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What do I feel!?
I am such a mix of emotions right now.
Today I taught my last guitar lesson for the foreseeable future. I’ve worked as an instructor at my dad’s guitar studio for 11 years. I was 15. I literally started going to work on Saturday mornings and was trading in watching cartoons for going to work. That job put me through college, paid my rent, made me able to afford an engagement ring and honeymoon, bought my car, four laptops, two guitars, and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, so not the last one.
Still, I’ve had that job for almost half my life. One of my students I’ve taught for 8 years, which is longer than I’ve known my wife. I met my best friend at that job. I worked side-by-side with my father on for 11 years, then my brother joined 8 years ago. It was more than a job, it was my family.
Why did I quit? Because I am going to be teaching a full-fledged general chemistry lecture next semester as a part-time graduate instructor. I get a raise and a much larger workload, but it is a fantastic opportunity. It will teach me a lot about teaching, which is what I want to do with my life anyway. Also, it will be great for my resumé. Speaking of my resumé, I’d better change mine to read “Jan. 2004-Dec. 2014” on my guitar teaching, instead of “Jan. 2004-present” like it is now. How weird.
Also, in another rapid change, I just posted the last episode of Wildstar Radio. We haven’t been playing Wildstar for a couple of months now, and it has been recorded since November, but something kept making me wait to post it. Like if I did, it would officially be “over.” I didn’t want to stop, but I also didn’t want to continue. So torn.
Leaving the family business and not being a podcast cohost anymore both are weird feelings. While I know I am going to enjoy the things I am moving towards, I can’t help but be sad and reminiscent about the things I am leaving behind. I am still very thankful that I get the opportunities to do what I do, but I am also thankful for the things I’ve done in the past, and part of me will always miss them.
Are any of you dealing with rapid life changes? I’m sure some of y’all’s are way more drastic than mine, and I am certain that some of you have negative changes you are going through as well. Consider this your support group! Please feel free to share in the comments!
Approximations
Today, I have a Christianity/quantum mechanics post for y’all. I know, weird combo. I won’t go into gory details of what I am studying, don’t worry. I will make a point to be pretty general for people not familiar with anything past high-school physics. I know not all of my followers are Christians, but those that are might be interested. I welcome comments from all of my followers though, Christian or not.
This all started when I was sitting in my time-dependent quantum dynamics class, and something the professor said hit me in a weird way.
He said (truthfully) that everything I had learned previously in quantum mechanics classes (of which I have had four in graduate school so far) was completely wrong in most instances. It was all done time-independently, which of course means that it is an approximation, as it doesn’t take an expert in quantum mechanics to realize that we need to take into account how things change with time eventually. Everything I had learned was correct only in a limited sense, in a particular application. If I am looking at a snapshot of reality where time is removed from consideration, then the quantum mechanics I had learned will work. Otherwise, which is most cases, I need a different, more advanced, and more general theory.
What is fascinating to me is where I have been before now, and how much of what I have learned is actually an approximation. An approximation is a way of limiting some very difficult aspect of a concept to make it more accessible or more applicable to a certain situation. Rounding numbers is an example of an approximation that we deal with every day. It would be impractical to pay exactly $21.639175 for a $19.99 item with Texas’ 8.25% sales tax. So we approximate.
What influence has this had on my studies of science? Read more…
Reflections on Jesus
Two thousand years ago, a Man from Nazareth named Jesus lived in a Jewish culture, gathered followers, defied the church leaders of His time, and died a criminal’s death by being executed by Roman authorities for insurgence, though the verdict was questionable. It is a seemingly simple story, but the Man behind the history means far more to His modern-day believers than the above sentence would lead one to believe. He claimed to be the Son of God, the Jews’ Messiah, and He proved His claims true by healing illnesses, driving out demons, raising people from the dead, and finally by raising Himself to life after being falsely accused and murdered. Over two thousand years, His disciples have been tortured, expelled, excommunicated, segregated, beaten, burned, decapitated, hung, poisoned, stabbed, and shot for His name. He was the pivotal person of history, of His-story, as even our calendar reflects His life on earth. He is, was, and will be. He is the Word, who was with God in the beginning. He was, to speak in simultaneously simple and complex terms, God incarnate. Read more…
Rhekk
Geldarion
Torvox
The Fanatical Swordsman 
A comment reply to Lanir
Lanir posted a comment on my other post here. I wanted to respond to him and his “wall ‘o text” (as he put it), but I ended up writing a post-length response, and it just got out of hand haha. I created my own “wall ‘o text.” Oh well!
His comment is in boldface, and my responses are in regular type.
Note: I took the important things that I wanted to respond to from his comment, simply for space reasons, but I do not believe I left anything out that will change his meaning.
“I’m going to try something a bit different and go for a semi-reasonable conversation.”
A welcome relief 🙂
“From an outside perspective, I think the blog post here is really just a statement of beliefs.”
This is true. Specifically, it outlines my description of Jesus, who he was technically and who he is to me today.
“The replies seem to me to be consistent with that viewpoint as they largely don’t speak say much about anything brought up in the blog entry but talk about Christianity in general.” Read more…