Updates? Again?!

Yes, I guess it is a long time since there has been an update. I'll justify that by saying that I've been very busy trying to do things here at my (new) house, finishing up school, and other sorts of things.

The last few weeks of school went pretty well. Although towards the end of the semester I've got plenty to do myself but many other students begin to panic, so I had students from the Circuits class (which I was an assistant for) sending me e-mails (one guy said "Hey Morgan, how do you...." which is kind of odd, that he didn't even know my name by this time, but anyway) and asking questions. I had some people stopping me in the hall, and even when I was all by myself in a computer lab, trying to get one of the several dozen things I wanted to accomplish, a classmate showed up, 45 minutes before we were going to take the practical, saying he hadn't studied at all for it and he was worried and he started asking me all sorts of questions. Admittedly, that kind of annoyed me a bit because I was making it obvious that I was rather busy and didn't have time to baby him through the course.

But I was glad to help, and seriously I think I may have volunteered too much of my time, because with several other students who were working hard, I told them to feel free to e-mail me and ask questions. For another classmate, Garrett, who had asked me to review his project report (60 pages long) I went through and corrected as many mistakes as I could find, gave suggestions and pointers and advice on their presentation. Then went and watched it. So yes, busy, busy busy, and probably because I never said "no" to anything, so it's my own fault! :)

Because of that, a lot of projects got put on the back-burner (which is figurative, since I don't actually have any burners yet, since I have not stove) and in the week following finals, I was trying to catch up on a variety of things.

Backtrack. I got an internship, which was neat. I was helping the head TA for Dr Bunting when he got an e-mail from one of the professors saying there was an internship position here in Stillwater. I told the TA that I would be interested in that. He said, "really? Okay, I'll call Matt." So he called and I had the interview, ended up getting the job, etc. It was definitely a working of the Lord, and I was so thankful for it! It is such a blessing to be able to stay for the summer, for more reasons than one!

So during Finals week, I was taking exams, working any time I could in between exams, and then going home at night and looking over material for the next day's exam. It was rather tiring but I was able to learn quite a bit at the job. I'm replacing Matt and he's leaving at the end of this week so I need to gather as much as possible from him before he leaves.

So let me see, the end of Finals week Jonathan, Jon, and Andy came over to my house and we had a few hotdogs and then they played some games while I took off and then Frodo and myself went for a walk in the graveyard (not a "normal" place to walk) but it was a real blessing. We had an opportunity to speak about a variety of things and it really was a good finish to the week, the sunset at the end of a VERY long day you might say. Some of the gravestones had good inscriptions on them but those were rare. For the most part, they were rather disheartening or simply superficial, like "gone but not forgotten" which really means nothing. I said that I had hoped to find something like "Resting in the active obedience of Christ" or something along those lines. It made me more aware how a gravestone, if one has one, should be something meaningful that would draw the observer to reflect on his own mortality and how he must one day meet his Creator.

My family came over the next day, Saturday, to help work on the house. I went to Lowe's to pick up a countertop and helped my father install it on top of a couple of cabinets he had made and brought. The girls and Tanner painted the clotheline posts (I'm going to have to use them now!) and then we painted the house. In my opinion, it looks much, much better than it did before!

The past few Sundays have been a blessing as well, I've really been enjoying being of from school just so that in the evenings and on the weekends, my mind isn't preoccupied with such things. I can leave all of that stuff behind. Now I'm interested in learning things in conjunction with my job :) It's been really interesting and I'm learning a lot.

Let's see, this past week I've been working on soldering little tiny SMT components, for a size comparison, this is what it looks like:



So they are really small and you have to use tweezers and you have to have steady hands. And after five hours straight (like today) you have to run outside and scream before coming back in. I don't know, I can do a hundred of these (all different values and types) in a couple of hours I think. I'm getting much better at it and the boards are looking much prettier when I'm done with them :)

One Wednesday, I had the opportunity to go out to Watonga with my employer and the secretary and speak to a cattle manager. I was able to understand what he was talking about because I'd seen it for myself before when working for another feedlot, and afterwards Vicke asked me to write a report, which she said she really liked. On the way back I was talking with Steve (my employer) and he asked what "Reformed" in "Reformed Presbyterian Church" meant, because he knew Presbyterian was an elder form of government, and I explained that it was from the Reformation. He asked how it differed from mainline Presbyterian and I started talking about the doctrines of grace and God's sovereignty and he said "Oh, so calvinism basically?" I was surprised, I was specifically trying to avoid using that word so it wouldn't be an unnecessary stumbling block for him (a Baptist) but he said that he was calvinistic in his beliefs, so we had a good time talking on the way back. There were some things I disagreed with and I'll talk later I think, but you can't know what a blessing it is to have an employer who is not only a believer, but apparently one who is closer to the truth of the Bible than most! (Yes, I am saying that "calvinism" is what the Bible teaches). So that was good to find out.

I'm enjoying my work and learning a lot, we shall see what this next week yields. It's Matt's last week so I need to pick up everything I haven't before, which is pretty much not going to happen. I really hope I work out well for the company though, I'm afraid when Matt goes I won't be able to figure things out and do them well enough.

Oh, and I spent a lot of time working this past Saturday on my house, and put some plastic between the steel straps holding up the pipes under the house (and got good and dirty in the process), put some tar on the roof in a couple of spots (but not because there were leaks), raked the entire back yard, weed-whacked everything, and tore down a bit of fence that was behind my property, sealing off the little alleyway. The back fence stays.

I'm getting a lot of things done, but there is more yet to finish, hopefully these next few weeks I'll finish almost all of that up and can concentrate on reading for the rest of the summer :)