The greatest day of history

A few "disastrous" events has happened in my life for the past week. Events that made me go "God, you kidding me?"

It seems that it's my gut response to put the blame on someone when life sucks.

But God is smart, very smart. The philosophy that he put me through has given me only one ability over a few others. I was given the ability to think. To think past my emotional barriers when thinking with your emotions becomes tempting. It's hard, but I thank God for it.

I have no looks to surpass others.

I have no real skill that is better than the average layman.

I sometimes even question my self-worth.

So what does God want to do with this lousy piece of clay when there are so many better pieces of clay to use?

This, I think is one problem with the view of Calvinism. If man had no free will, then God picks and chooses who does what. No one has the ability to try his best for God.

But before I go on, let me recap on what horrendous events happened this week:

Conflict and dejection from the body of Christ?

I had a quarrel with Huey Lin and a small one after that with Aaron. I should be used to it, but I'm just tired of being reconciled with people and just feel awkward with them again. I've been tolerating them for so long, but I'm about to go booms. Let's face it. I have a really opinionated personality. I've been into conflicts and clashes with almost all of the youth. Some my fault, some their fault. It's just hard mixing with EVERYONE knowing that you'll clash with them either way. I'd love to just hang around with the people that I CAN click with, and ignore the rest. But that would be mean. TBH, I also feel discriminated as a thinker by the youth leadership. I don't know if it's the case, but with what Ivan has been telling me. I do feel that I'm being looked as a person of pure reason and no faith. But Ivan only knew half of the story of my faith. He only knew of my doubts and questions. He doesn't know how I overcame doubts by diving into the richest source of knowledge in the world- Internet philosophy(it was more of being "pushed" into it). To sum it all up, I believe in the God of Christianity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. I believe in the doctrine of the resurrection and all. But why do I feel a little offended because I hold to different interpretations of certain scripture, and because I believe in these because of reason? Has God endowed me with reason only to forgo the use of it? Though these are just my assumptions.

I'm still not over youu?

Actually I am. Rachel was my best friend. She was the only person outside my family circle who has ever heard me cry (excluding childhood events lah of course). She was there when my faith was at breaking point, when my life was a messy disaster. She cared when no one else bothered.

But a few series of events happened last year. And now, we're just like strangers. Recently I got the chance to talk to her again. To be honest, Rachel is a very different person to me now. After the whole conflict she tells me that it's up to me if we still wants to be friends "lor". She says that well, if I still want to be close to her, then I'll have to go to her instead of her trying anything at all. I do believe that she has her faults in this conflict, and I do believe that I am not the only one who thinks so. But still, the very fact that the one person whom I held so dear to me has became someone who just wouldn't give a crap about our friendship anymore was disheartening and discouraging.

I failed my driving test!!

That's right. I failed.

I failed parking because I was oh so blur and careless.

I failed the road test with a GSM because I used my leg brakes instead of my hand brakes and was careless there as well.

I won't blame the car or the JPJ examiner. It was my fault. I should've gotten more sleep knowing how much of sleep I need to get through the day like this. I shouldn't have ate seafood sushi knowing that I have a big day tomorrow.

I was nervous.

I sucked.

Mid-terms?

My mid-term results were horrible. Nuff said.

So with all the failures and heartbreaks going around, where's my hiding place? What is God telling me? Does God hate me?

You see, through my failures, God has showed me things that I would not have seen when I am heartily happy with what I have been doing.

Through my weaknesses, he has showed me where I am weak at, and why I needed to be humbled to see it. My will is not as strong as I thought it was. Therefore I have to resist all temptations, even temptations of pride early instead of head on because I know how I'll get owned in a head to head battle with Pride.

Through my failures, God has showed me the consequences of not obeying him multiple times and thinking that what I do will not have any adverse effects- Like staying up late before my driving test to Troll CJ in LoL. That extra one hour of sleep could have gave me the alertness to pass my test and save my parents RM360. He has taught me also not to underestimate my studies and not be like my friends, friends who are born with the natural ability to do math and memorize so well last minute. I can't. I have limits.

And through everything, God has shown me mercy. I got to get extra close to people like Alicea and Phei Fern through the turmoil...

And thank God for that.

Getting closer to Phei Fern helped me see past what I already know of her and made me realize how much she has been doing for me and how much she actually sacrificed for her friends.

And Alicea? She was the first person I informed about my problem with the Church that arose recently and also talked to her about what I've been through with EHEM for the past 3 years.

Despite doing really well for her driving test, she kept on encouraging me to not give up despite knowing that I failed the easiest part of the test. She didn't diss me or anything, she just kept the support up. If I wasn't sleepy, that encouragement could've went a looooong way. And despite knowing how I only got 4/20 because of a GSM for my road test while she got 20/20, she didn't go "omg how you fail?! it was so easy!" She still gave her support like a mother would give to her child. (Even my family dissed me for failing btw)

And also, I got closer to Yuen Wei. Sure, he might be a tad annoying when he talks politics all the time and when he won't stop talking and joking around about serious matters. But well, what can I say, he does know when to help and when to cheer someone up. I guess the only thing he should learn now is to know when to stop joking -.-

What deer-deeer friends I have stumbled upon!

And so, life is not a snapshot. I might be going through crap right now, but I guess, I can expect brighter days up ahead as long as I turn my eyes upon the greatest conceivable being- God.

Running away again

And he's running away...

I've been reconciled with the best friend. At a price. Our best-friendship. We're now just acquaintances, but that's better than being enemies.

Haiyoh. If you don't know the full story of anything, don't lah jump to conclusions.

The post was edited because of fear that a few narrow-minded individuals would jump straight to their own conclusions based on their pre-held prejudices.

Jeesh what happened to you? When did you become so arrogant?

Theology?

Beautiful leaves planted at Yuen Wei's mansion...

Theology. C.S.Lewis once described it as a map in his famous book, Mere Christianity(If I've recalled correctly). You might believe in God without any theology, but that is like sailing in water without a map. Now, maps aren't always 100% perfect just as much as our theology might not be, but at least it helps lead you to your desired destination.

Theology isn't as simple as it seems. Many many Christians have different theories and beliefs about certain aspects of Christianity, but it's definitely worth noting that they're all labelled as Christians because they at least do share a few core theologies in common. (Mere Christianity does a ngawwfully good job at summarizing what all Christians believe.)

It gets harder, let me tell you, when Theology meets philosophy. Theories of Divine providence, theories of atonement, theodicies... It's not just arguing using scriptural support anymore. Thinking about God is not easy. We can try to fathom the Great Mystery, but man, it's no easy feat doing so.

But in light of all this, I thank God for allowing us to be able to go to him as we are, without immense knowledge of sorts. It's just that for the some of us here who were called to well...think... I guess things aren't that simple haha.

Of VBS and testimonials...

Meet Hannah. She's so cuuuuuuute!

Anyway, CbC's annual VBS happened on the 3rd and 4th of June and I was a part of it (as a photog, no surprise eh?)

To tell you the truth, I did feel a tad down due to certain issues that I was already facing, and to add salt to my wound, an argument broke out between me and one of my best friends during VBS itself. It's funneh. She was one of those people that I'd go to if I really needed to talk to someone about something, of course I wasn't as comfortable with talking heart with her as much as I was with my umm...old... best friend (I know having multiple best friends might be an oxymoron, but calling a few of them "close friends" doesn't seem to do justice to how close they really are to me). So with all of the closest people to me gone, I really had to keep everything in me in, which wasn't easy.

No one noticed anything except this little indian kid who came up to me and said "eyh brother, don't sad la, I know you sad." It made my day and I guess I started loving kids a whole lot more after that.

...It didn't change the fact that I still had no one to just talk to about the snowballing problems that had been troubling me for a few months now.... I just needed to let something out, but to whom?

And I guess God worked right there when that happened. To be completely honest with you, I always had this impression on Aly that she was those sort of girls who are umm... well lets just say that I always portrayed her as a woman CEO(in a bad way la). No it wasn't necessarily a bad impression, just that I didn't think of her as the sort that would care much or anything else. So why am I suddenly talking about her? Well because I got pwned. I was talking to her casually and then from there the discussion moved on to one of my issues. Which was when I realized that I had been so wrong about her... THANKS ALY!

So with a few things off my back finally, I guess it's safe to blog about what some of my issues were about.

I often go to GT on Sundays, visit their cell sometimes, and I even went for DUMC once alr.

Yes, to be honest, I was actually thinking of "switching" churches. I've been contemplating on that due to several reasons. Now the reason why I'm still staying was because I was trying to examine myself more to see whether I'm making my decisions based on selfish and arrogant reasons or genuine reasons.

After the talk yesterday, I guess, I was pretty much convinced that I won't solve anything by jumping.

To sum it all up....

HANNAH SO CUUUUTE!!

Photography update #1

It's been awhile since I posted here so I guess I'll start with talking about my new lens; The Canon 15-85 IS USM.

The sharpness of the lens is significantly sharper than my old lens and the IS lets me do really nice low light sometimes. I do miss my constant f2.8 aperture, but I think the exchange for a good price+better focusing+2 years warranty+huge range was worth it. Yes, I cannot thank Goldfries enough for recommending this lens to me as the range helped out so much during my coverage of VBS.

I didn't really do a really good job for VBS though, was still getting used to the lens and RAW processing. I was also struggling due to memory shortage since I was shooting in RAW.

Yes, the above picture was taken at the butterfly park in the National Science Center that we went to for our VBS outing.

Yes, it was taken at f8 with the Canon 15-85 lens. and it was post processed.

Poison.

In the world of DSLR photography, when a photog refers to "poisoning", it is when a certain photographer has a certain type of gear that produces images that will "poison" the viewers to buy that equipment.

I've been poisoned for the past 3 months (and is also probably the cause of why I studied a little less :P)

The lens above is the Canon 15-85 IS USM f3.5-5.6 EF-S lens.

Right, so it's not a constant f2.8 lens which I am acustomed to.

But given the price of the 17-55 Canon f2.8 and the need to actually hunt for a decent copy of the Sigma 17-50 f2.8, I've decided to go for the 15-85 because of it's good optical performance, wide range and of course, the USM motor.

I hope to sell my current lens and then get this lens by VBS. My Sigma has front-back focusing issues (I'm going to service it first) and of course, is heavy and not as sharp as the Canon.

The canon weighs around 575g, approx 200g lighter than my current lens. It also features Image Stablization (which comes in handy with movie and low-light).

Sure the Sigma 17-50 OS HSM features an optical stabilizer, f2.8 constant aperture and HSM motor. But my biggest concern is that to purchase a Sigma 17-50 for the price of the Canon, I'll have to order it from online stores (which is fine in terms of trust). The problem is for lens hunting, especially since Sigma has QC issues whereby if you get a bad copy, you're screwed. Getting a good copy of the Sigma 17-50 will definitely give me imba image quality (Superb rating on the mtf charts) however, I don't think I'd take the risk.

Apart from that, I plan to get the Capa quick strap since I'll be doing more walkarounds in school and perhaps at other events. The extra comfort would be great. It'll cost me RM55.

Also, a great lens will have to come with a great filter (approx RM250) and a lens hood (Canon doesn't give away free lens hoods unless it's an L-series lens).

I'll also definitely need new diffusers for my speedlite.

Looks like I'll have to wait until next time to get my battery grip.

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1536268/+200?hl=capa

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1578033

Such an expensive hobby... But the benefits are great :D

The power of RAW image processing.

As most DSLR users would know, we have many options of picture formats to process our pictures in. The preset is usually under a large .jpeg setting. But what I realized after hanging around the pros in the Lowyat forums is that most of the pros who do PP(post-processing) shoot in RAW.

I understood a long time ago that shooting in RAW would allow me better PP capabilities, but only to a certain extent. I didn't do it at first because I needed to convert it afterwards and the file size was huge! With a empty 8GB card, I can shoot at least 900 .jpeg pictures, while it was only 250 if I shot in RAW.

But I eventually decided to try it out, and the results were...wow.

By shooting in RAW, your pictures keep most of the settings from your camera when the picture was shot, which I think, allows for better manipulation of the image. I couldn't use my normal editing software to process the picture though, so I had to use Canon's Digital Photo Professional that came along with my 60D. I was astounded by the results.

The colors turned out so much better after minor tweaking, and it was much easier to adjust the WB and exposure there.

Take these pictures of Alicea and Sarah for example:

First a few comments. On Aly's pic, there's an obvious amount of 'softness' in the picture. This is because of my misaligned lens that causes my focusing to be slightly off at my maximum focal length (70mm x 1.6). DPP cannot save the picture. What it did however, is improve the overall color settings of the picture without compromising much of your image quality. On Sarah's picture, I did a previous edit with a jpeg copy of it with my old editor and got slightly okay results, but after I did the RAW version of the picture, things became much more toned. In my previous software, increasing the contrast by a little would sacrifice alot of the images overall quality by adding grain into the picture and causing the colors to be imbalanced. RAW images however, are able to be tweaked without compromising that much.

But I do admit, using a software like DPP to edit is really hard and tiring. Only small changes are needed to be made to get a brilliant picture, and for that, you require a patient and gentle hand along with a sharp eye for colors, something which I haven't yet posses.

Though bare in mind, PP-ing can only get you thus far, the way in which the picture was taken is very important too.

In Sarah's picture, the exposure was imbalanced on one side of her face compared to the other. This was because the sun was pointing at one side of her face and creating a darker side on the other side of her face. I should have did a fill flash to balance the light, but meh, I was just lazy.

Alicea's picture on the other hand, had quite a fair amount of lighting on both sides of her face, so balance wasn't exactly the problem. The problem was of course, with the softness of the image. I could've corrected the WB a little better as the picture looks rather warm (no pun intended).

In both pictures, my composition could have also been better.

Nevertheless, shooting in RAW has really shown me how much potential I have in my camera.