Greek!!! Work!!!

I'm at work on this lovely Monday. Hey, Summer is over, right? Well, it was beautiful outside at lunch...like a perfect Summer day. I really think we should move some classes outside or something...translating and discussing Greek would be a lot more fun outside I think. I doubt Dr. Grizzle would approve :)

At any rate, here are a couple thoughts for the day:

1. Greek students! Check out www.greekbiblestudy.org. You will not be disappointed.

2. Spiritual Retreat this past weekend was great. Pictures are now posted in the photo albums on the Student Advisory Council website - http://sac.oru.edu

3. When you have about 25-30 books that you want to read/have to read (a mix of both), it can really seem like things are piling up. It almost seems to me that, after hitting the half-way point in a book, the reading goes a lot slower... Maybe I've just been reading when I'm really tired and it's messing me up..or I'm just dreaming about reading...or I'm just dreaming in genera...hey, is this really real??!

4. Life is beautiful...and a red tie makes you feel powerful... :)

Ok, that's enough randomness for now. Back to possibly trying to fix an Access 2007 database...maybe not... God Bless!

Lots going on...here's a video

I made this video this past Saturday...it's a little rough but it gives some updates on how things are going here in Tulsa, OK and at ORU as well as a little teaching from Colossians. :) God Bless!

Late night...USB drive crash...literally

Working on homework at 1 am...click 'Save'...get up to get something to drink....turn around...laptop mysteriously falls on floor....USB drive still in laptop...kind of...actually, it's twisted up and broken..."there is no way that will still work....let me just...yep, it just broke into two pieces..."

So I did a little 'Frankenstein' type project tonight and got my files off of the USB drive that broke when my laptop hit the floor. Yeah, so I have been saving my homework files to the USB drive because I sometimes take it to school and work on stuff during my lunch and then bring it home and work on it as well...at all hours of the night/early morning (obviously). Well, anyone who knows me could probably tell you that I'm no expert in..well..pretty much anything :) but especially not in electronics. My USB drive broke...I tried to put it back together...probably could've fried the laptop doing what I was doing...didn't work. Then I checked my closet/office space to find another USB drive to see if I could "borrow" a part to make it work. I found an old SD card reader I had bought of eBay that never worked (I wondered why I got it for next to nothing way back when I bought it..however many years ago that was) and took it apart (very easily I might add...again, it was CHEAP!) to get the piece I thought I needed.

Long story short, after probably doing things that a person should not do with anything related to their computer and a broken USB drive, I was able to recover most of the files - at least the files that were not saved anywhere else...i.e. HOMEWORK files and SAC materials that I, along with many others, have been working on for a long time.

So, now I get to go out and buy yet another USB drive. I think I'll wait until next week and buy one when I go to get my books for the upcoming semester. I know I will need one at some point but for now I'll just keep things saved on my laptop, and ftp server, and in my e-mail box, and on another disc, and...haha, just kidding (I did save everything to my ftp site actually...gotta back it up somewhere relatively safe :)).

Well, I should've been working on my homework rather than taking pictures of the mess I've made and then blogging about it but...well, this was fun. Oh, a lesson from all this, besides remember to back up your files in various places...don't get stressed out over unimportant things. I'm sure Liz was probably getting a little upset at all my stupid, angry, whiny remarks to myself, computer, USB drive, etc. while she was trying to sleep during the whole ordeal. Really, I kept thinking, "this isn't THAT big of a deal..God, You are still in control...this is such a small thing and I can trust You in this and all the very very much 'bigger' things in life. Why am I complaining...at least complaining THIS MUCH?" Anyway, hope this was possibly a little entertaining.

Keep those files all backed up, yo! :) God Bless!

Randomness by Jake: 8/1/2009

So I recorded about 9 minutes of a video blog post, that I tried to post on YouTube, last night. I talked about my online class homework, the importance of keeping the head and heart connected while in seminary, etc. but then the video quality was terrible...like a Japanese movie where the mouth moves and...then...the voice comes.. (yikes..) Anyway, I wanted to test out making a little vlog (is it called a vlog? I think so :)) post this morning so here is to randomness..

SAC = Student Advisory Council = AMAZING!

So I have been doing a TON of work with the Student Advisory Council (SAC) here in the ORU Graduate School of Theology and Missions over the past few weeks. It is a great experience to be part of a group that seeks to serve in such a variety of ways. The SAC has been pushing forward with new initiatives as well as creative ways to do previously done events and projects.

I have enjoyed working on some of the new projects on the communication side of things. One can see a lot of our new work on the amazingly great SAC website: http://sac.oru.edu.

I look forward to the upcoming semester and year. ORU, as an overall university, is growing, changing and expanding...the Graduate School of Theology and Missions is no different. What a great place to be at this time and in this season!

I love the smell of a coffee shop...

I love the smell of a coffee shop. I am at Nordaggio's Coffee Shop near the campus of ORU working on my Systematic Theology homework which is due this Friday. It's so much easier to just sit here, write some messages to folks, update Twitter, blog and read about theology and then it is to actually do the homework. I appreciate days like today where I can just sit and enjoy life in all its simplicity yet, at the same time, in all its complexity.

The school year is going to start soon...only in a couple weeks. I feel a little behind in school work at this point plus I know, with the beginning of the year coming soon, more work is going to be piled up on me shortly. However, I know I will enjoy my classes and other experiences this coming semester. I won't mention all the classes I'm taking this fall at this point but I am taking Intro to Rabbinic Thought & Literature as well as my first Field Education class. These will be challenging courses...along with my Greek translation class, of course..(I haven't touched my Greek text in a LONG time!..uh oh..better pull out the Mounce grammar and vocab cards..and GET TO IT!). As always, I really need to look at life from a 'called' mindset rather than the easy-to-fall-into 'driven' mindset. I think most of us fall into a driven attitude because that is the easiest to work with in western society. I could be wrong about this...just my thoughts.

Anyway, I should move on to other things. Time to remember the Brethren (http://www.brethren.org) way of living - Simply, Peacefully, Together. Hmmm, this kind of life is easy to imagine when sitting in a coffee shop :) Wow, that's deep, eh? God Bless! :)

ORU Renovations (Part 1)

I wanted to get some information out about the renovations going on around campus at ORU. I recorded some footage of what was going on on-campus back on July 11th. Since then, a TON more work has started and is still going on even today. I will be amazed if everything gets done by the beginning of the school year but it's really starting to look pretty amazing with all the renovations...even if they are only half-done or a little more. I didn't put all my footage in the video posted here; I hope to get some footage of the more current work in the near future - if time will allow.

ORU is definitely a growing and changing place. I've seen Dr. Rutland and Mart Green around on campus, there is a lot of excitement about the future and things are moving along. Please continue to pray for ORU! Check out the new website at: http://www.oru.edu.