What's better than being in the Math Dept at 7am?

Being in the Math Dept at 7am because your computer, which just recently lost its entire hard drive containing five years of digital photos, undergraduate schoolwork, almost 4,ooo iTunes songs, and significant graduate schoolwork, has no Word-type-document-producing program on it to do a Library class assignment on it, and thus have to use your work computer.

Woot! Woot!

Last 20 Minutes before Sleep

I love the last twenty minutes before REM fully kicks into gear. During those twenty minutes, amazing things happen. I become the finest dancer and can choreograph dance routines that are perfectly blended with music. I can write beautifully, articlulating all my deepest thoughts in wonderful poems, essays, and letters. I fight like Jason Bourne and all those bad guys are toast from my right upper-cut. I paint true expressions of how I see trees and people. I create new recipes of delectible and savory foods of all kinds. My hands can play Mozart with determination and a passion. My detective skills outmatch Barbara Gordon's and I can solve the mysteries that stump even Adrian Monk. I design and engineer the most galatical spaceship in the Universe, warping my way through the stars.

Creativity flows so freely, I only wish it would last. Even now I feel that my words above are a poor respresentation of those special minutes between waking and sleeping.

Lessons in Singlehood

When you are approaching your 26th birthday (and now having passed it) without ever having been on a date, you really feel like the odd one out in this fast-paced dating society. You begin to wonder if this is maybe the way it will always be, watching from the outside, destined to be single? Then you adapt by determining that it must be and that in fact marriage and dating must be a bad thing for you, something that should be kept away. You become careful, protective, and perhaps even overguarding your heart.

Somehow my thoughts formed in this way. Only recently has God brought all this into question. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, God forced me re-evaluate my views on marriage and singleness and thus, sort of face my fears. I began to read articles and books, talk to friends and mentors, anything to help me get a better perspective on how God views these "murky" waters.

I began to see that I had a lot of wrong ideas swimming around in my head. Can I even find the words to describe all the changes? To start with, I have to say that most of these thoughts were not so consciously recognized as they were just present. God helped me to realize that they were there and they needed to be transformed into a more Godly perspective. I had this odd notion that people who were married, were doing it for selfish reasons, that marriage itself was selfish, and that to be single was truly selfless. Ha! How wrong. To be in a committed married state actually requires continual acts of selflessness. You must think of your spouse now when you make decisions. It is no longer about what is best for ME but instead about what is best for US.

My readings also made me realize that God just might actually intend for me to marry! That this might be the best thing for me. Craziness! That most of us are created to walk through this life in pairs and there is nothing wrong with desiring this companionship. It is so surreal to me that I still cannot fully grasp that I could be married someday.

Now I have read some articles and listened to some talks that say that if you really want to be married, you have to pursue it like you would any other ambition. Go to the functions that singles go to, make sure you are putting yourself "out there," but of course in all these intentional interactions, your dependency should still be ultimately on God. Actually, I don't fully agree with this point of view in the sense that I value the diversity of life. I love to be around people of all ages and all lifestyles. I do not want close my life off to only being surrounded by singles whose main objective is scouting out a husband/wife. I am more of a "commit myself fully to God and He will take me to the one I am supposed to be with" kind of person.

So anyway these are some thoughts of mine. I promised Megan I would eventually post them.

Anne of California

Some days I feel like Anne Shirley. I want to put a screeching halt to change of any kind. I miss my days in SLO with my good old Cal Poly friends. And I know that someday I will be missing my friends from SJSU. We grow up and move away, seeing each other once a year if we are so fortunate. It is easy for me to sit in this sadness because my times with these people are so precious to me.

I know I hated leaving SLO and I felt so lonely when I moved back to San Jose. But now here I am loving living here and loving all the people who surround me. I guess this gives me hope for the future and for whereever it is that God moves me to. Though it will be hard to once again be separated, I know that He will provide me with many wonderful new people to love and serve.

How Great is Our God.

At least the parents could make it!

As I was walking to work on campus this morning and passing by these two football players (I know this because they were wearing sweatshirts that said, "SJSU Spartan Football"). I heard one of them say, "At least the parents could make it." (I just realized that you could read this statement in two ways. He sounded like he meant that at the very least the parents should come to this thing, whatever it is.) Without even knowing what he was talking about, I was in total consensus. I mean if your son wants you to come to something, why would you miss that opportunity? So I thought about this a little bit as I finished my walk to work.

Maybe the parents would have travel from far away. Maybe they don't have the time. Maybe it is because they have to work very hard to support their son through college. Maybe it is because they are trying to raise five other kids. Maybe they financially cannot afford the trip. Maybe they don't understand the importance of attending. Maybe the [parents just plain aren't interested.

In the end I decided to look on this as a positive experience where college students were hoping that their parents would be supporting them by attendance. Personally, I hope to attend every one of my children's events. Rather aspirational, I know, but my children will never doubt my interest in their lives.