most of you should have heard of the da vinci code by now, and some should have read it. more and more, i got severely curious by the controversies the rose around it, a mere fiction book.

my relationship with novels, i must say, goes beyond the simplicity of just reading it. i sometimes live in them, grow with them. i was practically nurtured by the books i read, more than really brought up by my parents.

so when a book of this nature got into my attention, i did try to resist reading it, coz it makes me feel like one of the sheeps that got herded in that general direction. i did, however, buy the prequel earlier in the year. and that did arouse my curiousity more. this guy may not be writing a gigantic epic, or something extraordinary. infact, it’s like most other crime fiction, albeit perhaps more detailed in terms of his scientific/locational research.

it’s just like me trying to produce an entirety in terms of moving along with the characters, i described every single wind they feel, touch, this man introduces the maths equations, the history behind some of the REAL stuff in the world.

just for starters, i finished the book. yer. i finished it in like 12 hours, that’s not the point though.

i bought the book yesterday, finally succumbing to my curiousity. i wanted to see why many religious leaders warn their sheep against the book. by the time i was about half way through the book, i could see why people were worried for the religion, people got curious about the catholic faith and whether Jesus was married or not and almost de-braining themselves in the process.

of course the first clue to it all should have been noticed right from the start.

“FACT:

The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975, Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic group that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brain-washing, coercion, and a practice known as “corporal mortification.” Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million National Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.
All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”

that was the first page before the story officially started.

da vinci code was essentially looked upon as a book of fiction based around facts known to the author. the only fiction is really what happens in the story, such as the main character being related to anyone in the real world.

but because of the intricate web that crossed such boundaries and back, most readers would start getting pulled in and forget that a fiction book is still a fiction book. in all likelihood, there would be factual errors as well, and plenty of personal opinion and feelings chucked in.

i must admit, by the time i did that halfway point in the book, not only could i see why it has such controversies as mentioned, i myself was abit muddled as to if the book has any truth to it at all.

remember, i am a curious cat.

it probably didn’t help either that i have read many books before, and getting all the stories all messed up in my head didn’t help at all.

so it is that i stopped reading for a couple of hours and started researching into the story. i dugged out my bible, ran through the internet and found out many many startling facts, some of which were probably in my face but it has never bothered me coz it wasn’t explicitly IN THE FACE kind of truth. one of the errors of taking things as they are, or having a messed up kind of memory.

fact from the book: mary magdalene/mary of magdalena, WAS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN A PROSTITUTE.

a quick search in all the bibles online, plus my own bible proved that. perhaps why people got all drawn into thinking that she was a prostitute was that an un-named sinful woman was forgiven by Jesus for her sins in the CHAPTER before mary magdalene was introduced. people reading in a straight line might have just messed up the info.

but, in at least one version of the bible, i am still certain one of them mentioned that the sinful woman, was indeed a prostitute, thus labelled as sinful. otherwise, i am not quite sure where i got the notion from, for, the most part, i kinda read the entire bible by myself.

u can read the “Sinful Woman Pardoned” on luke 7:36-50 i believe.

in luke 8:2 is where the first mention of mary of magdalena first appeared. she was a woman, whom jesus casted out 7 demons, and one of the few women who went around trips with Jesus.

it is fairly important to read a fictitious book objectively. not researching it and blindly believing the “facts” that an author said are facts, is really just asking for it. i know many people just read for the sake of reading. but then again, there are those who believe what they read as truth AND starts spreading about it.

it is a great book in it’s own right. it got people thinking, it got people curious, and that is what books are about, to engage the mind. because of that, if you actually go around doing your research well, you will find that it’s also educational too. i am not about to debunk it as a total case of rubbish, because it is good fiction, it engages me, it made me start thinking about my religion and what i truly believe in.

would it have mattered to me if Jesus, one of the 3 central beings around which my religion was centered upon, was a married man with kids? would it have mattered if he was as fallible as man, to be like a man and have sex and love his wife differently from the way he loved his disciples (keyword: different. not more, not less, but different)?

the answer is no.

i think this has been mentioned many times before but i guess it’s all right to pull it up again. in societies of that time, it was a norm to get married (much like it is now, but people chooses not to that’s all) and part of the family’s duty was to find their sons a wife. infact, look at the much more traditional families nowaways, they still perform this “arranged” marriage thing, and usually at a young age.

aside from that, the bible showed God in agreement with procreation, and Jesus love kids. and also lots of comments about families and so on ( i am not going to pull up every single bible reference to all of you, this will take a long time.). it would seem strange then if Jesus goes celibate or would encourage his disciples to act as such.

of course, people would then start saying that it could be very plausible that there’s this part where “you must have no other God than me” and in a relationship, it’s hard to be all that focused on God, when you have a family to love and care for. honestly? check out the families that goes to church. in bringing forth children, they teach the future generation to love God as much as they did, their ancestors did.

my point is, even if Jesus was married and has descendants now and so on, and whether it was mary magdalena or not,it doesn’t affect my choice of religion, because what he taught was good, what he did for us was good. when he died, he died for us so that all souls may go to heaven, that we maybe closer to God. That is supposed to be our fixating point, not if he was married or not. and since our focal point was also God, i still don’t see how marriage should affect us.

If God did intend Jesus to come down to earth and share a human life like us, suffer like us, then marriage, would have been perfectly reasonable, because it was the norm and it shouldn’t deter anyone from believing in the Messiah, just coz he has a wife. we DID accept the fact that despite our imaginings that he was fearless, he did indeed prayed in the garden (ref: matt 26:39, Agony in the Garden) “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as i will, but as you will.” he feared of what may come, like normal humans would. he was scared, like us if we knew our impending doom.

so what is marriage?

just more affirmation that Jesus was as much a human when he was supposed to live as a human as he is a Divine Being after his death and resurrection.

for the people who like their Gods to be infallible, their priests/ priestesses/ prophets/ whatnots be totally infallible, you’re in the wrong part of the universe. go somewhere else.

“fact” from the book:

this one is one of the biggest error i guess that made people upset. i could see why though, they wanted to see a real life “secret society” that smells archaic, honourable and various other things at the same time. the priory of scion.

the ORDER OF ZION was real, and was associated with the Knights of Templar. note the was. the priory of scion however, was a joke and a fraud (link:http://priory-of-sion.com/psp/id84.html). perhaps dan brown didn’t do proper research before stating that it was a fact, or perhaps like me, he got it messed up and then zion and sion got all messed up and.. well you get the idea.

somewhere at the back of my head i have read something about the priory of scion and it’s existence as something real, probably a fiction too from elsewhere, thus by the time i was halfway thru, my mind was all fucked up and i really had to research to seperate those bits of fiction with facts by looking it up. so if u draw back to where i showed u what he said about the fact that priory of scion was a real organisation, secret or ni, well, that’s bullshit. sad isn’t it?

there were also other parts of the fiction that claims that the church actively tries to hide the truth from the their members, which, as u can see, is part of his story. true or not, it’s really up to the individual to take it. again, human makes mistakes, many times over. the church did have a horrific past where killings were on to “convert” people or just for the pure sake of money. there were homosexual priests/popes as much as there were priests/popes with families, that were against the celibacy rules (which were set in about the 300s?). then of course there were the notorious ones who had various amounts of illegitimate kids, some of which were chosen as cardinals, rituals of benefiting themselves and their loved ones.

with such a horrible past of breaking the very same rules that they make, i wouldn’t be surprised if the Catholic church did have some secrets to hide, because they don’t want to seem all too evil, against the teachings of the bible, or just being vulnerable to the same human mistakes that the people they were supposed to guide make. but would it have turned you away? are you there because the church looks good? i am not, i wouldn’t go away.

then again u have those child molestations accusations, how does one react to that?i guess i would be a bit freaky, but the church is not all about the priests, its about God and the members. priests are like these mediators.

yer the go betweens.

at the end of the day, it’s just a fiction book. i enjoyed it immensely, like i would with any other book. true, it got me all messed up about my facts because i wasn’t sure of them in the first place, and he was also fairly convincing with the facts i already know (the usual brain thing that goes “if 3 or more facts are accurate, why not all of it), but it engaged my mind and got me to find out more about my religion, about other truths in the world, and that is quite a huge task that a small book did.

it did not put me through any religious crisis that some people might feel religious people, or anybody of faith would have. rather, with each research, i know more about my religion and it’s past than i did before.

well spent 16 bux.

you would probably notice the new button to the right. the ugly donations button.

i kinda made the button on a whim, but yes, it does allow u to kindly donate money to little ol’ me on this site then.

why is it there?

not for any particular reason. i was just testing out this function of paypal, and also more for a fun thing.

there’s so many things i want, more than i really need, that it’s just simply ridiculous if i expect someone or anybody to donate to me.

there’s only 1 huge thing that i want atm though, and that’s graduating then visitng my bf… well 2 things then.

i could go work and then use my own money to do it, but i am also studying heaps. so i dont wana stress about work too.

however, if you do choose to donate, o.o well thanks. ^.^ i will probably put in the funds towards that sponsor a child program in world vision anyways

some one asked about personal opinions on living off and on campus, since there was a huge bunch of us who moved out. so i decided to just post it here, that my other friends may know as well what i think (less chance of repetitive questions!!!)

i have lived on campus for 2 years. part of the reasons i left were that the services were getting unreliable, the food was getting worse and some of the costs were simply retarded. 12cts/mb dl for internet, can u imagine that?

mine was as close knitted community coz we were i think the 2nd smallest hall on campus, when i first arrived anyways. ours also were one of the 3 fully catered halls, which i chose so if exams comes around, i wud not and need not be bothered to cook.

perhaps why i chose it was also retarded too hehe. from the weird maps, the way they described the halls, i thought they were better spread apart, and that they had different views from their rooms, so since the one i chose pointed out that u had be living near a river and get to see it too if u live on the right side, i decided hey! burgie it is for me!! it looks better than the others too on the brochures.

when i arrived tho, burgie looked, at first sight, that it hasn’t completed its building. then again, everyone of the buildings on campus did. of course, horror of horrors, 3 of the 7 halls or so is just by the river!

there were also other reasons why i chose to stay on campus. being next to school, me and my bad habits of being late might get curbed, or almost curbed. over the months, i learnt that the nearer u r, the more likely ur to be late

on campus though, everything is easier. school is just next door, ur friends are kinda “picked” for u, and thru o’week interactions, u get to meet the uni crowd which if ur living off campus and dont know much abt on campus activities or feel too lazy to join, u wont ever get to know those crowd.


as a first year though, back then i was pretty clueless. plus the fact that this isnt a place i was familiar with, the on campus help, the tutors, the admin in the hall, every little bit helps. because there is constantly people around, and people with similar studying and sleeping habits, i am never really alone.

but being so close can have its own tensions too. the way the halls were built, we could hear everyone clearly over the pipes, or at least my next door neighbours. i could hear them humping like rabbits, breaking up, their kissing mistakes (the unforgettable, OUCH YOU BIT MY LIPS!) or them talking “behind” my back. there will always be inconsiderate neighbours who come home loud and drunk, breaking stuff, stuffing up the fire alarms, waking people up at 5 am, in the shower making out with their girlfriends OR barging into your room and stealing all ur snacks.

don’t get me wrong, all these are also part of college, on a certain scale, when i detached myself from being in there, it’s actually amusing. but all this amusement went out of the window one day when my neighbour, who had been bugging the hell out of me about my alarm which also wakes him up, to keep my alarm on my desk so that it doesnt wake him thru the pipes. my alarm though, is THAT loud. even with it on the desk, it does penetrate the walls. so he came pounding on my door a nice sunday morning, resulting in a very pissed off me who decided not to go to church, to pretended to sleep thru everything, and tell him i heard nothing, though i was seething mad.

that night, he didn’t like the music i was playing. but didn’t know how to change song, turn down the volume or etc, so he MUTED my laptop altogether, when i wasn’t around. i mean, we all have an open door approach, if ur unhappy, u can always come and turn it down. but muting it and not leaving a note, stealing my snacks and not leaving a note, BARGING INTO MY ROOM WHEN I AM HALF ASLEEP, i had enough. i didn’t even know he muted it and thought my laptop died and was in tears, coz i didn’t know how to tell my dad i broke my laptop, and i need music to survive. having a md player back then, i need to have sounds to be able to record it on md.

by the time i realised what happened, i marched over to his door and had a talk with him, about what i don’t like. he gave me this “worst neighbour i would ever encounter” face and i finally talked to the floor tutor, HIS GF!!! who had a small argument with him in which he denied everything.

again, have more intelligence. if u can farken hear me i can hear u too. so dumb.

anyways, that’s just one of the types of neighbours i get. and u can’t choose your neighbours. even if you move around, you will still get a dickhead, or a bimbo and u will always always wana scream when u get them type of neighbours.

and the food. well when i first started, it was interesting. i had an affinity towards westernised food, like pasta, fish and chips, even if its a little too greasy.

but as time wore on, their terrible cooking astounded even me. i mean, whats with the random pasta nights and pizza nights? don’t get me wrong, i love pasta and i love pizza, or at least i did before i joined. but when they got lazy, it was all they cook, be it twice a week or 3 times a week. or it’s bangers and mash. until i came here, hot dogs were snacks. from what i understood its about 15 bucks a meal. and 15 bux for bangers and mash.. it’s kinda shitty. even if its not for normal dinners, check out our formal dinners.

we had platters of cheap food, like those u get from bbq outings with friends, those ranges from 16 plus a head to 21 a head. during my first year it was still impressive. in the 2nd year, it just kept getting worse. and u can’t choose what food they should cook for you. u just have a choice of 2 types of meat, the vegies and then the cold dish bar outside (which is often a mishmash of whatever they didnt get to finish the day before, the afternoon of that day, etc.). for the vegetarians though, it’s just one choice of food.

i know, i shouldn’t be picky, it is college after all, and college food are basically limited to what you pay. but see, we are living there, i would at least expect a balance form of meal that isn’t a mish mash of whatever u forgot to cook that week that is about to expire and etc, which at times was the exact image they are laying out to me. i mean check out the random ingredients on that pizza!! wth.

aside from that, there are times when u know, ur anti social, u don’t wana participate in any retarded activities there maybe. but because everyone is going, and everyone is bugging you to go, you get annoyed. or better yet, u get people hollering at ur doors to go, banging at ur doors at 9 in the morning when all u wana do is sleep in.

or u just am too shy to dance in the crowds and they are pulling you out of the door. i still remember hiding underneath the table so that no one would even know i am in the room. in case the peek underneath and see my feet walking around..

that said, i still do miss college life. walking around at 2am during exam period with my blankie around me, in shorts and t shirt and then sitting at people’s door just gossiping is something that u cant do when u move out. it’s just you and someone else in the same apartment.

moving out, u choose ur flatmates, for the better or worse. if u choose ur friends, u have this huge thing dragging u down that u dont wana be too harsh on them, u give in all the time coz, oh it’s ur friends. then when u guys do sit down and mesh things out about rules and such, and what ur unhappy with, sometimes you feel bad.

if u choose utter strangers, you wonder why u bother even moving out of college if they do weird stuff. and then ur all shy and have to start with all that getting to know bit again.

one of the biggest challenge i guess, was actually forcing myself to cook occassionally for myself to save costs. it’s very tempting to just order stuff from across the streets, or call up all the deliveries u could see. i mean, man, how can u resist curry!?!!?! sushi?!?! pizza? pho? EXACTLY!!! i couldn’t lol…

and also, since i haven’t cooked in the 2 years that i was in college (instant noodles doesn’t exactly require much effort), my present cooking leaves much to be desired. i don’t even know what goes with what anymore, or how many spoons of flour goes with how many teaspoon of this and that to make sugar cookies, which i used to make on such a regular basis it was funny…

for those who say coming to uni itself is a step towards independence, i would like to point out it’s really half a step. those who stays on campus, we get most of our toilets cleaned by someone else, water and electricity bills help paid by the college so we dont get disgusting bills flooding our mailboxes, we have people help sort out junkmails from normal mails. i mean, check this out… this is just 2 days of mail..



would you want to experience sorting that out then lugging out all that junk? not me

in college we had shared stuff, like toilets, kitchenette, fridge, bathrooms. in this particular apartment, we have double ensuites. which was awesome, to say the least. the bad parts of shared amenities is obvious. people steal your food, if u forget ur soap and gold chains or whatnots in bathrooms, it gets stolen sometimes. and our shared fridge, microwave were all stinky from multitudes of use, all types of food, but 0 cleaning. the toaster was burnt beyond use, and the kettle was… i wouldn’t use it. i had my own anyways.

but here, i have to clean my own toilet, i have to clean my own kitchen, and of course, my own plates. gets tiring sometimes

there’s of course the distance from school. when i am really late, the retarded bus schedules doesn’t help (20-30 mins for one. in singapore we get buses every 5-15 mins depending on alot of circumstances.). in the same time that i might have to wait for the next bus, i might have reached school by walking then. then again, i was already late.

i handle my choice of food. THAT is a blessing, regardless of how badly i cook. i have LESS idiots bugging me as neighbours. i mean, the walls here arent all that much thicker, but people shuddup after 11 or 10, because most are working people or people who lead normal lives so that draculas like me have our peace at night to study or have normal sleeping hours.

and i don’t get sordid sounds of people humping next door, going eeee eeee eee aaa aaaa aaa, like hamsters do when they hump.

like, it’s entertaining, about as much as porn entertain me at times when i am really bored and sit there and laugh at the impossible positions they can think up in porn. but, like porn, they are also very limited entertainment.

i can be as anti social as i like, with no one dragging me out of my room except for my classes. and me and my housemate pretty much kept to our own businesses. like we talk, but we pretty much leave each other alone too.

so to end off, each have their own advantages. i would say if your new to the place, or ur in your first year, it would be better to stay on campus. uni life can get very stressful and if u know people who are suffering with you, well, it makes the suffering at least a little happier because you are not alone in your struggle. there’s also the ease of having tutors to help you out too in the colleges, and they hold discussions often enough for certain courses (if not they are fairly approachable at times, and only for some, if not just request a tute… and see how it goes..). there’s of course, always the pool of later year students to just ask.

the benefits of living off campus is having a real taste of independence, being able to be by urself when u really want to, AND THE FOOD!!!!

so yer… i like both it also helps that my apartment is gorgeous, despite the various packing boxes that lincy hasn’t bothered to put aside (rose has termed it the box room) and a random bed that appeared out of nowhere (linxy got a new bed and now the new bed is the “sofa”, but without a bedframe to make it sofa bed, it’s just a matteress), a pc table that appeared there coz no one is using it (wade can use it when he comes over… i guess.) and yer, just the cool amount of rubbish.

and yer, no one barging into my room when i might be naked, sleeping or doing my random dances. no one to yell at me about alarms, or steal my stuff.

yer!!!!

dang i love myself!!