Maybe Someday I'll Write Something More Elaborate

Why sit on a train without air conditioning when the next car has it?

Why walk through the pouring rain without an umbrella?

Why take a breath and try again?

Why pursue someone with the knowledge of its unpredictability?

Why put my faith in something the world calls foolish?

Because too much comfort, my good sir (or madam), is deleterious. And because love, my good madam (or sir), is worthwhile.

Experience. Feel. Think.

Grow.

And All the While Eroica is Playing into My Ears

older man enters train, visibly hurting

younger man enters behind carrying older man's bike; his suit and well-groomed demeanor says he has nothing to do with the older man's bike ride

younger man entertains conversation with older man despite younger man's other agenda(s) (his phone remains in hand during the ride)

younger man shares his phone number

train stops

older man gets (limps) off and younger man struggles to free the bike

woman jumps up to hold the "Push to Open Door" button

train remains still

younger man explicitly relaxes and finishes helping the older man

pleasantries explained

younger man reenters the train holding a cut on his hand

another woman offers band-aid for the wound

train moves forward

every face in the car holds a smile

and suddenly my wet socks didn't bother me anymore

There Is a Chinese Proverb

That says,

"If you only have two pennies, use one to buy a loaf of bread, and one to buy a lily."
Because a full belly means nothing without beauty.

Oh, and what beauty we have, all around us.

"Clap your hands all peoples!

Shout to God with loud songs of joy!"

~Psalm 42:1

In Retrospect

A while ago I contributed a rather lengthy rant about the SBOE and their recent decision about the "rewriting" of the textbooks. I'm still a bit bothered by my comments, even though I also made another post about the whole thing. After some more research on the whole topic, I find myself a little less heated (of course, that's what usually happens after more research, and it was my mistake to get like so).

What had triggered the whole post in the first place was a quote I had read from one of the SBOE members about evangelism that I completely disagreed. I still don't feel like I should retract my post.

However, I feel the need to observe (again) the fact that I am constantly frustrated by our government. Without going into another long rant, I will distill my thoughts thus:

Our world is broken, and government is led by broken people. It will never be perfect. Should we fight for it? In some instances, yes. However, my energies I think are better spent in other spaces more conducive to a ministry that I find more correct (biblical).

Another Day in the Life

You might or might not know that I'm spending my summer interning as a teacher in the city at a summer school. The experience has been, well, interesting. It's not always positive, but moments like these just inspire me to no end, this idea that maybe I'm making an impact on these kids' lives in return for their much larger contribution to mine.

So today the we learned about oil spills and my class simulated one of their own.

Over the past week, the kids have been learning about resources and have developed the concept that things are made from other things using other things. Today, I had made some simulated oil for our activity and had set it aside for the afternoon, when I noticed that it was missing midway through the morning.

Oh my goodness, I thought prematurely to myself, I don't want to get on to another kid. As much as they might not believe me, I really don't enjoy it.

I looked around and noticed Mr. Aviant hurrying to the door with the oil in hand.

"Aviant!" I shouted as I went to fetch him, "Where are you going with that?"

"I'm going to the place where they make bottles!" he answered nonchalantly as he continued out the door.

His answer stopped me dead in my tracks. You see, I had yet to tell them that this was oil (though vegetable oil wouldn't make very good plastic, but they don't know that yet), but Aviant had seen it, and applying what he had learned last week about plastic, bottles, and oil (and reading the book I've had lying on the shelf since the summer started), he decided he was going to go make bottles out of his newly found oil.

It's so wonderful being inspired by kids.

Watch It

Because I Think It's Important

I will be streaming select events from the World Science Festival from this blog. Or you can go watch it from the host site, livestream.com. I don't care, as long as somebody's watching it somewhere. I know I'm going to watch as much as I can.

Just press click on the video to watch live.

Watch live streaming video from worldsciencefestival at livestream.com