Personal Life Update: Short

Just a post to inform that I'm still alive. I've never had such a full schedule before, that I've actually depended on carrying a calendar with me to make sure that I don't miss deadlines for things on any given day. I feel so very 'adult' because of it. It's a different experience, to know exactly just how much time I have--and don't have--to do anything, like studying or blogging, and I think it's helpful to keep me motivated and busy. A side effect is simply that extracurricular activity takes a back seat while I work on keeping abreast with homework assignments, so that I'll still have time to study for exams on top of it.

More to come, just no guarantees on when or where or how much. :)

~Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Rare Consistency

I joined Cross Country when I was in high school, and was pretty mediocre, at first, but the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I ran laps around my driveway (we lived on what was an old farm, so the driveway consisted of two parallel farm lanes that may have been 1/8 mile in circuit) for 20-30 minutes every/other day. It made enough of a difference that by the spring, I was in such good shape that I decided to take things up a notch. Instead of just running for time, I would time my runs and go for distance. And between the summer after 10th grade, and the end of the Fall season in 12th grade, I managed to run nearly every single day (missing a grand total of 20 or 30 days, perhaps), getting to the point where an average run could easily be a 4-mile or 6-mile jog with the mile-splits between 7:00 and 6:20 minutes. I loved the energy I had as a result, and I want to get back to that. It's only been about 8 years since I fell off my hardcore "run every day" routine, but it looks like I'm finally getting back to it.

Following is a record of my runs (longer than 1 mile at a time -- seriously, if your heart rate isn't at target for more than 5 minutes, it's not worth keeping track of), where splits are separated by commas, and stretches with a walk in between are separated by a colon.

Wednesday, July 29: Run 0520 @ 7:20,7:55,9:35  ; 8:35 Friday, July 31: Run 0525 @ 7:50,8:10,9:30  ; 8:10

Tuesday, August 4: 1mi @ 8:10
Wednesday, August 5: Run 0555 @ 7:52,8:12,9:16  ; 8:15 . Thursday, Aug 6: Run @ 7:45,8:07,9:21 ; 7:52 Friday, Aug 7: Run @ 8:05,8:30,9:45 ; 7:45 Saturday, Aug 8: Run 0535 @ 7:50,7:45,8:50  ; 7:15

Did you see that? ^ I've managed to control my schedule enough that I've run each of the last 4 days in a row  -- did I mention that all of these runs are pre-dawn runs, so that I can escape horse-flies and energy-draining sunlight? I'm so excited :D

My heart rate within the first 30 seconds after any of these runs has tended to be 160 beats per minute. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's statistically normal for a strenuous workout according to the little chart at the Y.

Some things that are neat for me to note: my first miles are not stellar--but can be, as the July 29 run shows--part of this is that I've been dealing with figuring out how to avoid chafing my heel. Every day a different part of the body feels whiny, but it loosens up after 2 miles, which I find extremely gratifying -- running makes your body feel less achey? Sign me up!

Also, the standard deviations of the individual runs appear to be diminishing, meaning that my performance is getting more consistent per every individual mile, as opposed to getting really good first miles but worse later miles. Compare the 29th with today, for example. There's a 2:10 minute range for my splits on the 29th, and only 1 minute for today's 3-miler. This shows in my enthusiasm for the 4th mile on each day -- it was worse than my first mile on the day I "bit off more than I could chew," but today I had enough oomph in me to run harder on the return mile. Arguably, though, every time I push myself, it improves my ability to do the same work next time. It's just a matter of pounding the pavement, and soon enough I'll be back to breaking the 7-minute barrier without totally gassing myself.

official Phys. Exam bp: 112/70. Good, but can be better! :D. A young woman in my summer class had a blood pressure of 90/45, I kid you not. The professor explained that as long as you're not dizzy, faint, or weak, the lower the better. Such a low blood pressure (she'd been running 4 miles every day and was training for a (half?) marathon) is indicative of an extremely efficient cardiovascular system. The heart doesn't have to work as hard, and the vessels are in such good condition that there's next to zero risk of hypertension or the associated atherosclerosis/blood clots/strokes that come with high blood pressure. I don't know if I can drop down to her level, but it's something to shoot for.

That's where I am in my journey to become hard-core, once again. :)

~ Rak Chazak

I haven't died! (PLU)

Not yet, anyway. After my summer course ended, I've been reviewing various subjects from old textbooks I kept (I never resold a single book at college, figuring there could be some value in the information one day). Then, as my Fall textbooks have been arriving, I went to Staples and grabbed some non-spiral notebooks (so they'll lie flat and not have an irritating ridge in the middle), and I've been going through the early chapters, compiling and condensing the stuff I think I won't remember off the top of my head, and making neat, neat notes out of it.

My Organic Chemistry notebook was done the same way, and I was so thorough and explanatory with it that I've been using it to reteach me, to great success. Organic Chemistry 2, which I have not taken, is a required course for a Chemistry Minor, which I'm going to squeeze in to my course of study. See, because I already have a degree, I don't need to pursue the general education requirements which the program left slots open for, so I can pick other courses to take instead. And as it turns out, all that's required for a chemistry minor is to have a minimum number of courses taken at the university, and a certain number having to be upper-level (300-level and above) courses. And that number exactly matches the slots I have available in between my other classes. (The only question is whether Orgo transfers. I graduated with the class but not the lab (wasn't required), but this university has the lab and class together. It could thwart the minor objective; in that case I suppose I could just retake Orgo once again and get an unquestioned A....then I could pursue a biochemistry major part-time when I become duly employed. I kind of want to do it just to show myself that I can, and that my rocky road the first time around was because of non-academic reasons.

On the subject of not having died, I'm still a little bit skeptical of the accuracy of the blood pressure cuffs at the YMCA, but the values they're giving me are pretty consistent. The across-the-board medical consensus on what's healthy is a blood pressure of 120/80. Either number being less is a sign of above-average cardiovascular health, but higher pressure in either number indicates danger signs for heart issues. The lower number, the diastolic pressure, is the one to watch out for. It indicates the elasticity of your arteries--higher pressure, more trans and saturated fats in your cell membranes, ergo, stiffer arterial walls, meaning that the blood pressure can roughen them, exposing underlying collagen, to which platelets react, then dislodging and causing embolisms. Or not dislodging, and causing atherosclerosis.

[Here's an image] -- comparing the two pressures

The higher pressure indicates the strength of the heart--it is when the stethoscope first hears the pulse, which means that that is how much pressure your heart can generate with each contraction. It's essentially an estimate of the strength of your ventricles, which means that an abnormally high systolic pressure can indicate an enlarged heart muscle, for whatever reason. Conversely, the lower this pressure is, provided you're in visibly good health, the less effort your heart has to put in to do its job.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early enough to start a run at 5:20 a.m. I ran three miles at 7:20, 7:55, 9:35 pace, walked one, and then ran another at 8:35. Heart rate was 161 beats per minute after each segment (the 3-mile and 1-mile). That's a good baseline that I'll use to keep track of how well I'm progressing. The more you run, the better your body optimizes and the lower your resting heart rate, aerobic heart rate, systolic and diastolic arterial pressures will be.

So I was thrilled that the electronic cuff measured my pre-workout blood pressure at 110/57. When I get my physical exam later in the month, I'll find out how accurate those cuffs are.

And in the meantime, I'll keep running. Which requires me to go to bed really early. Days I sleep in are my rest days. My body and I have a two-way dialogue when it comes to exercise. :D

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Timing is Everything

I got a big envelope in the mail today.

It was from my student loan servicer. It was dated two weeks ago, and it warned me that they'd need documentation within the next two weeks to renew my Income-Based Repayment Plan. Hey, thanks for that notice! ;D

As it turned out, I had already sent documentation, so this made me a bit worried. I'd sent it quite a while ago, so hopefully it hadn't been lost or intercepted on the way. I called the number. After putting in my information, the electronic voice said that my renewal request had been received -- four days after the slow-moving envelope was sent -- and approved.

Problem solved.

Most stress can be prevented or resolved, it truly seems, simply by second-guessing what you think.

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Flying Colors

Last night as I drove home from work, "Fireflies" by Owl City became my life, for the space of about 5 minutes. 

I remember reading somewhere that Adam had a certain summer night in mind when he wrote it -- whether he was on vacation or if this was in Minnesota, I'm uncertain of, but using the context of his early music's many references to various states that he'd like to visit but never had ("Hello Seattle," "Alaska," "West Coast Friendship" etc), I suspect it was in his home state that he witnessed a swarm of fireflies one night, in the tens of thousands, somewhere in the country.

I run across fireflies on any given summer evening out by the road next to the field opposite my house. But I'd never before seen so many in one place that they resembled elaborate winter holiday decorations. Their rhythmic lighting resulted in what appeared to be waves of strobe lights undulating out from the trees on one side of the road, into the field opposite and back and forth in ways that made it look like the lights were on wires and carrying electric current.

It was really quite spectacular. If you focused on a single light source at once, you could tell that it was a bug, either stationary or slowly flying over the farm field looking for a mate. But when you scanned across the whole landscape, the simplicity of the mating call scaled upward into a much more complex, grander view that provokes you to marvel at how the simple things of earth that God has created can come together in spectacular arrangements so that the big picture of everything is so amazing that the only thing you can do is stand amazed, and give God glory.

It's reminiscent of this:

"By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Hebrews 11:3

And in a similar way, the small things make up big things. I've always been fascinated by how the macroscopic, microscopic and telescopic views of the world hang together. Ultimately, the bigger stuff has to be explained, in some way, by the smaller stuff. Economics and politics has to be explained by individual human interactions. Culture shifts have to be explained by psychology. Physiology has to be explained by cell theory. Computers have to be explained by electricity and mechanics. And on it goes. Being able to bridge the divisions between fields of study, in one's mind, does wonders for how one is able to understand the world, and marvel at the interconnected nature of reality. Perhaps that's why I'm in the field I'm in. Biology is the connection between chemistry and physiology. History is the connection between how things happened in the past, and why they are the way they are now. Philosophy is the connection between absolute revealed truth and sincere human questioning.

Rightly understood and pursued, of course.

I hope I'll have the opportunity to see a lightshow like that again, maybe with my bride.

Flying colors today doesn't only refer to the lightning bugs I stopped to stare at, but also to the fact that I checked my spring semester grades today and made straight As. And the journey continues!

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: A Student

Hooray,

Now that I've received the results for each of my first exams, I'm relieved and a little bit excited to see that I'm safely in the A grade range. Now, I don't have scholarships depending on grades, so I would really only have to get a C or more, which in one of my classes cuts off at 75% (and the A is 93%), in order to get the credit for the course.

Obviously I'm not shooting for the worst allowable performance, but knowing I'm safely far above this removes a lot of the temptation to be stressed out. I have a buffer, and so long as I keep doing well, it'll increase in strength, allowing me to be more and more singularly focused on actually comprehending the material, rather than distracted by concerns about the consequences of missing something important.

I've been in both positions before. In high school, I enjoyed the consistency of the classwork routine; everything stayed fresh in my head and I never fell behind with whatever material I needed to learn. In college, the self-pacing that was necessary was at first difficult to deal with, but toward the end I managed to impose the helpful rigidity on myself, and figured out ways that were effective in mitigating distractions. Now that I'm finished with that degree, my slate of grades is wiped clean, and I can start fresh and be a high achiever once again, both on paper as well as in my inner thought life.

I'm uncertain, but if I'm compared to another student, when it comes to the Uni course I'm gunning for in the Fall, and we have the same standing in terms of our courses, perhaps a better grade in the prerequisites would factor into the computer algorithm and preferentially give me the contested seat in the class.

I feel very content with the trajectory I'm on. I believe the restlessness with my financial and domestic situation will stay with me until I finally attain a 'self-reliant' income and have the freedom to begin making longer-term life plans. I welcome it as a source of continual motivation to not get too relaxed, even when things feel good. There's always work to be done. Whatever I do now is potentially blessing me in the future. No effort is truly wasted. And so I'm seeking to make the best of everything as I keep running this race.


~ Rak Chazak

But the Wise Shall Understand

I hadn't sent donations to Christian ministries before this year, simply because I hadn't had access to any significant amount of "spare" money (if you can call it that). Because of that, I hadn't ever gotten any exposure to the special efforts of charitable organizations to interact with those who rise above 'garden-variety consumer' of the goods they produce to sustain themselves. Now I have, and it's been interesting to gain that insight.

As I had mentioned here, I bought three orders of the 100-ct. bulk purchase of The Biggest Question with the intent of making their easy availability to me (I've stowed most in my car) an aid in the event of obvious tracting opportunities--can't give what you don't have, and in the absence of following up a conversation, a tangible message left behind is a way to hopefully leave a stronger impression on someone after a witnessing encounter.

This was apparently a big enough single expense to draw the attention of the team. Trish Ramos, who I can only assume donates her time to Wretched, seems to have had the responsibility of calling to thank donors at the end of 2014. I was surprised to get a voicemail that was very clearly individually sent, since I was addressed by name.

As a follow-up to the thank-you and a "please let us know if you're interested in further supporting the ministry or handing out DVDs," she sent a text with a few links n' things. At the bottom was a verse reference I didn't immediately recognize, so I was compelled to look it up.

Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.Daniel 12:10

It would seem a rather obscure quote, especially when you look at its immediate context. It's in the prophecy to Daniel about the Great Tribulation. So its immediate meaning is that it concerns a distinction between the 'wise' and the 'wicked' as demonstrated (through 'trial') in that time period.

But while that is the focus of the text, that's not the limit of it. There's a cool word called perspicuity, which in Biblical theology refers to the fact that a passage can be understood on many different levels, based on your intellect and background knowledge, without there being contradiction. A child can understand that Genesis 6-8 tells that the whole earth was covered in water by a global flood that destroyed all of humanity but 8 people. Andrew Snelling can understand it, too, he just has a much more in-depth appreciation of some of its significance because of his technical aptitude. The perspicuity of Scripture is the doctrine that says that the plain truth is understandable to everyone.

At the same time, that means that, while Scripture cannot simply be twisted to mean whatever someone wants it to say, it is often the case that one single-sentence statement of truth can mean multiple things simultaneously.

Daniel 12:10 is focused primarily on the difference between the wise and wicked, so that tells me that there is a comparison between the two that is not limited to the Tribulation period but extends throughout history. Simply put, when Biblical truth is concerned, the wicked will not understand it, but the wise will. And who are the wise? Those who are purified. Who are purified? Those who are saved by grace through Christ's atoning sacrifice. Who are those? Truly converted Christians.

While I pondered this, the reason for Trish's inclusion of just that verse began to settle out in my mind. The wicked won't understand what value there is in buying some DVDs to hand out for free to people who are quite happy living their lives without being harassed by annoying Christian fundamentalists. The wise person recognizes that there's nothing on earth more valuable than the message these DVDs contain, so that it's not about the purchase itself, but what the concern says about the wise man's heart: promoting the spread of this Gospel is the most worthwhile endeavor there is to be concerned with, and his preoccupation with pursuing the amplification of that message throughout the world and in his community and in his life shows that he is wise.

The wise shall understand. I understand why Wretched's The Biggest Question project is something worth supporting. Do you have a similar depth of understanding when it comes to why you support, promote, or ignore various community projects, organizations and movements that you witness in your life?

'Something to think about.
~ Rak Chazak

Adultification IV: Student Loan Borrowing Limits

Following my learning process via Adultification II, III and the last Personal Life Update (PLU), the next thing I touched on when I called up the university financial aid office was the question of whether the loans would cover enough of the tuition and fees so that I wouldn't be on the hook for it.

So far, my loans have been all of one sort, the Stafford loan given by the US Department of Education.

When it comes to student loans, loans held by the government are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, in contrast to private loans which are, but also unlike private loans, the terms of repayment tend to be somewhat more forgiving: you won't be required to begin repayment while you are taking courses full-time, and if your loans are subsidized, they won't even accrue interest during that time. Further, if you are too poor to pay back your loans according to the standard repayment plan (like me, with the IBR plan), you can be eligible to have your loans deferred even further based on your income. Beyond this, the government wields influence and leverage in terms of offering incentives--if you go into teaching or other public-sector careers, you can have your loans deferred, decreased, or even 'forgiven' outright. And in the worst case scenario of all, if 25 years from the date repayment was supposed to start, if you haven't paid it back, your debts are cancelled. But who wants to waste 30-some-odd years of their life just waiting for debt cancellation?

There are other federal student loans, such as the Perkins loans, and I suppose there are still others. Each kind of loan has a maximum school-year disbursement amount as well as a maximum loan ceiling. For the Stafford, the loan ceiling is $31,000 for dependent students. That happens to be almost exactly how much my total debt is as of right now.

Conveniently, the FAFSA considers you an independent when you are 24 or above. The loan limit for independents is something like $20,000 more, which would easily cover 2 years of university in-state. So it turns out that having been uncertain about what to do with myself for a little over a year had its perks.

Per-year, the Stafford loans pay out $12,000 as the maximum limit. Most in-state schools where I live don't have more than $9,000/year expenses in terms of tuition and fees. So I'm covered.

After this, the question is: can I also get need-based grants, because of my income status? And will whatever I have saved up by the Fall be enough to cover course textbooks, food, gas and insurance for 2 years while I try to figure out how to live without paying rent I can't afford?

The journey continues.

~ Rak Chazak

Adultification III: Taxes and Deductions

I've figured it out a little more.

Last year, when I filed for the first time (to my understanding I hadn't been required to file previously because I'd been a full time student and made less than some threshold amount of money--though because I didn't think about it, I would essentially have been giving free money away to the government, sadly), I got every cent of income tax back, both from the federal government and my state government.

What that led to was my mistaken understanding that the standard deduction was a maximum value on the amount of money you would automatically get back in taxes from the government. Say you make $10,000 in one year, and your standard deduction is $3,000. State and federal taxes add up to about 30% altogether, so because the deduction is higher than the amount of income tax that was deducted from your W-2, you get all of it back.

That was incorrect, and I learned how it actually works, this time around.

When the online preparation software I was using didn't automatically tabulate my full amount of income tax as the refund I was supposed to be getting, I was confused and concerned that because I'd initially said I wanted to itemize deductions, that I'd messed up the software and it wasn't giving me the right numbers. It was in the process of actually going through the previewable 1040 that the software provided for me, that I understood how it was all being calculated.

Now I know that neither the 'standard deduction' nor the 'student loan interest rate deduction' are gratis cash-back maximum allowances. Instead, they are subtracted from your gross income, and then taxes are calculated based on that new number (the AGI, or Adjusted Gross Income). The difference between these taxes and the taxes you actually paid is refunded to you.

Chances are I'm still somewhat ignorant, but at least there's been progress. :)

So the reason I got all my income tax back last year wasn't because the standard deduction was higher than my income tax -- it was because the standard deduction was higher than my gross income! That meant that my AGI, the taxable income I earned, went to $0, and hence I owed no income tax.

Yeah, I didn't make a lot of money last year. That's mainly because I didn't start working until August, so I accrued a little less than a half year's wages altogether.

So if you have student loan interest to pay, just understand: it's not the case that you get every dollar of it that you pay, back. That was what I mistakenly thought for a while (something seemed off). But it will reduce the amount of your income that gets taxed, leading to a larger refund. So if you can afford to pay your loan interest, go ahead. But it's not free money you're getting back; you are still paying money, net-wise.

Hope this was helpful or entertaining, depending on where you fall on the spectrum of understanding taxes.

~ Rak Chazak

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 Dekadius Workout

Using the metric system's prefix for 10 and the Latin word for 'day,' that's the name for a new plan I figured out for "total body transformation." Its strengths are that it starts off very slowly and lazily, intentionally, to make it easier to create the routine and not fall off the rails immediately and forget about it, and also that it requires minimal use of equipment. The only stuff I'll be using are my bed, the floor, the ground, a pullup-bar contraption that hangs in a doorframe (also used for pushups) and two ten-pound dumbbells. 

I increment the intensity of every muscle group and movement that I've added, every 10 days, as well as adding a new one. Initially it's just 20 situps, then 10 pushups, and so forth, but by the end of June I'll be doing 3 sets of 100 situps (which I know to be possible only because I've done this before, back when I was 17), and 5 sets of 40 pushups, and so on.

It's going to yield massive results, if I only keep to the one central thing that will make the whole plan work: consistency. Skipping days will make it incredibly difficult to catch back up, but as long as I'm determined, the exercises are incremented so gradually that there's really no risk of soreness or stress injuries from the exercise, even when it gets really intense.

Feel free to follow along (or just compare yourself for fun). After the jump, I've posted my plan. 

Personal Life Update: Sankta Lucia

Journal Entry, Monday December 15, 2014

         Sankta Lucia party _______ with the Swedish families

[Blondie] didn’t come this time; she’s still in CA and according to [German] her brother, doing very well for herself. She’d be coming up later for Tradition Day (my epithet for “christmas” nowadays). Their mom [EyeShadow] was there, too, but we didn’t talk all too much. I jotted notes down before bed last night (tonight?) to avoid forgetting details like names. [Snowball] was the shorter, oldest woman there, who it sounded like she said had been the one who started the Lucia get-together 15 (or 25?) years ago. She’s 80something, with a narcissistic (her word—to [Swede], who told us in the car going home) 50y.o. son for whom she has been paying rent in order to get him to move out of her house and stay out. I didn’t talk to [German] super much but I pointed out a key-fiddle on the wall in one of the rooms and noted that it features in Nordman music, and he was interested in song suggestions. At the dinner, [Bruno] and I talked with about 4-5 other older women, and the only one who was not Swedish, I think, was [Smiley], a [someone's mom from high school] lookalike who was very cute for what I’m assuming must be an early or mid-40s woman, since she referenced having a 15-year-old son (see below). Her husband’s name is [Smilie], and she made reference to him starting up a company 1½  years ago to comment that just having a degree, though I don’t have much more on paper to impress with, was noteworthy because it showed you’re smart and dedicated enough to persist until you learn something. She’s a [career] of some sort, and listened to [Bruno] explain his career track hopes: [redacted] She laughed at how he relayed that the [women coworkers] treat him, some joking that they could be his mother, and others straight up being mischevious (he had another time used the word “lecherous” to describe them to me, but I forget what word he used yesterday). After that point, she complimented both him and I that we were confident in speaking with older women, and that that was somewhat unique and a good thing. I can’t remember exactly how she put it, but she did use the word confident to describe us, as I parsed that phrase above. That was encouraging. In a text to [college friend] after coming home, I contemplated that her personal experience with young men perhaps not being comfortable speaking with older women could be in part due to her being sexually intimidating, more than just merely older. On the other hand, maybe [Bruno] and I are unique, as she suggested herself, because of [redacted] . I speculated further in the text I mentioned, that maybe young adult males in this culture have difficulty interacting with both pretty and ugly, both young and old women, for different but connected reasons, because of pornography consumption—that they are mentally conditioned so that it’s hard for them to relate to women in any way other than sexually. This was naturally not included in the table talk, but her delightfulness again brought to mind the same feeling I recognized in Fall 2012 and have written about a few other times, such as in my Plato’s Forms blog post—that something I see in her is appealing, and I know better than to think that I’m romantically attracted to her personally; instead, her engaging personality represents that which is my ideal that I desire: an attractive, elegant, intelligent, wise, motherly, mature, feminine woman who’s easy to communicate with and who I can relish in the joy of being united with at all stages of our lives together, both when young and when middle aged and when old. Rounding out the text, I speculated that if more people could recognize the difference between these feelings being inspired by someone, and having feelings for that person, that there would be a lot less adultery in the world. Right about when we left, and said goodbye to [Smiley], another lady  asked if we were her sons, to which she laughed and, patting [Bruno] on the shoulder, said ‘thanks for the compliment.’ And followed it by saying, “I do have a 15 year old son,” compounding the flattery by implying we, or at least he, looked youthful as a teenager. But the last people we talked to were [Green] and her daughter [Attila] , who it turned out [Bruno] had met and posed for a photograph with a few years ago (I only went to the event last year for the first time, because I’d been at college otherwise). She and he made grimacing furrowed-eye gestures at each other, and it amused me to note that the little girl’s forehead (she was 8) was nearly expressionless, having no forehead wrinkles to speak of. Having a number of fine lines there myself when I gesticulate with my eyebrows, it had not occurred to me that they’re a subtle sign of my age. She’d been dancing ballet since she was 2, and like most kids between 4 and 9, connected really well with [Bruno], whether she remembered having met him before or not. She impressed us by spontaneously offering to pronounce deoxyribonucleic acid perfectly, and I told her mom, who was holding her at that point, “encourage that.” [Green] said that it was nice that there was someone here [Attila] could connect with, indicating [Bruno] , and I affirmed that by philosophically stating that I think we can bridge the gap between youth and adulthood, and encourage young children to mature by, for lack of a better word, being a model of what growing up looks like. I told her the story of my Boy Scout experience, where the incorporation of a satirical fantasy written by another boy my age to deal with his difficulty taking directions from me became a sort of local mythology that allowed the younger boys (11-13) to be entertained without making a joke out of everything, and actually seemed to help them discipline themselves and be more receptive to what I would tell them as the SPL (Senior Patrol Leader). [Green] was impressed, and I said that in our position, [Bruno] and I are able to figuratively give a hand-up to those younger than us, to spur them on toward maturity/adulthood, but we’re getting on in age, so we’re doing the best we can, but soon we’ll be “pure adults”—though that wouldn’t stop us from trying to influence kids positively! In the car on the way home, [Swede] explained that [Green] had just gotten full custody over [Attila] , after having put her in school in Sweden for less than a year, but that having been interpreted as running away with the child, and leading to a prolonged custody dispute with an unreliable ex husband. [Swede] had gone in to be a (character?) witness for her in court, while that was happening. Apparently, the ex had amassed $65,000 in back taxes over many years, but did not own his house or cars, instead rented them, so that they could not be repossessed, indicating that this was a preplanned scheme, and before the divorce, [Green] had been advised to file ‘married filing separately,’ to avoid getting dragged into the financial ridiculousness that her apparently grotesquely narcissistic ex was creating. When the same judge who had judged the divorce finally judged the custody dispute, because of the ex’s known unreliability, he or she had awarded [Green] full custody.

It's weird to go hang out with mid-and-upper middle-class folks, being from the lower middle class myself. But hey, experiencing diversity and culture and stuff, that's good, right? Plus a little bit of immersion in a part of my heritage is bound to be beneficial somehow.

~ Rak Chazak

Random further reading:

http://welcometosweden.blogspot.com/2009/03/moving-to-sweden-public-holidays.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Lucy%27s_Day

Adultification II: Loan Repayment (IBR) and Capitalization of Interest

I had a lot of assumptions about how money, interest, payments, etc were handled, and they were all slightly incorrect in one way or another. Here's my voyage of error and education.

First, my loans entered repayment 6 months after graduation, which was roughly December 2013. I believe I was previously aware of the possibility of gaining what's called "forbearance" on loans, (probably from a phone call to the loan servicer before the repayment period began) which allows you to pay less, or wait to pay, while you are in a difficult financial situation.

The standard repayment option for my student loans owed to the Department of Education was $350/mo. The interest alone is $170, roughly. But under the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) option, I'm allowed to pay nothing, so long as my yearly income is less than my total debt. On minimum wage, that's a given.

In the mean time, I had asked for the loans to be placed on "administrative forbearance," where I wouldn't get penalized for not making payments, but I had to still make an official IBR plan request. I got around to this by July of this year. Nevertheless, I was tantalized by the idea of getting an income tax refund for the interest I paid to the loans, so I set about to mail checks to pay the interest during that time period anyway.

And last month, when I set about to calculate how much I was paying of interest and principal, I found some upsetting numbers.

On not a single month was the full amount of the accrued interest paid! And tallying up the total interest paid, I calculated that a full half of the money I'd sent had gone to principal, rather than the interest on every loan group, which I'd specifically requested in the special payment instructions. (I had sent a little more each month, to go to the principal on the loan group with the highest interest rate, but not nearly half of each check) What was going on?!

This was my mistake. I had made three false assumptions.

1. That interest was capitalized monthly. (Capitalization is when interest gets added to principal, which is what is used to calculate how much interest you'll 'earn' on subsequent statements) Perhaps it's different for different loans, but if I understood my call-center lady correctly, the IBR plan never capitalizes interest, but keeps it separate from principal, for as long as you remain on the plan and as long as you don't "reallocate" the interest/principal.
2. That interest accrued monthly. I knew that the interest rate was a yearly rate, but I had not considered that the loan holder calculated additions to the interest on a daily basis. That's why, when I mailed my checks ahead of the due date, the full amount of interest shown on the statements had not accrued yet, so I was sending them more money than there was interest, and the remainder was being put to principal.
3. That the payments I mailed would be deposited on the due date. See above. Payments received were applied on the same day, and if I had wanted it differently, I should have made payments over the phone or via the internet.

And further, something I was unaware of, that really threw me off: After my IBR request went through, the Department of Education got rid of--not paid, but simply erased--any interest that had accrued up to that point on every loan, as of the August statement. Considering that I had been paying interest all along, this didn't accomplish much, except to make my entire next deposit go completely to principal. That really threw me for a loop.

Despite all of these explanations, there was still unpaid interest for nearly every month except one, according to my loan adviser girl. Neither of us had a clue why that was so. Payments for one month could not be moved to another month, but she told me that she could put in a "reallocation request," to move principal for each month to pay the remaining unpaid interest for said month. August would seem to be the odd man out.

As the principal gets reallocated, that would raise the loan balance, thus raising the amount of interest that accrues each month, and so on and so forth. This has the consequence of making the loans more expensive in the long term, especially in the event that I don't make interest payments. But the whole incentive for me to make these large payments was because it is only interest that can be tax-deducted in 2015, not the principal. That money would be money I gave away, not to get back. I was paying down interest with the expectation that it was money I was going to get back, so in other words I was essentially not spending any money, all I would have to do is wait until April 2015 to have those funds available again.

And now that that's resolved, I should soon be able to log in to see what the final count of my paid principal and interest is, online, and I'll definitely keep myself to electronic payments in the future to avoid possible fiascos. The daily accruing interest will be higher as a result of this reallocation, but I'll be able to get the maximum amount of money back from the Feds that I intended.

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Of the Making of Many Books There is No End

My reading of that verse in Ecclesiastes 12:12 is that the process of recording, preserving, and transmitting information is an endless task. It appears to be connected to learning, since the following verse says "much study wearies the body." For me, I read lots of articles online, which by virtue of their content is like a topical chapter-of-the-day consumption of the literature that is often referenced, but I also take what I learn and try to process it so that it's understandable to the point where I can explain it to others. If something doesn't make sense in a big-picture sense, to me, I try to comprehend it until it does. I have an upcoming "Adultification" post about just one such thing.

How does 'making books' apply to me? Well, I'm not writing bound textbooks, but a lot of what I've written on this blog is repurposed high-level technical, philosophical or theological works, with a sizeable amount of my own contribution--expanding upon the wisdom gained, and drawing further conclusions. You could consider it "derived knowledge," in the same way that many mathematical equations are derived from other equations. An increase in knowledge without any additional input, as it's all the result of internal mental processing of the information that is already possessed.

That's why there is no end to the making of many books. Not only because new information is continually gained, but for each individual, you can indefinitely expand upon the knowledge you have, in order to gain new knowledge from the processing of that information.

It's a bit like how experimental studies yield data, multiple data sets give you the ability to arrange them in statistical relations, and the interpretation of these statistics give you insight into what is going on on the experimental level, and opens new doors for asking the right questions to gain greater knowledge about the subject.

Enough rambling. Suffice it to say, there's so much stuff for me to work on, be it personal professional development or private economics, or fulfilling my backlog of ideas for posting subjects on this blog. It's a challenge to not disproportionately spend time blogging rather than "living life," while at the same time making progress on the goals I have in mind for "completing" the blog's purpose.

I'm going to try to take a few days over the coming holiday season to work through some of this backlog and produce good-quality content and make progress. What is it that Ecclesiastes says, after all? "There is nothing better for a man than that he should enjoy the fruit of his labor." Ecclesiastes 2:24

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Car Trouble Revisited, and what I've been doing instead of blogging

Blitz upload, let's go:

1. My "big, slow and ugly" recently started making scary noises. Those scary noises were diagnosed to be chunks broken off from the catalytic converter, which had gotten stuck in the muffler. Hence, the symptoms weren't associated with either steering, braking, shifting or accelerating, consistently. They rattle at random based on the exhaust movement, and sound like metal scraping on the ground behind the car, but are functionally harmless, and the car's driving is hardly affected.

2. More important is the back tires, which I learned from an older man at church that the reason the tire guys were able to tell me they needed replacement in under two seconds, was because there's this neat little thing called a "wear indicator" in between the treads. Much like how you aim a gun with iron sights by lining up the ball at the tip of the muzzle with the two bars by the action, the wear indicator will show you that you need to replace the tires when the treads get worn down to an equal height with that rubber strip.

3. A lot of the time when a long time goes between blog posts, it's because I play video games in the morning instead of visiting the library. Or I take my day off to work on a project instead of sitting at a wifi location all day like I'm doing today. However, the dead periods in January were because I was walking 5 miles back and forth to work because I didn't have the car yet at that point.

4. This last week, though, I decided to have a little fun and delve into some dating sites, not completely seriously, but to see what was out there and mainly because I was starved for human interaction. My coworkers at Fast Food Chain don't make for intelligent conversation. On a related note, I've learned a lot of ebonics, such as the proper application and definition of the words "ratchet," "bae," "turnt up," "wuz good," "real talk," "right though," and I've learned that there aren't wives any more, just "baby mammas."

5. Now that I'm done with that little investigation, I've gotten someone to talk to and intend to pursue making friends. It's interesting, all the very good friends I have from college I met online first. This really isn't that out of the ordinary, then, for me. It's just more fun because it began expressedly under the auspices of looking for someone to be in a relationship. This is hardly to suggest that I'm manipulating the poor lady, everything I do is very real. It's just that every part of life is an adventure for me. It's thrilling to see where it goes.

And in other news, today I got some information with regard to what I'm considering in terms of career advancement, and plan to be making some phone calls in the coming week. A deacon at church asked me to meet with him a day or two ago, since I hadn't been to 'sunday school' (not the word the church uses but the essence of it) for a couple of weeks, and he's offered to help hook me up with other folks who can give career advice, and for that matter, cheaper tires. Church is really intended to be a family. It's pretty neat what you can benefit from just by being connected.

And life goes on.

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: A Promising View

On account of the fact that my internet-warrior phase left me with an unknown amount of enemies in unknown places, it's uncertain just where I would cause more harm than good to my future career prospects, if I go poking my head in. It's safer to lay low and try to avoid asking for help around my university. I already know that there are several faculty members there with the demonstrated intention to shoot down any such effort on my part, if they can help it.

So I can't, or rather, out of an effort to be wise, won't be giving out information regarding where I will be trying to solicit aid, or what field or what career path I'm considering. Nothing like that. I may reveal what I've done after I've been established somewhere. But I know better than to let myself be vulnerable, unnecessarily.

So all I'll say is that I've been able to have a conversation with somebody who was pleased enough with my knowledge of material and generous enough of themselves that they'd be willing to help me get the necessary things done to get a foothold in their workplace, or a workplace like theirs. And it is hopeful to me, because of its close relevance to the exact subject matter I studied just before graduation. An opportunity to use my degree has presented itself. It will take persistence and a number of phone calls to get started. But talking has never been all too difficult for me. :)

It'll take time, whatever happens, for me to get installed with a secure job where I'm now looking to do so. But the gears are set in motion. And it's giving me a more uplifted mood when I'm at work in ye olde fast food restaurant.

Now I have a vision. A hopeful goal to attain to. And as long as I keep the right perspective and don't neglect to pray and trust alone in God and not my own aptitude, I know that whatever the outcome, it will be the very best and at just the right time in His judgment.

The adventure continues.

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Discipline

I'm thrilled to pieces over the fact that for three days running, I have gotten up before sunrise and run at least one mile. My fastest time was on the first day, (7.35/mi.) whereas yesterday and today (8.45), I've done worse, probably because of soreness and tiredness from the sudden restart of a routine that I haven't trained myself to do in a very long time. If I can keep up the consistency, then I should be able to improve by leaps and bounds over the coming week or two, and after that, it'll keep getting easier.

I'm really strongly motivated to once and for all get back to my high-school habit of running every single day. I have stellar cardiovascular health as of now (120/70 blood pressure and 64 bpm resting HR), but my pulmonary and muscular endurance is embarrassing. I shouldn't be out of breath after one mile, when I could run 3 miles straight at a minute's faster pace at the age of 17 and not be as winded. I'm not running for Calorie loss, as I've noticed it's become popular to do: increasing and decreasing your speed to keep your body from becoming more energy efficient, so you burn more fat. No, I'm running to build up my long-distance endurance. I want to be able to run 15 miles at a 6:30-minute-mile average clip and feel relaxed and rejuvenated at the end. I once had that. After incorporating situps into my daily routine, I almost never experienced abdominal cramps again, and I have never had chronic pain in my knees or ankles or shins.

I want to experience that again. And the physical benefits will of a certainty accompany the exercise, because a 6-mile run will burn 500+ Calories without having to gimmick your muscles into utilizing glycogen stores, as the heady modern technical body-sculpting think-tanks now recommend.

I have a suspicion that my idle time outside of work is given to me in this period of my life to allow me to work hard at becoming a better man: to train in matters of fiscal responsibility, time management, physical fitness, practical theology, developing a disciplined routine, and accomplishing the task of "completing" this blog so that I will have no concern that I "missed something" by the time I become de facto disqualified from writing as a single man.

So there's four big areas in which I'm striving to apply and strengthen discipline:

• In a daily routine, to ensure that I go to bed early enough to be able to wake before sunrise.
• In a fitness regimen, to become outwardly the man a wife deserves, and for many more reasons.
• In career searching, to minimize the time spent in a rut, living at home.
• In writing, to deny the time outside of work to be wasted, so that my sojourn in economic dependence can not be said to have been a wasted period of my life. To complete the purpose of the blog, so that I can mentally move on to the next phase of my life's adventure.

And it's a daily choice to work at it. So far, I've made it 3 steps without stumbling. I'm encouraged by the thought of what I can accomplish with my hands (and feet! :) ) over a longer period of time, if I do not grow weary in being diligent with the time I'm given.

Time, after all, is a gift from God. Rather than see it as a curse (loneliness, prolonged debt), I will see it as a blessing (time to improve myself in other areas, and to reach out through this medium to glorify Him in the intervening time).

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: I Give It A Year

In the upcoming week, I'll pass the milestone of having worked one year at my present workplace. It's an opportunity for reflection. I'm doing a fair job of saving my money, although the income is so small at minimum wage that it's hardly getting anywhere. This stagnation is giving me motivation to pursue change. I figured I'd give myself one year to see what I can accomplish, no matter how effectively or ineffectively I job-search, before I decide to take Desperate Action. The one thing that would keep me in my hometown past a year from now would be if I rise to a manager position where I currently am, or get some other job, that pays $30,000/year or more. If that can't be accomplished, why be a bottom-feeder here if I can just as well be a bottom-feeder where I'd prefer to live? So, I would move. Live in my car and start over in exactly the same place, in some other place.

I was interrupted as I wrote this (by myself), when the woman across the table from me in the library finished creating her schedule. She's a manager at a different restaurant farther up town, and she suggested to me that her company promotes more actively from crewmembers than the one I'm presently at. Seeing as my second 6-month evaluation period is about to pass, if I'm not given a hearty title promotion and a glowing recommendation, what would motivate me to remain? I would remain amicable with the general manager, and I know they'd still appreciate me being able to cover positions for people who call out and when shifts are short-staffed, but it wouldn't hurt to make my primary workplace into something different. An added benefit to this is that with more exposure to different bosses, I would theoretically have a better chance at getting a good recommendation letter for non-food-related work, in the event that a manager who does think I'm a good worker is nevertheless lazy, or their personality is unwilling to help, or if they aren't a good writer.

So it sounds like it wouldn't hurt to apply at this other location.

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Books, Letters, DVDs and Hands

Books
One of my friends has a habit of sending me stuff. Sometimes I'm not sure if all her asking me for my opinion on things over text is more for her benefit or for mine, but mailing me books she's read can only be a one-way gift. Very kind of her, since whereas she has more resources at her disposal, I don't think either of us is necessarily in a position to spend lots of money buying all the books we want to read. She's nevertheless decided to start somewhere. Last fall, she sent me a book which did a great deal to help me understand the nature of political persecution far better than I had up until that point. Before then, I'd had trouble visualizing it, and could only think of it in terms of being a totally free society or a totally persecuted society, down to the micro level. The differences described between the various Eastern European communist countries of the 1950s and 60s (when the book takes place) were an eye opener. It was called God's Smuggler, and was the story of the founder of Open Doors USA.

More recently, she sent me a copy of a collection of Spurgeon sermons entitled Spurgeon's Calvinism, to show that he certainly affirmed those doctrines totally.

Speaking of Mbewe, it wasn't until I read a Wretched newsletter that had his name written that I realized it wasn't "Conrad and Beway." I had been continually confused whenever Todd Friel mentioned speakers at upcoming conferences and he seemed to be cryptically referring to what could be a Siamese Twin who happened to both be thelogians. Glad to have that cleared up.

Letters
I'm spending a lot of my spare time in the evenings before bed, when it's too hot to lay down on the sheets, writing letters. And recently I had the idea to, lest I swamp my friends with too much stationery, write the occasional letter to my wife, to practice thinking about her as a real person and not a fantasy.

DVDs
I finally did it. I had recently bought 300 The Biggest Question's from Wretched and went to my town's fairgrounds for July 4th to hand some out. I took 200 with me in my pockets and a bag on my back, but I didn't pass out nearly that many. I did, however, get 44 into the hands of a wide assortment of people--it was far easier once I began targeting people sitting in groups on lawnchairs. I initially had the pre-start jitters, so I didn't hand any out in the first hour, despite walking around. When I finally stumbled upon the suggestion "you don't like free stuff, do you?", I was able to get comfortable approaching people in a conversational manner. I'm glad for the opportunity to, to be honest, practice giving out tracts. Like with exercise, it's hard to get up and go, but when you've done it, you feel satisfied--generally. And like with exercise, you get better and better at it with continual training. And no matter how awkward it feels or how lackluster you think your performance was, if you steeped yourself in prayer before and after, then you can be confident God will have worked through you to serve His ends no matter what--you can't save anybody. That takes the pressure off of you, and you can enjoy the experience of being obedient and exercising your faith. I'll be looking for other opportunities to do this, again. Maybe it will be easier if I bring another person with me the next time. Who knows? Now is my season to strike out, experiment and get used to witnessing so that I can hone whatever gifts God has given me relevant to this endeavor, to be more effective (insofar as any of it depends on me) in the future.

Hands
I had an appointment at a dermatology associate somethingorother, and the attractive, intelligent and kind physician's assistant confirmed my primary care doctor's suspicion that I've got a form of eczema on and between my fingers, one more than others. So now I'll be getting some prescription-strength topical steroids to deal with it, in addition to the 'intensive care repair Vaseline' I've been applying at night. I'll talk about this in another entry, surely. After all, this blog does exist to be a chronicle of my life's journey, sort of; the things that happen to me are as important as my detached thoughts about things, because both have a role in affecting how I develop as a person and in terms of my character, who I become.

And the summer continues!

~ Rak Chazak