My Personal Creedo

The definition of a creed that  really liked the most was from the Merriam-Webster dictionary;
        
  Creed; an idea or a set of beliefs that guides the actions of a person or group.


Usually, a creed is found in religious organisations and is used in a similar way as a contract. It is used to 

create unity in a group or organization. It is a promise and a vow to uphold the guidelines that have been 

written or agreed upon.


My creed is something that is very dear to me. It is a scripture that defines the type of life that I want to lead. 

This creed is something that helps remind me of who I am, where I am, and whose I am. My creed comes 

from the book of Ephesians.

"1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved 
us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God"

When I first read this statement, it was a very challenging scripture for me. The verse continues on saying that those who do not follow this cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. This is why this is such a powerful scripture for me. Every day i ask myself "Am I being an imitator of god? Am I pouring as much love on them as god pours onto me?"

The sad part is, almost every time I reply to myself with a "No". But, it is a bar that I want to reach and is something that I strive for every day.

So my question now, to you, is this...

Are you being an imitator of God?

School So Far...

So far, School has been really stressful. Not only that, but my wife is also taking 18 credits online at MSU and we are both working full time. This week was the first week that I had any big tests for some of my classes and so far, I am kind of impressed with myself.

I just took my first proctored exam for Math 130, and , too my surprise, I received 100%. I'm more surprised because I didn't use a calculator, and it only took me 20 mins for a 90 minute exam. If only I could just take 4 math courses a semester and get a full math degree, I would be happy. I'm also surprised that in all my other classes I have all A's. I have not been in school for 4 years and the last time I had to write an essay was in 2006. I am very happy with myself.

My wife is getting a little stressed out however. She is taking the same level of math class as I am and the teacher she has just isn't teaching. I have seen her her blackboard and went through everything and I am so grateful for the teacher that I have. It just goes to show that its not just a students ability to learn, but also a teacher's ability to teach. This is very apparent as I can learn for easily, but I cannot teach. I have tried. I use different things to make me remember hows things happen. I see patterns, and the patterns I see is not something I am able to communicate. That's just the way God made me.

Overall, I think now I can let my stress levels lower. I have been stressed out like crazy, but now that I am comfortable with the online environment, I think now I can settle in at the pace I need.

I's the Winter Olympics!

I've never really been a fan of the Winter Olympics. I've never snowboarded before and I've never had the craving to do so. While I do love colder weather, I feel that the older I get, and the longer the winter is, the more I dislike it. Coming from a country where the is no snow, I love it. I could watch it snow forever. But this winter has me craving for summer, but when I think about it, I hate summer.

Nothing I hate more then sweating, and I'm sure that I am not the only one. this is one of the main reason I also love wearing black, Sweat marks always show through your shirts so much more on colored shirts then on black ones.But I digress..

Back to the winter Olympics. There are so many sports that I just don't understand, like curling, or figure skating. I understand that they are competitive sports, but I just have the beliefs that sports are on team against another. The has to be an attack and a defense. It's a one on one game. Such as soccer, football, boxing etc. To me, dancing on ice just doesn't seem to have much merit. But that's just me. It is cool to watch though, and I know it takes alot of talent to do it. But I just don't get the excitement out of it that I do with other sport.

Am I missing something??...

First World Problems...

It seems to me that life has become a struggle. Working full time and going to school full time has been a lot more stress then what I am used to. To add icing on the cake, my wife and I will be starting our adoptive classes in 2 weeks. I have a quote that I use a lot these days as it helps remind me of where I am in life.

The quote is:

First world problems....

This helps remind me that not matter how bad things seem to get, It surely cannot compare to those less fortunate then me. The narrative "Be cool to the Pizza guy" that I had recently read for my Composition I class for school, really helped remind me of this lately. While I have stresses at work, at least I have a job. While I have stress from school, at least I have to ability to get an education. While becoming a parent my have a new type of stress that I'm not used to, at least I have the ability to have a family and to give another child an outlet of love that they may never had had elsewhere.

The whole concept of being happy where I am is still something new to me. I have always wanted more. I've always wanted to best of what I can accomplish. Sometimes I want more so bad that I forget to be thankful for the blessings that I already have. It's easy for anyone to get caught up in the things of the world. Money. Success. Material things. In society in these times, it's especially easy to feel left wanting more. Sometimes I wish I had actually lived in a different time. A time where there is no TV, no internet or computers, no cell phones. Just life, work and love.

Knowing your Audience

So after our "Knowing your Audience" discussion board, it's clear to see that the audience that I am writing to is extremely eclectic. My audience is from so many different back grounds, locations, ethnicity and gender.

The question I posed was "You are trapped on a desert Island. You get two items and one person, who and what would you bring?". Unfortunately, I was hoping for a little bit more fun responses from my audience. There were a few people that had fun with the question, but the majority of people's responses were very similar. However, it does bring an interesting point that with so many different backgrounds, the majority of people focused on survival, and family, which does show's an aspect of maturity and life priorities. The majority of people picked their spouse or children, showing what's important in life to them. Only a few people mentioned celebrities, which showed that some people thought more as a fantasy type of an answer to my question then an actual ‘if it really happened’ scenario.

          It was also interesting to see the type of questions posted from our classmates. A theme that I did see was that the ‘younger’ students tended to ask more social life type questions, for example, what do you do with your free time? What’s your favorite movie? etc, however, the older students tended to ask more ‘life’ questions, for example, “Once done with college, what do you plan to do?”. This is just an observation of mine, and it can help show generational differences with what is important in someone’s life.

          Over all, I am quite happy with the audience in my class. I love having a wide variety of individual with different experiences. You never know exactly what type of response you are going to get out of it, but you can be sure that while some may agree or have a similar opinion or approach, there will always be someone that sees the same thing in a different manner. It helps break up the monotony of school and makes life more interesting.

This is more difficult then I thought.

So far, I have already missed two days of my blog posting due to life. Sometimes its impossible to get on here every day just to write, but hey, that's life and I am the only one to blame. Sometimes I can take on more then I can chew.

this week has been busy and kind of depressing. I was in line for a promotion at work. I had it all in the bag. My manager even started me on a training schedule to get me to where I needed to be, only to get told on Friday that the position went to someone else. Needless to say I was devastated. Not only did I have all this stuff worked out with my manager, but I lost the position to someone that has no where near the experience I have for the position. Unfortunately, this is also not the first time that I have lost a position to someone with far less experience to me over here in the United States. This country is clearly built on who you know, not what you know. Could this explain why things are crashing so much around here?

Something New

So this starts the first blog in a series of daily posts. To be honest, I am a little nervous about this writing assignment. I've never been one to be one of routines and have to do something every day for an extended period of time. The closest thing to that would be reading my bible.

My friend and I really wanted to pursue a greater knowledge and understanding of the Bible, so, we challenged each other to read three separate days worth of the bible in one day from a Chronological Bible. A chronological Bible splits the bible up in order from start to finish, and even intertwines different books that was written in the same time, and outs them all into order. It then separates everything into 365 chapters, one for each day of the year. However, we didn't want to take a full year to finish this challenge, So we amped it up a notch to do 3 days worth in one, essentially reading the whole bible in 4 months. We did it, but I must confess, after this, I have not readily opened my bible to do my readings like I should be.

This is going to be a challenge for me, but I know that I can do it. I will be honest, It was a little intimidating for me to read that we would be having to do this, as I work a full time job and also take 3 other classes for school. There is a part of me that thinks that I may have bitten off more then I can chew, especially as it has been a long time since I have been in a school environment, let alone an online class. I hope I can learn something about myself in the process.

02/05/14