I found that most of the social events in the church are quite mundane. Take an example, the dance party I went tonight is one of the worst party I have seen. It is as chessy as a highschool prom, and worse the people ain’t fun. This observation get me to rethink about my theory that church is mainly a social gathering place. How can such a place always have bad social gatherings?

My solution is to refine my theory. Church is still a gathering place, but mostly gather people with interest in that particular religion. Just like ski club gather people like skiing, only that more people like going to church. Church is good in running religious events, such as sunday services, prayer meetings, spiritual programs. Usually those events are well responsed to the participatens come voluntary out of interest. However, people go to the other social events in the church not because they are interest in that event per se, they go merely to show their support to the church. Moreover, the church is not specialized in running those events. This can explain why church social events are usually sub par. It is just because they are not good at it. The principle of division of labour applies to any organization, including the church.

Now, what about those who go to church not for religious purpose? My theory still holds, but need some tuning. Just like you go to the French lesson just to meet that cute girl rather than learning French. You can still go to church to hang out your with girlfriend. Although you may not have high interest in church, at least you can’t reject or even hate going church. Force yourself joining to an interest group you hate just won’t work. Imagine, how can you win over that cute girl in French class if you have absolutely no interest in French? The only problem is, after you have archive certain minium requirement in the French class and the girl became your girlfriend, you don’t have the obligation to strive in learning French any more. In Church, some how people expect you to make it the life long highest priority hobby. Why can’t church just like one of those old hobbies one can enjoy from time to times with no commitment?

Finally, I am officially graduated from my master degree. I have submitted my thesis to the library, got the signatures and paper done. All I have to wait for is the degree shows up in my transcript, refund two months of tuition and the convocation. In order to graduate, I have to pay $48 to bound 3 copies of my thesis. One copy for the library, one copy for the department and one copy for myself. I guess I could have saved $16 to skip my own copy, but didn’t brother.

I have applied for the post-baccalaureate diploma starting in summer, so that I can continue taking the philosophy courses. Because my identity as a graduate student, my application status is somehow a bit confusing. I became the human ball boncing between the registration office, the philosophy department, the arts department, the undergrad admission office and graduate office. Each office points me to another office when I ask for my application status. At the end of the chain, I went back to where I begin in the undergrad admission office, and found out they had pointed me in the wrong direction in the first place. I cannot simply reactivate my account, I have to submit a late application with a letter of explaination. I simply retell my story of being bounced between the offices. Hopefully, things will sorted out soon and I can register the moral theory course in the summer.

The lunch and learn session at work this week invited the Professional Engineer Association of BC to talk about P.Eng. application. They started with the question why apply for P.Eng. To be honest, their argument are not very convincing, other than it is required by Canadian law to register as an engineer to practise engineering. To my disappointment, I found out I had always wrongly assume those DJ calling themselves sound engineers are illegal. In fact, anyone can call himself an engineer except when his work has public or safety concerns. I have already made up my mind to apply for P.Eng. I did it just for the sake of having another four letter title behind my name. I somehow have a feeling this title may becomes handy in the future with reasons I can’t really justify. The second part of the session is a Q&A about the application process. Other paying about a thousand dollars for the application, seminer and examation fee, the biggest hurdle is to write the 10 pages work experience. After I had talked to them, I think I get the feeling of what they are expecting. Basically, they are asking for BS on how to present yourself as an engineer, re-describe your boring task with fancy ideas about application of theory and socialy implication. I estimate it would take me about a weekend to write the first draft, followed by a week to put on some decloration. Right now, I am aiming to write the practise exam in July. I will start filling out the application forms and write that 10 pages of BS after my move.

Today I came across large collection of quality eassies written by
Paul Graham. His articles not only written in good style and easy to read, they are also thought provoking. There are many things to learn from his writings.

Today I have my master thesis defense. I have been waiting for this day. I dress in my new suit going to work, everyone ask me what is the special occasion and I am happy to tell them. I did my preparation last night, rehearsed my slides, but I am still quite nervious today. Since I have no external examiner, I don’t expect though questions and I got none. As a tradition, I bought donuts for my audiences. Pat came to see my defense and lend me her laptop to display the slides. Two friends from work also shown up. There are a few other graduate students sat in, but they are very polite without asking though questions. My presentation is long, plus one of my supervisor is late, the presentation of my thesis went on until 5p.m. I spot one of the examiner fell asleep in the middle of my presentation. I must admit the material of my thesis is quite dry and boring. The Q&A part of my defense went smoothly as I expected. Everyone is nice, no though question asked. Althought the chairman spot a minor error in one of my diagrams. I recieved a pass on my thesis defense. All I left to do is fix some typos in my report, sent it to my supervisor and fill out the paper works in the grad office. I can declare I have a master degree once I see the degree shows up in my transcript. It is getting really really close.

I have start packing my stuff for my move next tuesday. So far I have only finished packing my two most valuable asset groups, toys and books. I have quite a lot of toys indeed. Luckily, I keep all the original boxes, so I don’t have to worry about storing the toys. I have quite a lot of books too. My books filled 6 boxes. I think I need a new bookshelf in my new place. I hope I will not run out of wall space to put bookshelves. I have this weird habit that when I visit other’s place, I always check out their book collection. The books one read can tell a lot about the person. Oddly that I havn’t met someone has more books than myself. Most people don’t even have enough books to fill one bookshelf.