Lambert's: Home of the Throwed Rolls

Happy Sunday to you all. Yesterday, a group of friends and I went to a restaurant in Sikeston, Missouri, called Lambert's. They are famous for giving you their rolls by throwing them at you-upon request of course. :) Basically, when the roll guy is out with his cart full of hot rolls, you have to raise your hand. When he sees you, he'll throw you a roll. When we got there and sat down, all my friends immediately raised their hand and on came the rolls. I wasn't so sure about all this so I watched on the first round. :) The friend on my left caught a roll, and when she did, it kinda popped and bread crumbs flew in my face, which I thought was hilarious. After seeing it done, I tried it myself and was successful at catching them. The second roll I caught split perfectly in half. The rolls were so good I didn't need to put butter or honey on it. Another thing they do there is come by with pails of black-eyed peas, shredded potatoes, and fried okra. These three things, along with the rolls, are served to you even before you order so you have to be careful not to get full before your meal comes. Their goal is to feed you well. :)

Pictures:1.My friend Jenna and I, 2.The whole group.

Tuesday November 10, 2009

Hello Everyone,
I have included a few photos to show you a little bit of my world. My desk is in a lab and not an office. Since last week I have signed up for classes and made strides on a project for my materials design class. My classmates and I have to take a broken piece and analyze what material it is made of and see if the design is good. Then we have to pretend we are working at a company and we are going to tell our idea to a higher up. I am doing my project on a lift plate from the window regulator that moves your car window up and down. It has been fun to learn all sorts of material properties, facts, and functional qualities. I also signed up for classes today. I am taking all the materials classes being offered next semester that I can. Two classes coincide, and I don't know if they will move one or not. Grad students tend to sign up for classes very late as it is the last thing they are thinking about. I am still in undergrad mode where you try to get into the class as soon as you can so as to reserve your spot in the class. Today I had an eye doctor appointment. They dilated my eyes and everything. The doctor actually decreased the magnification in my left eye cause he said it was too strong. Soooo....I get new glasses! Yay!!! I'm happy about that because my glasses right now are not the best fit for my face.

So, to the pictures. The first is the view from my desk when standing up. The second picture is the outside view of my window which is on the first floor above the ground, and the third is of a bench that looks like it sunk into the ground. I saw this while on the way to my car.


I hope you all are doing well. Have a wonderful day!!!

Sunday November 1, 2009

So I suppose I should give an update of my life. I started graduate school in mechanical engineering in August at SIUC. I really do not like to say mechanical engineering because the whole focus of the degree is material science engineering. It's just that this concentration come in the mechanical engineering department. Grad school is nice. To me it cares more weight than undergrad. It also means I'm older than someone which for a last born like me is a big deal. The classes are different from the chemistry and math classes I took. The teachers do not demand that we be so exact. The classes are not as demanding either. Some math classes I took gave assignments that took lots and lots of thought. When the math homework would be given, I'd read the questions two or three times and simply think about the solution for a couple days before starting to write anything. The department is mostly men as you can imagine from a field like engineering and most of them are not Christian. With surroundings like this, it is really necessary to find Christian community and focus on the things God cares about like witnessing, reading your bible and praying (talking) to God. Chi Alpha has been a real big help in this area. I'v also made an effort to eat lunch with the few Christian engineers that I do know.

Other highlights of the semester so far are that I got to play flute in a wedding, have a conversation partner from El Salvador, go to a U of I football game (and see them win), and witness to people on campus. Chi Alpha had a table (we call it God Table) and did some surveys. We have a two question survey about whether people think they are going to heaven and why. Two Fridays ago my friend Jenna and I did it together. God gave me boldness and helped me share the gospel message with everyone that stopped to take the survey!!! That was super exciting! I also got to lead someone in a sinners prayer that my friend had been talking to. That is the first time I had ever led anyone in a sinner's prayer.

The pictures here are a snippet of my life the last 9 weeks or so. The first is of my conversation partner and I. The second is of my friend who got married. I always try to get a picture with the bride and groom when I go to weddings for what I deem an official record of my attendance at a wedding. :) The third is a picture of me playing flute with my friend Beth. The three pics after that are from our trip to see John and Miriam and watch the Illini football game. The last pic is in Champaign and one of the many beautiful fall pictures I have been blessed to take. I've been learning how to use my camera to take the kinds of pictures I want, and it has been rewarding. To see some other fall pics I've taken, click on this link.

Hello everyone. Since it has been three months since the last post, I thought I should post again. The last post on grad school is one I wrote, never finishes, and then decided I should probably just post it. The pictures are from a camping trip I took in July with my church/college group at SIU. I don't camp that often, but it was fun and I'd probably do it again. We went to Cave-in-Rock near the Ohio River. We forgot breakfast back at the church so two of the pastors went into town and bought out most of the breakfast food at a little convenience store. That's what happens when around 40 people need the breakfast left at home. :) The next day we all went to Land Between the Lakes and saw an old farm frome th 1800s. I wish they would have given us costumes to walk around in. That would have helped bring the old time feeling home. They had some clothes for youngers kids to put on, but not for adults.



To see more pictures of the camping trip go to my album on Facebook.

Grad School Here I Come!

Hello Everyone! The last few days of summer vacation are winding to an end. At the dinner table, I was contemplating this thought when my dad's voice came into my head saying something like "Well look at it this way. You'll be starting something good. At the end you'll have a nice degree." :) When I told dad what had gone on, he was like "That's exactly what I said." Anyway. Entering graduate school is much different than undergrad.

Hello everyone. It has been three weeks since I last wrote here. For those of you desiring to read the latest in my life....well, I guess it is not my habit to write a lot. I attribute it to the fact that I figure my life does not hold interesting things to write about every week, and it also takes brain work to put together a good blog post.

Now that the analyzing is over, :) We can have some fun. Since I do not have a summer job and I did not start research at SIU, I have had to fill my time with things like helping at my church's office, crochet, and learning Telegu (Indian language). There is a ministry called Elijah House Ministries. It is a prayer ministry. Some people might call it counseling or inner healing ministry, but the aim is to help people deal with problems in their life by discussing them, finding root causes, and guiding them in prayer. The ministry has been a big help to me, and I want to help others in this way. The website for Elijah House is www.elijahhouse.org. So at the church I volunteer at (Calvary Campus Church), they have the training videos, and I have been watching them this week. The ministry is very effective because they use the truth of the Bible. The guidelines are clearcut and straight from the Bible. It is like what Hebrews 4:12 says "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

I went on a camping trip two weeks ago. Hopefully I will post some pictures from that soon. Take care, y'all. ;)

Happy 4th of July

Hello everyone! Truly, as I look out the window, it is raining!!!! It rained the last fourth of July too. I hope all of you not in Carbondale have sunny weather and are able to have a picnic outside and fireworks. Who knows if we will have a picnic, and fireworks will probably come tomorrow. So tomorrow, we'll all be saying (cheesily) "Happy 5th of July!"

Well anyway, seeing as how I have not written in a month, I'll give a little update. To some I mentioned that I might start research for my thesis this summer, but as yet the money has not come in, so I have not started. I believe that God knew I needed a break. :) A break to do fun things, relax, and sleep. So the activities have been crochet, math tutoring, helping in the office at church, playing flute and singing on the worship team. One delightful discovery was learning that drjava, a computer program for developing java programs is free. All one has to do is just download it onto their computer. So I did, and I don't have to go to SIU to use drjava on their computers. :)

That's about it. Life has been mostly up and little down, which is very good. I hope you all have a wonderful day!