Post 32: Progress Report

I have a strange ability. Often when people set out to do things, to chase their dreams, they give up along the way. I'm not doing well on my New Years' Resolutions but with the things I mentioned in the previous post I'm actually doing really well! Here's a little update for you.

There's still about six months until I head off to university. I have decided that I'm going to Kansas State University. For good reason too: not only is it cheaper, I have something like over $6,000 in scholarships coming my way for my high grades and Phi Theta Kappa membership. A few days ago I spent the better part of my waking hours working on scholarships online, and hopefully I'll win one or two. In high school I applied for something like seven of them but didn't win any. Despite having insanely high grades and strong writing skills. Oh well. Still need to look into student loans. I figure I will go with the Sallie Mae company. Four of my five semesters in community college had 4.0 GPAs with an overall of 3.945.

A couple weeks after graduating I got my degree in the mail. I was so proud of it, I was telling everyone I got in contact with. It has a nice leather cover and the degree is laminated inside. Fifteen years of schooling have culminated in receiving that degree, and dangit I want to utilize it! I could contact the local employment agency to see what jobs, if any, are open around here. I'm hesitant to do that however, because I already have a job. Picking up two jobs, even if both are part time, would curtail a lot of my free time. Instead, I'm improving my Web design skills via volunteer work. I play a game called NationStates and lately I've been building the Web site for the group I am a member of. One of my weak points is graphic design but that's being improved with time.

Related to that, I'm still learning how to program in Java. I've finished reading the textbook I bought so now I'm just looking around and trying projects to improve my skills.

One of the things I was really concerned about the last time I posted was driving. I took the permit test and failed the first time. It's a series of 25 or so questions and you can get no more than 5 wrong otherwise you fail. I had 9 wrong the first time. A couple of them were kind of dumb mistakes but a couple others were questions worded very trickily. My second time, a week later, I passed having made only three mistakes. My official permit came in the mail a week or so later.

After that I had to find people to teach me to drive! I need 40 hours of daytime driving and 10 hours of nighttime driving. At first nobody was really willing to help. Then a month later I received like 3 or 4 offers. My first time driving was a Saturday after work. I discovered that driving isn't nearly as difficult as it may appear, but the mechanics are also slightly different from what I always assumed. I'm naturally a fast learner and this was no exception. At first I was nervous to get up to 20 mph but now I consider that slow! I've spent a lot of time on gravel roads and am itching to get on suburban streets and highways. Definitely looking forward to future driving. I want to put more work into turning, parking, and stopping.

In the field of faith, I have discovered Dr. William Lane Craig's Web site Reasonable Faith. It is a site devoted to Christian apologetics and rational arguments for the existence of God and Jesus. Not only have I learned a lot from it, I've also had my faith strengthened. To be honest, I do often get nervous when I approach areas where the arguments are strongly debated and put through the rigors, however in time I will muster the courage to read through those and understand both sides of the argument. My favorite and most convincing argument, to me, is the teleological argument, also known as the watchmaker theory, fine-tuning, or Intelligent Design. I hope to someday share what I've learned.