It's springtime and I'm feeling great and somewhat apathetic.  The good weather definitely makes me more cheerful.  Last week, I planted some flowers in pots and set them in the window so that they will grow.  Hopefully they do better than last year.  Last year was bad because the flowers only grew a few inches and looked rather pathetic.  This year, I chose a couple different types of flowers.  Last year it was impatens, this year I'm not sure what flowers I picked.

Writing about flowers on a blog seems ridiculous because... well just because.  Right now writing about anything seems ridiculous because I'm not very motivated to actually think about anything worthwhile to write.  I'm even less motivated to write because I'm afraid that people from Russia will read this blog and try to steal my identity.  Russians, please tell I'm wrong about this.

This is going to be a stream-of-consciousness type of blog.  I'm just going to write what comes to my mind without too much editing.  I guess there will be some filtering because the world probably shouldn't know every thought that passes through someone's mind.  That's a scary thought.

Good Friday 2014

Good afternoon.  I've decided to try blogging again.  Writing for me has been an on/off thing for most of my life.  Lately it's been off.  It's time to start writing again.  I've too much bottled up thoughts that need to be told and stories that should be shared.  I'm going to start small though.  A few posts every week should suffice.

Last Sunday I went to a local park with my girlfriend and hiked for about four miles.  It was good to get out of the house after this crazy winter.  This winter won't let go.  On Wednesday I woke up to about an inch of snow outside my house.

Back to the subject of blogging.  I was looking at my stats for the last couple years on this blog and noticed a decent amount of traffic from Eastern Europe and Russia.  What is up with that?  Where is it coming from and why do Russians want to read my blog?

Soccer, Bonfires and Bugs

My former roommate had a bunch of people over on Friday night.  Some people I knew and others I didn't.  We all brought some food.  Ben grilled hamburgers and chicken.  I brought potato salad, coleslaw, and a veggie tray with dip.  Other people brought other stuff.

After eating some of us played soccer in the backyard.  It was girls against guys.  The girls won.  I was goalie, but I guess I wasn't a very good goalie.  Impromptu games are always fun because the rules are whatever the herdmind decides at the moment.  We had no boundaries.  We decided that because some people were initially barefoot everyone should be barefoot so that no one would get hurt.  No one got hurt.  We played until it got too dark to see and someone called out "Next point wins".  The girls scored the next point.

Ben and the other people that weren't playing soccer were busy starting a fire.  There was plenty of wood under the porch.  We sat around the fire, a motley crew of people that all had connections to Ben.  There were some of his LBC friends, former roommates such as myself and some random people he worked with.

Ben is a pretty outgoing guy and he wants to be a missionary.  So he is always reaching out to people and making new friends.  One of his friends that he used to work with told me that he had not been to a bonfire party since he was six years old.  I thought it was pretty cool that Ben had invited him.  Sitting with a group of friends around a campfire is a great experience and everyone should have the opportunity to do that.

The crickets chirped through the cool evening, and the stars and moon shone.  The bugs were out too and feasted on some of us.  People made s'mores and sang some worship songs around the fire.  Everyone talked and time flew and soon it was time to break up the party.  Some of the people made plans to go hiking next Tuesday and invited the others to go with them.

Gardening

Tonight I went out to check the things I planted in the garden this year.  My jalopeno peppers are coming along nicely as well as my flowers.  And two very tiny watermelons started growing on the watermelon plants.  I was very excited about that.  It is neat to see something growing out of the earth that I planted myself.  Not that I made it grow.  I just planted the seeds.

Life is like that.  Like planting seeds, you make a few key decisions in your life.  And, like harvesting crops, you get the consequences of those decisions.  Some of the consequences are good and some are bad.  Most of the consequences are things you never even dreamed about.  Life simply happens.

So the challenge for today is to go out and plant a few good seeds.  Make some decisions today.  Say hi to a stranger.  Apply for that job you have been wanting to apply.  Start a blog.  Start a garden.  Do something. 

Here's a quote from the Bible:
Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.  - Ecclesiastes 11:6 (New International Version)

Job Interview

I have a job interview tomorrow.  But wait... I already have a job.  So what's up with that?!  Well the interview is for another position in the company that I am currently working for.  I am nervous.  I came home early today to prepare for the interview.  Instead I browsed reddit and did other stuff on the Internet.  Darned Internet.

I know the guy who will be interviewing me.  I know that he is a nice guy and won't try to put me on the spot.  However I am socially awkward and know that I need to prepare ahead of time in order to have a decent conversation.  So why am I not doing this??  Good ole procrastination, I suppose.

Procrastination sucks.  I think partly has to do with laziness and partly to do with being afraid of the future.  Both things are bad character qualities for a person to have and I need to actively try to remove these from my life.  That is no small task.  It involves being constantly aware of my motives and the willingness to make myself uncomfortable.  By the grace of God I will overcome these negative character qualities and replace them with better ones.

Update on Finals Week

Three finals down and one to go.  The biochem exam was today.  I did pretty well I think, at least above the 40% I needed to pass the course.  So that's over.  Two weeks ago I applied for to a biochemist position at X Laboratories.  We shall see how that works out.

School has been great.  I learned a bunch of cool stuff and made a bunch of friends.  Now the reality of the real world is setting back in.  Bills and the whole worry about money.  Hopefully I can get a decent job so that doesn't continue to be much of an issue.

Being a college student taught me some good lessons in frugility.  I don't need to buy a bunch of stuff to be happy.  I can pack lunch instead of buying it all the time.  Basically, I can do without a lot of stuff.  That's a freeing realization.  Unfortunately there's always the "necessary" stuff like cars, phones, and nice clothes.  You can't live without money very well in society, but you don't have to give into all the consumerism hype.

Finals Week

Well Finals Week here at Millersville officially kicked off today.  For me the festivities actually started last Friday morning with an Inorganic exam.  Then yesterday I had a Biochem exam.  Neither of these exams were final exams.  The Biochem final is on Thursday and the Inorganic final is on Friday.  My first actual final today was in Polyer.  I felt pretty confident about it.  The Biochem exam yesterday was nuts, but I passed with a 79 which is great considering the 36 I got on the last one.

After the Polymer exam today I was talking with the professor.  He was asking what I am planning on doing after graduation.  I told him that I don't know.  He said that's ok and that he didn't go to grad school for quite some time after undergrad.  He was afraid he would be rusty with all the young grad students, but it wasn't a problem for him.  That made me feel better about the future.  I would like to go to grad school some time, but it doesn't seem like the right thing to do right now.

So I walked out of the science complex.  On the way out I stopped to look at pictures of the faculty and students in the chem department.  I realized that I'm going to miss all of these great people I got to know.