You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2008.
This is a continuation of my previous blog post on relationships. It’s a short, humorous photo story on the theme of relationships and romance. Enjoy!
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Q: What is it that women are looking for?
A: A self-assured, mature, and talented man who also
has a full choir, orchestra, and band backing him up.
Q: Why is it so hard for a single man to attract a single woman?
A: Cause we end up doing things/looking like this.
(Ha ha, sorry Steve! This is what you get for not reading
my blog, though – you’ll never know you were on it!!)
Q: So how am I ever to find a woman who’s right for me?
A: Seems like as good a place as any.
(Too bad this is in the Math department, though.
I’m just saying; odds-wise, Math isn’t the best place to look.
Don’t be offended, Tabitha 
)
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If I had to guess, I think that most single guys have asked themselves the question (or felt the fear of wondering),
“Is my wife going to be beautiful?”
By that, I don’t mean, “is she going to be pretty”, because I think most guys would agree that any woman has prettiness that can be appreciated. No matter how ugly, disfigured, or abnormal by the world’s standards, every woman (or man) can still be looked at with the recognition that they are human, and valuable, and still bear the fingerprints of God, even if they’re marred by the effects of an imperfect world – as we all are, to some degree.
And therein lies the problem. None of us is a perfect looking person. There doesn’t exist a woman in the world who perfectly matches your idealizations and expectations for what an attractive woman should look like, and even if you managed to find someone who you thought matched that description, you’d be in danger of running into two problems:
- Your desires and expectations are subject to change. We’re fickle and often tire of things we’re familiar of. So, that means that someday if you’re dating or married to someone, there’s a good chance you’ll end up thinking that if they looked a little different in this way or that, they’d be more attractive to you.
- People age and change, so even if you miraculously found a person who was everything you ever dreamed she’d be, it’s not going to last. Not that it would anyways, due to #1.
So maybe if single guys are actually asking the question, “Is my wife going to be beautiful?”, what they really mean is,
“Is the woman I end up dating/marrying going to meet my physical expectations and desires?”
I remember Bob Lepine (co-host of FamilyLife Today), I think it was, mentioning once that as a single guy, he used to fear that if he ever dated and chose to settle down with one woman, he would end up coming across someone else who was “better”, but then it would be too late! And I think this is at the heart of why men fear commitment. Once you’ve committed yourself to someone, then by definition, you are excluding yourself from other things. You’re missing out. And I think that’s something that guys almost can’t handle, because there is an underlying drive that seems to pervade almost every area of life, and that is to find a woman who captures your senses and intoxicates you with her beauty. And as much as I believe that idea is valid, many of us expect to find a woman who will basically be our Saviour and solve all our problems and wants in this life. And no woman can meet those expectations, so it’s unfair to place that burden on her (and in the end it’s going to get you burned).
And so I think this is at the root of many problems for single men. If you don’t believe that there exists a singular woman out there with whom can connect with, and experience/build true intimacy and joy with, then you will be succeptible to accepting cheap substitutes instead.
In other words, if you can’t anticipate a relationship with your future wife that’s worth fighting for and worth guarding now (yes, even before you’ve met her), then what incentive do you have to carefully control (as a single person) what your eyes linger on, your mind dwell on, your heart to imagine, or your body to feel?
Well, there are plenty of good reasons, but my point is that one really helpful reason is to know and trust that there’s a purpose to all this “waiting” and exercise of purity. However cliché it sounds, true love waits – not because of rules or regulations, but because true love trusts that one day you’ll be able to tell her yourself, “you were worth waiting for”.
(to be continued…)
“I adjure you…
that you not stir up or awaken love
until it pleases.”
- (Song of Songs 8:4a, b)
Hebrew c. 950 B.C.
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So our friends on project came home recently. Johnson and I got the chance to say “Hi” to Gilberto, Steve Chan, and Amy Li when they came back from East Asia project. What happened was they spent about a week in debrief in Abbotsford, and then a bunch of them headed off to YVR to head home to their respective parts of the country. So we managed to ambush (pretty much literally) Gilberto at the airport (as shown in the video).
Three peas in a pod
(aka Come to Halifax [Project]!)
Ahh, good times. But that’s not all! I also got to surprise Jill when she got back from North Africa project. Here’s how it all unfolded: I randomly said “Hi” to her sister, Grace, on Google Talk. That’s when she mentioned to me that she was off to pick up Jill from the airport! So I asked her what time the flight was, and living only a 5 minute drive away from the airport (15 minutes by bus), I hopped on the #100 about 45 minutes after talking to Grace, and I was off to the airport! I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.
On Translink bus #100 – Airport Station!
What a view… BC rocks
That’s where I’m headed!..
Welcome back, Liam!
(who’s Liam? just some random guy they were waiting for)
Jill in the headlights
(so blurry…)
A sisterly moment
(intentionally blurred to give the effect of privacy… not!)
She’s home!
(I should have added lots of effects to make this look “cool”)
Off into the sunset…
(Paparazzi habits die hard)
Proof that I was there
(It’s not easy shooting with a 50 mm manual focus lens!)
Anyways, thus concludes the photo essay. I have two albums, one with Gilberto and friends, and the other of Jill coming home (you just saw most of them, though). So click on either category of photos, and then browse the album on my Picasa!
To sum up the moral of this post:
It is good for brothers & sisters in Christ to be back home, again.
“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
Romans 15:5-7 (ESV)
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Arstechnica reports that Mozilla (makers of Firefox) has met and exceeded their goal for more than 5 million downloads in the first 24 hours of launching the latest version of their Internet browser, Firefox 3.0. So they’re probably going to qualify for that Guinness World Record they were going for. In fact, Mozilla reported 8 million downloads at the 24 hour mark. WHOO HOO!
(Note: as of 6:44PM PDT, Firefox 3.0 has been downloaded 9,686,980 times)
I love Firefox, and I really like Firefox 3.0 (even though it’s doing one little thing weirdly on my computer, but my life is still better with it than without it). Firefox (v 2.0 and below) apparently has an 18% marketshare (higher in Europe). This is quite a feat, since Internet Explorer comes bundled hard-wired into the Windows operating systems, so it’s the default Internet browser for Windows PC’s. In other words, if you’re a Firefox user, that means that you chose to use Firefox and took the iniative to download & install it.
Anyhoo, some stats specific to my blog…
- Close to 46% of visitors/visits to my blog use Firefox. Approx. 43% use IE, and 7.2% use Safari (the Mac OS X browser).
- Over the last 4 days or so, my blog has been viewed 1,922 times. Crazy, huh? My peak day was 716 views, followed by 620 views the day after that. Why, you wonder? It was because of my post on Battlestar Galactica’s “Revelations” episode, which is the last episode of the first half of the final season. In other words, there are 10 episodes left in BSG and they won’t start showing until 2009. So there’s been a lot of buzz around this half of the season.
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Battlestar Galactica – Revelations
Ok, so let me break into a bit of an episode review (more like a light social commentary).
[EDIT: actually, this post is more social commentary + my thoughts on BSG, and NOT a true"episode recap". If you're looking for an interesting episode recap, scroll down to the very bottom...]
Whenever I watch Battlestar Galactica (BSG), I wonder about two things:
- I recall hearing about how BSG attracts a decently wide audience. As in, it’s not just nerds & geeks & sci-fi fans who watch it (i.e. me), but “normal” people, as well. I’m not sure how true that is, but it does make me wonder…. But I do think BSG does have a decently broad appeal (especially amongst university students?), largely due to my next point…
- BSG tries to tackle a lot of issues centered around meaning (by “meaning”, I mean things that people think truly matter in life). Which is strange, considering that a lot of people think that our generation/culture is a post-modern one that has largely rejected the notion of objective meaning/truth/morals. That attitude can be summed up by the phrase, “what’s true for me might not be true for you”, but BSG’s feel seems to go against that, tackling issues more from the “is this the right thing to do?” viewpoint. You might think that’s common sense, but I’ve had my share of experiences talking to university students who come from that relativistic morality viewpoint (i.e. the “don’t try and apply your moral standards to anyone outside of you” attitude).
So to build on point #2, I DEFINITELY notice that BSG makes an intentional effort to flesh out at least 3 or 4 of these meaningful topics:
relationships/sex, spirituality/God, ethics, and human personhood
Here are my thoughts on these themes.
Relationships/sex: people long for connection, intimacy, and relationship. I think that’s why movies/music/literature always feature relationships. And it’s actually related to the next item on the list.
Spirituality/God: it’s funny how, for a science-fiction story, BSG brings in polytheism and now the concept of God and a “higher power” orchestrating things for a higher purpose, as Kara/Starbuck and Lee/Apollo were discussing in this week’s episode. My take – in general, people know that purpose and objective truth has got to exist (as opposed to “it’s all relative”/there’s no real meaning to life except for what your imagination makes up). The alternative is meaning-lessness, after all.
Ethics: it’s hard to create a story, even a science-fiction story, where you completely airlock (i.e. throw out) morals. It would make no sense. So it makes a LOT of sense when you make moral dilemmas central to your story, like BSG has. And I think that resonates with viewers.
Human personhood: Ok, I have to admit that I’ve only seen like 7 cumulative hours of BSG ever in my life, and only know the episode plots of like 1-2 seasons worth, but I do know that the whole Cylon/human thing brings up the question of how “human” Cylons are when they think/feel/even-thought-they-were-human. The interesting thing is that this relates to the question of what gives a “person” value… do you have to be an adult human? What about a Cylon/human infant? Does an infant (or an unborn child, for that matter) still have basic human rights just because it’s a real (albeit, underdeveloped) person? I’ve seen over the years how TV shows have come to value the lives of the unborn or infants (especially when the fate of many depends on that person), so I think it’s an encouraging sign that our generation is starting to realize that eliminating the unborn isn’t something wonderful, to say the least.
EDIT/ADDED (June 14th):
I just realized that I didn’t give any episode specifics. Sorry if you came here and expected an episode recap!
Here’s a great one, though:
http://www.webomatica.com/wordpress/2008/06/14/battlestar-galactica-revelations/
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So a lot of stuff happened today that I want to blog about. Actually, a lot of stuff has happened over the last weeks (months?) that I’ve been wanting to blog about, but I never get around to doing it. And consequently, I end up forgetting about what I want to blog about. But anyways, I’m starting with today, because today was filled with enough things in its own right.
Let’s start with 4AM today (Friday, June 13th). That’s when my roommate and I approx. went to sleep (he was playing Team Fortress 2 – I ended up watching). Fast forward 4 hours later, and I woke up around 8-8:30AM to get ready to head to the airport (YVR)… to see Gilberto (our Dalhousie friend from Halifax Project 2007).
Gilberto, me, and Johnson @ YVR (Vancouver International Airport)
Which brings me to an important point: people are back from summer Campus for Christ projects, now! Staff/interns are still debriefing, and national projects are still going, but a lot of our students (who went international) are back! In addition to seeing Gilberto and meeting some new students from across Canada, I also got to see Steve Chan and Amy Li at the airport.
Anyways, after hanging out with Gilberto and seeing him off (Johnson was there, too), it was off to Metrotown for me! To play I-T-G! So I got my groove on and played there with Alana and friends for about an hour and a half. And then it was off to SFU to get some work done! (Note: at this point it was already around 2-3PM; also, I get work done on the bus on my laptop)
Jessica and Jacky – feet IN the Groove
After a couple of hours at school, I finished all the revisions that my prof has returned to me so far. So the good news is that I’m caught up with my thesis-writing. For now. Then I headed home right away to catch the half season finale of Battlestar Galactica (episode: Revelations), of which I missed about 15 minutes because I had to leave school late.
- Read my post on Battlestar Galactica (Revelations) thoughts -
And finally, I should also say that I got to watch Ella Enchanted on TV tonight. I must say, despite Roger Ebert’s glowing review of it from like a few years ago, it is definitely a chick flick. With some annoying writing in parts and annoying plot elements. And a story that’s frustrating from a logical point of view, sometimes. But anyways, I still liked it, even if it made me feel a little sick inside when it was all said and done. It’s so a chick flick… ewww… (although I do kind of like chick flicks).
So cool… remember Ken Cochrum, the guy who spoke at our Western Canadian Winter Conference (2007) this past year? (He’s the VP of campus strategy and vision, or something like that, for our international parent organization)
Anyhoo, I thought his last blog post was really cool, especially because it leads off with a story involving Mike Woodard
Prayer and fasting… my thoughts: totally pointless except that God listens and loves to pick up where we fall short. Which happens really often.
I often have to push myself to spend time praying/talking to God. It takes faith, because God doesn’t get back to me right away, it seems, to I have to trust that He really does want me to talk to Him and trust that He will get things done that I can only try at. The alternative is to not trust.
CNN projects Obama clinches nomination
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I’m glad that Barack Obama has won out over Hillary Clinton, because of his attitude/platform of more open democracy, increased freedom from lobbyists and special interests, refusal to engage in some of the traditional politicking (e.g. gas tax holiday).
I’m saddened that Barack Obabma, who is (was?) a member of the United Church of Christ, doesn’t recognize the need to protect human rights in the case of the unborn child, who can only be described as an individual human being.
I’m glad that Barack Obama opposes same-sex marriage (I’m not sure what I think about his support for civil unions), but saddened that he also opposes a constitutional amendment to protect the definition of marriage nation-wide. (However, I’ve personally come to the conclusion that the same-sex marriage issue is more important at the cultural/social level, rather than from a legislative level)
Most of all, I’m saddened by Barack Obama’s open view on spirituality that leads him to believe that many paths lead to God, and what’s important is a “belief that there is a higher power” and “that we are connected as a people”.
Jesus told us a different story. He told the Pharisees, “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am [he] you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24, modified from ESV) He prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3, ESV) He told us that if we reject Jesus, we reject God. He told us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (from John 14:6, ESV)
As the Apostle Paul puts it in Philippians 3:8-9 (ESV, emphasis added)
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Indeed, if someone does not have Christ, all they’ve got is rubbish (which could be translated in the Greek, “crap”). Jesus is our everything – our joy, our treasure, our forgiveness, our righteousness, our REAL audacity of hope in life, and the only reason God at the end of the day will say, “you’re ok; you’re better than ok”.
Accept no substitutes.
