Thursday, April 22, 2010

Longing

I'm reading the book The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller, who is also the author of the much-celebrated The Reason for God. He talks about beauty, and the concept of home and belonging. Here is a quote from his book, which is in fact a quote from C.S. Lewis' famous sermon The Weight of Glory. Yeah, thats right, nested quotes. And you thought Engineers couldn't write.

Keller quotes Lewis, writing about homesickness,

"Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Woodsworth's expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Woodsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things-the beauty, the memory of our own past-are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the ting itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself... Now we wake to find...[w]e have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken in..."








Friday, April 24, 2009

Torture, part II

Hey, so last year at this time, I posted about writing the final exam for my second year vector calculus course.


Well, I just want to give you, my avid readers, some continuity, so in the spirit of such things, I thought I would report to you on my feelings about the subject of vector calculus. See, I recently wrote the final exam for another course, this time in Electromagnetism, and believe it or not Electromagnetism involves a lot of vector calculus. But....

I discovered that double and triple integrals are way easier once you have gone over them again. Once you start to get what you are doing, they are not that hard. So for anyone out there who read my post last year and thought 'I'm going to prove him wrong by learning Vector Calculus' and has since given up the hope of ever understanding it...don't give up. You will learn, and I bet if you just give yourself a break and then try it some more, you will get it! 

In Christ,
Anton

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

b.t.w.

Yo, everyone. I don't have lots of time or talent to make this sound nice...but maybe I'll still get through to you. Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.

Sometimes I wish that my life was different...that I was better at certain things and that I had things that I don't have. But God is teaching me that I should be happy with what I have. And when I see others who have amazing gifts and who are really happy about them...He is also teaching me not to be jealous of them, but to rejoice with them. So be content.

Monday, September 15, 2008

MORE new music

Ok, so, today is a very special day. September 15, 2008 is the day that the final album in the trilogy by BraveSaintSaturn comes out. Bravesaint saturn, for all you innocent and to-be-pitied, is the side project of 4 members of FIVE IRON FRENZY and is therefore catagorically awesome.


No, not really, but they have a very nice, clean, progressive sound and beautiful lyrics that speak to me in my joys and struggles as a Christian. anyways, they have a new album. www.bravesaintsaturn.org.

Also, for diehard fans of FIF, their Saxophone player Jeff the Girl(Leanor) is in a new band, called Hearts of Palm. I kind of like them. and you can download their ep for free! so check them out too!

Woot for new music!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

New Music

Hey everybody. I recommend you check out Hannah Miller and John Mark Mcmillan. They are folk, so be prepared. I just bought Hannah Miller's cd online and she emailed me personally to thank me. How cool is that?! I will treasure it that much more!

Yeah....The links are there ->

Anton

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Torture

So, Today I wrote the final exam for Advanced Engineering Mathematics, specifically Vector Calculus, 2Q04. I started at 9:00. Finished at 12:00(thats how long they give you).

It was really hard. I recommend for anyone that ever takes that course...don't drop out of French class, because all the best mathematicians are French, and all the best mathematicians also happen to be very poor teachers(in my opinion...based on observation, not provable fact). But more than that...yeah, I don't even know what to say. I don't think there is much you CAN do to excel at that course.


There are certain things in life that you won't ever master. Love is one of them. Any kind of love...romantic, for friends, for enemies, even for God. Your sinful nature is another one of them.

And the next most obvious one is Vector Calculus.


Yours In Christ,
Anton