Arrrgh...
I have a CS161 problem set which is already late by one day. But, hopefully, I will beat Andrew, so that I won't get the title of "last person to update his thoughts page" about the ACR. [Update -- it looks like Andrew beat me! But, hey, quality cannot be rushed... ]
Before I begin, I want to know: why isn't my page listed in your jack.html file? Yes, I mean you. Grrrr... =)
First, about the ASSU elections, since I was writing about this even before ACR:
Call me a cynic, but I think that the elections are basically nothing more than a means to make the print shops very very happy during the month of April, really. Politics are a joke here. I'm just apathetic, maybe, or maybe I'm just ignorant of change, but it's basically who's got the coolest slogans. Even the article in the Daily after the elections were over noted the fact that all of the senators who won had easily identifiable buzzwords. No substance whatsoever, just pure, unadulterated hype.
Also, Dave, I did vote for the AASA special fee, but basically only because many of my friends are/were on AASA Core, or are/were officers of other Asian-American organizations that fall under the AASA umbrella. I did vote for every other ethnic organization on campus that was requesting a special fee, so at least I'm not prejudiced racially... =)
Yeah, I realize that I am a total sellout. I think that if I didn't know anyone on AASA Core, I would probably vote no for them, as well as the special fee for all the otherd ethnic groups on campus, for the same reasons as outlined in Dave Hong's thought. My point is just that in the so-called farce that wears the name of "politics" at Stanford University, whoever gets the money, whoever gets the positions, it doesn't matter at all in the end. Just same old, same old like they say...
Also, partly because I do not want to let my opinions be swayed by who has the most memorable campaign pun, I did not vote for any of the senatorial candidates on the ballot, but instead, I wrote in ALL my senators. If you are a regular reader of this thoughts page, chances are good that I wrote you in. See, I reward faithful readers. =)
But yeah, it's good to have a respite from the inanity which marks the ASSU elections. One thing that I find memorable is this graphic in the Stanford Review, our right-wing publication: they have the block letters "ASSU" with a magnifying glass highlighting the first three letters.
Interesting. (spoken in the Keith Lee style.)
OK, now about the ACR.
Anyways, by now, you have probably seen the "anonymous" letter that most likely has been actively circulating amongst the Christian lists here. By the way, I got rebuked by Henry for the very first time in my life for finding out and revealing the person's identity. Anyways, to the person who wrote it: if you are going to write an anonymous letter, do not blow your cover by logging into a saga from the same computer where you write the anonymous letter from! Heehee. But seriously though, the words of the author ring painfully true, and I'll go into that later. Reading those words though truly helpd to set me heart for the retreat, and coming back from it, those feelings have just been strengthened.
About the worship: Like I said, Danny, I will concede that you guys did manage to pull off the ACR worship pretty well. While I never change my thoughts pages, I'll hand it to you, you're sort of right. I guess the last ACP had me a bit disappointed -- and this is nothing against Mlosayhi and the other people there, it was just the lack of coordination, or synergy. You know what I mean? Anyways, compared to that, it was very solid and I would even say, great.
So, the ACR was much better. One thing, though was that they were all songs that I knew, and I certainly do not consider myself to have an extensive exposure to Christian praise music, especially outside the Vineyard world. So, I meant that while from a technical standpoint, worship was quite good, I really didn't get a chance to get exposed to new songs. But it's all good, as Ohms would say. Just worshiping amongst the body is just awesome.
Another cool thing: as I was coming back, I met Brad Johanason, a EE grad student who is in Cornerstone. He was driving me, Irving, Dave Yue, and James Han back to Stanford, so we struck up a conversation, even though we were all dead tired. The cool thing is that it turns out that he is working in the same graphics research laboratory, for the same prof, as I am working! It was really encouraging to see a fellow brother in Him amongst my academic colleagues, and to know that His spirit is present everywhere, even at the Stanford Computer Graphics Laboratory. Peter Wilkes spoke of the academic environment in universities, and the sterile absence of any spiritual aspect, and even in a area like computer graphics, it's really reassuring to know that there are fellow believers out there.
Also along the lines of Dave's recent thought: Our freshman year was indeed instrumental in sowing the seeds of unity in the Body. We had the infamous frosh jam sessions, and even our own classwide mailing list, onfire99@lists. My IV frosh group was da bomb as well, I have to say, and it is just amazing how we have just grown and truly become servants for the Lord. Besides myself, there's people like Keith Lee, a testament of God's love and how He can truly change lives, Paul Lee, Leo Jeng, leading an IV frosh group, Lynn Wang, one of the prayer coordinators for IV, Joyce Koo, leading a frosh womens' bible study for CCC, etc. etc. We are probably the 1995-1996 equivalent of the infamous Donner Party. Bold claim? Anyways, Caroline Wu mentioned that we can leverage our frosh year unity to promote unity amongst the different fellowships. So, we're going to get together for dinner sometime, hopefully. Maybe just pray for one another's ministries, you know. Anyways, that was what cool about IV freshman year, and even though we've branched out fellowship-wise, I know that the people I met in frosh group will be some of my closest spiritual friends.
As some of you know, I'm facilitating an RPG here in Bob. It's sort of like leading a small group, in a sense. And I've never really thought of myself as a leader. But leadership is not limited to those with a title, if we are truly to change ourselves and mobilize ourselves, it is something that we, the members have to take initiative, not just people with titles and hopefully have it trickle down to the rest of us. No matter what part of the Body we belong to, it is our body -- the fellowship that we belong to -- it is our fellowship, and this holds true for FiCS, for IV, for CCC/GCM, for Harvest, for whatever, and it is our church, etc... we, not the people who wear titles, need to actively go forth and demonstrate our love and our desire to serve, not just for our brothers and sisters in Christ, but to everyone.
Many, many of my friends are going on missions trips this year, certainly a whole lot more than last year. China seems to be the "in" place to be. I'm thinking about taking a little "vacation" in Asia this summer myself, but unfortunately, I'll probably be going in September, so I probably won't have intersecting schedules with the missions people. But hey, you still get to chill with the likes of Keith Lee and Bev Yang in Beijing! Five words part II: "Keith Lee dance. Tiananmen Square." OK, tense.
Seriously, though. I've been thinking about this, and I think international missions is not what God is calling me to do, for the time being. First of all, I need to gain knowledge of His Word and of Him.
In many fields, there are two realms: the theoretical, and the practical, and they complement each other, while at the same time, being quite different -- being good in one area by no means ensures that you're good in the other realm. CS is no expection: Take someone like Beverly Yang -- she gets A+'s in every CS class she takes, and EFFORTLESSLY too (and I generally mean it, too, believe me, having known her, a lot of the things people say about her studying ability ARE true...) but wouldn't know a 72-pin SIMM if it hit her on the head (Thanks, Eric for that example. =) ). If you actually read this Bev, I'm not trying to poke fun at you, I'm just saying, that having a extensive knowledge of something doesn't mean that you can apply it.
On the other hand, there are people like me, who slack off by doing stuff like writing web thought pages, and consequently struggle for the "A" or "A-", but by doing so, have better knowledge of how to apply it all. I'm not saying that I'm using any CS knowledge in writing my thought pages, but you get the picture. On the other hand, even if you never plan to write a single line of code, it's mighty useful, and in some cases, even neccesary, to have at least SOME knowledge of what goes behind the scenes: In computer graphics, for instance, if you're going to do Toy Story or Titanic quality work, you need to know about illumination algorithms, transformation matrices, properties of materials, noise functions, and things like that -- you need to know how all those myriad options in your rendering program do, and what they all mean in terms of the picture you're going to get. And stuff like that, I think are better learned in an academic setting with a grounding in theory, and why things work why they do.
And right now, in my own religious walk, I've been growing in my practical knowledge in terms of how I should live my own life and act towards others, but as far as apologetics, foundations, knowing the Word, and other areas, I've just been a slacker, and I basically know zip at this time. I totally admire people like, say, Tim Dalrymple, Adrian, or Pastor Harold, who can just study and swallow this stuff like people study CS, or bio, or IE, or whatever. I really do. Zeal without knowledge is can only get you so far, as in CS. And, yeah, not everyone is called to be a missionary, and it is just wrong to want to go because all your friends are going. I can visualize myself in that position, but definitely not in the present time. To run, you must first learn to walk, as the saying goes...
Even as one who grows in knowledge though, I've come to the conclusion that it is indeed important to identify your own missions field -- for Christ, in the Great Commission, calls to all of us; it may not be China or other far reaches of the world, but we can find those in need right on this campus. So, personally, I think my missions field and ability, for that matter, for now is that of just support, and encouragement. There are certainly brothers and sisters of FiCS and other fellowships out there who are just so encouraging, and it's not like I'm ever going to be like them -- to some extent I think, encouragement is a innate gift, like, say, having perfect pitch, or ability in athletics, or computer science, or dorkiness, etc.
But we all should be encouraging one another nevertheless, and there are some who need it more than others, it has dawned on me. There are members who are in the words of one junior brother, are on the "margin" of FiCS. By being on the margin, I mean that they attend maybe the first one or two FiCS meetings each quarter during the year, and then just stop coming, but they're still on, say fics@lists or fics-chat@lists. I won't name any names, but they truly need us. We really need to be reaching out to them and encouraging them -- being part of the "great cloud" of witnesses that is mentioned in Hebrews 12.
Another thing: I have been thinking of just how richly blessed I am having being born into a Christian family. So many of my friends come from families who are non-believers. To me, when they go back home, living with parents who think that they're part of some cult, or even living in countries where only a few percent of the populace are Christians, and wondering how their faith can still hold strong just almost overwhelms me, and at the same time, reminds me of just how strong God's love is and how He is truly our firm foundation, the Rock on which we stand. And I've taken it so much for granted, and yeah, I just feel a sense to express to God and to others of how much He loved me for this, and how I just have such a supportive group of people in my family.
"Won't you change us, Lord?" In case you were wondering (Danny!), that was my contribution to the spontaneous "Kumbayah" versification going on during the campfire. And as I look, I am so painfully aware that all of us need to be changed, and that we truly have not shown love. I have felt unloved -- what it must feel like to a non-Christian particularly, especially one who feels felt out by Christians who are supposed to be loving!
As the anonymous email expressed so forcefully and cogently, we've basically been insular in our own dorms, and frankly, I think it sucks. I remember freshman year, that I really wanted to be a part of the dorm life and for the most part, I was. Sure, spicy people like Mike Rosenblum, Keith Lee, Howard Loo, Beatrice Lee, Santos Marroquin the ASSU VP, Wing-See Lai, Helen Vo, and others were part of it as well, and we really got the dorm community going, but I still had to get to know them, and freshman year, I did make the effort to do so. Sophomore year in Serra was nowhere as fun in that area. Maybe it was because I was really starting to take classes and immerse myself in work, but I think also, one part of it, is that even though at the same time, even though I thought I was growing in my faith, I was also insulating myself more and more from the rest of the world, in this case, the non-Christians of Serra because I didn't want anything to do with their ways. This situation was excacerbated for me somewhat ironically because there were so many Christians that I knew, my roommate Leo, James, Dave Hong, Mimi, Desiree (for two weeks, at least), their draw group, Tilden, Michele Chung, etc. etc. Hanging out with everyone was pretty cool, but as a result, I felt little need to know the non-Christians, and so I didn't really participate in the dorm activities, since I felt I knew enough people from my Christian friends! Ironic.
Now, this year, I have not attended a single house meeting this year. We're just apathetic, and we are basically living in our own insular, sealed world. We are the "phantoms" of the dorms, as the anonymous e-mailer said.
This random email I got drives the point home. I had sent out a message to our dorm mailing list, and he decided to check out the URL of my web page in my signature, and he emailed me this (names have been changed, of course)
From randombobguy@leland.Stanford.EDU Wed Apr 22 22:59:11 1998 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 22:59:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Random Bob guy <randombobguy@leland.Stanford.EDU> To: Mark I-Kai Wang <mwang@leland.Stanford.EDU> Subject: yer homepage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; chavrset=US-ASCII hey, after noticing the fun quote on your .sig file, i just spent a while going through your home page, and I wanted to let you know that i enjoyed it. well thought out and executed. ...but i filled out the form to tell you this, and got an error.. the .prl file wasn't found in the cgi bin. or something. yah. anyway.. good job. it's a shame i had to read about you to get a feel for who you are, tho'.. later, random bob guy
So, yeah, we should be reaching out more. And practically, the small groups should be doing service, I think. We need more stuff like OHC last winter quarter. Or not even some grandiose organized activity like that, but just doing random small stuff, in our dorms, help to plan stuff, or to tutor people with their classes, or to help set up their in-room network connections, or just stuff like that.
Anyways, today in the Bob laundry room, as I was emptying out someone's load of clothes that had been washed, I put them into the dryer, and then I inserted 75 cents and dried it for them. Well, it's a start... =)
So, we go to retreats and we are just feeling high and euphoric, and then we go, and then it tapers off, exponentially, to the same old status quo. Anyways, I know that this sounds contrited, but, yeah, my freshman or even my sophomore year, I could not ever imagine something like this being pulled off. When we look back, we can say -- this is where the unity movement was revived. At Mount Gilead -- we truly got a sense of together that was concrete, people praying for one another, worshipping, playing basketball. It was better than any ACP, better than one of CH's onfire99 jam sessions, and I felt like I had never felt like it before, definitely not since freshman year, and maybe not even then.
Yeah. So props to everyone who put it on. But the words of Pastor Wilkes and others, like I said, are just awesome, and maybe I'm hyping it too much, but I think that, yeah, they do have the potential to truly re-ignite the unity movement here at Stanford and truly make the Body here visible, and not just as the fodder of Daily cartoons. Anyways, I implore you to listen to the messages again, especially Peter Wilkes'. Buy the recordings, or check out the RealAudio versions on the web site. And, yes, I am playing a good part in bring this stuff to fruition, and no, this is not a plug for my work, since I'm not making money on this anyways (most likely, I'll still end up a bit in the red), and it takes around 12 or so hours just to prepare each master recording (noise reduction, and all that, you know). Multiply that by eight different masters, and that's to say nothing of duplicating them! But don't just look over your notes, but hear Wilkes speak, relish in the British accent, and truly take the words to heart -- that we should love the world, and others will love us likewise. Even better: Eddie or Slim -- you should encode all the ACR stuff as MP3s and upload it everywhere to every site on the Internet you can think of! Now here's some MP3s that *should* be pirated widely! =)
Later y'all.