Warm

Finally got my dad's Brother multifunction machine to work as a scanner, yay. I think I have to buy a good flatbed when I go back to the US, or if I can get one for cheaper here, mail it back to myself. That, or overcome my neophobia and practice drawing with the perfectly good UC-Logic tablet I spent $50 on.

Drew this about a week before I left the USA. I always wanted to draw Ninja back when we were dating, but never got the chance to; but at least I got EEK on paper before I left. He's so sweet when he's sleeping...in stark contrast to when he's awake, haha =D

There's something very strange about the fact that in my family, my two pretty, well-adjusted, outgoing younger sisters (ages 21 and 19) haven't dated yet, whereas the funny-looking, antisocial crank has gone through boys #1 and #2 already...I feel like I should be painting little planes on the fuselage of my fighter if I was a pilot, or something. Yan and Flowermoonfish make me feel like a tart.

[winks]

Wireless me

Pursuant to yesterday's extremely frustrated post, my dad told me to go and read Romans 14. (italics mine. since paul was writing in greek, it's not possible that he used italics, right?)

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

On a lighter note, my friend Ninja reports that I'm available wirelessly in certain hotels:

Everybody hates me

Someday, I am going to make this T-shirt.

I managed to get into an argument about evolution vs. faith (which I still think is ultimately a red herring) with a private Christian college alumna from Janesville, Wisconsin IN THE MIDDLE OF FREAKING PAHANG. Sigggggh.

My dad's current posting is a bunch of 3 very small churches in Bentong, Mentakab, and Raub. On Sunday I followed my parents to Mentakab for evening service because a team from MV Doulos was going to be there. I have cool memories of visiting the Doulos at about age seven or so. Pa bought me a pocket dictionary of biology terms, actually.

There were six people on the team and they took turns talking about experiences they've had in deciding to serve on the ship, or while serving on the ship, or while going ashore to talk to people in various parts of the world. Afterward, I talked to some of them - a woman from Bangalore, two young guys from Canterbury and Ohio, and that girl.

I don't want to go into the details of the conversation, but let's just say that a) she had attended college at a Christian school and seemed to be under the impression that anyone going to a large public uni would be under immense pressure (IVCF, Campus Crusade, and YWAM notwithstanding?) and b) the only major presentation on evolution she mentioned having heard was by a creationist...

We went back and forth for a bit. I pointed out that theologians as far back as St. Augustine have been saying that we don't know the mechanisms of creation or the nature of the "days" over which it took place (as I said to Steve recently, Augustine is big guns).

Also, what I think is a more pertinent problem: that the ridiculous American evangelical insistence on taking Genesis literally is creating a stumbling block for people who might otherwise come to Christ.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

There is is. It's not that complicated, dammit. Jesus didn't say "whoever believes in me, and in the fact that my dad took exactly 144 hours to create the physical universe."

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And then, on the other side, there are people like the guy who writes this blog, Pharyngula.

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I am so frustrated. I really feel like everybody hates me sometimes. A while ago, I used to have a quotation from James Clerk Maxwell in my email signature, about . Maxwell is big guns too, but he's not a bio guy either.

...Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that this view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of.

Ironically, it's the following paragraph from an interview with the Skeptic magazine editor, Michael Shermer, that best articulates why I love science. I'm not a theologian. Studying the physical world is for me, the best window into God's wisdom.

If you believe God created the world, it's reasonable to ask, How did he do it? What were the forces and mechanisms he used? Why not look to science and see that he started with the big bang, the force of gravity, inflationary cosmology, quarks and natural selection. Those were his tools. To that extent, science is not a threat, it's your best friend. It's the best tool you have for illuminating the grandeur of creation. A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral. I mean, come on, that photo is an actual representation of the reality that God created, if that's what you believe. So why not embrace science rather than fear it?

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Bloody Americans. Maybe they'll all go to hell - the hardline atheists for denying God, and the fundamentalists for pushing them into it.

I think one reason I want to come back to Malaysia after I finish my studies is to protect people against this sort of Manichaean mentality - to give bright young minds a better education in bio than our joke of a KBSM curriculum, and to show that freedom and faith go together.

Anak kucing Siam

I was on my way to the post office yesterday when I saw, down the road, a child cuddling something that didn't look to be a stuffed toy. With proximity, they resolved into a Malay kid hugging a Siamese cat. He looked at me as I approached, and I smiled at the cat; approaching people via their pets is generally a good idea. It has a flattering effect, since pet owners like to talk about their 'babies'.

"Eh, comelnya!
"Bukan comel, dia dah besar," (It's not cute, it's grown up already) he informed me. He pressed on the cat's right forepaw to unsheath its claws. "Tengok, dia gagah." (Look, he's ferocious.)
"Kucing Siam kah?" (Siamese cat?)
"Ya."
"Apa nama dia?" (What's it's name?)
"Ven."
I waved goodbye and went to post my letters. On the way back, he had the cat slung inside his shirt so that he looked like a pregnant ten-year-old boy. That's one laid-back cat.

At the time, I wasn't thinking about how scared I normally am of speaking to strange people. I wasn't thinking of how awkward I find interaction with children. I wasn't thinking about how bad my Malay is.

Kitties make everything better. ^_^

Bentong

So I'm back home again...this time at my parents' house in Bentong, which they moved to in December. Bentong is a VERY SMALL town. In my brother's words, "Bentong makes Segamat look like a metropolis." (for those of you who aren't familiar with Malaysia...Segamat is its armpit.)

On the plus side, being that Bentong is up in the hills, the drive up here is very nice with a winding road and lots of mountains. Very classical-looking limestone hills (you know...the kind in Chinese
paintings) covered with shaggy carpets of forest and whatnot. It's cool at night when you can see the parallel curves of reflectors snaking away into the darkness. Hills are nice after having spent 4 years of college in Appleton.

Highlights so far:

• Our house is weird because the building was originally intended to be a church on the ground floor and the pastor's apartment on top. Since the local government never issued a permit to use it as a church, downstairs from us are my dad's office and a lot of empty rooms. Bloody Malays.
• We have 2 dogs, both spayed females. My dog Max is about 8 years old. The other one is called Happy. She is, appropriately, happy, but also a bit stupid. She likes to jump on people and tends to be mouthy, i.e. acts like a six-month-old puppy. Last night I fed them dinner (rice + meat scraps, we don't do fancy dog food here) and she finished hers in 2 minutes flat. *rolls eyes*
  
  Both dogs are pretty whiffy. There's a black smudge along the wall next to our driveway where Max likes to sit. Clearly my parents haven't bathed them very often. *takes out hose and scrubbing brush*
• Our house has forest on three sides. Mum says that if the dogs bark a lot, there are monkeys around. She claims to have seen wild boar, and Pa claims to have heard a nightjar. I need to spend less time on
  the computer at night.
• The district police headquarters is near our house, and so is the police target practice range. I thought some idiot was shooting off
  firecrackers at 8am because I'm not familiar with the sound of guns. Also, when I was walking back from the market today, a police Kancil passed me. It had the yellow-and-blue local police checker painted on the sides, and the flashing lights thing on top, and everything. I think I might have fallen over laughing if there had been someone else to support me.
  
  FYI non-Malaysians, "kancil" means "mousedeer". A mousedeer is a Southeast Asian deer that's about the size of a bunny rabbit. A Kancil is a VERY SMALL car. It's smaller than a VW Beetle. Yeah...you look like some super tough cops fighting crime in a Kancil, all right.
• We have a super loud gecko downstairs in one of the unused church rooms. I think it's one of those monster geckoes that's the size of a
  human hand, not one of the little ones. It sounds like a chicken on steroids.
  
  House geckoes cost $5 at Petsmart in the USA. Here they're free if you can catch them.
  
  My mum knows some woman who has a hatred of geckoes because a pair of copulating geckoes fell on her head once. I guess it could have been more traumatic if it wasn't the geckoes that had been copulating...
• Pa let me drive back from Raub to Bentong last week (about 20 mins) I didn't hit anyone, and I remembered to stay on the left side of the road. The tough part was remembering that my turn signal lever was on the RIGHT side of the steering wheel.

So...that's Bentong so far.

Shh...we're going squiwwel hunting

My boss needed some ground squirrels for a vaccination study. (Lab mice are Old World rodents. Ground squirrels are New World rodents. Therefore, if you're trying to invent a vaccine for prairie dogs - New World rodents - makes sense to test it on their compatriots...kua.) Told me to call a professor at the UW who uses them for hibernation research and ask her if I could come along the next time her lab was trapping them. Prof told me to call back later since her main squirrel trapper was on vacation.

Now, if you don't know what ground squirrels are and you live in Malaysia, they're not like ours, i.e. "furry little things that pop out of the jungle once in a blue moon." If you live in North America, they're not like tree squirrels there either, i.e. "marauding little bastards like rats with bushy tails." Ground squirrels have beautiful fur patterns, enormous eyes, and overall are super cute (see pic from eNature).

When Mike came back from holiday I called him:

"Could we come along with you the next time you're trapping?"
"Sure. We only start after Memorial Day, to give the pups some time, since they're having babies up till the end of June."
"OK, do I need to bring anything? We have Kevlar gloves."
"Nope, I've got everything I need."
"How do you trap them? Sherman traps?"
He laughed. "We just grab them with our hands."
"WHAT?"
"We just grab them when they come out of their holes. I'll show you."

Okayyyy...

The NWHC team ended up consisting of Andi, an animal care technician, Nicola, our Italian vet, and me. The following is a method for successfully obtaining ground squirrels.

1. Find a golf course. Convince the golf course maintenance guys that you want to help rid them of those pesky squirrels making holes in the ground, for free, and that you're not barking mad.

2. Fill a bunch of large containers, such as Nalgene carboys, with water. For the information of my non-science friends, Nalgene started out making lab equipment long before their colourful super-tough polycarbonate waterflasks became popular.

3. Walk around looking for ground squirrels running across the ground or standing upright. Robins are not ground squirrels. They hop. Dead leaves sticking out of the grass are not ground squirrels. They don't move at all.

When you see a squirrel, follow it to its hole. Even though golf courses have many many holes in the ground, most of them are abandoned. You will feel very stupid if you waste time and water mucking around with empty burrows.

3. Put on leather gloves - VERY IMPORTANT - and get a partner to hold a carboy for you. Cup your hands over the squirrel hole and get the partner to pour water into it. You may get slightly wet and muddy, but it's refreshing on a hot day, and if you're the type who's likely to fuss about a bit of mud, why the heck are you doing field biology? Go and be a banker or something.

4. When the squirrel pops out, grab it quickly despite the alarming sensation. Having a wet and wriggling squirrel leap into your hands feels somewhat like being a midwife delivering a very small and recalcitrant baby upside down, not like I'd know anyway.

5. Ground squirrels fall into the very large non-taxonomic category of "things that look cute until they bite you", hence the need for leather gloves. And rabies shots, if it makes you any happier.

If a squirrel - or bat, or any other small animal, for that matter - bites you, DO NOT PULL ON IT. Do not wave your hands around going Ow ow ow damnit. This will only make it grip more tightly, and lacerate your hand worse. Blow into its face until it loosens its jaws.

They tend to look rather like seals since they have very small outer ears, and the effect is enhanced by their fur being all wet and plastered down...

5b. If you're really pro like me (yeah right), and are lucky enough to see a mum and baby dive down the same burrow, you can do the Double-Fisted Take Your Son/Daughter To Work Squirrel Grab.

6. Place squirrels in a standard Nalgene cage (a.k.a. "rat box") with an appropriate substrate (a.k.a. fluffy stuff to make them comfy) and transport back to lab. Up to 5 squirrels per cage is OK for a short transport, but they should be housed individually. Have a vet check them soon after arrival. Feed 50% each dry dog food and dry cat food, with carrots and other fresh veggies on the side. I think they'd make really cute pets, although definitely not cuddly ones.

The funniest one was the last guy, who had a burrow with three exits around a cement drainage block. Andi was holding her hands over one, while Nicola and I had our feet over the other two. When we started pouring the water, though, the squirrel came up and started going "tok tok tok" on the sole of Nicola's shoe. So we quickly switched positions and Andi grabbed a by then very muddy and annoyed squirrel. Unfortunately, I let it slip away while she was stuffing it into a cage. Since we had enough animal by that point, Mike suggested letting it go, but Andi was bound and determined to beat the squirrel. So she went back for more water, and I nabbed it.

You can tell I'm not used to drawing with a mouse.

Group photo:

Organ donation

Over breakfast, inspired by this story about a girl who died in a motorcycle accident whose family decided to donate her organs. Malaysians tend to be superstitious/stingy/uninformed about that.

Yan: If I die, I want you guys to donate all my organs, ok?
Mum: Can. People can donate everything now, even faces.
Yan: Can meh?
me: That one's experimental lah. But you can donate your eyes. Corneas.
Yan: Imagine if I donate my face, very scary at the funeral.
me: They'd probably give you a death mask or something.
Yan: Or you could cover my face, and then people lift up the cover and go YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
me: You have a weird sense of humor.

Which Programming Language Are You?

Which Programming Language are You?

Telephony

NB: US Central Savings Time is 13 hours behind Malaysia.

[11:29] EK: hey
[11:29] me: hiya =)
[11:29] EK: i'm up all night, packing boxes and watching election results
[11:30] me: 10:30 is not "all night"
[11:30] me: which election?
[11:30] EK: the CT race
[11:31] me: senate?
[11:31] EK: yeah
[11:32] EK: Lieberman lost the primary by 4 points, but vows to fight on as an indy candidate
[11:32] me: DAMMIT
my phone has some sort of covering glued to the electrical contacts where the SIM card goes so i can't put in a Malaysian sim card
[11:32] me: American cellphoen providers suck ass.
[11:32] EK: what did you expect? it's an american cell phone
[11:32] me: i remember you tellin gme about that
[11:32] EK: i didn't even know it worked that way in other countries
[11:33] me: you said something like he was either a genius or he's wrecked his carreer right?
[11:33] me: well if you take out the battery in back of your phone you'll see a small flat indentation the size of a man's thumbnail. that's where teh SIm card goes
[11:33] me: determines what network you can connect to
[11:33] EK: well, the margin was narrow enough that he wouldn't even have lost hte primary if he hadn't announced he'd run as an indy
[11:34] me: according to my sis, in Singapore people switch SIM cards all the time to save money
[11:34] me: whereas in the US, they have us bound to these ball-and-chain 2y ear contracts so mst americans don't even know what a sim card is
[11:34] EK: i didn't until you told me
[11:35] me: if i was rich i'd f***ing sue them for selling me a deliberately damaged phone
[11:35] me: it'll happen some day

So now I'm using a venerable Motorola my dad bought for me from my cousin Derek. *sigh*

Jien's wedding

My cousin got married today (see link for post on Hwa family blog, please DON'T leave comments on there. Bride a fellow Asbury seminarian, very pretty, Hong Kong girl. Feels weird because I've grown up thinking of him as a large annoying object, and now he's the first of us to bond.

Funniest thing I've heard all day: my kid brother's "When I get married, I want a Bailey's Irish Cream ceremony."

Pics: I seriously thought there was a LAN party going on when we arrived yesterday and saw this. It was actually the groom's sister, the groom, and the bride (left to right) working on PowerPoint presentations for the wedding ceremony.

Yi Jien @ rehearsal: Does this look to you like a man who's getting married tomorrow?

Arrived

Well, I'm home. Our new house in Bentong is weird because the bottom storey was designed to be a church, but the Bentong church never managed to get a permit to use it as such. Apparently my dog Max still remembers me, so that's all good.

Downtown Chicago, across from the Art Institute, there was a really big Panda Express (economy rice chain) restaurant. I commented on its size and EK said you could call it a giant Panda Express. *groan*

Said goodbye to EK at O'Hare. It was a good nine months. It's odd to know that we're officially not lovers any more. Although we do have some wicked/silly/funny things in the works, so there's still artistic collaboration.

Too lazy to call my siblings in Singapore. Sorry guys. Tomorrow maybe.

JAL's Hotel Nikko Narita is very nice, although downtown Narita (free shuttle bus from and to hotel) appears to have next to no nightlife after 8pm.

I was too chicken to walk into one of the sushi places so I got octopus mee goreng with an egg from a roadside stand for Y500. Back in Chicago's Chinatown I took EK to the Penang restaurant and we ended up having veggie curry since he's a vegetarian. I must have some talent for picking boring food in exotic places.

If anyone needs more proof that Japs are perverts, if you open the Yellow Pages to "Entertainment", it's all ads for whores (and I had just typed that as "wars" because my brain is kiok).

Spent a lot of time listening to the Iliad:

• The ancient Greeks had role-playing games, because Odysseus is referred to as "the equal of Zeus in WarCraft."
• I would really have hated to have my name immemorialized as "the short Ajax.
• Paris Alexandrus is a pretty boy wanker and I hope the Greeks cut his balls off when they took the city.

Wan tan mee tastes really good after a year of not having had any.

Pics from Chicago and Japan later.