relationships. I have a friend who would tell me, "You can't just sit on your butt and do nothing and expect God to drop a girl down from the sky".

On a related note, I am not sure how my peers actually get into relationships. It is a mystery for me. The thing which perplexes me is how their relationship transit from the friendship stage to romance. How does it actually build up between them? How do they reach the point where they have some sort of formal understanding between them that the relationship between them is a romantic one? Or if it must be declared, at which point in the friendship do they reach a consensus that there is romantic interest between them?

I suppose I kind of get the idea from watching Romance movies like 500 days of summer. There is a certain unexplainable moment of intimacy, that stems from a certain choice of language, or action, or from a moment of prolonged eye contact, which makes things 'feel so right'. I am not sure what are the sentiments of my peers here in Singapore. There might be a certain cultural norm that governs romantic impulses that I am not getting.

Law IV - Faces of Life

I watched a school-based play titled Law IV - Faces of Life on Friday evening. It is a play depicting the lives of individuals through law school, the poignant phases that characterizes the law school experience, and a commentary featuring some of the issues that affects the law school community.

The play begins with a brief introduction to the phases preceding law school. As like any other Singaporeans, the typical law school student is streamed through the gruels of the education system, from the PSLE, to the O'levels, then to the A'levels. And then, he or she scores well with a number of distinctions, but finds himself or herself bereft of the leadership qualities requisite for the public service commission scholarship. And so, he or she makes the choice between NUS medicine, or NUS law, the euphemistic dumping grounds for Public Scholarship Commission rejects.

Next, we are introduced to the characters. The male protagonist, Able, wishing for an easy life with a good-paying career that will help him settle down in life, and preferring to do law instead of medicine. The female protagonist, Belle, forced by her lawyer parents to do a law degree instead of pursuing her passion in music. Chuan, the vernacular Singaporean-accented heartland kid from a low socioeconomic class, seeking to scale up the social mobility ladder from the opportunity provided from being accepted into law school. A token minority character, Faizal, with a rags to riches of a story to tell of a school academic failure in his high school days making his way into law school and later succeeding to become the dean of the law school. Germaine, a girl with the drive for success, but unpopular socially.

We are taken through the various rites of passages that characterizes the law school experience at NUS. There is the law school interview. Those accepted are initiated via orientation and an event known as rag and dance, and matriculated by helping out with a flag day event. Law school starts proper with the LAWR (Legal analysis and writing research) module, and which culminates with a moot at the end of the first year.

There is friendship. There is romance. Able and Belle hits it off while collecting on the flag day event.

There are trials. Chuan studies hard to the expense of neglecting his ageing mother. Germaine suffers a panic attack and botches up her moot she had been so extensively preparing for. There is lost in perspective. Germaine goes berserk and lashes out at Faizal, her mooting partner.     

But all well that ends well. They all graduate. Able decides to move into social activism after a few years in a law career. On the other hand, Belle decides to settle in the legal fraternity and work it out to partner at the firm. Chuan, the heartland kid, makes it big at dispute resolution. Dawn, a side character, moves into marketing at a company, accepting her limitations at not being competent at law. Germaine ends up a pair with Faizal, and the wedding bells resounds for Able and Belle. Confetti pops, curtains drop.

The phase of life, captured in a 90 minutes play. Now if life were a stage, and all men and women merely players, where do each of us fit?

I guess my blog here allows me to tell my story. I scored well with a few distinction at the A'levels from a middle-band junior college (St Andrew's Junior College). I applied and was rejected for a Public Service Commission scholarship. Had the idea of pursuing a degree in economics, but was cajoled by my parents to choose either medicine or law. Didn't like medicine, so I chose to do law. Failed the first attempt to get into law school, but succeeded in the second attempt. Socially inept and unpopular, and estranged from the law school social circles. Had the ambition to succeed in law school and make it into academia. But as reality would have it, am generally inept at law studies.

Thinking about it, I kind of bear certain descriptions from the various characters depicted in the play. Like the female protagonist, a certain initial degree of reluctance to do law. Like the male protagonist, an unexplained aversion towards doing medicine in preference of law. Like Chuan, an underdog who seeks to make a name for himself amongst his peers who hail from the elite junior colleges. Like Germaine, the desire to compensate for a lack of social popularity with academic success. Like Dawn, reckoning with personal limitations and ruminating about a career outside of law.

Well, everybody's got a story to tell. So there you go, a snapshot of myself and of my experience so far in law school.