Why I listen to Dr. Ichabod's Sermons.

Why do I listen to Dr. Greg Jackson's sermons? Very simple reason. Not for the eloquence, not for lofty and clever speeches, not for terrific engaging style, none of that. Only one thing - he encourages me to have faith in Christ and in Christ's Word by simple exposition of the text.

How pathetic, Lutheran preachers, reads a text of Scripture but then go talk about something else during the homily so you wonder after the service, what was it all about? Did I get something from that?


I observe that people have an over estimation of themselves. I observe most Lutherans in particular and Protestants in general, believe they have no problem with faith that is why they listen to false teachers that pat them in their sin.

I live with myself all the time and I know how I allow my anxiety to overwhelm me.

Luther was right when he said, we neither fear, nor love nor trust God. At least what he said was true about me. I confess my sins each Sunday but the root of those sins is one source - my lack of faith.

I need to be prodded to believe God, that Christ covers my sin, that God will take care of me even though I have been unfaithful, that God will not leave me nor forsake me and will provide for me etc etc. Lack of faith, that is the diagnosis of my decease - I go for the preacher who stirs me in this faith direction, that is why I listen to Dr. Jackson's sermons.

She submitted, whew, finally.

My missus finally submitted her doctoral dissertation yesterday for examination. Her thesis is on world views and how it functions in the life of a school teacher. She also wrote plenty of papers on colonialism and its effect on childhood education. It was an 8 year project. In the last two years we practically did not have any weekends. On weekends, I would go with her to the university so she could write and I could be with her. I did not like to be separated from her so it was a torturous experience, like being chained. So I hang around do my work in her office. I had to do it otherwise I won't see her on weekends. She is a Research Fellow at Melbourne Uni, my university's nemesis in Melbourne. They got more money than Monash Uni. They have really nice offices for their staff and new buildings. That is why they are the premier uni in Oz. So if someone wants an academic career when they graduate they should go to Melbourne Uni. If you want an industrial career, hehehe, come to mine.

BTW, Melbourne Uni has plenty of American students too. They have a nice tradition of giving you a balloon when you submit your dissertation. Now we have to wait 4 months for the examiners to report their findings. I am still processing this as to what this means, no more agony of thesis writing. What do we do now on weekends?

Australia is an amazing country. Where will you find a country who will encourage its people to do a PhD and pay them for doing it? I paid zero dollars for mine, but instead they paid me roughly $20,000 a year, tax free for 3.5 years. After that you are on your own but having lapsed, that still entitles you to graduate. On top of that they give you office space so you can study privately and computers, books and money for going to conferences. They did not even charge me amenities fees. None. I just had to show up and study. How amazing is that?!!

Where will you get a deal like that? Today, I still could not believe I got mine for free.

CEOs hiring us?

Hmm, apparently international CEOs love graduates of my Alma Mater. I looked at the result of the survey conducted by the New York Times and for once, my university out does Melbourne Uni. This is unexpected because Melbourne Uni leads all Australian universities. My missus works for them as a Research Fellow.

Melbourne Uni ranked, last time I looked 31st around the world according to QS rankings; but my Monash ranked only 60th around the world. In 2010 it was 45th, now it even dropped back.

I spoke to a fellow graduate whose specialty is in Philosophy of Maths, he said "Man, there is no hope in me getting any tenured or fixed term position, ever. I think I will be forever doing sessional teaching here or there, doing adjunct work all the time".

I am happy for those who got hired, but that does not work for my philosopher friend and for me a maths logician. Last time I spoke to a CEO (of a very well established insurance company) was when I was a manager just prior to starting my studies. I asked him (through my boss) if he would give me just 1 day a week to study with no pay, he said," we have no need for PhDs here". Anyway, he was not an international CEO, maybe that is why.

Sometimes Christmas

Sometimes I am ambivalent about Christmas. It makes me both happy and sad. Sometimes it makes me sad when I think of those people who do not have a family they can share it with.

Christmas can be the loneliest time of the year for some people. Some would rather that it disappears as quickly as it came. I do not blame them. Christmas is no longer defined by Christ but by the shopping center so, if I were just on my own, with nobody, no friends, no family to spend it with, I would rather it goes quickly as it came. Knowing this, we have invited several strangers to dine in our home.

When I was kid, what really made me happy with Christmas were not the toys, it was the festivity in my parent's home. It reminds me of all of my extended family, my uncles and aunties and cousins busying themselves with the preparation. That was really the fun part because as they prepare, they all talk about things with their joking and kidding around. The of course you smell the food.

It reminds me of my granddad and most of all my grandmother. She was the master cook of our clan. Christmas in my home was the time my grandmother Martha would cook those special Christmas meals I never get to taste except - well, except during Christmas. She was our super cook.

Since we celebrate Christmas in the eve of Christmas, the whole day is spent cooking and so preparing for the meals start off early. Then come midnight, our "noche buena", we all sit together and eat what grandma cooked. It was well, just so swell. Then it won't be complete if we did not have that traditional cocoa drink (pictured here) with our sweets, our much loved famous sweetened purple yam (pictured here).

That chocolate drink comes in small round pieces called "tablea". My grandma would boil it and churn it with a churning stick shown above. She would slow cook it and as it slowly boils she would patiently church it and churn it.

I taught my wife how prepare and drink "tablea" the way I learned it from grandma Martha. Drinking "tablea" then has been passed on to my children. So tonight, just as it is warm when we drink it, it also warms my heart in remembering with fondness my grandparents who indirectly taught me that the fun part of Christmas togetherness that it brings.

Happy Thanksgiving

To my USA readers, thank you for your continuing visit to this blog.

I appreciate your coming and reading the posts and the comments.

God bless you as you celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

My wife and I treated ourselves last night for a good turkey dinner. We wanted to join family members in the US in counting the blessings God has done. It is important not to lose track of them for if we do, we will fail to see God's hand in our lives.

My daughter-in-law is from Florida, USA and we will have another get together in their home tomorrow.

iThankYou2 Steve

Steve Jobs was born Lutheran. We do not know if he maintained a Christian faith in his death, there have been news that he became a Buddhist. However, we have to be fair and as a person who works in education. science and technology I must pay tribute to his visionary genius. He had my wife and my kids in mind when he was designing his products. My sons and daughters use a Mac and I recommended the Mac to the missus for her work sometime 8 years ago. All of them are hooked on Apple products and the wife could not use anything else since then.

I am a free ware ideologist so I normally use my Linux at home and in my net book but as I am typing today, I am using a MacBook I rebuilt a few months ago, my daughter's Mac. It had a busted screen and hard disk so I decided to repair at least the disk and use as a desktop too.

I encountered Mr. Jobs ideas sometime 25 years ago when I played with Lisa. He was ahead of his time and his products today excel in extreme ease of use and no fuss operation.

When I recommended the Mac to my missus 8 years ago, I was aware of the pun geeks did on the Macintosh - Machine Always Crashes If Not The OS Hangs, and I did get called for help by the missus when the Mac behaved this way. However, Apple really did a good job in moving to Unix. It is a much stable OS and I have fun at times on the command line.

Steve saw something, he created products for the "can not be bothered generation", that was his genius, his insight and that involved courage to do what was right for the customer though it seemed unorthodox not in the mainstream at that time. I believe this is the reason why though his products are a bit on the high end, he still had very loyal customers. He designed the products for them in mind.

Thanks Steve for doing that.

Old Lutheran Theology of the Cross

Having some down time because of ill health ( I seem to be copping a lot lot of health issues lately), I flipped through my CD stacks and found a CD audio book from the work of Martin Moller (1547-1606) entitled Preparing for Death. It is a series of devotional expositions with prayer at the end of each topic. It is said that this was his contribution to the Lutheran Ars Moriendi (art of dying). I got it many years ago but never bothered to listen, so I decided to lend an ear this time.

I have been researching on this pastor. I am aware he was not without controversy. I do not of course have access to other things he wrote, and so my only source of evaluating him is that CD audio book. My teachers in uni taught me never to rely on secondary sources but this is all I have of him. He was not university trained, but I am so impressed by the richness of his Scripture quotations - with a couple of quotations from Deutero-Canonical books like Sirach and Tobias, here and there. The other that impressed me more was his theme of bringing the reader back to faith, bringing the reader back to the promises found in the Word of God. I often blurt that faith is a problem. I know certainly it is in my life. Jesus recognized this problem in people too. The CD was like good medicine.

Moller's Theology of the Cross does not leave you depressed but in triumphant hope in God. That impressed me. I imagine Moller as a pastor was not only someone who would simply listen to you and that was it, not even exposing his opinion. If what he was came through his work, then I would say he seemed rather the type who would stir up your faith, counselling you by Scripture to hope in God's Word, that might involve either a rebuke or a pat in the right direction.

If the Internet is used as a gauge to judge new Lutherans of today, and if Moller was typical of old Lutherans then, the old Lutherans are quite far in their spiritual life than that of the new Lutherans of today. The old Lutheran Theology of the Cross does not leave you in despair, but that does not seem to come out strong of new Lutherans today.

In this regard, I find the theology of old Lutherans from hymns like this of Samuel Rodigast - Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, Whatever God Ordains is Right (Good) - different on how they carry in life, their Theology of the Cross. Theirs leave you with a smile in the midst of the storm.

Whatever God ordains is good:

This truth remains unshaken:

Though sorrow, need or death be mine,

I shall not be forsaken

I fear no harm,

For with His arm

He shall embrace and shield me;

So to my God I yield me.

3rd Use and Last Post

For now.

I have been spending time with my closest family friend. We made our way to Queensland and we encountered towns flooded by the rain, which is another adventure by itself. Anyway we got to talk about Scriptural topics. He is a businessman who has experienced failure and demise and now he is on the comeback. He has been meditating on the Book of Proverbs and have found it a wonderful treasure of God's wisdom, which got us to talking about the 3rd Use of the Law. I have encountered people who know about this use of the Law, it is found in the BoC here. However, though they do lip service on it, it is virtually nothing in their operation of the Christian life. Listen how they speak of the Law, they speak of it as something evil. That is a clue that the person is functioning without the 3rd Use of the Law. The mistake of modern Evangelicals is that though they have the 3rd Use of the Law they tie this up with salvation, hence, pietism. The error of Waltherians (those who follow Walther and Co.) is that due to the emphasis on 2nd Use of the Law, things become virtually antinomian.

Last Post:

Dear friends,

I wish to thank you for your continued use of this blog. I have to attend to pressing duties like facing some trying times. I am facing some heavy artillery fire and need to focus my attention on this. This could be my last post and won't be posting for many days to come. However, I will be commenting in the usual places where you normally find me.

May I say how I appreciated your patronage through this 5 year period of blogging. I would appreciate your prayers for me and my family.

God be with you all.

LPC

Embouchure, coming back

Seems like. Been practicing again, and I can sense it is coming back. I left my hobby of trumpet playing when I did the doctorate, that was some 6+ years ago. Some part of life seems to be coming back. I took the hobby as a way of relaxing and having a bit of artistic engagement. So I would turn on the CD - play the minus one and belt out a tune from Duke or Chet. It was fun.

Now, I am having a bit of time for it. The missus proded to me to pick up my trumpet again.

This reminds me of my talk last month when I was in Spain attending a conference. I was sitting with a mixture of PhD students and professors all from various countries discussing the idea of doing PhD. We all concluded that one must be a little bit crazy to do this, specially if you do something in the field of mathematical logic or theoretical computing (which I did). You got to be extremely out of your marbles to attempt this. You have to be a bit odd with some loose screws to go through the process of not having a life. Because that is what you are going to experience while you are writing your thesis, you ain't got a life. You may also pass up some opportunities for good employment. That thesis becomes a ball and chain on you.

All of that said, I do feel I got some edumacation.

My other blog

http://unpocologico.wordpress.com/

The above is my other blog I started a few weeks ago. It is my logic blog. I had to switch to Wordpress in this case because it supports math symbols very easily.

Thank you Jesus, my Lord, for letting me enjoy a few things you have given to us your people, to preoccupy ourselves, until you return or you take us home, whichever comes first.

Luke 19:13.

My Turn

It is my turn to do a public seminar. No, it is not formally a public lecture which Australian universities, following the British tradition, constantly offer and I enjoy attending.

I am to give a small talk about my proposal for the use of a particular technique in the field of agent technology for people researching in AI and Agents. Though this is a seminar addressed to the academics in the that field, in Australia, it also functions like a public seminar. It is free for people to attend if they are interested. It does not matter what their background might be, it is offered free to any who might just fancy to listen. At the end of the talk, it is customary for the presenter to give 15 minutes for question and answers and this is where things get interesting. Since it is a type of public gathering, you would not know where the questions would be coming from and so I expect to be taken to the barn for a bit of whipping, i.e. my ideas will be challenged and put to the test in a cordial and gentlemanly manner. In this process, either my ideas or the questioner's ideas get taken seriously or simply dismissed as the prating of a fool.

It is not for the sensitive and the big ego.

Some of my blog readers (who formerly got me in their blog roll now no more) do not understand why I do not consciously moderate the blog. It is because it is in that spirit of public lecture that this blog is being run.

Needing philanthropic help

My research paper got accepted in an international conference to be held this October 2010 in Valencia, Spain. The conference is about Knowledge Engineering and about Ontologies in computer science. Unfortunately since I am now out of my university, there is no travel money for me. Besides, my faculty is hard up with cash. Having only 1.5 days of work does not help me much so I am looking for some generous patron who might support and give me a travel grant. I have a handful of philanthropic groups to approach but I need more, so should you have some ideas, I would be grateful if you pass them on to me.

Lastly, I am surprised that the book Concordia The Lutheran Confessions: A readers edition of the BoC released by CPH has been challenged and LC-MS is revoking its doctrinal review certificate. I am not sure what this means. Does it mean we can get our money back? I got my worn out Tappert version, this red BoC has served me well.

[update]

I read it first at Ichabod and the LC-MS article is found here. Apparently this is not news anymore. However this is news to me because when I got mine from a stockist in 2008, they still sent me the 2005 edition that did not contain the corrections.

BTW, if you know of some philanthropists, I would appreciate your letting me know of them. We do not have a lot here.

Interview

Today I was on the phone answering a phone survey. It was a long interview about my opinion on what is happening in the country and the world. Not often do I get interviewed. However, some of the questions were already loaded. For example, one question was "what is the reason why we are experiencing these great upheavals in our weather". The question already presumes this to be a fact.

Most of the question had something to do with government policies on the environment and on taxes. I understand market survey companies chuck in other questions along the way that solicit information for their other clients, in this case I think it was from the mining and petroleum industry.

I was happy to be solicited for information.

Speaking of interviews, I wonder if people like me would ever get interviewed by Issues Etc.

With my position on certain issues? Not a chance. What do you think? LOL.

The Journey Has Begun

I confess I have been treating myself out lately since graduation. Being tied to my dissertation for some 6-7 years, I felt I am entitled to some rest and recreation. It took a lot out of me. One of my classmates said he just wants to turn off the brain and do nothing, trying to take it in, figuring out what it all means. I am the same.

For example, I am so amazed at Australia. Where do you find a country which encourages you to take higher degrees? Where do you find a country which not only will give to you an education, but will also pay you for doing it? That is right. Your first degree (like a Bachelor's) is covered by a type of study now and pay later plan. When you graduate and get work, that is the time you pay them back through the taxation system. There is also financial assistance like Austudy for those mature students taking their first degree. Of course if you go for a Master's degree you will have to pay but not when you go for a Doctorate. The laws may have changed but in my case as a citizen, I got a university scholarship (this is how they paid me) for 3.5 years, tax free, then on top of that, I paid no cent on my tuition fees. I do not even recall paying amenities fees unlike when I was back home. So what else did my uni do for me? They gave me a computer, an office, paid for my stationaries, gave me travel allowance for conferences, paid for my books, gave me of course free library access, free printing and internet access. Then to help me get additional income, they gave me paid tutorial work. I met a friend the other day, he does not have a scholarship since he wanted to do it part time, yet he is not charged any tuition fees for his Doctorate program (in another uni). Tell me, is this a good country or not? So I am humbled by these and I thankful to the Lord for these blessings.

By the way, just for information, mathematicians around the world are involved in what is called the "maths genealogy project". It is a type of database that tracks the educational pedigree of the mathematician, i.e. who was his/her teacher, which university graduated the person, the person's dissertation etc.

Sometimes I wonder what my new journey might look like. I am sometimes afraid that as I journey on, I might fall into the ditch of weasel talk as I have seen others fall into the hole unable to climb back up. If you do not know what I mean, let me explain it by example, consider this statement:

The set theoretical and logical definition of procedures for
assembling algebraic constructions in mathematics, and the
constructions themselves, are normally considered to reside in a
universe of discourse, which is neutral and abstract from any
computational implementation. Recent work suggests such discourse
exhibits implicit notions of computation, which are rooted in tree
based formalisms divorced from abstract denotational environments. In
particular, it is argued such discourse has a sequential nature, and
is asynchronous and recursion oriented.

Hehehehe, you got that? Right. That is clear isn't it? There you go, that is weasel talk or weasel words. What apparently sounds so sophisticated and deep is nothing but bull dust.

Moving forward (now that is a weasel term), now that I am ready to be a change agent (another weasel word), I shall now engage new challenges using emergent and transformative technologies that deliver high impact to the betterment of communities (more weasel words).

My prayer in short, may the Lord deliver me from the sin of obfuscation.

credits: Pr. Greg for post title.

Polo

My friend Noel of Port Hueneme, CA wrote to me of the passing away of his great dog, Polo.

He had Polo for many years and Noel being single, had Polo looking after his apartment. The missus and I met this dog when we visited Noel in 2005. For an Australian Shepherd dog, he was quite big for his size. One thing I appreciate in Australia is that Australian dogs are smart. Polo was smart and well trained. I remember Polo holding his water until he was allowed to get out of the apartment. Luckily for Noel, he got a Labrador called Petra a year before Polo passed away.

I have not bothered having a dog since I lost my last one - P.D. in 1998. He was a kelpie-cross, a mongrel for sure, but he was smart and he would learn new tricks and commands simply by association or instinct. The kids and I remember a lot of times we had with P.D., the many times he made us laugh.

Anyway, this is to honor Polo, a faithful friend and a blessing to Noel. Polo was simply a great human being.

It is official, the journey is over, for now.

It is now official. I am now a certified quack doctor, too LOL. I wrote about this project here.

They graduated me last night.

I read somewhere that anyone who specializes in pure maths must be a little loco or winds up that way. I knew there was something wrong with me when I accepter my Uni's scholarship 7 years ago.
The trip has not been easy. There were several moments when I felt very close to aborting the project. Also, I do not know why, but looks like whatever I write attracts controversy. What can I says, such is (my) life, to quote Ned Kelley.

Last year my Prof and I wrote a paper based on my research. We submitted it to 3 international conferences. All the blind reviewers rejected the paper. They did not understand it. Then we submitted it to another international conference which turned out (we did not know at that time) to have a much lower pass rate. The reviewers were a lot more stringent. Not only did they pass our paper, they even gave it the Best Paper Award.

The same happened when examiners examined my thesis. One wanted it resubmitted, the other one loved it and wanted it passed with his suggestions. This needed a third opinion, an adjudicator had to be consulted to resolve the dead lock. They got a heavy duty professor from Cornell University to re-examine the thesis. I had to write a defense. He came back passing the thesis without any modifications required. He also somewhat chided the negative examiner for his opposition and also the positive one, for his suggestions. The professor believe the thesis should have been judged on its own merits and not what people might do had they been writing the (my) thesis.

Well that is what happens in academia. Some might find your work an absolute junk or the greatest thing since slice bread.

I thank the Lord it is over and for his answering the prayers of those who prayed with and for me. Thank you to those of you who prayed.

My soul blesses the Lord.

I end with the motto of my uni : ancora imparo, I am still learning.

Some tips on Scholarship I

I may not be an ordained minister today, but I was before. Also, I had university training, a so called graduate degree in Religious Studies where I studied the original Biblical languages - both classical and Koine NT Greek, Biblical Hebrew and Early Judaism. For my Ancient Greek training, I am proud to say I studied under this professor here.

Below are a few things I learned from my studying, not in seminary, but in a university:

1. You must never plagiarize, instead give credits for your quotes.
2. You must go to the source documents, eliminate hearsay.
3. You must listen/read your critics or those that have views contrary to yours.
4. You must practice critical thinking.
5. You must spot logical fallacies in yourself so as to correct them, and spot fallacies in others so as not to be lured by them.

This is just a nutshell list. If you have some suggestions to add let me know.

It is my hope that the readers find the above points something they can use in evaluating the merits of the arguments found in the posts and comments in this blog.

Filipinas by Trio Los Panchos

Continuing on with some more cultural postings. I am featuring Los Panchos.

When as a boy who wandered around Manila (in a section called Dapitan to be exact), I heard of the songs on the radio made popular by the Los Panchos. Quizas, quizas, quizas. Amapola. Sabor a mi. It was in the 60s and I was too young to understand of course the enjoyment experienced by the grown ups around me. Searching around the web, I discovered that this Mexican group (actually one is from PR), composed a song about Filipinas. Another Indio (what the Spaniards called us) blogged about it here.



This is my translation of the song which I gave to my children (I would appreciate corrections of course):

Filipinas, mi madre adorada
Filipinas, my adorable mother

Del mundo admirada, por su resplandor
Admired by the world, because of its splendor

Filipinas, mi novia encantada
Filipinas, my enchanted sweetheart

La tierra que ofrece respeto y calor
The land that offers courtesy and warmth

Filipinas, princesa de oriente
Filipinas, princess of the orient

Tú eres la estrella que orienta mi amor
You are the star that guides my love

Filipinas, la tierra de mi amor
Filipinas the land of my love

Tus hijos te adoran
Your children adore you

Te ofrecen la sangre de su corazón
They give you the blood of their heart.

Broome and Cape Leveque

I am continuing to share with you my trip to the north of Western Australia, I went to Cape Leveque. You can see a more professional picture here. Google map has it here. That is the road to Cape Leveque. Dirt road all red earth. Some parts are sealed but any unsealed part is like this. Red. Also you can not go there with an ordinary vehicle. You must use a 4X4. Our guide carried with him a trailer filled with supplies and a tent. He warned us if it rained on the way back, this road is unpassable, so we would have to sleep in the bush until it gets dry. Being stranded is a possibility.


This is a view of the red cliffs from the right.


This is the view of the beach at the Cape.
Open space view of the beach.

This is on the right side of that previous picture. We were not allowed to go to this place because this is Aboriginal holy ground, a burial site where they bury their dead.

This is on top of the red cliffs.
This is my shot of the red cliffs.

Red cliffs with a bit of light exposure.
More red cliffs behind.


This is the one shot I like of the red cliffs.
Wherever you turn and watch the sunset, it is always beautiful in Northern Western Australia. God is good. I did not have to go to the theatres to get entertained.

Broome and her beach rocks

People, you should visit Australia and you should plan to see the Kimberley's. As Bob Barker used to say "Come on down". The missus has a project with the Aboriginal people of the Kimberleys and she wanted to bring me where she works. Once a month she is with them, in the desert. So a few weeks ago, I went to Broome where she stops over before she goes to Fitzroy Crossing.

Broome, is a small town north of Western Australia. The weather is quite hot and humid. I like it. You will sweat a lot.

Broome has beaches that is filled with interesting rock formation.


The above is my failed attempt to catch the camels at sundown.



You can see them in the photos here.

In one side of the town you can catch the sunset and also the sunrise.


Me and the missus.










Notice the interesting rock formation. It is quite amazing to look at. This one is a about 3 stories tall.









Another example of how the ocean has influenced the rock formations here.

This is not a very big bridge. It used to be that in Victoria, there was such a thing which was a real bridge which you could walk on. It is no longer there because it collapsed.

This one is solid rock. I could give more examples of the shots I took.


















Have a look at this rock pillar. Now in this photo, yours truly happened to be a few meters in front of this rock pillar. It is about 2 stories tall.













Now what about this figure here. Now does that not remind you of something in the Middle East?

Clue. Starts with the letter "S".

Mind you, this is not a complete attraction in Broome. My eye just caught this angle. From this side, it looks like the one in Egypt.







This is the sunrise. See the colors of the sky? This is quite common in Broome. It is the colors that will captivate you. It changes as the sun rises and also as the sun goes down.

I wonder if this redness might be caused by the red earth that is so characteristic of Northern Western Australia (which by the way WA, is 1/3 of the continent).








Here is the example of the red earth I was talking about.

See how red this is? You see this all around northern WA.

BTW, this is a small plateau.