Today, My Ethics Are Examined.

In approximately 20 minutes, I’ll be departing from my room to go take my ethics exam. It’s the third exam for this semester, and the first “difficult” one. By difficult, I mean I’ve had a hard time studying for it. Thankfully, it is not comprehensive; however the teacher does expect us to explain our essay answers in more detail. So in approximately 33 minutes, I’ll be receiving a blue book in which I’ll be expected to expound upon four out of five selected questions, hopefully covering the right information so as to receive an A or better. So far, my performance in that class has been good, so I’d like to keep it that way, however my study habits have waned in their intensity as the semester has progressed.

I’m thankful for people that listen. My mind rests right now on someone who checked out of video game playing to listen to my answers to the essay questions I am going to have posed to me. You know who you are! Though you probably don’t read this. After all, I haven’t updated it in 3 months, who would have a reason to read this?

After I finish, I am going to venture over to the university bookstore and see how much money can be procured from the selling back of my textbooks. Thankfully I have some books from last semester that I will be able to sell back in addition to my books from this semester, I’ll leave there filthy stinking rich, just you watch!

Subsequently, I’ll have to shift focus to my next exams. Tomorrow is accounting, the next day is human resource management. While the HR class should pose little, if any, difficulty, I fully expect the accounting exam to be a challenging one. Accounting + Comprehensive = Difficult.

It’s funny though, out of all my business classes this semester, I truly feel like my accounting class has been the most rewarding in the total amount that I have learned. Similarly, my most difficult class this semester, CSC 236 (Assembly Language) was definitely the class I learned the most in, though I ENJOYED that one whereas accounting is something I will never be able to associate with any form of the word “joy.”

Speaking of Joy, the hour of my ethical demise looms near. I must depart to embark on this journey.

I bid thee adieu.

Key

Today was a good day. It’s crazy how keeping a schedule and staying ahead on work pay off. I adopted a calendar this semester that I have already put all the major dates in for the semester (tests, quizzes, project due dates), so at the beginning of the week, I check the calendar and put everything that I have due that week in a sticky note program that’s on my desktop (Plug: http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/). This helps me break down what I need to accomplish each day, and what I’ve found usually happens is I’m able to finish all I plan and start working ahead.  Though it doesn’t destroy stress, it goes a long way to helping manage it.

I finished my first assembly program today, with some help from my professor via email, and was able to submit it 5 days early!  The program is called “KEY”, and basically all it does is read in keystrokes and print them back out. It only prints out letters, and has to capitalize them (so if they are lowercase, they have to be changed to uppercase) and the program ends when a period is pushed. Actually a rather simple program. I was worried about it at spring retreat this weekend, because I wanted to get it done there, but didn’t want to have to spend a lot of time on it–but quickly figured out that there was nothing to be worried about.

I also had my first assembly test today. Since I’m taking it distance ed, I had to go to centennial campus to have it proctored. I got there an hour early and spent that hour going through another previous semesters test, then sat down for about an hour and answered all 33 questions with ease. I feel very confident and know that all the time I spent studying paid off for sure. Tomorrow I’ve got my first accounting test, which I’m not terribly worried about. The teacher has been doing a great job–and the homeworks have been simple.

After I got back to the house, I finally fixed my mp3 player, and took it while I went for a run–which was great. I haven’t run in… honestly I can’t remember the last time I did, but it has been too long. I feel so much better having gone, it’s unbelievable how much it clears your mind.

So all in all today has been incredibly productive, and it’s not even 8pm yet!

This week is Shack a Thon in the brickyard at NC State. Basically what happens is a bunch of groups build a shack in a 12×12 ft square and then have somebody in it 24/7 for a week. The idea is to raise donations for Habitat for Humanity, a charity that focuses on putting people into homes.  I was asked to spend time at lunch one day this week playing the guitar for donations, something I’ve never done before. I’ve only recently gotten serious about playing guitar, and really only for the purpose of leading worship for XA. Though of course I learn a lot of fun songs, I don’t really view myself as someone who’s entertaining to sit and listen to while they play random songs–I’m not sure if I’ll be able to work it into my schedule this week, but if I do, I’ll be out there probably on Friday playing the guitar for… the big bucks….? Now I’ve got to go look up some tabs for cool songs……

Unbelievable!!!!

What other word could be put forth that would more accurately convey the significance of this event more than a simple, and yet not so simple, “unbelievable!”?

Two things have driven me to this place: One is the fact that that I have felt a need to release my thoughts in the form of writing, and the second is that doing this by hand in a journal doesn’t allow me the ability to get all the things down that I wish to convey (to nobody in particular, largley for myself to read). My typing speed is considerably faster than my handwriting speed, and so I have come to the point where my decision is to use a weblog as a medium to accomplish this task.

In addition to the benefits gained from using this medium as opposed to pen in paper, I can make myself seem far more intelligent than is actually the case by using grammar and vocabulary that may come accross as somewhat scholarly. On a realistic note, I’m going to scratch that idea at this very instant and type as if I was speaking normally.

Today is day two of spring break. If you count the weekend, then it would be day 4. I left Raleigh on friday night and went to Greensboro where Mikey and I spent most of the weekend |>14y1/\/6 \/\/4|2<|24|=+. It was quite fun, and it always helps things to be more fun when it snows, even when confined to the indoors due to swollen feet (not myself, but my poor bro in law). It was fun to watch the snow fall, and also cool that I got to stay and hang out with Laura longer since I couldn’t drive in the mess that the mixture of ice and snow gifted the roads with. The next day, we built a snowman, then went to IHOP where I ate only 8 pancakes (all you can eat… should’ve eaten more, but… what can I say)  I returned and wrote a java program that takes a name and turns it into a Blizzard Entertainment name. They seem to think that things become “mystical” and “fantasy” when you simply come up with two words and connect them with an apostrophe. Like, for instance, take a name for a place in the fantasy world (I’ll make one up): Amar Arrak. Blizzard’s instant coolification of this name would be to make it Amar’Arrak.

I DONT EVEN KNOW HOW TO PRONOUNCE THAT?! Are you supposed to pause where the apostrophe is? Are you supposed to just read it as one word? Is the apostrophe some kind of 27th letter in the alphabet!? I’m so confused! But the thing is, I wouldn’t mind it if they did that every once in awhile. What irks me is that 80% of the names of places have that freaking apostrophe in the middle, and it drives me nuts! So basically what the program does is insert an apostrophe into the middle of your name. David becomes Da’vid. It’s just a joke, and totally pointless. But hey. Programming at its finest.

After we had our laughs about that, I took off, because they were watching that Bill Maher religious documentary that I really had no interest in seeing, because I think Bill Maher is a tool. I also had to stop by and get some groceries for supper.

Today I drove to Columbia SC and visited Carol and Nancy. Sarah and I both went, so I got to help the pregnant lady get around. We ate at Waffle House for breafkast, and it was funny… the waitress was trying to be nice, so she randomly walks over, sets a cup of hot water on the table in front of Sarah and goes “Here honey, will this help?” To which Sarah said, out of an obligatory sense of courtesy: “Yes! thank you!” and then gave me a completely puzzled look as the waitress walked away, wondering what the heck she was supposed to do with the cup of hot water.  That was worth many laughs.

Once in Columbia, we met Carol at her house, then went to CIU and hung out with Nancy at lunch time. Then we went to this restaurant/coffee shop called “The Immaculate Consumption”. I’m still trying to figuire out if that is sacreligious or not. The food was good though, as was the very strong french vanilla latte I immaculately consumed. After that, we went back to Carol’s and I liberated half a lime that was stuck in Nancy’s nalgene bottle while Sarah and Carol watched a video that showed a woman giving birth (why you would want to watch that, I’ll never know.) We hung out with Carol a bit, then headed back… taking a slight detour by missing an exit. Oh well.  And we arrived home, which brings me here.

So, that sums up today. I’ll probably have more posts in the future that elaborate on my thoughts as opposed to what I did for the day, but now is not the time.

AHHHH!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Java…

I used to like java, before I realized it was also a programming language. Now I don’t care for it very much. I’ve been driven to journaling my thoughts here again because typing seems to soothe me. I saved my time at work this morning to focus on my final Java project, and have spent almost two hours looking at it only to come away with some code that resembles little more than experimentation with the concepts I am supposed to be implementing. This assignment is the most difficult project of my academic career thus far.

Java has been challenging me in new and exhausting ways. Actually, computer science at NC State has been challenging me in new and exhausting ways, but lately Java seems to top the “challenging” list. Before NC State, I didn’t have to put very much effort into keeping my grades up. That was definitely both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was a 3.9 GPA before transfer. The curse was thinking school would always be that easy, or rather, not knowing how to handle classes that challenged my ability to think critically. Last semester began a process of growth for me, which is the beginnings of the inevitable step from boyhood to manhood. Coming into a university at 19 as a junior with a past of easy community college and living at home turned into 5 months of “what in the world have I gotten myself into?” I learned how scary it is to be faced with a problem that you realize you can’t figure out by yourself by receiving a Java assignment and not understanding how to do it.. I realized that you really have to spend time doing homework and studying in order to make A’s and B’s (even C’s and D’s) on tests. I learned how it feels to make a D on a math test, which was something I’d been blessed with never having to worry about before.

But the most amazing thing that I realized through all of this is how much the Lord has blessed me in ways I don’t deserve. I can’t see into the future but I can understand how some of the things that he has orchestrated in my life could work out for me in some amazing ways. For instance, he gave me grace last semester despite my inadequacy in calculus 3, by having the teacher curve my grade up from a C+ to a B+. He helped me to excel in physics and earn an A+ which really boosted my GPA. What is so amazing is that I already owe him my life, and yet he continues to bless me despite the pain that I bring him on a daily basis. That is a God of love, and that is my God.

Unfortunately, loving us doesn’t mean making our lives simplistic. In fact, following Christ is more of a challenge than choosing to reject him, so just because he loves us doesn’t mean our troubles vanish, and that is the hard lesson to learn. Right now, my trouble is this Java assignment. I literally feel like, despite the fact that I have work in other classes, the only thing standing between me and the end of the semester is this Java project. If I could finish it, I would be more motivated and eager to tackle the work in my other classes that pales in comparison to the difficulty of this assignment. I talked to God at length, asking him to help me with it, trying not to get anxious about it, and committing myself to devoting time to completing it. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can rest in the fact that as long as I’m giving every effort that I have into completing the assignment, I will receive the grade he wants me to have. Convincing myself not to stress over this project was difficult, but now that I’ve given it to him, I feel like I can really focus more on the project and less on the fact that I have no idea how to do it. My two hours spent on it this morning have really just resulted in a bunch of questions on how to implement certain concepts that I don’t understand. Though it doesn’t feel like it now, I know that is progress because I’ll be able to come back to the keyboard with answers to my questions. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend…

Tick….tick….tick….

It seems like all I’ve heard latley is the clock ticking, in every way imagineable. Managing time is such a crappy part of being an adult. Actually, there are alot of crappy parts to being an adult, like having responsibility, having to make your own decisions, being responsible for your own mistakes… the list goes on. Maybe peter pan really had the right idea?

I received my new Java assignment tuesday. It already has me on edge and he only gave us half of it. My teacher claims that even with the new part added, it shouldn’t take us near as long as the first assignment–famous last words. This is the same teacher who absolutely wouldn’t budge on  getting the webCAT online submission system to work for this assignment. So, the clock ticks. T-minus 19 days, 7 of which are spring break days.

This weekend I’m going skiing, I’m incredibly excited about this fact and am looking foward to the trip in every possible way (found out it has been SNOWING up there the last few days.) Unfortunately the weekend off also entails a certain amount of homework that will not be progressed on over that period of time. Physics webassign, linear algebra webassign/midterm, discrete math homework with some ridiculous proofs, and finally, my java programming assignment which will loom like a shadow over my life for the next 20 days. So needless to say I have got to do as much of that as I can today and tomorrow before leaving for the mountains, because I’m not letting myself worry about the crap that is homework while I’m there, I’m going to enjoy the retreat as well as the skiing to the fullest of my capabilities. But as long as that homework remains unfinished, the clock ticks away the seconds, reminding me with every minute that I may not get all of these things done.

And sleep. In no clearer way can I speak of the tickage of clocks than regaurding sleep, this thanks to my roomate. It’s funny, because I was telling somebody tuesday night how I appreciated him tuesday–he quietly came into the room, realizing I was asleep, and used his cell phone as a light, got some stuff and left–I didn’t hear him come in later because I was asleep. Lastnight, different story. He waltzed in at about 10:15, did something, then left. Then at 10:30, waltzed in, did something, then left. Then at 11:15, waltzed in, did something, then left. Each time with the thunderous entrance that is granted by our squeaky front door and the traffic outside, and each time with the back light being switched on so he could do whatever he was doing with a flooding of light that does not accomodate the sleeper.  I know it’s his room, that his stuff is in there, that he can come and go as he pleases, but that door is extremely loud (as im sure he knows when I leave at 4AM) and the fact that he came in 3 different times really began to aggravate me. The worst part is, I was about to doze off right before the first time, so when he came in, it kicked me into wakefullness and I completely lost that chance to fall asleep. I stopped looking at the clock because I realized that if I focus on how much time has passed, I only keep myself awake thinking about how much sleep I’m losing. So my strategy is, if I go to bed at 9, as long as I don’t look at the clock, I get 7 hours of sleep. So instead of looking at the clock, I just listened to it, ticking away the hours, until I eventually fell asleep. I awoke to my alarm at 3:45, and now I’m sitting at work, having just read my Bible and journaled some thoughts, and decided to blog, mainly so I can just get my thoughts out on “paper” because it helps me to organize them.

Something else this Java assignment is renewing in my stewing pot of thoughts is my consideration of…… what in the HECK I’m doing at NC State in computer science?!? Not because that’s how I feel about it in the long term, but it’s the thought that comes into my mind when I think of my ability, or “inability” to program. There are pieces of this that are both true and untrue, mostly untrue, but I let myself hold on to the little bits that are true, like the fact that even though I got my program working, there’s one crucial part that the TA had to do for me that I still don’t understand, and there was also one part of the program that I didn’t get to work correctly. I did, however, come out of my huge investment in time with a functional program that performed according to specifications and taught me much about the details of design and programming (though that knowledge only scored me an 82 on the test.) Basically I guess the point of saying all this is that I often find myself doubting whether this is really what I should be doing for the rest of my life. I want to enjoy it but I can’t because I feel so stressed out about having to get it done, that I can’t take the time to enjoy the fact that I’m programming. It’s like I can’t figuire out whether I really want to spend the rest of my life programming or not, but at this point I’m too far in to pull out. If I did, and switched majors, I’d basically be throwing away the last year of my life and all the money I put towards it, because my ‘new’ major would probably not require 90% of the classes I have taken. I just feel like the stress I’m feeling in school about it may cross over to stress in a work situation, and that makes my  goal of graduating from here seem pointless, but I know there is a balance between feeling stressed and burned out and genuinley hating your major and needing to change. I don’t genuinley hate my major, I just severely dislike the stress it is supplying to my life right now. Part of me really wishes I could just drop school and spend my time reading the Bible and listening to sermons all day, because that’s one of the few places where I can find true peace, and it’s somewhere I find myself wanting to be more and more of the time, but I realize that God calls some christians into the workforce, which is where I’m headed–and that I have to find away to grow in real ways, even when I’m having to spend so much of my time working and I’m not able to spend very much of it studying scripture or praying.

I think that’s enough for this morning, I’m at almost 1200 words and I don’t want to push this, this is like a 4 page paper, double spaced….12 point font…..

Afternoon Thoughts

Two posts in one day, not sure what the reason for this sudden surge of activity is. When I’m feeling certain things I think it’s easier for me to lay them out here, and that way I know it’s available for the whole world to see, and yet few if any people know if this pages existence.

I couldn’t sleep lastnight. I tried going to bed at about 9:30 pm, and laid there until my roommate came in at about 11:15, made a lot of noise, and left again. I fell asleep sometime after that and woke up at 3:45 to go work. While at work, I had very little do to, few possibilities to screw up… the only thing I had to do was check out 3 people from guest rooms, and yet I somehow managed to screw all 3 of them up. It was the same mistake on all 3, and I don’t think a serious mistake (like forgetting to put a receipt in the managers door or something) but I hate making mistakes, and I feel like a failure for screwing up something as easy as this job I have.

The real David feels just as many emotions as anyone else. People that know me know how emotional I can be, which I don’t find to be a good thing most of the time, unfortunately. I’m glad I can feel emotions, but they work so hard at clouding judgment and they accomplish that task SO unbelievably well.  Lately, I’ve been trying to shut out all my emotions toward everything and just work. School, work. I draw my comfort of the time I spend in prayer and reading the Bible. This morning, I spent a long time praying for a bunch of people I know and my family, it was really peaceful and I felt like I accomplished a lot through that time.

But emotions still make things difficult, like keeping you from knowing how to let somebody from an old relationship know you want to be friends, but you don’t know how to be just friends with them, and you know that you shouldn’t spend much time with them until you can figuire that out. For now, I just have to let my focus be school and let my emotions die down, while I seek the Lord’s guidance on how to deal with these things. I’m always trying to seek his will, but it’s difficult so much of the time…. I’m almost late for class, gotta run.

David “emotional” Wright

Early Morning Thoughts

There really are very few things in life that are truly good and enjoyable, and yet don’t take much effort.  One of those things that truly takes effort to be fulfilling is the Christian life.

 It doesn’t seem difficult at first… God gives us his grace freely, all we have to do is come to him realizing our sinfulness, believing that Jesus sacrificed himself for us, and willing to repent for our sins–and he extends his unmatchable grace to us through salvation. This gift is free to all and the true purpose of every human being put on this earth by God, though, sadly,  many never fulfill that purpose.

Then the difficulty begins… 

The responsibility of a Christian is embodied with two simple commands: 

 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” ( Mark 12:28-31).

 Though it’s difficult to see at first, these commandments really sum up all of the other commandments.  If we know that an action we take as a Christian takes falls under one of these categories, then we never have to worry about whether what we’re doing is right or not. Yet, as simple as this concept seems, actually living it out in our daily lives is the hardest thing for us to do as human beings. That’s why we fail so much of the time. When a christian realizes all that is summed up in these commandments,  it’s truly a humbling feeling to think about the responsibility of upholding them, at least for me.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.

The primary way we love God is by following his commandments. The Bible has many instructions on how to live our lives as christians, and if we read the word to find these instructions, then follow them, putting ourselves in the center of his will, I believe we experience true fulfillment, and I also believe that is the only way for a human to experience true fulfillment in life–fulfillment that isn’t fleeting, like the “joy” brought by material possesions, drugs and alcohol, sex, and all those other things of this world that leave us so empty because they are all so temporary. 

I guess the point of all this is that I’ve been convicted of my need to implement these two commandments in a real way. A way that shows I have graduated from my belief being an extension of my parents teaching and made it truly my own, as I mature spiritually by studying the word and understanding what God is teaching through it. I am so thankful for my parents and the wisdom they both share in teaching me the way of life found through Jesus Christ, but I am even more glad that I have moved on to my spiritual maturity becoming my own responsibility, something they’ve been pushing me to do for some time.

One result of this spiritual growth is that I realize the call to love other people is one of the hardest things for me to do. Truly loving all people despite who they are, what they look like, how they treat you–shows a complete lack of selfishness, and this is something I wish to implement in my life. Since I’ve started thinking about this, I’ve come to realize how cynical and unloving I am sometimes towards certain people, mainly in my thoughts, but I let myself get bothered by little things and then realize I failed to show christian love. Even for simple, retarded things–like the other day when a few of us were waiting in line for the 360 in the learning commons for about 20 minutes, and a kid cut in line and wouldn’t let us play–I didn’t call him out for it, I accepted it and sat down to wait, but I fumed the whole time and complained to my friends and called him a “stupid freshman” or a “noob”. There really isn’t any excuse for behavior like that, I failed to show christian love towards him and that’s the end of the story.

If every person thought of everyone else before themselves, there really would be a lot less problems in this world. In fact, basically all problems in society would go away, because everybody’s needs would be met by the giving of others. The problem is that this will never happen–even among just the christian community, because we are all selfish and we all seek personal gain, asking for God to give us what we want…what makes us feel better, and expect to receive it before we can serve others. Just because it will never happen doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I think the place to start is in the church, by letting our whole focus be on loving God and others, and not asking for anything ourselves, because if you are serving others, God will bless you in ways unimaginable without you having to ask him for it, and that is where we can find true fulfillment. So as I start off on this new leg of my christian walk, trying my hardest to be conscious of the best way to show christian love to anyone I encounter in my life and ask less for God to bless ME and more for ME to bless OTHERS, I implore you, the reader (though none may ever read this), to seek to serve others before yourself. Worship God, serve others, and wait patiently for God’s blessing upon your life.

If you think about it, really… what do we have the right to ask him for anyway?  Praise God that he answers us even when we don’t deserve it!

Sunday Morning

It’s currently about 11:08, I’ve got  to leave for church in 12 minutes to get there on time…. and my roommate is still in the shower, which he entered at 10:45, now bridging on 25 minutes. Since I’m just sitting here waiting, I figured I’d write a post instead of stewing over the fact that every minute makes me that much later.

Pretty good weekend so far, friday night my sisters came up to visit, one of which has been in Russia for about 6 months, so it was good to see her. Friday after they left was a different story, I went and saw one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I’m not automatically prejudiced against chick flicks or anything, but this was literally one of the cheesiest movies I’ve ever seen in my life. I felt bad that Robin Williams has to have that movie chalked up on his record (though he played his roll perfectly, the movie just sucked.)  Yesterday I aimed to have homework done, but I didn’t actually accomplish very much unfortunately… that means I know what my afternoon will be until the superbowl party. I’m excited about that, it should be a blast. Have a good sunday everyone!

David

Vargas rocks

Though the title of this post may lead you to think I am proclaiming the amazingness of our dear friend Jeremy Vargas, in truth, it refers to a new type of candy that was conceptualized tonight after much pondering and random conversing between Bobby, Willer, DT, and myself while playing NCAA Football ‘08 (which I had to be convinced to play, as sports games are much less than interesting to me and my skill at that game is even less than my desire to play it.) Now introducing… Vargas Rocks!! But that’s as far as we’ve decided. Unfortunately, the color, texture, portion size, and price of said candy is yet to be determined. We also have yet to create a recipe or convince a manufacturer to create the candy, but please check your local retail stores for Vargas Rocks!! to hit the shelves sometime in mid June.

 Developing inside jokes such as these truly make me appreciate the friends that I have, even if they enjoy spending their time shooting virtual nazis like Willer is doing right now, or teaching themselves C++ in 21 days, err…months or less, like Bobby is doing, or DT getting us to pick a topic for his paper. It’s all fun. Sadly, I’ll have to return to my room and then remember that I have school and homework and things actually due. Oh, the fun of college….