The Struggle for Balance

In Japan

2010-11-29T22:51:00.000-08:00

This is my first post since arriving in Japan. Wow.

I never contacted back the company I mentioned in my previous post, because a different company contacted me (both are recruitment agencies) and was very active in looking for a job for me.

I now have a job, and I start tomorrow. Thank you God for bringing me so far!

As I suspected, I've begun to learn "adult things" while living here in Japan which I wouldn't necessarily have known while living here as a kid.

First of all is that Canadian drivers license holders don't need to take a written or road test to get a Japanese license, but Americans do. Hehehe. So when I have enough money for the fees, I can get myself a Japanese license! (And when Tamara has a residents' visa, she can too!)

The other thing is that unlike Canada, you must pay into your pension here even if you don't have a job. As for health insurance though, in BC you need to be in BCMSP, but in Japan you can either be in "Citizen's Health Insurance" or "Worker's Health Insurance", depending on if you're working or not.

The third is that there is no extra fee for using your credit card overseas (with RBC at least). You get the same rates as if you were exchanging cash at an RBC branch. Good deal =).

Oh yes and fourthly sending a regular letter from Japan to Canada (110 yen - about $1.33) is cheaper than sending from Canada to Japan ($1.90 - about 157 yen). Woot!

So... that's all for now. I'll try to let you know what work is like at a future post without breaching my NDA hehe.

Job Update

2010-08-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

I recently applied for a job and got my first interview offer! And then I got a follow up email from the same recruitment agency coming from an old high school friend!

They won't interview me until I show up in Japan in person, but my friend has put in a good word for me so I am very encouraged. I decided to stop applying for jobs for now since I have an interview lined up with a recruitment company which has many job opportunities at their fingertips.

I'll focus on moving now and restart focusing on job hunting once I get to Japan.

Thanks all for your prayers and support! Please keep praying that Tamara gets her spouse visa fast! Then we can go!

1 More Month till Japan!

2010-08-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

So here's what's been up since my last update. Tamara is still on the alternate list for the JET program, but we've started to just move forward regardless of the JET program, assuming it's not going to happen. So here are the "big things" in our lives of late.

Thank You Cards

It's been over 2 months since our wedding and we haven't gotten our thank you cards out yet to everybody who has given gifts. How disgraceful! It's one of those things which are easy to put off I guess. They are mostly written out we just have to finish them and post them all. Our goal is to do that this week. So if you gave us a gift, heads up!!

Tamara's Visa Application

Boy, there was so much involved with that. We finally got all the paperwork to my parents this week, who submitted it to the Japanese immigration office on Monday. We're really hoping that Tamara well get her visa by September, but there's no way of telling when they will finish. So please pray!

David's Job

I've been looking for a job in Japan through different job search sites but I'm getting a lot of no's back. I'm hoping it's because I'm not in Japan at the moment and that it will be easier once I get to Japan. I just have to keep giving it back to God and find peace in the fact that he's in control and will provide for our needs.

Our House

We had the amazing blessing of having friends offer a house for us to rent in Tokyo at a very economical rate, but recently they found rot in the walls which calls for repairs. This puts a financial burden on them and a strain on the offer.

We have had two housing offers here in Canada this summer which were taken back at the last minute, and this is starting to look like the third in an unfortunate theme. The bright side is that if this is an attack of the enemy, then we're doing something right =). Please pray that God will overcome our obstacles and fulfill our need for a place to live, however he might have that work. Pray specifically for my parents too who are kindly negotiating in person on my behalf with the owners.

The major theme here obviously is Japan =). Tamara says I'm starting to think and talk more in a Japanese mindset than a Canadian mindset now. I must be excited. Woohoo!!

What does Paul mean?

2010-06-19T18:17:00.001-07:00

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25, NIV)

So my question is, what does Paul mean by "just as Christ... gave himself up for [the church]"? Is he talking about when Christ died on the cross? But the church didn't exist at that time... What does Paul mean by Church then?

Google It

2010-06-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

When somebody asks you how to do something, it is good practice to encourage them to take their query to Google. Don't just feed them, teach them how to fish so that they can survive on their own. Have we started sending people to Google too much though?

I think so.

Recently when I've been Googling things, I've noticed a trend.... this solution has started creeping into the top search results "Try Googling it". These responses are usually on forums where somebody asks a question, and somebody else tells them to Google it.

As much as I'm sure the responders are sending the questioners to Google in good faith, little do they know that their "Try Googling it" is going to end up being the top result on Google....

Now this may be Google's fault for picking this page as the top search result, or perhaps mine for not reading further down the forum for better solutions. I still think though that people should start thinking a little first about whether it's an appropriate place or time to suggest that the query should be taken to Google.

Imagine how many people will get trapped in the infinite recursion... =P

Married

2010-06-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

So since I last wrote I graduated and got married, which is a pretty big deal. Our honeymoon was in England, which as unconventional as it was, was a TERRIFIC honeymoon.

The plan now is to move to Japan, but we're back in Canada now. Why are we in Canada? Well originally we thought we had to be back for Tamara's Grandpa's 80'th birthday party, but they moved it to right after the wedding. By then we had already booked the tickets. We may have had other reasons too but that was the main reason.

We had a place to stay over the summer lined up too, but that fell through right before the wedding, so we looked for and found another place, but that fell through during the honeymoon. Right now we're at Tamara's parents' place looking for jobs and a place to stay in Japan.

Tomorrow we will be house sitting for a week for friends from Tamara's church. That will be nice to have time alone together for a week. Today we dropped by Old Navy where Tamara used to work, and it looks like they will take her back over the summer starting next week. That will be nice to have the income, since though we are blessed with having no rent for the moment, student loan repayment is ever looming, and we need to fund our trip to Japan, which will hopefully occur around September.

We have two weddings for friends we're booked to attend as well, which is exciting. Congratulations to Nate and Maja as well as Jenna and Julio! Just like us they are moving on to foreign countries which are home to one of the couple (Denmark and Peru, respectively). We must have started a trend!

Another thing going on in the background is Tamara's JET application. She applied to teach English in Japan, and was accepted but put on the alternate list. This means she's qualified but is on a waiting list until positions become available. This is a little odd since our family has friends in the JET program who are aware of job openings right now. But who knows how the system works... At least we know of friends who have been accepted after waiting for a while as an alternate.

So if the JET program accepts her, then they take care of her VISA, the living arrangements and rent etc. which is really nice. If not, well we want to go to Japan anyways so we'll have to figure that out on our own. Right now we're doing all the tedious work required in that process but are hoping that the JET program will work out. Please pray that God's will will be done either way.

Well I'm writing this blog post because I was getting sick of writing my resume for a job in Japan. I'll get back to that tomorrow I think. I think I'll go hang out with Tamara now and maybe watch a movie. Toodles!

Camcorder Review: Insignia NS-DV720P

2010-02-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

So I bought the Insignia NS-DV720P, and the short story is I'm happy with it. All I wanted was something which I could easily use and do the basics, and I got even more than that for a really good bargain.

Insignia is basically a no-name brand by BestBuy. You can buy this camera at BestBuy for $129 CAD, but I bought it at Future Shop (owned by BestBuy) for $99 CAD.

Here are some specs and features:

It can record in HD (720p), SD wide, SD, and QVGA.
Saves in both AVI and MOV
Takes 5 megapixel pictures
3" screen
Has sockets for composite, HDMI, USB and and SD card.
Uses a Lithium battery
Has about 100MB of internal memory.
Came with USB cable, HDMI cable, composite cable, and battery (but no external memory), strap and felt bag/case. I bought a separate bag and 16GB of memory.
Has a light
user interface defaults to simple mode, which can be turned off to show more advanced features. Very intuitive

Overall it's a lightweight, and easy to use camera with very high quality. Here are the only downers I've experienced:

When trying to delete videos, If you start playing the video, then the delete button turns into the button to turn the sound down. If you play the video and decide you want to delete it, you have to stop the video, exit the view videos mode, go back into the view videos mode, and then delete it. Well I haven't pored over the whole manual but I've tried everything =P
When saving in AVI, windows and mac can't open it. I tried Ubuntu and it works just fine. Apparently it uses a code called ITU H.264. Quick research made that codec seem pretty standard but hrm... An easy out for now for me is to record in MOV if I intend to watch it on windows or mac. Of course if I upload it straight to YouTube or Facebook, AVI works just fine.
I tried using the camera with iMovie 08, but it didn't get recognized as a camera. I guess the operating system only recognizes it as external memory, and not as a camera. Well it's cheap, so I'm not really complaining I guess, just observing.

Anyways I've never done a product review before, but I had a lot of thoughts so I thought I'd jot them down. If you're thinking of getting a basic camcorder, I'd highly recommend this one. Remember, get it from Future Shop, it's cheaper =)

Not Enough

2010-02-03T23:58:00.000-08:00

I don't have time for anything!!

Thesis
Linear Algebra
Discrete Math II
Data Structures & Algorithms
Pop Music in the 20th Century
Advanced Weight Training
Spartan Athletics Event Staff
Web Development and Online Course Support
Advanced Digital Recording Teaching Assistant

The first 6 are my classes, and I need those to graduate! The last 3 are jobs, and I need money to a certain degree (especially since I'm getting married), but each one of those jobs needs me a lot too! =(

The only thing I can feasibly save is money, in my transit to school. I pay $5.50 in bridge tolls per day plus however much in gas. I could take the bus and save a ton of money. However, that takes MORE TIME! And if I don't sleep, I can't keep going. I really need my sleep. But I don't have enough time.

"Why are you blogging then?", you might ask. Good question, good point. I have a midterm tomorrow. I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

The Lecture is Dead

2010-01-18T10:37:00.000-08:00

Well, not really. It needs to be taken out of the classroom though. Lectures are commonly seen as the staple of University education. It is a sure-fire way to make sure that teaching is happening. Can you be sure that learning is happening though? Is there a better way of doing this education thing?

Well since lectures came along, video and audio recording technologies have been invented. Why not record the lecture and let students access it so that they can listen to lectures on their own time? Then students can pause the lecture at any point and even review segments of it to make sure that they have mastered a concept. Futhermore, class time can be used for questions, feedback, and interaction - yes, a tutorial. If things were done this way, then instructors would be much more involved and aware of the learning process going on with their students.

Why do you think most Universities don't do this? Is it because it just hasn't occurred to them? Are they too lazy? Are lectures too sacred? Or is my suggestion just plain flawed?

Appreciation

2009-11-13T00:13:00.001-08:00

Life seems so pointless at times. Just a cycle of stories repeated over and over again. Every story ends, every life fails. But the depression of pondering this cycle of hopelessness ends when I think of appreciation. Appreciation of music, nature, beauty, love.

The existence of appreciation counters my tendency to conclude that there is no hope for life beyond death. These moments of experience don't seem to be merely developed for the benefit of the survival of our species. Rather, they seem to be gifts from a being who would also give us a hope for eternity.

Scholarly Work

2009-11-13T00:12:00.000-08:00

I look with general disdain towards the praise of scholarly work over other works. Academit merit and academic method to not ensure an author's work to be of quality and free of unfounded bias, ler alone to any exclusive degree. In fact, I believe that in the arena of non-scholarly work lies opportunity for superior peer review, sincere sharing of ideas, and a more humble attitude in these dissemination processes. What do you think?

The Cycles of the History of Worship

2009-11-04T16:20:00.000-08:00

It is frequently argued that Evangelical worship is increasingly beginning to follow the model of a marketing corporation, and is losing its roots in traditional worship which used to have a model of theology.¹ Without saying whether this is a good or bad thing, I will argue that this is not a new trend. In fact I see this as a part of a cycle the Church has repeatedly gone through since the Apostolic Age.² This is by no means an academic paper based on a thorough research, but is just the spawn of an idea I wanted to get written down. If you have thoughts or reactions to this, by all means please share them with me.

The Church is composed of a community of individuals. I propose that the individual tends towards an experiential and emotional form of worship, and the community tends towards a traditional or principle based form of worship. I also propose that experience is a factor all authentic acts of conversion.³

My cycle is composed as follows:

Individuals convert to Christianity because of an experience they had. Their religion is thus based on their experience.

The community of individuals grows.

Once the community becomes sustainable, it no longer needs to be based on experience. In fact, it is impractical to do so, since the community is distanced by time from its individuals' experiences.

The community thus begins to emphasize on tradition and principle

The lack of emphasis on experience slows the inflow of converts, but this is not an issue since the community is significant in size and thus sustainable

The community begins to age, and dwindles in numbers

The community reaches a point of crisis where it can no longer survive

The community goes back to an emphasis of experience to draw individuals into the community, so that it can grow again

For example, the early church had an enormous influx of believers because they saw the acts of love by the Church, and the benefit it was having on their city, their neighbours, and themselves. This was enough reason to join the community of believers. The size of the community reached a critical mass where it had to begin institutionalizing many aspects of itself, thus shifting emphasis on deeds which have experiential consequences to deeds which dwell on principles of faith. In fact it became entangled with the state and thus became mainstream. The community dwindles and ages, mainly not through stagnation, but through falling to the temptations of mainstream culture. The crisis is sensed, and Christians begin to flee to the desert and other abandoned areas, to punish their bodies and seek true purity. This is the shift to an experiential emphasis. Many people see this as being attractive, and begin pursuing these Christian hermits and their ways. Communities of monks are formed, numbers grow, and the cycle begins again.

Notice how in this case there was not a conscious embrace of "experiential recruiting tactics", but the shift to an emphasis on experience was still there. Each example of a cycle will have its own complexity to the cycle, but the cycle is there in meta-form. Let's look at another example.

The story of the Salvation Army is that of reaching out to those who had rejected the Church because it was not relevant to them. They would provide to the needy, and put Christian lyrics to the tunes and genre which was popular at the time. Here lay the Crisis point and the shift of emphasis to experience. As the movement grew into a large community however, its emphasis shifted from experience back to principle. We can see that the Salvation Army still uses the same tunes and genre today which they used back in the 1800s.

As I said, I'm not trying to point out that the shifts are good or bad. I am just trying to demonstrate that there is a cycle, and it's been there from the beginning. I could go on with thinking up of examples, but I shouldn't digress too far from my studies. Having accomplished my task, I look forward to your thoughts and responses to my ideas.

Footnotes

If you are unaware of worship taking place on a marketing corporation model, or traditional worship which is based on a theological model, just ask me and I'll be happy to find demonstrations of them.

This "cycle" is can get complicated by other factors, which I will mention later

Inauthentic (e.g. forced) conversions are different, but nevertheless have had an influence on the history of the Church, which complicates my cycle

Isoformat in Python

2009-11-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

As Tim mentions, trying to get the current datetime's isoformat is really ugly in Python. Unfortunately it's a little bit uglier than he described, due to daylight savings time... Here it is.


from datetime import datetime, tzinfo, timedelta
import time

class TZ(tzinfo):
    def utcoffset(self,dt): return timedelta(
        # begin extra craziness
        seconds = -time.altzone\
            if time.localtime().tm_isdst\
            else -time.timezone)
        # end extra craziness

    def dst(self,dt): return timedelta(0)

a = datetime.now(TZ())
a= a.replace(microsecond = 0)
print a.isoformat()

That prints

2009-11-01T22:24:30-08:00

Compare with php


date("c")

/* I actually don't know if this handles 
   daylight savings time or not
   but it's still way simpler */

grrr...

canada.com

2009-10-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

There is a picture of me on canada.com... weird. I'm the leftmost pink shirt.

TWU Spartans' Soccer

2009-10-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

Oh the woes.

Trinity Western University is looking forward to hosting the Men's National Soccer Championship for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport league this November. This is only a year after hosting the women's nationals, which is really good PR for the athletics department and the University. Unfortunately, they're in for a bumpy ride.

The field is kinda falling apart. Bad growing season, overuse, stuff like that, and they're getting divots all over the place. Oh by the way, that's a new word for me, and I think it's going to be my vocabulary word of the year.

Also just this weekend, the score clock stopped working. It's too bad they don't have much money these days. Makes me wish I was a billionaire and could donate a brand new everything to them. Oh well, maybe one day.

Street View comes to Canada

2009-10-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Canada has finally joined the ranks of Google Streetview! You can take a look at Google maps now to see street level imagery of Vancouver =) Unfortunately however, they didn't drive all the way up to the house I live in right now. I'm really in the boonies. Sorry folks =)

English = Confusing

2009-10-05T01:13:00.000-07:00

I detest English sometimes, because it's confusing. Sometimes it's confusing because I don't understand it well enough. Other times though, it's just plain confusing. Here is my huff-puff for the day:

high : low => higher : lower
up : down => upper : lower..? not downer?

grr

Twitter

2009-10-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

Just so you know, I post randomly on twitter much more frequently than I do on here. Here I tend to post in little bursts every other month =P. Just the way my busy-ness goes.

Since I left...

2009-07-30T10:37:00.001-07:00

Well Japan was awesome, I did a lot of fun things with Tamara. We got engaged there though, so all our other awesome activities are having a hard time topping that one. Memorable things there include riding roller coasters, climbing Mt. Fuji, running around Tokyo, and spending time with church and family.

Once I got back to Canada I caught a virus from Chilliwack involving throwing up, shivering, diarrhea, back cramps, and inability to eat. I barely got two days at work before this virus took me down. My landlord called me asking me to clean up while I was bedridden because she was having a potential renter viewing the suite the next day. I was too sick and oblivious to realize that 1 day was way too short notice to clean the house. That culminated in a very unpleasant situation as I was recovering from my illness.

That was Thursday, and obviously I was cleaning the house the best I could over the weekend. Tamara was very kind and offered to help me on Saturday. That night after taking Tamara home, I got into a car accident with a pedestrian who was running across the highway intersection against the light. She was ok, no broken bones, but my headlight and windshield were damaged, and I also ran into other unexpected and avoidable towing expenses.

I just got my windshield replaced yesterday, thanks to my bosses' best friend to runs an autoglass company and gave me a discount. I feel like I'm finally back on my feet again...

The annoying this is I fell ill the same day I decided to spend the best part of an hour with God before I started my day. I don't need things like this hindering my relationship with God. Please pray that this series of unfortunate events will stop, and even if I come across them again, that I would persevere and continue to give my time and devotion to God.

Thank you Jesus for taking care of me in the midst of it all.

Japan, here I come

2009-06-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

I will be going to Japan in less than a week for a whole month! I get to take my girlfriend Tamara with me and show off my "homeland" to her =). 'Twill be fun with much excitement in store.

CFO

2009-06-11T23:09:00.000-07:00

I will be leading the youth segment of Camp Farthest Out in Falkland, B.C. this August. Here is a picture of me playing with the speaker for the camp and his kids last month.

I love my computer glass

2009-03-20T01:46:00.001-07:00

My I love you computer cup cracked!!! =(

Multiple Intelligences

2009-03-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

If you want to see my learning style according to a multiple intelligences' test, type "2db2n10214kq" into the "Your Code" field on this page. If you want to try it for yourself, just click "Take a Test" on the top right of that page.

My Paper

2009-03-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

I just finished writing a long paper. I might as well post it here in case any of you would have fun reading it.

Read my Paper

Spring

2009-02-19T20:51:00.000-08:00

Spring has begun. Not technically, but actually. How do I know, you ask? Just look around you - the couples are everywhere. They are out on their walks, holding hands and smiling. The boy puts his arm around his girl as she looks up to him and laughs. Imagine this... everywhere. This is a sure sign that spring has arrived.

It has been quite cold and miserable until 2 days ago actually. The lake has been frozen over, and my car has constantly had frost on its windows and the doors were frozen shut. As for school...

Calculus started well, and then I got a little bit behind, just before (and during)my midterm. I got a D+ on my midterm, and then suddenly my brain clicked again and I did well on the following quiz. So anyways. As for my Religious Studies class, it's a very "rattling" class, raising questions which the church would never dare raise. This makes me really happy, because even if it doesn't answer absolutely all of my questions, it's been raising questions which I've been wondering since I was quite young. It's mostly on New Testament Theology, and the problem of understanding what the New Testament meant 2000 years ago, and how to bridge that time gap and give it meaning today.

Then there is my Operating Systems class. Half the time this course seems very trivial and mundane, then all of a sudden you realize it's hard because you haven't been paying absolute attention, and you have to do a project, assignment, or write a midterm. I really like what I'm learning though (When I'm paying attention to learn it.) Finally, there is my Digital Recording class. This course is lots of fun, because I already know a lot of it really well, but then on the other hand, there is so much of it I don't know. Maybe I'll post a song here from one of my projects if it turns out well =).

When that's a little fragmented summary of what's going on. Next week is reading break so it will be relaxing but still a little busy because I have much schoolwork to do, such as preparing for presentations, studying for midterms and reading books so I can write papers on them. Pray that I will be diligent. Well I better get to my Calculus, so that I will do well in class tomorrow.