030912

what are you... twelve?

THE START OF THE SEMESTER!!! WOOO!!! Time goes quicker when you're occupied with something... even if it's uniwork -_-

woke up to the sound of my room mate leaving the room for breakfast at the cafeteria... i took a shower and in the middle of showering.. my alarm went off .. quite loudly as well.. LOL.

oops.

i had breakfast in my room~ good ol' cereal.

Special K in remembrance of my K20Z1 back home =[

anyway.. being used to UNSW, i thought i'd need at least 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to class on time... but i left my dorm 20 minutes before the class.. and i got there early.. LOL. but it was still quite a long and hot walk... i think i will lose a lot of weight here =X. stairs. hills. more stairs. more hills. :>.>

++++ feel a bit suss walking past huge crowds of girls (esp cos my dorm is next to the women's college).. but it helps when you look in different directions (eg. look at the ground).. and this way i can guard my eyes.

first class: International Law.

in building 11, floor 3 and room 5.

the room was quite small (maybe the size of a tutorial room in UNSW), but it was a mini lecture hall. i think it's reserved for english courses and not many people take english courses.. so yeah it's small (apparently local students need to take at least one English class during their enrolment... not sure if true).

i met some people (all exchange students) and bought the textbook for $40.. i think UNSW would've sold it for $100... LOL. anyway... after purchasing the book, i've crossed the '$500 spent in Korea' line.... not good..... $500 in 12 days...

with that thought in mind, i've decided to budget myself and strive to only spend $200-300 a month MAX. $200 should cover food and the rest should cover going out =D.

and so with that last $40 spent.. i had to withdraw... =[

another $500 that i hope will last me 2 months... aiya...

next class: Global Ethics (problem class)

this class covers content from a very Humanist perspective; and gathers content from New Atheism to form some of its arguments... the class basically brings about discussions regarding the moral sphere and ethical behaviour that SHOULD exist in every human - and thus, arguing that religion isn't necessary and it instead causes division.

we watched a Sam Harris talk on science & moral action... and i found it very empty and i was rather confused why he received a standing ovation.. his argument and ideas were very broad and most of the time, the only science he brings in is social science and cultural norms, and how some cultures aren't acting ethically at all (punishing children with a stick... Islam and covering women with lots of clothes so as to not provoke men's lust). sure there were some things that i agreed with.. but the biggest shocker was that it seemed as if he put all religions in one basket and just says "yeah, religion is irrelevant because of this" (which could differ between religions...).

some of the students in the class argued that looking beyond the extremities of some religions, others have seen religion to be quite beneficial to society - someone mentioning Christian aid in poverty-stricken areas... and then basically the discussion ends with 'people need to realise that they are capable of changing the world and they don't need a God for them to make a positive change... we can achieve unity if we all worked together as self-governed humans without the shackles of religion'.

hmmm.... i don't think the lecturer likes me very much because of some things i said about the video.. haha..... anyway..

when the class ended, i went back to my dorm and did some study on New Atheism... stumbled across a video interview of John Lennox on this very topic. quite interesting and definitely very useful in grabbing an idea of what to expect if a discussion comes up during class on Christianity vs. New Atheism...

"we don't need God to be good (act in a good way), but we need God to grasp the idea of 'good'"

atheists may often behave better than Christians and this observation seems to form the argument that if normal people can act ethically, why do we need religion?

well... the Bible says we were made in God's image, even as moral beings... and so, every human naturally has an innate concept of morality...

"the existence of a mechanism is not an argument against the existence of an agent who designed it!"

just because a scientific discovery has been made, it doesn't mean there is no God... it just means that there is a smarter agent who designed that mechanism.

i think it will be an interesting class... but definitely a class that will test how much i know about my faith and a class that will require a huge amount of wisdom - wisdom only granted by God..

i pray i will say the right things, to be careful and to hopefully be a positive presence.

my late lunch back at the dorm... mmmm

school pride.

after studying for a bit... i decided to clean my bathroom.... with my alcohol floor wipe thingo.... look how dirty the floor is... and yes that thing in the bag is a hair ball... not mine.. it's been there since before i entered.... it was so... weird.. =X