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.

NVP Day 4

Nearly a week's worth of lectures. If I'm not mistaken the last of the lectures for this course happen tomorrow. This is very condensed, but it seems to be effective. Today's topic was finance, an interesting enough topic if you like money. Some of the systems are quite intriguing, but I feel a little bit like it was rushed. Probably because it was, due to needing to finish early for the majority of the class to attend a memorial service. This rush impacted a little on how much could be covered. Also, our lecture venue was locked (the purpose of which is unclear) and so we had to start a little late.

I did manage to improve my note taking techniques though, which was good, so I have a nice document with notes that will hopefully make sense to me if/when I need to look over them again for reference. That makes me feel a little more confident about the course. Also the brainstorming and planning session we held this morning before the lectures was very good, we decided the basic idea of what our App will do, clarifying quite a few of the necessary details. I feel a little bit useless in this section, but I will bring my skills in the admin stuff into play again, and I will do things around the edges, like writing an introduction and a conclusion, and consolidating the work. If it is me who does that, and we don't do it all together.

We have to get the skeleton of this done and dusted by Wednesday for our preliminary presentations for the communications course. This is actually quite a good thing, in that it forces the work to continue, although on that note I must remember that I have other work to do as well for another course. This other work comes from the interesting extra week that was tacked on to our year due to some administrative mix ups. The extra week has been taken to be quite a good thing by a large portion of the staff though, and may well be repeated. Odd how circumstance changes the way things are run.

Now that I am running off in a spiralling line outwards from my original topic, and reflect on the fact that blogging about a course for which I have not been particularly enthused (and am technically not required to take) has taught me more about myself. This is something that often happens when I blog though, that I get sucked into these introspective and soul searching posts. Not very typical, and possibly not very good for the readership, but hey, its not like the readership is very wide here anyway, and I might as well be honest, albeit a little monitored due to the public availability, and not wanting to condemn myself on the internet.

So, finance and risk stuff. It seems weird to do this all before the business starts, the idea of the cash flow thing, surely no-one would put a negative cash flow study in their business plan? You know if your cash flow thing is starting to look bad that you need to do something to make it look better before that. Perhaps put a few cash flow projections, with different initial investments to show how the investment amount can impact the success of the venture? It is something I would do, but then I am a scientist, and I believe in asking for money to do research (or to pay for research I've already done). I know that this is a little bit different.

Now I'm just going off on tangents, so it is probably time to stop writing about doing things, and actually do them.