Bible study

The hardest part about bible study is when you're told to flip to a particular passage in the bible. "Turn to Psalm 36, verse 6". Ok, first, what's a "Psalm" and second, where is it in the bible? "Second Corinthian, chapter 11, verse 9". I don't even know how to spell "Corinthian" to find it in the table of contents!!!

I started reading the New Testament. It's actually very interesting to read. Things I've heard about previously make more sense now. I'm almost done the book of Mathew, which I'm told by the cheat notes in the edition of the bible I'm reading that it has been called "the most important book of Christendom-the most important book that has ever been written" by the French skeptic Renan. Too bad it's so poorly written! All the stories are disconnected, Matthew's thoughts are just all over the place, things are repeated like 50 times, and he's not particularly articulate. I was expecting more of a flowing story or something, but it's more like fragmented thoughts scribbled on a napkin.

I have seen the portrayal of the birth of Jesus in various forms and media with the whole manger, stars in the night sky, wise men, gifts, etc. But in the book of Matthew, Jesus's birth is described in 1 tiny paragraph and it's just to the point:

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

I was shocked!!! This supposedly huge event in the history of Christianity, with all these Christmas carols about the event, the point in time which our whole calendar system is based, and the biggest holiday of the year, relegated to a measly, undescriptive paragraph!!! C'mon people!!! Show me some emotion!!! Give me some feeling!!! Sigh.... I am however, willing to give Matthew the benefit of the doubt that something was lost in translation...

I'm feeling philosophical

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original

-- Sir Ken Robinson

There's this conference, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), where people (such as Al Gore) give varying talks covering a wide array of areas. Many are fascinating and present some intriguing ideas. Some of the videos of the TED talks can now be found on Google video.

The quote above is from a talk about the importance of creativity in education. I'm kinda sad that I stopped doing art. I enjoyed it, I was decent at it, and it provided balance to my life. I've considered starting to sketch again, but haven't been able to get myself to do it.

I've also been thinking about something along these lines for a while now. The idea that people have the potential for many things, but never succeed at these because they don't put their full effort into it or stop entirely because of a fear of failure. I see how that applies to myself in several areas, esp. wrt language. I think it's also relevant to one of my previous posts about regret.

Another interesting talk I watched was one by the father of the life-coaching industry. I first heard about life-coaching when a life coach came to give a talk at U of T earlier this year. I thought both talks were fascinating. The story is basically that you need to decide what you're good at, decide what you want, how to satisfy your needs, and then how to do it. Not just professionally, but emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You need emotion. Passion.

My last little bit of recent philosophical trend has been with Aesop's Fables (link to Google book search, where you can now download books out of copyright for free! I printed it out 4 pages to a side, double-sided and it's only like 30-something pages)

Aesop wrote hundreds of fables, many of which you have undoubtedly heard in one form of another, with morals such as:

• Look before you leap


• Slow and steady wins the race


• Don't cry wolf

There are some really good quotes in these fables and are generally good words to live by:

• There are many silly people who despise what is precious only because they cannot understand it


• Skill and patience will succeed where force fails. Necessity is the mother of invention.


• Every truth has two sides; it is well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either


• Persuasion is better than force

I've done a lot of reflection this summer and I hope to continue that personal growth through this year.

Well, I did ditch out some cash today

I had a coupon for $10 off on an instore purchase of $50 or more at Chapters that expired today.

I'm always amazed at the immense number of books that I haven't read when I go to a bookstore. There are tons of bookshelves and all the books I've read doesn't even fill one of those. I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever read all the books in a bookstore. Time to get cultured and read more.

The Da Vinci Code is supposed to be good and I've been meaning to read more of Shakespeare's plays. I've read Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Othello (maybe more, I forget), but there are plenty of famous (and hopefully good) ones I haven't read yet (Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, King Lear, Julius Caesar, etc.). Shakespeare's plays contain great plots that are re-told time after time in movies, tv shows, etc. and are heavily referenced. After this, I'll pick-up the bible to see what all the hype is about and so I can get the billions of bible references that are made all the time.

Harry Potter

Finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night at 3 am. Took me maybe a week and a half. Not suffering from as much withdrawal as last time when I read the first 5 books all in one week :p

Who would've thought that Harry was actually Dumbledore's father! Not to mention the thing that happened to that person that did that thing!! Oh, man, it was crazy!

Being stuck on dial-up at home, I need some more forms of entertainment.... I just might have to pick-up another book to read...