Handbag

I saw this purple handbag a couple of months ago, liked it a lot, but the price could not be considered a bargain... so I hesitated... (For all of you who don't know me well, I'm the queen of bargain stuff. For all of you who don't know me well AND not observant enough, I LOVE purple.)

Later, after some thinking, I decided to go back and buy the bag, as you probably can guess, it's already gone...

then I have been searching for a bag for two months... today, I continued my search...

Initially, I saw some really cheap bags, and wanted to settle for them, coz I'm tired of searching...

Then I saw a bag, very similar to the one I saw last time...

but almost $100 more expensive...

And I bought it...

Ritual Bath (Faye Kellerman)

I have actually already read most of the books in her Peter Decker & Rina Lazarus series, then went back to the first one in the series.

This book is more like a romance than a mystery (though it is not a complete romance, coz in the end the couple is still not together), yet it is a very unconventional one. Romantic suspense is a very popular genre, this one is special in the religious aspect. And this is what attracted me when I read my first Faye Kellerman book-- Prayers for the Dead. (If you haven't read it, READ IT NOW, or after you read the intial few books, it's the BEST book in this series.)

Rina Lazarus is a VERY devout Jew, and she met Peter Decker in this first book when her friend got raped and Peter is the detective in charge of the case. She fought their attraction as Peter is not an Orthodox Jew.

The mystery part is quite weak in my opinion, maybe that's because I have already knew who the rapist was from the start as I have read about it in the later books of the series.

It doesn't matter though. I love the series for all the Jewish custom and the characters, and the evolving relationship of Rina and Peter. (The story carried on long after they got married. Some writers believed getting married is the end of the story and that's stupid.)

Also, it's such a rare thing to read about the heroine with such strong religious principles (though she did something really out her character in the later books, hmm... I don't think Kellerman should write that, anyway...) I can really understand her need to find someone with the same religious principles, though I am not Jewish. And I have never read this sort of storyline in another book, but this is a struggle faced by so many people I know.

I strongly recommend this book. If you love mystery, the reviews are quite good (it's just me who don't like the mystery part, though I have to admit mystery has never been my favourite genre). If you don't like mystery, the character development is quite good too. I just read the book for the characters myself.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Anne Rice)

I had finally finished reading this book. I had stumbled upon this book while surfing on NT Wright's website. (He's a New Testament scholar, and the Bishop of Durham)

The beginning and the end of the book are quite good, but the middle portion is quite boring, sounds like a Jewish customs manual, detailing on how to make offerings, how to celebrate the various festivals. I had to flipped through them. I think she had far too much information, but did not know how to incorporate them into the novel interestingly.

Back to the good parts, I think her work helped me understand how Jesus grew up to die for us. Why Jesus would grow up this way and see dying on the cross as salvation to all? Instead of doing it in the way we mere mortals can imagine.

I liked the scene where Jesus saw the man being murdered at the temple, and also the scene where Jesus understood men were born to die.

The best part of the book is the author's note. Ha! What Anne Rice would have thought about this! I know the story itself has been created with meticulous research, the quest for Jesus and the love of God. However, in the author's note, I can really see Anne Rice's own personal experience with God. How God used everything, every way to change a person. (Even one who's turned an atheist.) It's just like the sermon I had heard earlier and wrote about. God choses His own people and sees them.

Listen to both NT Wright & Anne Rice talking about their writings here.

Started reading Anne Rice's book

When I first saw the book, I thought Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt was written by someone with the same name as the Anne Rice who wrote Interview with the Vampire (and thought who would use the name of an already famous writer to publish a book??)

In fact, it was written by the same person!! I read Interview with the Vampire (Chinese translated edition) years ago, and did not like it. Never read another vampire book until Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series.

Really interested in seeing how this vampire-creator-turned-Catholic handled the re-creation of the historical (and fictional) Jesus.

Family - forwarded to me by a friend

I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
"Oh excuse me please" was my reply.


He said, "Please excuse me too;
I wasn't watching for you."


We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said goodbye.


But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.


Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.


When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
"Move out of the way," I said with a frown.


He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.


While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,


"While dealing with a stranger,
common courtesy you use,
but the family you love, you seem to abuse.


Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.


Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.


He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes."


By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.


I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
"Wake up, little one, wake up," I said.


"Are these the flowers you picked for me?"
He smiled, "I found 'em, out by the tree.


I picked 'em because they're pretty like you.
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue."


I said, "Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way."
He said, "Oh, Mom, that's okay.
I love you anyway."


I said, "Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue."


FAMILY
Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company
that we are working for could easily replace us in
a matter of days.
But the family we left behind will feel the loss
for the rest of their lives.


And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more
into work than into our own family,
an unwise investment indeed,
don't you think?
So what is behind the story?


Do you know what the word FAMILY means?
FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU

What is Literature?

I hate reading so called "literary" books, most of them are extremely boring and the only good thing it can do is acting as a good hypnotic. (Tho when I have insomnia, I usually resort to studying my notes in bed. 100% effective. So these books have no use to me.)

I have always thought books should be entertaining. It's useless to write books only few can understand and appreciate. The same goes for movies and paintings. I still remember studying The Pearl (written by John Steinbeck) in English Literature in secondary school. It's so boring...

Don't get me wrong. I hate superficial stuff. Like comedy by Stephen Chow. I love books/movies that I can re-read/re-watch again and again, and discover new meaning every time.

Recently I have read a discussion on the web about definition of literature. Diana Gabaldon offered this amazingly good definition, which I think is very true...

"My personal definition of "literature" is "any book that _lasts_." By this definition, most of the literary prize-winners and short-listed titles aren't literature, because they're gone without a trace in three or four years--if not less. (Most people--even dedicated readers of "serious" stuff--can't tell you who was short-listed for the Orange, the Whitbread, the Man Booker, etc.--even from last year.)

Generally speaking, a book needs to have some substance in order to last--but damn few of those that last aren't entertaining.

(And fwiw, even though the _average_ hardcover book these days lasts six months or less on the shelves--all of mine are still in print in hardcover, fifteen years in and counting. Keep your fingers crossed. )"

Beware Of 'Infomania'

I read an article on this in the Forbes' website...

scary... pls read the full article here

as for the extract, pls read here, maybe I should use less MSN/ICQ... email has become and essential part of my life...

"The Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London conducted clinical trials with volunteer office workers to measure how a constant flow of messages and information affects a person's ability to focus on problem-solving tasks.

Instead of boosting productivity, the constant data stream seriously reduced the volunteers' ability to focus. The study reported that an average worker's functioning IQ falls 10 points when distracted by ringing telephones and incoming e-mails, more than twice the four-point drop seen following a 2002 Carleton University study on the impact of smoking marijuana.

The study showed that 62% of adults are literally addicted to checking e-mail and text messages during meetings, in the evening and on weekends.

Half of workers respond to e-mails immediately or within 60 minutes, and one in five people are happy to interrupt a business or social meeting to respond to an e-mail or telephone message within 60 minutes.

The study warns of the abuse of always-on technology and calls this endemic condition infomania."

10 points of IQ, that's like 10% of my IQ!!! I'm going to shut my computer down NOW!

Helping Lebanon

I have always wanted to travel to Lebanon, the reason I haven't been there yet is because I can't find someone to go with me, and I haven't ran out of "normal" places (where there're actually friends who are willing to go with me) to visit.

Today, I received this forwarded extract from Financial Times from a friend.

"Please, don't stop visiting

By Justin Marozzi

Published: August 5 2006 03:00 | Last updated: August 5 2006 03:00

The most peculiar thing I heard during 12 months in Baghdad a couple of years ago was a retired British Army corporal asking me whether it was safe to visit Beirut. I found it hard to suppress a smile, the question coming from a man bold or foolish enough to live in the heart of a war zone. Angry young men were blowing themselves up daily at checkpoints only a stone's throw away, mortars were landing with heart-stopping regularity around our flimsy accommodation, any travel in Baghdad ran the real risk of ending in injury or death, much of the country was in flames and my colleague wanted to know whether Beirut, playground of the Middle East, was safe enough for a summer break.

Today, the same question would elicit tears rather than smiles. Every bomb landing in Lebanon sends the country further down the road to oblivion, smashing its economy and removing it from the list of travel destinations for years to come. This is bad enough. Lebanon's phoenix-like recovery from the 1975-1990 civil war and the resurgence of its tourism industry was one of the region's most spirit-lifting stories of recent years."

Together with it, there's an article on MSF's mission on Lebanon. The situation is really saddening. Precious lives being wasted.

"It was incredible and shocking to see these old women coming out from devastated houses, screaming, crying, desperately seeking help. We could not find any wounded but the distinctive smell of dead bodies was all around us", Ledecq (the surgeon in the MSF team) recalled.

I probably won't be visiting Lebanon in the near future. (I am not living in Baghdad, so Beirut is too dangerous for me.) To help these people, the only conceivable ways (for me) are by praying and donating.

Apart from MSF, we can also donate to World Vision.

There're still another few more years to go before I can consider actually going to these war zones or other disaster-struck area to help. (I just realised I can actually offer help for minimum of 6 weeks in MSF instead of 6 months by following the links in the MSF site. 6 months is probably to long for me. =P) For now, I am going to give money to help.

Lebanon-Israel War

I have been following the news since the war between Lebanon and Israel broke out.

Both sides are unlikely to back down now, and this whole thing must have escalated way beyond their initial expectations. It is sad to see so many civilians (especially children) being killed or hurt.

As most people prayed for wisdom for leaders or peace, I kept thinking why God is allowing this. Not in a negative way, I'm not like "HOW CAN GOD LET INNOCENT PEOPLE DIE?" I'm more like what God's planning with all this, how does this war fit in His whole plan.

I never knew Lebanon has a population that consists of 30% of Christians before today. Wow, I always thought it's an Islamic country. 30%, that's way more than HK. Anyway, most of them blamed both sides for the conflict. That's what I think as well. Hezbollah is practically a group of terrorists and they kidnapped the Israeli soldiers first and initiated the conflict. However, the Israeli army used this as an excuse to attack Lebanon way out of proportion even involving the civilians.

May God's will be done and may God turn this whole disaster into a blessing.

Unforgettable novels

I was reading a discussion on what made a novel unforgettable, and someone named Jennifer L. Wielt wrote this,

"There's obviously a lot of subjectivity when it comes to defining unforgetableness and identifying things that are unforgettable, but for me a story has to have two things -- deep originality and passion. Talking about them (especially originality) in the abstract can be deceptive because really, there's nothing new under the sun, and what is it that differentiates genuine passion from sentimentality or hot emotion?

Originality, I think, is achieved less by cooking up an unusual story scenario or quirky main character (although there's nothing wrong with these) and more by unswerving attention on the part of the author to the common, universal stuff of life (emotions, experiences, journeys, etc.) as only they can see them and write them by virtue of who they are and what has been their life experience. The originality I'm talking about is pretty subtle when it works its magic because the classics are stories that reach a large majority of us because they deal with universals. Their unforgetableness stems from their ability to present us with the stuff we know intimately and make us see and feel it in new ways, as though for the very first time. It's about tapping into archetypes but doing so through close observation to the particulars of a specific situation and being honest about its currents and complexities.

Passion I find difficult to define because it's one of those things I know when I see or feel it. It has little to do with the melting and clasping and clinging and savaging that happens in Romances (although I _have_ read Romances that are about true passion). It's about the evocation of true, meaningful, real, honest feeling. It's about love, and not just romantic love; it can even be about the denial of love. It's about intense commitment and devotion to a path, to self, to a person, to whatever. Most of all, I think it's about that other meaning of passion -- suffering. Suffering is one of those fundamental life mysteries we're always trying to figure out and relieve. Putting suffering into some kind of a meaningful context or figuring out how to make it go away is a human obsession, which is one of the reasons we have religions and why so many of us are addicted to various substances. So, if a book comes along and it tells a story with originality, that evokes honest, deep feelings and that also shows us suffering (and possibly redemption) and places it in a rich, meaningful context I think its chances of being unforgettable are pretty strong.

For some reason, the one story that keeps popping into my mind as I've been writing this post is Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA. It's such a simple story and pays intense attention to one human experience, yet it resonates with originality and passion and despite its specificity it taps into one of the most archetypal conflicts. Which is probably why I remember it vividly even though I only read it once, way back in high school."

Very well said. I read a LOT of novels, but only very occasionally I can find one exceptionally good one, never mind the unforgettable ones. If only I can put pen to paper and produce such a novel... (in my dreams most probably)