White smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel chimney, Joseph Ratzinger from Germany has became the 265th pope. As a Catholic myself, having a new pope, the leader of the Church suppose to be quite exciting, but I just feel indifference towards the new Pope. According to the news, he leans heavy towards the conservative camp, which on many issues I couldn’t agree with base on my conscience. I don’t worry too much on this front, since it cann’t be worse than the previous Pope. Judging from the photos, Ratzinger lacks the personal charm of John Paul II that holds the Church together. I hope I’ll have better impression on him after meeting him in person at World Youth Day later this August. On a side note, there is an interesting prophecy of the Popes written by Arnold de Wyon in 1595, which is known as the St. Malachy list. The list had predicted 111 Popes before the “end of time”, and Bendict XVI is the 2nd last one. So far with the help of postdiction, the motto descripted in the list are stuntly accurate. Since I never believe in those superstitious talk about the 2nd coming, my intrepretation of this prophecy would be “end of time” actually means the complete disintegration of the Catholic Church. I won’t be surprise if this Pope choose an ulta-conservative path and making the Liberals break away from the Church. I guess I have no regret being part of the Church in its last moment and witness the fall of the largest and most historical religion institute ever existed. My only concern is after the Catholic church gone away, is there any religion force left to resist the Muslim and Prostestant fundamentist?
Category Archives: Daily Scribble
My random thoughts of the day.
last game
Andrew Bell is leaving the company, today is his last day. He is the grand master at work, and he is the person got me interested in playing Chess. He used to played with Jackson alot, Jackson quit playing after his interest faded after a while, but Andrew still play with me quite often. Although I still not able to beat him, I did learn a lot from his moves and strategy. Through him, I can see my weakness in my playing. Today I had my last chess game with him before he left. It’s a close game, and I lost to him in the end-game moves. Playing against Gordon is fun, I don’t think my skill will improve much from his pure responsive moves. In the games I lost to him, either Andrew is the puppet master or I just made plain silly mistakes. Now after Andrew is gone, I think I will cut my chess at work to just once per week.
research progress
– setup CVS shared between cygwin and linux
– ported Eurane module to ns 2.28
– installed tcl-debug
– debugged avoidReordering_ warning
making cards
This afternoon, we had a card making session after the World Youth Day meeting. The whole parish team sit together, formed a assembly line, and cruched out all sorts of cards like Birthday cards, Thankyou cards, Get Well cards, etc. The cards are not very complicate, just nicely stamped patterns with sparkling power or ribbons, but they surely look good. We hope to sell the cards to the church goers on the next two Sunday and raise some funds to help our trip expensives. I always thought card making is a girly thing, and I still think so. Yet I helped out in the session as part of community bonding within the group. However, to my surprise, I found spending an afternoon to make cards is quite relaxing. When I concentrated on the small task in front of me, like folding paper, cutting ribbons, or stamping the patterns, I don’t have to think about all my troubles. I won’t mind do it once in a while for a good cause, but I surely don’t want anyone knows about the femimine side of me that actually enjoy making cards.
deaf begger
I think many people have encountered the deaf beggars in the restaurants. They just walk into a restaurant, putting down a card on your table. Usually the card says that they are deaf and ask for donation. You can either take the card and give him money or wait for him to come back and pick up the cards after a while. This afternoon when I was having lunch at a Korean restaurant, I came across one of them. I kinda hesitate to give money to a total stranger, especially when I can’t tell he is really deaf, so I let him take back the card. After he left, I talked to Pat that we should test whether he is really a deaf. Next time if we see this type of person again, we should give him a big shout at his back, see whether he will be startled. If he is proven be a deaf, I won’t mind giving him a buck or two.