Blogging and Pepys's Diary

I was reading a book by Camilla Morton this morning, and there was this mind boggling passage about Samuel Pepys which send me into a deep ponder.

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who rose to be Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, under King James II. He would have been just a mere name in the history of Britain if its not for his......Diary. His diary of 9 years was published and recognized as one of the most important historical documents for the English restoration period which includes his personal revelation and accounts of great events such as Great Plague and Great fire of London (extracted from Wikipedia).

You may click here if you like to have a peek at his diary. Its a good mix of the historical events and happenings in his daily life, all laid out. his relationship, affairs, insecurities, concerns and etc. But what attracted my attention was that Pepys's diary which was supposed to be solely for personal appreciation had become a national monument without knowing by the author himself. I bet if Pepys is still alive today, he will be so surprised to know that his ramblings were read by decades of historians and will be continue to be studied by many many generations to come.

Now it really makes me think, what is the value of the words which i've written, especially in this blog. To be frank i've addressed this question before and when i read back the post "Why did i blog", my feelings were still pretty much the same, but with extra insights i would say.

One thing i've realized throughout the course of blogging is that making your opinion heard has never been so easy. It was my online stream of thoughts, of certain global and religion, issue or even simple life principle issues which i may agree or disagree with. In a way its like an open forum whereby i am the forum manager who have the full authority to express my opinion in public (of course with restriction, who said freedom of speech is allowed in Malaysia??). Before i started to blog, i never knew that i am such an opinionated and dogmatic person. In a sense, blogging has helped me to discover the hidden personalities reside in me.

However the greater value of blogging is that, I've came to realized that i have so much of gratitude in me towards life partly because of this blog which i've keep for a good 5 years now. 5 years may not be long for some people, but in this short period of time, the blog had witnessed my growth and life transition from a naive college girl to the independent lady i am today. All the head over heels crushes and failed relationship i had, the struggles to stay the course when i am alone in the foreign land and the soul searching journey in Scotland and Paris. Without all these records, i would not have appreciated my current position/state the way i am now.

I'm not particularly fretting over whether someone is reading my blog or not, i may not have chance to witness great events in history like Pepys, but i know as long as i keep writing, the blog will continue to stand as the testimony of my life: The day i'm stepping down the isles, the day we owned our home, the day i saw my child through sonogram etc., All of these events and all of the good people i'm gonna meet in future will not just stay isolated in the corner of my memory, but will remain alive and vivid to be share with my love ones or simply for my own reading pleasure.

"keep a diary and one day it will keep you." May West

where did Human come from? Pt 2

Here come my second part of "where did human come from". Anyway, since the presentation was over and i am just too lazy to spell out the entire presentation content letter by letter, hence, i will do a quick summary here on the science part and substantiate with my personal opinion on this topic.

From Scientific point of view, Charles Darwin theory of Evolution form the basis of the view of Scientific community towards human origin. In his second book "Descent of Man", he had stipulated that:

"Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, arboreal in its habits, an inhabitants of the old world, classed amongst the Quadrumana, an ancient progenitor of the monkeys and ape. The Quadrumana derived from an ancient marsupial animal, through a long series of diversified forms, came from an amphibian like creature, which in turn came from a fish like animal"

Darwin, Descent of Man

If your previous understanding towards the evolution theory is that human are decedent of ape then you are 100% wrong. According to the Father of Evolution, the most primitive life form is a fish like creature appears in Paleozoic era. Since Evolution talks about common ancestry, hence macro evolution across billions of years has give rise to the modern human, the homo Sapien we are today.

However, controversy still arises within the scientific community itself although the evidence of speciation or microevolution (of genus Homininid, or within the homo species) was well documented, but not at the level of macroevolution. Genetic studies showed that there is 96% (not 99% as previously claimed) of similarities between a chimp genome and human genome. Although i am not practicing sciences anymore, i still can comprehend that the scientific evidence of microevolution cannot be simply disregarded. However macro evolution (fish-human) is something questionable.

Personally, i am not taking side by saying that evolution theory is right or wrong. If human made from soil and spirit of God is bizarre, how about human evolutionized from a fish like creature or even a single cell organism in the primordial soup theory? Does that sound anyhow more convincing?

The truth is there is no way for us to put the two school of thoughts- Science: evolution and Religion: creationism on a same balance and weigh it, simply because they are of different nature. Religion is based on faith, whereby it was written clearly in Hebrew: 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Whilst Science is based on facts and evidence (something we can see). Furthermore, Religious cardinal truth/teaching is absolute, cannot be changed and challenged. While science is progressive and accumulative. Today the evolution theory holds true, maybe in another light years time, some researcher will come out with new discovery saying that human are descended from some alien species in outer space.

To what extent can a scientist be spiritual? can those with naturalistic view of the world, who doesnt believe in God, spirit and ghost accept human are made by The Almighty's hand? There seems a prima facie paradox here since spirituality were often posit as a non physical realm category separate from this secular world described by science. However, despite of how analytical and scientifical i am, I've always thought that science is there to help us to understand more about God. In this never ending course of scientific discovery, there will be one point whereby this path will intersect with the human belief, and that harmony between the two can be somehow possible.

That's my faith for being a Science thinker and a God believer.

At the end of the day, doesn't matter a religionist or a scientist, everyone needs faith to believe in certain things.

Terminator Vs Star Trek: Post Mortem

I'm not a BIG fan of sci fi movie, the futuristic space ship and nuclear explosion doesn't give me that much of adrenaline pumping effect like how it did to those with XY chromosomes. I went to watch both star trek and Terminator salvation since there are alot of good comments

Star trek was a pure enjoyment. I never really watched Star Trek series before, however i find it easy to understand compare to Terminator Salvation and Star Wars series. J.J. Abrams has indeed succeeded in making a movie which is both entertaining to both the die hard trekker fans and to those who have not seen Star Trek before. The storyline was simple yet interesting, and the cast were simply outstanding. The highlight of the movie was the interaction between the major characters: Spock, Kirk, Sulu, Chekov etc. In fact, all the cast were not so famous but they were all talented and pretty much stood out on their own. e.g. The Samurai Sulu, the funny Chekov who cant pronounce the 'V', and last but not least, Spock who is so cool yet so full of emotion. Gosh i loved him so much! Zachary Quinto really played the character well. His expression of being a taught-to-be emotionless young vulcan yet with so much of emotions in him yearned to give it all out was simply spot on.

old cast versus new cast

On the other hand, the cast in Terminator Salvation are forgetful. Christian Bale (John Conner) acted like a co star, nothing about him stood out, except those scene he was kick assed by the Terminator Arnold. His radio broadcast speech was a bit plain if you compare to Will Smith's in I'm a legend's. The Marcus character has alot of loop holes, the kissing scene with the cancer researcher was meaningless, the part where he suddenly appeared in Skynet main controller room and underwent the skin rejuvenation process was not making sense. At the end of the movie, i cant recalled any memorable scene except the endless earth shattering explosion and shoutings.

Anton Yelchin was totally not there. His less than 10 mins appearance as Chekov in Star Trek give greater impact than his Kyle Reese role. He showed no resemblance to John Conner (although he supposed to be the father of John Conner) in terms of his characteristics/ appearance.

Can anyone tell me whether is it the real Arnold Schwarzenegger who make an appearance in the movie? I thought he quit from the entertainment business after he became the governor. It will be hilarious for the Californians to see their beloved Governor naked in the movie though.