What I Will Be

I'm going out on a limb here... but I don't think it matters anymore.

There has been a lot of occurrences in the past few weeks lately that have involved romantic relationships. Without going into details about this, I want to propose something that has been on my mind lately, and that may to some people be a tad revolutionary. Sometimes we concern ourselves too much with finding someone to love rather than being someone who can be loved; being the type of person who a lady/gentleman would be honored to have as a spouse. This change of thought can occur once you realize that God has in mind someone special for you, and in due time, once He knows you are ready, will reveal that portion of His will to you. After the fact, you can prepare for the day that you will become united with your spouse, rather than worry about the whole issue.

This is what I will be, what I will offer, for my wife:
God-centered - More than anything my allegiance will be to Holy God, Jehovah.
Integrity - I will be consistent in what I say and do.
Character - I will exemplify what it means to be a servant of Christ by considering others before myself.
Trustworthy - She will be able to have full confidence in me.
Loyal - I will keep my oath of faithfulness to her.
Perseverance - I understand what it means to bear up under trouble and stay the course.
Patience - I will be level-headed and even-tempered. Anger will only occur when it is demanded of me by conscience and the Word of God.
Humility - I know my limitations and am not afraid to admit wrong. Moreso and again, I will serve my family, the household of Believers, and my fellow man.
Confidence - Even in humility, I will be confident in my ability to do whatever it takes to accompish goals.
Courage - I will not shrink back when trouble comes in whatever form - the meaning of Godly courage.
Leadership - I will provide physical and spiritual leadership, keeping in mind that he who believes himself to be a leader must first and foremost be a servant.

"But Norman," you ask, "don't you want to be a fun, nice, romantic guy?" Yes I do, but don't you see how minor this is compared to the bigger issues? Can't we understand that it is easy to show a girl a good time, and that it is much more difficult to have the character of a Godly man? Most of us don't have to work very hard to be fun and cheerful. Let's strive to be people who are more interested in what they bring into a marriage than what the other has to give.

I'm sure I've missed some important qualities, feel free to comment on what I have forgotten. (When you write on the fly and do very little editing, you miss things...)

Well, it looks like I've got a long way to go... but if I'm good at one thing, it's never giving up.

Nothing else to write about...

... so I'll tell you my schedule for this semester and the next. Oh what fun!

This semester I'm taking and their respective subtitles:
Chemistry 251 Lab OR how to play with toys and get bad grades
Chemistry 251 - Instrumental Methods Lecture OR theory of toys that get you bad grades
Chemistry 244 - Chemical Kinetics Lab OR how to become an MS Excel major
Chem. Eng. 235 - Separations OR how to make a distillation column
Chem. Eng. 237 - Continuous Mass Transfer OR how much can YOU memorize in one hour?
Statistics 213 - Applied Eng. Stat. OR how to laugh at stupid college students
Music History 1 OR can we spin your head in 3/4 time or 4/4?

Next semester's schedule? I just finished it this afternoon, one class is dependent on the project being accepted by NASA... Sorry no subtitles... yet.

Chem. Eng. 145 - Chemical Process Materials
Chem. Eng. 234 - Chemical Eng. Laboratory 1
Chem. Eng. 247 - Molecular Chemical Eng.
Chem. Eng. 281 - Chemical Reactor Design
Music History 2 (now you can have your head spin in 5/8 time)
Undergraduate Research OR Eng. 60 - Writing and Research (boooooo) if the research doesn't work out...

That's all for now.

Computer Upgrade

This is officially the first post for my blog on the new computer I built. Since there isn't anything particularly worthy of note right now (besides the fact I can't find the sign error in my study notes, grr), I'll just post the specs of this beautiful machine and let you ooooh and aaaah over it's majesty...

Gigabyte GA-7VAX dual-bios motherboard, KT-400 chipset
AMD Athlon 2200+ (Glacial tech heat sink)
512MB DDR400 RAM
ATI-Radeon 7500 64MBVRAM video
80GB Western Digital Caviar with 8MB buffer
Sony CD-RW, 52x24x52x
Windows XP Home (eventually with Linux dual-boot)
Envision 15" flat panel monitor

aaaand... I'm done.

Concert Update

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performed in Rolla two days ago, and they were fantastic. These guys are so good it's ridiculous.

First, they played Mozart's Concertone for two violins in C Major (K186e/190). Kenneth Sillito (director) and Harvey de Souza were the soloists. A very beautiful piece.

The next piece was Alfred Schnittke's Moz-Art a la Haydn. This is definitely one of the strangest pieces of music I have ever heard, yet it was stunning, amazing, and humerous at the same time. You just have to see it in concert to believe it, a recording just cannot do it justice. Schnittke took little vignettes from many different pieces by Mozart and Haydn and interspersed them between extrememly complex rhythm and 20th century dissonant styles. Bitonality was rampant, and sometimes you would literally hear two different pieces being played on top of one another. Some vignettes were even modified by inserting chromatic intervals. I was caught totally unprepared to hear this, and I was shocked and amazed at the... bizarre-ness of the piece. Nevertheless, it was incredible.

Stravinsky's Concerto in E-flat Major and Mozart's Symphony No. 29 followed the intermission. There isn't a ton to say about these, the Academy played them beautifully.

I like that I didn't have to pay anything for this show either... ;-)

Newsflash - Needing some divine intervention or mad skilz

I received my new motherboard for my desktop in the mail yesterday. I am going to start rebuiliding the computer in less than 5 minutes (9:45am). After all the problems I've had with that computer, I think I need some divine intervention to make it work... Pray hard my friends, pray hard. I'll let you know if it was a success later today.