Friday, July 9, 2010
Graduate School is Like Anesthesia...
A friend of mine recently finished her schooling to become a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA). She described her job as bringing people as close to death as possible (without actually killing them [most of the time]) and then waking them rudely to the reality of post-operative pain and disappointment. This is how I'm feeling about the PhD program right now...
Friday, July 2, 2010
Exciting Provision
I did it, I passed calculus! It was an adventure I will never forget. I don't know that I learned a whole lot about calculus in the process, but I certainly will say that it was indeed a valuable learning in experience in other respects.
In short, this is what the adventure looked like:
Four afternoons with my good friend Sharon (and her three young kids) eating "grown up candy" (chocolate truffles) making up stories about my students to facilitate learning about derivatives.
Several evenings with my dad (who incidentally told me he had gotten a 'D' in calculus his first time) eating his purple Skittles while discussing infinity and beyond.
Countless late afternoons at school hunting down any students might be lingering in the halls (there was one certain Ukrainian girl who I could always count on) to assist with matrix algebra.
A much needed but impromptu tutoring session on a Sunday afternoon with a friend's fiance who just so happened to be an engeneer.
One Skype session from Mexico City with dad.
A 2 am calculus session on a floor in Mexico City with a "Philikrainian" (Philipino/Ukrainian) student discussing probability, Democrats, Jews, Democratic Jews and/or?
Frantically sent iphone pictures of my homework assignments to my professor from an airport tarmac in Phoenix.
Locking my computer in a room where I had no immediate access to the key the night before my final. (remember there was no textbook...)
Borrowing my dad's laptop but finding out the plug-in wasn't in his computer bag and his battery was dead.
Waking up sick on the morning of the final.
The calculator died mid final and I spent a sizable amount of time calculating by hand log base 3 of 81 thus not finishing within the timeframe.
I must admit that when I finished taking the final and left campus, I was sure I had failed. Only a few days earlier I had driven to Spokane for the orientation to the PhD program at WSU. During my long drive I had listened to some audio books by C.S. Lewis and had spent some time in prayer. One thing that God had brought to my mind was this: The persuit of goals and hard work are good things. Many times the goals we work so hard to achieive are even God given, but we often miss the point and loose focus. The question that was left lingering in my mind was this: How do I make the journey of getting a PhD (or the journey of anything else) into an act of worship that honors and pleases God?
As I left campus on that final day of class, I asked myself "How do I make flunking calculus into an act of worship that honors and pleases God?" I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the "flunking of the calculus" but the reaction to the "flunking of the calculus that would be the act of worship. What reaction would be most honoring and pleasing to God?
In short, this is what the adventure looked like:
Four afternoons with my good friend Sharon (and her three young kids) eating "grown up candy" (chocolate truffles) making up stories about my students to facilitate learning about derivatives.
Several evenings with my dad (who incidentally told me he had gotten a 'D' in calculus his first time) eating his purple Skittles while discussing infinity and beyond.
Countless late afternoons at school hunting down any students might be lingering in the halls (there was one certain Ukrainian girl who I could always count on) to assist with matrix algebra.
A much needed but impromptu tutoring session on a Sunday afternoon with a friend's fiance who just so happened to be an engeneer.
One Skype session from Mexico City with dad.
A 2 am calculus session on a floor in Mexico City with a "Philikrainian" (Philipino/Ukrainian) student discussing probability, Democrats, Jews, Democratic Jews and/or?
Frantically sent iphone pictures of my homework assignments to my professor from an airport tarmac in Phoenix.
Locking my computer in a room where I had no immediate access to the key the night before my final. (remember there was no textbook...)
Borrowing my dad's laptop but finding out the plug-in wasn't in his computer bag and his battery was dead.
Waking up sick on the morning of the final.
The calculator died mid final and I spent a sizable amount of time calculating by hand log base 3 of 81 thus not finishing within the timeframe.
I must admit that when I finished taking the final and left campus, I was sure I had failed. Only a few days earlier I had driven to Spokane for the orientation to the PhD program at WSU. During my long drive I had listened to some audio books by C.S. Lewis and had spent some time in prayer. One thing that God had brought to my mind was this: The persuit of goals and hard work are good things. Many times the goals we work so hard to achieive are even God given, but we often miss the point and loose focus. The question that was left lingering in my mind was this: How do I make the journey of getting a PhD (or the journey of anything else) into an act of worship that honors and pleases God?
As I left campus on that final day of class, I asked myself "How do I make flunking calculus into an act of worship that honors and pleases God?" I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the "flunking of the calculus" but the reaction to the "flunking of the calculus that would be the act of worship. What reaction would be most honoring and pleasing to God?
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