NaNoWriMo Day 3: Small Feet

As part of NaNoWriMo this year I am writing a series of short pieces. I then rashly agreed to share the shorts if I used someone's prompt.
Please note that NaNo does not leave time for editing, so this has had nothing more stringent than Libre Office's spell checker applied.

Small Feet

I start awake. A glance at the clock to my right shows it is two AM. I listen, trying to figure out what it was that startled me out of my sleep. My heart is racing as if someone has just injected me with a shot of adrenaline. All the noises seem natural, so it is not as if my pager has gone off, and I don' recall that I was dreaming about it going off before I woke. I fall back on an old habit, categorising everything that I am aware of. What can I hear from the safety of my bed. Inside everything sounds normal. I can hear a blind rattling down the passageway, but that wouldn't wake me. That blind has rattled for as long as I have lived in this house.
It is raining outside, but that shouldn't wake me. Even the howling wind sounds normal. Then I hear it. It is disguised by the sounds of the wind and the rain, and by the sound of that rattling blind. There are footsteps in the rain. And there are sharp cracking noises that are separate from the rattle made by the blinds. And that swooshing noise is not all wind. There is something riding the wind, which changes the tone just slightly. The noises are oddly familiar, as well as strangely muted. I keep thinking it is something happening far away, and then I register the clarity of the noise and I know that it must be right outside my window.
I still haven't stirred from the position I was in when I woke. I had been listening in the way one listens when one is trying to determine if someone has broken into the house. Or trying to determine if that spook from the scary movie you watched last week has somehow appeared in your closet. Having now identified what woke me (although I'm still not sure why) I roll over and open my eyes. There is nothing strange to see in my room. The street light from the corner is shining through the crack in my curtains, allowing just enough light that I can see my room is exactly as I left it last night. I am very neat in my habits. It comes of having spent a couple of my more formative years in the navy. Every item that I own has a specific place where it belongs, and I can tell immediately if there is anything out of place. I have friends who find this habit a little daunting, and others who will attempt to prank me by moving things around while I am out of the room. I don't really mind. It keeps me on my toes, and forces me to remain observant at all times.
Having determined that my room is all in order, I sit up and turn to the window. Twitching aside the curtain, I pear out into the rain. It is gloomy out there. My window looks out into a paved courtyard, so everything is grey. In this stormy weather the only source of light is the orange of the sodium lamp that is still used in the street light on the corner. This is reflecting strangely off the water drops on my window, making it difficult to get a clear view of the courtyard below. The footsteps have become clearer though. They are sounding more and more familiar, but I still can't place it. Then I realise that one of the cracking noises I have been hearing is very regular, and that the footsteps are keeping perfect time. These are not just footsteps. This is marching. I heard the sound of troops being drilled in a very similar way whilst in training. I was just on the inside of the group, and so I heard the sound from all directions, and not just from one. It was also much louder then.
I continue to watch the rain for a while, slowly allowing my brain to filter out the different sounds I am hearing. I can tell the footsteps apart from the rain now, and the drumming from the rattling blind. I still can't tell what is riding the wind. I start to scan the skies hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it is, but I realise in this darkness that will be futile. I would not be able to spot an air force glider in this, and I am intimately familiar with what those look like in all different terrains. I don't stand a chance of spotting a glider that is as muted as the sound of the footsteps.
Wait. I catch my breath. There. I can see movement. The rain drops are falling wrong. On the right side of the courtyard. It is a different shade of grey to the rest. I press my face up against the glass of the window. Trying to pierce the misty gloom that is the atmosphere. The movement is not obvious, but as I focus on the same patch of ground I start to make out some details. That corner is not as empty as I had thought. There is something there, and it is the source of the noises I can hear. A flash catches my eye, and I glance up. I could swear that was the wing of a glider, but something is still off. I'm still not sure what. But I can't sit and watch out my window any longer. It is time to go and make a closer investigation.
As silently as I can I get out of bed, and open the closet to get my rain coat. I need to find out what it is that is in the corner of my courtyard. Whatever it is, it must be big enough to keep off the neighbourhood cats, and that means it must be very well camouflaged. Even more curious at this thought I find my slippers and head to the back door to go out and investigate. As I reach the door I realise that everyone will tell me this whole thing was a dream if I don't make some kind of a record of it, so I slip back to my room to grab my cellphone. If I can't get a good picture of whatever this thing is, I should at least be able to get a decent sound bite. And then I can analyse it. Maybe even get some help running it through real analysis software. Shaking my head at my own overeagerness I head out the back once again.
I have to fight to close the door quietly. The wind is blowing harder than I had thought. The rain is really pouring down too. I suspect that I will soon be soaked through, despite the rain coat. My slippers are already pretty useless. Oh well, now I'm wet, I might as well find out what woke me up. I cock my head, listening to check that my leaving the house has not silence the whatever it is. I can still hear the patterns of the rain, and the patterns of the drumming. The sound of footsteps has quieted. I move slowly towards the corner where I saw the movement. As I get near I start to hear the sounds more clearly. This is definitely a troop of soldiers being drilled in how to handle themselves in this kind of weather, but I still can't see them, and the sounds are still too quiet for their clarity.
Suddenly I hear a different noise, and I feel a sting to my right hand. Like I have been bitten by a particularly nasty fly. I look at it, and to my surprise I see that my hand is bleeding slightly. And there appears to be something in the wound. It was definitely not a bee sting, and the noise had come from the direction of the moving shadows. I drop to my knees in order to better see what is happening, and I finally realise what I had been missing all along. The reason everything sounds too quiet to me, is that the makers of the noise are incredibly small.
I'm not sure whether I should be freaked out by the sight of what looks like living toy soldiers, or to be super excited. Freezing where I am, I take out my phone to try and get a photo. As I do so I hear a shout, and then the report of a dozen tiny rifles, and feel the front of my raincoat take the hit of a dozen tiny bullets. I know why the cats don't bother these guys now. I am definitely weary of them. I can't make out the words that they are saying, so I do not think they will understand me. I also think that the volume difference is going to work both ways. They sound too quiet to me, I am going to sound far too loud to them. And I have already startled them enough. I sit back, trying to show that I am not a threat, while still trying to get my phone into a position to take a photo.
As I sit back, a couple of shapes break off from the group. As they get closer I identify them as officers. These guys are sharp. They are dressed smartly and and neatly, and even though they are in danger of being knocked over by a large rain drop, they move forward steadily. I am impressed. I finally manage to get the use of my cellphone as the arrive. I reach out an arm, hoping to try and take a selfie with them (no one would believe me otherwise). As I do so, they run up and start scaling my clothing. I feel very much like I am reliving Gulliver's travels.
I am starting to get freaked out. They have reached most of the way up my torso now. I decide I need to get out of here, and leave them to their training. As they reach my shoulders I take my selfie and shake, hoping to dislodge them. As they fall I reach out a hand to catch them, lay them gently on the ground, and then moving as quickly as I can I get to my feet and dash back to the door. Having made it back inside I relax a bit, and take stock of my situation. I am absolutely soaked, and my heart is racing wildly. I need to relax. I start peeling off my rain coat, and I realise that one of the soldiers must have been frightened literally out of his boots when he fell, because there they are, caught in my jacket.
Placing them carefully on the counter I smile as I say out loud. “Sometimes it is the smallest feet that make the most impact.” Before heading for the shower and back to bed.

I found a rose...

I found a rose today. It was wrapped in toilet paper, and placed in the gap where a book usually sits on my bookshelf. It was completely flat and dried out. It was also so dark that it looked a purplish black.

That rose has been there for about six months. I put it there after I went on the Cape Of Good Hope Chrysalis flight, because I never wanted the memories to fade. But, over time, I forgot that it was even there. It took a chance event, my mother borrowing that precise book, to bring the flower to light. I have read the books it was between enough that I had no plans to reread them soon, and so without that event, the rose would have remain undiscovered. Possibly becoming drier and flatter.

Sometimes that is what walking with God is like. We discover something important, and so we tuck it away in our memories, somewhere safe, where we can preserve it. Make sure that it will last forever. But then, we have put it away so safely that we do not think of it again, until a chance event brings it to our attention. This rose was not completely forgotten, and I have other reminders of Chrysalis, but the state in which I found it, and the way in which I found it, are meaningful.

The black rose has many strong and dark connotations. But this rose was a beautiful red specimen when I received it. Now, I could call it black and brittle, and say it is dying, or I could say it is dark purple, and well preserved. It will not rot, instead I will be able to keep it forever, although I should probably label it if I want to remember where it came from. The chance of finding it, depended on someone else wanting to read a particular book on my shelf. One that most of the time doesn't even feature on my "recommend to people" list. Yet it was borrowed, and the rose was brought to light.

My thoughts on this? God works in weird and wonderful ways, and nothing is ever a coincidence. Instead it is a God-incidence.

Working for God

Oh, look, its been about a month since my last post. You know what else? I have just had blog-worthy stuff happening in my life. It's kinda weird how that can happen. Maybe I'm subconsciously saving everything up for a monthly release into the world. It could happen, right? But never mind that, I don't want to right a post about what's happening in my head, instead I want to share what's been happening in my life.

I think I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be embarking on an internship, well I did. I spent two weeks working in a finance area. There were five of us in the internship, two with computer science backgrounds, and three who are studying finance. We arrived nervous and unsure of what to expect. By lunch on Day one, we knew what we had to do, and we knew that it would be a lot of hard work. Essentially, for those who know about pension funds, we had to hedge two different types of annuities in two weeks. We were given tons of assumptions we could make, and told of some simplifications which actually caused issues later on, but we all learned loads. I picked up a feel foe financial stuff that I never expected to have, which I'm sure will serve me very well in the future, and I learned quite a bit about working with a brand new team of people.

Overall the internship was good. But there were some troubling things. One, the pressure we were under. It was unreal. It was also mostly self imposed, or rather group imposed. I didn't like it, but we worked insane hours (in my opinion) and had limited rewards for that. I didn't even work the worst hours of the lot. Another, and it's a rather funny small thing, but I got sick. Probably because of working really hard and not being able to send a sick team mate home because of time restrictions.

After the internship though, is when things get really interesting. I had the opportunity to attend a Chrysalis flight. A weekend of such love, and intensity as I have never felt. They say it is a once in a lifetime experience, and I can understand why. If it wasn't, I think young people would be flooding the flights, and the experience would end up watered down. So, briefly, what is a Chrysalis flight?

A Chrysalis flight is kind of a "young people's version" of the Walk to Emmaus. Based on the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly, by spending time in a cocoon or chrysalis. This is a three day camp where young people are immersed in God's love, having to rely on others for everything, and so learning to let go of there lives. It is a time to truly experience that God is love, and a time to grow closer to God through study. Surrounded by an international community of prayer, the caterpillars are so soaked in prayer that it is surprising we do not end up saturated. That community offers support beyond the three day walk, allowing the butterflies who emerge to grow further in relationship with one another and Christ.

On this weekend I discovered that I am not as alone in my situation as I have often felt. I have met others who are in the same kind of place as me, and who are the same kind of age as me. It is this that truly made Chrysalis for me. That sense of never actually being alone has touched many lives over the years, and this weekend people shared with us what it meant to them, so inspiring us to share with others. I feel that I did indeed grow in my journey with Christ, and in the spirit of the title of this blog, I think I can share that I felt that two things I really needed to leave at the cross with Jesus were my pride and my fear of rejection. How well I will do at actually leaving them behind me I do not know, but with Jesus I believe I can overcome then, and live my life more fully in the hands and plans of God.

For all I speak of the joy that Chrysalis was (and I loved every moment, even when tired) there is a problem. After any type of high, be it chemical, spiritual, or emotional, there will always come a crash. For me that came when I returned home, and started having to deal with real life again. Being sick, and completely losing my voice make small things seem worse. Trying to respond to all my email, and make sure that I don't miss anything important. Catching up to varsity stuff once again, after ignoring it for a while. Having administrative errors on my side, coming from past mistakes, and things being in my calendar wrongly. All of these things were no easier to deal with for having been connected solely to God over the weekend. But I rest assured in his love for me. That no matter how bad things may seem, in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

I have been called. I'm not sure where yet, but God has a plan, and I want to follow that plan.

Life... it's about exams

It takes a lot more than good intentions to be able to blog regularly. It takes having something worth blogging about. I guess that's why some blogs get people following them, and why others don't. Be that as it may, I blog because it clears my head a bit, and helps me to look at things with a bit of perspective. Also, its a great way to feel productive while actually procrastinating. Well, it looks like I am doing a kind of monthly "tell the world what I am doing" thing.

So, what is happening around the turn of the month? First off, that nightmare of every student's life, exams. I'm lucky this term, just three subjects to write off. Graph theory, well, I think I should have passed it. Learning proofs is not my forte, so I struggled a bit with the studying for that one. The next two will be more interesting. Expert Systems are intriguing, and doing the assignment gave me a much deeper understanding of how the systems actually work. Which means it was a good assignment. I expect that exam to be a breeze. The most interesting one though, is certain to be category theory. I could almost do a set of posts on topics in category theory, and call them my study notes, but I'm not sure that I would get through everything then, and I would likely leave the project unfinished. Which would be fine if it wasn't visible to the world.

Why is category theory the interesting exam? Simply put, because it isn't an exam. It's an oral presentation of three topics which were covered over the semester. The lecturer doesn't believe in written exams as a fair test of knowledge. This suits me just fine, it means that understanding will be tested, rather than having to memorise a bunch of proofs. Yes there will be definitions to remember, but every mathematician has to know a bunch of definitions. So, what I'm supposed to be doing now is revising my category theory (I will get there).

After exams? HOLIDAYS! Well, technically. There is still the major project, and I have scored an internship. Interning should be pretty intriguing, actually. I'll be working in a huge company for two weeks, and getting paid. Life could be worse. I don't actually know what to expect, but I'm facing it as a learning experience, hoping that afterwards I will have a better idea of whether I could handle working as a software developer. I know it would pay well, and that there are plenty of opportunities available, so it might be worth it. I'm also pretty sure though, that if I do go into industry it will only be for a few years. And then I will probably end up teaching. I think that is where my passion lies, and where God is pointing me. But I also think it would be silly to let a really good opportunity pass me by. Especially when people personally ask me to attend interview type events...

That takes us to the end of June, so I guess I'll write another post after the internship, highlighting what happened, and looking forward into July. So, now that I have rambled on about the future, I guess it is time to actually do some work.

What May have been, and what May come.

I haven't been posting much, why? Simple actually, I've been both busy, and not so stressed that I need to blow off steam at anyone who might be listening. Possibly also, I forget... but I tend to try and avoid using that as a reason for anything. So, what have I been doing? Lots and lots of work,a short holiday, and then the work all picked up again. That makes for a boring summary, I know, but it feels pretty accurate.


I don't really need to give much of an overview of what I have done work wise, since my last post was just before exams started at the end of the last term. It is now a couple of weeks into the new term, and I am still trying to find a rhythm, which may take a while considering the CS timetabling technique (take a calendar, put lectures on days, change them a week later) and the fact that there are people in the department who seem to enjoy setting deadlines and schedules without consulting the published timetable, or their colleagues.But, that is not the point, what is done is done. I have a project (yay) which, if I can get through all the literature, should be pretty awesome.

Outside of University, I have not been completely nerdy. I have been playing second team hockey for my club, and trying to keep people coming to my fledgling youth group. The hockey has been awesome, and I enjoy the spirit which the club embraces. It means I have been getting plenty of regular exercise, and working hard on the field. This is definitely good for my health! The youth stuff, well that goes a bit oddly I think. We have been dwindling a little, but not too much, and hopefully things will start to look up a bit, with Youth Alpha starting this week. There might be some new faces, and if we get it right, they will hopefully stay fr the duration of the course.

So, what may come in May? Hopefully good things, although I am sure there will be plenty of stress and hard work. The youth looks like it will be good, the hockey would surprise me if it went bad, and the varsity work? Well it will be hard, and maths will scare me, but I think it will be worth the effort in the end. So all in all, a full looking month, but hopefully a good one.

Long weekends and term endings

This year, the April holidays are all weird. This is due to Easter being late, but it makes for some very interesting times ahead, in the next couple of weeks. This last weekend was a long one with Human Rights day on Friday. I could probably write a post about the meaning of Human Rights day in South Africa, but Friday was actually more a celebration of my mother's birthday for me. The whole long weekend also meant that my family took the time to get away from the business that clogs up our lives. My youngest brother spent the weekend on a Scout camp, building rafts and catapults. The rest of the family escaped to Simonstown, and the lovely sea views of the Simonsberg.

That was most certainly time well spent, no matter how unproductive sea views might sound. Whilst the amount of work I got done was minimal, the weekend away from the rat race was helpful in resetting my mind to a place where my university work is fun again. I no longer feel like I'm drowning, and I can appreciate the beauty and simplicity of Category Theory (whilst still feeling a little lost). I can also focus now on studying for exams. This might be another reason for my feelings of relief.

I have been working on one project per CS course for the last few weeks, and it felt like the work would just never end. Now, I have handed them all in, and I have some time to spend studying for exams rather than focussing on the implementation of the skills we were learning alongside the project. I can go back and do all the readings that I may have skipped while working on the projects. I can look through past papers and come to understand what I am supposed to know for each course. In this, I quite like the structure of my courses, taking only half a semester, and then writing an exam, and writing them off. It is a little scary to be writing exams on absolutely no feedback in terms of marks, but I suppose it just means I must make sure I know everything as well as I can before I go into the exam, not that I would do different in different circumstances.

What becomes fairly odd though, is that I write some exams next week, the week after that I have short vac, and then a week later it is Easter, and so there are holidays all scattered there. There is also Freedom day, and then Worker's day, and then voting day, all of which are holidays. So for the first three weeks of the new term, there is not a one which is a full week. It is a rather spectacular spray of holidays. Lots of time to either do intensive work on a single topic, or else time to relax, visit the beach, climb a mountain, read a book, something of that nature.

So having ramble on, mostly about one topic, I sign off, thinking about what remains of my evening, and realising that eight o'clock hockey practises are actually really late.

A bit of this, a bit of that

Really, my life is an interesting mix of different pieces. I have all the "I'm working harder than I have for years" stuff with my honours course work. I have the "yay, I get to play hockey with cool people" stuff. I also have the "I just got bored out of my socks while learning a lot at youth synod" stuff. So, a fairly even mix of everything, yeah? But t is a bit of this and a bit of that.

I spent Friday night and most of Saturday at the Cape of Good Hope district Youth Synod that was held in Hout bay this weekend. It was at the same time really interesting and really boring. The business stuff, where people were giving the same points over and over again, in different words and accents, was not so much fun. But there was also a lot of really useful information that I came out with. Stuff about the Laws and Disciplines of the MCSA that I didn't know. It was also a bit of a networking experience. I could see that in the district there are people who are trying to make things better for the youth of this area.

I was mostly frustrated by the lack of organisation for this weekend, and the inability of things to run on time, and of course, even when everything runs over, pretty much nothing can be cancelled, except for the parts where the person who has come to present leaves because the time is over and they haven't started. I do appreciate that these things are difficult to organise, and that the delegates were all woefully under-prepared, but I do think that it could be made to work. I also think, that if I'm not careful, I might find myself one of the people who has to try and organise such things in the future. Not for at least a year, but this time next year, I will have much more of a feel for what is happening in my circuit, and more of a presence in the district. It wouldn't be a bad thing, but I have to avoid it until I have the time.

That is one bit of this. Other things that happen, I finally handed in the NVP/PCU business plan that has been plaguing me for the last few weeks. I do not have to care about it any more, except perhaps to wonder what my mark will be like. It is over, there is no possible way for me to change it now. I am glad, it is a relief to have that off my shoulders. Not that it means my work load is any less. I have an evolutionary computing algorithm to code up to solve the travelling salesman problem (which is apparently not a terribly hard thing, it just needs to run a zillion times). Also, there is this weird information retrieval thing that I need to help with. When I say weird, I mean we aren't even that sure about what we have to get done, other than the fact that it might well require learning XSLT, to convert the format of about 10GB of XML into the right format.

Besides those two projects there is a write up for the visualisation that has been pretty much created, and we need to try and make it sit happily on a website, possibly through some clever javascript that other people have written. Beyond that there is always maths (which is still cool) and I have been learning tikz, because I have to type up my Graph Theory homework using LaTeX. That is kind of fun though. Writing out these nodes and an edge set and seeing it come out as a nice picture with very straight neat lines.

What else, oh yes, hockey, I have trials tomorrow night. That will be cool, if I don't get lost on the way to the astro, but I'm sure I will find my way. People did actually tell me where it is, and this seems to agree with Google Maps, so I stand a chance.

See, very much a bit of this and a bit of that.
But all very much worth doing. For all my exhaustion, I am having a really good time this year.