Snow Day!!!

    In general Wheaton does not have snow days.  Normally, they just work extra hard to keep the sidewalks and roads clear enough for everyone to get to class.  However, Tuesday and Wednesday, classes were cancelled and campus was closed due to a blizzard.  The Wade Center closed at three today,, so I left an hour early and on the way back the wind blew the snow so fast and hard that it felt like a sand blaster blowing in my face.  Kody, my heavily bearded suitemate is on snow crew, so as he was outside shoveling, his beard became thickly coated in snow and ice, so that according to his roommate Jonathan, he looked like Santa Claus with a white beard.  Yesterday, some of my friends and I dug a tunnel in a snow bank, and then sprinted across a field of three foot deep snow, then started tackling each other into soft cushions of snow, then went inside because we were freezing.

    I’m still pretty swamped in homework, but I did want to share a few pictures with you.I posted a before, during and after photo.  Enjoy!

Can You Read Fox in Socks? Seriously.

    About two minutes ago my suitemate Jonathan walked in and told me to look at Yahoo.com’s front page.  On the headlines, he clicked on the video on the right.  Once you watch the video, you’ll realize why I was particularly excited.  This is Xin Yan, from 4 South (my sister floor) reading Fox in Socks.  She came in first place in the Wheaton talent show last fall.  I know th

Wheaton Talent Show 2010 winner, Xin Yang’s Fox in Socks

at you are thinking, “I can read Fox in Socks, but I didn’t win the Wheaton talent show and get a headline on Yahoo.  What’s so special about being able to read a kids book, even one that has a few tongue twisters?”  At least I was asking that question when I saw “Xin Yan reading Fox in Socks” in the program.  Once you watch the video, you’ll see why she won the talent show.

  

Physics

    I meant to add this video to the last post.  This is an improved, edited video of the Rube Goldberg final project I did with Melody (my lab partner).  Pardon the distracting effect in the last clip.  I was having a little too much fun with the new version of Windows Movie Maker, and it was late at night.

Éire

    When I think back to my classes last semester, a few common themes come to mind.  One is the idea of shalom.  Shalom means peace, but it means a deep state of goodness and correctness, that all is as it should be. Of course shalom is always mixed with other things in a fallen world, but that’s another story.  Another recurring theme was Sabbath, taking time that is set apart.  I won’t explain how these ideas fit into Microeconomics and Gospel, Church, and Culture here, but I was thinking about how Dr. Walters talked applied them in Wellness.  He said that our bodies need rhythms, consistent cycles maximize efficiency while minimizing stresses.  I don’t think I can explain it very well, but the point is that we all need rest sometimes.

    After school ended, and I had finished all my final exams, I flew to Ireland with Dad where we met Andrew, who was finishing up the last few days of his internship.  After we spent a few days exploring Dublin, my grandparents flew out with mom and the girls to meet us.  Just before they arrived, it started snowing.  Dad and I were on O’Connell street, a central street in Dublin’s shopping district, when huge fluffy flakes of snow started falling.  I have told people that I think they are more like miniature snowballs than snowflakes.  I think it’s fun to catch them on the back of my hand and watch them melt.  The snow quickly covered the streets, and in a few hours Dublin was coated in a thick layer of white.  Due to snow covered streets and holiday hours, most of Dublin was shut down, there was hardly any traffic, so we spent about a week seeing Dublin in an unusual snow covered state.  Apparently, snow is very unusual in Ireland.  The snow remained on the streets until it melted, so many people who regularly commuted into Dublin in their cars began taking public transportation and walking.  I found it humorous that native Dubliners started asking us for directions.  Fortunately, since we had been in the area for awhile, we were able to help them.

    After about a week all together in Dublin, we rented a car and drove up to Belfast in Northern Ireland.  I should mention that when I say a car, I mean a Renault Trafíc.  I should also mention that the only other cars that we saw that were near its size were commercial and government vehicles.   When we drove on the narrow curved roads (with 100 km/hr speed limits) near the coast we found out one reason why there weren’t a lot of big cars on the road.  On the other hand, we did have to squeeze past some large charter busses on those narrow coastal routes.  At one point (later on in southern Ireland) as we swerved to avoid a cone, the cars front left tyre went over the edge of the road and we were pulled into some mud on the side of the road.  Unfortunately, Trafícs don’t have four-wheel drive and we could not quite get out of the mud.  Almost as soon as we clicked the hazard lights on, a several cars pulled off ahead of us, and a group of men ranging from about 25 to 55 got out of their cars to see if they could help.  After a few minutes we got the impression that they all knew each other.  In fact after they pulled it out with a rope and a Cherokee, the ring leader came over and gave us some warnings and directions about the construction ahead, we noticed them all standing in a circle on the side of the road still talking as we drove off.

    I think Belfast was my favorite part of Ireland.  I really appreciated the history and personality of the city.  It has been a fishing town, then a shipbuilding town.  In fact, the Titanic was built there and I think the Lucitania as well.  In one shop we saw a t-shirt that showed a picture of the Titanic with the caption “Built by Irishmen, sunk by an Englishman.”  If you know much Irish history, you know that Belfast has been the center of an age old struggle between loyalty to England and a desire for independence ever since southern Ireland separated from England to form the Republic of Ireland.  Belfast’s dark memories are preserved in its sometimes intimidating political murals, it’s “peace walls” and battle scarred buildings.  It’s industrial district stands mainly abandoned with giant ship building cranes that were hardly ever used.  A new museum is being constructed for the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking in 2012, and Belfast’s downtown area is very nice and urbanized in a classic European way, which shows the way Belfast is rapidly recovering from its troubled days.

    I might write about our last week in the south of Ireland some other time but I think this post is long enough already.  I do wish I could have seen all of you over break.  But since I couldn’t say it in person, Happy New Year to you all.  May your days be merry and bright, and may the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Musica

Unfortunately, David (a.k.a. anonymous in the December 5, 5:55 comment) is right.  The Rube Goldberg idea does take a lot more time than I expected it to, so I’m going to make this post quick, but there are two things I wanted to mention. First, if you missed the Christmas concert (David) it’s been posted in the conservatory archives now http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/conservarchive.htm. I also thought you might be interested to know that every night at midnight, a group of friends of mine goes outside to Fischer lawn (in front of my dorm) stands in a circle and sings. We start with a song that they sing at HoneyRock called “Let Us Adore” then we sing whatever song we feel like, and we end with the doxology. I join them whenever I happen to be up at midnight (which is pretty often). It’s really simple but very good way to end the day.

“Looking A Lot Like Christmas”

     On Monday, as soon as I arrived back from Thanksgiving break, I walked straight from the train station to my microeconomics class with my suitcase and arrived just as the class was starting.  After class, I went to the Wade Center Christmas party.  We decorated cookies like Wade authors, ate good food, including an unbelieveably chocolatey “bomb.”  We also played Catchphrase as you can see.  Before I arrived, they set up a beautiful Christmas tree near the front desk.  I may have told some of you that the day I flew home, there were just a few falling flakes of snow.  Well, the last few days, the snow has actually been sticking.
    Last night after the Christmas festival, the snow started falling and by midnight there was a nice layer of snow all over the ground.  By the way in a few hours, I’ll be singing in the second night of the Christmas fest, which you can watch live tonight at 6:30 AZ time at www.wheaton.edu/WETN. just click on the “watch live” or “listen live” link. Today everyone has been throwing snowballs and making snowmen and I’ve been playing my Amy Grant, Nat King Cole, and Relient K’s Let It Snow Baby, Let it Reindeer all day.  All that to say, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  Just so you know, the picture below is of Sam Cortez, the guy who played Reepicheep in our floor C.S. Lewis raid (which reminds me how excited I am about The Voyage of The Dawn Treader coming out on Friday!) All that to say, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
P.S. It’s also looking like finals week.  I’m sure a lot of you have that feeling right now too. One thing I'm working on this week is finishing up my final project for Physics class.  Maybe I will give you more details some other time, but until then, here's a quick video of our basic setup:

Rube Goldberg project

A Long Time

It’s been a long time, or at least a relatively long time… How long is a long time? If you mean the time since I’ve written, considering the fact that I intended to write almost every day, and it’s been almost a month since I last posted then yes it has been a long time. If you mean the time since I’ve been home and seen you all, three months and twelve days, I would also consider that a long time. Well, I can now reset both of those counters, because I’m posting now, and I’ll be home late Wednesday night!

Since I last posted, I have had one major Physics test, one major Microeconomics test and two papers for my Gospel, Church and Culture class. On the 18th, Glee Club had its first practice for Brahm’s Requiem with Maestro John Nelson, who is a conductor who graduated from Wheaton and Juilliard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_(conductor). He’s really a great conductor in just about every way. He has a great ear, and a great personality. Last week we had two two hour practices and three three hour practices, plus the performance. It was a ton of time, and by the end my voice was gone, and I was pretty tired and a little behind on my homework, but it was well worth it. You may know that a Requiem is a song traditionally performed at a funeral. Brahm’s wrote this requiem with some really fitting scripture references and the way he ties it in with the music is really incredible. I do not think I could have appreciated it nearly as much if I had not needed to perform it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahms_Requiem).

There have been several other concerts on campus as well. Keith and Kristyn Getty performed here a few weeks ago. Not only did I get to go to their concert, I also visited a class where Keith Getty talked about how he writes songs. In case you do not recognize the names, the Getty’d wrote “In Christ Alone” and several other “modern hymns.”

As for academics, my Physics class has started studying relativity. If you want a brief overview of what I’m studying the rest of the semester, take a look at this: http://www.onestick.com/relativity/. I showed it to a few guys on my floor the other day and it blew their minds. In my microeconomics class, we have been going back and forth between using a textbook and two other books, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and Godly Materialism. Then discussing them in class. They are both very interesting books with very different perspectives. To summarize briefly, the first says that American Christians have too much wealth, considering how extremely impoverished people across the world are and that we need to give more of our money away. The second talks about how God wants people to enjoy wealth and that a constant sense of guilt for any excessive material possessions takes away some of the pleasure God wants us to take in the wealth he has blessed us with. I think I would agree with both of those summary statements, but there are some really thought provoking, subtle issues involved.

Once again, I am sorry for not posting for such a long time. I hope you all have a marvelous Thanksgiving, and I hope to see you soon!