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Name: Ricky
Gender: Male


Interests: The English Premiership, Music, Science & Religion, Philosophy


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Member Since: 12/1/2002

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Christians of VANCOUVER!!
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Goodbye, Xanga!

Well, yes, call me a ditcher, but I've finally decided that I am going to be migrating to wordpress.com.  One of the simplest reasons is because you needn't be a member to comment on the blogs there.  And I suppose it's just easier to manage the whole layout over there as well.

Ciao xanga and my xanga friends.  Xanga was one of the reasons why I first started going to Campus Crusade, so I will not forget you!

Here's my new blog (still under construction):


http://www.ricolapak.wordpress.com







Tuesday, May 06, 2008

When all hope is gone


There was a day this past semester when I got the chance to talk to this old man at UBC.  He told me all about his life.  He told me when he was young he had always thought killing himself.

He told me that he was a smart kid and knew that (from his research) you don't just shoot yourself anywhere in the head if you really wanted to die.  You have to stick the gun in your mouth, pointing diagonally upwards towards the back of your head.  I think there were some more details but I fail to recall.

Then, midway through his life he encountered God, and his life had completely flipped around since then.



It's scary when all hope is gone.




Monday, May 05, 2008

Juno


Well I finally watched Juno.  It was a heart-warming little film.  Just moments after it started I just knew that I couldn't help but absolutely love the girl.  She's got this coolness about her.  She was a very down to earth, simple kind of girl.

Tonight I sat through a whole winds recital thinking about this film.  Not that the music wasn't good; it was great.  But I still believe that classical music is an acquired taste, one which I unfortunately do not have.

I kept thinking whether it was wrong for me to like the film as much as I did.  The situation could have and should have been a pretty traumatic experience, but the film didn't convey that at all.  It was all very simple and fun and light-hearted.

'Is it wrong for me to embrace this kind of a worldview?', I kept asking myself.


And in the end I think I decided that it wasn't wrong.  Love really ought to be that simple.  Our human nature (aka sinful nature) just gets in the way all the time.  And so, whilst the film was a bit too perfect to be true, that was exactly why it was a film, and a very good one at that.





The immigrant's dream

I meant to write this a long time ago, but because I thought it would sound a tad too sketchy, I held off. 

But tonight we had a second mini-Halifax reunion, this time with Joyce Hoogenboom (the H-BOOM) in town.  And this topic came up again.

In short, there's the American dream, and then there's the immigrant's dream: to marry a white woman.


A couple of months ago this NPO called Coast Mental Health came to UBC for a recruitment session, and I, along with a buncha Psyc students, attended.  There at the meeting I met up with one of the leaders of another UBC Christian club, and because I knew that he was an international student, I asked him whether it was going to be complicated for him to get a full-time job here in Canada.

He explained to me that that was exactly why he wanted a job, to earn points that would make him a more, for the lack of a better word, "successful" immigration candidate.

In my head, I could only respond by thinking, "do you really think Immigrations Canada care about your expertise and education more than your ability to acquire a white wife?"


Thus endeth my sharing.




Thursday, May 01, 2008

Support Letters

This might sound a bit vain, but whenever I receive support letters from friends, my eyes usually saccade around (to be fair I don't think you actually know when your eyes are saccading) until they find the personalized bit of the letter.  You know, those few sentences usually at the top or at the bottom that are written just for you.  And if the sender of the letter is nice, you might just get a paragraph instead of the usual 2-3 sentences.

Today I opened up a letter from a member of the Shalom family and although she wrote only one personalized sentence, it was a real nice touch.

"I think it's cool that you're praying for a wife".

You're probably in Africa by now, but thanks Tablahblah.  That's quite encouraging.



In other news, it's FULL SPEED AHEAD BARCELONA!!......except this time it is FULL SPEED AHEAD MOSCOW!!

Let's do 'em Russians!









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