Unity

Hi,

This is a Christian song on unity, Let Us Be One Voice. I've attached two videos from Youtube. The first one is sang by Daniel Choo. The second video was taken in a church where they sang the song and the video has the lyrics there. These are the only few songs that I've found on Youtube. It talks about Christian unity. 

As a Christian, we are also praying for unity in the world. Unity among all people regardless of race and location. Together we can live harmoniously and respectful of each other. The world will be in peace if we are united. As Christians, we are united because we are Brothers and Sisters in Christ. We will meet in Heaven. 

I may be thinking of talking about conflicts in one of my future posts. It will talk about conflicts and the various methods that can be used to resolve it. These methods include a win-win situation, a win-lose situation and a compromise situation. Read it before when I did my university assignment.

Please enjoy the song. I have included in the lyrics and music score as well after the videos.

¹Key: D

Verse 1:
G         A/G    F#m        Bm
Father we ask of You this day
Em       D/F#       A
Come and heal our land
G     A/G
Knit our hearts together
F#          Bm
That Your glory may be seen in us
Em                  D/F#
Then the world will know
G               A
That Jesus Christ is Lord!

Chorus:
D    D/F#
Let us be one voice
G              A7
That glorifies Your name
D   D/F#
Let us be one voice
G                A7
Declaring that You reign
F#  F#/A#
Let us be one voice
Bm  -  Bm/A - E7/G#
In love and harmony
Em           A          D
And we pray O God, grant us unity

Verse 2:
Now is the time for you and I
To join our hearts in praise
That the name of Jesus
Will be lifted high above the earth
Then the world will know
That Jesus Christ is Lord

^{1 lyric.jonloh.net, http://lyric.jonloh.net/?q=songs/l/60}

Location of Worship

Hi, God did not say that we must worship at a specific location. As long as we please God during worship, He is pleased with us. It does not matter whether it is in the church or at home or at work or at a condominium or wherever is is. Why do we need to have differing opinions on the location of worship? Just because we want to focus on a particular group on a week doesn't mean other groups need to move out and worship at another location. Both groups use the same facilities at the same location. It does not matter if the location is in the church itself. A church can have a lot of rooms for its members and attendees to use for bible study and fellowship events. Different groups may meet at the church but they have different activities. If we want to let a particular group hold their bible study and fellowship activities at a church, other groups can use other facilities in the church. A church is able to provide the rooms and facilities needed for every group to use. There is no regulation to say that one group can only use the facilities at only one time. God does not say that in the Bible. He wants us to love and please him with all our hearts and our minds and our souls and our strength.

The two different groups can later meet back for supper or just for fellowship. Fellowship can be supper or chit-chat or just getting to know one another. It is also a way of witnessing and sharing the gospel with other people as well.

That's all.

Gadgets / Things That I Would Like To Have As A Techie

Hi, I currently own a Motorola L72, Ipod Nano 8GB and a Olympus Camedia C-350 camera. This post talks about some of the gadgets that I would like to have but not necessarily have it. I am content with what I have at the moment. If giving the chance though or if I can afford it, I may consider buying one of these or try using it. :) :P Also, I will tell you other interesting things about me after the gadgets / things section. Click the link below to go immediately to the section.

Other Interesting Things About Me

Mobile Phones / PDAs

Apple IPhone 3G (I may consider buying this after my current phone has spoiled and if better Maxis IPhone plans are available)

Blackberry

LG Cookie

Motorola RAZR V9

Motorola Q9h

Palm Treo Pro

Samsung Omnia

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

Camera

Canon IXUS Cameras

Olympus U-Tough

Olympus DSLR E-Series

Sony Alpha

Music Players

Apple Ipod Touch (would rather get IPhone 3G though)

Sony MP3 Players

Creative Zen Stone

Zune

Console Gaming Systems

Microsoft XBox 360

Nintendo Wii (This one I think)

Sony Playstation 3

Software Development & Database Suites

Adobe Creative Elements CS4

Microsoft Expression

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft SQL Server 2008

MySQL 6.0

Oracle 11

Television

Panasonic Plasma TV

Sony Bravia LCD TV

Samsung LCD TV Series

Toshiba Regza LCD TV

Watches

Casio G-Shock (wearing one now)

Seiko Kinetic

Swatch

All these things are what I think of as I grow o until now. It does not mean that I need to have these things. That would be very materialistic. Now that I am earning, I can use my discretion to buy but only those which are necessary. Maybe in the future only I will have some of these things. It does not mean that if people have these things, I also want to have. What's the point if we keep spending and spending? Sooner or later, you would end up don't really have much.

Other Interesting Things About Me

1. My favourite colour was pink at one stage when I was very small. :D. Now my favourite colours are green & blue
2. I use facial / skin care products  _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _     _ _ _ _ _ _ 
3. I use sunblock products
4. I started to have the idea of having pink clothes last year. Think it's cool and I want to be unconventional
5. I picked up reading books again during college. This was about 6 years ago at Taylor's College when I started borrowing Agatha Christie & John Grisham books from the library
6. Changed schools when I was in Standard 2 from S.R.K. Jalan Pasar to S.R.K St.John (2). It was due to some misunderstanding between the teacher and me
7. Wasted a big watermelon at home when I was small. Tried to carry it but too heavy and dropped onto the kitchen floor!! :D
8. I learnt to play the piano from primary school up to PMR. I took Grade 5 Practical & Grade 5 Theory. Now seldom play.
9. I like to watch Animax
10. I am not good at drawing. :) As in art.

More interesting things about me may be coming soon. I will write again soon. Will decide the topics of the next few entries. Stay tuned.

A Visit to the Borders Bookstore

Hi,

I made a visit to the Borders Bookshop recently at The Gardens. This is another branch of the Borders chain of bookshops. There are branches in Berjaya Times Square, The Curve and in other Malaysian states. It is one of the bookshops that has a lot of variety of books and has a Starbucks attached to it. In Melbourne, it is Gloria Jeans.

I saw the Movie Tie In books of Slumdog Millionnaire and Benjamin Button. The Benjamin Button book that I saw was part of a F.Scott.Fitzgerald classic book published by Penguin Books. Saw some differences between the Slumdog Millionnaire written by Vikas Swarup (formerly published as Q & A) and the movie. The characters are different and there is an extra character in the original book during the police interrogation. I only read about 50 pages there. Dunno whether to buy it or not. Seems interesting. Might wait. I am also waiting for other books to be in Paperbacks like The Associate by John Grisham and Against Medical Advice by James Patterson. For the Benjamin Button book, I was surprised to see that there are only 35 pages! Hehe. And they made it into a movie!. Maybe it is the unabridged version.

Watchmen may be a good movie too. Seems good. Dunno if I want to watch it yet. Hehe.

That's all for now.

KLM Royal Dutch Airline

A Visit to the Borders Bookstore

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

Hi, I recently sat on a KLM flight from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur. It was a pleasant flight even though there was some turbulence near Singapore. The flight was delayed one hour because there was rain in KLIA when they flew here. Instead of touching down at KLIA at 10, I touched down around 1050. Some 50 minutes behind schedule.

During the flight, I had my dinner there. Not full but KLM provided a good dinner. It was Roti Jala with Curry Chicken. The food was hot. There were 3 roti jalas and a reasonable portion of curry chicken. The taste is quite good. Kudos to KLM for serving good food.

The air stewardesses and stewards were kind during the flight. The flight is actually a flight from Jakarta to Amsterdam. It will stop at Kuala Lumpur for a while before going to Amsterdam. Because the flight was delayed, they decided to reduce the delay to Amsterdam and therefore they requested the passengers to Amsterdam to remain in the plane instead of the usual stopover at KL. After the passengers to KL had went out to the terminal, they would fly immediately to Amsterdam. They tried to be efficient and reduce the tiredness of Amsterdam passengers. The crew cares for the passengers.

KLM Royal Dutch Airline

A Visit to the Borders Bookstore

Poverty and In Support of Cancer Awareness

Hi,

The topic that I am about to share is on Poverty and Cancer Awareness. Cancer is one of most deadly diseases in the world. The eradication of Poverty is not fully completed yet in countries such as India, certain parts of China and in the African region. How do we eradicate poverty? Are we doing enough? We hear of a lot of cancer cases around the world whether it is Breast Cancer or Lung Cancer or Prostrate Cancer or Cancer in the Bladder. Let's join in support of the Pink Ribbon.

Poverty

While I was at Jakarta, I can see people including children selling things on the street during traffic jams and once even in the rain. They are very poor and goes all the way to get some money even endangering themselves on the road. Some of them played music to entertain instead of selling. Things that they sell include tissue papers, Danone AQUA mineral waters, lifejackets, decoration horses, atlas and a monkey. Really, a monkey. Saw it on the road. It really depends on the drivers whether they are kind enough to give.  In Africa or India, we heard stories about malaria and child beggars. We also heard about malnutrition for kids and some of them did not survive. They do not hygenic water too. No source of income. In some extremes, parents even sell their children for child labour or prostitution just to get money.

How do we fight poverty? By donations? Are the donations distributed and channeled to them evenly? There are a few ways to do that. These are my suggestions only. It may not be the best solutions.

1. Financial aid - Clothing, medical supplies, clean water, infrastructure for education, electricity, technology
2. Education - Enables the children to study further their studies at university. Then they are able to find a job and support their family back in their home countries. It also helps to raise the awareness on AIDS. Some of them married and have unlawful relationships young.
3. Community Centres - Music, sewing & cooking workshops, handicrafts - they can then sell the handicrafts as tourist items and earn an income. The same goes for food where they can sell it at offices canteens if permissible
4. Infrastructure - Electricity, clean water, technology. These need to be provided as well to them. It will reduce the cases of malaria and malnutrition in children and thus reduces the death rates in these countries. It also helps the children's education as well so that they can have a comfortable environment and the resources needed
5. Free or low cost medicines - For example, CBMI (Christian Blind Mission International) provides free and low cost treatments to heal the poor's sight and provide medical facilities. Doctors & nurses can volunteer themselves to heal and treat patients. These may include part time Christian missionaries who are in the medical background
6. Yearly supplement from the government to cover their costs
7. Sponsor a child through World Vision or church initiatives

Here are some other sites on Poverty in the world including World Vision:

Make Poverty History (Not in Malaysia, One of my Causes in Facebook)

White Band (Not in Malaysia, associated with Make Poverty History)

One (Through Superpoke in Facebook)

World Vision

World Vision Blog (Malaysia)

This is a banner for eradicating poverty. Got this through the White Band website.

Cancer

Here are some information sheets on the various types of cancer provided by National Cancer Society of Malaysia, Cancer Council Victoria, Cancer Council Australia and National Cancer Institute (US). Just click the links below to go the respective websites.

National Cancer Society of Malaysia

Makna

Cancer Council Victoria 

Cancer Council Australia

National Cancer Institute (US)

Cancer Council Victoria & National Cancer Institute provides full information about all the types of cancer. Makna only has information for the four most common cancers in Malaysia which include Lung, Breast, Leukemia and Cervix Cancer. National Cancer Society of Malaysia and Cancer Council Australia have more information about cancers than Makna. 

Cancer can strike anytime regardless of age. Children can suffer leukemia. People who has no history of smoking or hereditary patterns or live healthily can have cancer. It is better to detect cancer early because there is a higher percentage for the patients to be healed in early stages. Cancer cells at the last stage for example in Stage 4 can attack the patients' cell rapidly. It can spread to the whole body. My auntie passed away from Stage 4 Breast Cancer last year. I could see that she was having a hard time at the hospital. Struggling to breathe. Sometimes she can breathe better but most of the time she was breathless and very tired. Very sad to see her like that. She still remained strong and calm toward her last days. She relied on God's strength to carry her through and she is now in heaven with God.

I watched Journey of Life, a programme shown on Channel News Asia last week. It talked about 2 cancer patients who survived. One of them, a Chinese was in Stage 4 Breast Cancer. She doesn't drink, she exercised regualarly and she does not smoke. Yet, she got a Stage 4 Breast Cancer. There was a fear that she felt when she was going through cancer but she still remained strong. For her cancer, chemotherapy worked her. Everytime she went for chemotherapy, the cancer cells are killed. Now, she needs to wear a tube which injects chemo into her body everyday so that the cancer cells can be killed. Different cancer patients also react to different methods of treatment. Some may not react to chemotherapy as well as her. She now lives her life normally as she used to be. The other lady shown is a Malay who had a Stage 1 cancer. She got it detected early. Her treatment worked her but there are also side effects. She could not lift up heavy things now. She needs to be very careful with her movement.

Cancer can be caused by various things such as diet, smoking, obesity or family history or sometimes it can attack anyone healthy. We need to take care of our bodies to prevent and reduce the chances of having cancer. By having a balanced diet and eating healthily everyday, we can reduce the probability of having cancer. Fruits and vegetables can help to combat cancer too. These include fruit and vegetable juices as well. Please do not smoke too. It will increase the probability of lung cancer later. Exercise regularly is good too to reduce the chances of contracting cancer. These things can help but different people will have different reactions to it. It really depends on the individual. It is a very serious disease and cancer patients have to go through a lot of suffering.

Below are some of the ways found on the websites that can prevent cancers. These may be useful:

Makna: Early Detection

Makna: Prevention

National Cancer Society of Malaysia: Prevention & Detection

Cancer Council Victoria: Preventing Cancer Early

Cancer Council US: Prevention & Early Detection

Hopefully, it will be prevented. Let us help and eradicate poverty too.

That's all for now. I may continue writing about it in the next few weeks. Not sure yet.

Poverty and In Support of Cancer Awareness

Slumdog Millionnaire

Slumdog Millionnaire

Hi,

I have watched the movie, Slumdog Millionnaire recently. It was good and at the same time, it is a little sad to see how the poor live in India. Sometimes, we know things through our experiences eventhough we may be not educated or we may be not as well to do. Overall, it is a good movie. I give it a 8/10.

This movie has won 8 Oscars and did well in the Golden Globes too. Slumdog Millionnaire also did well in other awards as well. Actually, this movie should not be called Slumdog Millionnaire. The word, slumdog should not be used. It may not be a good word for the community over in India. 

Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB and Yahoo! Movies all gave very good ratings to the movie. Here are the ratings:

Rotten Tomatoes: 94% (Fresh)

IMDB: Average of 8.6/10 from 89,598 votes

Yahoo! Movies: B+ from the Critics & A- from Yahoo! Users

^Sources: 

^{Rotten Tomatoes, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/slumdog_millionaire/} 

^{IMDB, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/,} 

^{Yahoo! Movies,  http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809956055/info}

Poverty and In Support of Cancer Awareness

Slumdog Millionnaire

James Patterson's Double Cross

Hi,

I was away again to somewhere in Indonesia. This blog post will be on James Patterson's book, Double Cross that I have finished reading. I am a fan of his books now. Wonder why I did not discover him earlier.

The main characters of the book:

Alex Cross (Retired police detective turned psychiatrist, wife passed away because of a bomb attack in a previous novel)

Bree Stone (His girlfriend, a police detective)

AK (Audience Killer, one of the villains in the book)

Kyle Craig (Another notorious villain in the book)

The books starts off with the sentencing of Kyle Craig to prison for life. The chapters in James Patterson books are short and concise. The next chapter proceeds to Alex Cross' live who now is a psychiatrist. His business to doing well with regular patients. He also likes Bree who is also a police detective as well. They are happy together and she gets along well with his kids.

The novel talks about how the Audience Killer, who planned a series of crime to challenge Alex Cross to solve the case. These series of crime are well organised that pulls Alex Cross back into the police department that he has retired from. In the first crime, a crime writer was murdered. In a video tape, Alex Cross' name was mentioned. This is followed by a number of crimes later planned so well that they could not track down the person. 

Meanwhile, in a prison, Kyle Craig still met his laywer on the case. Actually, he is planning to escape the prison through a surprise method which only him could pull off. Then, he wanted to plan with meet with the Audience Killer and teamed up to try to kill Alex Cross. Kyle Craig for the sentence that he has received because of Alex and Audience Killer who at the end revealed to be someone in need of money.

There is a twist at the end of the book. Be entertained and thrilled by James Patterson in this crime thriller. He will put you in suspense until the end of the book. Great book. Of course, this is different compared to the style of Michael Connelly, another police crime book writer. It is good as well. This is the cover and the back page of the version that I bought at Borders The Gardens.