Tactical Socialization

This semester hasn't been the most successful for me. Part way through I experienced some heavy burnout that really set me back academically. Even now I'm still feeling the consequences of it. One of my biggest failures, I think, has been socially. I've done a really good job at keeping people at arm's length or further, and I'm starting to rethink whether it actually was so good an idea.

Gah, People!

I've always been a loner. My circle of friends has never really been that big. People tended to go in and out of it as life circumstances demanded. I never really preferred team projects, but if I did find myself in one I usually took the leadership position. It did the job.

Although I didn't know about the word until my teen years, I'd easily be classified as an introvert. There's a difference between intoversion and shyness. Introverts don't talk much because it expends energy. Shy people don't talk much because of fear, anxiety, or something else. I have the double whammy of being shy and introverted.

One of the main things I've noticed about how I socialize is how I dislike small talk. It occurred to me a few years back how useless it seems to be. How often do you hear a conversation go "Hi!" "Hi!" "How are you?" "Good." "That's good." What's the point of that? That little exchange goes nowhere, does nothing. I would rather get to the meat of the conversation. If you have anything important or meaningful to say, go ahead and say it. I don't see such social niceties as worthwhile.

I've also taken issue with the "stock questions" you hear around a college campus at the start of a new school year, or at other significant times of the year. You probably know what I'm talking about:

• Where's your hometown?
• What's your major?
• What year are you?
• How many final exams do you have?
• What are your plans for break?
• How was your break?

It bugs me to use and be asked these because I find them cliche. They're outright predictable. They're asked so often, and I repeat myself every time.

Basically, I abstained from these things. If people asked me them, I would answer as appropriate.

Not So Empty Chatter

I did not expect to have such big problems with this approach to socialization as I've gotten. Of the 100-odd students living on my floor in this dorm, only 20 were present last year. The rest are completely new faces. While people were trying to get to know each other early in the year, I basically stayed out of sight. Some of them I've become acquainted with. The rest only know me as the quiet, somewhat goofy, kinda grumpy dude that lives at the end of the hall. I feel like, by and large, I've missed out on a lot of important interaction with my peers. I don't even have a baseline acquaintance relationship with many, if not most, of them. 

Why do I think these non-existent relationships are important to have? Because I'm a social creature, just like anyone else is. If I don't have anyone physically present I can go to, then I'm in a lot of trouble because the social needs I have can't be met. These are needs everyone has. We fulfill them by talking with others, hanging out, and otherwise being physically present with fellow humans.

It dawned on me that small talk, which I long thought of as purposeless, is actually kinda useful. Those stock questions I avoided asking have a role. Split-second greetings while you pass someone in the hall does indeed do something. They open channels to making some kind of relationship with that person - be it friendship, simple acquaintances, business partners, co-workers, romantic partners, and so on.

The thing is, while those small exchanges themselves don't contribute much, they open the opportunity to lead to more communication. This is a really good thing for somebody like me who often finds himself feeling lonely.

Tactical Socialization

I call it tactical because the way I see it, there's a plan and a mission to it. There's things I need to do, want to accomplish, and there's a way to get them done.

What I'm looking to do is have a healthy social life, considering my naturally introverted nature. Despite being the "quiet guy," I can still have those baseline acquaintances with people around me. I've spent enough time going the opposite route, of generally avoiding talking to people, to know what's better for me. I do think the key, for now anyway, is getting used to making small talk with people. I've had more than enough instances of sitting awkwardly in silence by someone, because I didn't know what to say, or could not muster up the courage to speak.

I feel like I have what might be called a "social duty." Calling it a duty isn't really the right word, because nobody's requiring me to do it, but it's the best I can come up with. What I mean is that it's proper and beneficial to open those lines of communication with people around me, wherever I may find myself. I have that duty, that role, to carry out. I do it by saying hello as we pass each other in the hallway, or by using those stock questions during the right time of the semester. You engage the person, it creates that connection which helps a lot.

That's what I want to do. I want to try and say hello as I pass people in the dorm hall, in between classes, as I sit to eat and there's really not anyone else around, etc. I'd like to ask them what their plans for break are, how they feel about the exams they've had. Or just that vague old "How are you?" which can be used to start a chit chat or dismissed as a formality. I don't desire to push people to speak to me, or force a conversation. Starting conversations is hard for me; but once I'm in it, continuing and ending at the right time are more or less natural to me. That's what I'm going to aim to do more often.

I'm not really looking to become close friends with everybody I meet. First off, that's not in my nature. Even if I say hello to everyone, I'm still an introvert. I prefer to stick to a few close friends, rather than try to befriend everyone. I do want healthy social interaction, though. And who knows? Some, or even many, of those interactions can lead to friendships. I'm OK with that. Second, I know not everybody will want to be friends with me. I'm the calm, cool, collected, religious type. I tend not to get very emotional or rambunctious. A lot of people will find that off-putting. That's alright. If they don't desire friendship from me, it's their choice and I won't hold it against them.

On a religious note, this has evangelical benefits as well. The campus ministry I attend has an icebreaker event most nights before the message. I've usually kept out of those, but part of developing a better social life would include engaging in them. The Gospel is not spread by silence. It's spread by going up to a person and showing your godly character, speaking about Jesus where the opportunity arises. Once a person is a believer, having a community to go is vital for maintaining your faith. It helps to not feel alone, and eventually you could find someone to go to about spiritual problems and successes.

Exercise!

Here's a quick update on my weight loss mission. I don't know what my weight is, as I don't know where I would find a scale. However I have still been taking measures to cut back. I'm trying to eat less, though it's questionable how well that's working. One of the main steps I've been taking is exercising more.

In the fitness room of my dorm building there's a device which I've just found is called an elliptical trainer. Basically it simulates walking up a flight of stairs. For the first week I was just doing normal walking on it, but I've started going more intense. The device has several settings for more intensive workouts. So here's my routine right now:

• About a minute of stretching arms and legs.
• 20 sit-ups
• 20 push-ups
• 20 jumping jacks
• Using the elliptical trainer for 10-20 minutes.
• 30 repetitions of arm exercises with 15 pound weights.

The elliptical trainer as an aerobic setting which has a 20-minute workout of increasing and decreasing intensity. I've used this twice, and I've not yet been able to last the full 20 minutes. Perhaps next time I will be able to do better.

I don't know how much exercise is going to be enough, honestly. I shoot for a half hour, twice a week. Soon I hope to get some professional advice about this stuff. But just know I haven't given up yet!

A Simpler Life

As a computer science major in college, I deal with information a lot. My classes daily unload new knowledge into me, which I am expected to retain (at least until the final exam). Beyond that, I spend a lot of time on the computer, doing homework, playing games, or socializing online. Over the past few months I've started to feel a bit overwhelmed by all this information being pumped into my mind on a daily basis.

Part of me has begun longing for simpler times. It's a recurrence of a desire that's been in me for a while. Not too long ago I ran across a website that collects American TV sign-offs, which were played when a TV station shut down for the night. That's right, TV stations used to shut down. I don't remember them, but boy do they bring back nostalgia of simpler times, before information and the Internet dominated.

Another part of me thinks back to the Middle Ages. Back then, there weren't nearly as many possibilities and media as there is nowadays. Your collection of friends was limited to who was in your village. Long-distance friendships were probably maintained by sparse meetings. There weren't hundreds of different jobs you could take. And while I certainly wouldn't want to live in the Medieval times, there's something... quaint about the comparatively simple lifestyle they had. You worked, you dined with the family, and on Sundays the entire village gathered for Mass.

I've spent a lot of time musing on what it is that I desire. My thoughts have led me to a few things actually.

First, I miss the lack of information overload. You know how Facebook has that mini-feed in the upper right corner of the screen? It shows in real time what your friends are doing. Honestly it just clutters the screen with a distracting moving object. I hid it with the online friends list, and I've felt better about it since then. I still check once in a while but I'm not being spammed with information. Media is another big thing for me. I think the biggest problem is the Internet. There's so much information available that I take in on a daily basis. I don't think the mind is supposed to have so much dumped into it on a daily basis.

Because of all this, I have learned about so many systems of thought and ways of life that it's really caused some internal confusion. I feel like there are too many things that have my interest, too much I want to know about. Every time I learn about something, there becomes more I am curious about. Before the days of the Internet, we couldn't satisfy every curiosity that we had. Now we can. Perhaps my desire is to limit the information dumped into me. Stick to the things that interest me, and stay out of other stuff. To some this might seem to be a call to ignorance. Perhaps it is. Not trying to understand everything perfectly would lead to me - gasp - being wrong about things! Yet as I've seen, we humans are wrong about many things, and still we've survived.

The second thing is genuine friendships. It's so weird how I could be friends with someone who lives a thousand miles away, yet never say a word to my next door neighbor. Sites like Facebook and Twitter provide us all sorts of means of staying in touch. Yet it seems that people are more depressed and lonely than before. Why is that? I would wager it's because we've picked up a method of socializing that isn't natural to us. We're not built to have friendships with people on a screen or a text box. We're designed for person-to-person interaction. It's almost embarrassing how infrequently I see the people I consider my closest friends in real life. While a good, long chat on Facebook is satisfying for me, there's something quaint about hanging out with someone in real life and bantering.

Third, there is the matter of planning. I work best and feel the most at ease when I have things planned out and organized. It makes it easier to make decisions and get stuff done. One of the biggest blocks in my daily life is when I don't know what I should do next, or I don't know how to do something. This sort of ties in with my first point, where possibilities were more limited back in the day. It meant less distractions and (hopefully) somewhat clearer ideas of what one was going to do in the future. Back in the past if you needed help you would ask for it. That's something hard for me. I prefer to do stuff alone, figure it out with my own brainpower. Which is kind of foolish because a problem that I might stress over for hours could be figured out in mere moments by someone with better expertise than myself.

So, hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to have this "simpler" life, what kind of things would I do? I think the number one change would be connectivity brought on by the Internet. The Internet becomes a novelty for me. I use it for school, but not much else. Perhaps in the evening I would give myself a chance to browse a bit. I certainly wouldn't spend forever on sites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. This would probably have the effect of clearing my mind out a lot. I would be able to focus on the specific things I like or need to do - school, writing, gaming, etc. I would still use it, of course, but this time to pursue my interests. I feel like the freedom from excess information in the past allowed people to better specialize in things. Another thing I'd do is try to spend more quality time with those around me. To be honest, I won't talk to most of the people I've run across in college after I graduate. Most friendships tend to be, by nature, transitory. Life just happens. I would also look for help more. College provides all kinds of support systems that I would do well to take advantage of.

Motivation for College

For as long as I can remember, I always knew I was going to college one day. It was never really a question. My earliest memories of report cards comes from elementary school where I was consistently an A student. This continued all the way through high school, where my grades were high. I graduated high school ranked 3rd in a class of 249. Community college was no different, as I graduated with a 3.95 GPA. Academics were always a strong point for me.

When I transferred to Kansas State, I found things had become more difficult. The level of thinking, the sheer number of hours that was necessary to devote, all these things hurt. It's still something I have trouble with, because I'm stubborn. Recently I've begun feeling like I'm running on empty in things. To keep going, I think I need to remember my motivations.

Why College? Why Computer Science?

I don't think my parents ever pressured me into attending college. If I had decided not to take the college route, I don't think they would have held it against me. I have heard many people say college is a waste of time and money. Perhaps they are right, but I likely will not know until after I am finished with it. I am inclined to think that attending college was mainly my own choice, although perhaps I was influenced by the school system encouraging it.

I don't consider myself a computer person. In other words, I don't know much about the intricacies of how computers work. In theory I could find out the information needed to build a desktop of my own, but I have no desire to do it. I consider myself a programmer. Someone who takes ideas and instructions, and turns them into code. My passion for coding started when I was about 11 or 12, and I really latched onto it after I graduated high school. Being a programmer requires a degree of critical thinking skills that I am blessed enough to have. The title I am likely to adopt when I get a programming job is "software engineer." Programmers are in high demand in a world where computers predominate. It also pays very well. So there is this economic reason for college. A Bachelor's degree makes it more likely I will get a well-paying job somewhere. College is also where my programmer skills are being developed and refined. My skills are not as developed as they could be, even though I'm a senior. In college I have learned things I probably would never learn using online resources. I never even heard of a "data structure" before university!

Most of my life, I'd say I have lived in the lower middle class bracket. Enough to pay the bills, but not always much else. To a degree, this has been good for me. I have picked up a sort of utilitarian mindset with material possessions - if it doesn't have a useful function, I probably do not need it. I have no aspirations of living in a big old mansion by the lake. The Mercedes Benz does not appeal to me. That said... lower middle class is a very wearisome place to be for years on end. It's not something I want to have as part of my life. During the first few years following college I likely will remain in that economic bracket simply because I won't have that big a paycheck. But it is my dream to have an income that allows for a more comfortable life. Sort of my aim is to have a nice house in a safe, quiet neighborhood. If on the off chance I do become more wealthy than what I really need, I foresee myself donating to church ministries, or perhaps things like ChildFund. I might also try to endow scholarships.

So that is my goal. In the meanwhile I need something to keep me going. One of the biggest motivators is me thinking about the goal. Remembering that all of this is happening for a purpose: to graduate and get myself going in life. Doing so requires action now, and it serves as a great incentive.

What Breaks Motivation?

Of course, staying motivated can be hard in a college setting. There are plenty of times over the past three semesters I have questioned why I keep going, or why I'm not wanting to keep at it. What are the things that quell my motivation?

1. Lack of organization: If I don't know what I'm doing, it can be hard for me to find the energy to set up a plan. There might be too many things I need to do. Or I may not have all the items I need for something.

2. Distractions: Internet. People. If my energy is sapped by these things, or if they're causing my attention to be pulled in several directions, my motivation is spent.

3. Not understanding something: L. Ron Hubbard wrote in Dianetics (yes, I've read it) that confusion can result from misunderstanding a single word. Regardless of one's opinion of Hubbard's works, this sentence is true. If I fail to grasp one concept, everything else can be very confusing. And when everything escapes me, I feel no desire to keep going.

4. Impatience: I hate when I can't understand things right away, nor can I get things done in under an hours. But dangit, when stuff takes days' of work I get impatient. I just want to have something done and over. I want to grasp it after the first few tries.

5. Loss of direction: This is a big one. Although I plan in the long-term, generally I am more short-sighted. Getting caught up in the details of life, it's easy for me to forget why I'm doing this, and what I am working toward. I'm not doing this for graduation's sake; I'm doing this for the life I begin after college. The idea of finishing college and starting my life provides a sudden boost of motivation for me. When I lose sight of that, I lose motivation.

6. Lack of support: When I start to feel down or overwhelmed, I need people I can go to for help. Unfortunately I don't always feel like I have that. So I end up bearing my frustration in silence, and this has a habit of ruining the rest of the day. I also don't often have people to tell me I'm doing a good job, or encouraging me to press forward, or keeping me accountable to my schoolwork.

7. No reward: I might put hours and days into something, then instead of any relief or good grade I just have another assignment to do. When there's no end in sight I am inclined to get disgruntled.

I Want... an Office

This is one of those more random thoughts I felt like sharing.

Over the past few days I have been using the study rooms in the dorm building's basement to get away from everything and focus more on my schoolwork. There are mainly two rooms that I've been used. One is pretty small and seems more like an afterthought. As if the architects of the building said "Hey we have this little space right here. I guess we can make it a room." It has a couple tables and chairs, but no air conditioning system. The other room has three tables, three chairs, and a significant amount of the space is taken up with weightlifting equipment. There's also a window and air conditioning system.

I've spent several hours out of the day in these rooms. The doors lock from the outside so while I can get out, nobody without a key can get inside. These rooms don't have clocks on the walls, which for me causes the sense of time to disappear. At one point I was in one of the rooms until about 10 pm. Having a room to myself for an extended period of time with no distractions, complete solitude... it felt really good. A nice little place where I can be by myself.

This invoked a sort of silly pipe-dream desire I've had since last year. I would make the perfect bureaucrat because I like the idea of having my own office. There's just something about having a work space that is solely mine that appeals to me. I could see myself becoming a TA because not only would it likely give me a work space, I could also help people learn. If I weren't going to be a programmer or minister, chances are good I'd be a professor. Even if that would require like three more years of college and doing a bunch of stuff I'd have no interest in. And you can bet I would be a computer science professor.

Of course in reality I don't have an office to call my own, but I do have the next best thing, a dorm room. 50% of it is mine for the school year unless one of us moves out. I could sort of make this into an office space! My desk has a few basic office items - a laptop, clock, and printer. I could perhaps try to organize my books and accessories a little more since things get messy kinda quickly. Part of me would like to go one step further and post a list of classes that I'm good with that people can come see me for help with. I don't think I'd mind being a tutor very much. Unfortunately my amount of free time is quite limited this semester. Maybe next semester.

What Kind of Place Is Your Mind?

This is a question that people bring up every now and then. They ask if your mind was a physical setting, what would it be like? Here's what my mind is like:

My mind is a city. There is a suburb area to the side of the downtown, and it's all encircled by a tall steel gate. The center of the city has three massive buildings: a library, a cathedral, and observatory.

You know the armory scene from "The Matrix," where endless rows of guns appear around Neo and Morpheus? The library's bookshelves are like that. You just think about the desired topic and the shelves will shift around you until the right book is in front of you. This represents my intellect.

By the entrance of the library, where the check-out desk is, you would find a round tables with eight chairs. This is a place where scientists, philosophers, and theologians come to contemplate and discourse. You would find Jesus and Nietzsche talking about the meaning of life; Richard Dawkins and John Lennox debating the existence of God; Leibniz unraveling the intricacies of calculus, and so on. This represents my tendency to think about things, a lot.

The library is on the east side. A cathedral is the second building of the trio, on the north. It's massive, particularly the sanctuary. Enormously tall ceiling with spires, stained glass windows, and imagery. It's a Lutheran cathedral where services are being held nearly all day. Morning services, evening services, mid-day services. Prayers constantly being delivered up, and mixes of ancient hymns and modern worship songs are being played. If you were to step in there any time of day you'd probably see a service being held. This represents my faith.

On the west is an observatory. The pinnacle is a huge telescope which peers into the depths of space. Yet astronomy isn't the only thing happening here. There are also labs for chemistry, physics experiments, research on plant and animal life, and so on. It's an all-around scientific facility. This represents my interest in science.

[TOU] Someone Make My Brain Work, Please...

This is the second post in a little post series I've come up with called "The Overworked Undergrad."

Holy moley, it's been a heck of a week for me. My brain feels exceptionally out of order, and I feel like I'm having trouble focusing on my schoolwork and sticking to deadlines. I really got a lot going on and I need to sort myself out, somehow. I'm really thinking of finding someone IRL who is good at handling this sort of stuff, and talking with them about it. There are a lot of facets with me right now that I need help with.

There is just so dang much work I have to do right now. I'm balancing five classes, five textbooks, and several assignments all thrown at me at once. I know I need to figure out some order to do them in. Usually it's find the ones which are the most urgent, and work on them first. Or if a particular assignment is due later than others but going to require a whole lot of time, do part of that one first. This is not difficult to comprehend, right? Well right now I'm a little rushed. I only yesterday bought the last of the textbooks I was going to need, and I also found out I needed it for an assignment due soon. Today I'm going to spend like another $60 dollars on chemistry lab equipment. Then I should finally be done with throwing money at the college mindlessly.

I don't feel like I'm using my time effectively. Ideally I would be the sort of person who wakes up, diddle around on the Internet for a bit, and then jump into action with my schoolwork. Unless my night's sleep wasn't very good, I tend to be able to focus and work well in the mornings. I want to be able to get started with something and focus solely on that. Then move to the next thing when I'm done with it, perhaps taking a short break in between. A half hour isn't a short break. That's goofing off, and it's detrimental for me. I know I have the ability to do that. It's been done before. I suppose what's stopping me is that I don't quite have the sense of urgency to get stuff done that I would have otherwise. Deadlines and due dates aren't feeling terribly concrete or immediate for me. I could probably push myself to persist despite that lack of urgency.

Oh yeah, I mentioned money earlier. This dude needs a job. The college had a part-time job fair a few days ago, and there were several interesting job positions open. And dangit, I need one of those. Part of me is really hesitant about going through with the process, because I've never worked while at university. When I went to community college I worked about 18 hours a week, and I still did exceptionally well in my classes. Then again, my classes were mostly online. So it doesn't seem like it should be bad if I'm working at most 15 hours a week, mainly weekends, to compensate with the much bigger school workload I have now. Still, now I gotta ask people to be references, find where half these places are and turn in stuff, and so on. I wanted to be on the web development team for the housing and dining, but I need to be available for at least 3 four-hour shifts during the weekdays, and my schedule would only allow for two. Technically I could do three, but that third slot is in a pretty nasty place until October.

And then there's the matter of my weight, and dieting. College food is not always the healthiest thing around. My weakness? It's really, really good. A lot of people talk crap about dining hall food but I think it's yummy. Therein lies my problem. I have a hard time deciding on the spot what stuff is going to be good for me, and what's not. Or how much of something I should eat. I also don't seem to have access to any scales for the purpose of weighing myself, so I don't have a clue what my weight is. I fear it might be going back up. The dorm has a weight room in the basement, but again finding time for that is a challenge.

On the topic of health, sleep and tiredness has been an issue. Don't get me wrong, I have an adequate amount of sleep. I typically get at least 7 hours of sleep a night. But for some reason it's not doing me very much good once I get into the afternoon. Maybe it's diet, or stress, or whatever, but I've been experiencing more fatigue than usual recently. It's basically one more hindrance stopping me from doing my best. Coffee helps, a little bit, but that could get expensive quickly.

You know what I think my problem really comes down to? I don't have a plan. I have a schedule, yes. You wouldn't believe how much I've planned out already. But I suppose I haven't taken the opportunity to really engage in it. I can do a lot of stuff this semester, but I need to get myself in gear. Maybe the best thing for me to do is start following my daily schedules - because believe me, I have the time to do what I need - but also have a sort of running to-do list, where I'm working on class stuff based upon how urgent it is to finish them. Having a schedule I followed more rigorously would let me be more on task, and would also go a way to helping me be less distracted by stuff.

My mind considers what it must have been like for university students and the other intellectuals of the Medieval Ages. They did not have access to knowledge and technology like I do today. On one hand, it made it easier a lot easier to be focused since, hey, they didn't have the Internet to have things more fun to do than schoolwork. If they did decide to slack off, it was usually with a book or other people. So I would wager they were inclined to be more productive than someone like myself. Plus university back in those days was crazy expensive. On the other hand, the less availability of information meant doing things took much longer. High level math, science, and philosophy must have been a real time sink. Yet you still end up with great thinkers like Aquinas, Augustine, Euclid, and so on. Why couldn't I have the kind of focus that they would have?

The "College Experience"

I am still mostly of the opinion that college is a good investment for my life. What I learn here will help in my future career as a Web programmer. I've always known I'd go to college, and here I am in what should be my last year. But I'm also here because I want to have the fabled "college experience."

"The College Experience"

That phrase gets tossed about a lot, but there aren't too many definitions given for it. I'm sure it has slightly different meanings for everyone. For instance, partying isn't part of the experience I'm looking for. I don't really like parties. Too many people, too much noise.

The college experience I have in mind is something that has a lot of fun, but also can be very tiresome and draining. It's a balanced idea, really, and one I think is good to have.

For me the central theme of the college experience is independence. At my university I have access to people and resources that I would otherwise never have in my small hometown. It's here that I feel I have the most potential to really grow into the kind of person that I want to be. There are all sorts of subsets to this. Here are a few.

Education. This is, after all, the primary reason that universities exist. To give students educations that can help them to do better in the real world. I question why we need to know things like chemistry or discrete mathematics, but things like computer science or major-related classes are pretty good stuff. I suppose it helps to have a vast supply of knowledge even in things that aren't otherwise useful. I'm here to learn.

Time Management. Freedom is good to have, but it must be tempered with reason. Otherwise you might end up doing more harm than good to yourself. There are a lot of things that I want to do while I'm at college, and I'll probably be able to accomplish most, if not all, of them. In order to do that, time management is a must. I pride myself on being able to manage my time well. Once I get an idea of what I need to do, I can plot out times throughout the day for them, and more often than not I do exactly what I intend. At college, time management is vital if I'm going to get anything out of it besides just learning a bunch of stuff.

Being Social. I have scarce few friend in my hometown. Mainly because a lot of them have moved away, or lead very different lives than my own. A place like Independence isn't really one you want to stay in your whole life. There don't seem to be a lot of twenty-somethings back home. They're mostly at college. But here at university I am surrounded by thousands of peers. The floor I live on has something like 100 people. This is something I really need. I'm a self-proclaimed introvert but that doesn't mean I dislike the company of others. I actually find it important to have some social interaction. Without it I become bored, frustrated, and depressed. Fortunately, many people that live on my floor are friendly and welcoming. I'm probably going to lose touch with most of them, but in the meantime I enjoy their company. And they seem to enjoy mine.

Finding the Like-Minded. In other words, finding clubs and groups of people who see the world similarly to me. My main way of doing this has been attending Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ), a campus ministry. I have learned a lot intellectually and practically by being around other believers who clearly have a desire to serve God. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has a group on campus, and I want to get involved with it sometime this year. Being a computer science major, it would be very beneficial.

Finding Work. This semester, my college experience is all too close to the real deal. I'm gonna make it for this semester, but ever so barely. Money hasn't exactly fallen into my lap in this life, and now it is in my best interests if I find some kind of job to meet the costs of college. To this end I'm going to try and secure a part-time job for the semester. I won't be looking for many hours, maybe 12-15 per week at the most. After about a month working even minimum wage, I would be able to make ends meet. This will make time management all the more important, since I'll be balancing work with classes.

Weight Loss. This hasn't stopped, don't you worry. Finding access to a scale might be a challenge, and I still need to figure out a healthy eating plan for college. But I'm not giving up on this. I've succeeded too much to stop now.

Doing the Unplanned. Some of the most fun and worthwhile things I have done which have contributed to the college experience have been things I didn't plan on doing, but enjoyed anyway. It could have been something like watching a movie with friends, going bowling, swing dancing at a local bar, and spending entirely too long chatting with others when homework would have been the more productive choice. Variety is the spice of life; living solely by routine is lethal to the soul. I don't follow the adage of "doing something spontaneous everyday," but slowly I have become more comfortable and willing to try things I've never done before, experience new stuff, just for the excitement and adventure of it. Do these things become part of my daily life? Usually, no, but they sure do make life ever more worth living.

Preparing for the Future. In about a year I will be finishing college. From there it will be time to stake a claim in the development industry and get to work coding, well, whatever's required of me. I have spent several years preparing for this time - now it is nearly upon me. Right now my planning mainly entails finding a place where I can work using my degree. How many companies would plan to hire someone a year ahead of time, I do not know. This is one of those things that is going to take a while to figure out. Once I get that settled, the next obvious thing would be looking for some kind of apartment. At first I would most likely have roommates. I'm ambivalent about that. There also exists the near impossibility of me getting a car before I have a stable income. Might need to walk to work a lot for the first few months. I want to get involved in ministry, so perhaps I'll find a Lutheran church in whatever city I find myself in and see if they need someone who can act in a teacher role.

Finding Potential Relationships. Yes, I'm talking about dating. I came up with this one last because, well, it's never been very high on my list of things to do. There have been times when I didn't like being single, but for the most part I've been OK with it. I'm already pretty content with life, and I haven't normally felt a strong need to seek someone out. That said, I don't intend on being single forever. Marriage is something I foresee happening in my future. But in order to find a good relationship and possibly a good wife, I need to put myself out there. I generally move slow and cautiously in this area, as it's sort of my Achilles' heel. I'm not interested in jumping from relationship to relationship; rather I'm wanting to take the more level-headed route of going on a few dates with a person before committing to a relationship with them. Something I discovered a couple years ago is that I have commitment phobia - I get anxious about the idea of committing to things long-term. This includes relationships. It's part of the reason I would take the more cautious approach to dating, and if I ended up in a relationship, it's also something I would need to deal with. I imagine it could be partially alleviated by being with someone who I am highly compatible with.

Check-In #13 (End of Summer)

Starting weight: 205 lbs.
Last week's weight: 183 lbs.
This week's weight: 185 lbs.

I am doing this on a Friday evening instead of tomorrow morning. I don't know if the college will have a scale I can use, and we're going to be on the road at 7:30 AM.

185. Oops. How anti-climatic but almost humorous my one bad week is right at the very end - there goes the whole "finishing strong" idea! So what happened? I didn't gorge myself on food, but I guess I didn't do enough physical activity to burn the calories. Totally failed to do any walking bar a few trips to the store or church.

I hereby end my summer of weight loss at 20 pounds. For some reason that doesn't feel like very much. Maybe it's due to seeing all those weight loss programs where people shed pounds like mad. But 20 is still a darn good number, indicative that I lost weight at a healthy rate of about 1.5 pounds a week. My clothes fit a lot better than when the summer began, and I don't have heartburn anymore. My formerly chiseled chin is still hiding, but not to the same degree. So that's something to be happy about.

When I get to college I will try to find a scale and start using that for my weekly check-ins. Perhaps tomorrow I will find one, and record my weight at 8 PM there. Depending on how the scale is calibrated, it might read a little different than the one I have here at home. Until the semester ends, I will use that weight to measure how much I lose. So if I'm 185 right now, and it says something really different, like 188, I will continue at 188. I won't say that I have only lost 17 pounds, though. I probably still lost about 20, but the scale is reading my weight a little differently due to calibration or some such.

As of tomorrow, the real challenge for losing weight begins. You see, most of my classes are in adjacent buildings, so I don't have to walk very far between them. Food is going to be bountifully provided, so I will need to limit that. I also need to make better choices. I have got to find free time to exercise, be it in my dorm building's weight room, or at the recreational center. Plans must be made. Prayers must be made. I have lost 20 pounds. Can I lose more?

Check-In #12

Starting weight: 205 lbs.
Last week's weight: 184 lbs.
This week's weight: 183 lbs.

In the realm of weight loss for the past week, there's not much new to say. I am now one-third of the way toward my goal weight, which is cool.

22 pounds down. 43 to go.

Next Saturday I am heading back to K-State for my senior year of college.  I will start my preparations Monday - let myself have a Sunday to relax. I anticipate hitting the road around noon. I want to do a sort of "Summer Loss Total" count that shows how much weight I lost since I began in May. 

I want next week's weigh-in to be really good, so I do believe I will try to put in some extra effort to lose the weight. Nicer weather might finally be moving in so it might be time to get back to taking hourly walks. I finished working my part-time summer job so there needs to be some form of extended exercise. I will do those, and then my Summer's End Weight will be measured at 11 AM, August 24.

Life After Minecraft

Two weeks ago I called it quits with Minecraft. A two-and-a-half year obsession came to its end. There were a lot of reasons that I stopped playing.

First off, there just wasn't anything for me to do anymore. While I may not have actually killed the Enderdragon, or conquered a Blaze spawner, the stuff was old news. I'd seen it many a time on YouTube - there really was nothing for me to discover. I didn't see a point in me going on with it anymore. Anything I'd try to do had already been done by other people dozens of times before. It's not like I would contribute something significant or unique.

Second, I've always had difficulty with the main point of the game: building stuff. Visual design is a weakness of mine, but it's the key thing in Minecraft. You know those impressive-looking houses and ships that people make? Yeah, I can't do that. Believe me, I've tried. I've had nearly three years to accomplish it, and I couldn't do it. There is something about visual details that elude me. It would probably take months or years of consistent practice for me to develop real skill, and I don't got the time for that. Which leads me to point three...

It takes forever to make anything notable. The mining, the tree chopping, the farming, the fighting. If you want to build something nice, it's going to require a long time collecting resources, planning stuff out, and then assembling the parts. But the thing is, when it comes to games I don't want something that's going to take days or weeks to do. I spend enough of my time looking at the long run. I'd like my entertainment to be more immediate. Unfortunately there's really no way of quickly making a house that doesn't look like crap.

Fourth, there are few people I can really share my builds with. That's the pity of single player worlds. You could make an awesome city, but you'll be the only one to walk around it. Nobody else can admire your work. Which to me sounds pretty pointless. While there are multiplayer servers, I can't easy access those when I'm at home. The main server I play on is populated with people who I know in real life, which is nice, but it's not terribly active and most of the time we're in different areas of the server map. Also, they can typically build stuff better than me.

By and large I've disengaged myself from the Minecraft culture. I don't watch nearly as many videos of it as I used to. I've unliked the Facebook pages for it that I used to follow. There are a couple other sites, too, but I've made it a point to not mess with those anymore.

In the absence of Minecraft, I found myself very bored and in need of something to entertain me. At the moment there are two games I am starting to get into. Parallel Kingdoms for Android is a MMORPG that uses Google Maps locations as the setting. It's kind of grindy and there is a mess ton to learn, but overall it's not bad. I like that I can see fellow players who live in my area (2 active ones). The other is Ikariam. It's basically OGame but with an ancient Greek theme, and also much more improved visuals. It, like Parallel Kingdoms, has something of a learning curve - which is unappealing but I should catch up soon enough.

Will I ever get back into Minecraft? Maybe. Perhaps something will inspire me. If not, it's alright.

Check-In #11

Starting weight: 205 lbs.
Last week's weight: 187 lbs.
This week's weight: 184 lbs.

Very happy! I finally have made it past the 20 pound mark! What's more, I've lost 3 pounds in a single week. How I did that, I do not know. I think I will treat myself to an ice cream-based reward either tomorrow or Monday.

21 pounds down. 44 to go.

Flash Fiction: "The God Comet"

(Word count: 286. Genres: Science fiction, religious. Copyright 2013 by Shawn C. Please do not distribute without permission.)

Alexander, the environmental officer of the Persephone, stared at the enormous icy boulder eternally tumbling through the cosmos. The ship's lounge was a place where the small crew routinely gathered to relax on the long voyage. He watched as particles here and there flew off the comet and into the collection scoops to be used by the ship. Always providing, yet never seeming to get smaller.

"It's still the same comet," first officer Becka quipped as she walked to his side. "Two hundred years behind that thing. We all know it like the backs of our hands."

"There's something... mesmerizing about it."

"You could see a cat and be mesmerized."

"This far from Earth? You bet I would."

They both chuckled, then settled into a soft gaze on the tumbling rock.

"Have you ever thought about God?" Alex asked Becka, a topic not often mentioned.

"Long enough to know I don't believe in him."

Alex nodded in acknowledgement. "The orphanage that placed me in my foster homes was distinctly Catholic. As were my foster parents, so I heard plenty about the divine. Sometimes, when I'm looking at that comet, I wonder if maybe I'm getting a little glimpse of God himself."

"All I see is a big rock with an equally big ship behind it."

"That's what I usually see, too. But when I think about it, the comet is there, powering the ship, keeping us alive. Kind of like what I was taught God did when I was a kid."

Becka mused on the words for a few moments. "It's a nice sentiment. But I think we're a bit too far from Earth to find God. We have a comet."

"Mhmm. We have a comet."

The Overworked Undergrad!

I have a sort of blog post series devoted to my weight loss. Now here's another one, which is about me pushing through my last year of college. I call it "The Overworked Undergrad," and future posts devoted to it will have [TOU] in the title.

Like most college students, I've occasionally had the feeling I was trying to do 30 hours' work in under 24. I don't think I've yet succeeded at that, but maybe it's a learned skill. In any case, I will have my share of things going on this semester.

Financially things might be a little tight. Last semester my GPA wasn't fantastic and I lost a government-granted scholarship, and it kind of hurt. Don't worry - I am pretty sure most of my tuition will be covered for fall 2013 but not much will be left over. Frugality is going to be a watchword for me. Any chance for a free meal or supplies will be a must-have for me. Instead of paying the entire tuition costs at once I signed up for an incremental pay plan the college offers. What kind of sucks is it had a $40 fee. Oh sure, students are having a hard time paying everything. Let's charge them extra! That's the one gibe I have against that. The incremental plan allows me to have enough time to make up whatever residual difference there might be.

One surefire way to see that I can have my costs paid, and perhaps a little extra take-home (take-dorm?) currency, is getting a job. Right now I am considering two different venue. There are programming jobs open. The past two semesters I tried to apply for it but later found I didn't have the time possible to work at it. Now it might be necessary. Of course I have also gained more useful experience. The most recent notches in my belt are learning how to use Wordpress and Git. I'm also diving more into coding with PHP. It's likely if I applied for a programming position I would be accepted. This kind of experience would be wonderful for me, as I'd get the opportunity to work in a team on actual projects.

If I don't take up programming, there is a quaint little donut shop nearby called Varsity Donuts. Myself and other members of a campus ministry called Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) frequented that place after Thursday night meetings, and the vintage feel makes it seem like a wonderful place to work.

Speaking of time, you should see my schedule.

There's something to be said of a schedule that looks symmetrical and repetitive. It has a sort of flow, a rhythm you might say, that makes it easy to adjust to it. This schedule does not have much of that. It's terribly imbalanced - look how heavily loaded Monday and Tuesday are! Tuesdays are going to be harsh, as lunch probably won't be easy to get. Things get significantly easier after the first two days, and I am very happy about that.

You will notice that none of my classes begin before 10:30 AM. That is intentional. I've made a deal with myself to never sign up for a class beginning any earlier than 9:30 AM. My first semester had a lab which started at 7:30 AM, and it was horrid. I am a morning person, but not that much.

I don't expect I'll be sleeping in terribly often. Generally speaking the latest I ever sleep to is 9 AM. My body just doesn't let me slumber past that. When you're taking four fairly technical classes in one semester you need all the time you can get to work on stuff. So I will likely be doing little bits of schoolwork in those pre-class mornings. Time management is something I pride myself on.

Once I am a little more ready I will probably design for myself a seven-day schedule which includes not only classes but meal times, hobbies, church-related activities, schoolwork, and so on. I've done this for nearly three years, in college and out, and it's helped me to advance a lot as a person.

Finally there is the matter of roommates. Due to an error on the college's part the selection of my roommate was delayed, but now I have been informed of who it is. I won't give out his personal details, obviously, but he is an international student. This mainly means I would do well to brush up on the language and culture of my future roommate's home nation - and I can expect to learn a bit about it through experience as well. It will be interesting!

Check-In #10 & 22nd Birthday

Starting weight: 205 lbs.
Last week's weight: 187 lbs.
This week's weight: 187 lbs.

Well, at least I didn't gain anything.

I think I need to be careful where I place the scale when I weigh myself. In one spot the scale said 187.0; in a slightly different spot it read 186.2. I'm pretty sure the former spot is the correct one, where I've been weighing myself for the entire ten weeks.

Perhaps the reason I didn't do too well this year is a dietary change I've made. It was an attempt to reduce how much I spend on food, and also so I don't feel like I'm starving in the middle of my work shift. It seems to not be a good move, though. In addition to the obvious lack of weight loss, my stomach also feels oddly upset after work.

I remain a solid 18 pounds below my highest. 47 remain.

Today I celebrate being 22 years old. It was a fairly quiet day. I was supposed to work until 2 PM, but business was slow so my manager had me finish work around 1:15. A little while later my parents and I went to Wal-Mart where I got a new wallet to replace my present one, which is badly damaged, and a card for my Straight Talk cell phone. Then we got lunch from Sonic. I had a foot-long coney. I can see myself getting addicted to those quite easily!

22 is kind of a boring age. I don't see much being important about it. At 18 you're legally an adult. At 20 you're no longer considered a teenager by anyone. At 21 you're allowed to drink. 22... nothing. I guess 22 is sort of the age where you might be seen as an adult through-and-through by most people. Master of your own ship, everything's open to you. There's an aspect of unlimited possibilities that's almost dizzying in that idea. Of course, recently I've been finding that possibilities are a heck of a lot more limited than I might care to admit.

Short Story: "Space and Time"

(Word count: 3,055. Genres: Science fiction, religious, Christian. Copyright 2013 by Shawn C. Please do not distribute without permission.)

Michael heard the whistling bomb plummeting toward the ground beneath it. He had just started running out of one shelter, trying to reach where his family was waiting out the bombings. The last one hit on the other side of the city; he didn't feel like this one was going to be so far away. His heart beat hard enough he thought it would fly out of his chest.

As he turned a corner there was a crater wider than the street itself. Part of the buildings next to it had been blown off in the impact. This was unusual – the shells which had been dropping on the country for the past few weeks did a lot more damage than that. In the center was a white, cubical object. Michael quickly glanced and saw there was a door. The whistling of the bomb drew closer. There was no other place for him to go. He hopped into the crater and jumped into the object.

The explosion deafened him for a moment. Almost immediately the shockwave arrived; it rattled the strange object with Michael in it. He jolted on his side and hit what he assumed was some kind of control panel. He heard it beep. The panel flickered into life, a black background upon which touchscreen buttons of various colors blinked into existence.

“No!” Michael shouted with terror. The door slid shut, sealing him into whatever the thing was. He looked down as something underfoot began making a deep hum. He felt upward movement; somehow he was in the air. There was a single seat in the cube where one could control all the functions. Michael sat in it and tried to figure out what to do.

Fumbling with the controls he desperately tried to see something that made sense. None of it did – it was written in some kind of language he had never seen before. Whatever it was doing, he couldn't stop it.

On the console in front of him, a graphic appeared. It was a rectangle, tall and skinny, with the bottom third of it colored red. Next to it was a blue triangle facing the first shape, slowly rising. It passed the red part and moved into the black. The humming underneath Michael's feet silenced.

“Where am I going?” he questioned audibly.

The cube, evidently some kind of shuttle, didn't respond to him. It just keep doing whatever it was doing – he couldn't tell.

He stayed seated in the chair, fearing for his life. Was this some kind of secret government project? Did he just get captured by the enemy?

A few minutes of tense silence later the triangle was two-third of the way up the triangle. A green dot by the door started blinking. The humming returned, this time happening in spurts of various lengths. Michael had no idea what to expect, he just hoped he would come out alive.

The green dot turned blue. He heard a clank outside the pod, then some sporadic beeping. Finally, the door opened.

For a moment he was afraid of exiting. From his limited perspective he was in some kind of hangar bay. The lights were slightly dimmer than he was used to, with a minor blue tinge. It was completely quiet.

Getting his composure, Michael put his left foot out on the solid floor of the hangar. He gripped the sides of the door with his hands and stuck his head out of the cube. At the sides of the large room were steely gray, apparently floating, robots. Except they didn't look human – rather they had a sort of spherical main part and four limbs holding various tools. They stayed where they were, showing no signs of being active.

He stepped completely out of the pod and made a few tentative steps into the hangar. There were a few other strange things in there, but otherwise the place seemed bare. He saw a door to exit several yards away.

“This isn't human,” he muttered to himself in stark realization. He walked cautiously to the exit, with nothing to hurt him. A sigh of relief came from his mouth when the door slid open for him and he entered a long hallway.

“Where am I?” he asked himself again.

This time, a computerized voice said something in response. Startled, he looked around to see if there was a person making the voice, but found nobody.

“Hello?” he asked again.

The computerized voice responded once more, still in what sounded like another language.

Michael walked down the hall and came upon what seemed to be an elevator. It opened for him. Knowing nothing else to do he stepped in. The doors slid closed and he waited to see where it would take him.

“Working language,” the robotic voice declared. “Expect working knowledge in two minutes.”

For the first time, awe replaced fear. It was learning how to speak to him! “Where am I going?” he asked it.

“Main control room.”

A few seconds later the door slipped open to reveal a ruddy, circular room. Most of the circumference had displays and control panels which were rounded at the corners, almost elegantly designed. In the center was a control panel wider and thicker than the others. There was a chair for the user, which he sat in.

“Where am I?”

“Main control room.”

“No, where is this?” He wanted to see where in the world he had been taken.

“Orbiting Earth.”

He froze up, startled by the answer. This can't be right, maybe it's still trying to learn English. A few seconds later he queried again. “Where is this?”

“Orbiting Earth.”

He waited quietly until the voice said it had completed analyzing his language. “Where is this?”

“Orbiting Earth.”

Michael tried to collect his thoughts. Apparently, he mused to himself, he was in space. It was too unreal. He needed proof. “Show me.”

The big screen at the front of the room lit up. It was a view of the Earth's northern hemisphere. For a moment, the beauty of it took his breath away. Both the sun and the moon were peeking from behind it, while clouds swirled over the deep blue seas. Sure he had seen pictures of the Earth from space before but seeing it for the first time in person was... incredible.

“Am I on a spaceship?”

“Affirmative.”

“Tell me about this... spaceship.”

“The Aeon is a class 18 space and time cruiser capable of traveling ten lightyears and fifteen million years per second.”

“Wait, this is a time machine?”

“Affirmative.”

He rose to his feet, shocked to have stumbled upon something like this. Of all the things that could be happening right now, he was on a time machine! “Where was this ship built?”

“Tarnok Six Shipyards.”

“How... how long ago?”

“Ship time: 45 years. Relative time: 3,500 years in the past.”

Somehow Michael was able to mentally brush off the implication that there were aliens in the universe. “How far away is the nearest inhabited planet?”

“Approximately 16.5 lightyears away.”

“Time to test this,” he stated. “Take me to it. 500 years in the past.”

The main screen displayed a star map between the solar system and the other planet's star system. It would take a couple minutes for the ship to get there. Michael got into a more comfortable position in the chair and waited for the Aeon to arrive at the planet.

“Arrived at destination,” the ship informed. “Three optimal landing sites available.”

“Landing? This ship can land?”

“The Aeon is capable of hiding itself in a space bubble making it invisible and undetectable by any technology. When landing, all except the Exit Chamber is in this bubble. The Exit Chamber can be walked out of normally.”

This only made a little sense. “Land the ship at the point with the smallest population.” He didn't want to risk being seen by too many.

“Landing.” The front screen showed the landing process, representing the ship with a red silhouette and the planet as a spherical grid. It touched down on the outskirt of a settlement. “Proceed to deck 2, room 3.”

Michael went into the elevator and descended a level. Room 3 was easy enough to find. It was a relatively small chamber with some displays on the sides. Next to the door was a place where apparently he was meant to place his hand. Upon doing so he felt a small but sharp pinch.

“Ow,” he complained. “What was that?”

“You have been injected with nanobots which the ship uses to create a holographic image around you. You will appear to be of the same species as the inhabitants of this world until you return to the ship.”

The thick door separating him from the outside opened. He read upon where he was going via a screen in the room. Yaru-Selam had a population of about 25,000 and was the only city for many miles. It seemed to have been surrounded by farmland on all directions, so the otherwise rural population mostly flocked to it for whatever they needed.

Michael followed the clean, white road toward the city. It took about fifteen minutes of walking before it came into view. He was expecting something out of the Medieval Ages; what he got was definitely not medieval.

The buildings looked almost crystalline. At the top they had pointed spires, while the sides were flat with rounded corners. Vehicles floated a few feet above the gray streets, some of which didn't seem to have any occupants. There were some aliens walking on the sidewalks.

Michael was informed by the ship that the aliens were called Eridanians. They were pretty human-like with some major exceptions. First off they were reptilian in appearance. Instead of skin they had green scales on their bodies. Instead of five skinny fingers there were four thicker ones, including an opposable thumb. They were born from eggs and there would be up to five in one birth, and they grew to adulthood much faster.

He walked around for a bit, looking at the architecture and assorted buildings. While passing one slightly smaller building, Michael heard something very familiar. He stopped and listened for a moment. It sounded like someone playing an organ, and a group of people singing a hymn! It reminded him of the hymns that were sometimes sung at the Baptist church his family went to each Sunday. The front doors were opened so he stepped in.

Inside, the layout was surprisingly similar to the church he went to. There were pews filled with other Eridanians, while at the front one stood in a flowing white tunic and a red band around his neck. A hymn had ended and the people stood for something.

The nanobots in Michael's bloodstream allowed him to understand the leader: “May the Creator bless and keep you. May the Creator look upon you and comfort you. May the Creator turn his eyes upon you and let you dwell in peace.”

It was bizarrely similar to the closing statements Michael had often heard at his church. It intrigued him. He resolved to find out more about this. He stood to the side as people exited, until there was only the leader – apparently a priest of some kind – remaining.

The priest had seen him standing there and once the others had left, he approached Michael. “Hello sir. What can I do for you?”

“What is this place? Is it some kind of church?”

“Yes. This is the Church of Mesaniah.”

“So... it's a religious place, then?”

The priest nodded, an oddly human gesture. “Indeed. It's one of the larger churches in the province.”

“I see. What is this religion like? What do you guys believe?”

The priest collected his thoughts for a moment to try and explain it to someone who may not have heard of the faith before. “We are Mesanians. Our basic belief is in one god who we call the Creator. The Creator reveals himself as three individuals with one essence: the Father, the Son, and the Breath. We as Eridanians are unable to make ourselves right with the Creator because of our unrighteousness. The Son, who we call Mesaniah, has come into our form to die for our unrighteousness, so that by putting our faith in him and turning away from our vile acts, we can be in right standing with the Creator and see him face-to-face after we die.”

Michael's mouth opened in awe a little bit. That sounded almost exactly like the things his pastor would say to newcomers! “I see. Thank you for your time,” he said shortly. With that he left the building and returned to the Aeon.

Resting in the command chair in the main control room, he sat there awestruck. For a minute there wasn't much of anything he could say or think. That the religion of a planet so far away would be so similar to the religion of his home world was incredible. It suddenly gave it more credibility, but he wasn't sure he wanted it to be true. He started pacing around the room, thinking of ways he might disprove it.

After a few minutes he had a realization. “Does this ship know when the universe ends?”

“Affirmative,” replied the computer.

“Show me on the main screen.”

The numbers loaded for a moment, then appeared. His already missing breath was taken further away. The year that displayed on the screen... he nearly fell to the ground in a mix of fright and shock. It was within his own life time!

“What... what can you say about how the universe ends?”

“Information is limited but it seems the elements of the universe incinerate, centering around the planet Earth.”

“Take me there,” he commanded plainly.”

“Caution,” the ship said, “Traveling to the beginning or end of time can have severe psychological and physical affects.”

“I don't care, take me there!”

The screen switched, displaying the ending year of all reality. The destination: Earth. He sat in the chair, apprehensive about what he was going to see.

It took a few more minutes since it was traveling millions of miles and many centuries into the future. When the ship stopped its movement he immediately stood up. “Show me on the main screen.”

Earth was still there, but clearly more desolate. He was on the night side of the planet. There were almost no lights on it, just in pockets around coastal cities. A thin layer of dust polluted the atmosphere, and there was more snow on the planet than he'd ever seen.

The sky had changed to a fiery ruddy orange. No stars were visible. Michael's mouth stood open, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

“What's happening?”

“The universe is rapidly burning out of existence, shrinking as it does so.”

He noticed that the orange was getting closer and brighter. The dark side of the Earth started lighting up. The universe was shrinking – fast.

The ship began to shake. Doomsday itself was blazing straight toward them. It was paralyzing! As much as he wanted to scream for the ship to veer off into the distant past for safety, somehow the inferno that was reality mesmerized him to the core. The heat of the incoming blazes were so strong that the clouds and snow on Earth began to fade away, being heated by this new source of warmth.

Michael's heart raced faster as the burning end of time drew closer and for a moment he thought it would take him and the ship with it. Mars was off behind the Earth, its surface superheated and glowing with molten rock. The planet evaporated before the fire could reach it. As the edge of space and time approached this now unoccupied orbit, the computer activated.

“Beginning emergency time travel,” it stated. The screen went white and Michael exhaled the breath he didn't realize he was holding. He practically stumbled to the chair, distraught by what he had just witnessed.

“Where are we going?” he asked the ship.

“To the point in time when you first arrived on the ship,” it responded emotionlessly.

A few more on-ship minutes passed and it stopped in orbit around the Earth, with its much greater population.”

He remained silent in the room for several minutes, recapturing his breath. It was disheartening enough to see the end of reality. Now he was back at the time where Earth itself might die. Despondently he asked the computer, “What is the condition of Earth at this time?”

“Currently experiencing a wide-spread nuclear war.”

“How much longer until the war ends?”

“Peace is declared approximately six months from now.”

This managed to bring a smile to his face. Whatever chaos was going on down below, he would probably live to see the end of it. He was also eager to land on the surface. “Take me down to -”

Michael was interrupted by screen suddenly changing. There was a misty form with glowing eyes on it now. “Unknown human, this is the commander of the Eternity. You have stolen a timeship belonging to us. Surrender it now, or prepare to be destroyed.”

“Yes! Take it!” he replied without hesitation. “I don't want it. I just found it. I'll give it back, just let me go back to my planet.”

Despite the hours that passed for Michael, he made it home just minutes after he was first brought up to the ship. After a few weeks passed, the attacks on his part of the world ended. He and his family, having faced death, decided to go to church.

The pastor preached on the part of the New Testament talking about the end of the universe and the Day of Judgment. The passage described it as the elements themselves burning up. Exactly what Michael saw. It shook him to the core, as he realized a freak accident involving time travel may have been the most religious experience he ever had.