Personal Life Update: 100-m Hurdling

It doesn't really seem to stop. I quite like the simplicity of not having multiple, overlapping deadlines that require attention every single day, even just to make sure I'm not falling behind on the process of working to meet them. On the other hand, continuous responsibility to keep track of "adult" stuff feels good, because you have external pressures on you that work against any lazy urges that prompt you to sleep in, or waste time eating, playing video games, wasting time on line, etc. It makes you more productive and helps secure a sense of purpose as opposed to a sense of "what did I even do today?"

I'm over a little bit of a hurdle now. I've finally accomplished a grocery-list of financially-related issues that began to appear on my radar around December-January. These include:
1. Apply to community college
2. Apply to the second bachelor's program I'm interested in
3. Pay for CC
4. Buy books for CC
5. Do taxes
6. Do FAFSA (requires step 5)
7. Check with Financial Aid to make sure I crossed my t's and dotted my i's.

And on top of that, the first round of exams, that overlapped for about a week from last Thursday to today, is now past. So I have a bit of a reprieve, now, a sense of completeness with respect to these deadlines.

The next few steps are more natural: wait for Fin-Aid information to come back to me. Go to my classes and ace the examinations as usual, and keep myself from bleeding out too fast by working double shifts on the weekends (I was fortunate enough to be granted that request; now I have undistracted time between Monday morning and Friday afternoon to focus on schoolwork, and non-stop shift employment from Friday evening through Sunday evening). This is more routine and muscle memory than frantic paper-pushing and double-triple-quadruple-checking that I'm not running late for deadlines.

The things that press on me the most are the objectives for which I'm not certain what the deadlines are. The big obvious one that's on the radar now is the final prerequisite for the course I'm gunning for. One of the classes I'm taking now is the prerequisite for that one, so if you're following along with me, that means I need to find somewhere to take the course over the summer. This is somewhat unusual and I don't know what the availability is. As of last month, no colleges around had set their summer schedules yet, so I wasn't able to make any final decisions on where to zero in, let alone apply and register. But that is something I'm hoping to revisit tomorrow and see if there have been any developments.

There are other things I'm thinking about, too, which I won't necessarily discuss on a blog. And I'm trying not to either be distracted from all this by blogging, nor put it off so much that my blog goes defunct. I had a few false starts in the past and I'm quite pleased with how this one has been shaping up. I'm working on my Dekadius workout, as well as hitting the gym 1-3 times a week so I don't lose the progress I'd been making. I'm learning where my limits are, and the shoulder presses, lunges and calf raises have turned out to be a bit more difficult than I anticipated, whereas the pushups feel almost easy, but that can all change as I keep going through this process. The primary goal is to limber up my body, and the secondary goal is to get enough base strength that I can start seriously using weights to train my underused muscles and get some positive body transformation going.

Looking for and thinking about opportunities to share my faith. It has been partly restlessness with my perceived lack of interpersonal interaction with regard to witnessing that motivates me to write on this blog; that way, even when I am doing nothing in person (I don't exactly have a very public life, for that matter), I still have the potential to have an impact for the Gospel among those who search online for the subject matter I touch on, here.

That gives me encouragement as I go along. To God be the glory!

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Admission Applications

Details are omitted for reasonable reasons.

I'm halfway through the application and enrollment processes at two higher education institutions: one a community college and the other a university. Until this fall, I didn't have a clear conception of what specific career goals I wished to aim toward, and was wary of making decisions without the requisite information to make them well. But now, I have a notion of what to do with my degree, and consequently, know what I need to do to get from here to there. First I learned about accreditation agencies that can certify you for a specific career position, and then I found different accredited programs around where I live. I picked two institutions for their relative convenience in terms of location to me, and am intending to conclude the bulk of the remaining prerequisite courses at the community college, while applying to be wait-listed in the mean-time at the university, for the Fall 2015 program.

Now it's a waiting game of two sorts: waiting to be admitted, and then waiting to see if I make it into the actual courses that I'll be wait-listed for. Being on the wait list is not a death sentence, it usually is as good as getting into the course itself, because a fair number of people are often bound to drop the course or fail to meet criteria and be removed administratively, opening up slots for you. So I'm fairly confident in getting the prereq's out of the way. This will make me higher ranked for the 2-year program I'm applying to, so that when they run numbers before the Summer, and then again before the Fall, I'll likely move up and have a much better shot at securing a position. The other thing to "wait" for is the question of financial aid. I'm almost guaranteed to get loans like the ones I already hold, but finding need-based grants and scholarships would be nice.

The specifics of the outcome belong to the Almighty. But I learned this wisdom from a speaker at one of the few Cru meetings I attended one semester: that (using a Biblical example, he asserted) stepping out in faith is the mark of obediently waiting on God. Faith is not total resignation and waiting for God to do everything. Faith is knowing what is in accordance with the will of God, seeking to do it, and praying for Him to lead you to the right conclusion. Whether God answers your prayer or not, you still act in faith. By trying to accomplish something, you give Him the divine prerogative He deserves, to decide the outcome. But if you refuse to try to accomplish something, such that it is impossible, then you are not being faithful and waiting, you are essentially trying to control the outcome by limiting yourself to the option of failure. "You do not receive because you do not ask." (James 4:2) Faithfulness involves both asking God for help, and striving to be obedient whatever the outcome. It is not one or the other; it is not doing nothing, and waiting for God to move, and it is not trying to do things in your own power, for God.

If I don't apply, I can't be accepted. Only by applying, can I have the option of either being accepted or denied entry into a course/program. So which one of these confers more glory to God? The one where He can bless your obedience or the one where He'd have to perform miracles to alter the nature of reality just to give you the good things He desires?

I feel good, because I know that it's wise to improve my marketability as a suitable employee for the particular field I have in mind. I also know that a good work ethic and personal responsibility is pleasing to God. And I know that whatever the outcome, it's solely in His control, because I made sure to pray beforehand, that whatever I pursue would be the path that He intends, and that I do nothing from the strength of my own flesh but by His Spirit.

Stepping out in obedient faith. Now it will be exciting to see what God will do with it.

~ Rak Chazak

The Big Education Blame-Game Irony

I’ve recognized this for a long time, and I was gratified to see Ken Ham tackle the issue in almost exactly the same way I’ve “put it” in my own mind when thinking about it. It’s just sheer logic. What is the issue? It is the accusation against Christians, in particular home schoolers and young earth creationists, that these people, by perpetuating their beliefs, are somehow the cause for America’s lackluster showing in educational pursuits, among the general public especially. But the problem with the accusation is that the vast majority of people are not influenced by these teachings—creation, conservative homeschooling, Christian theology. How can minority beliefs be to blame when most people in the country receive 6 hours a day, 5 days a week of government-approved education? Obviously if anything has the most influence, it is this. So if America is poorly represented, wouldn’t the biggest influence in education have the biggest share of the ‘blame’ for whatever the result is? Logic would dictate that to be the case. Anecdotally, the home schooled kids I ran into at college were invariably the best-performing and composed a larger proportion of honors programs and scholarships than anyone else. And then there are fascinating tidbits of information like this: subsequent to the impositionof mandatory public education, literacy rates in Massachusetts dropped and have never recovered. But this is unacceptable to those who want to believe that the government provides for the people, and that Christianity is a net negative force in culture. Why would they want to believe this? It’s simply that having to admit the alternative would suggest the intolerable: that there is a Creator, and if there is a Creator, there is a Lawmaker, who sets the rules of earthly conduct, and if there is a Lawmaker, there is a Judge, who will punish those who break His law, and that means that people have to choose between undesirable punishment and undesirable denial of the things they want to do (sin)—and so the bottom line reason of why anybody refuses to acknowledge that Christian teaching is a good thing, or even that it is not a negative thing, is that they are in rebellion against the Creator. Unsurprising then, that the foundation of the recognition, as I laid out the steps to above, the doctrine of creation, is the most-targeted doctrine of Christianity among academics and pundits who promote government education and secular indoctrination. One such person who recently targeted Creation was dealt with succinctly and wisely by Mr. Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis: through constructive mockery. Here’s the link to the article, followed by an excerpt:

 http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2013/06/07/assistant-manager-at-cincinnati-museum-center-derides-creation-museum/

Ken Ham:

Percy also states, “When we wonder why America is falling behind in science education, it is because places like this are allowed to exist.”

I had to laugh when I read this ridiculous, unfounded outburst. Think about it—the majority of kids in the culture (including 90 percent of kids from church homes) attend the public education system. This system threw out the Bible, prayer, and the teaching of creation years ago. Evolution and millions of years is taught as fact in the public schools. Public school textbooks arbitrarily define science to not allow the supernatural from having anything to do with the universe but insist the universe came about only by natural processes: naturalism is atheism.

The point is, if America is falling behind in science education, how could it be the result of a place like the Creation Museum, the only major such museum of its kind in the world (though there are a few small creationist museums)? The majority of kids are educated by the public education system, and there are numerous secular museums across the country that teach evolution and millions of years as fact. Most science programs and documentaries on secular television (e.g., Discovery Channel, History Channel, PBS, etc.) present evolution as fact over and over again. And Percy thinks biblical Christians are responsible for the nation falling behind in science education? His statement is laughable.

Afterthought:

“Be very sure of this–people never reject the Bible because they cannot understand it. They understand it too well; they understand that it condemns their own behavior; they understand that it witnesses against their own sins, and summons them to judgment. They try to believe it is false and useless, because they don’t like to believe it is true. An evil lifestyle must always raise an objection to this book. Men question the truth of Christianity because they hate the practice of it.” – J. C. Ryle


~ Rak Chazak

Too Disgusting to Merit Many Words from Me

The future of education in this country: 

http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/04/school-forces-all-girls-to-lesbian-kiss/

http://chalcedon.edu/research/articles/its-only-normal-not/

I'm not offering commentary; I'll simply say that beliefs have consequences, and when you marry yourself to someone, you can't ignore their history or their family, because you're going to be dealing with both. The same is true of political policies. You can't open the door to something without believing that all of its consequences are going to find their way inside also. If someone does, they're an idiot. Sorry if that causes offense, but peopleneed to think about things before they do it. Hopefully most readers of this article do. If some of you don't, your feelings are the least of our worries.

I'm deeply disturbed by what's going on in school as shown at the above links. I myself went to public school. I don't think I'll be able to send my children away to public school in 2025 in good conscience. And what worries me even more is that with the way the Romeike case (http://www.hslda.org/legal/cases/romeike/Romeike_CaseUpdates.asp) is going, home schooling may be illegal in the future, forcing me to choose between exposing my children to filth and depravity for 6 hours a day, or become a criminal by keeping them home.

Please share your thoughts. Especially if you are a parent of young children or someone who homeschooled.

~ Rak Chazak