Chapter04

Here is the latest installment.

There was one thing in there which rather shocked me, the author, who is described elsewhere as an anti-liberal Calvinist, had some statements in there in which he made a distinguishing remark between natural inability and moral inability, yet later he says that only by the Holy Spirit's drawing does anyone come to Christ. If then, people cannot unless the Spirit draws, would that not imply a natural inability? If it is by nature that we cannot do this?

So I edited that part out, so the recording sounds a little funny overall, since it was an edited recording. The original sounds better ;)

http://www.box.net/public/6xjo7ltse2

Chapter03

And here is the third installment in the series. I have been enjoying this book so far and have recorded up through chapter 6, so even if I should get sick or something, I should be able to post for a few days. Not that I plan on getting sick, but just in case ;)

http://www.box.net/public/v0y9div55f

Chapter02

Here is chapter 2 from Pilgrim's Progress in the Nineteenth Century. I really liked some of the "shadows" you see in people from the real world, because they are so true! The ministers that lead people astray, either the hyper-calvinist or the "cheap grace" minister. I liked Thoughtful too (apparently he's the main character). Keep in mind that I'm reading these chapters for the first time myself, so I don't know whether to make a character "good" or "bad" sounding some of the time. They will change as I become more accustomed to them.

http://www.box.net/public/88e60ky9bu

These can be your night-time stories Gus!

Slight Update

I did take my Physics exam on Tuesday and I think it went really well. At least I felt confident that my answers were correct while I was taking it! I have two more this week.

Physics lab.
The previous lab section was late getting out, everyone was frantically working right up to the time for our lab to start. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to finish ours also!

I had done my pre-lab early (like you're supposed to) and it was an exceptionally long one. Most of the students wait until the lab time because the TA goes through it with us and gives us all the answers, but that wastes time in my opinion. While the instructor was going through the pre-lab, my partner was taking notes while I started on the lab, measuring resistors and calculating percent differences from the labeled resistance. I used to go around the old lab back in California and gather up all the resistors and place them in their proper drawers. I still remembered the codes from that so it made it a whole lot easier for this lab!

This was all just time-consuming stuff, there wasn't anything special involved so my lab partner said he didn't feel like he missed out on anything.

Immediately afterward, I set up the circuit and began measuring voltages while he recorded them and made small calculations. We then measured the current at various points. I asked him if he wanted to do it but he said he was fine. I just explained what I did along the way. I told him I wanted to be sure he understood it. I finished the lab and we turned in our reports.

The TA has been getting to know me a bit and he said that it was very impressive. He didn't expect anyone to finish it because this lab they used to allot two weeks for, but now they tried to cram it into one. He had told all of us that if we didn't finish, to go ahead and turn it in anyway. We finished the lab a half hour early and everyone else seemed to be still on the first part (out of four)! The TA told me "You are very good at this, to finish this lab. And not only that but you do top work too." I was beaming, it's such a compliment to hear something like that! Perhaps I should stick with this electrical stuff after all ;)

Chapter01

I just received a book I had bought today, it's called "Pilgrim's Progress in the 19th Century." I failed to exercise self-control and now I'm into the second chapter and enjoying it very much (sigh, I need to finish all these books I have going right now). Anyway, I recorded chapter 1 if anyone is interested in listening to it. I thought my siblings might enjoy hearing it. The book has been very good so far.

http://www.box.net/public/kglyclxcbt

Something old, something new?

Hey look kids! An update!

Well, a lot of interesting things have happened this past week but it seems I've had no time to write about them. I probably don't have time right now either but I'm going to take advantage of the lull in bewteen classes ;)

I spent some time on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday trying to figure out how to do double integrals. The book said don't do double integrals, you'll mess up. The instructor said that the author didn't know what he was talking about, doing it by double integral is the only way, you won't mess up if you do it like that! I went to the TAs and the first one told me "never try a double integral, they're too hard." I tried figuring out what the book said but it seemed to complicated, so I went back to the TAs. The second girl told me she could show me if I really wanted to do it that way. So she spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out how to set it up, then gave up and said "just use the tables in the back of the book." I did that but I still wanted to do the double integral! It was a matter of principle!

I finally just decided to have a go at it myself and using a website I found, was able to figure out how to set up and solve a double integral (yay) and then another guy came in to the TA section and affirmed that I had done it correctly. It was such a relief to finally be able to get that done!

Thursday I was studying for a couple of exams on Friday, on in Circuits and one in Calculus. Down in the deep, dark basement of Physical Science, a couple of other students (that were in my Physics class) were trying to figure out the homework for Physics that week. I helped them out on a couple of problems since I had completed the assignment earlier in the week. One of the guys asked if anyone would fill in for him at the CEAT Student Council meeting. Apparently you can only miss two meetings or you're off the board and yet you could have someone fill in for you and just say "by proxy." Bad Brad's was catering so I volunteered to go (sit through a meeting with a book or something and get free food? Why not?!). I ended up taking notes during the meeting but I don't think it was necessary. The whole thing seemed a waste of time to me, but the food was great! Baked beans, potato salad, ham and brisket. I had seconds after the meeting and then a guy came and just gathered it all up to throw away. I could have cried. I wanted to take a bag home or something, all that great brisket going to waste!

Friday morning, bright and early we had our Calculus exam, which was very easy. I just got the results back today and while it was an A, I still made a few dumb mistakes that I shouldn't have. Like when taking the cross product, the magnitude is the square root of the sum of the squares, not just added together like the dot product! Sheesh! I knew that, but made this mistake :(

The circuits exam seemed a bit harder but still was all right. I'll get the results to that in an hour and a half. I worked on homework that afternoon, trying to keep ahead so I could volunteer for the Celebration Stillwater the next day.

Saturday morning, Team Zulu went around looking for people we could help with yardwork, or anything. Jonathan and myself were drivers but we got separated when he stopped to ask someone at a church if they wanted help, which worked out since most people don't need a huge crowd anyway. I was surprised at how few people there were out at 10:30 on Saturday morning! I guess they were all still in bed!

We ended up seeing a guy cutting a tree branch so I pulled up and got out and asked if he wanted any help hauling limbs off or doing anything. He said no but his wife told us that there was an elderly person across the street who had a branch that they had offered to cut for her, so if I wanted to bring that over I could. It wasn't a huge limb so I was able to pick it up and carry it over while Stephen, Betty, and Jesse went next door to help another elderly couple. The lady told me that there was another older person in a yellow house down the street who might need some help. So I walked on over there. She did in fact have something she wanted done and she was wanting my estimate on how much it would cost to fix it! I assured her that I didn't want any money, we were serving the community but it made me concerned that this might be a bigger project than we could handle!

She had a small gate that had a gap between it and the latch. Because of erosion, the gate had slid down a little and was cock-eyed at an angle. She wondered if I could put a bar or post there so that there wouldn't be such a large gap because her dog would escape through it. I said I thought I could fix it and asked for a shovel.
Basically, I just dug up the post that the gate was hung on and around it, moved the gate closer to the wall a couple of inches, and sank it down deeper (it was in a concrete column) and then packed dirt around it again. She had some bricks on the bottom to keep the dog from getting out there, but I lowered it so she wouldn't have to do that. Then I used some lumber she had in the back yard as well as my cordless Dewalt Skill Saw to cut a 2x8 and make a little retaining wall by the fence so it wouldn't erode any more. Then used the rest of the 2x8 to close up a small gap (with nails and wire) by the gate and fence. There was no way that little dog would get out! All in all, it was a fairly simple job but she was extremely pleased with it and very thankful, she just couldn't believe it.

On Sunday I walked up to the table where the men were at and I think it was Dave who said "I heard you picked up a gate and moved it with just one hand!" and Dan said "I heard it was just your pinky." Really, it wasn't a very big gate at all and the entire thing (concrete column and all) probably weighed less than 100 pounds! It was a one man job but for half the time, Betty, Stephen, and Jesse were over helping a lady plant a bush or tree or something. We then found another old lady walking out on her front lawn (in curlers) and asked if we could help, she was shocked that anyone would be out helping for free. We raked her back yard and swept the back porch for her and then it was time for us to go to the main even of the day (at the park). I think our team was able to help out quite a few people, considering. We drove around for probably 20 minutes trying to find someone but the other teams had harder times than we did finding people, so we were blessed in that. It was funny to be driving around with a haw-eye on the lookout trying to spot somebody in need of our assistance :)

I went home for the afternoon and worked out a bunch of Physics problems in preparation for my exam this next week (I have three this week). Then I went back over at about 5:00 to see what was up and to help clean everything up. We got the tents put away rather quickly, our team from the church did a great job, picking up trash, moving chairs, taking down tents, etc. We had enough help for all that I think!

I dropped by Jonathan's apartment that night and there was no light on so I tried the door, it opened and I poked my head inside. Yup, dark in there. I saw a couple of feet sticking out on the bed in the living room and figured he was asleep there and started grinning. He popped up and looked blearily at me, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. The light was shining behind me so he couldn't tell who it was an he thought it was 3:00 in the morning or something. "What do you want?" He asked. I didn't say anything for a few seconds, just kept grinning. Then I told him I was just dropping by to see what he was up to and he said I really creeped him out. He couldn't tell who it was in the doorway but he could see this weird smile and to have someone to be doing that at what he thought was 3:00 in the morning, well, yes, I can guess that would be weird. I didn't mean it that way, I was just chuckling inside because he was sleeping at that time (he stayed up too late the previous night).

I'm reading Josh McDowell's More Evidence that Demands a verdict, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, The Christian Life, and Let's Study Galatians. I also bought some more books at the booksale this past Thursday.....

Okay, so that pretty much brings me up to date for now. I've got a class in a few minutes so I'm going to try to get moving. Laters!

More updates

Wow, this is my One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh post, let's all have a celebration! >_>

It's come to my attention that some people have problems posting comments. I apologize for this but it's probably because I'm part of the "testing community" for the new Beta Blogger. I like the control panel but I can't post with my account on non-beta bloggers, and non-beta bloggers apparently can't post on mine. I do appreciate comments though, so if you have one, you can always leave it as "Other" instead of logging in with your normal user name.

Well, this blogger deserves an update but we'll see how much material I can remember!

Last Friday the church put on a picnic dinner for the International students here at OSU, I had talked to some young Indian men at the Mayor's Welcome a month ago and had seen some of them again at Lights on Stillwater and they assured me they were looking forward to it, yet they didn't show up. There were three girls (possibly four, I wasn't sure if one of them was new to the States or not) who came to the dinner. I had forgotten but I remembered that a lot of Indians especially try to stay away from meat. In particular, beef, since they consider cattle to be sacred for some reason.

Sunday was very good, I am so thankful for the encouragement each week in the sermon, and the lectures that Mr C gives on "Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices" is so very applicable. If only I would apply them to my life! Captain Thunderbolt made another appearance in Enid. Sightings have been increasing. That night, Jon, Jon, and I had a "debate" against Philip. We were Arminian "Non-Denominational Baptists" (who didn't "interpret" Scripture, we just read it like it was) and Philip was arguing against the views from Scripture. I found out, when I got back home, that there really IS such a thing as "Non-denominational Baptist." I had no idea! It sounds contradictory to me!

Monday night the Bible study at the Jon^2 place went well. We actually got into the first chapter! I'm curious to see how the next chapter, on Man's Depravity, goes.

This last week has been going well for me. In fact, tonight I have finished my Physics homework for the week, my Calculus Homework for the week, and also my Circuits (and Statics for the day). I need to get busy on Differential Equations (due next Monday) but other than that, things seem to be going very well. I have a couple of tests coming up this week and a couple more next week, but I don't think they should be a problem, I've been keeping up with the homework and think I understand it fairly well. A lot of other students are stressing out and saying how they should be studying, so it makes me wonder if I should be studying for it as well. I will probably work out a few more problems as practice, but other than that, what more can I do at this point? I really don't know.

I just went to the campus a few minutes ago in order to get help on a Statics problem, only to find out that I had done it correctly, I was just thinking I hadn't completed it. So.... I guess that's nice.

I finished Hodge's Systematic Theology on Sunday, it took me longer than it should have but I finished about a half dozen books while reading that one. And I'm working on about six right now (the three paperbacks shouldn't take too long, they are for the three weekly studies). Right now, the main book I'm reading is a compliation of Josh McDowell's books "Evidence that Demands a Verdict."

In my Bible reading, I've been up to Jeremiah. Just the other day I was reading in Jeremiah 33, where God restates his promise to David. He says:

"David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel."

I stopped there and pondered it for a little while, imagining how it must have sounded to a Hebrew back then, who would think literally of this happening, the physical line of David, generation after generation, forever and ever. But obviously (as Hebrews makes clear) this was fulfilled in Christ, and he reigns forever, he does sit on that throne. I continued to the next verse:

"And the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever."

My jaw just dropped! This was fulfilled in Christ too! I mean, I've known about this, but seeing it predicted in the Old Testament, and then seeing the fulfillment in the New, just made me excited! I tried sharing this with a few people but I don't think it bubbled over for them like it did for me. I felt like a little kid pointing his finger at the passage "Look at this. No really, LOOK at it! Look at it!" Christ did offer one sacrifice for us, yet he continually functions as a priest (which is what I take the gist of this verse to mean) in the presence of God, on behalf of His people, on behalf of me! To think back then that this would be fulfilled in a continual line of priests and then to realize that it was ultimately fulfilled in the "great priest" just made me excited. Anyway, I had to share.

Lastly, there has been a program that I've been testing out for a little while. It's called "Page Update Watcher."

What you do, is make a list of all the webpages that you frequently check, or want to keep tabs on (such as bloggers). As you enter each page, you can set the frequency with which the program checks for updates. I set mine for a day yet I check manually.

When I get home from school, or whenever I want to check, I just click the "check all" button and it runs down the list, comparing the html code on the page with the last time it checked and notifies you if the page has been changed at all. For bloggers, this means that you'll be notified when there is a new comment (because that changes the number of comments on the page) or a page layout change, or whatever.

Instead of closing the program, I minimize it and it runs in the system tray (the lower right corner of your taskbar). This is how I save time on checking everything. All the pages that show up as having something new, I double click one at a time and view them. So instead of visiting every page and seeing if there is an update, this program does it for me and I can just look at the ones that have actually been updated. It saves time and keeps me notified! I hope someone else can find it useful as well.

Career Fair, Post Office, and School, oh my.

Okay, I may take a break for a few days after this post.....

This morning I went to classes and then headed over to the CEAT Career Fair. There were 143 companies there looking for employees! Unfortunately, less than half wanted EE majors, and of those, only about 15 offered positions in the state of Oklahoma, and of those, about 10 wanted people for internships (the rest wanted full-time employees, which is certainly understandable). I went to the five or so booths that qualified for my criteria. I had this one guy pull me aside and give me quite a sales pitch about why his company needed me and even though I was an Electrical Engineer they use students like me from all sorts of majors etc. etc. He went on for a while, I tried saying a couple of things but couldn't get a word in edgewise. He then asked me how far along I was in my major, I said I had nearly three years to go and he groans "OH!, man, will you let me cry on your shoulder!" I got that reaction a bit. Companies aren't necessarily looking for students who will just work for a summer, they were looking for December graduates who would work for a lifetime! I certainly understand that.

I stopped by the FBI booth. The lady introduced herself and asked if I wanted to work for the FBI and carry a gun. I hope that's not the only incentive! She said I had to be twenty-three though, and be physically fit (I don't think she was insinuating I was not). She gave me a small, handheld calculator that looks like a tiny plastic cell-phone. It flips open. Cool!

I also stopped by Lockheed Martin and a couple of other companies and got some information. One company, that makes GPS systems, said they might be able to use me, they work out of the East side of Tulsa (which is within my range I guess) and he said to contact the office in about January with my resume (just imagine there are little accent marks over that).

I came home and finished up some things and ate lunch, then headed back to campus. After my 12:30 class, I printed off some papers in the Classroom building and then headed back to talk to my Physics professor about a problem I had worked on (incorrectly as it turned out). He pointed me in the right direction. Then I went down to the basement to await my Physics TA, working on Circuits homework in the meantime. I also discovered that somehow, all of my pencils had been taken out of my backpack (I'd grab one when I needed it for a problem and they all gathered on my desk) and the ONLY pencil I had, was a huge carpenter's pencil that I had found on the sidewalk. So I used that to leave big fat symbols on the page.

When my TA showed up, he helped me with this week's homework, getting it all laid out. Sometimes I just need a few pointers on the problem and then can take the rest of it from there, I just don't know where to start all the time (this is all new to me). There were a couple that I didn't finish, but the majority of them are. I've got two session for help in the coming week, so I should be set!

I dropped by the post office on the way home to see if a package was possibly there that my mother had sent priority mail and had not arrived for well, nearly three weeks! Sure enough, it was and the guy there wagged his finger at me, pointing to the date on the box and said I received a notification about it. I emphatically denied it. There has not been a single slip of paper in my box since I've been up here, save for a newspaper that showed up last week. The RV park owner here said that was during the time they had a substitute mail carrier and he/she always screws things up. I'm glad to get the box though (it's tapes that the W's let me borrow for my family).

And I finished up a few things at home. Right now, I've got about an hour left before I hit the sack, so I'm going to spend the time (D.V.) doing some reading finally!

And more and more!

Sunday afternoon...

The Sabbath school, morning, and afternoon services were great, very encouraging and strengthening.

Jon^2 (that's both of them) came over after church, bringing Pilgrim's Progress, which I read aloud until it was time to go. Jonathan fell asleep, awakening to me peering down at him (laying on the floor doesn't help you stay awake apparently). He asked what was going on and I told him that Christian had just been killed. "What?! No way!" It was on the discourse between Christian, Faithful, and Talkative just after the Valley of the Shadow of Death and he was tired so that was probably it. I refuse to see all of these "coincidences" of people falling asleep when I read as meaning that I have no tone. Yup, it's just a coincidence I'm sure ;)

The Bible study in Enid was on Hebrews 13 and we got from verse 5 through verse 8 and had some good discussion upon the various points brought up.

Afterwards I talked with Bill for a little while and eventually headed outside. There were some young damsels in distress that Sherrif Dead-Eye had to save from the evil Spider-Monkey (eight legged, furry monkey, Jonathan, bleck!). I'm not sure where he disappeared to, but he would have come in handy later on because those horrible hooligans took Paul the Pole (from Poland) and captured him, taking him off to jail! He escaped but was shot down by one STupendous. Sadly, he never recovered *sniff

On the ride back home Christa begged for a story, so Jonathan told it with me doing the voice effects. He would say a little bit like "Frank the goblin was talking to George the giant one day and he said......."
and I would jump in with something in the whiny goblin voice and respond in the big growly, dumb giant voice.

It turns out that Frank was a conniving little goblin and he wanted George to take candy from Christa and Calvin, George demanded the candy but C and C said no! So Frank decided to trick them and said that the candy was bad. George asked why it was bad so Frank took him aside and explained the plan, but George, being as dumb as he is, repeated everything Frank had said. Very loudly!

Frank got very upset and Calvin and Christa ran off. Soon there was a scarecrow that got blown nearby, so Frank asked him if he would help get the candy for them. The scarecrow agreed but went about it all in the wrong manner and Christa and Calvin again escaped. Frank was furious. Then he found a Rock Ogre and asked him to wait for Calvin and Christa to come along, in exchange for some nice fresh dirt. The Rock Ogre agreed but fell asleep, snoring VERY loudly.

Calvin and Christa felt sorry for Frank and offered him their candy but Frank realized that he really didn't want it after all, and that it would probably give him tooth rot. The end. It was ridiculous but pretty funny at the time! Jonathan and I played off of eachother, my characters adding to the plot and Jonathan narrating.

Then Ben and I chatted for a while about the Catholic church, relics, and Noah's Ark and the possibility of the supposed Mount Sinai not being the real one. He said that someone claimed they had found the garden of Eden and explained why that couldn't be true.

Then I came home and went to bed.

Today, Monday, went well as far as school goes. And in the evening we met at Jonathan's for the Bible study, which went well though we really didn't get into the book yet. Everyone shared their testimonies but there was only 13 people there and that thirteen was composed also of Julianna (the other team leader), Jonathan, myself, JP, Jon Norman, Paul, and Jonathan's friend Mark! So more than half of us were um... kind of planted in a way. There was another young man who is in electrical engineering who is taking two of the same classes (the two with the "fun" group projects) that I had last semester. I wish him luck, muhahahaha!

The testimonies that people gave were very encouraging actually! I didn't hear the usual "well, I've always been a pretty good person" and they were quite Christ-centered and glorifying, speaking of the troubles that they had been brought out of and the people that had been brought into their lives at the right times. It was really a blessing to hear some of them and I thoroughly enjoyed the time.

And I think I'm going to have to close there and go to sleep.

Brief update

I'm not sure where I left off, and right now I'm not really caring too much :)

Thursday was busy, I ran around getting various things done, trying to get my homework assignments finished, and getting help for those I couldn't finish. I also dropped by a professor's office and asked if he would be willing to write something for me. In the meantime, I saw some secretaries who had put a fake snake in Chandler's office (he's a new professor, one whom I actually went to his presentation last semester when they were considering him as a candidate). He's terrified of snakes and apparently they were pleased to see quite an animated reaction when he opened the door to his office :D

On Friday I was able to get almost everything done thankfully. There were a few physics problems that I had and I had spoken to one of the professors that I knew and he said that he would be available from 1:30 to 3:30. I got there and he had a girl in his office and two waiting outside. Eventually about 10 girls showed up and 2 or 3 guys and they were having a big help session in his office because all of these girls (education majors) were struggling! I was able to help two students who were waiting outside (there wasn't enough room inside). I hung around for the full two hours and in the last 10 minutes he excused himself and came out to help me for a minute. In the meantime though, I had solved three of my four problems and as he was glancing over the last one, realized that I had an added factor of two that wasn't supposed to be there. So I thought I had solved it and thanked him and went home. But it turns out I didn't get it. Grrr..... I was sure I had it right. I'm going to have to ask someone again because it bugs me.

Let me see, today I finished up all of my homework, wrote a couple of extensive e-mails and got caught up on some correspondance, and went over to the P's house to do some filming. I was supposed to be defeated by Daniel, so after the first initial scene where I invite him in, I went back and doused my hair with water and splashed it on my shirt in various spots to look like I was majorly sweating. Then we went outside and strategized (sort of) and did a short film with Captain Thunderbolt.

And now, away.

It feels like a Monday.....

Well, I had an 8:30 discussion group I went to this morning. I ended up arriving at 7:30 (to get a parking spot) and spending a little time on the computers.

The discussion went all right, there wasn't a whole lot to talk about aside from three examples our TA had brought, which I was able to solve before she had finished (I "race" because that's a good indication to me whether or not I understand the material). Then I went back to the camper for a short while, worked on various things, and received an e-mail telling me that I should meet with the head of the Electrical Engineering department for the presentation of a check for the scholarship I won recently. They wanted to get a picture and he told me to dress up for it ;)

I trudged down to the building at 11:45, got my mugshot taken while shaking hands and he passed off the check and paper. Then I waited around until my 12:30 class, which went better than it had been (Physics). Afterwards, I marched up to my Calculus instructor's office to get some tips on some problems he had assigned. I am convinced I have one of the best Calculus teachers in the school. His name is Rahuram and he is excellent so far. I was able to work a dozen problems in a matter of minutes after visiting his office.

I'm also convinced I have one of the best Physics TA's in the school, Ben Grossman. I went down to his office hour at 2:30 to work on a couple of problems. He was working with another lady on last week's homework and I hung around for a little while and then went to the MLRC to work on the computer there, using the program "Maple" for some plot fields. I'd never been in there before and it's a pretty nice facility.

I had arranged to meet Jonathan and Jon at 5:00 so I went home at about 4:00 and saw the mail car at the boxes. I waited until she had left and then anxiously peered inside my box, hoping that some of the books I had ordered had finally arrived. Nothing.

So I parked my car and walked over to the owner's house, hoping perhaps she had dropped them off there because they were too big for the mailbox. There were about 8 packages sitting on the porch and every one of them had my name on it. Eureka! I took two trips getting them all over to my camper and eagerly slit open each box. My goodness! It's like having a birthday party all by oneself! I was dying for someone to visit so I could show them all off! I don't know what I'm going to do now though. I can't sacrifice studying time but I am dying to read them all as well. I'm also trying not to compromise like I normally do, by reading a few pages in each :D

Jon and Jonathan and I went out to dinner at Hunan's chinese restaurant. It was pretty empty and I felt bad because I think the new chinese buffet is in a better location and steals a lot of business. I like Hunan's because it seems to be this one family who runs it. It's good as long as you have the buffet, otherwise you might have to wait a while for you food, something gets lost in the translation I think. I'm sorry Liz!

We had a good time discussing various issues, then we headed over to their apartment and watched one of Jonathan's Cross TV tapes, on the new birth. Afterward, I discovered Pilgrim's Progress and eagerly began reading it aloud, Jonathan acting out the scene with Apollyon while I gave fierceness and anger vs. courage and trusting in God's promises into the voices. They said they may ask me to read it on Sundays since I read it a bit faster (perhaps too fast, whenever I get into a battle scene I feel like I have to race through it excitedly). Then I came home. I've got three homeworks to turn in tomorrow, I'll receive two more to do tomorrow, and one that is due Friday. It's going well!

Quick Updates

Monday morning was spent doing a little bit of Calculus homework, Differential Equations homework, and getting everything set up for the coming week (i.e. making sure I had all my homework prepared and ready to turn in and knew what to expect!). I wasn't able to finish everything so I collected that too and plan on asking the assistance of a TA or instructor.

During lunch, I spent a little bit of time watching a Superman episode and listening to the commentary. It was a commentary for The Missing Cape but let me explain a bit.

The commentator was a biographer for the actor (George Reeves) who used to play Superman in the old black and white episodes. He started through, giving history and little interesting bits of information. In the episode itself, a robber stumbles into Clark Kent's apartment, discovers a secret closet, and finds the suit and steals it. The commentator said that he thought it was odd that the suit would be in the closet because doesn't Clark always transform almost immediately into Superman? Insinuating that he has his suit on underneath. I waited for him to continue that thought later but he never mentioned it again. Yet in the episode, Kent mentions that he had been out to get a Physical in compliance with a new policy at the Daily Planet. Obviously he couldn't wear his suit to get a physical, think what would happen if the doc told him to lift up his shirt!

I bet the commentator knew this but just didn't mention it, but I spent about 15 minutes trying to track him down on the Internet, and finally found an e-mail address and sent him a "fair-to-middlin'" sized e-mail describing the incident. I described this to Jonathan and he told me that he'd probably start backing slowly away from the computer saying "yeah, sure kid. You're really weird." or something like that. Hey! It's important to me! I'm vindicating the screenwriter, he actually did do his job in a good way!

JD e-mailed me asking if I could come over and do some filming on Cat Girl that afternoon but then e-mailed pretty quickly after that saying that Daniel couldn't come. Ladies and Gentlemen, the suspense builds, the plot thickens, the story grows. Be prepared to remain at the edge of your seats during the upcoming blockbuster: Cat Girl! Unfortunately right now, most of the footage and story seems to be about GameBoy. JD's working on correcting that.

That evening, the N's had invited me over for hamburgers and I really enjoyed my time. We talked about a large assortment of things, from hunting and fishing to books on marriage vs. singleness, athletics and P.E., Hebrews and 1 Corinthians, etcetera (most of it while tossing a nerf football around the room). There was also an episode of Three Stooges, called Micro Phonies I believe. It was pretty funny too.

Also, even with the extra day, this weekend seemed to be awfully short. Like this post.

Fair thee well

Okay, let me think back upon the last couple of days where I neglected to make a post. Wednesday evening I went to the Physics help session. I was the only one there for about 10 minutes, then one other girl showed up and eventually we were up to six total (which is a pretty sad turnout). We think there will be more next week as people start to get nervous about the homework. I had been to lecture, spent a bit of time looking at the book, went to lab, listened the entire time at the help session and.... Thursday spent an hour in lecture, two hours directly after that in another one of the discussion sections (where there is a quiz every week) and lastly spent an hour in my own section, for a total of four straight hours in physics, and my discussion leader finally made things begin to click for me! At least in this first chapter we've been studying :( Now I've got to figure out the second one next week.

Friday was a normal day as well, except I discovered a bag of snacks left by my mother. I didn't know they were there though I'd seen the grocery bag and assumed that there was laundry soap in there or something. What a pleasant surprise to vacuum near it and find it was peanut-butter oreos (I didn't even know there was such a thing) and Pringles and Cracker Jacks! Thanks mom!

Friday evening some of the CY and the Yost family volunteered to watch some kids for the Mom's night out, something to do with Stillwater Life Services and the Sunnybrook church (we used their facilities). I arrived about twenty minutes early and took a look around but no one was there. The church doors were open but the hallways were dark. I snuck silently around for a little while, looked at the literature they had on their new study in Genesis (it was very weak in my opinion and very loosely based off of Genesis) and then went back out to the car to read. It was just about six and I was starting to suspect that I had written the date down incorrectly when the Spitler vehicle drove up. Apparently everyone else had been in there for the last ten minutes or so, they came in the other side of the building so I completely missed them.

The volunteers outnumbered the children about 2 to 1 I think. I had hoped there would be lots of kids there and had asked the N's if I could borrow some children's books, which Laura brought for me. I had been eagerly anticipating what I imagined would be a captivated audience of youngsters listening intently to "Green Eggs and Ham" or something like that. Instead, I couldn't even get one young boy interested in hearing me read. And Raychel isn't interested in anything for more than 3.6 seconds (max). So I sadly put the books away after several tries. I read aloud to myself sometimes *sniff*

We played outside on the swingset and slides for quite some time. Johnny started shooting at the boys with dual pistols (make-believe) and would have gotten me had I not had the sense to jump through the end of the monkey bars (a special portal) and made it to Safe-Land, eventually pulling JD in after me. Johnny tried to follow but sadly (for him) guns just disappear in Safe-Land. There was a girl there whom I was chasing toward the slide and she turned and said "Gets away from us", screwing her face up into a snarl. So I said (in a Gollum voice) "No, it's tasty, it's crunchable!" And thereafter she periodically begged me to do it again.

When not watching the younger kids, Stephen and I competed to see who could jump the furthest off the swingset (we're good examples, I know) and ended up tying I believe. The swings were too low to the ground so I had to keep my legs directly in front of me the whole time. Laura said I belonged on the funny farm.

We went back inside and I started playing with a couple of the younger boys, they had a box of farm animals so I grabbed a farmer, elephant, truck, helicopter, and small horse and let fun ensue :)

One of the boy's cows kept getting stuck (on top of a cliff) so the helicopter man had to rescue him. About six times! Eventually the farmer drove his truck near the cliff so the cow could walk right down when she got stuck. Then he drove her out to the farm where there was lots of nice green grass, went back and got the horse, and the baby horse, and the last trip, a dinosaur jumped in the truck! "I can't take you to the farm, dinosaurs don't belong on farms" said the farmer in a deep voice (then Jesse was horrified to see that the farmer had been a girl the whole time and I hadn't noticed, so she switched him out with a brown-haired boy for me). But the dinosaur insisted so the farmer took him out.
"Goooooodness!" exclaimed the Cow. "I've never seen a dinosaur on the farm before! What do you eat" (rather nervously).
"Oh, I eat um....."
"Dooooo yoooou eat grass?"
"No, I eat.... dirt!" Squeaked the dinosaur
"Oooooh! Well here, help yoooourself, we have plenty of fresh dirt here" said the Cow invitingly."
And then it was time to leave. So they all went home.

Now for today. I spent the time in the morning cleaning up various things and getting all of my paperwork laid out for the next week. I also finished my Statics homework. At 1:00 I went to the fair to see the exhibits. The very first thing I saw when I walked in the door was the scene that Laura had made (I forget what it's called, but it has to do with loops and yarn and hangs on the wall and looks kind of like a rug). It had won first prize. Around the corner was a shield with a red lion emblazened upon it. JD later told me that he thought Betty had done it. I wouldn't be a bit surprised!

I looked around at the photographs, the drawings, and saw that Stephen and JD had both won first place for their self-portrait sculptures of their heads (which I thought looked very good) and Mary showed me her pumpkin. JD took me over to see the robot and then Laura surprised us by popping through the curtain. It turns out that she had an excellent vantage point at the SLS booth and could see anyone at the robotics booth. The robot was impressive (I'd never seen it before) and looked expensive too :) I liked the way the chain drive was supposed to work. Laura said it kept breaking though.

I dropped by and talked to Liz for a short while and then headed back to where everyone else was gathered for the pie-tasting and awards. Abigail won first prize and so did Nathan for his Peanut Butter pie. The lady said that all the pies were good and yet the filling on some was a little "loose" etc. and that you shouldn't fill it so much when you're transporting it but when you're at home it's fine but..... she didn't know if it was a great idea or they had just forgotten to take it out of the freezer until the last minute, but that Peanut Butter pie was excellent and you could just taste the peanut butter all throughout! I think she would have been surprised if she had known who had made it (aside from the fact that he was practically dancing around the room throwing his chest out). And on top of that, he later won Grand Champion for the pie. Man, I've got to get a piece!

JD and I took Mary and Emily to see all the animals. They had some miniature donkeys and a camel! Then we went to see the rabbits. The girls (especially Mary) kept wanting to run on ahead so I had to keep them "handcuffed" in my hands for a little while. We viewed the rabbits (there were only two of them) and lots of poultry. There were some chickens there with little tufts of feathers on their heads like an afro. They looked pretty funny. Some of the pigeons had feathers all over their feet! The geese honked at us and the roosters crowed incessantly as they each tried to claim their dominion over the hens in the cages next to them. We then headed down to the horses. Mary started petting one horse and I was a bit cautious at first. I lifted Emily up to see one and I started rubbing its nose because it was near the bars (I wanted to get Emily comfortable around the big animals) but suddenly the ears went back and he snapped up at my hand. He didn't catch anything but air but I cautioned the girls after that because after several days in a stall, the horses' tempers could be rather short.

Eventually we headed back and Emily and Mary both had the chance to milk the goat (the man helped them, just pinching it and then telling them to squeeze). Wow! Good job, look at all that milk! They had hand sanitizer nearby.

We all went back and I decided to head on home, I'd been there for nearly three hours and was feeling a little tired. I called Jonathan to see if he'd want to go to supper somewhere but I forgot that he was probably out of town (I just got a message). So... that's been my day. Aside from a little reading which I plan on doing.... NOW! So good night.