persians

50 billion persians can't be wrong.

your advice of the day: when you get invited to join honor societies and they offer free food at the informational meeting, don't join the first year. they'll invite you back and you can get free food again the next. free food at college must always be top priority.

it's come to the point where i have to remind myself to take showers. i think that is probably a bad sign. actually, anytime you can't remember when the last shower you took was is a bad time. oh well, at least i'm doing my homework. one must always have priorities.

my first test of the semester is tomorrow. i suspect the next ones will follow shortly thereafter. lucky me.

i need sleep. therefore i am going to bed. goodnight.

this entry only took me three minutes to write. yay.

a regatta saturday

andrea has requested an update, which is rather dumb, seeing as she lives with me. oh, well.

life is somewhat better now. at least in the academic realm i think i am finally at the point where i am starting to understand stuff. at least i hope i am understanding it since i have to explain it to other people sometimes. oddly enough, i think i like my microprocessor class, which is assembly language apparently. it's neat stuff. actually, i'm starting to like most of my classes, seeing as everything is becoming more interesting/more work. why do those two have to go together?

i think that every dorm room needs a plant. however, once you acquire yours, do not feed it powerade. it makes the plant sticky and may kill it if it is not a hardy plant. my mom still claims that plants like diet coke though. i don't happen to have any diet coke lying around however, and i'm not about to go find some just to prove her theory/kill my plant for real this time.

hmm...my train of thought just switched from writing this blog to something else, so i think i'll end here. back to go work on electronics and operating systems. i am so cool.

life

it's a friday night and i am sitting alone in my dorm room doing homework. how things have changed from last year. i'm not going to lie. right now, i really miss last year. i miss having tons of people around that i knew. i miss wandering up to the fourth floor to see what people were doing and just hanging out in people's rooms. things are so different this year. i've mostly resigned myself to the fact that housing makes poor decisions, but i really wasn't expecting their decision to not allow upperclassmen in the dorms to affect me so much. sure, the freshmen wouldn't have the same built-in structure and community when they moved into the dorms, but i never dreamed that i would be missing that so much. it's a bit like living in the upperclassmen dorms last year, minus having the refuge of the honors dorm.

it's left me kind of lonely and with the feeling that i'm drifting. there's no group of people that i'm always around, no close group of friends. i'm in a funk and it's about to drive me crazy. i hate people and yet i want to cling to people at the same time, yet withdraw myself. i don't understand myself and i get frustrated. there's so much stuff that i need to deal with and yet i have no motivation and no energy.

i suppose that once again i will have to learn how to meet people. it's something i always forget how to do. i suppose i have to do it every year, but it's never seemed to intimidating.

oh well, life goes on. and i've never had a semester that wasn't better than the last. God is good.

visitation

i got kicked out of evans 4 past visitation hours tonight. the semester has now officially begun.

facebook

facebook is great for many reasons. today, however, i got a message that just made the entire thing worthwhile. i have a facebook account at mizzou too, for no apparent reason, just felt like it. all the information on it is wrong, though. so the other day i got a message. it read like this: "who is this, and why do you have that you live in Tri Delt in room 18?" yup folks, my secret life is finally catching up with me. apparently she is actually the one living in tri delt room 18. bummer.

in other news: i ate my cheerios with chopsticks last night. they were good.

i think i am more on top of my electronics class than i was. yay for office hours. i, however, know nothing about real-world applications. unfortunate since we have to build a robot for that class.

met some boys in evans4 last night. i had kind of already met them before, but it was still pretty cool. i think the stairwell might become my study room again soon. while andrea and i were up there, we saw the paint cans from what used to be evans4 and andrea suggested that we salvage them. so now we have 5 partially-full paint cans in our room. i need to stop listening to andrea.

that's all. need to finish up some homework in matlab...

sabrina

andrea made me row a 5k today and i pretty much hurt all over. yesterday's theory is proven again.

sarala

i finished mere christianity today. i consider this week a success now. i suppose it really only took me three months from when i last started it to finish, which sounds a lot better than the year it took me from starting it the first time and finishing it.

i've been listening to share the well (caedmon's call) and why should the fire die? (nickel creek) albums over itunes. they are both absolutely amazing. i think i'm going to have to purchase them soon. my ipod wants new music.

this week was actually fairly blah. i seem to be the only one who thought this. everyone else seemed to have a lot of homework/just general bad weekishness.

i was talking to andrea about crew tonight and she was really making me want to do it. that girl has probably more influence on me than is good for me, or perhaps it's just that everthing sounds interesting to me. anyhow, i remembered that i don't know how to swim. just sunk that boat (sorry for the pun). i should probably figure out how to swim pretty soon. i'm still mildly bitter at my parents. i'm pretty sure naomi and seth got swimming lessons. my poor future potential children. i think they're going to start swim lessons when they're two...

currently reading: blue like jazz, donald miller
currently listening: when in rome, nickel creek

my favorite things...

so, i think today is one of my favorite days of the semester. it's the day the spring schedule comes out on enroll. i know, i am pathetic.

in other news, engineers without borders is now an official ou student organization and has made it on the national webpage. neat.

love is harder than a word

do you ever feel like a worst version of yourself. as though you knew if you could see yourself from someone else's perspective, you would hate yourself even more than you do right now. that you're screwing everything up and you just can't seem to stop yourself. that you do things you don't want to, but you don't want to do the things that you should.

i feel like a hateful, selfish, grumpy, mean, lazy, unmotivated, unloving jerk right now. i feel disappointed with myself and fearful that i won't be able to get myself out of this rut. but that's just it. i can't. there's no way i can. only God can. only by His blood. only through His saving grace. there is nothing i can do, nothing that i will ever be able to do that can make things better. only once i turn to God and admit my weeknesses to Him will i have the strength to become the person i want to be, the person he wants me to be.

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
-I Peter 1:14-16

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
-I John 3:1

away from the sun again

i was thinking about engineers without borders today and looking at stuff on their website. it kind of got me thinking about the peace corps and what i want to do with my life. my education right now is preparing me for the rest of my life and my future career. i'm not actually sure i've ever thought of it that way. in the past, i've always thought, "well, i'm going to be a professor, so i'll teach, advise students, and do research if i have to." but, i started thinking today, how would i feel if the help and support i could give to people in other countries was limited by the fact that i was just sliding by in school. obviously, i'm not literally just sliding by in school. i have a good gpa, i learn the material. usually though, i do a lot of learning the material just for the test. i remember very little of what i learned last semester. granted, i've had a whole summer full of other stuff to help me forget, but i still find my recollection levels unacceptably low.

it's so much more inspiring to want to learn material so i will have the necessary skills to help other countries develop, than to want those skills so it will land me a good job with a good company. my main goal in life is not earning money. i want to have a job that i enjoy and where i feel like i am helping people. i can't exactly see myself designing chips for a living for the rest of my life. it's easier to see myself writing code, but i definitely know human interaction is important to my sanity though.

i really do want to go abroad though. i want to visit third world countries, i want to experience life as they do. and when i leave, i want it to leave a lasting impression of what is really important. in the grand scheme of things, i feel that the degree i'm going for is really quite worthless. it's a degree aimed at convenience more than necessities. i know that's not really true, because the implications of some of the current research going on makes other more "worthwhile" pursuits possible.

i really don't know what this post was about. it may be incoherent when i read it in the morning. we'll see.

t-shirt

our "i'd rather be surfing" shirts just made their debut at the huff. i wish you guys could have been there to see it. they were topped only by the girl wearing very large teal dangling disk earings.

melancholy mix

an update for all my adoring fans.

week 1 is over. whew, it was long. i am taking 17 hours or strictly cs and ece classes. w00t...or not.

andrea and i have not killed each other yet. that is good. nor do i think we will be desiring that at any point in the near future. we definitely went "walmarting" friday on the bus. just a little taste of china all over again. it took three hours. i think norman needs better public transportation. perhaps buses that run more frequently than once every hour.

we had a meeting for engineers without borders. it was good. i'm feeling a lot better about it. especially since there are deadlines involved. deadlines work well for me usually.

i was looking at my degree sheet for my major the other day and i came to the brilliant conclusion that i need only 29 more hours to graduation. that's 2 semesters folks. but i don't think it'll happen that soon because of a little thing called study abroad. i went by their office friday and picked up a flier for ireland. w00t! i could be here next fall. that would be amazing.

i got back from the RUF shindig and asked andrea "do you know what i really feel like doing right now?" to which she replied "walkies?" only we didn't actually do much walking. but that's okay, we had a good tete a tete even though it didn't involved walmart or fountains.

went to the huff this afternoon with -a and we did the rowing machines. about midway through some guy starts trying to use the rowing machine next to us and is asking us about it and generally making small talk while we were rowing. he started rowing and when andrea and i left she asked me if i knew him and i answered in the negative. she had been pretty certain he was a friend of mine, but he wasn't. yay for friendly guys at the huff.

incidentally, andrea and i are going to be completely buff by the end of the semester. everyone prepare to be amazed.

so, andrea just informed me that her professor was quoted in her religion and foreign policy book. i think it'd be pretty cool if one of my professors was quoted in her religion and foreign policy book. i think i'm going to make it one of my lifetime goals to get quoted in a book completely unrelated to my field of study. i'm already making a great start. i got quoted in the oudaily (see last paragraph) saying that i was a football fan. oh, the irony. what has college done to my values...

in case you haven't noticed, andrea was mentioned in this post a lot. that's because we spend a lot of time together and i expect this will be the case for quite awhile. i hope you can deal with that.

at this point i'm majorly procrastinating doing my homework for electronics lab that's due tomorrow. i don't understand diodes and i've completely forgotten everything from last semester. grrr.

on that note, hope everyone had a better first week than i did. peace.

keep on the sunny side of life

i had six classes today starting at 9:30 and ending at 6:50. i am not a huge fan of this schedule. it left me exhausted and grumpy, so if i was unpleasant to any of you today (or more so than usual...), i apologise. today was not great. today left me slightly wary of the rest of the semester. i kind of feel like there are a whole lot of unknowns material-wise this semester. it's not really the classes i'm scared of. i'm more scared of all the programming languages etc i'm supposed to learn. so far they include oracle, sql, c, a review of java, matlab, labview and one other one for my ee lab that i can't remember. then my teacher in micro p (2nd to last class) decided to give us a talk on how important your upper division classes are and how some people do badly on them even after doing well on there general engr class. prof: this is not helpful.

i'm considering dropping my discrete class. kind of strange because of all my classes this semester, this was the one i was really looking forward to. i like the material, the prof is supposed to be really great. but when i got into class this morning, all of a sudden, i had no desire to go through this material again. very strange. so i am going to go to operating systems tomorrow and see if i can get in to that even though i'm taking one of the prerequisites right now. then i'll have to check if it will work as a professional elective. we'll see. i'd probably take it even if it didn't count because i think it'd be interesting.

yeah...

met some guys on the fourth floor tonight. old habits die hard i suppose. someone also referred to me as the "social butterfly of the honors dorm". never really thought of it that way. the strange thing is, i'm only this way around the dorms. i'm fairly anti-social at home. weird.

ok, i'm exhausted and it's time for sleep.

free stuff week 2005

alex is my free stuff guru. no one else even comes close.

my count is at 2 free shirts (one from the andrea) and two ethernet cords. i don't really aspire too high...

and alex played guitar tonight. it was sweet. i have missed his playing in the hall.

going to bed, have to be rested for more free stuff tomorrow.

i'm back

okay. very quick update because i am absolutely exhausted. i got into norman circa 11:30 tonight and promtly drug all of my stuff upstairs, unscrewed the shelf from the wall, made sure everything was vaguely together, and said goodbye to my dad. i then talked to heather for probably an hour and then half unpacked my room.

this wasn't exactly the plan, but as i've said quite a bit recently, it seems almost a moot point to even plan how i will return to norman, especially when it involves my brother and sister.

the reason my dad brought me down to norman instead of naomi and seth is that my sister was in a car wreck this morning as she was driving to church. our mini van was totalled. the damage was pretty bad, including a wheel in the back, which completely fell off. there was very little physical damage done to the actual people in the wreck, thankfully. because of that, my parents thought it best to have my sister stick around columbia to talk to the police and to make sure no medical problems arise later. probably a good idea since she's flying back to china on wednesday.
our time with three vans was quite shortlived. it's kind of freaky that we have never actually sold a mini van; our past three mini vans have been totalled in accidents. hopefully our new one will be an exception.

so yeah, i'm back in honors again. there's been a few, shall we say updates to the dorm. heather's room is now the size of two, since they connected her room and office. everything has been painted white, including the hallways.

here's to evans 4 and the star hallway, you will be missed:



that's all. contact me if you're bored, because i most likely will be.

phone: 487-2618

oh wait, one more thing. please get on facebook and join the "housing was dropped on its head as a child group". support a good cause.

housing was dropped on its head as a child

i got an email from andrea yesterday with the subject line seen above. apparently andrea, who according to a letter sent out in may was my roommate, is not technically my roommate. my mom told me that i had gotten a letter from housing with no roommate listed and had asked me if i was sure andrea was coming back next year. i was pretty sure that she was or at least that she would have informed of information of that magnitude, so i didn't bother to check, especially since the andrea was in europe and i had very limited email access while on vacation. however, apparently andrea is rooming with someone else in honors. what weird is that i'm currently assigned to her old room, instead of her. i really didn't expect housing to screw up our housing assignments after having them correct only a few months previous, but you know, housing has many unseen talents.

i called housing about five or six times in the past two days to figure out if i could move in early. after talking to about five or six people, it was decided that i do indeed have permission to move in early. this is a very good thing considering my other option was to store my crap in heather's room and bum places to stay off of my friends until upperclassmen move in on wednesday. i will be arriving sunday night (hopefully before 11 so we can get snowcones) and will be moving in on monday morning. i will then procede to be bored out of my mind for the next few days until the rest of the student population moves into the dorms or my friends take pity on me and rescue me from the dorms. good news though folks, i have a phone in my dorm room ;).

i thought i would be able to take less stuff with me to college this year. i am a failure. not having a couch or second computer though will help a lot. it appears as though it is my lot in life to transfer copious amounts of crap between columbia and norman for the next couple years.

that's all. back to packing.

i am certain now that i am vindicated

so, apparently it is time to update.

i got back on tuesday afternoon from my week-long family vacation. stops included national parks and monuments mostly, including: the petrified forest, bryce canyon, zion national park, the grand canyon, mese verde, and the four corners monument. we camped. our tent isn't entirely waterproof apparently, so on most nights at least one person was sleeping in our van. this non-waterproofed-ness was especially convenient considering that we apparently hit the area at approximately monsoon season, which basically means it rains every afternoon. that also made it kind of cold. we were all wearing pants and jackets. kind of different from the sweltering weather of oklahoma and missouri, and well received from my end, not so much from everyone else.

it was a pretty good trip. the scenery out there is fantastic. it was a bit hard going from no family time to all the time is family time. overall it was fun thought. we went to mesa verde in 1991 and camped, so that part was a bit for nostalgia's sake. since i was 5 at the time though, i have virtually no memories of the place. it's pretty cool. indian ruins built up on the cliffs. almost a thousand years old. it was also kind of weird to compare what was happening with the indians here at the time to what was happening in china at the time (give me a break, i just spent four weeks reading about it) and the difference in "sophistication" is pretty big. the situations were so different though.

so as not to have to relate the whole trip to you, i now present highlights:

• white water rafting on the last day and naomi falling out after our guide told us to turn completely around in the boat.
• driving around to different hotels in an attempt to find wi-fi/email access that wasn't password protected (at least i had a good excuse for having my laptop with me).
• the family pow-wow to discuss seth's future and not actually deciding anything
• the free hot showers at the last campground we stayed at
• all the foreigners with rented RVs at the national parks we were at
• playing "guess the nationality" of the aforementioned foreigners
• arriving at four corners at 1 am and sleeping by the side of the road until it opened in the morning.
• seeing my mom get freaked out by heights and refusing to move anywhere near the edge of a cliff.
• knowing that there was a 20-minute orientation video waiting for us at every national park and knowing that we were going to watch it.

that's all i can think of right now. may not sound too interesting, but family vacations always are.

on our way back, we picked up our new van in kansas city. so we now have three vans and no cars. pretty great.

most of the rest of my time at home has been spent being a bum. i'm trying to motivate myself to pack, but it's not working too well. i think i'm heading back to school sunday afternoon. we'll see. my plans don't seem to follow through very well these days. the plan at this point is: naomi is driving me back to school and we're picking up seth in lawrence on the way so naomi doesn't have to drive back by herself. i'm not sure why naomi seemed to want to drive me back, but i think snowcones may have been the deciding factor. if anyone would really like to meet them during the day they're in norman, let me know and we could arrange a showing.

my bottom retainer broke a couple of weeks ago, so i had to get a mold made for a new one when i went to the dentist today. i forgot how much that process calls up the gag reflex. having not the best nose in the world due to my being allergic to anything i can breathe in, it's kind of freaky to not have the option of breathing through your mouth.

i think that's about it. i'm terribly excited about getting back to norman. and i called heather's room tonight to find out something about moving in to the dorms and she answered the phone...meaning that heather is once again my RA after my one-year technical sabbatical. w00t-ness. so long to my 4 semesters/5 RAs.

adios folks. i'm exhausted.

introversion

quote for the week:
"remember, someone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts."
-jonathan rauch, caring for your introvert

i'm leaving norman in about an hour. it's been a fun month and i am now 6 credits richer (or poorer, depending on your perspective). to everyone who gave me rides and put up with the fact that i have no phone and still wanted to hang out with me: thanks, you guys are the best.

i'm off to colorado with the fam. see you in a few weeks.

i'm the only one to blame

first and foremost, i would like to say that brownies should not be made in 8 by 8 pans, they should always be made in 9 by 13 pans. so for those of you who think that you can get away with a square baking pan, don't do it. it's just not right.

okay, moving on.

today was pretty much perfect. the weather was absolutely beautiful. i was actually kind of chilly on the way to class, which is a first. i skipped the second half of stats class and my china class was cancelled after he returned our tests (i did a lot better than i was expecting). studying some, and then went to see the perfect man at the dollar theatre. i'm sorry, there weren't a whole lot of choices, and heather and nicole didn't want to see hitchhiker's guide. it was really corny at times, but when you're tired, anything can seem funny. i laughed a lot.

the only thing today was missing was some frisbee throwing on the south oval. i was conveniently missing a frisbee and person #2. bum deal.

that's about all. hopefully i will get many pages of my china paper written tonight so i can study my butt off tomorrow for the final. i asked yesterday if the final was cumulative. dr. atkinson's response: "heck, no. who gives comprehensive finals anymore?" w00t. i like that answer.

p.s. if anyone in norman wants some brownies, stop by and i'll hook you up. otherwise i'll end up eating the entire pan before i leave on monday. that can't be good...

*edit*
one last thing. i ate lunch in the courtyard at the honors dorm today, and they sure are doing a bit of remodeling in the lounges. they're pretty much gutting the kitchen, so the nook-table is gone. it'll be interesting to see what they're doing...

allegro

so, i should be writing my paper right now...i have 1.33333 (repeating) pages written and it has to be 8 to 10 pages. i haven't written a paper that long in my life. and i'm not kidding.

i was talking to my mom online tonight (lame, huh? i really need a phone) and apparently we are getting a new car. we sold our '88 beauty last month, but that still left us with 2 cars for the two people normally living at home. i'm not sure why we need a third one but aparently we do. i've learned not to question my dad. it doesn't usually get me answers. anyhow, my mom told me they were going to get a honda element (aka, world's ugliest car). they're actually getting yet another dodge minivan (this is the fourth one since i was born) although, seth told me that yesterday it was the element. scary.

i made an interesting discovery "baking" today. you know the biscuits that come in the pressurized containers? yeah, there's a reason they come pressurized. i wanted some biscuits last night, but not all of them. so instead of cooking them all at once, brilliant me decided that i would put some of them back in the fridge so i could have them fresh the next day. yeah, so apparently the baking soda requires that you bake immediately or else they won't be quite so fluffy anymore. but i am now much wiser than before at least.

have any of you guys noticed the buildings they're demolishing on campus? right over by price hall or whatever the new business building is called. apparently we're getting a student academic service center or something. yippee! i can't wait. plus, i can't deny it, i loooove construction on campus....

i bet you didn't know that tea is second only to water in world beverages. i bet you also didn't know that all tea is green. black tea, white tea, etc. are merely caused by the processing. cool huh? not.

i think that's all i'm going to make you read tonight. peace.

Journey Church

It's a good thing I have this thing for myself and not for my friends, otherwise the lack of response would be kind of depressing...

That having been said, I am actually going to make a serious post before this blog goes to rot.

I went to Journey Church on Sunday with my roommate. The following is my account of what happened and my reaction to it. I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm just trying to figure out my thoughts.

It was overwhelming when I walked in, I had to shake the hands of four greeter-people on my way in. The church meets in an old supermarket, so when you walk in it's just this large open space with concrete floors and high ceilings, not surprisingly, much like a supermarket. Dozens of people are meandering around and there's an amazing amount of food sitting out, waiting to be eaten as well as big tubs of ice with soda and water in them, much like you might find on the Walker-Adams Mall the first couple of days after move-in. I'm not usually a fan of big groups, especially when I don't really know anyone. Strike one for Journey church. We went into the sanctuary and were immediately assaulted by loud music while we found seats. There were a lot of families there, more than I was expecting. Since most of the students are gone for the summer, it wasn't nearly as packed as it normally would have been. I enjoyed the worship mostly, but the lights swirling around and flashing in my face really didn't make it easy to concentrate. And the sermon being punctuated often by the phrase "the sweet spot of success" and being "in the zone" in reference to God didn't exactly resonate with me too well. All in all, I felt myself judging a lot. The pastor essentially talked about being successful in God and among other things, said that God wants to bless us financially and implied that if that's not the case then we might not be where we should be. I guess I never really associate financial "success" as something that I am promised as a Christian. There was a lot of stuff that I found myself really cringing at. Some of that I think was justified in disagreeing with, but I know that some of it was not. I tend to be a prideful and a judgmental person, coupled with some stubbornness. I like to think that I'm am right, and that being the case, I have the right to look down on other people who disagree with me. That's not true, and I shouldn't be doing it. In addition, there is not always a strictly "right" or "wrong" answer with some issues in Christianity. Being an engineer and used to working with empirical data, that's what I like to rely on. Problem is, that's rarely available when you're talking about faith. That frustrates me a lot sometimes, because evaluating subjective information and making decisions based on that information is not my strong point. As a result, I tend to just pick a side that seems right and stake that out as my viewpoint without always searching the scriptures for truth. It's easier to read a book and have someone tell me what they think is right that to try to determine it for myself. It's one of the things that frusterates me most about myself.

So, I find myself wondering, "why did I react so badly to Journey?" Part of me reacted against the fact that it was not an intellectual church, as I've become accustomed to over the past three and a half years. Another similar problem I had with it was in its seeming desire to make church exciting and attractive. I'm not saying we should try to make church boring on purpose, but I also think that we have more mental capacity than a 20 minute, 3 point, fill-in-the-blank sermon with flashing lights in the background. I honestly think a lot of this is just my pride, my "holier than thou" attitude if you will, but there were some things that were said that I wasn't sure how scriptural they were. I don't know.

All that being said, I almost want to go back. Sometimes I think that we should all be going to churches that we would never expect to go to and never thought we would fit in at, just to challenge our beliefs and make us think. I'd like to go back to Journey simply for the fact that it raised questions in my mind. I couldn't just sit back and agree with what was being said. I reacted against it, but it made me think. My mind said, "no, that's wrong." It made me want to search the scriptures to find the truth. Anything that can do that for me is a good thing.

land of my sojourn

i'm quite happy to say i survived my midterms. they weren't actually as bad as i was expecting although i do remember thinking as i took my stats one, "i didn't think you could make statistics questions this hard." still wasn't too bad.

i took like three naps today. it was wonderful. i fell asleep in my statistics class for about the first twenty minutes. che told me i was snoring. said he thought it was funny, but the prof didn't seem to appreciate it. good thing engineering classes aren't graded subjectively...i went home after the break in the middle of class. i was tired and wasn't paying attention anyway, so i took a nap when i got home. took another one after dinner because i didn't think i'd be able to concentrate on reading if i didn't. couldn't really concentrate on reading for class anyway, but hey, i got another nap out of the deal.

i wish they could take statistics on people's productivity over the past weekend, because it seems like the entire country has been reading harry potter. and now that the first wave of people has read it, they've passed it on to the second group who wants to read it, thereby increasing the unproductiveness. it's wonderful. at least people are reading and not watching tv, or drinking, or smoking or something. at least this unproductiveness involves thinking.

highlights of my week so far: being done with my midterms; my mom telling me i should get a cell phone one night and then telling me my dad says i don't need one the next day; geoff and alex being gangsta while we played streef ball; kyle reading me the vacuum cleaner user's manual; wow, this week has been great, i could go on and on and on.........

i'm going to go back to my reading now, then sleep, so i don't snooze in stats tomorrow.

currently reading: harry potter and the half-blood prince
currently listening: land of my sojourn, rich mullins

soon shall pass thy pilgrim days

so tired right now. i need to go to sleep early tonight.

did laundry last night. all my clothes smell good.

i want to play frisbee. anyone in norman want to play frisbee too? if the answer is "yes", then we should. this weekend. please get me out of my house. please.

i have two midterms on monday and a paper that needs to be started soon. this weekend is going to be fun. especially since people aren't going to be around to distract me. i may be chillin' at bizzell a lot. or nielson (please everyone note the "i" before "e", it applies here too). for some reason nielson is my new favorite study place. find a massive classroom (our physics one, perhaps) dump out all your books and get to work.

grrrrr....

guess who was in my traditional china class today and on friday? shades! guess who asked questions like he knew what he was talking about? shades! guess who is not actually enrolled in the class but is trying it out to see if he wants to in the fall? you guessed it, shades! grrr... on one hand, it's frusterating that he's just sitting in on the class, but on the other hand, there is hope. maybe he'll stop coming soon. it's so frusterating to spend half of class cringing.

for those of you who are unacquainted with this fellow, there really is no adequate description, so i'm not even going to try.

blah, blah, blah...

in other news, we got our research paper assignments in class today and i went straight to the library after class (after a small detour to nielson hall to see if any of my aquaintances were around. i didn't see any, but fyi there's a huge pendulum in the atrium there now) and checked out books for my paper. i, emily weisbrook, actually went to the library to check out books for a paper. that's pretty much the first time. i didn't even do that for perspectives. in a few weeks time, there will be an 8 to 10 page paper about...........tea. how fun is that...

more blah, blah, blah

my lawn needs to get mowed, my statistics class needs to die, and i need to go run at the huff.


*edit*
i just mowed my lawn. it's been years since i've used a lawnmower. my father would be proud.

email

ok, china email of doom is written. very glad that is over and done with. good riddance.

if you are reading this and you didn't get the email, i'm sorry, you must be a stalker, because i think i sent this to every one my known readers. if you want a copy, let me know, but you'll be divulging your anonymity. sweet.

going to bed. i have class tomorrow...that is...today.

made in the U.S. of A.

ha, i discovered that i own a piece of clothing that proudly displays "Made in U.S.A." on its tag. nike gym shorts. i was pretty surprised. especially that it was nike. i thought only new balance still made stuff here...

mental exercises

please to picture this. ^^ please note the attached shower head. now imaging trying to take a shower while straddling seen squatty potty.

ok, mental exercises are done for the day.

random quote: radio

quote from the radio today: "if you don't get drunk at some point this weekend, then the terrorists have already won."

i hope you all did your best to fight terrorism this weekend.

styles

i changed the style of my blog again. paris just wasn't working for me. but i know it'll work for andrea...

oh yeah, happy independence day to all my chums in the uk, i'm sure you're not going to hear that over there. i imagine they're not big fans of the holiday.

norman

ha, i'm updating. shocker.

just so you all know, i have arrived back in norman. by plane no less. much better than the driving or bus ideas. it was really weird coming back on I-35 at night (like it always is when i return) but realizing that i hadn't driven the other 500 miles to get to that point.

like i said, i wasn't exactly planning on flying back to school. but my sister got a flight into st. louis yesterday at 1:30 so i decided to just fly back now instead of taking the bus on sunday since it was about the same price anyway. when seth and i got to the airport i parked in the 5 minute parking and seth went in to find naomi. well, the car wouldn't start and i started freaking out (for future reference, i am completely incapable of dealing with cars that don't work if i'm in any sort of traffic situation. it's just not a good thing) so after a while of freaking out, i just decided to let seth deal with it.he's much calmer in those kind of situations. actually, he's calmerin pretty much all situations.

so, i'm back in norman. due to poor communication, i'm not in my house yet. hopefully that will happen soon, but we'll see what happens. in the meantime, i'm at geoff's place. look for me there...

hmm...just realized i failed to transition into the "i'm back in the states" phase. seth and i got back last saturday. and i spent the majority of the time between then and now just bumming around the house. for my china summary: china was good. i liked it. i had fun. the mythical "china email" has actually been started (i didn't have anything better to do when my plane was delayed an hour) and should hopefully be finished and sent before classes start.

songpan

ok, hopefully this works. most of the buttons are chinese characters, so i'm going with my former memories of how this works.

it's been brought to my attention by andrea's blog that i should be updating. my apologies. i have started the travelling part of my trip to china and internet is not as easy to come by here as it was in naomi's apartment.

i am currently residing (at least until tomorrow morning) in songpan, sichuan province, china. we arrived here on wednesday afternoon after a 10 hour busride from chengdu. it is absolutely beautiful up here. we spent the past 3 days riding horses over the mountains and camping. not exactly what i was expecting, but then again, most things rarely are. for one, it was raining and wet most of the time. that kind of puts a different spin on things. the mountain path was really slippery and it freaked me out a lot. i thought i was going to fall off a cliff and die many times.

tomorrow we leave to go to some really famous and scenic spot about a 4 hour busride away. after that we're not really sure. we might take a cruise on the yangtze, stopping in fuling (for any of you who have read river town) as one of the stops...or we might go to beijing. naomi's not really too excited about that one since she's been there before. i'm not sure if it's worth it to take a 12 hour train ride to go see all the tourist sights so i can say i've been there. anyhow, that's all for now. i'm going to let someone else use the internet now. 4 yuan an hour (~50 cents). pretty steep...

(btw, andrea, you better comment since i posted just for you)

cry me a river

edit: your chinglish word of the day is: succeedism. in america, this is best termed 'success'. from the infinitive 'to succeed'.

alright folks, i'm going to try to do this without failing. so if you read this, i have not failed.

i am in china now. this is how i got there:

• leave st. louis for detroit at 9:45 am (1 hour flight)
• 4 hour layover
• detroit to tokyo (12 hour flight)
• 15 minute walkthrough of tokyo airport to next flight
• tokyo to shanghai (3.5 hour flight)
• arrive 8:45 pm. find naomi (breathe huge sigh of relief), 30 minute bus ride to shanghai hotel
• spend the night
• shanghai for jiangsing (3.5 hour train ride)

china is very interesting. what can i say. i only saw one other non-asian person the whole time we were in shanghai and that was at mcdonalds. (naomi and seth said they saw three, however) granted, we weren't there very long, but with the shear number of people around you'd think we'd see at least a couple more. i'm not even talking americans here, i'm just talking non-chinese. it's really interesting the way the chinese culture meshes with the american. so many t-shirts sport english phrases etc. while we eating dinner tonight in a little eating joint (highly unsanitary by US standards, but if i don't get sick, i don't particularily care one bit because the food was great) anyhow, we're sitting there eating and suddenly i hear justin timberlake singing to me in english. how can one not feel at home when one has the catchy melodies of "cry me a river" or "rock your body" drifting into ones ear. on the train i also heard the tune of simon and garfunkel's 'el condor pasa' carefully worked into an asian melody. i thought at first that s&g had ripped off of chinese music because the style of music in theirs was very similar, but naomi informed me that it was probably quite the opposite since that's a fairly common thing in chinese music.

thursday and friday we're supposed to guest lecture for naomi's classes. i'm not sure what we're supposed to talk about, but we are fluent in english, so i'm sure we're pretty qualified.

i think i'm going to stop now, because i'm pretty tired. it's midnight here. i'm actually pretty on-track for sleeping here. i think jet lag is a myth if you're a college student. it's just like pulling an almost all-nighter. stay up for a long time. get a couple hours of sleep. stay up some more. arrive. sleep from exhaustion. i suppose this only works if you arrive at your destination at approximately sleeping time, though.

goodnight all.

HumanForSale.com

I am worth $1,531,240 on HumanForSale.com

nifty

thoughts? ideas? discuss...

thoughts on the new layout? it's not quite finished, and i'm not actually sure if i like it, but i thought it was time for something different.

if you have any suggestions, or you would like to tell me how much you hate it, i'm open to either. or ideas on what i should have done. yeah, you get the point...

p.s. i really like finding money. i just found $50 in my drawer from christmas. w00t!

she woke me up with a bang bang

i know you guys have all been hoping that i would post soon about my super-riveting life, so i'll indulge you...

life is nice right now. not too boring, not too busy. i've been hanging out a lot, watching a ridiculous amount of movies, etc. fairly typical summertime activities.

in the past few days it has become quite blatant to me that i am a nerd. i have actually always known this, but believe it or not, the syndrome is much more pronounced when i am at home. in all actually, the combined forces of my family members (with slight input from the delwoods) make the rest of my friends at school look rather tame. in particular, there are a couple of incidents that made this stand out to me. for one, i've spent the past week trying to install mysql, apache, and php on my computer so i can learn database and web programming stuff. (props to anyone who has any idea what i'm talking about) then i was talking to one of my friends from high school and i had to admit that i switched majors from what he termed my 'nerdy major' of industrial engineering to what is an undeniably nerdier major of computer engineering. the last thing is, my brother arrived home on friday night sporting a lovely shirt sporting equations and diagrams all over it. i started looking at the shirt and slowly realized that it was an ieee (institute of electrical and electronics engineers) shirt. then i started looking at all the equations and diagrams and realized that i knew what most of them meant and their significance. i got irrationally excited about it. to the extent that my mom and brother commented on it. that's ok though, at least i enjoy what i'm doing.

my time in columbia is quickly drawing to a close. seth and i leave on sunday morning to fly to shanghai. i will be spending my 19th birthday in a foreign country. i think it's a pretty good deal considering 19 is kind of the birthday that gets shafted in the late teens/early twenties age span. i'm pretty excited about the trip, but probably more excited about leaving the country than i am about going to china in particular. however, it will be me, naomi, and seth; we're going to take the country by storm and dazzle them with our extreme heights.

anyhow, i've got to go try to finish installing php. i sure hope this is worth the four or five hours i've spent trying to install this slew of software...

eisenstein should just relax

went to st. louis yesterday with my mom for some work thing, but i got to chill with my grandma. in case you were wondering folks, i'm an expert pinochle player. try me sometime.

stopped at the outlet mall on the way home to get jeans. somehow came home with three shirts instead. funny how that happens. one of them is a lovely polka-dot tank top that i can only describe as something andrea would wear on laundry day. that should give at least some of you an adequate description. i think i am also fully prepared to participate in button-up (button-down?) shirt day next year as well, provided i decide to use an iron.

seth gets home friday. should be neat. maybe by then my room will have cleaned itself up.

triskaidekaphobia?

dictionary.com word of the day (for last friday):
triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun: A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.

Triskaidekaphobia is a fairly new word (first found in print in 1911) formed from Greek treiskaideka, triskaideka, "thirteen" (treis, "three" + kai, "and" + deka, "ten") + phobos, "fear." The adjective form is triskaidekaphobic. One who fears the number 13 is a triskaidekaphobe or triskaidekaphobic.

There are many theories about the origin of triskaidekaphobia. In medieval Christian countries the number 13 came to be considered unlucky because there were 13 persons at the Last Supper of Christ. Fridays are also unlucky, because the crucifixion was on a Friday. Hence a Friday falling on the thirteenth day would be regarded as especially unlucky.

weird.

in other news, they let me into the "I joined my Sorority for the T-Shirt" club on facebook. obviously they're not too selective. why bother even making people request to join if you're going to let just anybody in. i mean freels here, there's no way i'd be in a sorority.

i'm smiling right now

i really don't think i could ever express just how much i love my family:

a pocketful of mumbles

i think my page layout should be fixed now. sorry to all of you who use internet explorer, it was looking pretty messed up to you guys for awhile.

i just got done with my e-science test. it went ok. somehow our teacher always manages to write tests that throw me for a loop and aren't what i expect at all. i just don't take his tests very well. but i felt like i actually knew my stuff this time, so hopefully i did well. i was able to at least pretend that i knew what i was doing on all the problems...

school is winding down (in theory). the problem with dead week for me is not that everything is due, it's that i've got a couple extra things to do, but still the regular homework load. i only have one class where the regular homework isn't due. that leaves three assignments, each taking around 3 to 4 hours to do, if i'm focused. that's where all my time goes, and i'm not sure where i'm going to magically produce more time to do projects and study for my finals this week, but i'm sure it will happen. it always does somehow.

summer begins in about 13 days. so far, it's looking like:
may: home
june: china
july: norman, taking classes or maybe working, depending on if i can find a second class to take
august: 2 weeks in colorado/grand canyon with the fam, then home for a bit, then back to norman

crazy how when you break it into sections like that, it seems so short.



one last thing. i know i'm a nerd, but i found this really funny. especially the fact that they actually tried to submit some of the papers to a conference. i think MIT people are a lot more interesting than i've ever given them credit for...

The ink is black, the page is white

"If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world and obtaining knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. That you have never wanted a book, but it has been supplied to you. That your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have turned out a blockhead."
-Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy

three posts!!

ok, ok. i know three posts in one day is absolutely ridiculous, even if there was a night of sleep in between them, but i just had to share something i just figured out.

i just found out that i have access to the entire ou web directory on the server, including, but not limited to, the ou study abroad page which i hate with a passion. i was supposed to have access to one directory, but when i went up a directory and voila, everything was there and most of them weren't separately password protected. i think that this means there is a minor flaw in the system and i'm not sure who should be taking care of that. anyhow, this means that i have amazing capacity for vandalism here. i'm way too responsible for that and, among other things, it would most likely get me fired. that's a bummer, because there are some pretty bad web pages out there for this university...

fire alarms

grr...fire alarms at 2:30 in the morning really not cool. i think i am skipping e-science in the morning.

He is calling you "DUDE!"

since i hate making up titles for my posts i think i'm just going to use song lyrics that strike my fancy when i can't think of an appropriate title. it will be left as an optional exercise for the reader to figure out which song it is...

i have to say, right now, i feel great. i really do, i didn't just throw that in there for the link. had three tests last week and a project due last night (sunday) at midnight. it just feels so good to have that done. plus i've been doing "fun" reading a lot recently. i need to keep making time for that in my schedule. it just relaxes me so much, reminds me that the real world is not made up of circuits, and-or gates or exception handling. thank goodness. it's kind of strange, because all the fun reading i did in high school was all fiction. and not generally great fiction at that. it wasn't trashy or anything, just not classic i suppose. all of a sudden these days i'm just much more interested in reading non-fiction. maybe i feel like it's more applicable to real life, which would imply that i actually care about real-life application now...that's cool.

played basketball at the huff tonight. it was a lot of fun. i should do that more often. should also learn how to shoot a basketball while i'm at it. that would be really cool.

went to the meeting for rhodes/marshall scholarship stuff today. i kind of have mixed feelings about it. obviously to get one of those scholarships would be absolutely amazing, but a lot of me says it's just not worth all the work for something i probably wouldn't win. because in all honesty, i'm really not that spectacular of a candidate. i have good grades and i'm a minority in my major, but that's about it. i don't really have any lofty career goals, and i'm definitely not pursuing the connections i'd need to get some sort of nifty job like that. i'm not really involved on campus because most of my time is spent either doing homework or hanging out with my friends so i can remain sane enough to do more homework. i know that i need to be more involved on campus, but at this point it seems like a major reason would be resume-building, which i really detest the concept of. on the other hand though, i think pursuing some of those type things would make me a better person in the end. there's a reason being involved in things is viewed a good thing. plus, i think the amount of thought i'd have to put into writing a personal statement would be good for me. i think it would really help me to think through what i really want to get out of my college experience and what i want to do with my life. to have to justify that to someone else would definitely demand good reasons for what i'm doing. is it worth it just for that experience. to be able to say i did it? maybe i will, after all, i did miss out on all the "i got accepted to harvard (yale, princeton, stanford etc.)" hype in high school. i was just waiting for the, "hey, ou let me apply for the rhodes scholarship" in college.

by the way, that last paragraph was essentially irrelevant at this point considering you don't apply for those scholarships until your senior year, which at this point is at least a year and a half away and at this point is looking more and more like it will be 2 and a half years. "do it in 5" take that, honors college. good night everone.

umm....

okay, while i'm actually thinking about something...

tonight, i was trying to sit down and study and i was just having a really tough time of it. i couldn't just sit down and focus. i sat down in a room all by myself and all of a sudden i wanted, even needed people around. i tried sitting in the library where there were a couple of people that i knew, but not really friends exactly...still couldn't study and i found myself getting kind of emotional, for reasons i cannot explain. so i went and sat in the hall and tried to calm myself down and get ready to focus. instead i ended up crying for a little bit. not like sobbing or anything, but just kind of tears of frustration, i guess, probably a little bit of self-pity mixed in there. i tried to pray about it, my again i was having problems focusing and i'll admit at the time it probably didn't feel like God could help. at the moment all i really wanted was a big hug and somebody to tell me it was all right. once i finally did get around some people and some conversation etc. i was fine. i don't get it. sometimes i have a hard time balancing the idea that God can, and should be everything for us and having real emotional and relational needs that sometimes it feels like can only be met by people around us.

i keep finding that i really need people. i need them for my mental and emotional stability. i need them to hang out with, to laugh with, to listen to, to make me feel significant on this earth. but should i? is that me not being fully dependent on God? or is that me being a very human human being? Jesus was tempted in every way that we were...He had close friends...but did He need them? could He have "made it" without them? were they just there to be there, or were they actually necessary for His life here on earth?

warning: completely random

i think my blog deserves a post at this point. it's been what? eight whole days. shame on me.

ok, my thoughts, in no particular order:

• i think i'm really liking school right now, i can't quite explain it, but i guess i just kind of feel like i'm in the right major and such. it feels like i finally almost have a handle on classes
• learning stuff makes me feel dumb. the more i learn, the more i hate that i just don't have the time, or unfortunately in many cases, the inclination to pursue all the things that interest me
• i have little to no critical thinking skills outside of concrete thinking. even then it's sometimes pretty bad
• i filled out/sent in my passport application this week. i think that will make it more likely that i actually do end up in china this summer
• i will be living in the dorms next year. in honors. with andrea. it's official
• the weather today was beautiful. every time i got out of class it was warmer than when i entered class. i feel like we're on the verge of spring and that just makes me very happy right now
• sometimes i just feel like planning in my life is futile. nothing ever turns out as i expect, and i wonder why i feel compelled to plan
• the more i talk to my sister these days, the more i realize i'm a lot more like her than i thought. the way we think and the issues we've had to deal with are amazingly similar. i just wish that i'd figured this out a long time ago...
• i think i've walked at least 11 miles this week and somewhere in there i think i managed to hurt my foot somehow. it feels like the top of it is bruised. i wonder what happened. i wish i knew more about how the body works, but i fear that will always be an unknown for me
• c.s. lewis has amazing insight into human thought (i'm reading the screwtape letters right now)
• i have been to the mont three times this year for 21st birthdays. apparently turning 21 is the cool thing to do this year.

i'm actually very sorry if you made it to the bottom of this post...it had no real point i admit, but maybe someday i'll be curious about what i was thinking at 1:20 am on march 25, 2005. who knows...

current listening: she don't want nobody near, counting crows
current reading: electrical circuits, nillson

hotel rwanda

i went to see hotel rwanda today with cassidy. i think the best adjective i have for what i felt after watching it was petty. not the movie, but myself. i started thinking about all the things i worry about in my life, mostly about school and relationships...not exactly life and death issues. my life is consumed with little worries, almost always having to do with myself.

what if i honestly just stopped worrying about myself, about my issues, and started concerning myself with other people. there are so many people and countries that have much bigger needs than i can ever dream of having. the thought of having to deal with a war or fighting on my country's own soil has never crossed my mind as even being possible. what if i had to deal with the moral issue of genocide and i had to put my life at risk to do the right thing? what would i do? would i have the courage to stand up for what is right? i guess that's kind of a hard "what if...?" question to answer, but if my actions now are any indicator, i'd probably have to say "no", i wouldn't. i fail day after day to make the right decisions. i choose a path of selfishness without even thinking about it. i do what seems best for me.

how do i change that? how do i take my own little spotlight off of me and move it anyone else...you'd think with the ratio of everyone else to me being so extremely large it would be easier, but it isn't.

words or pictures?

i was taking some sort of quiz thing online the other day that was supposed to determine left brained-/right brained-ness or what have you and one of the questions was something along the lines of "when you think, do you think in words or pictures?"

this was a new idea for me. i definitely think in words. in fact, i generally have a constant stream of words/sentences running through my head, with one only remaining until the next one comes to replace it. so now i'm curious, do you guys think in words or pictures? if it is pictures, are they kind of quick flashes, like photographs, or are they more like short film clips?

along those lines, for people who speak multiple languages, how does that play into their thinking? i assume that the two languages mix. if one thinks in pictures or images, doesn't that seem more universal, that you don't have to mess with words when you think?

random quote: third meditation

"When I turn my mind's eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things; but I also understand at the same thime that he on whom I depend has within him all those greater things, not just indefinitely and potentially but actually and infinitely, and hence that he is God."
-Descartes, Third Meditation: The Existence of God

v-day

so...i witnessed a marriage proposal on the south oval this afternoon. happy valentine's day everyone...

update

quick update on life:

highlights/lowlights (?) of last week:

• 1 test (psychology, i still don't have the book)
• 1 program due (data structures, still don't really know how to program in c++)
• the usual gazillion homework assignments due

i went to an intramural basketball game, not-a-dated, watched the godfather, did some painting etc, lost my notebook that had three classes worth of notes in it, had a partial mental breakdown...the usual

still haven't skipped class yet this semester, although i have slept through one while in class

current listening: wicked soundtrack
current reading: muddling my way through descartes meditations

notebooks

sooo...i finally went to go get notebooks for class today. later i was sitting in class and i was looking at the little calendars at the front of my notebook. they spanned the years of 1999 to 2002. when i came home and looked at my other one i had bought, the years were 1995 to 1997. since there's really no reason to put an out-of-date calendar anywhere, i can only assume that these notebooks were produced before the dates on them. that is very, very strange. i wonder what else we buy that could be almost 10 years old...

random lyrics: rich mullins

Well, it took the hand of God Almighty
To part the waters of the sea
But it only took one little lie
To separate you and me
Oh, we are not as strong as we think we are

And they say that one day Joshua
Made the sun stand still in the sky
But I can't even keep these thoughts of you from passing by
Oh, we are not as strong as we think we are

We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made
Forged in the fires of human passion
Choking on the fumes of selfish rage
And with these our hells and our heavens
So few inches apart
We must be awfully small
And not as strong as we think we are

And the Master said their faith was
Gonna make them mountains move
But me, I tremble like a hill on a fault line
Just at the thought of how I lost you
Oh, we are not as strong as we think we are

And if you make me laugh
I know I could make you like me
'Cause when I laugh I can be a lot of fun
But when we can't do that I know that it is frightening
What I don't know is why we can't hold on
We can't hold on.

It took the hand of God Almighty
To part the waters of the sea
But it only took one little lie
To separate you and me
Oh, we are not as strong as we think we are

When you love you walk on the water
Just don't stumble on the waves
We all want to go there somethin' awful
But to stand there it takes some grace
'Cause oh, we are not as strong
As we think we are

No, we are not as strong
As we think we are

-Rich Mullins, We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are

books

okay, so i got a ton of books for christmas/bought a lot of books over christmas break. they are as follows:

• Great Dialogues of Plato - Plato
  
• To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
  
• Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
  
• The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
  
• The Odyssey - Homer
  
• A Reformation Debate - Calvin/Sadoleto
• Confessions - St. Augustine
  
• Systematic Theology - Wayne Grudem
  
• Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis
• A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith - Jon Krakauer
• The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism - Daniel Bell
• Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
• Lord of the Flies - William Golding

i am hereby resolving to read all of these before the end of the year (except the ones i've already read before). i'm also removing systematic theology from that list seeing as it's kind of under the "reference" heading. my progress will be recorded in the sidebar on the right.

semester review

i'm a little behind some people, but i suppose i should do this before the new semester starts...

third semester in review (sorry danny, but it was such a good title i couldn't resist):

apparently there were a lot of "firsts" this semester:

• first ou football game (and many thereafter)
• first semester without a single all-nighter (not even for my standard 8am calc final)
• first cigar
• first trip to a non-okc or non-tulsa oklahoman town
• first time to vote
  
• first semester to not live in the honors dorm
• first semester where i actually went to the library for studying purposes
• first semester to do undergraduate research
  

i also:

• decided to change my major
• made new friends and unfortunately lost some old ones
• took 9 hours of classes which count not a bit towards my new major (however, on the bright side, i can have cool side conversations with my brother about martensite while watching the reforging of the sword in return of the king)
• decided i wanted to be an RA, took the class, and subsequently decided that i did not indeed want to be an RA
• actually ate at the cafeteria
• interned with sin
  
• finished my calc sequence
  
• had my last class with doc m
• experienced the horror that is physics with dr. shafer-ray
• experienced the awesomeness that is socaps
• gained new appreciation for non-math and -science subjects (i promise i won't make fun of letters majors anymore)

this semester has in some ways been the absolute worst of any i've had so far, but in some other ways it has been the best. there were times when i was incredibly lonely and sad and there were times when i don't think i've ever been happier. there was a lot of stuff that went on that, though i wouldn't particularily want to go through again, i would, if i felt it would teach me as much as it did the first time. i've learned a lot about myself, about other people, and about God's sovereignty and grace. i've failed at some friendships, but i've also gained and restored some friendships and in the process learned what true friendship really is. i have been more challeged to think and stretch and grow than ever before. all in all, it's been a good semester. even for all the crap that came along with it, the best thus far.

w00t

ok so, cool story. today i was downtown hanging out with my friend cassidy and since the weather was beautiful (60 degrees and just a tiny bit of rain) we decided to just wander around for awhile and maybe check out some of the cool shops...so anyway, we ended up at a little clothing consignment shop where i found, not clothes, but my very own copy of the lord of the rings trilogy (which i did not previously own). in addition, this is no lame current edition. no, this is old school. white cover with brown and black art, yellowed pages, no sign of orlando bloom anywhere on that cover, printing date: 1978. that's the year my parents got married. yup, way old school and way cool. i was pretty psyched, especially since it was only $10 for the set. when i asked the lady why she sold books so cheap, so responded, "because i want people to read." that lady gained major coolness points in my book today.

in addition, this is one more instance to add to my theory that i can't leave the house anymore without returning with a book. i think this is the fourth instance of something like this happening...

tsunami

http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html

random lyrics: modest mouse

just reading lyrics on the internet the other day and came across this:

"If God takes life, he's an Indian giver."
-Modest Mouse, "Bukowski"

what a concise way of summing up how it seems most people feel about God. he's kind of there as a convenience factor, but he had better come through and do what we ask of him, otherwise, we feel like we're not getting what we "deserve". if only we could fully grasp the reality of what it is that we are truly deserving of. the wrath of God that we are spared from.

------------------------------------------------------

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
-Romans 11:33-36

post!!

i just had the first twinge of wanting to be back at college...the weather here was beautiful today and it's still fairly warm (61 degrees). i wish i was back at ou so i could wander over to the honors dorm to find someone to go to crossroads with or just take a walk. i might consider it here, but there is no one around and no streetlights in my neighborhood either...so maybe i should just go look at the stars, because you really can see those...

ok, i haven't posted in a while. let me sum up what's been going on: nothing. well...i suppose that's not entirely true. i've been doing a lot of reading. i would highly recommend crime and punishment to any of ya'll. other than that i've just been hanging out with the fam, frequenting some coffee shops, doing some web page stuff. the usual.

tomorrow marks the beginning of 2005. i can't believe that. it makes me feel really old for some reason. i can still remember when the year 2000 seemed so far away...anyhow, i know that the whole new years resolutions thing seems so cliche, but i'm thinking i might write some up anyway. introspection is always good, right? or maybe i can just consider them "new semester resolutions", that'll make me feel better.

random quotes: finding common ground

this is pretty out-of-context, but i thought it was interesting anyway...

"We know where great scientists come from--they are slowly developed through years of intensive study and discipline. But where do great artists come from? When we meet a great scholar we often say, 'What a learned person,' or 'What an accomplished thinker.' When we meet a great artist we say, 'What a gifted person,' or 'What a talented artist,' as though her skills were somehow genetically acquired. To develop an art requires every bit as much discipline, study, and application as the obtaining of knowledge--maybe more. Michelangelo was once asked how he obtained his incredible genius. 'If people know how hard I have worked to obtain my mastery,' he said, 'it would not seem wonderful at all.'"
-Finding Common Ground, Tim Downs

being home

hmm...being home is actually a bit boring. there's no one around. i really wish i liked talking on the phone, but as it is, i have an irrational dislike of it, or at least of calling people...

haven't started christmas shopping. that is bad. i will hopefully start tomorrow, but quite frankly, i am just not really in the christmas mood i guess. our tree is halfway up and i could care less. me and my dad were talking and we determined that we really didn't care, so we might as well just not put one up or something. i brought that up to my mom and she said, "the tree is not for you, it's for your sister"...good to know who the favorite is...just kidding, i'd want to see a christmas tree too if i'd been in china for 10 months too.

cool thing happened to me yesterday: my mom and i were going to walmart and goodwill happens to be in the same shopping center, so we stopped there first. i definitely bought a few cds, in particular the beautiful letdown by switchfoot. can't beat three bucks for a practically new cd that you were going to buy anyway...

so yeah, being home is cool. really relaxing if nothing else. hope everyone else is having a good break.

random quotes: stepping heavenward

i hope to be doing a lot of reading over break and as i do, i will probably post on here some of the quotes that happen to strike me. i am putting them here much for my benefit, so i can re-read them later, but hopefully they will benefit you in some way too...

"I am afraid that you are in danger of falling into an error only too common among young Christians. You acknowledge that there has been enmity to towards God in your secret soul, and that one of the first steps towards peace is to become reconciled to Him and to have your sins forgiven for Christ's sake. This done, you settle down with the feeling that the great work of life is done, and that your salvation is sure. Or, if not sure, that your whole business is to study your own case to see whether you are really in a state of grace. Many persons never get beyond this point. They spend their whole time in asking the question:

'Do I love the Lord or no?

Am I His or am I not?'

I beg you, my dear child, if you are doing this aimless, useless work, to stop short at once. Life is to precious to spend in a tread-mill.. Having been pardoned by your God and Saviour, the next thing you have to do is to show your gratitude for this infinite favor by consecrating yourself entirely to Him, body, soul, and spirit. This is the least you can do. He has bought you with a price, and you are no longer, your own. 'But,' you may reply, this is contrary to my nature. I love my own way. I desire ease and pleasure; I desire to go to heaven, to be carried thither on a bed of flowers. Can I not give myself so far to God as to feel a sweet sense of peace with Him, and be sure of final salvation, and yet, to a certain extent, indulge and gratify myself? If I give myself entirely away in Him and lose all ownership in myself, He may deny me many things I greatly desire. He may make my life hard and wearisome, depriving me of all that now makes it agreeable.' But, I reply, this is no matter of parley and discussion; it is not optional with God's children whether they will pay Him a part of the price they owe Him, and keep back the rest. He asks, and He has a right to ask, for all you have and all you are. And if you shrink from what is involved in such a surrender, you should fly to Him at once and never rest till He has conquered this secret disinclination to give to Him as freely and as fully as He has given to you It is true that such an act of consecration on your part may involve no little future discipline and correction. As soon as you become the Lord's by your own deliberate and conscious act, He will begin that process of sanctification which is to make you holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect. He becomes at once ,your physician as well as your dearest and best Friend, but He will use no painful remedy that can be avoided. Remember that it is His will that you should be sanctified, and that the work of making you holy is His, not yours. At the same time you are not to sit with folded hands, waiting for this blessing. You are to avoid laying hindrances in His way, and you are to exercise faith in Him as just as able and just as willing to give you sanctification as He was to give you redemption. And now if you ask how you may know that you have truly consecrated yourself to Him, I reply, observe every in indication of His will concerning you, no matter how trivial, and see whether you at once close in with that will. Lay down this principle as a law- God does nothing arbitrary. If He takes away your health, for instance, it is because He has some reason for doing so; and this is true of everything you value; and if you have real faith in Him you will not insist on knowing this reason. If you find, in the course of daily events, that your self-consecration was not perfect-that is, that your will revolts at His will-do not be discouraged, but fly to your Saviour and stay in His presence till you obtain the spirit in which He cried in His hour of anguish, 'Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.' Every time you do this it will be easier to do it; every such consent to suffer will bring you nearer and nearer to Him; and in this nearness to Him you will find such peace, such blessed, sweet peace, as will make your life infinitely happy, no matter what may be its mere outside conditions. Just think, my dear Katy, of the honor and the joy of having your will one with the Divine will, and so becoming changed into Christ's image from glory to glory!"

------------------------------------------------------------------

"It is not necessary to say much to God. Oftentimes one does not speak much to a friend whom one is delighted to see; one looks at him with pleasure; one speaks certain short words to him which are mere expressions of feeling. The mind has no part in them, or next to none; one keeps repeating the same words. It is not so much a variety of thoughts that one seeks in intercourse with a friend, as a certain repose and correspondence of heart. It is thus we are with God, who does not disdain to be our tenderest, most cordial,-most familiar, most intimate friend. A word, a sigh, a sentiment, says all to God; it is not always necessary to have transports of sensible tenderness; a will all naked and dry, without life, without vivacity, without pleasure, is often purest in the sight of God. In fine, it is necessary to content one's self with giving to Him what He gives it to give, a fervent heart when it is fervent, a heart firm and faithful in its aridity, when He deprives it of sensible fervor. It does not always depend on you to feel; but it is necessary to wish to feel. Leave it to God to choose to make you feel sometimes, in order to sustain your weakness and infancy in Christian life; sometimes weaning you from that sweet and consoling sentiment which is the milk of babes, in order to humble you, to make you grow, and to make you robust in the violent exercise of faith, by causing you to sweat the bread of the strong in the sweat of your brow. Would you only love God according as He will make you take pleasure in loving Him? You would be loving your own tenderness and feeling, fancying that you were loving God. Even while receiving sensible gifts, prepare yourself by pure faith for the time when you might be deprived of them and you will suddenly succumb if you had only relied on such support."

-Stepping Heavenward

the trip

it is so good to be home. i fear that it is going to spoil me horribly though, having nothing required of me, no homework etc...

yesterday was definitely the longest...trip...home...ever...i left norman at about 2:45 yesterday afternoon and managed to not actually make it home to columbia until 3:30 in the morning. i did however manage to see new places in oklahoma that i'd never seen before. up until yesterday i can't say i'd ever been anywhere besides norman, okc, or tulsa (and now i suppose chickasha). not so anymore. joe and i took the scenic route on 33 due to missing the 44 exit or somehow getting off again, we're still kind of unsure on that one...as a side note on that topic: wide load vehicle are really annoying on two lane roads...then once we got into missouri, we were about 20 miles outside of springfield when traffic stopped for an accident. we sat for probably 20 minute or so and then joe's low fuel light went on. meanwhile traffic is still nowhere close to moving but we were about 20 yards from an exit so we got off and started off on a smaller road that headed towards springfield in hopes of finding a gas station. i'm not sure i ever really considered the fact that gas station in small towns might not be open 24-hour, passing some like that kind of gave us a scare. when we finally did find a station we put 15.88 gallons in a 16 gallon tank. i'm really glad that we didn't have to add running out of gas to that lovely list of things-gone-wrong for the trip...

so, yeah, i am home and my brother is home and my sister is getting home on thursday night. she is getting in to the kansas city international airport at midnight. i think the fam is going to drive into kc and maybe go hang out and see the plaza before we pick her up. that should be pretty cool. family time is amazing, i shall be very sad if i don't get my full dose of it this summer...

emily

just fyi, try looking up your name at dictionary.com

emily, MN (city, FIPS 19286)
Location: 46.75688 N, 93.96152 W
Population (1990): 613 (757 housing units)
Area: 77.7 sq km (land), 15.8 sq km (water)
Zip code(s): 56447

from acronym finder:
EMILY Early Money Is Like Yeast
EMILY Every Moment I Love You

sorry about that...i'm procrastinating

...words fail me

i just found out tonight that the brother of one of the girls i graduated from high school with died this afternoon in a car wreck. the family's car was side-swiped by a semi as they were driving to north carolina. he was thrown from the car, and flown to a hospital where he died in surgery. he was a sophomore in high school.

our lives on this earth are so fragile. God promises us nothing in regards to the next day. i know at this point all the carpe diem stuff may seem a little bit cliche, but how much is there each day that i should be doing but don't. that i put off with intentions to do it the next day. i've come to a point in my life where i take the next day for granted. death and hardship never comes to mind. i never think "this may be the last time i have to speak with this person or share the gospel with them." i don't take advantage of most of the opportunities i've been given. so much of my life is lived in a go-with-the-flow manner. i live in fear of being too different, of offending people, and in doing so, i hurt not only myself, but them. i lose so many opportunities to reach people and be their friend, usually because i'm so wrapped up in myself and my problems, which are truly insignificant. i spend so much time playing therapist to myself that i fail to notice the struggles of others.

-----

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit." You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like? For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes. You ought to say instead, "If the Lord is willing, then we will live and do this or that." But as it is,you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin. (James 4:13-16)

thanksgiving

thanksgiving is on thursday (as it is every year) and i figured i'd take a little bit of time to think about what i'm thankful for. it seems slightly cliche i suppose, but i know it's something i don't think about very often, so here goes...

i'm thankful for my God and Savior Jesus Christ and for His sovereign mercy and grace, without which i would be nowhere; for my parents, i love them so much and am so thankful for the influence they've been on my life and for the way they raised me; for my brother and sister, you guys are amazing, this may sound bad, but i'm so glad that you guys went away to college because it made me appreciate you so much more, i love hanging out with you guys, you're awesome. i'm so thankful that God chose to put me at the university of oklahoma. when i think about all the people that i've met as a result of being here, i know that my coming here was no accident. i am so thankful for God's sovereignty. it gives me such a peace in my life.

november

i have to say, i love it when it's warmer than usual in november (even despite the rain)

i had much fun wading in the puddles down the sidewalk today. i stopped, rolled up my pants legs, took off my shoes and socks and carried them in my hand all the way back to the dorm...it was a great experience, 4 stars at least. in fact, it's probably one of my favorite things to do right now (the other being skipping class...need to work on that)

wanted

from joel's away message:

WANTED:
Female voluteers. Must be single, reasonably attractive, and of average height.
Must be proficient in: Cleaning, Sandwich-making, Spanish, and Classical Greek.
Conversational skills essential; must be well-versed in the works of Sophocles, Tolstoy, and Shelley.

Apply online with our bodacious and free application, or call Joel or Chris, 487-1967

what would i do without those guys...

friends

i just have to say how amazingly blessed i am by friends. there is no other way to put it. i am so thankful that God chose to put the people in my life that he did. each and every one of you guys means the world to me and i am so glad that i met you.

and for all of you that i have neglected this semester, i am truly sorry. i am still working on learning how to be a good friend. it's been a process, this learning thing. something i never really realized took work, but i am realizing it now. i have to say, it's made those friendships so much better and more dear. God is teaching me a lot about myself this semester and it's been tough, but for all of you who have been there for me when i've been a horrible friend, i am so thankful. i love you guys.

my eye...

ok, quick update on the ol' eye. it has now turned lovely shades of purple and green (see below) i have gotten even more comments about "you look like you're wearing eye makeup, you should do the other eye"...and there is still string sticking out of my face, but since the swelling has gone down, there seems to be more string available for sticking-out-ness.

i think i'm supposed to go in on sunday to have them take my stitches out, however, i don't really want to go back to the hospital. any volunteers for removing them?

the love of God

just a little something from rich mullins:

Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God
-The Love of God

man, i love that song...

emergency room

yet another email published again in blog form...

hey guys,

since some of you were probably curious about what happened (if you had any idea that something happened), i went to the emergency room yesterday (tuesday) to get stitches near my eye. i was playing basketball, tripped, fell, and apparently hit my head. when i was talking to one of the ladies at the desk at the hospital, and she was asking about what happened, i told i had hit my head or slid but that i didn't remember (meaning i wasn't sure exactly how it happened, she started asking if i passed out and getting freaked out about memory loss. i had to specify that i wasn't sure on the details, not that the entire incident was unknown to me. anyhow, the experience overall turned out to be pretty interesting, between the staff at the gym (i think about 8 of them came over, but only three really did much...) and then they insisted on taking me out to the car in a wheelchair. i felt really really stupid to say the least.

aside from being completely embarrassed, the experience was almost fun. not a whole lot of pain (only annoying thing is my peripheral vision is slightly impared due to swelling), got to hang out with some cool friends, what better place than an emergency room, right?

so, there you have it, a slight update on my life...see picture for more details. not too much blood, but it sure felt like it wouldn't stop. kind of confused me why the blood from my (i thought) bloody nose was coming from my eye...

anyhow, i am doing well. but sleep calls to me now. hope all of you are doing well.

-emily

a picture says a thousand words, right? here you go:

slackdome

so, i definitely stayed up until 5 this morning doing absolutely nothing 'productive'. have to say, it's pretty amazing the way i can manage to justify things in my mind, such as "i've had a really hard week, i just need to relax and hang out for a while." note to self, this does not include things like staying up 'til 5 when you have a 9:30 class the next morning. i left my room around 6:30 to go to the cafeteria, and when i return (mind you, only to grab a jacket so i could head off to crossroads with chris and andrea) i had already been away from my computer for seven and a half hours. how ridiculous is that? *sigh* it definitely made me feel like a slacker.

anyhow...i'm not sure if anyone actually reads this...probably a good thing seeing as i don't have a particularly interesting life. i know it's hard to believe, but i'm not exactly a drama queen. however, life this semester is fluctuating between really good and really stressful, not that the two have to be mutually exclusive...but taking 19 hours this semester is much more challenging then the 20 i took last semester. i think it's mostly due to the fact that they're all math/science/engineering classes. i'm starting to realize that getting a degree in engineering is in fact more difficult than getting one in certain other areas. it's actually mostly my wretched physics ii class that is a killer. homework takes so much time in that class since i don't really learn the material from lecture. it's kind of a cyclical problem, because i don't exactly read the book before lecture. need to work on that.

...lost train of thought...

got a tour of climbed buildings on campus from chris last night walking back from crossroads. it was rather amusing to hear his description of 'climbing' with moyni...

no home football game saturday...kind of weird...we play kansas next weekend for homecoming, apparently kansas isn't horrible this year. also kind of weird...

anyhow, this is a really convoluted train of thought, since i'm sitting in a computer lab before class, reading other people's xangas...wasting more time...

other cool fact: melissa moe is coming to visit ou next friday. would be really cool if she came here. need to start convincing her...

going to stop rambling now...

i'm a sophomore now

it is so awesome out tonight. my windows are open and it is drizzling. how i enjoy being able to open my windows. it is getting late and i should attempt to finish my discrete homework. we'll see how that works...i hope everyone enjoys their labor day.

in case you all missed this mass email, here it is again:

all right, folks, i know you've been missing this all summer, well, probably longer than that considering the last time i wrote, but it's finally time for another update. sorry to those i haven't talked to in forever, i wish i was better at staying in touch.

tuesday marks the beginning of the third week of the semester. unbelievable. we are already 12.5% of the way through fall semester and i can't believe it. it should prove to be a very interesting, very busy semester, both of which are good things.

i will now proceed to tell you about things here, starting with the most important (maybe not in my opinion, but everyone else's here): football! i got season tickets this year, knowing that if i didn't, i would never actually get around to going to any games, and it's not really hard to sell extra tickets to freshmen who lost the ticket lottery...anyhow...i went to my first oklahoma sooners football game today. i have to say that, in my opinion, you haven't really seen football until you've been to an ou game. the 6-hour saturday tradition will always live on strong here. we set a new record for game attendance: 84,319 people. that, my friends, is unbelievable, most of oklahoma's towns don't have anywhere near that amount of people. anyhow, even though i'm not particularly fond of football, i must admit i enjoyed myself. next week i'll have to work on understanding everything that went on, i'm still kind of fuzzy on football rules.

next up: classes. i'm taking 19 hours this semester, three of which i contend, shouldn't really count. i'm taking an RA training class, which has to this point been interesting, but kind of a joke. for instance: last thursday, our teacher brought in ice cream sunday stuff as a demonstration and then we got to eat ice cream. woo hoo! however, the class is required to be a resident adviser, so i am taking it. besides that, i am taking calc iv, physics ii, discrete math, structure and properties of materials, and enterprise engineering. i never thought i'd say this, but my calc and physics classes are my most interesting ones. amazing what having teachers you like can do for you... structures and properties is basically just a chemistry class masquerading as an engineering class, which i think is kind of cruel for them to do to us. enterprise engineering is essentially the most boring class ever, but may be tied with discrete math. neither of them are at good times of the day. 9am and 4:30pm should be outlawed as start times for classes, especially ones that meet only twice a week. it's cruel and unusual punishment...

the dorm: this year, i decided to go for a single room, my reasons being that my semi-introverted self requires some alone space to ensure my mental sanity. the only problem is that i had to move out of the honors (aka nerd) dorm, which made me sad. fortunately i'm now only about 50 feet away in my new dorm. the main problem i have to deal with is that the doors to the honors dorm lock at night. so i have occasionally had to find some alternate forms of distraction in my own dorm, which i have successfully done, and unfortunately, sometimes the two forms of distraction come back-to-back and severely cripple my homework-completion ability.

outside, not-explicitly-but-sort-of-school-relate

d activities: this semester, i am also trying to intern with the sooner information network, the student web site at ou (commonly known as sin) to work on web design. i'm still not entirely sure what that will entail, but i've already learned a lot, so i'm pretty excited. i'm also going to get to help with research in the math/science/engineering/education area. also not sure what that will really mean, but am looking forward to getting some research experience and figuring out what my professors do with the 90% of their time that they don't spend teaching.

anyhow, i think that all for now. if you have any inquiries, please feel free to respond to this email.

hope all you freshmen are enjoying the college experience. live it up.

why???

just had to share this picture:



the above is my brother and daniel d. after a rousing game of sting pong. the winner gets to hit the ping pong ball at the loser (who has his shirt lifted over his head as pictured), resulting in lovely welts. quite ingenious i must say...

(and why isn't the word 'pong' in the livejournal dictionary?)

14 days

countdown to norman: 14 days

accomplishment of the day: i voted (first time i could)

well, nothing much going on in my life currently. just kind of wrapping up the summer etc. have to do a little shopping for school before i go back and finish up a web page i'm working on. also have to apply for a job at ou and fill out some scholarship essay thingy or something. sounds like a blast i know.

haven't decided whether i want to stay in columbia or go back to norman...i miss my friends at school, but there is just something that is so home-ish about columbia. friends, family, church, having a car so i can actually drive...oh, well, it's coming whether i want it to or not

seth and chris left for colorado today. no set plans on returning other than seth having a dentist appointment on the 13th. i love the spontaneity of those two, but i hate it also. hard to get answers out of seth

anyhow, that's all for now