In Search of Kingdom Living

Fall in Vancouver. Lovely. I must confess it’s not as dreary as advertised. I guess I’ll have to wait until October/November before I make a generalization about the city’s weather.

Regent

I’m glad I had originally front loaded all my courses. Now this term, I only have one course – History of Philosophy with Loren Wilkinson. Ideally, the rest of my time will be dedicated to my thesis. I’m hoping I can set aside a typical 9-5 study time and have the rest of the day to relax like regular working ppl… we’ll see how long I can last with this studying philosophy.

I’ve also joined a community group at Regent this term. It’s being led by Rod Wilson (the school’s president) and his wife, Bev. First meeting was today and it looks to be an eclectic group filled with some foodie types (apparently next week the newbies in the group like myself will try Natto, a japanese fermented bean dish).

Student Ministries

I’m hopping on board the VCF ministries over here. I met up with the local staff and attended a student dinner over the weekend. It was great hanging around students again and meeting fellow staff who are passionate about mentoring students. I’m wanting to commit to this group, and hopefully get some nice data for my thesis as well.

Anticipating the Olympics

Yes… the Olympics are coming up soon (only 5 months away!). I now know I’ll be volunteering as some kind of driver… you figure they might’ve hired me because of my Ontario driving experience (which is worlds better than the typical Vancouver driver), but who knows?

Two more weeks in Vancouver, and I’m back in Toronto for a month. I figure I should update all my comings and goings since my last entry in MAY .

SCHOOL

Starting in late May until early July, I enrolled in two classes, audited one class, and was a TA for another.

Early on, I was taking a Reading Film class with Bruce Marchfelder. He’s a director/filmmaker who had a film compete at Cannes, teaches directing at Vancouver Film School (he even taught a few Battlestar Galactica actors), and he’s an adjunct faculty member at Regent. The class was half film analysis, and half theological discussion. I enjoyed the class – up to a certain extent. I thought I always had some artistic inclinations, especially regarding film. But after sitting through two weeks with fellow students nitpicking every single scene re: the significance of this shot, character placement, lighting, music, even the shape of a shadow cast by a lamp…. I’m not sure I’m THAT artsy. In any case, it was a welcome change from the general philosophical discussion that usually happens in the typical Regent class. Oh, here’s an interview with Bruce about filmmaking and God.

My other credit course was Theology of Culture with Hans Boersma. I found Hans quite interesting. By reputation, he’s quite “unique” among the Regent staff. A heavy proponent of sacramental theology, one might argue that he is staunchly catholic in his views. This leads to interesting events such as when Hans and Rikk Watts debated one another about the use of philosophy for the interpretation of Scripture. The class teachings started from the classic Christ & Culture by Niebuhr, addressing how Christianity and culture related to one another. From there, it was a systematic look at all the different approaches to culture that Christians have held. Now, what was crazy is that Hans treated this 2-week summer course like a typical term course. Readings had to be done and reported every day. A major book review handed in at the end of 2 weeks. Man, I had no life for 2 weeks, just living in the library and reading all day. Thank God I finished all my final essays by monday and I’m officially finished that class.

My audit course was Spiritual Discernment with Marva Dawn. It was great to hear about Marva’s personal spiritual journey and she is a personal example of how one can be scholarly, pastoral, and down to earth, all wrapped into one humble servant. My one regret is that the course was very similar to the one I had in Tyndale Seminary so I didn’t learn any “new material”.

Finally, I was a Teaching Assistant for Paul Barnett for two weeks as he taught about the book of Romans. Paul’s a bishop in the land down under, a scholar who’s written about the search for the historical Jesus and a commentary on 2 Corinthians (NICNT). Being a TA was quite fun, although since I wasn’t a marking TA, it was basically a glorified gofer (still good). I wanted to be a TA to experience another dimension of academia. Paul was great to work with – we had lunch together one day (he treated) and he shared his insights about the road through academia, balancing teaching and pastoring, and even sharing some behind the scene stuff about writing books and commentaries. Oh yes, and I got to largely sit in a class about Romans for free. Sweet deal.

SEATTLE

I can’t believe I already went down to Seattle three times. My first time was on a whim with some friends doing some crossborder shopping… then we ended up in Seattle crashing a bday party. I spent all of 3-4 hours in Seattle in a bar/games place.

Second time was for a whole day and I went digging for clams and oysters closer to the Olympic National Forest. That was fun, must do it again.

Third time now, went down for A&J’s wedding. Spent a whole weekend there. And I finally remember my camera and took a few pics of pike place, the market in downtown Seattle.

Here’s the original Starbucks

Pike Place Fish Market – if you order a fish, they’ll toss it around for all to see.

Here’s the video I took of them throwing fish

Found this Clam Chowder place in Post Alley – great stuff.

WHISTLER IN THE SUMMER

One of the many things I like about the North Pacific is that at any moment, you can drop what you’re doing and head out to some beautiful natural scenery. One such moments was when I went up to Whistler with some friends in June.

Yes this is Whistler in the summer, and believe it or not, there’s snow at the very top for summer skiing.

And while you’re in Whistler, why not check out one of the best restaurants in the village? Of course I’m speaking about Araxi, where the next winning of Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen will become the executive chef.

And this is what I ate: Paradise Valley Pork Tasting (local food). It’s slow cooked belly and pork cheek ravioli with Pemberton sunchoke puree, chanterelles, and fresh peas. I went with 3 other friends and we were gonna split all our dishes, but unfortunately mine was so good I already ate half my meal before we decided to share. Aw well, more for me.

Tree Climbing on the Island

What summer in Vancouver can be complete without visited Vancouver Island? Although I didn’t go have high tea in Victoria or surf in Tofino, I did go tree climbing in Nanaimo. What a wonderfully tiring trip. I slept less than an hour, and by 3:30 am was awoken by my friend to get ready to take the ferry to the Island. Apparently it’s a huge ordeal so we had to make reservations and get there early. The one cool thing was that it was my first time driving a car onto a ferry. We saw the sun rise and it was already very bright before 5 am.

Finally, we arrive in Nanaimo

We then proceeded to this place called Wildplay where they have ziplining, bungee jumping, and a tree climbing obstacle course.

An example of how high the swaying bridge obstacle was at the end of the course – about 50 ft off the ground.

Now here you see a bunch of us trying to cross the bridge – look, no hands!

And of course, the prerequisite money shots of ME.

The same park has opened up in Whistler so if anyone is interested in going and needs a tour guide, I’m your man.

PAYING YOUR DUES

One final update before I go back to my last summer class and head out to Toronto. I mentioned earlier that I was a TA for 2 weeks at Regent College. That means I GOT PAID. Of course it’s not much and I already dumped a ton of money into my education here, but at least I can claim that my school paid me to study… even if it’s little pay and only for a short period of time.

God bless, and will blog more, now that I got most of my classes/and vacationing out of my system.

This post is taken from my faith and tech blog:

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To clear the air, I have to praise God that my Thesis proposal was approved at the beginning of April.

Now that I’ve finished my first school term at Regent and have some time off before the summer term begins, I have a few thoughts about my journey in getting my thesis proposal approved.

Starting with a Good Idea

Way back when I started thinking about pursuing a ThM at Regent, I already had a general problem that I wanted to research. From my background as a campus staff worker, I wanted to know how technology (specifically Internet related technology) affects University students and I wanted to research this question by means of ethnographic research. I submitted a letter of intent to Regent, outlining the basic argument to my potential thesis (which is similar to what I wrote in this post, HERE), got accepted, and then tried to come up with a definite thesis idea.

Reading for Ideas

One of my first courses at Regent was Christianity and Modern Technology taught by Craig M. Gay. The assigned readings for the class (Postman’s Technopoly and Guardini’s Letters from Lake Como) were helpful in getting me thinking about how technology shapes society. Our class also had a reader with various articles/chapters from different authors, thinkers, scholars who have varying viewpoints about technology. Craig also included a good bibliography that highlighted many other good books about technology.

What I’m getting at is that early on in thesis research (even before settling on a specific topic), you have to read widely and maybe some kind ‘o wonderful will emerge out of the readings.

Getting Supervision

I can’t stress how crucial it is in having a good supervisor for your thesis. At the beginning of the term, I approached Craig to ask for help about the entire thesis writing process. Since he was the person overseeing the ThM students, he answered a lot of my questions. Also, because his interests are in the area of technology, he became my supervisor.

Throughout the term, I met with him another 3-4 times and we hashed out a preliminary timeline for my thesis. We identified certain milestones (ie. getting research done, finalizing specific topic for thesis, and submitting my thesis proposal).

Doing School and Research at the Same Time

Having to attend classes and churning out assignments was quite challenging in the Regent environment. Having to do this while I’m working on a thesis proposal was barely manageable… but I got it done (by living in the library). I met up with Prof John Stackhouse early on in the term (I’m in his epistemology class) and he suggested that I treat my thesis work as another class – setting aside proper time for assigned readings and writing. That was great advice and that’s the way I was able to piece together my vague notions about technology and faith and begin to write down something coherent by way of a thesis.

If I were to discern the time I spent on my thesis proposal, and compare it to my classes, I would guess that my thesis proposal would be the same amount of time as two master level classes.

Overcoming Hurdles

Perhaps the biggest hurdle that I found out halfway through my term at Regent was that I only had a few months to submit a thesis proposal. Because I began my schooling in January, I had assumed I could submit a proposal sometime in the summer, and work on my research the other half of the year. Which leads me to one important concept for thesis writing.

NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING.

Apparently, the last submission date was end of April, so really I only had less than 2 months to write a thesis proposal. Then, I find out later that this date was when a committee would review my thesis. Instead, I had to submit my thesis by early April. So in total, I had less than 3 weeks to submit my thesis proposal.

Imagine my shock when I was not notified by Regent about this bizarre timeline, my thesis supervisor was also surprised by the dates, and here am I wondering how can I do this under the gun while having other final essays and exams to complete.

I just plugged in my headphones, listened to music, and started to write. I will definitely be more proactive with my work in the future, perhaps even pestering professors ad nauseam.

Oh yeah, I also begged the head of the thesis review committee (Hans Boersma) to give me an extension for my thesis (might as well ask, right?). Thankfully, he gave me a weekend extension.

The Benefits of Good Supervision

After I told Craig about the tight deadline, he offered to help out anyway he could. I gave him a brief outline of my first attempt at a thesis (without even having a solid thesis topic yet), and he helped guide my thinking.

Meanwhile, I began the first draft of my thesis proposal and by the end of a few days, I submitted my first attempt to Craig. Since I was in two of Craig’s classes, I knew how little time he had for me – yet, he was able to quickly edit my draft and offer a few suggestions of his own. We did quite a few of this back and forth via email – I submitted something, Craig edited and offered a few comments, then I would submit another draft. In the end, I think I submitted 1 outline and 4 drafts to Craig before officially submitting my thesis proposal to the committee.

Daring to be Unique

One of the things Craig told me early on was that my thesis proposal was pretty unique. Due to my ethnographic research component, he wasn’t sure if my thesis proposal would be approved. In fact, during the editing stage, he removed many of my ethnographic research remarks. I’m guessing it was in order to put more emphasis on the traditional scholarly research by highlighting the arguments that I would assert after studying many books.

In spite of this warning, I felt I wanted to include this crucial component. In true interdisciplinary style, I wanted to write a thesis that combines good scholarship and qualitative study and see if the result would be a fruitful dialogue. I wanted something that was theologically informed but conveyed with the words and ideas of students.

Ultimately, everything worked out. I received the wonderful news from the committee that they approved my thesis. So right now, I’m beginning to chronicle what I’ll be reading, my thoughts on various authors, and perhaps even start interviewing campus staff workers and students for my ethnographic research. In the meantime, please pray for me as this is quite a long and stumbling journeys towards getting my thesis finished within a year.