My French-Canadian classmate today totally pissed me off.  I already have a low opinion of her because she had trouble on her first day at school finding the door to the staircase and when she saw someone open it, she exclaimed (french accent) “O this is so fascinating, just like the Matrix, people walk through the wall and disappear …” (uh, bimbo ?).  Back to the story.

First, she spilled a bottle orange juice sitting on my desk.  It went all over my desk, my chair, my writing materials and my bag.  Fortunately I got out of the seat in time.  Accidents happen.  People trip over things from time to time.  At this point I’m not upset – it’s just juice.

Then, she apologised, and offered to bring some paper towels to help clean up the mess.  I’m happy to see that she’s behaving like a responsible adult.

The minutes ticked by.  1 minute. 3 minutes. 5 minutes.  While I am frantically trying to clean up the mess on my own, woman – and promised paper towels – do not appear.

I look around the classroom and where is she ?  With her playgroup, participating in some game that the lecturers had organised.  I can’t believe that she was so absorbed in playing the game that she completely forgot that she messed up my day.

The child in me felt like confronting her and stuffing the juice-soaked towels into her handbag. 
But it’s just juice, right ?  So I get on with life, with an even lower opinion of French women.

I’m kind of glad that I’m nearing the end of the trip.  I’m really beginning to miss Joyce.  It’s awful to be overseas alone.  Plus this being not as exciting a city as I hoped it to be (or at least I’m not touring the exciting places, as usual) – there’s no one to share the boredom with.

I can’t do my work and reading in my cell due to the lack of lighting.  I’ve therefore taken to hanging around at some food court till about 2130 hours, before heading back to the YMCA.

For devotions, I read Ezra 4 to 6.  What I found inspiring was how God’s purposes for the Israelites (ie. reconstruction of the Temple*) prevailed, despite opposition by many people; in fact for a while it looked like the Temple would never be rebuilt.  Interestingly, God did not intervene to assist the Israelites in the fire-and-brimstone or audible-voice-from-the-heavens way.  Instead, the rulers were moved to act in the Israelite’s favour.

Anti-climatic ?  Many times in life we ask God to intervene when we face challenges or difficulties.  Then we sit and wait for some dramatic miracle to take place, which doesn’t often (or almost always doesn’t) happen.

Ezra, as do many other records in the Bible, tells us that God can and does intervene through seemingly ordinary circumstances – through ordinary people and apparent “coincidences”.  If we look out only for the dramatic and the miraculous, we’re more likely to miss what God is doing through the seemingly ordinary.  Perhaps this is why so many people, Christians included, find it difficult to believe in or have faith in God nowadays.  They’re looking in the wrong places, looking only for the dramatic and the miraculous when, all along, God’s handiwork was present in the “ordinary”.

At the YMCA gym this morning, another American (the sixth to date) commented to me that Singapore was a repressive police-state because we cane criminals and people who chew gum (huh ?), hang drug traffickers, etc.  Of course he also had lots of nice things to say like how orderly Singapore appears to be, and how advanced the economy is (which to him was very surprising, since there is so much “control”).

For the record, in case any Americans read this, and to spare my countrymen who might be interrogated on the chewing gum issue when they travel to the US :

Singapore does not cane or jail people for chewing gum.  In fact, chewing gum is not a crime.  Only the import of non-medicinal chewing gum for sale is prohibited.

Second week of class.  Today’s weather was excellent, so I took some pictures of the Boston marina and skyline after class.

My next stop after lunch was the John F Kennedy Library.  It was excellent.  Missing though were displays relating to his extramarital affairs. =P

I slept fitfully in my detention cell last night, getting up about every other hour.  Then at 0630 hours, I got up to go to the YMCA gym for a workout.  The gym was fully equipped so at least this aspect of staying at the YMCA is good.

Breakfast – complimentary – was a greasy and somewhat overcooked combination of potatoes, eggs and toast.  I’ll probably get a heart attack if I had to eat this everyday.

As the weather didn’t look that great, I decided to tour parts of the city that didn’t require much walking outdoors.  My first stop was the Mapparium – the “Christian” Science library (I say “Christian” because Christian Science is actually a cult and is only very barely similar to orthodox Christianity).

Christian Science (to be distinguished from Tom Cruise’s Scientology, which is even wackier – thanks to Rena for enlightening) has not, as far as I’m aware, established itself in Singapore.  So I don’t know much about it other than that it isn’t very orthodox.  But what I saw at the Mapparium was sufficiently disturbing.

The cult was founded by Mary Baker Eddy who, it appears, interpreted the Bible in the way that emphasises healing and the intellect.  However, her interpretation of the scriptures, in my humble opinion, was quite far off the mark.  The few passages of her writings that I read interpreted the Bible in a way that ignored its context and authorial intent.  For example, in one of Baker’s key writings, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (which I suspect Christian Scientists treat more like their “bible” than the Bible itself – I saw the book on sale but not the Bible, or at least not as prominently on sale), Jesus was reduced to a “divine idea”, ie. Jesus not the Son of God, but an “Idea” ?

One of the documentaries screened at the Mapparium noted that it was a significant achievement for Mary Baker Eddy, as a woman living at a time when women were marginalised (Boston in the 1800s), to exegete the entire Bible.

I think it is equally remarkable how easily one can misinterpret the Bible, when we read it “emotionally” (according to how we feel at a certain point in time) and ignore the context and authorial intent of the written text.  The lesson ?  Christians need to take the Bible more seriously, to better understand what they read.  It is not enough to read the Bible “emotionally”, led by how we feel at a given point in time.  I’ve encountered too many Christians in Singapore who are found of quoting Bible passages out of context.  We need to be more careful.

(If the above "verse" doesn’t sound familiar to you, it’s because it can’t be found in the Bible !)

After I got over the shock, I went to Copley Square and toured the historic buildings there : the Old South Boston Church, Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library. 

At the Library basement was a GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual) exhibition, which included photos of gay / lesbian couples who had custody of their children after divorcing their former spouses (I don’t suppose the state allowed them to adopt children ?), and written accounts by some of the children of their happy / positive experiences living in these alternative family setups.

I found the exhibition rather disturbing, to say the least.  Whatever one may think of same sex civil unions, advocating that it is normal for children to grow up in these alternative family setups is truly weird.  I’ll even call it unnatural – because if it was intended that same sex couples should raise children, it would be possible for them to procreate.  But the human body is not designed that way – two women or two men cannot by themselves have kids.

I concede that for many of the children raised in these same-sex family setups, the alternative may be neglect or abuse at the hands of the other parent or some relative or stranger.  However, that does not change my opinion that having to raise children in same-sex family setups is less than natural and ideal.  By suggesting that this is not the case, which was the thrust of the exhibition, the exhibitors were irresponsibly seeking to mislead the public.

Hotels are exorbitant in Boston.  So I arranged to move out from Holiday Inn to the substantially cheaper YMCA (I’m saving more than USD100 per night) later in the morning.  I moved only today because of the YMCA allows only a maximum 10 day stay (and I’ll be in Boston for about 16 days).

Thankfully.

Because I got the shock of my life when I saw my room.  Apart from one bed, one tiny wall-mounted florescent lamp (insufficient to light up the room for studying at night), one wastepaper basket and two desks without chairs (?), the room was bare and didn’t look very clean.  Four bars of soap, four paper cups (?), a towel and an ashtray (?) were the “amenities” issued for my stay.  I felt like I was in the detention barracks.

I visited Haymarket, Boston’s open air fruit and vegetable market – open only on weekends – today.  Opinion : I’ve seen more interesting and colourful open-air markets.

After breakfast, I stumbled on the nearby Holocust (Shoah) Memorial which had previously eluded me.  I suppose that’s because it didn’t turn out to be as huge as memorial as I thought it would be.

Although small in size, I thought the monument was large on meaning.  It boggles the mind, how men can descend to such depths of depravity and callousness.

Insciption on the third panel reads :

"They came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak for me."