Mother's Day (Thai)

Dear mom,

As we prepare for the first time in our lives to live separately, I know how humongously big part of my life you have been because of how much I know I'll miss you. That aside, I think for becoming an empty nester deserves champagne to celebrate; half kidding. Thinking back, I honestly can't name one thing you have done wrong in raising me. You have always been there when I needed it even to the point you have sacrificed your own livelihood and aspirations. Thank you for your years of unconditional patience, provision, fun, care, and most of all love! I will remember all you have taught me and use it to serve the Lord. Happy mother's day!

Ivan

Hong Kong Training Photos

Click here, Link To Album, to see some photos taken during the MSI training. We stayed in what is the down town of Hong Kong (Tsim Sha Tsui) which was incredibly busy. Had a wonderful time with family!

Singapore OC Photos

Click here, Link To Album, to see what we've been doing the last month. Most were taken in Singapore, but a few from our short excursion to Johor Bahru. Photo credit to Jacob Steed. Enjoy!

Funny Video About Prayer

Follow Up to Faith Discussion

A few weeks ago, a couple of my debate club buddies met at my place to ask questions about the Christian faith to a long time Christian. It was a great discussion, with a lot of focus on trying to use science to prove faith. Ultimately, we ran out of time. A week later, the gentlemen to whom we asked our questions sent this email I have quoted below. Enjoy:

'''
All week I had felt badly about not saying what I wanted to say when we met to discuss your questions with your friends. They were good and important questions but I wanted to share the uniqueness and life-giving power of the Christian faith, which ultimately answers all questions and gives life in all its fullness in ways that nothing else can. Christianity is based on certainties and truths that we accept by faith and find to be true, because they are God derived and not arrived at by man's intellect. Not that we despise man's scientific discoveries, because they too are God derived. So what follows is something of what I wish I had said.

There is nothing in any of the other great religions that gives or allows, intimate personal relationship with the God of the universe. This is because of the person of Jesus, the Christ, from which Christianity gets its name. Jesus alone and uniquely reveals everything we know about God and is the only Way to have intimacy with an awesomely pure and Holy God whose essential nature is Righteousness and Justice. "No one has ever seen God.but God the only son (co-creator of the universe as part of the triune Godhead), who is at the Father's side, has made him known" (John1:18). Hence only Jesus and scripture reveal everything that can be known about God. Through Jesus' perfection and sacrificial death and resurrection , he becomes the only Way to come close to God in his unapproachable Holiness and light. This is a free gift based on unconditional love, to be received and internalized by faith, along with the empowering gift of the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. This births in us a new life in all possible fullness, which is so overpoweringly true that millions accept it and believe. There is no greater truth in all of human existence. Scripture foretold it and events affirmed it's fulfilment in history. Jewish historians recorded the events. Dozens of eye witnesses affirmed the truth. John, who was a cousin of Jesus (his mother and Mary, the mother of Jesus, were sisters) gave eyewitness and intimate details of all that happened. Millions of believers over thousands of years trust their lives and work completely in the truth of it all.

There is much more one could say, but no other faith or religion has even a fraction to offer to human life and existence, of what the Christian faith provides.

So Ivan , this is what I wish I had said and wish I could redo a second time. If you think it worthwhile I would be happy if you wanted to forward this email to you friends. They deserved a better answer than I was able to give. I'm so excited about the Christian life! It is worth giving up everything for. My experience is that we receive far more than we ever give up to follow Jesus.

There was an inscription in the church where I became a believer in 1961, "I said to the man who stood at the gate of the years, 'Give me a light that I might tread safely into the unknown'. He said to me 'Put your hand into the hand of God. That will be better than a light for your feet, and safer than the known way' "
'''

Steyn: Conservatism and the Facts of Life

This man is hilarious! Please watch the full video, but don't use it as a reason to procrastinate. Love his suggestion to move all the senators into the Barefax Nightclub!

Photos: Hamber Debate Practices

Regulated Prostitution: The Commercialization of Victimization

"Legalization means empowerment" ?!?!?!?!

Those who claim that consensual prostitution has no harms, to put it bluntly, are ill informed liberal morons. This group so happens to call me a religious nut because I believe in shrinking the prostitution industry because of its harms while protecting prostitutes themselves to the highest degree. All this disgusts me for prostitution is no simpler than the commercialization of the victimization of females. Fact is, I care deeply about women and it my desire that they are protecting within society. The practice itself is exceedingly exploitative and degrading simply because it is conducted on the premise that, "Woman are lumps of meat that are bought and sold for the sexual gratification of men." It is one of the reasons why we don't we that many male prostitutes around. Melissa Farley PhD, a clinical psychologist explains, "In prostitution, men remove women's humanity. Buying a woman in prostitution gives men the power to turn women into a living, breathing, masturbation fantasy. He removes her self and those qualities that define her as an individual, and for him she becomes sexualized body parts. She acts the part of the thing he wants her to be."

I support the Swedish model in which after its own experimentation with decriminalization failed, decided in 1999 to attack prostitution by punishing those who use prostitutes and those who manage, not the victim, therefor offering the victims a way out.  This policy is rooted in a stripe of feminism that believes prostitution whether voluntary or not results in serious harms against women and society and should be marginalized, and never normalized. The results, street prostitution has been cut in half, crime & organized trafficking are down, police say the sex trade has not gone underground, and many women with the sympathetic assistance of police and social workers have found other lines of work. Seventy per cent of Swedes support the law. Iceland, Norway, and France have also adopted similar polices towards prostitution.

While the harms of prostitution to women and society makes it undeniably undesirable, I myself am aware of the harms of complete full criminalization of prostitution, as seen in modern day China where prostitutes are afraid to get assistance from authorities when they become subject to abuse, so I believe the focus of the debate should be on whether or not it should be made illegal to purchase sexual services, but not sell it. And whether or not pimping, procuring, and operating a brothel should be illegal. To save time, I will be referring to the complete legalization and regulation of prostitution by government as "full legalization". Below are three arguments that support my claims. Feel free to borrow freely from it if you are ever asked to debate this topic against a liberal, Trudeau like, imbecile.

1. Inherent Harms
I was told today that there is nothing wrong with prostitution. "What's wrong with someone selling their body for sex as long as the prostitute agrees. It's a win win situation. The male get's pleasure and the female get's money," they claimed. Yet when I asked them whether or not they would feel comfortable if their mother or sister were involved in prostitution, they said no for the work is, and I quote, "degrading". Let's for a second not take into account the very small minority of high class call girls along with male prostitutes for that is another issue and focus on the majority. Those who choose engage in prostitution do not choose it as a legitimate career choice. Often it is due to poverty, drug addictions, a lack of education, and other incredibly sad factors of life. They are then pushed to the bottom rung of society where the only way they can earn money is through selling there bodies. This is proved by Dr.Benjamin Perrin of the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Law, the author of Invisible Chains, documents how 85 to 95% of Canadians in prostitution want out of sex work but need help. When customers start buying "body parts" of someone else, the human aspect competently disappears. Friends, we need to keep in mind we are dealing with a living human being. With rare exceptions, all women leave prostitution early in life scared forever psychologically, emotionally, and often physically. This is were pimps and drugs come in to stop women from leaving the industry even when they really want to, but that's another problem. What we conclude with, is that prostitutes are victims.

2. Counter-Productiveness of Full Legalization
What not trying to limit the amount of prostitution that happens is a gift to pimps, traffickers, and the sex industry. While I could use logic, the best way to prove this is to look at countries who have fully legalized prostitution and examine the outcomes after years of a policy of full legalization. Prostitution became legal in Germany in 2002. Those who supported it aimed to, "Strengthen women's rights and turn prostitution into a normal profession." And how is the plan doing today? Time magazine writes that Germany has become "the cut rate prostitution capital of the world. Migrant sex workers lured from villages in Bulgaria and Romania have been turned into almost sex slaves in Germany's 3,000 legal brothels. For the same reason, police are most of the time powerless to help them. The number of prostitutes that increased up to about 200,000, and prices, incredibly low. An investigation into the sex trade by Der Spiegel found that tourists can get flat-rate deals - all the sex they want - for less than $100. Those who supported full legalization thought that it would turn prostitutes into independent agents and put them on a equal footing with customers. Instead, it has become legalized exploitation on an unprecedented level. Might be just luck? Let's take a look at another example, the Netherlands.  After prostitution was legalized in 2000, the idealist supporters believed that prostitutes would join unions and that brothels would be regulated, inspected, and taxed. Sadly, even after so many years, most of the sex trade still operates outside the regulations. Not only that, it has expanded the market allowing the spread of brothels all over the country. The famous Amsterdam red-light district has become a haven for money laundering, drugs, and most notably, sex tourism which I will expand on later. Not lying, the Dutch National Police issued a report in 2008 saying, "The idea that a clean, normal business sector has emerged is an illusion." Additionally, a study from the London School of Economics found that human trafficking goes hand-in-hand with legalization, because legalization encourages sex tourism and vastly increases the demand for paid sex. One Dutch study concluded that, 60% of woman in legal prostitution were physically assaulted, 70% threatened with physical assault, 40% experienced sexual violence, and 40% had been coerced into legal prostitution.

3. Role of Government
We can now agree that prostitution, even when consensual, is incredibly harmful to woman and society so therefore undesirable. Also that legalization will only further harm woman, how should the government react? But before that, my reply to those who say the government should not be restricting this freedom for prostitution is a personal choice the female makes and should not be stopped as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Firstly, that by itself is completely not true first because prostitution harms other individuals involved and society as a whole. Second, assuming it isn't, yes, the government has a role to protect even when someone chooses to do something that is only harmful to themselves, but not necessarily others. Louis LeBel, a well respected supreme court justice, voiced in his probe to Terri-Jean Bedford's lawyer, "Are moral concerns not part of forming criminal law?" In a similar way, the government makes it illegal for me to take hard drugs such as crystal meth even if it do it in private without hurting or annoying anyone because by voting it in, citizens have given it a mandate to protect all. Now back to the topic of the role of government. Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin opined that, "Parliament has the power to regulate against nuisances, but not at the cost of the health, safety and lives of prostitutes. While her decision was not one I competently support, this idea is central. Full legalization is going to cost the health, safety and lives of prostitutes, so is complete criminalization. We need to stop the problem at it's root. That is, men wanted to have casual sex relationships with someone other than their partner due mostly in part to human nature. By instituting the Swedish model, this can be done. Passing this law will put pressure on men not to find prostitutes, and we all know less demand means less supply. It will slowly shrink the prostitution industry leading to less woman being victimized. At the same time, because prostitution per say is legal, prostitutes can get help from authorities with out fear of prosecution.

The Boy at the Pool - Part 1

The Girl at the Pool - Part 2
I had a debate Saturday. It was at a public high school. My partner was the one that I had discussed in the previous post "Failure". As I had said before, she is amazing, both as a person and as a debater. Anyways, since I don't know if I mentioned this in the previous post, and because I'm too lazy to look back, I want to mention the fact that she is extremely over-secure. She's one of those people who never belittles themselves. I hate that, but oh well.

Surprisingly, we do considerably well as a team even though our political views are completely opposites. We debated our second round with a tiny slip of paper written by her mom. When we learnt we got into the finals, instead of using our 15 minutes to prepare, we wasted time talking about other stuff. That pretty much sums our strategy. We both ended up going up to the podium with nothing but a couple words on our notes listing our 3 points. Funny thing is, we actually won. So much for power team. No offense the the second place team.

Now regarding the little incident at Lord Byng. Yes, I might have given a strange look. I don't feel as if what was done was the right thing. The statement must have hurt the feelings of the first place girl and made an embarrassing situation for the organizers. However, the thing that is most unfair was her placement. As for that highly functioning sociopath, "Really buddy, I thought you were on my side."

Fine, I'll admit it. I might be a little chicken once in a while. The reason for the title of this blog is a reference to when I did my bronze cross at the Aquatic Center. I'm pretty sure my instructor called me girly for I was too scared to get into that freezing water. I actually wore a T-Shirt while in the pool and ran to the kiddy pool at the end of each session to warm up. On the flip side, I am not insecure because I listen to Michael Buble and Celine Dion. They are seriously great singers.

Although they have bad advice for the past little while, they are the best. I'm starting to think that my partner is a little over-secure. Might be her culture, but I don't understand why she doesn't seem to see how dangerous things are in this world. Depending on gods supposedly found on the back of math tests....

Real Admiration

Let's face it friends, everyone wants to be respected. This is proven by the reinforcement theory in psychology. People in this world are willing to put their entire life's work into becoming remembered in history. Growing up to be powerful, famous, rich, smart and so on will do the job because of how hard one needs to work to become as such. In fact, people will often choose a particular career path because they know their friends would admire them for becoming so "successful". The reaction from a community when they hear a student got accepted into a famous school or a particular professional program demonstrates the whole idea in a concrete way. Strangely, the people most respected in the world do not necessarily have any of the above. All said and done, it's possible to be the things listed above, or not, and still be what I'm trying to get at. As you get to know a someone better, it's a real warmness, care, and kindness that you notice emanates from their heart that makes you admire them.

The person I would like to use as an example is my grandpa on my mom's side. One of the kindest men in this world. Even going out to buy groceries, he wears a suit. I don't think he's ever left his front door with out wearing a dress shirt. Yet, he's so down to earth. He doesn't have an imposing personality and isn't especially educated. A very quiet hardworking man, but when you are around him, there is just a natural admiration for him. There are two past events which provide a small glimpse into why.

My grandparents and dad were having a meal one morning, when my grandma mentioned that she was a little cold from the air conditioning. Without making any commotion, he asked the waiter for a clean table cloth, folds it and puts it around grandma. Only an every day example of the loving things he does for grandma. Everyday, he is the person who goes out to buy groceries and cooks, even after a long day's work. When I was visiting him a couple years ago, after a wonderful evening, we went to bed. The next morning as we prepared to leave the house, my brother and I found our sneakers sparkling clean. Without telling anyone, he had woken up in the middle of the night, and cleaned our shoes for he saw that our white sneakers were dirty. How much he loves his kids and grand-kids is just unimaginable. Exceptionally gentle, never gets angry at his own children. On both sides of my extended family, I can't think of a single person who does not get hyper when a baby is present in the room. They're just too cute. Anyways, I'm digressing.

I admire this humble man so much. To care unconditional about the people around him so much that he's willing to sacrifice his time and energy everyday without any thought of reward. In a world so focused on personal needs, I hope to instead learn in my grandpa's example. So...in the end, does it make it wrong to, for example, aim to be the best in school or work. Nope, not at all. But the question is why there is such an aim. There is no need to worry about what the world calls success. Genuinely serve others without thought of benefit, and all your worldly needs will naturally be provided for. I have a very long way to go, but hopefully I'll become like him!

Gratitude

Hamber Debate's Year End Party

My failure at regionals has shown me a side I am very thankful for. So many people have worked incredibly hard for me to have been given this chance just to compete. I would like to take this opportunity to thank a couple of those many people. I know I'm missing a lot, and I will express my gratitude personally. I will be replacing some of the names with *  for I don't have their permission yet.

The first person I would like to thank is my wonderful coach *! I was recently judging some beginners when I started to feel frustrated and that maybe my time was not put at best use. Then I thought back to when I first started in grade 8. I was too scared to say a word for the first couple months. If I where her, I would have given up and focused on someone with more potential, maybe someone who naturally spoke their mind a lot. * did not give up on me for all three years and has help me all the way though. If it wasn't for her, I would have no passion or life, and who knows what how I would have ended up! I own her very very very much, and will always remember my gratefulness for her.

*, my other coach is the coolest person on the planet! Always came to practices to help and never missed a single one. That's what I call dedication and care. Gave up her weekend to judge for us. She is just awesome! 

* is the most best sponsor teacher ever. Her dedication for her students is honestly surpasses the majority of teachers. She with no experience in debate, volunteered her own time, and isn't even the main sponsor. She said she maybe couldn't make it because she was out of town but came to watch us. She is exceptionally busy too. I spotted her marking student's work, while she was eating dinner at the tournament, while helping out one of the debaters brainstorm a prepared topic, all at the same time. She works so hard! I feel as my character is slowly improving just by knowing her. She will be leaving Hamber soon, and I wish her the very best where ever she goes next.

Faliure

I would like to start off by saying I don’t want any sympathy. For the past three years, I've been training hard and have put all my energy toward debate for I’m passionate about it. It was my dream to advance onto provincials. Due to the fact that the region we’re in has so many competitors, they expanded the amount of people who could advance by 6 to 20. I knew that my skill level was probably adequate to progress. To my surprise, the results told me that I did not make it, and wasn't even close. I sulked about it for a long time for I knew I could have done it because some people who I debated against in the past and I know that my level is similar made it in. I know that I could have done it. This was the last year I could compete in the junior category because of my grade, and also because I will be moving, so I’ll never get a chance to compete again. I was prepared physically, but not mentally. This kind hurts because it harder to figure out what went wrong. I have since reflected upon it and have learned some very big lessons that I wish to share. While I thank those who say I was robbed, I know there are many many areas I could have done better. Yes, I was disappointed, but the success of U-Hill and Hamber debaters has made me forget about it and happy instead. The failure has opened up a bigger picture that I could not have seen otherwise, for which I am very thankful.

Lessons Learned:
1) The week before, I had attended a small preparatory tournament in which the organizers bombarded us for days after that our win was tainted and suspected us of cheating when I know we didn't. I replied to their statement with anger, and wasn't able to think of anything else thereafter. I have now learned to forgive and forget. There is no need to demonstrate to others that you have done no wrong for you'll never be able to convince them otherwise. As long you have a clear conscience, let the rest be.

2) Never let circumstances around you change who are are. For the first two rounds, we were against some beginners. With the entire round going badly, I knew my speaker scores were affected a lot. I let that stay in my mind. The third round was just perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was because our opponents where the nicest and caringest ever (no mater what *** gets you to think). The last round, I lost my cool and I became very very very aggressive during cross-x to the point I was cutting off answers. Never let the people around you affect how you act.

3) Let real passion not be covered up by anything else. This has shown me that debate by itself was not all that I seeked for. Especially when competition is involved, I now know to focus on the things that are important. Others comments on your skill does not matter at all, they go above and below. The most important things are the passion for debate and the wonderful people around you. 

4) This is by far the most important thing I've learned. Events like this show you how much support is behind you whether or not you fail. My coaches, friends, and parents all given me so much support. My gratitude for what everyone has done cannot fit into this post so I'll be doing that in a separate one. Please read that one! 

I'm hoping to go to provincials as a spectator even though it is in Victoria to cheer and support my friends on. I feel that it would be good to see what it's like, take some notes, and immerse myself into such an atmosphere to improve for the future whether I get a chance to debate again. Best wishes to all the public school competitors!