Thinking Aloud

There has been a lot of debate (and complaints) and finger pointing in all sectors of Malaysian public life concerning the state of our tertiary education.

I am an optimist. I believe that there are many good students and good lecturers out there. If one wants to learn, a good education is available locally.

I was reading this letter found on Sdr. Lim’s blogsite.

In all honesty, I have never stepped into a Malaysian university to study before. I came straightaway to Singapore to complete my undergraduate degree.

But letters like this reflects on the student more than UM itself. Not to be too judgemental, but writing letters like this does not help anybody (although everyone is free to present their own opinion). It just reflects on a spoon-feeding and complaining attitude.

For the record, good lecturers does not equate good teachers. You’ll be surprised, but many highly intelligent lecturers cannot teach. Even some for overseas.

"Once in a while, the lectures would add a bit of their so-called explanations” which are actually not significant, not insightful, no moot point and often taken from the text book itself. Are the students attending lectures just to listen to them mumbling [deleted] throughout a lesson without gaining any insightful speech, opinions and analytical thoughts from the lecturer?…"

I believe it is not the primary job of the lecturer to explain everything to the students. As for a percieved lack of analytical thoughts, it is not easy to identify deep and insightful ones in the first place  

"I wonder at the standard of English of the lecturers hired in local universities. Those older lecturers clearly have a much better command of English than the younger ones. Sadly, most of the younger lecturers’ English levels are just unacceptable. Some of them just use broken English
mingled with bahasa while teaching. Some would just totally avoid using English at all!…"

It is not a big deal if a lecturer cannot speak english well. What is important is that the lesson is taught in a language which both the student and lecturer mutually understands. Sometimes a lecture by international professor can be filled with colloquial accents making it hard to understand him!

But seriously, the bad mouthing of our public universities should end. Yes there are bad hats and comparitively, many institutions abroad are better than the ones locally. And the writer (of the letter) raised many worrying points.

If students are really interested to make a difference in their universities, instead of writing shallow and immature letters (brimming with anger and bitterness) to politicians, we all can make a difference by being a better student. It starts with one simple attitude.

Initiative.  

If more Malaysian students had more initiative to learn up stuff on their own instead of relying on Mr. Lecturer, half the battle of making our public universities will have been won already.

And this one is for the politicians (whether BN or Opposition), by all means continue you job. But as leaders, your words can influence students as well. Be the right kind of example to them please. 

We all heard of the story of Tun Dr. Mahathir getting sprayed by mace. Latest I read, the police had remanded somebody to assist in investigations.

There is a quagmire out there. A political culture that does not breed heroics. No true statesmanship, only silence.

People are being ruled by rhetoric, and mob mentality. Perhaps, instead of stifling honest debate, I would love to see some true statesmanship, one where you confront the problem head on, with tact and cunning.

In politics, words are your greatest weapon and your greatest threat.

 

Waiting for the 1st of August.

In the meantime, I’m in the boots of the Wordless one, Gordon Freeman, blasting away headcrabs.  

As I promised, a picture of my dinner. If I had vinegar, it would have been really sour.  

Spent most of the day thinking about lunch and dinner and one-parameter groups. The Lie group stuff is slowly becoming clear, but its only the beginning…

The still so much more to go…exponential maps, integration, volume forms, fibration, covering…wahlau!

The good news is that I don’t have to start on my thesis straight away, since I’m taking a rather relaxed route here. Most of my cohort mates are doing a one year master’s programme. I’m stretching out the duration as long as I can.

So then, I’m planning to cook something spetacular tomorrow, if it turns out well I might even post the picture of the dish up here… 

 

 

This is one me with my family before I entered the robing room. 

With my future Master’s Thesis supervisor. Somehow, I feel that this is literally year 5…. 

With Kay Jin, ex-hall senior who also studied maths.  

With fellow CFer and good friend, May Yin.  

And the whole bunch of CFers who came down to brighten up the day.  

With Gary and Zachary (hey they rhyme), brilliant people…can lend me some of your brain cells a? 

Dear brother in christ and fellow EXCO member, Vincent. He’s teaching right now. 

And my biological brother, Zhi Yong who is a doctor-to-be.  

Let’s hear it people, I’m starting all over again.

The subjects still the same, the difficulty ramped up 100 times. The future is still uncertain, and God only knows what he has in store for me.

Going back tomorrow morning. Back to Singapore. Back to start studying again…

Just wanna say thanks to all those that came for my commencement. Thanks to those that called also. You all made it extra special. And thanks for the banquet of flowers. It’s a nice gesture. I like orchids.

There are more photos, but I’ll put up the photo of a bunch of people who have made this achievement possible. This is their acheivement as it is mine.

(L-R: Father, me, my brother, mother and sister)

My family. Love you all.

Patient yah, still waiting for Wen Jun’s photos. Then I’ll select those that represent the occasion the best and post it up.

I invited Dominic out for lunch and to debate Calvanism and Arminianism. The subsequent discussion made me realize that my views (and attitude) of this controversy have changed a lot over the years. So much so that to a lay person, my views would be very confused and self-contradictory.

This post will be a chance for me to better articulate what I believe currently.

Just for the record, I believe that Christ died and rose for my sins, and by this faith I’m saved. Ok, this point settle.

How does Calvanism and Arminianism come into the fray then. I guess several philosophical issues lend fuel to this controversy.

1) The Euthypro Dilemma: Is God good because of what he commands, or is his commands good because He decreed it so.

2) Determinism and Free Will

3) Do certain actions have intrinsic moral value and are we allowed to pass moral judgements based on our conscience alone.

4) The degree of God’s transcendence: Does God’s ontological transcendence imply that He is ethically transcendance as well? (i.e. it is optional whether God wants to subject himself to the morality that ‘binds’ us as human beings)

These are by no means an exhaustive list of philosophical issues that we discussed. There were more but I couldn’t really remember. We discussed general and special revelation as well, but I felt that it was not really relavant to the discussion at hand.

My stand on Calvanism and Arminianism is this: Theorectically, I’m Calvanist, but in the outworkings and day to day crunch, I’m a practising Arminian. The discussion with Dominic helped me work this out clearly.

The tenets of predestination, probation and regeneration makes it very hard to motivate me to share the Gospel in my daily life. Indeed the very premise of evangelism (as recorded in the bible) is simply that time is short: Christ is coming again as judge, hence the urgency of reaching out. Knowing that God has already set in place some who will go to heaven and hell doesn’t help in evangelism neither does it help in spiritual formation. It seems to me that a Calvanist cannot see himself committing apostasy. By the very tenet: "Once saved always saved" an apostate Calvanist cannot even come to the conclusion that he has left the faith. For all that matters, he could be backslidden and yet cannot bring himself to admit it because he is convinced that he cannot lose his salvation. This is very dangerous, in Apostle James words, " A faith that is dead." On the contrary, wise christians heed the fact that if they do not maintain spiritual disciplines and formation, they will backslide. This constant self examination as appraised in 1 Peter has been taught to me since I was a child.

This is why, I say I am a practising Arminian. I live out the faith as though my ultimate destination depended on what I do.

On the other hand, knowing that God has predestined me into saving faith provides a deeper incentive to do all these (good works, spiritual discipline and worship). On one hand, I know that God had to intervene to overcome my rebellion against him, but what takes my breath away is that God forknew that these would happen and set events in motion so that I would be saved. One one hand, I am grateful that God has forgiven my sin unconditionally, but what astounds me is that He has this idea of forgiveness even before I was born. Even before I was I, He had already known me.

This tells me something important about God. It tells me that God is distant and yet so near. If I can learn anything from the doctrine of predestination, it is that paradoxically, God is intimately involved in my world and life but yet doing so from a mysterious distance. God is far, yet because he is far, he is near. God’s will is transcendent, yet it infuses all of life.

Now I have come to notice that the combination of this mysterious fact and the practical warnings afforded by an Arminian point of view create a proper cradle and expression for my love for God.

While Christ was still on earth, his disciples could express their love to Him by simply expressing brotherly love. But then Christ ascended into heaven. In the meantime, how are we able to love Christ without reducing our love to a love for doctrine about Christ? How can we love the ascended Jesus without falling into the trap of loving facts about him.

I contend that it is the mystery of predestination and the practise of spiritual disciplines provide both the proper expression of my love for Christ and the means of doing so. By contemplating the mystery of predestination, we see very clearly grace, mercy and judgement. Because of grace, we are set free to obey whatever God commands us to do, whatever spiritual formation and discipline for the right reasons. And love is always a good reason to do. But yet predestination is a mystery, not a well defined concept or an axiom in a chain of reasoning. It is a mystery because we do not fully understand predestination, though we simply know it. Indeed the very logical impasse of reconciling determinism and free will prevents us from understanding predestination.

So this is one long overdue thesis. Oh gosh, it sounds so verbose and ….blah.  

Italy is through to the finals beating the stoic Germans by a margin of two in the closing minutes (no seconds) of the extra time.

I watched the match and it was painfully obvious that the Italians were the better team. So I guess they deserved it. But kudos to the Germans for their determined fighting spirit. The held on. The goal at the 118th minute of play was an excellent one. The Italians fought, and finally their persistence paid off.

So the German journey ends here. I won’t be watching the France (they beat Brazil!) Portugal (winker! ) match. But I really want France to win, my bets are on Les Blues.

Islam has higher status in Malaysia

PUTRAJAYA: Islam has a higher status than other faiths in Malaysia, said a lawyer holding a watching brief for the Malaysian Muslim Lawyers Association. 

Pawancheek Marican said Article 11 of the Constitution restricted propagation of other religions to Muslims. 

“Our Constitution favours Islam. Islamic law is part of the law of our country,” he said. 

Another lawyer, Zulkifli Nordin, who is holding a watching brief for the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM), said there were rules for Muslims to follow before they could renounce Islam. 

“These rules are the Quranic law and the sunnah,” he said.  

Copyright © 1995-2005 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D)
Managed by I.Star.

(They didn’t put the journalists name)

While it is certainly true that Islam has influenced lawmaking (including the Constitution) in M’sia, does this mean that the highest laws of the land favours Islam? As far as I intepret it, Islam being the official state religion doesn’t mean that its status is higher than any other faiths practised publicly.

I find this statement by lawyers simply outrageous.

The following news report by M’sian columnist Wong Chun Wai (I like him, by the way) highlights something very, very wrong with my country.

Now, it is a very good thing for the ruler to personally come down to deal with problems like this. (Not to be disrespectful and unneighbourly to my Singaporean friends, but do you see President SR Nathan doing the same thing?) It shows that the Sultan of Selangor is no mere figure-head of the state.  

This billboard issue has been in the news for a long stretch now. And it has become an open secret that a rat is lurking somewhere. You see the problem with open secrets is that the rat can’t be just killed and everybody goes home happy. Even if somebody took the blame, who is going to handle the costs of tearing down those billboards? And if nobody will, those billboard still stay up all the same. As they say (in relationships), its complicated.

It is so sad that corruption has become so prevalent that it has become accepted as a way of life. Now MPs (MP for Jasin vs customs DG) can be corrupt and declare on national television that they have done nothing wrong. This is sickening to the core.

The rakyat is really being held hostage by unelected people who have been given power (i.e. the city councils.) It really goes to show that the system of accountability and governance is M’sia is broken. 

I just made an interesting observation:

Guys and girls experience romantic love differently. Duuuhhh….

But let’s put it this way, secular society priviledges the male point of view in these matters. After perusing Men’s Health and corrobarated by my occasional perusals through women’s magazines (no, I’m not a closet pervert! ) it’s really about how to get the girl. It’s all about getting what you want.

But since I’m also acquianted with the Christian p.o.v. in these matters, I am beginning to think that it is the women’s point of view that is priveldged when Christian boys and girls start to hush and blush

After all, we (including me) talk about waiting, finding the right one, being patient… Get the drift.

Tough leh, sometimes I really find it a miracle that people even get attached. Simple things like this also cannot see from the same point of view.

Thinking about it, it seems easier to find that girl you like and marry her in those golden old days. Nowadays, damn  extremely complicated (whether you’re a Christian or not.) Must be like this first, must like that first, must have this feeling, must have money, must have style, must wait…

Haih…   

For those starved of football…

 

France toppled Brazil 1-0, Germany’s Lehman outsaved Argentina’s penalties to take the host country onwards 1-1 (4-2 on penalties), Portugal outkicked England 0-0 (3-1 on penalties) and Italy cruised past Ukraine (3-0).

I still support Germany.