Good Friday 2009

Dear Diary,

It will be hard to type even an entry these days. Busyness is the excuse, haha... In fact, I will have to continue reading the 30-page article “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” by Stephen L. Vargo & Robert F. Lusch later after typing this blog entry. This is so different from the usual clinical papers I was taught to read as a pharmacy student. One thing about doing a part-time Masters degree which has faculty lecturers flown in from UK, is that all the lessons are packed in a 12-day bloc. Basically, there is hardly any time to revise what you learn in class because you will probably reach home at 11pm and the only thing you can do is sleep and attend the evening class the next day after work again. There are assignments too. I need to read up the case study on Sansui next morning in preparation of the class starting at 1.30pm and lasting till 8.30pm. So far, I am just into the 2nd lesson and I have completed one case study on BizRate. I am probably among the youngest in class (yup, so no fishing ground, haha). At least for now, it is very interesting to be heading for class after work. The British lecturer is very lively, engaging and knowledgeable. I am beginning to realise why some people actually prefer a foreign university education. Anyway, there are unlimited coffee, other beverages, chocolate bars, wafers and all sorts of snacks for the Masters students too! ;-) We need a little pampering. The only difficult thing is that we need to clock in 48 hours of lecture and 8 hours of tutorial for one module. So life is super challenging now and no way I will be complaining I have nothing to do from now onwards, haha...

In fact, I was kinda a little “zombified” when I returned from evening class yesterday. I knew I was not going to wake up too early today for 8.30am Good Friday service at St Andrew’s Cathedral. So I took a short walk over to St Stephen’s to ask what time their Good Friday service would start today. No one seemed to know as I walked around to ask. Then I saw that a purple cloth was draped over the image of Saint Stephen. I walked forward to take a better look but accidentally kicked into a pretty huge female dog. The dog was stunned momentarily but soon started to bark loudly at me. Everyone nearby watched while I tried to placate the dog. Their English service is at 3pm today but I decided to visit St Michael’s instead.

So this morning, I hit down for the 11am service at St Michael’s. They used the 10-station “Scriptural Way of the Cross” instead of the traditional “14-Stations of the Cross”. There were lots of reflections and prayers. In fact, I was surprised that the entire service lasted 2 hours! And if I thought that we do lots of kneeling in St Andrew’s, I was totally wrong! In that service this morning, I think I knelt almost 1/3 of those 2 hours, till my knees became a little “jelly”. Wondered how the elderly endured that kneeling on hard wooden ground. Strangely, a painful kneel makes me feel as if it were penance and I was partaking symbolically in the suffering of Christ. I felt so comfortable in the service... you know, it is very similar to an Anglican service except for the crucifix, the genuflection, hey... where’s the sign of the cross? Did we even do that this morning? The only thing that made me uncomfortable was the last part of the service after the communicants received the host. There was this liturgy known as the “veneration of the cross” where the people filed out in queues to kiss the crucifix. I mean I have seen priests, bishops and even Pope John Paul II kissing the crucifix as a sign of devotion and piety... but to see everyone queuing to do that... well, it just felt weird. In fact, one of the stumbling blocks for many Protestants accepting Catholicism is the showing of visible piety towards an image. I am even open to exploring the idea that saints can intercede on our behalf but kissing a wooden image of Christ???? I may never see their perspective since my church is the kind that threw out the crib in our Cathedral because some members were kissing that statue of the infant Christ a long time ago. Maybe I am invincibly ignorant?

Met up with a friend at Orchard Road after church, and we were exploring some business opportunities. I hope I can be my own boss someday. Good Friday flew by and soon it was the end of the day. Forgot to watch the Korean drama “Likeable or not” on Channel U earlier at 7pm, haiz... These days, I don’t have such luxury to watch that drama on evenings because of my evening classes. I think that’s about all I wanna share. Have a nice weekend while I go slog my guts out over understanding some business models. There is still that thick 600-page Philip Kotler textbook which I have read just one chapter so far. Goodnight.

God Bless,

Andrew