How I Met My College Buds - Part II

Ben finally spotted a familiar face in the crowd. This being his second class period, he had already gone through the disappointment of being a loner in a crowd of engineering students, and he hoped that Calculus would be a different story. He slid into a seat next to his friend, Ryan Hill, and the two exchanged greetings. An unfamiliar face leaned over from the other side of Ryan.
“Are you, Ben Coder?” He asked.
“Yes, I am.” Ben replied, his mind racing about the identity of the stranger.
“I’m Grant. I know the Quartos, and they told me to look for you.”

* * *

“Hey Paul, can you help me with this?”
It was a common thing to hear in the mechy [mechanical engineer] corner. Up on the second floor with a great view of the campus, the mechies could always be found doing homework, reading up in their textbooks, or chatting in a few minutes break.
Paul was the “resident genius”. He was a year ahead of most of the other mechies, and was always willing to help explain a foreign concept to the freshman. What’s more, he was good at it.
Paul left a conversation and came over to the table to help the helpless student. Suddenly, Ben looked up.
“Paul, did you do track with Coach Frank Schmidt?” He asked.
Paul raised an eyebrow, “Yeah… a long time ago.” He said slowly.

* * *

Ben decided to risk it. He was potentially setting himself up for failure, but he was getting enough push from home he decided to try it. After class was over, Ben walked over to the quiet Jonathan.
“So… I hear you had dinner with the Cashes last night.” Ben queried, referencing an event that he’d heard from “the sisters”.
“Yeah… do you know them?” Jonathan asked.

So in the end, Jonathan Spafford was not the “Other Jonathan”, the Airsoft Squad Leader turned out to be as good at engineering as he was at airsoft, and Paul will be designing real space probes one day.

How I Met My College Buds - Part I

A little, 11-year old Ben sat near the track. Sighing, he recognized it was bound to be another afternoon of dullness – running miles in the hot sun up and down Padden Parkway while everybody else did the easy 100-meter sprints, the turbo-javelin, and shot-put (all near the shade and water bottles, of course).
He sat near the sandbox and talked with his friend, Michael, about the newly-landed Martian Rover Spirit. As an engineer to be (though he did not yet know it), he was fascinated by the prospect of robot probes scouring the surface of an unknown planet.
Another boy came up to the twosome; he had been stretching a few feet away and joined the boys’ conversation. After much exciting talk, the boys decided to draw their own robot probes and meet back the next week with their drawings.

That new boy’s name was Paul.

...

A nervous, 15-year-old boy awaited his orders from his team's captain.

“Alright Ben, that’s your squad leader.” Came the announcement as the captain pointed toward a stranger. The squad leader was muscular, dressed in full camo gear and a tan baseball cap. He wore reflective sunglasses and handled his “large” rifle with an ease that only comes from years of experience. This was Ben's first major airsoft engagement, and he was eager to prove himself, though with only a shotgun and two hours experience.

“Ok guys, listen up.” The leader told his squad (most of which were the inexperienced type like Ben), “Let’s move out, and just have fun!”

The squad leader’s name was Grant.

...

An annoyed, 17-year old Ben groaned as a whiny voice rose from the general discussion in the classroom.

“But Tina, actually that’s wrong.”
An audible groan went up from the class as Jonathan tried to correct the professor again.
“Nobody cares Jonathan.” Came a different voice from the crowd of students, followed by a snickering, as the rest of the class agreed with the emotion.
“Please, no!” Ben thought. Somewhere in this classroom was a boy named Jonathan; the Cashes, old time friends for years, knew him and had found out that he and Ben were in some of the same classes. People in both his family, as well as the Cashes, were urging Ben to meet this fellow student.
He just had to urge himself. There were two Jonathans in the class. One was quiet and said nearly nothing. Ben knew almost nothing about him. The “Other Jonathan” wouldn’t shut up. He constantly corrected the professor, had no social skills, and a beard that would suit a caveman.

He was also homeschooled.

What I’ve been doing lately.

Well, school is underway! Here come the cascades of homework, quizzes, studying, grasping of foreign concepts, late nights, early mornings, and, and…!

*cue long pause*

Well, I don’t have a homework assignment due until next Thursday.
Most of this material (at this point) is review.
I’ve been keeping up with, and upon occasion ahead of, the reading.

*cue another long pause*

What, may I ask, have I been doing? Or perhaps, the sentence would better read “What, you may ask, have I been doing?”; I think I like the second version much better.

*cue yet another long pause*

I think, as I am new to blogging, that it would be best if I did not muse on grammatical technicalities during the blog post, but perhaps it would be best to perform such corrections previous to the actual posting.

*cue yet another long pause*

Um, anyways, attached is a bit of music I’ve been working on. It is called Britanniarum Regnum, or the Latin term for Great Britain. It is the second movement in a piece of music I’m working on called the World War II Symphony. I’m planning to enter it into a composition competition. This is probably the last I’ll be able to work on it for a while :)

Enjoy!

PS - the music quality isn't awesome, but it's a work in progress

Have You Ever Wanted to Read an Ancient Dcoument?

I mean ancient, not just ancient. I mean something that was written by the people who built the pyramids, or the hanging gardens, or maybe Hammurabi who ordained the first written law code of the ancient world, something from a lost civilization like the Olmecs, or the people of Angkor Wat, or the civilization of Mohenjo Daro. Why in the world would anybody besides a total history geek (referring to myself, of course) want to waste his or her time pouring over a scrap of paper from people long gone? What is the purpose or fascination for such things? I suppose it would vary from person to person. For my part, I would like to learn something new, something that would tell us more about these amazing ancient constructs. Why did the people of Mohenjo Daro leave? How were the pyramids built with less than 1 cm difference in the length of sides? Why did Hammurabi design his law code the way he did? Maybe these people had a bit of wisdom they could leave behind for us; something that could help us today.
Guess what! I have in my personal possession a document, not original – but I wouldn’t be able to read it if it was – that dates as far back as 1500 B.C.! Not only that, but it also recounts events in detail 2500 years before that! This document outlines the history of a people that have been scattered throughout the entire earth, and had their own conflicts with Egypt, Assyria, Aramea, Babylon, Persia, and Rome to name a few, mentioning conflicts and kings that were not found in the archaeological record until recently, and some that have yet to be found. It lists specific recipes for their very advanced medicinal practices that were not fully understood by science until the 19th century, almost 2500 years later! Most importantly, it contains the secret to save all of humanity from impending doom, a doom far worse than a plague, an invading army, or some cosmological disaster. It recounts very concisely the solution to all of humanity’s problems, summed up in this one small passage:
God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory.
There – the solution to mankind’s problems summed up in 6 lines. No Egyptian document could tell me that, and Hammurabi likely as not had no idea what was coming, or even why his law code might be considered “just”.
I have in my personal possession the most valuable document in history, something preserved for thousands of years with practically no variation, something that can not only help save my eternal life, but also those around me.

We call it the Bible.