Farewell

This is going to be a sad post, for I have decided to leave the blogosphere. After my previous post, I thought I might take a little break from blogging as blogging had increasingly seemed like a chore rather than an enjoyable activity. But after these last couple of weeks, I have come to the conclusion that I should stop altogether.

Blogging has been quite good for me for these last nine months and I have learned so much from the experience. As well, it has been a blessing to meet and get to know so many wonderful Christians through the blogosphere, and I thank God for the time He has given me on the blogosphere.

Only now, I realize I am entering a new phase of my life, and I need to focus more of my energy on different things. That, of course, means I have to give up some of my leisure activities, including blogging.

To end, nothing is more suitable then " The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost:

Two roads diverge in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

So farewell to you fellow bloggers.

In His Love,
Rachel
Romans 10:1

"I Can't" to a...phobia?

About four years ago, I became extremely afraid of ever driving/handling a stick-shift or manual transmission vehicle, and this was before I even started driving one. Certain aspects of the whole process just caused my heart to race and caused fear to control my thoughts.

When I did begin learning how to drive, I learned I had no special talent for driving, it was as difficult for me as anyone else. That was when I was driving an automatic. The moment I started driving a stick-shift, it became an event of high anxiety and crying. To cut the story short, it did not take me very long to quit trying to learn.

I really did quit trying. Every time I would try it, my slew of irrational fears would attack me, making it impossible for me to progress in any way.

My phobia was realized and in full force when I completely resigned myself to only ever being able to drive a "normal" car.

...that is, until last week. It was then my mind suddenly decided that I was going to learn how to drive that manual car.

Well, what else happens when your mind decides to do something? It does it! I practiced once with my mom, and she then let me go out alone once and that was it. I am certainly not really good at it, but I know how and can drive a manual.

It really is amazing how our minds can convince ourselves of anything. In this case, I simply let a little fear and uncertainty cause me to say "I can't," and just that snowballed into a phobia. It seems so silly that anyone would ever create such a thing as a phobia in their minds, and it is more silly to learn some of the phobias people do have.

But should we really fear something like this? If you read Psalm 27, you realize there is nothing we should fear, least of all something like driving.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident.

As Christians, we have the love and protection of the awesome Creator and Master, our God. As 1 John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear..." With the love of God, there is nothing to fear!

Alright, this sounds very easy as I write it, but it takes so much faith to have no fear, more faith than I have. Still it is a kind of faith to strive for and by the grace of Christ someday be able to have.

Stop Whining

Yesterday I finished up my last test of the semester! Now it's time for, a break? Well, at least a break from school work for the summer. It's never good to have too much free time. I spend too much time daydreaming when I have nothing to do. So I have aptly made a very long "to-do" list for my summer, and it would not be a proper "to-do" list if I had not made it long enough so that I will never be able to finish it (cue laughter here).

Just in time after I have been whining about schoolwork for the last month, I was given this nice article about whining from aish.com. Whining is unfortunately something that can afflict us all at one time or another. But it is really not healthy for anyone. It cause a person to focus on the negative aspects of a situation and causes others listening to the "whiner" to focus on the negative as well.

I know this fact too well as I used to be quite a whiner, but over the last few years, I have been trying very hard to mend my negative attitude problem. Thankfully, God has been helping me as well and I am well on my way to a "whine-free" lifestyle.

Do note that this is not a Christian website, but a religious Jewish website.

by Emuna Braverman And start living. I haven't read Dr. Laura Schlessinger's new book "Stop Whining and Start Living" but the title seems pretty explicit, and I have to agree with the theme. I think it's a very Jewish idea although I also like to believe we would have expressed it a little more gently... There are (at least) two problems with being a whiner. One is that you never grow. Instead of taking responsibility for your life, you blame others. Your character deficits are due to your childhood experiences? Okay, but how old are you now? At what point do you think it's time to move on? I once heard a very critical father excuse himself to his sons, "My father was very critical of me." Wasn't there another way to go with that? Especially after seeing and experiencing how destructive that criticism was? Don't let your childhood be an excuse for your bad behaviors and negative traits. I'm not saying that it's easy or even always possible to escape the influence of childhood trauma. But we need to try. We can't let it be an excuse for our bad behaviors and negative traits. The Almighty has imbued us with the ability to change. We are great believers in the power of our free will. We can overcome obstacles and grow deeper and stronger. If we really want to. And we really try. And even where we can't seem to overcome the damage, where certain emotional responses are too deeply ingrained to be reversed, we can at least be aware of the true source of our behavior. And not let it cloud or distort our thoughts, actions or words. Our inherent ability to change is taught early in the Torah, in a story that is also about taking responsibility for our actions. It's the famous tale of Cain and Abel. Abel brings an offering from the first of his flocks. Cain is less discriminating in his choice. Any offering will do. He demonstrates less gratitude, less appreciation. And his offering is rejected. Needless to say, Cain is not pleased with this turn of events. So the Almighty says to him, "Why are you annoyed, and why has your countenance fallen? Surely, if you improve yourself, you will be forgiven. But if you do not improve yourself, sin rests at the door. Its desire is toward you, yet you can conquer it." Cain truly had no one to blame but himself - although he managed to turn on his brother instead. It's an old story. Being an adult means the choices are ours to make. And the consequences ours to accept. However we may have suffered at the hands of others, continuing to blame them for our poor choices only aggravates the wounds and exacerbates the harm. Whiners are always focused on the negative. The second problem with being a whiner (I'm sure when I read the book I'll discover many more) is that you can never enjoy life. Whiners are always focused on the negative. Maybe there were some people that weren't nice to you. Why is all your energy directed towards them instead of at the ones who were? Maybe not everything has worked out the way you would have liked. But what about the things that have? If we persist in whining and concentrating on the negative, on not motivating ourselves to grow and change, some of our gloomy expectations will indeed come true. We will drive away everyone who cares about us through our unpleasant behavior and attitude. Then we will really have something to whine about.

On Mother's Day

Mother's day, who comes up with these holidays? We see it as a holiday in our calendars, and just before the holiday, you are bombarded with advertisements, TV commercials, and radio commentary telling you to buy this or that for your mother. Very materialistic. But where do we see any substantial meaning about this holiday?

The best place to find that meaning is in ourselves. Every son and daughter knows their mother best in their own special way, and no card or present can tell your mother how much you care about her than words from your own lips.

Now I encourage each of you reading this to go and tell your mother you love her, yourself!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Certainly, no Mother's Day post would be complete without an ode to Mothers! For yes! I do love my dear mother, and I must tell you all, with my completely biased opinion, that my mother is the best in the world and that no one could have the sweet, compassionate heart that she does. Glory to God for the amazing mother He has blessed me with!

A Wonderful Mother

God made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He molded her heart of pure gold;
In here eyes He placed bright shinning stars,
In her cheeks, fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.

~Pat O'Reilly

Silly typos

It must happen to most people. That is, when you are writing a paper and intend to type a certain word, but end up typing a different word that is correct in its self, but not in the context the word is being used. Besides these mistakes are very hard to catch in most cases, they are very comical when you do see them. Well, here are a few of those instances of this that I ran into with my friends in my English composition class this semester. The first word was what was typed, and the second word is what was intended to be typed.


stable~~~staple

lead~~~leaf

pheasant~~~peasant

condensation~~~condescension

though~~~thought

through~~~thoroughly

courtesy~~~curtsy

tread~~~trend

addition~~~addiction


Happy typing to you all....

Leaving the imaginary numbers

Now that I am nearing the end of my complex analysis class, I am realizing how much I have strayed into the realm of imaginary numbers. They are quite fascinating and really are quite simple and in some cases complex numbers are much easier to deal with than real numbers.

To show how very much I have enjoyed my class, I have to share these quotes that my professor gave me.

The complexity of complex variables is more imaginary than real. ~ An encouraging observation

The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again. ~A math joke

The shortest path between two truths in the real domain passes through the complex domain. ~ Jacques Hadamard

Ah! the letter "i," forever will it always make me think of the square root of negative one.

Almost done!

As of today, I have six more days until I am officially finished with this school year, and as much as I enjoy taking classes and learning, I am excited to have a break for the summer. Also, I cannot say I enjoy commuting onto the campus Monday through Friday, no matter how nice the BSU campus is.

Now with the end so near, it is a little difficult to stay entirely focused on my schoolwork. For example, today I had to make a visit to the library, not to study as I should have been, but to pick out some summer reading material. Though unfortunately, I think it will be hard to wait to immerse myself in the Louisa Alcott and C.S. Lewis selections I choose.