John 4:7-26

The Samaritan Woman

For me, one of the most impressive statement Jesus made resides in this passage, "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst." Pondering this statement, I realize that as simplistic as it is, it really pushes your perspective about Jesus into a binary, dichotomous, choice. You really cannot afford to treat lightly this statement. Unless you think he was kidding. Which it seems, given the context, that he really was not. So then either he is mad, or what he is saying is really true.

Is it really that great to never be thirsty? Is not part of the human life learning and enjoying change, fluctuations, times of fullness, times of need? To everything is there not a season? So what really does he mean never be thirsty? Surely, he know this when he said this. Do I really want to not be thirsty? Do I really want all my needs to be quenched? What would life be like if everything was as it should be?

These are hard question to which I do not have the answer for myself...yet. More meditation, prayer, and consideration is needed.

John 4:1-6

When Jesus knew that the Pharisees were aware of His increasing popularity, He withdrew to a less busy district, back to His home area up north in Galilee. Perhaps He knew that it was not time yet, or perhaps He has other reasons not to attract attention, or pull away from John's ministry. Whatever the case, the next statement seems somewhat of a shock for some.

"But He needed to go through Samaria".

This has been interpreted as Jesus purposefully desiring to go to Samaria and minister there to the discriminated people. But reading the text, this interpretation may not be a necessity, although certainly possible. Alternatively, Jesus could have "needed" to go through Samaria because of what was happening in Jerusalem. If He were becoming more popular, and He desired to limit this for the moment, then perhaps a good idea would be to take the road less traveled. What can we learn? Perhaps nothing more than that whatever road we walk on, it may lead to something really important...and it may not involve doing anything special but just to walk it with the knowledge of that possibility. In other words, cherish each path.

Samaria. A place filled with people that the Jews regarded as half-breeds. Israelite offspring of ancestors who inter-married. A complex history of external influence and collaboration with Gentiles. In society, there are many example of this. Interesting how even now, although we seek to eradicate such discrimination, it still exists in our heart of hearts, if we are honest with ourselves. Why? Because we are innately not used to accepting people who are different from us. Most of us anyway. And especially so when their beliefs are different. Samaritans, although they believed in God, we are not told the completeness of their concept and faith here. All we know is that they have a different religious center that was not Jerusalem. Therefore they did not treat the Temple as the center, unlike under the Mosaic and Solomonic customs. Did they worship a different God? They acknowledge Jacob/Israel as their fore-father. Did they have different practices in worship and lifestyle? Most probably.

All these question are resolved through one solitary act. Jesus did not care about all that. He wanted to be among them. And He wanted them to be welcomed in. They were white unto harvest.

"Jesus ... sat thus by the well".

Did he know the woman would come? Why didn't He get the water Himself? Or help others?

I Think That I Shall Never See, A Brain as Pretty as a Tree

What if, sunlight to a tree, is as information to the brain? A tree needs sunlight to survive, to produce food. In response to this basic need, the tree spends a lot of its effort to maximize its ability to obtain sunlight. It does this by forming more leaves, and by spreading those leaves out at widely as possible to cover as much area as possible. Pushing this idea even further, to the extent that the tree covers a portion of area, that is the amount of sunlight it can absorb. Sunlight falling on other areas will be lost to the tree (albeit there might be secondary or tertiary transfer of energy via light reflection, diffusion, and other means). One important parameter that would determine the success of sunlight absorption for a tree would then be leaf surface area. Specifically, greater surface area would increase sunlight absorption rate.

Now, we project this idea onto the brain, of course being well aware that the brain is much different from a tree, although, probably not very very different. The brain is in the business of representing information. Its very function is the processing and retaining of all the information fed into it from the moment of its development. It would be interesting to pursue when this onsets, but that is a digression for later. Nevertheless, the brain develops in tandem with its experience with information. Some of that information is hardwired, or genetic. Some of that information is nurtured, or environmentally experienced. The role of each neuron then, in cooperation with all the other neurons in the brain, is to keep EVERY SINGLE EXPERIENCE, whether internal or external.

Why does the brain want to do that? Well, that's the same as answering why does a tree want so much sunlight for? We can only provide partial understanding here, because this borders on the domain of philosophical and religious pursuits. Biologically, a tree seeks sunlight as part of its nutritional source for the purpose of ultimately creating more trees. That is about as far as we can describe based on observation. This is, in a way, a tautology. Because what we impose as the purpose of the tree, is in fact, what we see the tree already doing. Therefore, such an answer may not satisfy some, but it is a partial answer at the least. Turning back to the brain, again, only a partial answer is given. The brain seeks to contain as much information as possible, because that's what is already observed that it is doing, and perhaps, this information helps the organism to survive, and to produce more organisms of this kind.

More importantly here, we shall consider how does the brain perform this function of representing as much information as possible. The tree does it by increasing surface area exposed to the sunlight. The brain's equivalent would be to increase the number of neurons it has, the connections between these neurons, the variability in the way these neurons can activate. Some smart person might be able to come up with an equation that tells us how much information a given brain with a given number of neurons and connections, and variability in activity, can hold. This could somehow be mathematically related to the concept of surface area...

However, there is a problem in terms of space. While the brain is fantastic and has way superior computational capacity, it is still finite. That is, there may come a time when a given person's brain can no longer process anymore new information. Maybe it has come already, just that we don't know it or that its not as big of a problem as we might think, given we have external aids for our memory now, through things such as computers, books, paper, language, and symbols. This finite capacity is indeed a problem, but our brains have a rather interesting way of solving it, at least to a great extent. Lets turn back to the tree for a moment, because its a greener thought. Lets say that to get more sunlight, the tree has two ways of doing it given a fixed amount of material. It can send more branches out with many leaves, or it can make fewer but bigger leaves. If it sends out more branches, it would have to content with using some of that material to make tree-parts that don't absorb sunlight (branches). If it makes bigger leaves, it may have to content with those leaves blocking each other out, since they will be close together as there are no branches to help spread them out. In the same way, the brain might have two ways of holding information within a limited amount of material. It can create more and more connections with more neurons, or it can use the existing neurons and connections in different ways. Here is where the tree analogy might break down. Unlike information, sunlight to a tree is a one-dimensional problem in the sense that it only needs to worry about expose area. Information, however, is obviously multi-dimensional, with auditory, visual, tactile, odor, taste modalities in the sensory domains, and countless of types of dimensions when you think about concepts and their associations, temporal information etc. Another dissimilarity between a tree and the brain is that most trees only make one kind of leaf, or grow with a certain fixed physical structure. The brain is able to flexibly use neuronal connections to group neurons in very dynamic ways. So, while a tree either has small or big leaves, the brain may use both small groups of neurons encoding some type of information, as well as bigger groups encoding other types of information.

The maximum surface area of the brain (meaning the physical ability of the brain to differentiate between its billions of states of activity using its neuronal connections), limits the total amount of different information the that brain can keep. This will be developed in later blogs. Here are some teasers. One brilliant way of reducing the space needed would be to encode information in terms of similarities and differences. And also, unlike a tree, the brain in the organism makes decisions about what the organism should do, affecting the environment and modifying subsequent experiences, as opposed to being completely at the mercy of the experiences.

Next time...."Similarities and Differences", and "The Brain, The Tree, Intentions, and Decisions".

Why The World Should Use BrainVoyager

Gardening Site

Charlene and I have just added a garden to our corridor. As with all growing things...we'll see how it turns out! Stuff of earth. Check out the blog of the garden's progress at http://jcofgardening.blogspot.com/

Charlene Sees/Hears Dinosaurs...NOOOOOO!

Mother says: Would you like to go on the choo choo train?
Child replies: Noooooo!

We went to the Chicago Botanic Garden with Nina, Rich, and Atsunobu. Flower after flower, scene after scene, the colors, touch, smell all filled our senses. Simply put, it was a very happy time. It is quite amazing how the simple delicate things can reach deep down.

Now, the serious business though. While I was taking a scenic shot. Someone amidst our group saw or heard something quite phenomenal. I wonder if we should report this to the Paleontological society? Hmm...here...this is what I mean:


You can check out photos of our Chicago Botanic Garden trip, with all the flowers in their glory by going to my Shutterfly Collection, or by going to The Daily Josh.

Those Darn Geese!

Charlene and I took a break at the Kickapoo State Park. The other Singapore students were there too. They took the wet route...canoeing! But we decided to have a quieter time with picnic and my Fables comic. Ha ha ha. By the way, if you don't know about Fables, shame on you. I'll tell you about it next time. Back to Kickapoo...

The day was great. Sunshine and blobs of clouds. When the sun er...shinded down on us, we got warm. But when the clouds went by, it was chilly. Acherly hor, the weather these days are siao lah. Its supposed to be warmer, but for some reason, they never turn off the outdoor air-conditioner. But ok lah. So the rest of them went canoeing, and according to the reports from Qinwei, they got really really wet and cold...in fact, they almost dieded. We also took her camera hostage, for reasons I shall not elaborate.

Anyway, we were hanging around the lake and saw a bunch of geese chillin out there. But oddly, they had a strange behavior...perhaps they were trying to show us some attitude? Here...take a look and see for yourself:

Earthquake!!!

It happened at 4.30am. Fast asleep. Then the rattling started. The heating pipes. At first, I thought it was those cars with loud boom boxes. But it seemed an unnaturally loud rattling this time, much louder than a normal boom box could cause. Then, it started. The bed began to shake, the ground vibrated, and the rumbling. The slow but purposeful moan of the earth, turning on its side.

Thoughts raced through after. Was it a meteor that hit nearby? Was it a bomb? Are we at war? Was it tanks driving through the city? Was it some monster that has appeared? Was it aliens landing? I could not totally sell myself to the idea that I had just been shaken by an earthquake. The very foundation under my feet were loosed.

The next morning, the morning show reported: 5.2 earthquake originating about 300 miles southeast of Champaign at 4.30am. Felt even in Chicago.

I am still alive. No one was harmed.

The White Chapter

The White Chapter

Water in sight
Robbed of life
Sealed with unrelenting grip
Incapacitated by apathy
Unable to do anything
Unable to be

The color of dry
In stark sarcasm to its nature
Smirking at our hope for the future
Hope for a better world
How do we know?
For all that is seen
Is the wind
Blowing away the white powder
That was unable
Unable to cling to family

Extreme Winter Sports Action Footage (EWSAF)

It snowed yesterday, somewhere between 4 - 8 inches. Which, to the well-informed, means one thing and one thing only...SLEDDING!! So after lunch, while we decided to take a look at what winter wonders there were in the Japan House and Arboriteum area, we see Nina and Michael, with Nina's childhood sled, just itching to slide down the hill on Orchard Downs. The hill was crowded. Families with children hitting the slopes. The cold winter wind did not prevent them all from having fun in the white powder. And it shouldn't have, because for all the blistering frost, it is honest-to-gosh fun in the purest. Letting yourself go with the snow.

But of course, you have to have the right equipment. Michael decided to do an experiment. Using our extraordinary knowledge in physics, we know that objects at rest, tend to stay at rest, unless acted upon by another force. Michael decided to test this using his car windshield sunshade as a sled. Now, theoretically, this should work. The snow should provide enough lubrication to offset the friction. And Michael's weight should be enough for gravity to pull him down...theoretically. The movie clip below shows the outcome of this experiment. Empirical trial number one.

Go Michael Go!!

Undaunted by human limitations, we next decide to perform a stunt which has never before been attempted in human history. We decided to record sports action footage of extreme sledding. What you are about to see is the shot as seen from the video camera mounted in front of a model 3000 sledding machine, with all the latest upgrades and safety features. Hold your breath, because your eyes will now be witness to one of the most amazing sports action perspectives ever.

Extreme Sledding!!

This concludes our winter episode of sports olympics. Tune in next time when we go to Extreme Summer Sports Action Footage or ESSAF!

Crepes at Carmon's

Carmon's is a French Creperie located in downtown Champaign. This would be my fourth time there. The decor is homely, bright with a tint of sophistication, yet not too modern, nor is too old fashioned. In other words, it is just nice. Which, to the senses, can sometimes be more delightful than either extremes. For one wishes to be at the crossroads between the past and the future, totally dwelling in the present. I've tried the beef stroganoff (good with reds), pork chutney, onion soup, curry chicken chutney, ratatouille, banana foster, peach streusel, and the suzette (which the movie clip below shows part of the making process involving flaming the grand marnier, and the photo top left is the finish product). All I can say is, this is one place, which every dish on the menu is worth trying once. And it is fortunate that the menu is short enough for that to be a realistic endeavor. Every dime is well spent to fill your senses with delectables.

Flaming the Suzette

Waffles and Bacon

This is a fantastic western style breakfast. Charlene made this. Good blend of sweet and salty. Crispy and juicy. Great to wake up to.

Ingredients
Ready waffles (either pre-made, or you can make from your own mix, if available)
Sweet potatoes (cut for fries)
Bacon
Pears
Maple syrup
Salt
Pepper

Method
Prepare the waffles using a toaster and set aside.

Fry the bacon strips in a pan till crispy. Once done, remove the bacon and place between napkins to soak excess oil, but save the oil in the pan.

Cut the sweet potatoes for fries, and fry them in a pan with bacon oil till crispy. This will take a few minutes.

Peel and cube pears. Place everything on dish. Add salt and pepper to fries, and syrup to waffles. Ready to serve.

Tilapia with Capers

This is a very unique filet dish. The fish is cooked so that the meat is flaky but moist. The capers add a sweet, sour and juicy flavor. The rice adds a plain contrast to the rich sauce.

Ingredients
A filet of white fish meat (Tilapia, Cod, Bass)
White rice
Capers
Vinegar
White wine
Butter
Spring onions
Salt
Pepper

Method
First, cook some white rice in a rice cooker, then go ahead and start preparing the fish.

Bring some water to boil in a pot. Once the water is boiling, place the fish filet in. This will cool the water for a while. Let the fish cook until the water is back to boiling again (this will take a few minutes). Once the water is boiling, take the filet out, and place on a dish. Now prepare the sauce.

Melt some butter in a pan. Cook the melted butter until it changes color. Then pour the hot butter onto the filet. Next, heat some vinegar and wine in the pan, reducing it. Once the mixture is boiling, pour it also onto the filet. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Add the capers and some slivers of spring onions. Place some white rice on the side, sprinkle some dried seaweed if desired.

Ready to serve.

Thanksgiving 2007: E-Poem

It was time.

Time to do anything
Anything but work.
This Thanksgiving break
We headed to Starved Rock.

We forded the streams
We conquered our fear
We reach to the top.

We even ourselves "caught" a deer.

A few days later,
we were out again,
this time it was noisy
But all the same
We were happy


We were out late
Late into the night,
And that's when it all started
We began to see some lights.


After which, we went in
for turkey and a din.
Prepared by Nina
Nina and Mr Lin.

The feast was a great
It was a fantastic
It filled our stomachs
We were almost ballistic

After all is eaten and said
All is said and done
We each one of us
Noticed it was fun

So for each and every year
Once a time
Time and again
We remember to be thankful
To be sober
and sane.

St Louis

St Louis is a pleasant 2 1/2 hr drive south-west of Champaign. We met Sam there as he was on his way up from Nashville after a friend's weekend wedding. We arrived at the St Louis Botanical Garden in time for lunch, and sat at the nice outdoor cafe area for a simple, but delightful meal amidst the beautiful plant life. The weather was awesome, and walking in the Gardens was definitely a much wanted breather. Click here for the [photos].

We also visited the famous arch of course. There is a museum at the base of it. And you can actually go up in it, but we missed the closing time at 5pm.

Downtown St Louis itself was a little quiet. For city like St Louis, it was actually hard to find a place where we could sit down and have a satisfying meal. We walked around the riverside area, saw a few pubs, but nothing eye-catching. We decided to drive around a bit further away from downtown and ended up around Washington University area. But still nothing inviting. We ended up eating at the hotel restaurant, which was actually not bad.

So all in all, a nice day trip, but plan your restaurant locations ahead.

Chicken Rice

Once of the most standard dishes in Singapore, the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice. Easy to make, light to the taste, and adaptable for all situations.

Ingredients
Chicken
Cilantro
Cucumber
Sesame oil
Light soya sauce
Rice
Ginger
Salt

Method
Cook your rice as per normal in a rice cooker, but add your chicken meat whole as well. This saves on cooking time, but it will taste better if you cook the chicken separately, however, if you do this, you would have to use chicken stock to cook your rice. Following our original plan, add the chicken into the rice and cook it together, also add a few slices of ginger, some sesame oil, and salt. Cook the mixture. Slice the cucumbers and cilantro for garnish. Once the rice is done, take out the chicken, slice it up. Serve on plate with garnish, add some light soya sauce and chilli sauce if required.

Dobin Mushi

This is a classic Japanese soup dish that has one of the most unique tastes. There is a slight burnt flavor that comes from the dashi stock cooked in a clay pot, an earthy flavor from the mushrooms, and a sour tinge from the citrus lime that is added. Definitely worth the effort on a cold night. This soup is typically served in a small clay tea pot with a small drinking cup. The size of the pot seals the flavor in, but if you don't have a clay pot, you could use any other pot that can be used to boil soup on low heat for extended times. Also, the typical soup is cooked using Matsutake mushrooms, which are very very expensive. I've used Shiitake mushrooms as substitute here, for the the poor man's version, but of course, nothing beats the original ingredients. Try as best you can to secure the freshest matsutake.

Ingredients
1. Matsutake or shiitake mushrooms (fresh is best, but if dried, soak overnight first)
2. Fish dashi (best made using the fish flakes you see on tofu dishes, that curl and move when served)
3. Soya sauce
4. Sake or rice wine
5. Cilantro
6. Shrimp
7. Chicken
8. Lime

Method
Soak the dashi overnight. Cut the mushrooms, shrimp and chicken into small bite size pieces, you don't need too much of this, just a small portion. Bring the dashi stock to a boil for about 10-15 min. Once the dashi flavor is cooked into the stock, remove the dashi, leaving the stock. Add a spoon of soya sauce, and a spoon of sake. Add the mushrooms, shrimp and chicken into the boiling stock and cook for about 10-15 min. Add lime juice from half a small lime, garnish with cilantro, and serve.

Grilled Steak

Oo La La. Fresh off my $10 grill from Walmart. Steak seasoned in red wine and thyme, asparagus, green peas, potatoes, and oh-so-good dinner rolls from the beefhouse, all done on the grill. Nice cool weather outside 52F, and sitting beside the glowing embers.

How To Make Teh Tarik

Teh Tarik, literally, pulled tea, is actually an Indian method of making milk tea. The milk tea containing condensed milk is poured from one container to another, which cools the tea down, and at the same time, introduces air bubbles. This gives it a lighter texture, and, as with most interactions between liquid consumables (such as wine) and air, brings out more flavor. Although, the average tea drinker will probably never notice the difference, watching the process of making this tea is a treat in itself.

The name Teh Tarik, is in fact a Malaysian word. Tarik means pull in Malay. This meshing of words and cultures is a result of exchange happening in the South East Asian regions because of the multi-cultural backgrounds present.

Presenting, how to make teh tarik...

Park-O Tex-O

As part of the lab shift to Dallas, we went down to check it out in the Lone Star state. I shun bian say hello to Mei. There are several ways to get to Dallas from Champaign. Drive = 12 hrs, Direct 6am flight from CMI airport to DFW airport = 2 hrs, mid-day flights with transit from CMI-ORD-DFW = 4hrs, staying put = priceless. Anyway, we took option number 3 and, as you can see, we start out strong. The flight was pretty good, from ORD to DFW, we got personal TV units, slightly larger plane. But then at touchdown, we had to wait pretty long for luggage, because it was such a big flight. Then we wait for Mr Hebrank to come pick us up after his game of Ultimate.

The car rental place is a 7 min shuttle bus ride from the terminal itself. And once you arrive there, its a humungous air-conned art museum, with car rental outlets just lined up for you to choose. Our Ultimate man came by, we rented an SUV, and drove to our hotel, Embassy Suites at Lovefield, Dallas. We then quickly got ready for dinner with Mei and John. Which was at a nearby steakhouse.



It was nice to catch up again. And it was fun to have the lab people along too.

After which, we checked into our huge room in the Embassy Suites.

The next day, we went to the Brain Health Center, which is just a few minutes away. Very impressive building. Very artsy. Definitely a good place to work. Right now, the lab space is still under construction, but when its done, it will be awesome.










After that we went to where the scanner is at the hospital. Also another artsy building. We got some scans done, and then, for us, we had to head back to good ole Chambana.














So of course, what would flying be if there were no delays? So they introduced a little 1 1/2 hr delay for us at DFW. But otherwise, the flight was ok. Got back...showered. And bed = priceless.

Check out the rest of the pictures by clicking here.

Oh yeah...this has got to be the best introduction ever...