Home Sweet Home

After three weeks, I have finally been able to get back home to enjoy the new house. While I was gone, my family did some remodeling of the bathroom (as a birthday present). This work was much-needed, as you know if you've seen the pictures at Yahoo! photos. I've included a new set of what the house looks like with stuff moved in and mostly put away. A couple of pictures of the re-done bathroom are there as well. Look in the "House Remodel" album. It's great to be back in Topeka, and I'm looking forward to switching gears back to being a teacher instead of a student. I'm not ready, yet, for school, but I am ready to get to work on school-year preparations.

Almost Got It; Stay on Target

Only 4 more hours of class, and then I can take so much of what I learned and put it into practice this fall! I'm looking forward to completing this first lap of the race of graduate school. I'd write more, but I have to study for a difficult test that is tomorrow.

Harry Potter Marathon

Since I have a week of class still to go and since there's nothing to do in Sioux Center except go running and wondering how a college of any sort survives in such a small hamlet, I decided to check out from the College library the four previous Harry Potter movies. I've never watched any of them, and I was in a mood to take a break from the hard work of a difficult week. I was only partially successful. Now, I haven't read any of the books, so I don't know how they compare to the movie, but I enjoyed the Sorcerer's Stone and the Prisoner of Azkaban much more than the Chamber of Secrets or the Goblet of Fire. The Sorcerer's Stone, being the first, is more light-hearted and fanciful. There's a sense of child-like wonder at all that's going on. Chamber of Secrets, on the other hand, is unnecessarily dark at times. The only aspect of the movie that keeps it from becoming painfully dark is the light-hearted friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Still, Chamber suffers simply from having source material that is far too dark. It would have made a better horror story than a Harry Potter story. Prisoner of Azkaban, thankfully, returns to a more light-hearted feel. While there are dark moments, the overall feel of the movie is much more enjoyable. The movie simply is a good mix of intense story elements with light-hearted fun. Sadly, the Goblet of Fire, which in my opinion is the weakest of the four, does not follow Prisoner's footsteps. It's too dark, darker by far than Chamber. Most of the movie seems to be spent in messing everything up before minimal attempts are made to resolve some of the major conflicts, especially the interpersonal ones. For comparison's sake, it feels about twice as unresolved as Empire Strikes Back (and that's saying something). Now, I don't know if that is the result of the screenwriter and director, or if it is the source material. Frankly, I suspect it to be the source material, and if so, I think I've had about enough of Rowling's unnecessarily dark view of life. I don't read books and go to movies to see how messed up the world is. (And I never have. I refused to read Lord of the Flies in 8th grade because the dark tone annoyed me so much. The teacher, mercifully, let me read a different book.) I read and watch movies for enjoyment, and I don't particular enjoy the glorification of evil and seeing everything messed up without proper resolution.
So, I think for now, I'm done with Potter for now. Court Jester, anyone? :-)

Startling Statistic (If It's True)

In a Topeka Capital-Journal article from today, the following disturbing statistic is mentioned: in Kansas last year, there were 11,221 abortions. I find that number a bit hard to believe. How could there be that many? That is approximately equivalent to the entire city of Atchison dying in a single year. What are we doing to our society? If this statistic is true, then we are in serious trouble in this country. I hope for the sake of our country that this is a misprint and that the real number is 1,221. While that is still 1,221 too many abortions, it is much less depressing.

A Day Late

Whoops! I missed my traditional Wednesday posting day due to being so absorbed in writing the rough draft of my research paper for my class this week. However, I am on a break right now, so I have the chance to make a brief post.
One of the unique aspects of these past two weeks has been the chance to interact with a couple of women from Paraguay who teach in a teacher training college near the capital of Asuncion. It's a rare treat for me to be able to say anything in Spanish, as most of my duties in Topeka do not bring me into contact with the sizable Spanish-speaking population. Surprisingly (by the grace of God), I have been able to understand most of the Spanish spoken to me and been able to respond with some success, although I am very rusty in speaking. Apparently, though, my accent is still decent, which is a relief to hear.
Only 1 day and 1 week left!

Week 1 of Dordt

Week 1 of my 3-week class-taking adventure at Dordt College is complete. It was relatively uneventful, with class coming to a quiet end on Friday at noon. The class covered spiritual formation in the classroom and was overall well-done. It could have become an "Evangelical-bashing," as some Reformed theological discussions easily do, but I was surprised about how little of that happened. The phrase "covenant child" was equated with "child of God" a few times erroneously, and young-earth creationists were implicitly accused of being theologically inferior once, but that was the extent of times where I felt that particular beliefs made me not fit. (Interestingly, I had a discussion at the end of the week with the other science teacher in the class. She and I both are young-earth creationists, while those who thought otherwise were administrators and humanities teachers. It fascinates me how we scientists seem to put less stock in science than the humanities people.)
The biggest challenge has been adjusting to a new "city." I put city in quotes since it is hard to refer to Sioux Center, population 6000, as a city. It's really a quiet farm town...that smells like pigs half the time...and has only one through street (Highway 75)...that is so torn up and rough that it is nearly impossible to drive on. But I digress. Living here has made me realize now how spoiled we are in Topeka. We have plenty of shopping and numerous activities. While Topeka may not be the greatest place in the world, at this point in my life, I enjoy living there.
So, one week down, two weeks to go. For my class this week, I am taking "Issues in Education," which is really a philosophy of education class. Here, as with last week, I expect that my support for a classical and Christian methodology is going to put at odds with most people in the class. As I face the potential for criticism and argument, it is important that I remember the old proverb: In the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.

Birthday

An cautionary note: this post is long and gets a bit heavy before ending in a more positive manner. If at any point it gets too heavy for you, skip to the final paragraph. With that note completed, we proceed.
The day that I have been dreading for an entire year is here: my 30th birthday. I have found that no one really understands why I have dreaded the advent of my 30th year so much. Even I haven't totally understood it myself. It is only in writing this that I think I am fully beginning to understand why I have so wished that the calendar would stop its dread onward march.
"What," many have asked me, "is so awful about turning 30? You get an insurance break; it means you're a year wiser now; it means that you have entered the prime years of your life." And it also means that God has blessed me with another year of life.
All of this is true (and good and wonderful), but there is something about a milestone birthday like this that causes me to pause and reflect, with dismay, at how quickly the past few years have passed. It seems like only yesterday that I was 25, happily going about life, worshiping God and serving Him. Now, all of sudden, here I am, 30 years old, and it seems to me that my life is passing me by. It touches on my greatest fear that I'm going to wake up one day and find myself aged 85 years and on the brink of death, having passed through all of my life without enjoying it as God recommends in Ecclesiastes, without taking care of the tasks that He gave me to do, and without anything changing in my life.
It's the third item that scares me the most: the lack of change. At 25, I pictured my life at 30 to be substantially different from how it was then. It turns out, though, that my life at 30 looks remarkable similar to life at 25.
Let me try to explain it this way. There are milestone moments in everyone's life that mark significant changes: getting a full driver's license at 16, graduating high school at 18, graduating college at 22. Most people in their 20s enjoy two more such moments: getting married and having children. Almost all experience these two events before the age of 30. I have not been blessed with either of these last two moments, and thus in some ways my life has felt like it has been on pause for the past 5 or 6 years, like my early twenties have been carried on interminably and become spread thin "like butter that has been scraped over too much bread." I feel like I've been holding my breath waiting for the next changing moment, waiting for that next "transition time", waiting for the next phase of my life to begin. Yet, those events haven't happened. Now, as I hit 30, I find myself having spent 5 years holding my breath, realizing that I have missed out on those two great milestones of being in one's mid to late 20s and also realizing how grim the hopes are of ever enjoying either of these two events. (Not to mention realizing with sadness that missing those moments is largely my own fault for missing opportunities.) And I have to ask, "Am I going to have to spend the rest of my life on 'pause?'"

Enough with melancholy thoughts, though! There have been so many good times and so many blessings in the past 5 years. I would not now wish to go back and trade a single one of them for something different! I have enjoyed the opportunity to teach my students, to coach soccer, and to worship and serve God. I have loved so many minutes of it. And if my life has to be "on pause," then I can think of no better way to spend my "paused" time than in the manner in which I have spent it. Praise and thanks be to God for the myriad of joyful experiences and blessed moments which have filled these past 5 years! To all of you out there who have wished, do wish, or will wish me a happy 30th birthday: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. One of the greatest joys of turning 30 is realizing that God has blessed me with so many more wonderful friends than I had at 25. It is a blessing and a privilege to have been your friend these past few years, and I look forward to many years more.

It's Official!

As of a little after 3:00 pm today, I have now become the owner of a house. It's an exciting day, and I've got a lot of work ahead of me. For now, though, I'm going to enjoy the blessing which God has given me: to be out of apartment complexes with their unusual neighbors and noisy environs. I'm looking forward to moving in.
If you want to see pictures of the house, check out a sequence of pictures at Yahoo! Photos and choose the House album.

July 4

Happy 4th of July! The weather in Topeka has provided fireworks for Topekans. A tornado touched down 5 miles south of Hoyt, which is N of Topeka. The tornado dissipated quickly, but it was there long enough for the tornado sirens in Topeka to sound and everyone to take cover. It certainly added some excitement to everyone's 4th!