Physics

It was recently brought to my attention that in a blog from June 2014, that I said I would tell the story about liking friends more than physics.  You can read that blog here.  And so, today I will share that story.

When I moved back to the U.S. from Mexico I was a semester ahead because of not having summer breaks when I was home schooled .  My parents had inquired about going to the local pubic school for half days so that I could do volunteer work with the other half of my days but were told that that was not an option.  I would have to do whole days and take sophomore level Math and English which I had already completed.  Since they knew that making me sit in classes that I had already completed and spin my wheels would be silly, and that they couldn't let me be truant for an entire semester, they decided that I could just take a couple of classes via homeschooling since I had been home schooled in Mexico.  I decided to complete a semester of Economics and a year of Physics during that semester as well as volunteer twice a week at our local food pantry.

During that semester I also began attending one of  the local church's youth group on Wednesday evenings.  This church youth group met twice a week.  On Sunday they would meet for a stereotypical church youth group meeting.  However, on Wednesday evenings it was just time to hang out together for a couple of hours.  We would also watch movies or play sardines together during this time.  As I attended these youth groups and dealt with counter culture shock, and completed my year of physics, I had a realization:  I would rather do physics than hang out with my friends.

At the time, I did not tell people that fact about myself.  I knew that some people would be offended by this, and although I knew I liked to work on Physics more than I like to talk to those people, the brief interactions that I had with them were still valuable to me.

However, as time passed and I became more acclimated to spending time with people, I began to enjoy it more and more.  My senior year, as I became more comfortable spending time with people, I eventually shared with my best friend and my high school guidance counselor that I liked doing physics problems more than I liked spending time with people most of the time.  They both laughed at me knowing that I will always be an introvert and a nerd.

Now that I have explained all of this I would also like to say that I know spending time and interacting with people is important.  I have also begun to learn that some people are better than physics.  And I have also noticed that I become a better and more well-rounded person when I spend more time with other people.

The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him." 

Genesis 2: 18

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo

When there is Syrup EVERYWHERE (Well, maybe not everywhere, but in more places than you want to admit)

There is syrup on my new lab manual.  And and on my bookmark.  And on my Bible.  And on my desk.  And on my student ID.  And on my hands.  There is even syrup on my pancakes.   How did this happen??  Well, let's rewind.

On the Sunday before the Spring semester, my mom and grandma drove me back to Purdue.  We decided to eat at Denny's, as I had never been there before.  Upon arrival I ordered an omelet.  They asked if I wanted pancakes or toast with my omelet and I replied that I wanted pancakes.  However, when our food arrived I had an omelet, toast, and pancakes.  Because of this, I did not eat the pancakes at the restaurant.  However, I do not like to waste food, so I asked for a box to take my food with me.  When I slid my pancakes into the Styrofoam container, I realized that I did not have syrup in my dorm room.  And although I would enjoy pancakes without syrup, I knew I would relish the delectable golden cakes WITH syrup.  Because of this, I decided that the best course of action would be to go ahead and put the syrup on my pancakes.

After all of this, we headed towards Purdue.  We decided to stop at the bookstore so that I could pick up my books rather than walk back across campus in the freezing rain as soon as they dropped me off at the dorm.  This meant that I now had my book bag, a cardboard box of winter clothing, my laundry tote, my leftover food, my box with new books, my bible (as we were coming from church), and a book for funsies (because I don't go anywhere without something to entertain me), and a bag with some homemade deliciousness my mom had made me.  I knew that I could not carry all of this in one trip, so I decided to reduce the number of packages that needed to be carried by placing my Bible, my book for funsies (that I was borrowing), and my box of pancakes in my box with books from the bookstore since the boxes they use at the bookstore are all the same size and I only had a lab manual and an access code.

Upon arrival at my dorm, I slid my bookstore box under my arm, grabbed an armful of other stuff and headed into the doors.  My mom carried in the other armload and then she wished me well and headed off.

After she left, I began to unpack.  I shuffled the box with books in it around as I had more clothes to put away than anything else.  However, I was using my desk as a table to set stuff down on and noticed a sticky residue.  I wondered where it was coming from, but didn't worry about it too much.  I slid my box of books along the ground and felt a higher amount of friction than anticipated, but again, didn't worry about it too much.  Finally, I picked up my box and felt stickyness on the bottom.  There was so much syrup that had spilled out of the box of pancakes that it had soaked through the cardboard that is thick enough to support an entire semester's worth of text books.  I opened the box, afraid of what I would see.  My lab manual had syrup along the bottom edge of every page.  My Bible had syrup on it.  This was not an ideal situation.

I proceeded to go to the bathroom and get a wet paper towel to clean up my mess.  I wiped the syrup off the floor where the box had been, threw away the box, and began wiping syrup off of each and every page in my lab manual and Bible.  Finally, after I thought I had my entire mess cleaned up, I finished unpacking and organizing.  When I had finished all of this, I sat down at my desk to check my email on my computer.  I saw that had my ID in a weird place and so I picked it up to move it.  And guess what??  THERE WAS SYRUP COVERING THE BOTTOM OF MY ID.  I proceeded back to the bathroom to rinse off my ID and grab one more wet paper towel to wipe off my desk for the second time.

I have now been back for one week, and last night I found syrup on the bookmark in the book that I am borrowing to read for funsies.  On the day of the incident I had very carefully checked the book's pages for any sign of syrup and been very glad when I discovered that it had not been in the path of the syrup, since I am borrowing it.  How I missed the syrup on the end of the bookmark that was sticking out the book is beyond me.  :P  I think though, that I'm finally done with cleaning up syrup.  (I ate my pancakes at the beginning of the week).

Through this experience I've realized a couple of things:

1.) If you're going to have food near books, use extreme caution unless you want to be cleaning up this food for longer than it takes to consume the food.

2.)  Syrup is a little bit like sin.  While Jesus' sacrifice on the cross enables us to have full and complete forgiveness for our sins, and be washed of them, we need to allow Him to convict of us of our sins so that we can repent from them.  Plus, when syrup gets places it's not suppose to be, it's gross and messy.  In the same way, our sin is gross and messy.

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:6-9

3.)  Cleaning up a syrup mess is a process, and so is forgiveness. We as humans are still growing and learning to follow God.  Because of this, we must learn to forgive each other and ourselves just like I had to clean up a bookmark a week after the incident of the spilled syrup.  We will damage ourselves and be damaged by other people.  We will damage other people.  Life is messy (like spilled syrup) and learning how to forgive other people and ourselves is an important aspect of our lives.  Without forgiveness, it would be impossible to maintain a relationship with anyone.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

Matthew 18: 20-21

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo

When God's Plan feels Unplanned

Over winter break, I tried to fill out scholarship applications.  However, many applications that I filled out I were the same ones that I had filled out last year and had not received.  I've had multiple conversations with people about the best way to finance my education.  Over this break, I also finished paperwork for a loan.  I was raised with the knowledge that I would have to pay for my own education through loans, scholarships, and work.  People would ask me if I was a 21st Century Scholar.  The answer was no.  The one year that my family made too much money for me to be a 21st Scholar was also the year when I could have become a 21st Century Scholar.  And so, during my senior year of high school, I drew the conclusion that God has another plan for me to make it through my education.  When I applied for multiple scholarships, I hoped and prayed that I would get a big, full-ride scholarship.  And that didn't happen.  I got quite a few small scholarships which enabled me to pay for my first semester without pulling out loans.

Now, I'm going into my second semester and have taken out my first loan.  It is a small loan.  But you know what?  God still has a plan for how I'm going to get through school.  I don't know how it will come to pass.  But I know that if it's God's Will, then it will happen.

I have since realized that continuing my education is not only a intellectual learning experience but also a spiritual learning experience.  Because I do not know what God's plan is, I am learning to trust him more and more with each semester.  It goes against everything in my body to not have a plan.  I have always been someone who plans things out.  I like to have a plan A and a plan B and a plan C and a plan D.....you get the idea.  But now, God is teaching me that He wants me to let Him make plans.  God is revealing to me his plan.  He is doing it one puzzle piece at a time.  He is showing me that when I have faith in Him, and stop trying to solve my problems, He already had the plan and the solutions.  And so, someday, when I'm old and feeble, I'll look back and see what God's plan was for my life.  And I know that it will be better than anything I can imagine today.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo

Harry Potter in Real Life

I was going to write a blog about The Hobbit, but as I don't want to give any huge spoilers of such a new movie I decided to blog about Harry Potter as I feel that most people have who want to see this series have already seen it.  This blog will specifically focus on the last book or last movie.  As such, YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED!  THERE WILL BE MAJOR SPOILERS OF HARRY POTTER IN THIS BLOG.

For people who haven't seen or read Harry Potter I will give a brief synopsis.  Harry lives with his extended family who are cruel and do not care about him until he receives an invitation to go to Hogwarts, a wizarding school.  Of course, Harry is baffled by this as he did not know that wizards existed until he was told about it.  Through the course of the series you find out about Voldemort, an evil wizard who killed Harry's parents and tried to kill Harry as a baby (obviously unsuccessfully).  Then Harry decides that he is going to kill Voldemort to put a stop to his evil.  However it it not as simple as one may think.  You see, Voldemort (through magic) has divided his soul and put it into different objects so Harry must find each object and destroy it.  Once again, this sounds simple.  However, Harry discovers that he is one of the objects.  As such, Harry goes under the pretense of dueling Voldemort when in reality he is going to go die.  And then, after Voldemort kills Harry, and Harry has willingly died, Harry is alive.  Harry willingly died.  He died to save the world from an evil that couldn't otherwise be defeated.

I really like the Harry Potter series.  It reminds me of this world.  In Harry Potter's world, the nonmagic people are called muggles.  The muggles are completely unaware of the wizarding world.  These battles happen nearly completely unnoticed.  In our world there are forces battling for good and evil that we are most oftentimes unaware of.  In our world we have been saved by the wholly perfect (and holy) sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  He saved us from an unspeakable evil by willingly dying for us (a gruesome and humiliating death to say the least).  He saved us from our own wrongdoings.  And then, Jesus rose three days after his death.  Pretty cool, huh?

If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

Romans 10:9-10

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo

Thoughts of a Pseudo-Adult with an Eighth of a College Degree

It's winter break.  One eighth of my undergraduate career is finished.  It went by extremely fast.  During my first semester, I surpassed my GPA goal(which was a 3.5).  I signed a lease for an apartment for next year.  I swam 2 miles in 1 hour.  I failed a few quizzes (Don't worry too much, I got a "B" in the class).  I had pizza delivered for the first time.  I got to know some pretty cool professors.  I put off washing my laundry for longer-than-normally-accepted times.  I was annoyed with my nocturnal roommate.  I watched as some people struggled with college-level coursework while others easily comprehended and understood it.  I spent way too much time watching videos on youtube.com.  I helped give pancakes to people at 2am.  I put a carved pumpkin on my high school guidance counselor's house.  I experienced a cadaver lab.

Obviously my first semester has been full of new experiences here are a few things that I learned:

1.)  Meeting your GPA goal feels absolutely amazing when you find out on Christmas eve.
2.)  Showing up to work on time and doing your job makes your boss like you.
                    I always thought this was logic, but apparently not everyone does this.
3.)  Talking to your professors helps a lot.
                   Large schools frequently get a bad rap about letting students getting lost in the system,                but I learned that the professors generally want to talk to the students, they just have to be                    sought out.
4.)  Signing a lease for an apartment makes you feel more like an adult.
                   Yes, I signed a lease for an apartment which made me feel like an adult for about 10                    minutes and then I was right back to my pseudo-adulthood life. :P  I'll always be a kid. :)
5.)  Exercise.
                    I feel better and sleep better when I exercise.  This should be motivation to exercise for              me, but I'm still fairly bad at doing this on a regular basis.
6.)  When your roommate becomes nocturnal, just roll with it.
7.)  When your roommate smells funny and makes your room smell funny, just pray for a stuffy nose or buy an air freshner.
                    Asking another pseudo-adult to shower was a conversation I didn't want to have.
8.)  Help others when you see them struggle with coursework if they will accept your help.
                   It helps you understand it better and they might even appreciate it.
9.)  Be selective with what you'll spend your time on.  Youtube is great.  Life experience is better.
10.)  It's okay to wait one more day to do laundry.  Really.  Just leave it.  (that is until it starts to smell                   like your roommate)
11.)  Doing something that gets your feet wet in what you have to look forward to gives you more motivation.
                      For me, this was the cadaver lab. It gave me a damp toes and a little more motivation to              work hard to get to medical school.  For other people that may be job shadowing or finding                  an internship.  If you can't get excited about your future, you may want to reevaluate your                    goals.
12.)  Talk to people....some of them are cool and talking to them makes it worth talking to the ones that aren't quite as awesome. :)

Delicious Muffins and other Thoughts about Delightful Nourishment

On my way to math class I had the realization that it was Monday.  Upon realizing this I also remembered that I needed to post a blog.  And so upon arriving to math class an hour early I sat down in the hallway AND.........no ideas came.  Then someone started messaging me and I asked them for an adjective and a noun with the decision that I would blog about whatever he messaged me.  He graciously gave me a noun and an adjective that went together, "Delicious Muffin."

I eat a muffin almost everyday for breakfast.  Sometimes it's a blueberry muffin and other days it's a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin.  Both kinds of muffins are delicious.  However, after nearly a semester of eating nothing but muffins for breakfast, they've become routine.  I easily and unappreciatedly eat my muffin without realizing it's full yummifulness.  I can also become like that in my daily devotionals.  It's very easy to just read a chapter in my devotional book and Bible before I go to bed and not stop to think about it.

But that isn't what God wants me to do.  He wants me to sit down and think about what I'm doing.  He wants me to talk to Him throughout the day.  He asks that I not just read the Bible, but study the Bible as well.  He wants me sit down and think about what I'm reading and why I'm reading it.  It's easy to just read my Bible just like it's easy to eat a muffin, but that muffin has to be digested, and so does the Bible if I actually want to be spiritually nourished.

You see, although digestion isn't a conscious effort, it's still a relatively complicated process that happens in your body.  After you chew(when your teeth crush and break the food to increase surface area to allow your saliva to begin breaking down starch into sugar) you swallow.  Swallowing involves peristalsis, which is a muscular movement allowing you to swallow water while standing on your head (Try it if you want!  I did when I first learned about this....albeit, the librarian thought I was a bit crazy afterwards...).  So in your saliva there are enzymes to break down starch to sugar which is then swallowed with peristalsis and the bolus (the ball of food) is then passed to the stomach!  Then in the stomach the food is broken down farther with gastric acid (composed mostly of Hydrochloric acid).  That sounds simple, right??  But wait!!   When your bolus hits your stomach, there isn't a ton of gastric acid already there.  Why? Because if your body constantly produced Gastric acid you would have the insanely annoying stomach ulcers.  Basically, when your stomach registers that there is food in it, the stomach sends a signal to your body to release the hormone "gastrin" which then tells your body that it's time to produce Gastric acid!  Whew!!  This is complicated and we haven't even absorbed any nutrients yet!

Okay, for the sake of keeping this blog a decent length, I'm going to stop where I am, because I think you get the point.  Digestion can be complicated.  That being said, it happens naturally.  Processing what you're doing when your do a daily Bible reading doesn't come nearly as naturally(at least not for me).  I really have to focus to think about what I'm reading.  Because, afterall, if I am not thinking about, learning about, and letting God convict me through what I'm reading, why am I reading it at all?  From here, I will make it a goal to "digest" my Bible reading.

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo

P.S. If a blog doesn't happen next week, it's because it's finals week for me.  Enjoy your week!
P.P.S.  Also, if you want more about the digestive system, I recommend a quick google search...I had to in order to remember some of this! :P

What It's all About

I love listening to Pentatonix.  They are a pretty great group to listen to with a semi-unique sound.  With that said, when I listened to this song it really bothered me.  I don't know how much they changed the lyrics compared to other versions of the song because I don't normally listen to a whole lot of Christmas music.  I really hate to pick media apart and this song isn't going to stop me from listening to Pentatonix because I still love their music.  However, while listening to this song I noticed that a huge piece of Christmas  was left out.  Even in their video when they talked individually about what Christmas means, they only mentioned it once.

What was it?

Christmas is someone's birthday.  Christmas is Jesus' birthday.  His birthday is significant for a wide range of reasons.  One of these would be the fulfilling of prophecy.  He was born of a virgin which was prophesied in Isaiah 7:14.  He was born in Bethlehem, which was foretold in Micah 5:2.  Clearly, Jesus, who came with humble beginnings, was the prophesied messiah.  THAT is what Christmas is about for me.  Christmas is about my messiah, my savior, my shepherd, coming to live in this dirty, sinful Earth, so that he could die as the perfect sacrifice as an adult.

As if being born in a barn wasn't humiliating enough for the Son of God, he proceeded to live his life in servant hood and die a willing death for the world's sins even though he had lived a perfect life.  I don't know about you, but I think that my Savior's birth is pretty fanflippingtastically amazing and should be celebrated more than just once a year.  We should be celebrating it every day of our lives.
We should want to show others his love whenever we see them.  We should want to be servants to others around us so that they can experience his love.

Please know that I'm not saying we shouldn't be grateful for gifts and family and snow.  I just think that Christmas is about something much deeper than any of that.  My family can actually tell you that I haven't been super excited for Christmas these past few years, and it really comes down to what Christmas is about.  I am tired of seeing commercials with Santa and toys to buy.  I don't want to decorate a tree that is going to have to be undecorated in a couple of months or buy a toy that will only be broken in an hour.  I want to celebrate the birth of my Savior.  I want to tell others about the significance of his birth, the greater significance of his death, and the Amazing Splendiferousness of his resurrection.

Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,

Jo