Because I Have Been Given Much

I have been having a really busy semester. I am taking three classes (all of which desire all of my time; typical graduate classes) and working on two research projects in addition to working on finding a wife. At the same time, I have realized that I have gained a fair amount of weight since my mission, and so I am trying to cut back on eating and increase time exercising (or at least not sitting around my apartment or office). This leads to a tired mind, which makes my other endeavors a little more difficult.

The reason that I mention the above situation is to present the following scenario, my emotions intact. Recently I have been asked by my fellow classmates to help on some homework. This is not a problem as I love to help others with their physics and teaching is wonderful. The problem comes from my need to get more work done. Sometimes I have thought about saying no, just because I don't have time. But sometimes, when I am especially tired, my thoughts for saying no come closer to "why haven't you put enough time into your work?"

Today, as I walked home, I was thinking (as usual), singing (fairly common) and praying (not as common as I wish it were). What was interesting was that the songs that came into my head (hymns - rather common) seemed to dictate my prayer and thoughts. I know that the Spirit helped put them there. One of the hymns was "Because I Have Been Given Much". As I thought about the words, it occurred to me that I have been given much. Not just material goods, either, though I am abundantly blessed in those. I have been given a wonderful education, the ability to learn and an ability to teach what I learn to those around me.

Often I have wondered about how to apply King Benjamin's counsel about giving to the poor (Mosiah 4:13-22) to my age and life. I keep wondering whether I am to give to beggars who are more than likely not in need. But there are more needs (especially in this day and age) than just material needs. People need help and ask for it every day. It may not be for food and clothing, but it might be for a friend, for a kind word, or it might just be for help with homework.

"Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food [homework help], nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just -

"But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent ...

"For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance [knowledge, abilities] which we have ... of every kind?" (Mosiah 4:17-19)

I am grateful that I did help those who came to me for help. I am grateful that they were willing to ask me for help, that they trusted me that I would help them if I could. Indeed, I have been given much; from my family, from my teachers and, most especially, from God.

"Because I have been given much, I too must give;

Because of thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live

I shall divide my gifts from thee With ev'ry brother that I see

Who has the need of help from me."

(Hymns #219 - Because I Have Been Given Much)

Texas Trip

This past week Kathryn, Christina, Josh and Elisabeth and I all drove to Texas. Here is a day-to-day synopsis, with some special emphases.

On Friday, just after 7:30 we all piled into my car and drove out of town. The interesting thing here is the fact that not three days earlier I had slid my car off the road. No serious damage was done (I seem to have lost parts of my front bumper), but the thought of unknown damages haunted us. Also, the radio was locked, so we drove in silence (sound-system wise; we talked a lot). We drove through the night and...

On Saturday we kept driving. We had breakfast in Albuquerque (Village Inn), and then drove straight to Dallas. We arrived in Irvine at Joseph's house at about 6:00 PM. I must say that Nicholas and Lexi are two of the most cute kids that exist. We had a wonderful dinner (thanks, Maren!) and played Rook. We then went to bed (couch cushions for me).

On Sunday we got up leisurely and had breakfast. Church was very nice, and then home teachers came over. Then we had dinner, which was also amazing. Basically, food wise, every thing was fantastic. Kathryn's old mission companion Felicia Norris came over for the evening, as well. She is pretty hysterical. It was fun having her around. We tried to go and look at Christmas lights, but it didn't work out too well. The line for the lights we wanted to see was huge, and so we just drove around and came back to the house. T'was a wonderful evening.

Come Monday we went to the stock yards. We saw lots of cool things including the worlds largest honkey-tonk. We went to a barbecue for lunch (mm...) and came back. Joseph and I played some Halo while others took naps. After another fabulous dinner and some debate due to weather, we took off. I drove first through a lot of fog. It dispersed about the time that I switched drivers. We drove through the night until we got to Amarillo.

Ok, so actually we got to Amarillo on Tuesday at about 2:30. The weather had been getting worse and worse, and we were driving through strong wind and some snow when we stopped. We called the weather service and found that the interstate 40 was closed due to blizzard. So, we were stuck. We started at a Flying J - Denny's. We originally thought that the road was just going to be closed until 5:00 AM, so we waited for that. When 5:00 came around, I-40 was now officially closed and we decided to go into Denny's. Kathryn and I bought some hot chocolate (it was delicious, the whipped cream fantastic and only $2). After our first cup, Kathryn discovered that it had unlimited refills. It was a wonderful discovery. Christina, Elisabeth and Josh came in as well, but didn't buy anything. Everyone was really tired (though I didn't really feel it that much). About 7:00 we tried the interstate only to find that it was, indeed, actually closed. So we stopped by a McDonalds (Christina wanted to get a spicy chicken sandwich) only to find nothing but breakfast food, and then parked at Walmart and slept for a few hours. We got up, then tried the freeway again, failed, and went to another McDonalds (after getting lost and finding a large granary-type thing). It was still breakfast food, so we just sat there and waited. I had a book to read, but Kathryn and Christina decided to take this time to do yoga in the corner. We were all pretty tired. When lunch food finally came, we all ate as much as we wanted, regardless of price. Finally, I-40 was open at about noon, so we took off. Josh was manly and drove through the tricky parts of the freeway. We got to Albuquerque, then took off toward Monticello. We had dinner at Grandma's house, then got home to Provo at about...

2:30 AM on Wednesday morning.

Breakthrough

I thought I would just write and let everyone know that for the first time in something like two years (one and a half) I again have internet at my apartment. It turned out that we had internet the whole time, but just because you are a scientist it doesn't mean that you are technologically savvy. I felt slightly sheepish to say the least.

Life as we know it

Well, summer is come and is now heading out. Since I have held radio silence for the past 6 months, I thought I would let all know what is going on with my life right now.
This summer I have been doing research with Dr. Gee. I study very intense sound wave propagation, also known as a part of nonlinear acoustics. I got to go with our research group here at BYU to the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) conference in Seattle where I presented two papers. I also got to associate with some really neat people at the conference, many of whom are really big names in the society. It made me feel like a real acoustician.
Another fun thing that I have had the opportunity to do this summer is go out to the Salt Flats and do some acoustical testing of exploding balloons. It was grand. Here are some pictures that might interest you.



All right, so the first picture isn't at the Salt Flats, but I was blowing up balloons then as well. And by blowing them up, I mean I was recording the acoustical data. These pictures were taken by a colleague of mine named John Boyle. They are pretty cool looking.

My church callings are presently ordinance worker at the Provo Temple, elder's quorum teacher and stake institute co-chair. Or, maybe just chair, as there hasn't been another co-chair called.

And I feel like having another random picture, so here:

Last Full Semester of Undergraduate Life

Dance 280 - Intermediate Social Dance
Physics 416 - Technical Writing
Physics 442 - Electrodynamics
Physics 452 - Quantum Mechanics 2
Econ 110 - Principles of Economics

That is my class load. All of them seem like they are going to be interesting/fun, though not necessarily easy. I took the PS100 exemption exam this past week, so now I don't have any more GE's to do other than Econ 110. I am getting eerily close to graduation.

I still work at the temple on Saturday mornings. I also just picked up my old job of tutoring in the physics lab again, so that I have a more steady and sure income.

Life is good. Definitely worth living.

You may have seen this coming...

So it's not an interstate per se, but the Al-Can Highway is just that cool!

Life Update

Life in Provo.

1. Classes

- a. Physics Classes

- i. Quantum Mechanics
This class is fun. My teacher is French, so that adds to the flavor of the class.

- ii. Electrostatics and Magnetostatics
This class is math intensive. My professor is Dr. Mason. He's cool. I really enjoy this class.

- iii. GRE Prep
So I am going to be taking the Physics GRE on Oct. 9. I need this class.

- iv. Careers in physics
I haven't actually started this class yet: it is a block class and is in the next half-semester.

- b. Other Classes

- i. Writings of Isaiah
I really enjoy this class. I am learning a lot from Dr. Ludlow, my teacher. I recommend it.

- ii. Social Dance
Who could have guessed that I would like dancing? :)

- iii. Matrix Analysis
So I am a little crazy, as this is a graduate level math class that I am taking voluntarily.

2. Temple Work
The temple is really nice. I work on Saturday mornings now. I feel that I am learning a lot. If any of you are in the temple with me, I would be happy to share some things that I have been taught by our temple presidency.

3. Ward
I am a co-chair of the activities committee. We recently had our ward opening social, and people tell me it was a big success. I was kind of stressed out at the time, so I don't consider myself a good judge of it. It seemed as though people enjoyed themselves, though. The next party we are going to have is probably going to be in October sometime.

4. Research
At 4:00 today (Tuesday Sept. 14) I am going to go to my adviser's office and submit my first paper, myself being first author. Yeah, I'm pretty excited. It is about exploding balloons as demonstrations for graduate level acoustics classes. If anyone wants, I can explain it to you.

Well, I hope that this outline is better than the nothing that I have been posting recently. Enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of things not koala related. :)