My Geography Extra Credit

This extra-credit assignment started with a video in weather class. It was a video with a guy who looks like he was enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon at home. Maybe he just finished mowing the lawn and now he watching his favored football team. Now subtract the Sunday afternoon, his house and couch. Now add an auditorium in Monterey, CA filled with some of the world’s top scientist, philosophers and other geniuses’ of our time. Now you have the visual.

The guy I’m talking about is Psychologist Barry Schwartz(click on his name to watch the video), and he gave a very impressive lecture about how society has too many choices, and that the key to life is having low expectations. After the video, my professor asked the class our opinions and then gave us an extra-credit assignment which had nothing to do with weather at all. Watch a second video from this website and write a page response. And so it begins.

The video I chose to watch was Eva Vertas (click on her name to watch her video)lecture about cancer. Eva Vertas is a 19 year old prodigue in the field of microbiology. I found her lecture to be quite interesting. The way she began with her families’ life story and her path from the Ebola virus to fruit flies to Alzheimer’s to cancer was really cool. There were a few parts of her lecture that really stood out to me. The first one was how she spoke of preventing cancer as oppose to getting rid of cancer. The second was how stem cells “contribute” to tumor cells.

Ms. Vertas first point struck me as innovative right away. I mean every time you hear about cancer, it is about trying to find new treatments. But right away, when she gets on the topic of cancer, she specifically says she wants to prevent the impairment before it becomes a problem. Who thinks this way? Most people when talking about anything that is harmful go strait to how to fix it, not how to prevent. She reminds me of a good parent who baby proofs a house before they have children.

And from that point it lead strait into stem cells being one of the factors of cancer. She said that in most of the cancer research she did said how cancer is related to injury. If you break your leg and your leg has cancer cells in it, the cancer cells turn the steam cells into bone cancer. How is it that stem cells, this remarkable cell that is suppose fixed every part of the human body, is one of the main factors leading to cancer growth and movement? This video gave me some real head aches the first time I watched. So I had to watch it two more times to get a real grip on what she was really saying.

After I finished the video I started to think about how, even though this was entertaining and informative, this applied to me and my life. Why in the world would a geography teacher give me an extra-credit assignment about something that has nothing to do with weather, or even geography? It couldn’t be because he feels bad for me not doing well on quizzes. So why in the world am I writing this paper?

Then it hit me. These videos cover everything from philosophy to advance microbiology. But these videos all have one significant thing in common. These videos feature men and women who are all doing what they love, and beyond that, they are raising new questions about what they love, and even farther, they are innovating what they love. They are taking a passion steps beyond what it is know, and taking it to the future.

So the thought came into my head. What if this professor who assigned this extra- credit just wants me to succeed in whatever I choose to do with my life? What if he wants me to take from these videos a new direction in life? A direction where I am driven to succeed in my passion, and take my passion into the future? A direction where I am happy with what I am doing, and not caught up with all the petty things life can throw at me? Wow. This is a lot different from any other science class I took.

I can only

So tonight I was sitting on my balcony writing a song. Every time I write a song I like to sit and do whatever it takes to relax and finish the song it one sitting. Tonight was no different. I decided to go to my balcony because the cold brisk air makes feel more artistic. It may or may not help, but I like to think it does.

There are some girls who live in the building across from me. I believe they are dancers because once or twice a week they play music pretty loud and practice what seem to be well choreographed dances to popular songs. They laugh and have fun when they dance and with the music it always catches my attention. It kind of cool to watch because they always seem so into it and they have a good time. And tonight just happened to be one of those nights where they were rehearsing.

I know nothing about those girls other than that. So tonight as I am sitting on my balcony, in my own little world trying to focus on this new song (which I am convinced like always it will be "the one"), I hear a familiar tune. To anyone who has grown up in a church since 2001, they would recognize this song right away. And so did I. It was "I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe (or by your churches worship team who never does as well as the group themselves). For those of you that aren't avid church goers, it is the biggest worship song in every Christian church across America(and most parts of the world). This song is "the shizz".

At first, old memories poured in my head about "the glory days" of my high school worship team. Our failed attempts time after time of trying to reproduce this beautiful song. It was great to reminisce on the person I used to be.

Then cames thoughts of the present. Thoughts about how I haven't regularly attend a church in a year. Thoughts of how my friends from "the glory days" are doing the same things. And thoughts on why we are like this. It is a depressing concept. Growing up in church they always tell you that 90% of kids that graduate high school stop attending church.

Thoughts that I immediately became a statistic flooded my mind. It hit me like a Muhammad Ali in the biggest fight of his life. I was immediately dazed and confused. How could this be? How could the leader of a bible study, worship team, and other church activities become a statistic? It seems simple enough that one with that background would immediately find a new church, a new bible study, a new (fill in the blank here).

But behold, it's not that simple. Growing up for me was a traditional church family experience as far as finding a church. Your parents attend a few churches and find one that they like. Then you are forced to go until you reach adulthood. When you are at that point, not one church seems good enough, so you stop trying to find one. Then you try to read your bible without the help of a bible study guiding you, but you become so lost that you get fed up. Not with God, but with the cycle you found yourself in. You pray to God "Won't you eventually show me they way". You know he will. But when you are living in a society that lives in the here and now, you get easily discouraged.

But as soon as those thoughts came in, thoughts of the future took their place. Thoughts of God forgiving me and telling me that it's okay. I imagine him saying something like "Sure you didn't do the best that you could, but I forgives you regardless". He lets me know that even though I've sinned, I will live for eternity. I know this is true. And it is what I am holding on to. I am holding on to hope, because that seems to be all I have at this moment.

It's funny that these girls who I know pretty much nothing about had such an impact on my night. But God works in comedic ways sometimes.

"Oh God, you're so funny. Always a joker. But it always seems to work out with you"(that was a little inner dialog to end the blog).