So much to do!

Overall this week has been great.  Truly, I had a great time.  We are playing the 5th movement of the Dvorak Serenade for Strings in orchestra, which is a ton of fun for the basses, though perhaps a bit on the high side of the skill level for the rest of the orchestra.  Mrs. S seems pretty set on doing it though, so hooray!  I am sure it will sound great by the end of the year, even if it is a little sketchy right now.  

I had Chem Lab for the first time last Tuesday and my teacher, Dr. Hernberg, was not at all who I was expecting.  I had no idea who Dr. Hernberg was beforehand, and I didn’t bother looking up my teachers on the website before school started.  In my mind, though, I had basically put Dr. Heglund (my Chem Lecture teacher) into the mental space for Dr. Hernberg until I went to class.  Turn out, though, Dr. Hernberg is about a foot shorter, 20 years younger, and female.  So, that picture was definitely incorrect.  She seems nice enough, and seems to want to focus more on the data recording portion of lab than the experiments themselves, which is exactly what I want from the class!  I think it will go very well.  While I was in the Chem building I also met Dr. Smirnova, who is the third and final chem lab teacher.  I only had a few minutes of interaction with her, but judging my her accent I believe she is Ukrainian, and hearing that accent again reminded me very strongly of the principle of the elementary school in Woodland Park.  I don’t know why I bother bringing it up, but it was just a fun little flash back to home.

I think I am going to minor in Math.  I was thinking computer science for a while, but thinking more realistically, I realize that it is not possible to complete an ME major with CSC minor in 4 years.  As it is with math, I think I will need to do a 1 semester overload, but that is fine by me.  I miss doing the higher math that I did in 12th grade, and really want to get back into it, so I am registering for the sophomore level set theory and proofs class for next semester.  I hope that this will not all be repeat from 12th grade, but I would be shocked if it were since we only spent a few weeks on it in high school.

Speaking of math, I got my first Calc test of the semester back today.  While I was taking it, I felt pretty comfortable with everything.  When she was handing them back, Dr. Dahl noted that the average on the test was just a 69%.  She had said before that it was the hardest test of all 3 calc courses, but I didn’t expect it to be that bad…  anyway, that got my heart pumping pretty quickly until we finally got to the latter half of the alphabet, and I received my test with a 98 written on top.  Whew!  I know two of my other friends in the class also had similar scores (though I don’t think anyone aced it), but that is kind of scary because it means there had to be quite a few really, really bad scores for it to average below 70 with several people scoring around 90+… I am just very glad I am on this side of the problem.

I went to the InterVarsity Winter Conference this last weekend (which is the reason there was no email for that week) and had a great time!  A couple of my favorite sessions included our study of the Lord’s Prayer and a session about the value of silent prayer.  I have started to do a solid 20 minute silent block of time each morning before my classes, and it is really, really wonderful.  Just sitting there, eyes closed, in silence, trying to keep my mind as clear as possible.  I keep an index card and a pencil on the table in front of me for any notes I want to take, and just…listen.  It is awesome.  10/10, would recommend.  I also got the chance to meet another student, a Junior, who is planning on starting up a new Bible study on campus directed toward Math and Computer Science majors.  He needed a Co-leader, and I will be able to do that with him!  I will continue to go to the Wednesday morning study of Proverbs, and then do a Thursday afternoon session on Mathew.  Definitely looking forward to that.

I tried to go to Yoga on Thursday, and now I am so, so sore.  I will try to keep going.  I wish it worked for me to go on Tuesdays, as apparently that is the much easier session, and I am brutally inflexible.  I have decent balance, but that is about where my strengths end.  

Right after Yoga is my meeting with Seth about The Idiot.  The book is starting to get into a flow now, and it is feeling more and more like the righting I was expecting of Dostoevsky.  I just love how he almost is writing philosophical essays within each of his novels, on a variety of topics, but it is entirely portrayed through the actions of all of the characters.  It is also interesting to make connections between all three of the books I have read so far.  There is one particular phrase that was locked into my mind from Crime and Punishment that has appeared almost word for word in both Brothers K and The Idiot, and in very interestingly different situations (though with rather similar characters saying it each time…).  And it isn’t just as though the translator likes that phrase- I have a different translator for each of the three.  So, that is awesome.

I worked with the Human Powered Vehicle team to assemble a factory recumbent bike today!  We are building a recumbent of our own this year for competition, and we decided that it would probably be a good idea if at least a couple of us learned how to ride one before we went off to competition.  I will not be able to go to competition, but I do hope I will be able to learn how to ride this bike, as it looks pretty awesome.  It did occur to me while I was helping to assemble it that it has been a really, really long time since I have ridden a bike at all, and that it was kind of silly for me to be on this particular team, but I think it will be fun.  Also, I was reminded of this awesome biking video.

I am going to visit Colorado next weekend!!!!!!

Talk to you soon! -Christopher