Monday, October 8, 2007

Gender Bender

Frodo is a Girl Dog!!!

let this be a warning to all those of you who may one day adopt a puppy: take care to ascertain the sex of your puppy before naming it. otherwise, be prepared to say things like, "good boy! i mean, girl. i mean, dog."

do you know why Frodo is girl dog? it's because, in the doggy cells of her body, there are doggy nuclei which contain doggy chromosomes. and these chromosomes are in pairs. one pair of chromosomes are the doggy sex chromosomes. if this pair of chromosomes are XY, the doggy embryo will develop into a boy dog. but Frodo (i'm assuming that there are no genetic sex disorders involved here) has XX chromosomes, and therefore she is a girl dog. as they say, it's all in the DNA.

DNA stands for d'Nous Academy (unless you're talking about doggy chromosomes, in which case it's DeoxyriboNucleic Acid). running from the 6-16 dec, it's quite a unique camp. this camp aims to build up a new generation of Christian thinkers. so, people don't just sign up like they do for other camps. they have to be recommended by their Church leader or pastor to come. and get this: they are supposed to complete their reading assignments before they attend the camp! this year's camp, they are supposed to read 2 books: a biography of John Sung, and Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.

another thing about this camp is that it's not just a one-time thing. the syllabus is arranged such that it's run in 3-year cycles. students have to come for 3 consecutive years to graduate. which means, for example, if i miss the 2nd year and come for my 3rd year, i have to wait a year for my 2nd year's syllabus to come 'round again.

please pray for the campers that they will be able to absorb and understand the things that will be taught at dNa. the schedule is quite heavy with teaching sessions (intro to OT, intro to NT, etc...quite like seminary!). there is also a community work aspect of dNa where the campers willl go out to visit various homes and orphanages. this is to try to ensure that the learning is not just head knowledge, but also life application. and pray for us facilitators, from SU and FES (we work together on this camp) for God's strength, wisdom and guidance as we prepare for all the various components of the camp that we are responsible for.

oh yes, the name. wikipedia says, "Nous (Greek: νοῦς or νόος, IPA: /nuːs/) is a philosophical term for mind or intellect." so there you have it: that's why it's called d'Nous Academy. just like our puppy is called Frodo.

and we're already used to calling her Frodo, (plus, she's probably used to being called Frodo too), so we decided not to re-name her. we found out that she was a girl when she was frolicking with the neighbours' puppy. they're the ones who informed us about her gender. we thought that we had recognised a Male Sex Organ on her, but apparently we were mistaken about that.

so, remember: always check your pet's gender before naming him. her. it. whatever. =)

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ohmigosh you guys can't even determine what a Male Sex Organ looks like?!?!?!?!?! *faints*

I worry about the two of you. I really do. :P

siehjin said...

hey! of course i know what a Male Sex Organ looks like. after all, i have one! it's the doggy Male Sex Organ that's the problem. heheh. =P

Anonymous said...

it's a bit hard to tell when they're a little pup...cause the female will have...well some portrusion and also buluish thing..haha i dont think i should venture futher

anytway..who says frodo is a male name :p goes well with femals also wert..

Anonymous said...

jin, got link to this d'nous thingy? sounds very interesting! :-) i still maintin that the name is highly weird...the 'd' part is for what? pseudo-french? :-P sorry ah, linguistic curmudgeon here. :-P charis.

siehjin said...

charis: sorry la, no link. we don't have the resources to do it on a very big scale, so we just send letters to churches so that they can recommend and send suitable youth (if they have any).

what would u like to know? i can try my best to answer any questions u have here... if u search for it on google, most of the links you'll get are blogs of youth who've attended it.

yeah, the 'd' is kinda pseudo-french... but i don't think it means 'from' (that's what it means in french right?). i think it's just a french-stylized 'the'.

Anonymous said...

jin,

mostly i'm just impressed by what sufes and others are doing in this area, from what i read in your blog and also what i hear from others.

it's hard enough here in the post-grad cf to get people to think seriously about their faith - i'm in awe that you are are able to have such programmes for school children. i'm curious as to what the syllabus is like and what the main goals of the academy are? (it's an idle question which you don't have to answer right away.)

of course in many ways this is the right age to start. pastor hwa chien's confirmation/membership class was instrumental for me in starting to read and think hard and systematically about the faith (or really any topic) - i actually explicitly thanked him in my viva.

it seems that many other people, e.g. kairos and the necf research council are involved in such efforts as well...is it your impression as well that something is brewing in the church in malaysia?

charis.

Anonymous said...

p.s. 'de' is a french preposition that can be translated as 'of', 'to', 'from'...though in learning any foreign language prepositions are usually the most difficult thing to get a hold of...and my french is not that good.

for the real deal see http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=5723&dict=F&lang=F

de is often contracted when it meets a word starting with a vowel, e.g. de un -> d'un, but de le -> du and de les -> des.

anyway. it doesn't matter. d'nous works. :-)

Anonymous said...
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siehjin said...

charis: erm well, i don't really know much about the teaching syllabus... except that it's run in 3-year cycles like i said... the last years' one there were sessions on 'intro to the OT' and 'intro to the NT', book studies on 'the fight' by john white and 'can you drink the cup?' by henri nouwen, a session on critical thinking, a session on malaysian politics, a few sessions on Understanding Islam plus a visit to a mosque, community work, and the rest eludes my memory.

this year there are sessions on understanding buddhism and chinese religions... maybe a visit to a chinese temple... a session on understanding worldviews... well basically, lots and lots of stuff. =P

the main goal of the academy is to build up young christian thinkers and theologians... we hope to shape a new generation of christian leaders/thinkers. =)

something brewing in the m'sian church, i'm not sure about that... someone did mention to me that there were a few churches that had a reputation for being deep thinkers and were beginning to attract young adults more than the 'mega-churches', but i don't know if
a) that really was happening and
b) if it was just a short-lived trend or what.

Anonymous said...

Jin...that's amazing. :-) Good for SU!