relationship status

Also, blogging world, in case you were unaware, I've been engaged, and then married since June 7, 2009. UPDATE!

letters

Dear Mr. Presidents,

Thank you for a wonderful three-day weekend and the wonderful sales that stores have in your honor. Also, thank you to the U.S. government for federal holidays. It's easier to get stuff done on holidays when most of the rest of the world has to work.

Sincerely,

Emily

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Dear Columbia Sportswear,

While I appreciate the fact that my jacket was almost 75% off, I would like to inform you that winter does not appear to be ending anytime soon. As a result, your "End of Season Sale" was somewhat of a misnomer.

Sincerely,

Emily

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Dear Facebook iPhone App,

Your newsfeed sucks. Don't you know that relationship statuses are the most useful information thefacebook could ever possibly hope to contribute to society or, more importantly at this point, me. Fail.

Sincerely,

Emily

Seeing the Sights

Congratulations to me. I did three new things in Oklahoma on Saturday. THREE. That's impressive.

Matt and I went to the Martin Park Nature Center in north OKC. It was kind of neat. It made me miss living in Missouri, where there were a lot of those types of places.

Since we were in the north part of the city anyway, I suggested that we go to Pops. This doesn't entirely make sense, since I don't like soda, but it was pretty neat. 

And finally, in the spirit of doing new things, Matt and I tried JJ's Pizza Stop. It is right next to campus, but I have never talked to anyone who has actually ever been there. It was pretty neat and a lot bigger and nicer than I had expected. Going there unfortunately debunked my theory that it was a location for drug dealing, but it was worth it for the pizza.

Ammendment: after re-reading my post, I realized that I classified Martin Park as "kind of neat", Pops as "pretty neat", and JJ's as "pretty neat". I'm not exactly sure where those are on a scale of 0 to 10, but I think I need to start using new adjectives.

Reading List

Summer Reading List:

• Spiritual Maturity, J. Oswald Sanders
• 1776, David McCullough
• Galloway's Book on Running, Jeff Galloway
• Worldliness, C.J. Mahaney
• Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby
• Humility, C.J. Mahaney
• When Sinners Say "I Do", Dave Harvey

According to Amazon.com, all of those but one get 4.5 stars and the other one gets 4. I think I picked a good list. We'll see how many I get read...

presents

Dear friends and blog readers,

I have a birthday and a graduation coming up. If anyone would like to get me a useful gift, I will accept any of the following:

• lawnmower
• sewing machine
• electric hand mixer
• vacuum cleaner
• 12"(ish) skillet with lid 
  
• IKEA gift cards

Please note that these also make good "You are awesome" gifts for anytime as well.

Sincerely,

Emily

Literally, carnage.

I literally laughed out loud while reading this.

I love nerds. 

Of Note

Two other things of note happened recently:

1. I have just spent 4.5 years as a computer engineering major and I didn't find out until last night what a floating point number actually is. That's unfortunate.

2. I rode in a Corvette for the first (and probably last) time last week. I'm a TA for capstone and we were traveling to the students final presentations in Perry, OK. My professor was driving a van of students up there and looked at all the people and said to me and the communications grad student who was grading their presentations, "the van looks a little crowded. You two want to take the Vette? " It was a much better trip than the previous day's to Tulsa.

Life, in general

Why is it that coffee never has the proper effect at the proper time?

I had coffee at Starbucks tonight. I probably haven't had coffee in six months. It didn't seem to keep me up then, but I'm pretty sure it's keeping me up now, so I might as well blog, right? Good.

So, my last post was in February. I'm a little impressed that it's so recent, however, that post was of little substance. Unfortunately, now that I've sat down to write this, I don't really know what to write about.

As an update to my previous post, however, I have a job at the FAA. I'll start June 1. That's exciting. June 1 seems to be a fairly important day in my life, aside from the fact that it always directly follows my birthday. June 1, 2000 was the day I started my very first job at the age of 14 and June 1, 2003 was the day I graduated high school. June 1, 2009 I will start my very first full-time salaried job. Crazy!

I have one final finals week. I have to make the best of it and make some new tie-dye. I wonder, if I become a professor, can I wear tie-dye to the finals for my classes to bring the students good luck?

Life is honestly pretty good right now. Currently, I have enough details about the next few months of my life to not be stressed out. It's good to be graduating and know what the next step is.

What else has been happening...? We're having Mandatory Family Fun Time in Columbia the week after I graduate. I christened it that, don't worry.

I went to Oxford to visit Andrea over spring break. It was pretty awesome. I'd like to go back. But they pronounce things strangely over there. I'm not talking about the accents, I'm talking about the fact that they seem to ignore consonants in the middle of words. Weird.

It poured down rain today. Norman flooded, as usual. They really need to work on drainage in this town.

So, this was really disjointed, but I'm tired now, so I think I'm going to go try to sleep.

hmmm...

I had an interview at the FAA on Friday. Here is a conversation I had with a student this morning in lab:

Him: Hey, are you Emily?

Me: Yeah, I am.

Him: Did you interview at the FAA?

Me: Yeah, I did.

Him: Okay, Mike told me to tell you to take the job.

Me: Do you work at the FAA?

Him: No, but Mike is my girlfriend's dad. (Mike was one of the guys I interviewed with)

That might have been one of the strangest conversations I've ever had.

Semester 11

I was going to add more to this later, but who am I kidding, that's not going to happen. So, here  goes.

It's time for everyone's favorite post: the semester in review! Folks, we are on semester #11. That's crazy.

I forgot to update on semester #10, so at this point all I remember is:

• Having a boyfriend for the first time
• Doing just about nothing for school
• Matt's ridiculous capstone project

This summer I:

• Went to IKEA for the first time
• Went to Pittsburgh with my mom for the American Society of Engineering Education conference. Dr. Sluss, my department head, was there and my mom informed him that his picture was up in her kitchen. This is true, but not necessarily relevant or helpful information.
• Made a quilt.

Now, on to semester #11. What did I do this semester?

• To start it off right, Matt and I broke up...and subsequently got back together after about 1.5 weeks.
• I watched Michael Phelps win 8 gold medals.
• I took my first non-ECE grad classes, one in Industrial Engineering and one in Civil Engineering. I probably won't do this again.
• I learned how to jump a car and where the circuit breaker is in my house.
• I had job interviews in Norman, OKC, Dallas, and Boston (where I got to see Savannah). 
• I watched OU lose to Texas but become the Big 12 champions.
• I introduced Michelle to Tuesday lunch.
• I debugged dozens of programs in assembly and spent hundred of hours in lab doing absolutely nothing.

misc

My room smells like sugar cookies and flowers, depending on where you are standing. One of those smells is due to a candle and one is due to the real thing.

I like having a boyfriend. 

Driving

A couple days after I wrote that, I was was stopped at a stop light and the car coming towards me had someone in the front seat with a puppy in their lab. Well, the puppy jumped out the window and into the intersection. Fortunately there was no traffic and the dog was fine, but it was weird. I've never seen that before.

Wind

I was driving to the weather center this afternoon, east on Boyd towards Jenkins. As I'm driving, my windows are down and it's cool out and I'm thinking, "Man, I really love this Oklahoma wind." Right after that, as I'm pulling up to the light at Boyd and Jenkins, I see what looks like a piece of cardboard fly down from the construction site of Devon Energy Hall. There were four people walking on the sidewalk and one of them got completely hit by it. Unfortunately, it was not a piece of cardboard, but rather, a piece of sheet rock. That stuff is substantial and it took that guy out. He was flat on the ground after getting hit. I think by the time the light turned green he was sort of getting up, but seriously, that stinks for him and I hope he doesn't have to go the hospital or anything.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the wind here, sometimes.

Lab!

I am a TA this semester for Digital Design Lab. This is a senior-level lab that combines the previous two electronics labs these students have taken with their microprocessor class, which covers programming in assembly language. When I took this classes, I didn't really learn everything I was supposed to, in part due to the fact that that was my busiest semester (aka, hell semester) and due to the fact that my lab parter would finish the labs before I even had a chance to go work on them. So...going into this semester, I was a bit worried that I wouldn't really know enough to be a good TA for this class. I have learned in the first 3.5 weeks, that I should be just fine. Because, while I may not know everything in this class, I learn what the lab is about from the first 3 people who ask me questions, and then I can usually adequately explain what is going on to the next 10 or 15 people that ask. It also doesn't hurt that I'm pretty detail-oriented and can therefore realize when a wire is unplugged, or a variable isn't being updated in code, or they're not masking off bits. I think I actually like this job. That's a little bit surprising to me, but it shouldn't be. I've always loved my electronics labs and it's good to be back in lab again.

O Heart Bereaved And Lonely

I think Fanny Crosby must have known and understood God in a pretty neat way.

O Heart Bereaved And Lonely

O heart bereaved and lonely,
Whose brightest dreams have fled
Whose hopes like summer roses,
Are withered crushed and dead
Though link by link be broken,
And tears unseen may fall
Look up amid thy sorrow,
To Him who knows it all

O cling to thy Redeemer,
Thy Savior, Brother, Friend
Believe and trust His promise,
To keep you till the end
O watch and wait with patience,
And question all you will
His arms of love and mercy,
Are round about thee still

Look up, the clouds are breaking,
The storm will soon be o'er
And thou shall reach the haven,
Where sorrows are no more
Look up, be not discouraged;
Trust on, whate'er befall
Remember, O remember,
Thy Savior knows it all

-Fanny Crosby

Books

Okay, so I was looking through some of my old blog posts trying to find something, but I came across this list instead (from June 29, 2006):

1. Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe - Douglas Adams
2. Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
3. 1984 - George Orwell
4. Animal Farm - George Orwell
5. Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser
6. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
7. The Chronicles of Narnia
8. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
9. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
10. Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
11. Ghost War - Steve Coll
12. The Stars my Destination - Alfred Bester
13. Tarzan of the Apes (and The Return of Tarzan) - Edgar Rice Burroughs
14. The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien
15. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
16. Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis
17. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
18. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
19. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
20. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
21. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
22. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
23. The Stranger - Albert Camus
24. See No Evil - Richard Baer
25. The Bourne Supremacy - Robert Ludlum
26. The Bourne Ultimatum - Robert Ludlum
27. The Battle for Christmas - Stephen Nissenbaum
28. The Metamorphoses - Franz Kafka
29. August 1914 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
30. The Lord of the Flies - William Goulding
31. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
32. Three Blind Mice - Agatha Christie
33. Charles Dickens
34. The Once and Future King - T.H. White

(I own the italicized ones. I've read the bold ones. )

Kyle, Ben, and I made this list in spring semester 2004. It was going to be our summer reading list. I failed. Actually, I think we all failed.

So, for anyone reading this post, my question for you is: do you have any book suggestions? Preferably good, worthwhile fiction books, or other books that you've read and would consider "must read" books. Apparently I've got lots of time on my hands this summer, so I should probably read more.

SIN is back!

My SIN blog is back! Yay!

Weakness

I am going to try to process some stuff that I've been thinking about here. This is mostly for my benefit, but maybe someone else will get something out of it.

There are two places that these thoughts stem from, one being Dave's sermon from last night about "stepping up" when faced with tests/temptations and the other being The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard (chapter 3, to be more precise), which Katie and I are reading together.

Willard talks about salvation being for our life. He says it much more eloquently, but one of the main points he makes is that most of Christianity now focuses on the cross. Not that the cross is not absolutely vital to Christianity, but the fact of the matter is that the cross would not have been significant if Christ hadn't first lived. The cross was not a single event, it was the culmination of everything that Christ had taught, it was the climax of His life. Christ did not just to save us from sin and get us into heaven, he died to save us from sin in this life, to give us power to live.

The thing that Dave said last night that struck me the most was the statement that the devil doesn't mind us doing the right thing as long as we're not doing it by the grace of God. Sometimes some of the things that I may view as "temptations" are mere inclinations, something that I've disciplined myself to not give in to.

This might not sound right, but I think the majority of my life is lived by my own strength. I know that God is behind it in the sense that he made me the way I am, but most of the time, I don't really acknowledge how God is at work in my life on a daily basis. How much is God glorified by that attitude?

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I've always loved this verse, but when I read it this morning, God gave me a new understanding of what it means to delight in my weaknesses. It's kind of like school. If I had been a business major (sorry, not trying to bash anyone's major, just giving an example), my graduation would not have meant as much to me. For me, that major would have taken work, but would not have required as many sacrifices of time and energy. I wouldn't have been living up to my potential. As it was, I had to work really hard for my engineering degree and it therefore has a greater value to me. In the same way, if I just live my life in my comfort zone, where I know that I won't fail, I'm also not living up to my potential. It's not really a sacrifice to do what is easy and natural for me. If I choose to do what is unnatural to me, something that is a weakness for me, God will provide for me, and more importantly, because I have less confidence in my own abilities, I will better realize the part that God played and that I was acting through His power. And if I am more aware of what God is doing in my life and for me, that I will be better able to bring Him glory.

Not that God cannot work through our strengths as well. I Peter 4:11 says, "If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." This verse is helpful to me because I really do love serving and it is something that I think God has really given me a heart to do, but it can also be easy for me to do it when it is more "convenient" or to get tired of doing it, but that it when I can better depend on Him and His strength. I want to be stretched to use my strengths as well as my weaknesses.

So, what I am thinking through right now is, what are my weaknesses? Areas that I avoid because I want to avoid "failing" and because they are areas that make me very uncomfortable. I am not trying to dwell on my weaknesses for the sake of being melancholy or depressed or self-critical, but because I want to recognize those as areas for God to be glorified. Because as I face things that I normally would avoid, I will be continually aware that my motivation to do them is not because I naturally want to do them.

I still need to think through this some more, but I am hoping to look at some of my areas of weakness and come up with some very specific things to do that could help draw me out of my comfort zone. We'll see what happens...

Hallelujah

Isn't it funny how certain things can arouse such definite memories? I rediscovered the Rufus Wainright version of "Hallelujah" tonight and it took me straight back to sophomore year. All of a sudden I'm in my room in Cate with the lights off and it's a rainy and somewhat cool night. My windows are open and I'm in a sort of mellow, sort of melancholy mood and I'm thinking about a lot of things or perhaps contemplating going on a walkies. What a crazy year. What an emotional year. I cried a lot. Over my life, over school, over friendships. So much of what I clung to that year is now gone. All of the friendships that I was so scared and troubled about losing are either broken or have faded. I think Andrea is probably the only person that I hung out with that year that I still hang out with on a regular basis. It's so weird the things that are hard and confusing and difficult to let go of, but once we are past them, we realize how much better things can be. How much we were missing out on. How much we were limiting God by finding our sufficiency in those things.

I'm so thankful for what that year was though. In community group tonight we talked a little bit about Acts 16. Verses 6 and onward go as follows: "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." I'd never really looked at this passage before. But what was said was that Paul kept traveling and at times the spirit kept him from going places and he may not have really known where he was going for certain. But when God finally revealed where he was supposed to go (and God did clearly let him know), Paul was already in Troas, a coastal city, very close to Macedonia. God doesn't always tell us where we're going, but he is getting us there. I believe that everything in our lives happens for a reason and that God uses everything we go through to further prepare us and refine us. There are definitely some things I regret about college. I had misplaced priorities for a long time. I made school the center of my life. I allowed my desire to please people and be loved control a lot of my choices. But God used all of those things to teach me something. And though I really wish I would have figured some things out a lot sooner, I learned from those experiences. God is faithful and God has a plan and a purpose for my life, past, present, and future. I've seen his work in my life already and I'm excited to see what he has in store for me.

All At Once

Life right now is going really well. School is pretty much amazing in that so far it has been virtually no work. I do spend the majority of my life in front of a computer, but I was expecting that. All three of my classes are very computer-based and two of them are sort of designed so that it's possible to finish your homework in class.

Beside school, I've also managed to get three jobs for this semester. I was a little worried that all this might just be "too much" for me to handle. I think I'll be okay. Since I managed to cut one physics class out of my semester, I seem to have a ton of time now, which means the house is pretty clean most of the time and sometimes I even cook.

I'm a little worried though. It seems as though the past three semesters at least have involved an emotional breakdown in the middle of the semester. I feel like I'm going to be waiting for that all semester. Hopefully I can go a semester without a two week crying spell in the middle. Ha! Now I at least have one goal for the semester. I think the best way to meet that goal is actually just to get a lot of sleep. I know what is a key factor to some of the crying is.

Actually, the key goal for the semester is discipline. I'm so bad at this. I need structure in my life, but I'm not that great and creating for myself or sticking to it. But I can change. That's the good thing, I am always being made more into God's likeness.