Struggles. Point of Divergence.

I realize that I'm behind on my second discussion on career and all, but I feel that this is much more relevant to my thoughts and feelings right now. I will return to my discussion on my career soon. (Note the use of the word "soon", that could mean anything in today's term...hehe)

Anycase, I wish to discuss Struggles in life. To clarify, in looking at one's life, we don't always see one consistent image, if it was so, that person is probably really boring...I don't know, humans make mistake -- and I don't have to say much more about that. History itself is a living proof of the statement. But this is where many have drawn their observation on when the life of one is evaluated, but more importantly in one's own self-examination, do we see ripples? Do we see struggles in life, against those vices that we're born with? Do we struggle against those things that we undo us of our humanity? It is an a testament of our will more so than our accomplishments while on this earth.

Many people think of those who are religious, and particularly of Christians, are so holy and pure. True is, not so much, maybe for one that is very much sheltered, that is someone who lives in their own world segregated from the rest of the world. I cannot say if being sheltered is a good thing or not, but even the sheltered ones will have flaws and problems that they struggle with -- so are the so-called Christians. A friend of mine once divided up the people attending Mass at church into segments of people: the pious hypocrites, the Christians wanna-be, the friend-seekers, and this and that. Well, that is perhaps so, who doesn't struggle? We Christians proclaims the Gospel of Truth and Love, and that Gospel is the exact thing we believe will set us free from these earthly struggles we experience. We're not immune from it. And that is the main point -- we are Christians because we have heard of the Gospel, the Good News, of the Lord -- of Life after death, of family in Heaven, of Love unbound -- one that transcends time and space, even death! That good news is our risen Lord -- Jesus Christ. And in following Him, we give of ourselves away to God's purpose. But we're human, not some perfect machine, and more importantly, we are given free will.

It is through our utmost will that we put forth our life in communion with God's will. And there are the times when we fall -- we become the hypocrites. Funny thing is, some of us are better at hiding our vices than others. So here comes the often sentiments that if someone is a priest they are pure and holy and can never make mistakes -- well, I beg to differ.

Life without struggle -- however pure and however nice -- doesn't provide testimony of one's life. And demanding any religious person to not have any faults or desires of their own -- is just as foolish as those religious ones that condemns those without religions. But further, to take advantage of one suffering of one's own gain, and to demand them to endure the suffering due to their believe thereof, against ones free will, is an outcry to community, to society as a whole.

If anything these four years in college has taught me to embrace my own faults and stand back up to fight another day, to submit myself fully and completely to God's love. A friend of mine loved this line from Mother Teresa -- to be a pencil in God's hands. If anything, what I've learned is that this pencil will break and dull from time to time, and it definitely need some sharpenin'. A pencil that never break -- well, is not a pencil, and one that is broken and not sharpened just need a hand to make it new. And no one can promise a pleasant and easy sharpening process, in fact, it will probably hurt like world's gonna end...but that's where life begins -- if you catch my drift.

I'm not saying though that you go out and make mistakes and what not, but rather, every time it happens, sharpen that pencil and bring yourself back to the line -- get ready to start over again.

What is the meaning of life you ask me? Well, today my answer is -- to struggle and not be strangled.

TMH

Career. Part 1.

So college is about to end for me. As I wrap up (read: starting) the senior design project, the more I think about it, the more I felt like yeah sure this stuff is cool and all, and I'm really grateful that God has given me the passion and talent in all this stuff, but right now, as of this moment of my project, I cannot see how it will be of any use or any good will to anybody else. I feel like the project's end is just to show off. Now it started out as a test to myself of how much stuff I've learn, but also as a sort of looking glass for myself to see where in life I am, where's my studying leading me to and where has my growing process gone? Well, I'm not very satisfied with what I am seeing. Some of these days I simply do not want to wake up at all, to face the dreadful design project. Some may see that this is an evidence of me being an terrible engineer, well, possibly...but if you're stuck in a project that you've came up with and later realizing to be really a fool's quests what can you do?

This gets me thinking, is my choice of studying engineering really something I want to do for the rest of my life? And more importantly, is a career of research or industry in electrical engineering what God is calling me to? They say discernment is about whether or not one is to become a priest, well, honestly, discernment is more like thinking about whether or not God is in the picture at all. Let me illustrate.

Four years ago, I decided to studying electrical engineering at the University of Texas in Austin. Now at the time, my rationale was: I can program stuff, high-level software, and I'm pretty good at debugging, but I wouldn't want to do CS stuff for the rest of my life. I wanted to interact more with people, I wanted to have more hands on with my product, even some circuit design or even computer architecture design of sorts. And the only two school I've applied was UTD and UT, naturally I decided to come to UT for the better program. At the time, I made the decision solely on the rationale that Texas is a better school and I wanted to have the experience of living away from home as opposed to stay at home and have mom wake me up every morning to do homework or go to class. I wanted change.

Seeing that the four years has gone by, it's about to change back after my graduation, well, actually, I do not know. After a good friend of my started seminary about two years ago, it really got me thinking, asking myself the question, where is God taking me? Where does God want me to be? I know that I have tons of excuses and tons of things, desires, stuff I really would "enjoy", but I also know that only God is the ultimate captain of my ship. So wherefore do I go after this? Or for that matter, let me look closer, what's the point of the senior design project? I'm rambling, but there's a point in this article.

1. Graduation is coming
2. Discernment of life after college
3. Immediate future: design project failures
4. Disappointments
5. Aspirations/Reality Check/Discernment


Well, it's late. I'll come back to it some other day.

MOBC and Jenga (sp?)

MBOC is like playing the game of jenga, each piece supports each other. And when you remove one, you put them on top of each other. And they are all related, when a key piece fall, many more gets knocked off. But the whole point of MBOC is so that when you knock over the towering jenga tower, many people picking it up helps to recover really really fast!!

Example of MBOC analogy.

TMH