First, a word of advice:
I think that music can always enhance most any narrative experience. Even though I'm not a music major like Ohms, I do try to listen to an eclectic sampling of music whenever I have time. What you hear is just as important as what you see, if not more so. In fact, a while back, I had background music in many parts of my home page. Unfortunately, this feature was short lived after people tried to browse my page in libraries and were rudely surprised. Still, I think that even if it is only in one's mind, having a stream of music flowing concurrently really adds a whole new dimension to this whole web surfing business.
And now I segue to my second preliminary point: Anyone who knows Keith Lee in any capacity has been treated to at least one showing of Macross Plus in his room. I was of course no exception, and his insistence that I sit through a whole showing lead to my discovery of a true masterwork of anime. Driven by my newly instilled Macross fandom (maybe not quite Keith Lee otaku level, but a deep admiration for M+ nevertheless), over the summer, I acquired not only the two compact discs of the Original Soundtrack, but also Sharon Apple: The Cream PUF, a singles collection put out by the virtual fictional pop star. (Unfortunately, the most coveted Macross disc, For Fans Only, was out of print when I ordered it, and it looks like if it will stay that way for the indefinite future.) So before I delve onward, I'd like to publically thank Keith for introducing me to a film with such a diverse and illustrious musical score to accompany it and bolster the drama of the ballad of Isamu Dyson, Guld, Myung, and Sharon Apple.
Now, I would suggest that if you have a copy of it, put "Voices" in the background. Just pop it into your stereo or CD-ROM and play away. Preferablly the original version with Yoko Kanno's vocals and instruments (Macross Plus Soundtrack Vol. 1, Track 8) although one of the alternate arrangements will probably work too. But I must emphasize, if some form of Voices is not playing in the background, you are proabably missing out on this Thought! You'll see why Voices provides an especially appropiate backdrop soon...
And now, our feature presentation...
I was working at Microsoft, hacking through the object-oriented intricacies of the Office code, stepping through using the good ol debugger to figure out just how the heck it all worked, wondering how in the world Windows NT and Visual C++ could turn a 200 MHz Pentium Pro with 64 MB of RAM into a disk-thrashing sloth, and suddenly the phone rang. Lo and behold, the voice on the other end of the line was NOT my parents asking me how late I would be working tonight. No, it turned out to be none other than Kevin Frank Chen, aka KFC, my friend ever since elementary school and now at UCLA. I had stopped by Kevin's place once this summer but he wasn't there. My heart skipped a beat, and I was soon talking excitedly with Kevin, and arranged for him to come by my office at MS, along with a group of other long-unseen friends.
Cut to a scene of Macross Plus:
Isamu and Myung chat as to how they've been doing after all these years, how they've pursued separate interests in combat aviation and show-biz management.
My encounter with Kevin was of course a chance to catch up on college life and reminesce about thoughts, ideas, and aspirations. But during the sharing, something becomes clear to me - as it became clear to Isamu during that scene by the sea in Macross Plus where he met up with Myung again:
We've changed quite a bit. It doesn't warrant use of the word "tense" but still, it allowed me to reflect. Not only in terms of academic interests and pursuits, but of other, more eternal things...
And my memories drifted back in time as I hung out with Kevin and a small group of friends over ice cream sundaes in the Peppermill Lounge in Cupertino...
The opening scene of Macross Plus:
The windmills are turning idyllically on a beautiful summer day, as three teenagers play around joyfully...
A haunting voice sings: Hitotsu meno kotoba wa... yume (The first word was... dream)...
My memories are blurry at first, but slowly, concrete images start to form...
Ahhhh - journalism. Those memories of high school. That's what she said. Baaarrrrr! While our paper was pretty decent and solid in many areas, we as a staff, were sinful to say the least. We were just cracking sexual jokes, references, and un-biblical discussions about the opposite sex as if it was second nature. I can't seem to recall any specific examples, without a copy of the newspaper issues to refer to. (We become pretty good at "accidentally" slipping in subtle references to inside journalism staff jokes or sayings. Sometimes they were caught by readers or our adviser -- more often or not, they were not, and we would just laugh - internally of course.) Anyways, the purpose of this Deep Thought isn't to rehash or list the sinful thinking that pervaded our journalism staff at late nights.
But, one interesting anecdote, not directly illustrative of our mindset, but nevertheless pretty fun, if "fun" can even be remotely applied here, was that I remember one night, we were doing a special feature on censorship, and we needed some high-impact, controversial illustrations. So me, being the graphics guru, was surfing the decadent and vile areas of cyberspace in my high school computer lab to find some nice visuals (which would be rendered suitable for high school use thorough judicious application of the Gaussian Blur tool in Photoshop.) Being one of the first two high schools connected to the Internet had its niceties. Anyways, I had some pretty... sciintilliating images onscreen when Mr. Todd, our computer lab admistrator walks by. Presumably he doesn't know what journalism is up to in terms of our story's "needs." My heart rate must have nearly doubled. Quit netscape .. click close box.. click click! Click! Mustquitnetscapequitnetscape! clickclickclick ... closeyou$%#@$%@#$@netscape! Ahh.. Tense! His head turned ominously towards the monitor. At the last moment, I managed to switch back to the Finder. Even though Mr. Todd might have caught something interesting in his perripheral vision, when he looked at my monitor, I was just clicking icons, and browsing the hard drive. Whew!
Another instance: take KFC. The restaurant that shared the name used to have this slogan: It's finger lickin good! Well, during late nights before deadlines, the 'finger' part of that phrase tended to get somewhat modified by Kevin's cohorts, myself included, and became the nucleus of more than one crude sexual innuendo. Utterly reprehensible. Wrong. Possible heretical.
Our newspaper had a "Senior Edition" put out at the end of the year to honor our graduating class. Among one of the sections was a feature where people were asked why they chose the school that they did. My response: "Stanford University: Tons of hot Asian babes and a super-fast Internet conneciton as well!" Luckily, cleaner minds prevailed at the last moment, and my witty quote mercifully never made it to print. I'm not ashamed to admit it, because looking back, it's amazing how much has changed with me.
And I wonder about my high school friends who were also on that newspaper staff: whatever became of them? There are a few others that I have kept in touch with and who are leading healthy spiritual lives - for instance, Beverly Tseng is in Campus Crusade up at Berkeley, Dean Kao, leading worship for the 5th Home of Christ, and Andy Hwang, the honorary MV journalist from Bellarmine. What of the others, though? What ever happened to Dan "Waterboy-in-Chief" Goudey, Christina "Eyebrows" Han, Golbanou Rahimi, Eric Lin, Laurence Harris, John Kaz... If I bumped into one of them, I'd be probably be at least as surprised as Isamu bumping into Myung after all those years apart.
Tense.
It wasn't just journalism either. The truth of the matter is that there aren't that many people that I know to be strong Christians in high school. In fact only a handful, such as Shirley Liu, Joan "I saved the free world at my senior prom" Hwang, Angel Cheng, An-Li Liu who goes to my church back home, Vlad Beffa... those are probably the entirety of people that come immediately to my mind when I think about the people that I associated with strength in Christ and leading a healthy and visible walk during those high school years. (OK, Pastor Paul "Fu-Fu" Kim went there too, but as I was a wee frosh when he was a senior, he was basically out of my high school picture, regrettably.)
Now, certainly there have been other Monta Vista people, say... Beverly Yang - being a junior rep for FiCS, Grace Yang - serving in IV and going on Urban Immersion, Albert Daesik Yi - playing bass on the KCPC praise team, Anthony Liu - co-leading a IV frosh group, and a few others whom I didn't know to be on-fire Christians in high school but have really grown in their faith in college, and are now faithful and visible servants of the body of Christ. But I guess in high school, we never really had a notion of fellowship and externally-visible Christianity in the campus environment. We did have a Christian group called WaterWalkers, and I did attend some meetings, but we were basically just an insular gathering of Christians. I wouldn't call the environemnt hostile to Christianity, but I think that in high school, at least Monta Vista, for the majority of us, even though we were Christian in our churches, we were not Christian in our lives, in our mindset. Maybe we were just super-competitive on the college-prep track. Maybe the atmosphere of a public school made us wary of having an Christian organization lest politically-correct administrators get too antsy. Whatever it may be, I was a Christian on paper, and I "pretended" to be one on Sundays, and not much else.
Anyways, once I got on campus An-Li told me about an group on campus called InterVarsity, and encouraged me to try it out, so I decided to give it a shot. And so it goes on from there. The changes that I've experienced through my participation in IV, and later, FiCS, have been mostly internal - for I am a mainly thinking person. Unfortunately, my story is not the material for a spicy fellowship-wide testimony. I was not super-party-guy, or super-troubled-guy or super-whatever-guy, or something similarly outwardly and dramatically differing my present form. But God has been working constantly, even now. And recently, I have been convicted. More on this later.
Thorough the fellowships I have been involved in, a large part has been the support and encouragement of my fellow Christians that has contributed to my new-found passion for Him.
One of the main reasons I decided to join FiCS, my present fellowship, was the strong sense of corporate unity and just the whole sense of brotherhood. It's interesting that for the most part, the Christians I know don't belong to fraternities or sororities (Clara and Sandy being notable exceptions.) Instead, I like to think of my fraternity as that of FiCS, and that of my fellow Christian brothers and sisters as a whole.
I think that a fellowship of believers encouraging one another and lifting each other up in Christ is important. As I alluded to in a previous thought, interfellowship events, such as All-Campus Praise are essential too to gain a sense of our larger united identity.
But what about the big question, that of outreach to non-Christians?
Even at Stanford, ignoring distinctions of fellowships and churches, I realize that there are two distinct social spheres, the Christians and non-Christians. My closest friends here at Stanford have of course been Christians. As for non-Christian friends, there's a gap that's pretty perceivable. It's more than just the fact that I see my Christian friends (those in FiCS at least) regularly twice a week. For with friends, completely sharing one's concerns in life invariably turns to religion. And, well, it gets... tense.
My observation is that human (certainly humans in FiCS) nature is like a spring or other mechanical system in physics: in general, the tendency is to avoid tense situations without some external applied force. Put these two together, and you can see the mixing of the two groups isn't as homogenous as it ideally should be.
As an illustration of what I'm talking about: I was recently at Desiree's little cua bing party. Anyways, Desiree, in my perception, stands out from many others in that she is one of those whose extended circle of friends draws from, and I mean draws from extensively and near-equally, both Christian and non-Christian realms.
So all these seemingly-random people come by for a cua bing social. And basically, after the initial and obligatory greetings/introductions, we split into two groups, the Christian FiCS/IV people that Desiree and Mimi hang out with, and the other non-Christian people (mainly people who were in Donner/Alondra with Des/Mimi freshman year.) Of course, it wasn't externally visible, but still, by who was talking to whom, these two groups were delineated somewhat apparently. Tense. So, I basically stayed within the Christian group for the entire duration.
In friendship, I've noticed that there's a duality involved - a level of a personal relationship and a level of a spiritual relationship. They are independent of the other, but still progressive: Friendship can only progress so far with discussion of classes, current events, computer games and the like. To truly be a friend that can be a source of emotional support and encouragement, it is necessary understand what other people are feeling, what they are thinking, what drives their emotions, and that means one must delve into their spiritual realm -- I use spiritual in a sense more general than that of Christianity, or religion itself.
As I have walked on the path of following Jesus, I realize that our gratituous journalism antics were a bonding experience for friends, as much as I hate to admit it, much like our Friday night meetings, class activities, and Sunday Bible studies up at KCPC are bonding experiences for my FiCS brothers and sisters. Without them, it's a lot harder to plant the foundations of a strong friendship. Even as high school journalism seems like a foreign world to me now, I know that between Kevin and I, we have fewer areas of commonality for our friendship to grow and develop. Which is not to say our friendship is becoming less healthy - but now, Kevin is like another non-Christian, with my natural inhibitions and "biases" if you want to call it that.
Many Silicon Valley companies have "student representatives" on campus whose goal is basically to act as a liason between the company and the campus, not only for potential recruiting and name-dropping, but just to see how their products are being used, to be a contact point for product feedback, tech support, marketing, and the like. MS asked us Stanford interns if anyone would like to be a Stanford student representative of Microsoft. I declined, but it got me thinking:
Now a question: Would a representative from Microsoft who is officially supposed to be promoting their products, hang out with, say, people who used Netscape web browsers, or Sun, or Silicon Graphics computers? Would such a representative avoid them completely? If I was the student representative for Microsoft, and my friend was a representative for a competitor - would that consitute a obstacle to my friendship? More importantly, if everyone is using Netscape, do I just say, fine, or do I try to tell them about Internet Explorer? How do I approach a Netscape-using friend? Say, "as a friend, it's fine with me what browser you use?" Could I have the courage to tell why my friend's company's products are behind those of Microsoft? Of course, friendship can't be reduced to such clinical and cold facts as this, but still, it raises some interesting points.
During the FiCS pre-fall retreat, themed "Spirit-Filled Followers of Christ", Pastor Paul gave us a message that we are "representatives" of Christ and that that we should be concious of that title in our daily lives, in our every act. I was truly convicted, in more ways than one, but what stands out here was the representatives of Christ. Of course, I guess this is implicit knowledge, but to hear it vocalized explicitly and eloquently by Paul made it truly hit home for the first time.
We are representatives of Christ. Now just what does that mean? What does representative evoke? It evokes an ambassador, a diplomatic instrument of a country who is supposed to be an important part of the implementatation of that country's foreign policy - or perhaps more mundane and understandable (unless you're Paul Lee), maybe the phrase "customer service representative" - a 90's euphenism for sales person. Yeah, maybe that's it: we are salespeople for Jesus Christ. I am of course not trying to trivialize, but rather, view it from a different perspective. Whatever that maybe, one thing became clear to me at Redwood Glen: That I should be focused on outreach more.
Two specific Stanford people (should I call them "potential customers"?) prominently come to mind: Mike Rosenblum, and Tammy Wang. I name them by name for three reasons: they have been on my heart a long time actually as two non-Christians that I know, they aren't into reading thought pages, and if they do start, I've become resolved that friendship where everything is just perfect and disagreement is absent is not really the truest level of friendship at all.
Anyways, there are undoubtedly others, but Mike and Tammy are the two that immediately come up because I know them well, deeply respect them, and they play visible leadership roles, Mike being the house manager in Xanadu, and Tammy being a RA in Lantana.
Mike was my freshman year roommate. I won't turn this Deep Thought into a resume listing for Mike, but I'll just say that he's finishing a co-term in Math and Symbolic Systems this year, and that he might very well be a future recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, Fields Medal, or a Turing prize. Keep an eye on him.
Tammy and I have known each other for quite a while from high school. In fact, her mom and my mom were friends from their college years. Anyways, Tammy lived in Junipero her freshman year, along with other famous and renowned people such as Danny Chai, Eddie Ahn, Grace Hsiao, Lorraine Shih, Fred Savage, and others. Indeed, she was Gracie's frosh roommate.
Now why aren't Tammy and Mike as close as people I know in FiCS or other fellowships? They are two very spicy and sociable people, and yet a lot of the resistance to just sharing my personal thoughts with them has been self-induced. It's the abhorrance of "tense" situations angle manifesting itself.
I was talking to a mutual friend of Tammy and myself who is Christian at a retreat last Winter, and she told me that personally, she has never really been focused on outreach to Tammy. Of course, Tammy is aware of this person's Christianity, and she tells Tammy whenever she goes on retreats, and other fellowship-related stuff. But those are just purely informational.
One thing to know that Mike and Tammy hardly fit a classic "troubled" profile - they aren't starving children in a developing country, or juvenile delinquents - both are highly successful here at Stanford. And Tammy's friend tells me that there is a right time for everything, including witnessing.
I'm not attacking this person, but I'm just mentioning it because the issue of outreach is a whole new world with conflicting issues that must be prayerfully considered. In a way, witnessing to friends, especially people like most non-Christians here at a place like Stanford, has a whole new dimension than witnessing on missions to relative strangers.
It's a fine and subtle line, and there are no hard and fast answers, really. But one thing that's added to my feeling of impetus to make my Christianity more external is that Desiree Ong emailed us just recently, strongly encouraging us to bring a non-Christian friend to the Billy Graham Crusade on October 10th, when FiCS will be making a group trip. In particular, this quote stood out:
"It is of little eternal importance if all of us Christians go together as a Christian activity."I've never really done this. Not even for local events, like Soli Deo Gloria. But in my heart, since the Billy Graham Crusades are not exactly regular events, I feel a desire to take the first bold step, and reach out. Here's that "applied force" coming into play.
So I pray that I might not only go by myself, but with a non-Christian friend. Anyways, I'm mentioning this on my web page partly as a reminder to myself, and partly for accountablility among my friends.
Outreach is a shift for me. You have to know your stuff well, and if not, you'll learn. In a way, it was like my internship and learning real coding and software engineering practices and procedures: Microsoft's internships, putting an intern straight into a full-scale project without a real "training period", can be likened to unexpectedly being thrown into the sea. If you don't know how to tread water, then you had better learn, and FAST. Those of us in FiCS last year took the "Essentials of Our Faith" final, and can probably recall the salient verses. But as is so often the case, learning it all in the classroom, in an academic setting can be very different from applying it in practice.
And I realize that this is a fundamental paradigm shift for me and how I devote myself to my faith in Him (yup, the buzzwords being thrown around at strategic planning meetings and presentations at Microsoft got to me a bit while I was there...)
But once you do learn how to tread the water, you gain a skill to benefit you the next time you find yourself in such a predicament. And so I think it is with sharing the Gospel. Being moved to share means that you'll pick it up much more effectively than studying for a final exam.
Well, I'm working on the Christian Big Sib web page, and I really feel good about it, because I feel comfortable using my gifts to serve the Christian body here. Indeed, the page is a bit of an outreach, and thinking it in that sense gives me a true sense of being as a part of the Body.
Anyways, Anne Bonner, one of the coordinators of the program and the UIC rep for FiCS, is someone I respect deeply. That very respect and admiration comes from the fact that Anne just exudes warmth and joy - she truly is such a representative of Christ as Pastor Paul mentioned. The Lord has truly blessed Anne as a true sister in our midst. Anne has the gift of dealing with people. Invoking the "representative" analogy, I'm sure any company would love to recruit Anne, fuzzy as she may be, as a marketing person for their products.
I think about Anne and I realize that it's near impossible for someone like me to reflect her seemingly-innate radiance and happiness. But that is no excuse I think to shirk away from the duties that we have been called for.
There are others too...
My sister at UC Davis.
And yes... Kevin Frank Chen - Currently, he does not attend church regularly, or being to a campus ministry. I don't know if they have a group as strong as say, FiCS down in UCLA, but he is someone that will be in my prayers.
Anyways, I think that's it for now. One thing, this public forum isn't a comprehensive prayer request listing, a journal, nor a compendium of the personal thoughts paralleling and extending what's been said on this page that I've shared to my close friends/small group members. If you want to know more, come talk to me. To some extent, Eric Yang does have a point. Secondly, this web page has been in the works for about two months or so, and it's gotten big, bloated, and delayed. Just like, say, Microsoft Windows 95 or Office. As Andrew Wong told me bluntly: "you need to update your thoughts page." So, here it is.
Enjoy.