Another exciting thing happened a couple days ago: I completely finished a crossword puzzle. It wasn’t all me, Justin and dad helped me some.

This morning in the car I heard the ad on the radio where this lady comes on and says, “Hi, I’m Trish so-and-so, VP of Romance at Match.com. Imagine that, a VP of Romance. Come on.

I’m all excited now because I just saw this paper that my uncle (who is a carpenter) brought me showing the work of a real, live engineer. Couldn’t hardly believe it, he performed all his calculations right there in ink (or lead). I always love evidence that real engineers really do crunch hard numbers.

It's amazing how life winds and turns. When you are younger, you really have no clue about what you're getting yourself into, and where you begin and where you end up are so far from what you could ever imagine. At least that’s how it’s been for me.

I remember, when considering what I might go to college for, thinking that Statistics would be cool because I like math and numbers. In my mind, someone who majored in Statistics might sit courtside at basketball games.

I entered college not really knowing what I wanted to do. After a term, I went to Bible School. When I came back I made my first major career change of direction: I looked into and decided upon Industrial Engineering as a major.

I stuck with that for years, in fact that's still where I am. I've struggled with the decision some, more so as I've gotten more familiar with IE's and what they do. I love a challenge, I love nasty math, I love technical material. But a lot of what IE's learn at this level is not very technical and not very mathematical. But there are a few areas--such as Statistical Process Control--where I could take haven in the numbers.

So, MECOP (the Engineering college's CO-OP program) didn't work out, and as an undergrad that left me on my own to find a job. You've just got to have industry experience to have a good chance of landing a job post-graduation.

Dr. Jensen stepped in and told me he'd help me out, use some of his contacts in Iowa to see if he could get me something. You know about that, I've been sniffing around, wondering if he was going to come through, trying to make some contacts on my own.

During the Fall Term a couple things happened, both which had direct bearing on the direction of my life.

The first was my decision not to go to SMBI. This was probably the most excruciating decision of my life. The decision itself, once I laid it out plain, wasn't that hard. It was pretty clear what I should do. But it was excruciating because I had been planning to do this for more than a year. My dear cousin was going to be there, we had all these glorious plans of going together. What's more, back when I made the decision to go, I was convinced that it was God's leading. But I think it was of God that I didn't go, I think he directed me away from going for whatever reason. Which is sort of comforting.

The other thing that happened during the fall is proving to be pivotal in determining the path of my career. I talked to a PHD student that was serving as a TA for one of my classes and I mentioned that I was interested in Operations Research. He suggested that I talk to a certain professor over in the Stats department. That put me in the position to, for the first time, consider grad school.

Dude, I'm going to grad school. It's not really a question anymore. God could still change something, make it clear that it's the wrong thing to do, but it doesn't look like it at this point. And what's more, one of my majors (should I go to OSU) would be in the stats department, which connects back to my young, dreamy days.

And it's strange, now that I've pretty much made that decision, life as an undergrad IE doesn't look all that appealing, especially when stacked up against the type of stuff I'll learn and do as a Graduate IE/OR person.

And then--and this is the latest news regarding interships and such--an opportunity to do some paid undergraduate research is looking like it has fallen into my lap. Amazing.

If I were going to be looking for a job upon graduating, an industrial internship would be the priority. But with grad school in the plans, it makes sense to take the research opportunity.

Life changes, it’s crazy.

Exciting, that’s what it is.

Overheard on campus.

"...I can't do as badly as I did on the first test. I got an 18."

"Percent?"

"Yep."

On Wednesday, January 14, I said:

"Something very wonderful happened today...

"I'll let you know what happened soon."

First of all, I'm going to Grad School. It's not written in stone, but I've been considering it strongly for some time now, and I think it's going to happen.

Second of all--and strongly connected with the first--I'm going to be involved in an Undergraduate research project with another student and a professor that will begin very shortly and last for probably about a year. This is exciting, because it is directly related to my area of interest, which is Operations Research (with Stats thrown in for good measure).

It's interesting, because this summer won't be a monetary landfall by any stretch, with the pay for this job being low. Particularly compared to an industrial internship, it's very low. This process has led me to evaluate how much money motivates me, and it motivates me more than I'd like.

The thought of being paid $17/hour in an internship is very appealing, and the fact that I won't make half that working this summer took some of the excitement out of me.

But the fact is I'm going to be home this summer (a good thing, although it would have been fun to strike out on my own for a few months), I'm going to be working flexible, reasonable hours, and I'm going to be doing something that will be stimulating, challenging, and (hopefully) very rewarding.

One of the goals of the project is to be published in a related technical journal.

This project, by the way, will go a long way in confirming or dismissing my interest in Grad school. If I can't stand research I probably shouldn't pursue a Master's degree.

Let's see if this works. This is my friend Tom, in one of his more vulnerable moments.

I’m in a wonderful mood right now.

I’m excited because I’m having the school’s older students sing Working With Joy, which is cool in and of itself. But what makes it really cool is that I’m the teacher so I can make them clap on it.

I was like the only one that wanted to do the handclaps (it’s not like I made them up—they were part of the original music!), or at least the only one who seemed very into it. But now, the problem of reluctant souls (or was it stodgy Mennonites?) is taken care of.

That last sentence reminds me of that classic line in Odyssey where Eugene is majorly frazzled, ends a sentence with a preposition, realizes it, and says “Aaaagh! And prepositions are not something I end sentences with!”

Connie says, “Eugene! You did it again.”

“Aaaagh!”

I'm not in quite so good of mood now. I think I found a mistake in my paper. I already printed 40 of them off for a presentation tomorrow. Not sure if it's worth reprinting them for one little word being changed.

Still in pretty good mood.

I referred to a David being in love. Just for the record, it is no David you know unless you attend Oregon State University. Even then, you probably don't know him. Unless we're talking massive coincidence here.

All right, now we're talking. Perhaps there will be further refinements down the road, but for now, leave me a comment and let's see if this thing really works, eh?

Ok, so I didn't do it right. But at least you can get to HaloScan.

If I did it right, I should now have a "Comments" feature. You can leave thoughts about most anything, especially as it relates to what I've written.

I was right, the morning looked a lot brighter. I'm in good spirits right now.

My good spirits were temporarily dampened by a stupid comment I made. I wondered why a computer in the computer lab wasn't working, and mentioned it to a professor. He sort of laughed and showed me that the computer was gone. Someone had taken the tower away. Come on, Byran.

But it's ok. I've basically conquered the first mountain of homework of the term, and because of that I feel good.

I wonder about my life at the moment. Nothing I feel like posting. I think school has sucked the creativity out of my brain.

No excitement lately, just hard work on a couple of writing assignments.

I sang at the Eugene Mission tonight. A few of the ones I sang with were commenting on what a meaningful service it was. I didn't really feel it--my fault. I was sliding into an internally bad mood. No one knew it, but I was struggling there a little bit.

I'm tired. Tired of my crummy car, my creaky computer, and my crashing exhaustion. Gloom and doom, sure glad I don't have Byran's life, you say.

Yeah right. My life rocks, it really does. It's just late and I am tired and I've got unfinished business in regards to my two writing assignments.

Challenges. And pushing through. There will be times when I'm more tired than this and the workload will be way heavier as well. So buck up, dude.

P.S. My car's really not that crummy, it just costs a lot to fix.

P.P.S. I'm very fortunate that my computer doesn't crash in such a way that I lose stuff and that it's still plugging along.

P.P.P.S I just need sleep. The morning will look a lot brighter.

This is for Tom. He's trying to guilt me into posting. I don't have to post if I don't want to. I shouldn't feel obligated to do it every day. So...I'm posting.

I'm tempted to call him a name but that wouldn't be nice. Course, he's called me that name before, and I still love him, so I suppose he'd still love me if I called him that.

But I will rise above, yes, I will rise above.

Classic. No, "claussic."

No, stupid. Ha.

Bono (rock group U2’s lead singer) is purported to be a Christian.

There’s a verse in the Bible about not judging lest we be judged. There’s also a verse about knowing people by their fruits.

With these Scriptures in mind…

Bono is at the bottom of a situation in which the Federal Communications Commission slapped a relatively small fine on a TV station for broadcasting comments by the aforementioned rocker that included a banned expletive.

This may prompt the FCC to ratchet up fines from the 5 figure range to the 6 or 7 figure range.

But that’s another story.

My first reaction to hearing that is to bash Bono. My goodness. You, a supposed Christian, involved in something like this? What are you doing? How can you call yourself a Christian and throw around language like that? You’re not a Christian, there’s no way!!!

That’s my first reaction.

But what would Christ’s reaction be? It wouldn’t be to condemn a man for spicy language, wrong though it may be.

He didn’t condemn the woman who was doing a lot more than dropping obscenities. He didn’t even talk to the woman who’d been married multiple times about the wrongness of her actions. He went straight to the heart.

And besides, if I’m saying that about Bono doing something wrong, where does that put me, with all the wrong things I’ve done?

Let’s pray for Bono, and hope that someday, sometime, we can have a chance, via the Holy Spirit, to go straight to the heart of someone whose actions seem offensively immoral to us instead of simply lambasting their offensive immorality.

“They’re cookie cut out of a bubble gum mold.”

A wonderful mixture of (pop) music critic metaphors.

How do you overcome apathy in the materialistic culture we find ourselves in? How do you develop a radical dependence on God alone, when practically speaking (at least regarding things we can see and feel) we don’t need Him?

It’s this kind of radical dependence that is essential to developing a passionate relationship with God.

Sometimes I wonder if we’re not really, really missing something. Ya know, Merry?

I love my sisters.