Post-welcome party pre-blog

Thanks to all of you who came to the welcome party. Dan and I really enjoyed having a packed apartment and were very amused by your junk. I'll post pics and commentary after I return from Chicago Thursday evening.

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Recap from week:

I) Lecture Friday afternoon

Friday afternoon I lectured in Environmental Chemistry in the stead of the main professor. The task started to become more intimidating about 20 minutes before hand, but God providentially intervened to help me make a smooth transition to speaking. I forgot something for class and showed up later than I preferred, making it neccessary to jump right into the lecture. The material, a review of subatomic particles and elemental symbology, was seemed a little trivial to the students. Even so, my presentation felt a little convoluted as I tried to explain how the S-orbitals of the 4th electronic energy level are initially lower in energy than the d-orbitals of the 3rd electronic energy level. Thankfully, most of them remembered this from general chemistry, saving me from an inadequate review of the concept.

II) Race warm-up and Grad IV, Friday Evening.

Friday evening I headed out with Anthony and some members from Illini Cycling to the race course for Saturday morning's mountain bike race. We covered about a third of course before A. and I had to leave - 1st Grad IV large group was going on, so I needed to be back. I dropped A. off and headed straight to union (yes, without a shower) to Grad I.V. The 1st large group, while the same format as last year, was nonetheless entertaining and informative.

We were given a two-fold ice breaker: 1) we split up into groups based upon home-town geography. As a group we we were to come up w/ (a) unique things/qualities resident to our geography and (b) values that were consistently held among the area's peoples (i.e. Midwest boasts of the Mississippi Watershed Basin; we have tornados and snow - sometimes concurrently occuring; and often we're emotionally reserved, yet always seen as cheery) . 2) we split up into groups based upon discipline (non-life sciences, life sciences, engineering, humanities, society). We then discussed what major world issues our fields address and how faith is important to our discipline. The second grouping helped us see where most of the new students fit discipline-wise. It was quite surprising to see that the society group (journalism, social work, medical students, urban planning, etc.) was one of the largest, compared to its small numbers over the past year. Hard or non-life sciences (physics, math, chemistry, atmospheric sciences and computer science) was also very large. Engineering had a relatively small group considering they have traditionally dominated the Grad IV population.

III) Race Day Summary.

Now on to Race Day!!! The morning started at a sobering 6am wake up call to "The Saints Go Marching In". A. and Jeremy rolled over about 6:45 in order to pick me up and meet the rest of the team. We were at Kickapoo by 7:45, plenty early for our 9 am race. After warming up on the trail and getting my first endo (a type of crash where you go over the top of your handle bars) in, I was all ready to race. Initially, I started out at a pace that would exhaust me in the first 5 miles, so I decided to take it down a notch. I took a semi-early spill two or three miles in, hitting my left kidney with the handle bar. At this point, I was in 5th (out of 15-16 riders in the beginner class), close on the trail behind a racer from Butler University (or College, I don't know). The trail is amazing - it's filled with tons of ups and downs, jumps, sharp turns, long climbs and descents, and narrow trails, difficult to negotiate. It was sooo much fun!!! I took another spill probably 6 miles into the race - this one came after my right handle bar clipped a tree and my bicycle went sideways. After a long, tricky downhill I was nearly a mile from the finish. I picked up the pace, flying around turns, taking jumps and wouldn't you know, I hit another tree! This was the most severe of my crashes. I went into a turn way too fast, slamming into a tree with my left shoulder. Needless to say, I went down and hard. Being so close to the finish, I quickly stood up, made sure my shoulder wasn't broken and took off for the finish. All in all, I was really pleased with my performance. I placed 5th with a time of 57:40, ~3 minutes behind the leader. I guess the question remains, would I do it again or will I race again this year? Yes, I will probably race again this season. It was just too much fun not to.

Here are a few photos.

1) Jeremy is stocking up on essential race food - Tostitos and Gatorade.



2) Here I am, winded and red-faced after the race. I edited my lower body out of the picture. It's not all that revealed, especially because I have black shorts on. You can find the full picture at my photobucket site (see link at left). Also, all of us had to borrow jersies, but I'm thinking about getting one.


3) Anthony finished the race without breaking anything, praise God!


3) Jeremy also finished without any missing appendages or broken limbs, praise God!

Just as surprised as you

I'm racing in a moutain bike race on Saturday. No, I can't use my new bike. Yes, I have a decent, yet worn bicycle that will do the job.

Anthony, Jeremy and I attended the Illini Cycling information meeting tonight. They're hosting the season's first race at Kickapoo State Park this weekend. And wouldn't you know, Jeremy and Anthony were up to cycling in the beginner section. So, I've got the time, bike, and spandex, why not?

Off to tune up the Fisher . . .


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Splish splash

I had a disappointing day in the lab and am a little upset at myself. I've been using the Ferrozine method to determine dissolved Fe for the last month and today, on the most valuable samples that I need to run, I really messed up. Instead of filling the 50 mL Taylor tubes up with DI Water after adding buffer, I did it before. This meant that I couldn't quantify the final volume, and as a result, the initial Fe concentration in the sample can not be determined. I did end up quantitatively transfering the solutions to 100 mL volumetric flasks, adding buffer and diluting. This meant I had to make a whole new set of standards (7 in all) for the 100 mL volumetric sample set. No problem - just an extra 1.5 hours. In the end I did get the standard curve negotiated and the diluted samples put through the spectrophotometer, but I'm not sure how reliable the results are. The curve is okay (R-sq of 0.9964 - last week it was 0.9999997); I'll just have to wait and see how the standard deviation turns out.

And on top of that, one of those dumb online quizzes labeled me a low-ranking nerd.

A lift and quad day

About a month ago God burdened my heart to be more thoughtful and purposeful in the spiritual aspects of my close friendships. Through providential ordering of our schedules, it worked for a few of us to meet yesterday evening in order to share about how God has been at work in our lives, offering praise and thanks; to exhort one another with the things we've been learning; to repent and confess; and we also concluded by praying for one another. We opened the time by listening to Derek Webb's audio commentary, found on the album House Show, for his song I Repent. This was NOT a place or time in which we came to boast about how well we are doing at the Christian life.

The Scripture is clear: As Christians we're adopted into God's family and he loves all of us equally, enjoying his communion with the Saints. Furthermore, we do not know the depths of our sinfulness, and even in our best efforts the sting and presence of sin lurks around the corners of our heart. One conclusion or summarizing statement from last evening, as Sarah put it, is that for every one glimpse of our own sinfulness that we see, we should take 10 looks at Christ. Put another way - in that moment in which your convicted that you're tired of being critical of others, judgemental, or you've fallen into that same sin once again - whenever that sense of guilt for being a horrible or wicked person befalls you - look at Christ. Look at how patient he was with the hard hearted - he persistently shared the Kingdom message with those who just couldn't get it. Look also to his healing touch and mercy upon the whores, and to his embracing the sojourner and immigrant. Also look to the cross, the place where God made known this his son will suffer God-foresakenness so that we do not have to. It's in looking at the Christ man and beholding the Father in which we are changed.

To God be the glory for blessing us with this time Monday evening.

Now, here are some pics from Quad Day (The Tuesday before classes start where 500+ organizations signup for tables arranged around the main quad. I would say upwards of 15 - 20 % of the organizations are Christian related.).



Pastor Dave and Sarah at the All Souls PCA table. I really enjoyed hanging out here for most of the day. Toward early afternoon I was growing quite weary and sun beaten, but I prayerfully asked God for a blessing upon that time. He graciously responded by bringing along a couple of new grad students very much interested in the PCA or another reformed church. Very, very good conversation.


And here's the Free Life student ministry out of the Evangelical Free Church that I also attend. Dwayne is the tall, gingerly looking fella on the right. They offered me free food and and a free plant, and lots of Jesus kind of love. It will be good to see what God does through Free Life this year.

The dregs of my alternate life

Here are a couple of more pics and commentary that may interest my reading audience.

When I was in High School (probably around '00/'01) a few friends and I would look for abnormal places to investigate at night. Once such place was an old stone house ten miles South of Topeka. It was supposedly "haunted". Once entered from the basement, flashlights revealed a mass of graffiti on the stone walls. The wooded property also showed remains of other, older stone buildings. A narrow trail would around the property, back into the woods. We never encountered any spooks or haunts; either way, it was a good a time - especially when we were able to freak out friends that were new to the "haunted" house.

I think Chris T. was taking the pics. The bottom pic is of myself, Carli, Tozer, and Aradan.

Pedagogy, gotta love it. The past two days have been filled with policy and practice strategies for being an effective TA. The chemistry profs. seem to be some of the best, most favored teachers on campus. Can I follow in their steps? I'm a little nervous about hoping right in to being a TA, but the nerves are good. If I weren't nervous, then I probably wouldn't care about the class, nor about the students. I'll get to lecture a few times while the faculty member is out of town. In fact, next Friday is my first lecture! Topic - introduction/chemistry review. Pray for me and the students!

Also, I'm leaving tommorrow (Friday) morning for Chicago. This is yet another round of sampling streams in the Chicago metro region. Your prayers have been ehard in the past and continue to play a crucial role in God's kingdom being extended through my personal life, relationships, and work. I would appreciate more prayers over this trip, especially since I'll be going alone.

Other events on the horizon:

Grad IV New Student Orientation Kickoff
Grad IV Welcome Back Picnic
Quad Day - working a booth w/ the PCA church plant
Grad IV Welcome parties - Dan and I are hosting
Classes starting!

Let me know how I can be praying for you, too. Email or call.

In love,

Brew #2

The Wort!

Jeremy's expertise in fluid dynamics proved helpful in transfering the Wort(!) to the fermentation bucket.

Nina is working the Ale Pail tap to fill the bottles. This is more work than it looks.

Bottling

A toast between friends. It was smooth, light and the honey taste was present. It's up to the remaining yeast to put the finishing touches on.

On whole different subject - here is an updated pic of my sister's (and her husband's dog) Timber.

Even further back

This picture explains why there are so many women in the pictures below. Two words: bike jumping skills.


I lifeguarded during the summer of 2001 and spent my spare evenings practicing mid-air bicycle tricks. Keep smilin', because, yes, that IS me. You can even check my references at Lifesaving.net.

Another life?

I grabbed these from KC's old photobucket. I just had to post them. The less explaination, the better.

Family Visit Post

Pick that jaw up off the floor. It's finally here - the long awaited Family Visit Post!

Two weeks ago three of my closest family members made the 500 miles trip from Topeka to visit me in Champaign. My mom, step-dad and younger brother (Sandy, Sam and Matt, respectively) let early on a Thursday morning (early as in 4:30 am, not 8:30 am) and met up with me in the early afternoon. While Sam napped Mom, Matt and I visit my new apartment, the old house and had some lunch. They took me out to one of my favorite Chambana restaurants, Dos Reales.

Friday morning we took a blazin' hot tour of campus (hot as in temperature, not girls layin' on the quad or really cool architecture). We probably hit half of the campus, being as it's so large and it was really hot. My family got to meet one of my officemates, Chonggang, and learn a little bit about what it means to be an international student. Sam also made a friend on the engineering quad. Finally, someone that can really appreciate who he is!



That evening a few friends met us at Monicals for Pizza. This was perfect - it was a great place and time to introduce my family to friends. The pizza was really good, too.

Matthew got plenty of swimming in Friday and Saturday. The guy just loves the water, what can I say?

The next morning Nina hosted us for breakfast - crepes w/ fresh blueberries. They were so good that my mom implored our host for the recipe and has already made them atleast once. We also spent a short while at the Urbana farmer's market, where we picked up fresh corn, peaches and kettle corn. Saturday evening Pastor Dave and his wife Sherri had the four of us over for dinner.

Saturday evening was quite meaningful for me. My brother and I spent some time talking about God, life as a Christian man, and having faith. Often the events and circumstances of the world can be overwhelming. Yes, God is not safe, but he's good and he's the king. Pray that Matt and I would both trust and follow our King.

This was definently a highlight of the summer. My life is so wrapped up in the events, culture, ethic and mentality of a Christian and academic life. It was nice to show my beloved family what God is now doing through and for me. All to the praise of His glory!

Sam also gave me some pics from my trip to Kansas in early June. Here's one such photo from my memorial day bicycle ride. The morning started out sunny, but ended with a Thai-style downpour.

pre-post to the family visit post

I'm a little busy this week with moving and research. For those who are looking forward to my next post, I'll try to organize it as soon as possible. Until then, feel free to keep your eyes open for a washer/dryer and ping-pong table for my new apartment.

http://chambana.craigslist.org
http://www.news-gazette.com/classifieds/merchandise/