The Last First Day of Classes

Today was the official first day of my senior year. It was also the last time I will ever have a first day of classes in college. The experience was a bit surreal. I took my final yearbook photo, and I realized just how strange it truly is to be a senior in college.

I only had one class today: a lab for one of my engineering classes. It will be the last lab I ever have in college, an equally strange thing. It seems that I am running out of things to hold onto as my college years approach their end.

I also TA-ed a help session today, and realized that I need to find underclassmen to transfer my knowledge of classes to in order that they may assist the next group of students.

In general, I get the feeling that I am now in a constant state of passing the torch, and will be doing so for the next eight months.

– Gavin

I’m Back (In More Ways Than One)

Hello all in the blogosphere.

I have not posted since Saturday. I have been incredibly busy for the last few days, as both my sister and myself moved back to school yesterday. There was a lot of packing to do, and everyone was worn out on both Sunday and Monday. I was busy unpacking and catching up with friends yesterday, so I did not post then either.

I am no longer living in the dorms this year. Instead, I am residing in a house called Ross Apartments near the campus. It is obviously a standalone house, so I have no idea why it is called apartments. I am living with seven juniors, leaving me as the lone senior in the house.

Classes do not start until next week, but I am glad to be back for my final year of school. Due to the way things are looking now for this year, I do not think I will be posting every day. I still plan to post at least 4-5 times per week. Here comes another great year.

– Gavin

In Five More Days…

…I will be back at school up in Michigan. It has been a great summer, but I am completely ready for one last year of college. Senior year will likely be tough, due to final projects, graduate school applications, and of course lots of farewells, but it should all be worth it. A week from Tuesday my fall semester classes begin. I am ready. Here goes what may be the best year of my life.

– Gavin

Misplaced

Currently, I feel misplaced. Even though I love learning, and I thoroughly enjoy my summer research job here at Georgia Tech, I still am not feeling myself. I came into the summer expecting loads of fun and an end to my restlessness, but some how I feel even more restless than before.

Part of the reason for this is that though I am surrounded by more bright minds than ever before, I have not been able to make friends with any of them. Its not that the people around me are mean or immoral, its simply that I struggle to find anything in common with them. It also is hard to break through to people because no one in the portion of the city I reside in seems to genuinely care about anyone else. Because of this lack of contact with others, my social life is essentially extinct, and I spend hours alone every day, doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

The two things that I feel have been tremendous positives for me this summer are learning to truly live on my own, and getting a chance to engage my faith more fully than before. While the independent living is harsh and unforgiving, I feel that I have now fully grown into adulthood. For the first time in my life, I have been not only attending church regularly, but getting involved within the church as well. The highlights of my lonely weeks are the Sunday church service, Sunday evening small group, and Wednesday night college-student get-togethers at my church. These are the only times when I feel like I truly belong to anything at all.

I do not regret traveling to Georgia for a summer job, but I feel that the intense loneliness that I feel daily is truly showing me how special that the friendships that I made back at college were. I cannot wait for the fall, for try as I might to prevent it, I am not getting any younger, and I want to relish my senior year for as long as I can. I cannot believe it is still eleven weeks till classes start back up. Its going to be a long ten weeks for sure.

– Gavin

Learning the Ropes (Literally)

In addition to performing engineering research, the summer program that I am involved with at Georgia Tech also features several professional development activities. The nine other researchers in my program and myself experienced one of these today: an outdoor leadership development course. This course consisted of a series of ground challenges, and a ropes course that maxed out at 4 stories tall.

The ground challenges were relatively simple activities relating to teamwork. Some were mental, some were purely physical, and some were a combination of the two. The most interesting of these was a task which gave the group of us 30 minutes to retrieve a ball from atop a bucket in the center of a circle with a radius of about 10 feet without touching the inside of the circle at all. As a team of engineers, we innovated our trio of methods in half that time, and still had ideas left over.

The ropes course was far more challenging. It consisted of a three story climb up a cargo net, a tight-wire, a series of free to move platforms, twin suspended logs, criss crossing wires, and a thrilling zip line finale. Our guides gave us a series of challenges for each obstacle, on top of the already high physical and mental demands of the course. We finished each as best as we could, and all of us made it through the course in one piece. In addition, our group definitely grew as a team during the experience. I will say that the course was the most physically challenging activity that I have participated in possibly my whole lifetime. It really pushed my upper body strength and balance skills to the limits. Even so, I found myself in the interesting position of moving the group carefully through the criss-cross high wires, as I felt strangely comfortable on what was the least physical and most mentally challenging obstacle on the course.

My group spent the entire afternoon on the course, and although it was incredibly challenging for everyone, including a few military veterans in the group, I feel we benefited greatly from the experience. I would do it again, but not for quite a while, as I am still recovering.

– Gavin

Turning Point

As you have probably inferred from reading my blog, the past month has been hard for me in more ways than one. I have needed to vent a lot, as I have been under considerable stress, and this blog has been one channel for that release of stress and angst. The departure of the senior class, a rather heavy course load, the search for a summer job, and various friendship issues have made the past month quite a challenge.

All of it is now in the dust, as I approach a new chapter in my life. I finished my last final this afternoon, and my junior year is officially behind me. It has been tough with the gravity of goodbyes and the stress of finals to survive the week, but it is now over and I can move on with my life. This summer will be challenging as well, as I will not be near many of my friends and I will be in a strange new city. It is however a challenge that I choose to accept, and I intend to trudge onward.

As a side note, I have managed to post to this blog daily for the past month. It will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

– Gavin

Last Day of Classes

It is very strange to be done with classes for the year. Each year, this day feels more and more surreal. It is the realization that the normalcy of a regular schedule is over, and in a week a brief glimpse of freedom will flicker, before it is crushed by the setting in of the realities of the real world.

Today we finished our semester-long trip through the Bible in my Introduction to Biblical Literature class by diving into the book of Revelation. In Latin II, we finished our final reading of the semester, the Nicene Creed, and proceeded to spend 20 minutes or so chatting with the professor about his life. This afternoon, I substitute teach again, and then I am done, with the exception of finals. Spring semester is now over, but the summer is now just about to begin.

– Gavin

Substitute Teaching

Today, I had the privilege to do something that not many undergraduate students have the privilege to do: teach a college class. The class was Process Calculations, the introduction to chemical engineering class at my school, and I taught in place of the normal professor, who was away at a conference. Due to the relatively small size of my school’s engineering program, my advisor is the only chemical engineer on staff, and as  I am currently a teaching assistant for the class, I was asked to be a substitute teacher for him.

For the past few days, I have been nervously awaiting this class period. As a person who  is considering a potential career as a professor, I was excited for my first real opportunity to teach a class, but I was also scared. Due to how late in the semester it is, there was really no new material to cover, and I essentially had to work through the first half of a final exam example problem. It went well, I definitely could have been more on top of the problem, but the freshmen students in the class were respectful, and we got about two-thirds of the way through the problem. I have to sub again tomorrow as well, and I think that I will be a bit more comfortable teaching.

– Gavin

Identity in a Room

As I approach the end of my junior year, I have numerous goodbyes to say. I have friends that are graduating, friends who are studying abroad next semester, and friends who I will miss over the summer. They are not the only things I will be saying goodbye to in less than two weeks, however. I will also be leaving my longtime dorm room.

Voorhees Hall 309 has been my home during the school year ever since the first day of my freshman year nearly three years ago. I have had four different roommates during that time, some good and some rather bad, and I have had three different RA’s as well. Every one of my friends from freshman year moved out of the dorm at one point or another, and unfortunately the community has not been quite as good since then, but I have stayed nonetheless. I survived organic chemistry, physics, and many other classes in the room, as well as hardships of all kinds. I never decorated the room, and it is usually a big mess, but nevertheless it has been the place where I have done my homework, thought to myself, and slept for my entire college career.

At the end of the semester, I will be moving out for good. I do feel it is good for me to move on, especially since I will be in a house with a group of guys that I am good friends with, but I cannot help but feel nostalgia for my soon to be former dorm room.

– Gavin

Knowledge and Faith

One of the general education classes I am taking this semester is Introduction to Biblical Literature. By the end of the semester in a week’s time, we will have read through and discussed the entire Bible during the class, which is no small accomplishment. Out of my non-science courses, I have learned by far the most in this class about the subject matter at hand, and through the class I have also improved my understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

For most of today, I have been working on a paper for this class on the topic of Gnosticism. To summarize, the Gnostic heresy was that faith in Jesus’ resurrection would not save, but a “special knowledge” of God and the order of the universe would. As I was reading the article that I was using as my primary reference, it struck me how significant that distinction actually was.

As I may have mentioned before, I have traveled a tumultuous road on the journey to fully realizing my faith and beliefs. One thing I have struggled with to a large degree is knowing that the Bible’s testimony about Jesus was true, but not really being sure whether I had truly placed my faith in him. When reading about Gnosticism, it immediately struck me that I have been headed through my journey, which was to use knowledge to foster my faith, instead of the other way around. This realization has pushed me to try to believe without trying to first know it to be true. I am aware that it will be hard for me to do this as I am a very analytical person, but I will pray that God helps me through it.

– Gavin