Pam's Blog (Life, Marriage & Parenting)

My personal perspective on the City Harvest Church fiasco: #1. God is omnipresent (present everywhere), omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and God knew about this episode. I believe God is watching.; #2. The CAD does not charge without concrete evidence (they have taken sufficient time to investigate - 2 years). May justice prevail.; #3. It is unavoidable for members of the public with little information about Christianity to judge.  It is also one of my weaknesses to be quick to judge/form negative impression about others, which is unhealthy.; #4. I believe to a certain extent, the message of giving and tithing is relatively strong in City Harvest Church - I may be wrong.  (fyi, I have visited the church a couple of times) My personal belief is that it is important to give to God because God is the creator of everything that exists. He owns everything and we are simply stewards of what we have been entrusted with.  Though I h...

When I was young (in upper primary), my birthday wishes were similar.  It was to have many friends.  That could be due to the fact that I am an only child and may feel lonely at times.  Thanks to my best friends (you know who you are), I seldom feel lonely.  I can easily identify who my best friends are.  They are people I would ask for opinions on important decisions I have to make, meet relatively regularly (at least bimonthly, quarterly) for chit-chat and my life would have been very different without them. According to Robin Dunbar , in order to maintain stable social relationships where an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.  Friends are essentially different from acquaintances.  Acquaintances are typically: #1. People whom you may have only met a few times at an event/function; #2. Classmates/schoolmates/coursemates you have encountered casually; #...

This afternoon I had lunch with Nat. It was quite unusual because he looked troubled. So I asked what happened and we talked. As usual my opinionated self made some comments and there came a sudden interjection. No, we did not get into an argument. As I thought about it, I'm glad we both had at least some discipline to prevent us from becoming the person we don't like. On the way home from work, I reflected on the events of the day. I thought about how sweet Nat was. Any other day I would ask him for lunch and he would willingly travel from City Hall to Bishan. Although it was only for a short 1.5 hour, it was time well-spent. From the bottom of my heart, I really appreciate it. When I reached home and I saw an envelope with Nat's handwriting, I knew it was another poem from him. (He wrote 1 for me during the first week of this month) I was very happy to receive it because it is something from the heart. Sometimes when ...

Just thought I'll share a bit about my parents, whom I love dearly. My parents are cleaners; my father is 77 and my mother is 62 this year. I am an only child and my parents became cleaners when I was about 15 (I am now turning 27). My father was a manager at shoe factory while my mother was his staff. The shoe making industry was a sunset industry then and hence, my parents were out of job. Other than this particular industry, my parents had no other experience and are not quite educated. Initially, my mother worked at NTUC (helped to pack fruits etc). She was required to stand many hours and squat to carry, as well as, unload heavy cartons of fruits. Eventually my mother had some knee joint problems and had operations on both her knees. My parents could not find other opportunities and became cleaners. As money was needed for my education, no matter how difficult my parents' jobs are, they persisted. Now that I am working for the past 6 years,...

10th June 2012 Watched tape on Debate: Elected President Proposal 1988  Nat had transcribed it in 2009. View it here .   I have so much respect for Mr JB Jeyaratnam after watching it. Pam

10th June 2012 Cat Therapy (Photo Credit: Nat)

Would you say that Singapore is a male-centric society?  As much as I would like to differ and argue that our society is a balanced society, I'm afraid it is not.  Therefore, we have AWARE Singapore’s leading gender equality advocacy group.  However, I knew that there are certain laws that make men the victims hence, I thought it will be a good idea to have a group to support men in times of crisis.  No VWOs, NPOs and NGOs in Singapore came to my mind until I was researching and I found ADAM.   Though essentially what ADAM does is not identical to AWARE but at least there is an avenue for men to seek some counsel.  It may be true that men do not openly seek help but men are human beings too, they face problems in life and should know that looking for help and expressing their emotions; ie. crying is not a sign of weakness.  While I do not know what are the preferred methods to help men in crisis but at least for Venusians it is h...

Nice song for the evening. In lounging mode. :) Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.4

  The man who pushed the elderly woman blog this in defence. Having psychological problems does not give anyone the license to mistreat others. However, if the seriousness of the person's condition warrant his actions and was proven by a professional that he needs help, maybe the public can be a little more merciful? Though I would definitely alert the police if it happened right in front of me. According to his blog he has apologised, at the very least, he knows and admits he is wrong. I assume that most people would like him to get charged but what I think he needs do is to seek professional help (to prove/unprove that he is guilty/unguilty) and also to prevent him from doing such uncouth actions in the future. I am actually very keen in understanding what goes through a person's mind with that kind of condition. While I do not know whether the man said it just to defend himself, I remember someone telling me it is hard to discern whether a person is mental...

When I first saw a post on my Facebook news feed on sticker girl's spray painting, I thought it was part of the Singapore Arts Festival. I was impressed and thought "Wow! Finally something daring..." However, days later I realised it was not. Those stickers looked so professionally done that I found it hard to classify as vandalism. I believe the Singapore law has stated quite explicitly on vandalism is. However, for Sticker Girl's case, it is not just about pasting stickers with creative lines, it also involved spray painting on the road which is essentially the public property. There will be effort and cost incurred to remove the paint. Let's imagine if someone spray paints at your doorstep. No matter what the paint reads and how artistic it looks, it is high chance you will not be happy about it as it was done without your permission. Moreover, you can't peel it off like how you remove a sticker. I have signed an online petition for sticker girl to re...