Prince Caspian

Random thoughts from the last day or two...

NTCBC: Bible Study
We did a study on idols, when Wayne mentioned a really good point. We often cite that our idols are things like fame and money and schoo...yet our true idol, most often, seems to be time. That totally threw me off, but I realized the truth behind that statement. We eat McDonalds because we don't want to spend the time cooking. We buy fancy PDA phones (read: iPhone) and use integrated email/calendar (read: GMail and Google Calendar), rely on RSS feeds and the microwave because it brings us what we want sooner. I've heard that we've gotten really good at making things more efficient...yet we simply just jam more things into the time we did free up at making things more efficient. We're more busier now, more than before. Always rushing here and rushing there...

NTCBC: Family Fun Fair
There was a Family Fun Fair. As promised, I went to check it out. I guess it was cuz I was helping them prepare for the event the night before (Friday), before Josiah (High school/University fellowship), one of the Aunties recognized me. So she got me to pour tea into cups for people. While I was doing that, I looked around me...I guess alot of these people were parents of kids that attended NTCBC's chinese school. So I was taller than alot of them. Yet when they came up to me (cuz I was pouring tea and all), I seemed to have naturally reacted like I would around adults. I guess University doesn't really make you feel like you're an adult.

This is really contrasted with the environment I'm used to. Where I have the ability to shape my fellowship. Where I've taken "high-ranking" positions like Committee and Retreat Coordinator. lol...I remember during Frosh week, they were telling us how we're the "best of our high schools" and that the stardards are higher and whatnot. And some people had to adjust from that. I never really felt that, since I was a slacker and did poorly (so my adjustment was having to actually work to get my marks...haha). I suppose this indicates to me that my adjustment will have to come after University...when I actually have to keep my pride in check and realize that I'm but one vote, instead of among the leadership board.

I think it stood out a bit when we noticed that there was a shooting range station (someone brought a BB rifle -_-) and Rika was commenting on how there's no way any of us with that type of idea would make it by the deacon board...but since it was an adult that did it...oh well. I suppose adults knows better. I suppose. But I suppose I'm also still naive.

Empress Walk Theatres: Prince Caspian [Spoilers]
It was a good movie. Having not read the book, I can't comment on how closely they sticked with the plot. One comment stood out from the movie though. There was a point in the movie where Peter Pevensie (the "high king" back at the end of the first book, being the oldest of the Pevensie siblings) complains about being treated like a kid (he was an adult by the time he left Narnia...go read the book -_-) and gives a general feeling of discontent with the "real world", having been a king in Narnia. I was reflecting on that when the movie ended, wondering if I'd have the guts to take on Miraz in a one-on-one duel...or charge into a massive advancing army...and even a bit of what life was like back when things were just just swords and shields, where knights and the like were the the norm. This then lead to thoughts about being discontent with normal life, like Peter was. I suppose that's why things like fictional books, manga and video games are so popular...they serve as an escape from the mundane life. This directly reminded me of a conversation I had with Victor, regarding the merits and downfalls of owning a portable gaming device (the Nintendo DS). "With it, every moment is exciting" ... why would you want to live as a regular employee, where you go to work 9-5, 5 days a week, doing the same type of stuff over and over again...when you can be Prince Caspian, running straight into battle, beating up hundreds of soldiers, saving the day against all odds, and bring crowned king.

How would programming 8 hours a day in MATLAB compare to something like that?! And so people feed their discontentment with normal life with such things. Wanting more and thus turning to things like movies, but ultimately unsatisfied with the temporal nature of it all.

Random rambling on relationships

I found it amusing that in the post CCF time period, I've got two different people came up to me, telling me exactly the same one thing: "I got over it!" I laughed. This world seems to be obsessive with relationship and its many issues. I turn on the radio and you hear love songs. I stand at the bus stop and I read about dating ads. I'm on the subway and there's a poster about Lavalife.com. The list goes on. People spent countless amount of time trying to figure this out. The latest gossip, the hottest news...all seems to be connected to the stories of who just broke up with who.

This is simply by design. God saw fit to create Eve and thus Adam did not have to labour alone. God totally could've made humans produce asexually. We'd end up with a species of engineers. That can't be that bad, can it...? (another discussion, another time). So as something that was meant to be fulfilled, no wonder people are so focused on it. And as with all things good, we find ways to perverse it all. Arin't humans just so cool?

So what exactly am I trying to say? As I think about current relationship status of the people around me right now...I know a couple that just had a kid (Timothy Lee, son of Jackson and Rebecca Lee). Another couple that just got engaged (Joseph Wong and Emily Law). A few weddings coming up (Dawn Chu and Jonathan Hensen; Enoch Tang and Shirley Yip). A couple that just got married (Joanie Tang and Dave Chin). A few more that I'm just waiting for the proposal (Vanessa Li and her big shiny rock... =P...I mean Alexis Kwong). A few people that just started dating. A few that broke up. Don't know anyone who just started liking someone...there is a few people who's trying to get over someone. And as I opened this entry with, a few others who just got over them.

Relationship issues is always a big deal. But it's not the end of the world either. I'm not a believer in that there is only one person for you out there, but I do realize that God's got you sitting somewhere on His massive hands. I figure, if He'd bother chisel me from birth and know my name before my parents did, if He'd bother to led me though failures and successes, He'd do something about this marriage business that is all the rage these days. God created the concept of the family. I think we can trust Him to know what He's doing.

Cycling

So today I got chatting with a certain Dave Tse (some wedding brought in loads of Seattle people. Something like that). I remember back in first, second year, I'd constantly hear about all these big names in CCF. All the people who did loads for the fellowship. The people who stepped up. The people who took care of other people. Etc. Over the years, I've had the chance to meet some of them. Now, I think I can really say CCF never really changes.

I suppose we got chatting about the only thing that a 20 and a 27 year old Waterloo students could have in common: UWCCF. He shared a bit about his CCF experiences, I talked a bit about my own. Of how in his last years, the people of their year talk about the good old days and worry about where CCF is going (the new froshes of their graduation was the '08/'09s...you guys fill in the rest =P). At the end of first year, the fact that I was solidly in CCF was because of those same people that Dave's year worried about.

Haaa. At this point in time, I'm pretty sure I've done a "oh those were the good old days" routine at least one. And I've complained about CCF being doomed. And etc. Just like the people before me.

Dave mentioned that it was good to hear that CCF is still going strong. That the "paying forward" mentality lives on. That CCF is still a community. That people are still seeing the very best that CCF has to offer. That their work is still being carried out on the campus of the University of Waterloo. Encouragement from the good old days.

And so really, CCF never really grows up. People just continuously moves though it. One day, the people I still call my froshes will take our place. They'll be the ones lamenting about the good old days. Of how CCF is different now. Stress about all its issues. Fill all the niches because no one else would. And it goes on and on.

CCF lives on.

Applications

So I was figiting with this touchscreen monitor at work, getting it hooked up so the physicians can draw various colourful circles (in the profession, it's called segmentation) around left ventricles to apply Simpson's rule (ie reduce life into rectangles. Add up the rectangles. Simple guessimation at its best). This physician came into the room and started poking around with the MR software. Then he asked me about my background (and so we got into the whole "I'm a engineering student from Waterloo..." routine)...then he did something totally unexpected. He went to google, typed in "electromagnetic spectrum" (I cringed a little) then produced this EM spectrum graphic. Then he asked me to explain it to him. I was like...uhhhh...okay...

So I launched into a discussion about how E = hf...wave-particle duality...photoelectric effect...electron excitation in semiconductors...the Uncertainty principle...and all the other random EM and quantum physics I learned in high school (and forgotten) and university (seriously. quantum physics wasn't built for normal human consumption)...to me, EM physics was just a handful of facts. Something they taught at school. Not much more thoughts after that. But to this physicist, who's apparently never learned any of this (I suppose UK education system doesn't dab in the incomprehensible physics areas), it was like a new world opened. He was asking me questions that I had no answer for (how does one explain that light wavelengths isn't actually...physical?)...then it hit me.

Maybe it is just school mentality. But after a good three years of Waterloo education, I've realized that I've begun to treat physics, a field that I was once facinated with, has become just another topic. Another thing I need to learn. In fact...I've consistently perfered my electives (KIN160, PSYCH101, KIN255, BIOL273...and now pending SYDE573) over my core engineering courses...why? It's different. It's fresh. It's new. It's cool...

Campus Challenge 2008 was last weekend. It was alright. To the people who asked how it was, my typical reply was "good reflection time"...and it was. As I sat there, listening to the speakers rant and the Bible study (was totally hardcore. The sheer amount that Al Anderson knew was amazing), it reminded me to start reading again. But as I picked up my Bible...I realized that perhaps, just a little, I've applied to this same mentality. As we talked about Acts...Romans...the only thought was to pour out knowledge. Thus underlining the gap between theory and application.

I remember back in high school, I used to have non-nonsensical arguments with people applying for the Sciences. The argument was...without engineers, scientists are useless, as it is engineers that make their work meaningful (ie, taking the theories and making it practical). Ironic then, that an engineer would forget how to apply the practicality, the application that is Christian living.


On another note, here are my current identified perks at work:
- Half off on crutches (anyone broke their legs recently?)
- 99% of erasing my TTC metropass every time I step into the 1.5T magnet room... and no, I didn't actually do it. I almost did. Oops.
- Windows in my office. Windows!

Week report, Toronto

I've officially been in Toronto for a bit over a week now. All the paperwork at work is finally done, and I'm now an official employee of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Alot of random running in the first few days (In fact...I was at the NTCBC building four times in my first two days in Toronto...wasn't bad. I saw a few people from Calgary too, so that was rather amusing.

Face in the sea of faces
Once thing I noticed is that...it feels so much easier to "get lost in the crowd" here. Not that I always saw people I'm familiar with when I was in Waterloo, but I suppose the fact that there is simply more people here, in Toronto. I think that's why little acts of kindness stand out so much.

I was getting on this TTC bus...since it was the first time I was taking Bayview North, I asked the bus driver if this was the bus I wanted...he said it was, so I sat down, and promptly fell asleep. Shortly before Bayview Village (I told the bus driver I needed groceries, so was going to Loblaws), he woke me up (in between comments of how bad some Toronto drivers are -_-), then drove me to the closest entrance to Loblaws, even though everyone else got off and the driver's route technically ended 3 or 4 stops back. I suppose it's little acts like that ... keeps the city from feeling just like a sea of faces.

Names
So apparently I acquired the nickname of "Grasshopper" from NTCBC's Josiah (University) fellowship, due to my noob-ness at sushi rolling (hey...just cuz it was triangular...). I'm mildly amused at the fact that my list of names seems to grow, whereever I go. I suppose, for the sake of straightforward communication, me having such a common name =P.

Toronto "to visit" sites...
And so one of my housemate composed a "to visit" list for me when I'm in Toronto. Among it includes the Science Centre and the Toronto Zoo, as well as the habourside downtown. The weather is getting nicer. Maybe I'll rollerblade around one of these weekends...