What is a "Conceit"?

 

Dictionary.com defines “conceit” as:

noun

1.     an excessively favorable opinion of one's own ability, importance, wit, etc.

2.     something that is conceived in the mind; a thought; idea: He jotted down the conceits of his idle hours.

3.     imagination; fancy.

4.     a fancy; whim; fanciful notion.

Four definitions. The first one is very bad, and is by far the most popular. The remaining three are actually positive and good. That’s why life is hard.

I wonder if this is a similar case to “literally”. “Literally” started out meaning exactly, truthfully what it is in the technical sense. But after a number of years during which many people misused the word and said things like, “I was staning him for like, literally a million years low diff!”, we now have a new, official definition of the word (see definition #4 below).

adverb

1.     in the literal or strict sense.

2.     in a literal manner; word for word.

3.     actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy.

4.     in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually.

A Pre-Thanksgiving Story

A long time ago, on a small-sized ship called Nina there were two sailors. One was a Turkish and one was a Vietnamese and they were kinda weird. One time they were having tea and the Vietnamese stared at the teapot and said, “Man, I wonder why we call these things “china”. Makes zero sense.” The Turkish said, “Yeah dude, I wish we were the first to see some new things and get to name them!”

They were in luck. Before soon they saw in front of them a whole brand-new continent! Our two sailors stepped on the sandy coast and the first thing they saw was a strange scene: a glyptodon fighting a guinea fowl to the death. But the sailors did not know what these animals were called, so the Vietnamese said, “Dibs on the big, armored thingy!” The Turkish was really sad but he was a bigger man so he said, “Aw, alright. I’ll name the silly bird.” And being as creative as they were, the Vietnamese named the glyptodon “viet nam" and the Turkish named the guinea fowl “turkey”. Little did the Vietnamese knew, it was the very last living glyptodon so that new name never caught on.

Meanwhile, folks started eating turkeys once a year, except the people who work out who eat it a lot.

I hope y’alls like the story which I made up. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Be like Brandt Jean. Choose Love.

What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? Among ten thousand other things one can talk about, I believe it’s the godly love. Jesus once said to His disciples,

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? – Mt. 5:46-47.

I’ve learned that to return evil for good is devilish; to return evil for evil is human; and to return good for evil is divine. We Christians are to love others. We are to love those that gossip behind our backs. Those that discriminate against us. Even those that mistakenly enter our brother’s apartment while he’s eating vanilla ice scream and watching TV and think that he is a burglar and shoot him dead. To love is not at all an easy task. But instead of vengeance and hatred, Brandt Jean has chosen to love, to forgive, and to glorify God. Let us try to be more loving like him. At the end of the day, it is the most important question I need to ask myself,

“Did I choose to love?”

Let's be like Brandt Jean. Choose love.

Like a Little Child

A five-year-old girl, when seeing her father playing guitar on stage would run up the stage and huge him tightly. She wouldn’t care what the rest of the world think. Nothing is more important to her than her love for her daddy. She just has to show to him how much she loves him. I look at that and think how we as Christians should be more like her: care a bit less about what people may think of our Christian faith, our lifestyle, our actions, and more about our relationship with God. Run to him as fast as we can and show Him our love. Genuinely. Vulnerably. Like a little child to her parent. Wouldn’t that be great?

What's in Your Hand?

A long time ago, these was this 80-year-old guy working for his father-in-law tending to animals. Being an anti-social (or more correctly, “asocial”), he usually hung out by himself in the backyard. One evening, God suddenly appeared before him and said, hey Moses, I want you to be the leader of your people and get them out of Egypt to escape slavery and to live in this awesome land I promised to you guys’ ancestor a while back. So Moses did, after giving all kinds of excuses one could possibly think of.

Why didn’t God come to Moses 40 years earlier, when he was in his prime, fully ready to bring justice and make a difference? Why now, when Moses was already a 80-year old man who liked to give condescending looks to millennials and their silly gadgets? No longer the muscular Egyptian prince, Moses was now a frail old man with nothing but a shepherd’s stick in his hand. So why now?

It’s so easy for us to include God in our own plans. But it’s much more rewarding to put ourselves in God’s plans. God didn’t need the primetime Moses. God called to Moses when He had plans for him, and when that time came, a simple shepherd’s stick was enough. As grad students, we all have different knowledge and skillsets. What matters is whether we are willing to be included in God’s plans, to utilize the different abilities we each have for His sake.

So what’s in your hands?

A Reason for Graduate Students to Have Their Christian Faith

As graduate students, are we proud of our Christian faith? Are we afraid that if our colleagues and our professors find out, we would be ridiculed and belittled? How do we explain our beliefs in this academic world of rationality and scientific methods?

We all have different pasts, but many of us share a similar story: there was this one period in our lives during which we were away from God and lived the way of the world; we may even did embarrassing things! And we didn’t like that. We didn’t like how we were, or what we were becoming as a person. And we came back.

Do you know what that story sounds like? My good friend Kevin pointed out that it’s analogous to conducting an experiment in a controlled environment. Everything was kept the same; we were the same; the one variable factor was God (or more precisely, our acceptance of God. He Himself is ever-constant). We recorded the results, and we drew the conclusion.

What was the reason for my faith, you ask? It was the result of a scientific experiment. We are Christians not because we are dump, irrational, or ignorant. We are Christians because we are utterly science-minded.

Quick Pencil Sketch - Joaquin Phoenix's Joker

Instead of being productive, of course I would get hyped by the new Joker movie and make a sketch on a Friday evening. I guess I ended up drawing something for this year's Inktober after all!