a danger

recently i had to format my computer, because it was being stupid. something to do with the boot-up. everyone knows the grueling process of having to reinstall everything and reset all your settings. it's a pain in the butt, i know, i had to do it. thinkpads have programs that automate the formatting for you, but even then there's still the installing everything again that takes long.

now my roommates on the other hand have an alternative solution. they use some program that creates an image of their laptop. this image remembers all the programs and all the settings and all the data, you would save this image on a cd or something. then you clear out ur computer, and then all you gotta do is stick the image back on the computer, and everything will be all done. holy smokes isn't that genius?

now what if you were to do that, but when you put the image back on, you realize the image wasn't perfect? if your image had a problem, then the problem would carry over after you reformatted, and you are back to the same problem you started with.

because this had occurred to me recently, it reminded me of a very real idea that i learned over the years. the reality of getting to know a person is imperfect. to get to know a person, i would say you need to spend time with them, do things with them, talk with them, and all that good stuff. as you do that, all these actions and memories are inputted in your mind, and soon, an image is formed in your mind of that person. that's all fine and dandy, but the unfortunate thing is that the other person has no access or control to this image. the only person that has access to that image.. is you. because of that, you have the power to do whatever you want to this image. on the natural path of a friendship, i think this image generally stays about constant. but what is also natural to occur is that a person might subconciously change such an image based on their feelings. i say feelings, possibly meaning feelings of attraction for the person, or maybe feelings of repulsion.. or maybe just feelings in general. i don't know, feelings are easily prone to change and can cause a great effect on.. practically anything. these feelings are usually generated by spending more time with the person, but that may not be required in the special case.

so the danger can be easily seen that the image may not (and most likely not) correspond to the true character of the person, and the person could eventually start to assume certain things about their friend, thinking that they know their friend so well, that the image in their minds is so accurate, that it must be true about them. i learned that it was very easy to forget that, an image is just an image, and in this case, getting a 100% perfect image is impossible.

a danger? maybe it isn't that big of a deal to think wrong of something about a friend. that is true. but i feel that it becomes an issue when you start to be friends with the image, instead of the person. this can more readily if there is no continual contact with the person. i myself have experienced this thoroughly, and have been struggling with this for a while. i had begun to formulate my own image of a person, and before i knew it, my image was totally different from the actual person. it is unfortunate that there would be misunderstandings about the character and interests of a person, but it is absolutely disastrous if you made a bad decision based on your incorrectness about your friend. please do watch out for this, and remember that your image isn't always perfect. never treat your image as your friend, because your friend is much more than an image in your mind.

think about it another way. you have the power to display what you want other people to have as an image for you in their minds. therefore, everything you do and say has an effect on what their image will be like. you should know that this image will not be perfect, and can never fully represent you. but the unfortunate thing is that it may, for those of your friends that don't fully understand and grasp the concept of an image. therefore, you should provide as accurate a display for your friends as possible, such that no negative events or misunderstandings would happen because of it.

phew. all common sense? maybe it is, but i feel it's a lesson learned and an idea worth remembering. think about that next time you format your computer.

"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."

1 Peter 8-9

the theological depth of forgetting norway

for those of you who don't know, me and my waterloo housemates live on mcdougall rd in waterloo, and we've been known as mcdougall ever since. living with 4 other guys in the same house for almost 5 months now, there's been many experiences that we've had on our own, and we've grown to be like each other in different ways.

one of such ways is that we've began to pick up each other's mannerisms. i know that for a fact because i've heard many of my own catch phrases being used by my roommates. my fickle sarcasm has also been brushed off to some of them. let me explain to you one of mcdougall's most common phrases: "forget norway".

it all started in our very first term, when our rez friend jon lau showed us a video about lions and tigers. here is the link to the video:

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/

as you can see, this video is absolutely mesmerizing, and once this was shown again to mcdougall, all of us have fell in love with it, and our house has even been nicknamed "kenya", and unspoken meanings were created for lions and tigers. phrases like "holy crap!" was immediately replaced by "holy crap lions!"

but of course, i would say the most influential statement of the kenya video is the phrase "forget norway!". as seen in the video, the phrase was used to emphasize the importance of kenya, while at the same time demeaning the value of norway. of course, norway is nowhere related to what the video was portraying, and most people would consider the comment as "random" or "it doesn't make any sense" or any derivative of such comments. but mcdougall has understood this phrase much more fully.

we understood that this phrase can clearly emphasize the importance of one thing, while decreasing the importance of another. therefore, whenever in such situations, the phrase can easily depict such an impression to our fellow housemates. because of its flexibility, the phrase soon became part of our normal lingo. and as i thought more and more of it, and the different situations where it's been used, i believe that there's been a theological lesson embedded in these two simple words.

forgetting norway reminds us of the things that we place too much importance on, and elevates what we do need to place importance on. many times i find myself dwelling on thoughts and ideas that are not good for me. instead, my focus should be on God alone. we should all be lifting our concerns, burdens and energies to Christ, because he should be our source. many times we find ourselves overburdening ourselves. maybe it's with school, or maybe it's with relatoinships with particular people, or maybe it's with just work in general. if we spent all our time and energy doing all of this for our own good, is that the right way? maybe at these moments, it's time to tell yourself to forget norway, and give it up to God.

therefore, i encourage you to give thought to think about what have you been spending all your time doing, and what of such things have been too self-focused. if you want to talk about this subject, feel free to msn me and we can talk. and you can also tell me what you think about the video, and if you see any more lessons that God may be teaching you through such a rich demonstration of multimedia.

and for those that think this blog is stupid and pointless.. forget norway man.



(today after church, i was conversing with some friends from church, and they've given me positive feedback about the interest of the content of this blog. to the point that i've often been referred to as the name of this blog, victro. thank you to all supporters of victro's blog!)

new mcdougall

another school term back in waterloo.
students, welcome back to another term of school. this term is going to be very exciting. dynamics, ODEs, mods 2, thermo, and digital logic. 2b or not 2b indeed.

for those who don't know, my current school term is said to be the most difficult of all the terms in mechanical engineering.

what else is exciting is new mcdougall. mcdougall has MOVED. we've moved just across the street to 74 mcdougall rd. our house is beautiful. do come visit us if you have the chance. we have plenty of distractions to offer.

there are a lot of new frosh this year at uwccf, including some from scbc. i think that's really exciting because helping the frosh to adjust to university life and finding a spiritual is a great ministry, and its importance only increases to me for those who i've known from before.


i am currently experiencing a major mind/life block, where i don't know what to do or don't know what to think. i suspect this feeling could be related to moving out of toronto and not having to live with constant family related issues, and of my decisions are forcedly made for me. i feel all the more totally uninteresting, and the writing juices just aren't flowing, which explains my lack of consistent blog postings.

i'm working on getting things back on track.
come talk to me.

people, i really can't be interesting all the time.

i don't think that i am a good conversationalist, and can easily kill any conversation. i can't usually think of good witty comments until after a conversation is over, and it's too late.

in fact, i'm quite a dull person. i am pretty boring. i hope that you can see that i usually try pretty hard, but it's my undeniable nature that i am a dull person.

i'm not interesting.