Before we begin...
The Highlight of my day
I'm taking CS154 with Dave Hong this quarter. Of course, there are many other people that I know in it as well, but I mean, Dave's presence just makes this unlike any other class I'm in this quarter. I've never taken a class with him, so it's a new experience for me. I mean, taking classes with, say, Danny is nice and all, what with all the late nights that we pulled for Phil 160A and CS221, but I'm expecting that working with Dave Hong will be a whole new realm! =)
So sometime into the lecture, Dave asks Professor Motwani a question. And the question wasn't even dumb or anything, but when the camera zoomed in on Dave, sitting on the floor of Gates B01, and his face simultaenously appeared on all the monitors hanging from the ceiling of the classroom, I couldn't help but laugh a bit. And a few other members of the class, as well. Is it the glasses? The Dave Hong boyish charm? I don't know.
But the cool thing is that it's immortalized on video. CS154, April 1, 1998. Everyone, if you want some minor amusement, go to Meyer and watch this video. No matter what your major is -- don't watch it for the talk about languages, automata, etc, just fast forward and watch Dave on TV! Dave, I hope I'm not making you tense by writing this... =)
Now, on with the show:
It seems that at least one person out there thinks that I overuse "tense" and "spic[y|e]" in my thoughts page.
[Side note: Call them what you will, "mymind", the "humble" page, the "non-daily update", "dreams", "vacuosity", whatever. But they are all THOUGHTS PAGES. The first definition in Webster's of the word thought is "1: to form or have in the mind". Last time I checked, all our pages were originating from our minds. (Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe these pages really don't come from the mind, but rather you're using something like your CS107 Random Sentence Generator to come up with these pages. If so, my apologies. =) ) ]
So anyways, about my alleged "disturbing" overuse of said words: I don't deny that fact at all. Indeed, this provides evidence for two hypotheses I expound in my last thought:
1. My writing and style of communication on this page is quite different than the way I speak and write in daily life.
And more importantly,
2. The spread of "tense" and "spicy" has caused it to be used more and more frivolously by various people, myself included.
Yes, I must agree, it does weaken the impact of my thoughts as a whole, and their very frequency is diluting their potency as words. Looking at my previous thoughts, those terms have been slowly encroaching in my vocabulary. I myself didn't use spicy until the Christian video games thought rolled along. They're basically now something to keep the rhythm going, some kind of verbal percussion. If I did a global search/replace and changed all the occurances of "tense" to "uncomfortable," some of my thoughts would read quite strangely, to say the least.
It's sort of like the Smurfs (did anyone ever watch that show?) where they regularly replace their nouns and verbs in their dialogue with "smurf" or their adjectives or adverbs with "smurfy." ("Could you smurf me some of that smurfy stuff?") Instead of actually taking the time to think up a actual word to truly express the subtle nuances of our feelings, we just throw in "spicy" or "tense" as a panacea for everything, and it is kind of distressing. I can just visualize Dave, appearing on an infomercial on late night TV: "Tense! Spicy! The words with 1000 uses! The only words you'll ever need! They slice, they dice, they make Julienne fries! Guaranteed to work for all of your expressive linguistic needs or your money back!" Then people like myself, Danny, Keith, Paul, people from other fellowships like David Tay would give their testimonies to the amazing versatility those words have added to their vocabularies (not to mention the greatly reduced variance in their vocabularies). Tense. =)
In the bigger exterior picture, is our language becoming something that makes us exclusive? Certainly, in say, IV, there isn't any distinct language, at least nothing on the order of the words that various FiCS members have introduced.
Of course, tense and spice have spread to the Christian community here at large. However, besides the Big Two, there's also a cornucopia of other expressions that often get overlooked, even by the FiCSters themselves. To mention but a few: Keith Lee says "action"... for instance, "Let's get some food action going...", "I'm gonna really bust the studying action tonight.", etc. Clara Kim always goes "teehee :9" in her update/thoughts page. To say nothing about the equally-rich Berkeley vocabulary which I am just starting to come across -- like "nasty", "sham", "weak sauce", etc. I really need to ask Kevin Lee to teach me some of it.
Personally, among the FiCS phrases, I like "Sketchy" or "Sketch factor 10." (That latter kind of sounds like something from Star Trek: "Sketch factor 10, Cap'n! The engines canna' take much more of this sketchiness!") I don't know who originated this one, but I know I've heard it being thrown around.
The Horse to bet on (in the words of Dave himself)
But the newest catchphrase that I think will come over the horizon is the maddingly simple "Hee hee!", originated by Steven "the next Dave Hong" Chang, and which will probably be popularized in the near future by Brian Chu.
This baby originated in a cabin up in Bodega Bay, in the context of a pretty initimately-brotherly discussion on things which best are left off this web page. And there IS a very specific meaning to it -- it's not just some generic phrase to indiscriminately throw about (even though I am guilty of doing just that in the following paragraph.) =) Anyways, it WILL catch on, I'll bet on it!
Hee hee!
Sony, Toshiba, Spicy, Tense...
Wow -- I got sidetracked there. Anyways, I guess my situation is somewhat like the Japanese consumer electronics industry -- lacking the verbal ingenuity of some of my other brothers, I just take their best inventions and creations, and adapt them, or combine them. The latter sometimes produces the most entertaining results. I think my worst example of this was the phrase "bust some of that spicy tee-hee-colon-nine action" when talking to Clara. Yikes!
So why do we (unconciously) go to these lengths to try to put ourselves on our own linguistic plane? Because we want to identify with a group, that group being FiCS, and in order to establish a sense of group identity, we need some differentiating traits to set us apart, for instance, from other fellowships, or groups on campus. And we pick not just any traits, but we tend to pick those which must be easy to distinguish, and perceive. Not things like that we are the on-campus ministry of Korean Central Presbyterian Church, or that we are a very Scripture-oriented group, or that we have our own UNIX server, or we have skits put on by the so-called "Soli Deo Gloria" team at a lot of meetings. Sure, those things make us unique, but they're not as visible (or in this case, audible) as "spicy" or "tense." The fact that FiCS has their own language practically allows us something that sets us apart every time that we speak.
And ironically, the intrinsic paradox here is that our desire to grasp at whatever straws we see to establish identity -- in this case, our two beloved buzzwords -- have actually cheapened their value. So, to myself, and anyone and everyone else, it's time to have a nice, long thought about how what these words really signify. In other words, we should use these words with care. I'm not saying, but they should be saved for the specialest occasions.
Imagine you were playing any shooting video game: "tense" and "spice" should be thought of as your special weapons that you can use once or twice per level to make all the enemies onscreen die. These two words should go back to their original roots as true heartfelt exclamations to indicate something truly amazing: I'm talking about stuff on the magnitude of say, someone in FiCS getting involved in a dating relationship, or me or my drawmates going to the Viennese Ball =), or something incredible like that. That would merit the use of the word spice or spicy. Likewise, an equal level of discretion should be applied to tense. Those two words are our linguistic crown jewels and should be treated as such. People should not be perceiving those words as being tools for helping to define our identity separate from others but rather as mere words to be used selectively for their intended purposes.
Of course, those are only my suggestions, and I'll leave it up to Dave, or someone else better suited to be in a position of arbiter than me to handle it. I hope I'm not infringing in your intellectual property, Dave... =)
Anyways, what does this have to do with interfellowship unity? The question to ask is whether other people feel uneasy around us, throwing around these FiCS buzzwords and inside jokes? Is our differentiation through the avenue of langauage beneficial or detrimental? It's a two way street, definitely, and I believe that we should be just using our "buzzwords" naturally, and not trying to show them off by using them merely for their own sake. At the same time, having our own atmosphere is what ultimately differentiates and defines us, as well as every other group, so we shouldn't totally let go of our uniqueness either.
Beyond the issue of those words, having been an active member of two different fellowships at different times during my college career, I've become pretty interested in interfellowship issues in general, and doing my part to offer up my talents in service to the Kingdom and to build up the Body, working on the (admittedly non-existent) web page for UIC, doing the RealAudio conversion of the ACPs, etc.
I was talking about this with Steven Chang, who like me, has participated both in InterVarsity as well as FiCS, during the FiCS brothers' hangout at Bodega Bay, just about the whole interfellowship angle, etc, and how we all posess our individual styles, yet serve one God. Hey Andrew -- you just might see me at a CCC/GCM meeting in lieu of FiCS on some Friday night -- I'm interested in just breaking out of the FiCS sphere more than I do now, and not just to, say, visit "friends" but to really experience a sense of the atmosphere of other groups.
So even though we may desire to maintain our identity, however positive that may be, we should be just seeking out other bodies of believers from time to time, and embracing their differences, but more importantly, the fact that we all share the same God. It's sort of like CS107, where you learn about different languages and styles of programming -- having been exposed to these approaches, you're supposed to become more perceptive and appreciative of the differences among the "paradigms" as well as their similarities. While this analogy may be a slight bit sketchy, my belief is that seeing how we exalt and serve the Lord in manifold ways, we gain a greater, more holistic appreciation of the Body of Christ here on the Stanford campus, rather than just being one "part" of it.
Renaissance Men
Switching to another wavelength, I was surfing the web site of my high school recently. As you might now, our school was one of the first two high schools on the Internet in the US (the other one being Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, alma mater of one Eunice Lee). Thanks to that, Al Gore came to visit, so take that, all you Sunny Hills, PV, and Whitney people... (and Lynbrook as well, Paul!) so what if you all made some lame Newsweek Top 100 list! Not to mention that we only had ONE homicide and ONE suicide during MY four years there! =)
Anyways, my AP Bio class was truly one of the more memorable classes in high school. The teacher, Mrs. McComb (who graduated from Palo Alto High School, got a degree in biochem from Harvard in three years, and then a Ph. D in math from Renssalear Polytechnic Institute in another three, and has been teaching high school ever since!) is always coming up with interesting things.
One of the more unique features of our class was that we actually put out a "journal" called the Monta Vista Journal of Molecular Biology. Basically, the best essays and lab reports from each quarter would be selected for inclusion, sort of like a real scientific journal.
So, I found out that recently, they put all the old issues of the Journal online including all my work that got "published" in there.
Tens-- errr, I mean, sort of unnerving at first, but as I went back over my old work I was kind of impressed that I actually could produce that stuff, back in high school -- that my knowledge of biology was capable of supporting work like that. (Anyways, if you really want to browse it, go right ahead -- besides my work, you might recognize some other names -- for instance, a certain FiCS junior class rep's essays are also featured.)
And what's slightly depressing is that I could never do something like this now, at least not without a LOT of remedial work. In fact, I have to admit that I can barely even comprehend my own high school work. Indeed, my unused biology knowledge has deteriorated pretty well. And I ask myself -- why must it be that way? What have I learned bio for? Just so I can take the AP test and get a line on a sheet of paper with a number from 1-5 next to it? It doesn't even help me to get out of any major requirement here at Stanford! I just crammed for the AP test, and after that, everything just basically went -- poof!
Yet, should we totally sacrifice academic breadth for the singular pursuit of any interest? Anyways, my CS240A prof, of all people, says that indeed, we should be Renaissance men, like those minds of the enlightenment, thinkers well versed in the ways of both the arts and the sciences, and pursue disciplines for the love of learning. We should be constantly taking classes spanning as broad an intellectual spectrum as possible, and not just for the sake of fulfilling DRs or GERs or racking up the AP tests, or whatever. I admit that I have been very, very, very guilty of this myself, and probably the majority of my techie brethren as well. (Of course, fuzzies are perfectly capable of just staying in their own world as well, even though they do have much more breathing room in their majors... =) )
Dynamic fields are often those that combine multiple disciplines, and often, many intellectual breakthroughs have been a result of thinking beyond a one-sided avenue. Case in point:
Others have extolled the virtues of their academic field in their thought pages, so now I'll take a turn with computer science, particularly the subfield of computer graphics. I can't speak for other areas of CS, and I don't know why some people would go into anything else other than graphics, but this is a really spic-- whoops, diverse field.
It combines stuff from not only "computer science" in the traditional sense of the word like algorithms, etc, but also mathematics, optics, thermodynamics, material science, electrical engineering, statistics, even cognitive psychology! Even though it's only a subset of CS, it's gotten to the point where no one is capable of being a expert in "graphics." But owing to its academic diversity, anyone who seriously studies graphics will get very good exposure to all these difference sciences, and how they interact -- in this case, to simulate visually the real world as faithfully as possible, modelling how light is transported, reflected, refracted, scattered, and so forth, how our eyes perceive that light, etc., etc. Many ideas and techniques in graphics have been inspired by these scientific fields outside of traditional CS.
One of the most striking aspects of it to me is the whole interdiscplinary nature of it. The moral here is that just limiting your pursuit of knowledge to one avenue, or basically following a well-traveled path towards graduation, without taking some detours, you're probably denying yourself some platforms for knowledge and enrichment that will help in your own studies and coming up with your own ideas.
Premeds seem to be particularly bad in this regard. OK, the typical premed is a bio major, (OK, maybe biomechanical engineering, chem, or chem e -- still basically the same stuff), does research in the labs for a honors thesis, is usually involved in some group helping kids like Project AIYME or Kids With Dreams.
OK, before you start flaming me, I am not disapproving of the medical field, and I am not saying that all, or even most, premeds are like this. There are many exceptions, like Phill Sung. But I'm just saying that pre-meds seem to be more apt to fit into a cookie-cutter mold than other types of students. Maybe it will be a dynamic system with feedback -- seeing a glut of Biological Sciences majors, perhaps the med school admissions committees will start to look elsewhere, and maybe the hot ticket to med school will start to shift... Hmmm...
So, with academics as well as with our spiritual walk, we should look beyond our "own" turf, and at least get a sense of what else is out there, whether it be intellectual fields, or Christian fellowships.
And speaking of fellowships...
Finally, for the UIC folk who are reading this:
There's been talk at the meetings, etc. of just having one fellowship lead each time we have an All Campus Praise, to "improve the quality" of the worship. I'd like to give my assent to that. For future all campus retreats, and for the all campus praises: have the fellowships lead worship individually!
For heaven's sake, the way we do it now -- it's kind of like taking the Berlin Philharmonic, Metallica, and Celine Dion, putting them together, and asking them to perform Beatles songs. By the way, you can quote me on that.
As with their other spiritual aspects, each fellowship clearly has their own unique musical style, a style that should be appreciated and highlighted, rather than rendered homogenous by combining different groups. For instance, we at FiCS really get the guitar and especially the bass action going, eg Georgie's power slide on "Meet Us Here", compared to, say, Mlosayhi's more laid back playing in the IV worship team.
On the other hand, IV is richly endowed in the percussive/rhythm department, using drums, bongos, tambourines, and those funky egg thingies regularly in their worship, whereas we just like to clap it out ourselves.
Or take other KCPC ministries, FiCB for instance: They really use the keyboards to great advantage, using many different instruments and patches: string ensembles, synth brass, the works. I first heard them during Junior Retreat, and their rendition of "Firm Foundation" was truly awe-inspiring, with the trumpets blaring, the electric organ playing... incredible.
Anyways, I don't think that having one fellowship do it at a time will particularly undermine the message of unity that we're giving.
Finally, I claim (not boldly) that the intersection of the individual repertoires of all the fellowships is far from being the empty set. The traditional ones, like Amazing Grace, but also more contemporary ones like As the Deer, Shout to the Lord, We Exalt Thee, Good to Me. Those songs I have heard sung everywhere, whether at my church back home, at FiCS, at IV, at KCPC, wherever. They're oldies but they're goodies. So we do have a common musical foundation, it would seem, for worship no matter which fellowship is leading, and then they can spice it up with their own unique songs.
But, in any case, no matter who's on it, here's to the worship team busting out some stinkin' bold and spicy worship action at the ACR! Teehee :9 =)