Heroes

The discussion on “heroes” in class on Monday was really interesting to me. The book described heroes not as a spectacular person, but more of an ordinary person doing their jobs day in and day out that we often times take for granted. This thought of a hero as an ordinary person really got me thinking. With this definition, we can all be heroes to somebody. Everyone is important. If one person influences thousands of people and if another person only has an influence on one person in their whole life I think that they are equally as important. As long as someone is faithful and diligent with what they do, they should be recognized as a hero. Our culture today often times praises one person over another just because they have a bigger impact than the other, but I don’t think this is right. For example, let’s say that you tell one person about Jesus and they accept Him in their heart as their Lord and Savior, but that’s the only person you lead to Christ. Then, that one person ends up being a world changing revivalists who leads millions to Jesus and ushers in the second coming of Christ. At first thought, you would think that the second person is more important than the first. However, without the first person the second person never would have known about Jesus. This shows that not one person is more important. We should start celebrating the people who aren't necessarily at the top of the chain because we don’t know where we would be without them. 

Struggles in HS English

In high school I took two different AP English courses. My junior year I was enrolled in AP English Language and Composition and my senior year I was enrolled in AP English Literature and Composition. My experiences in these two classes turned out to be very different. I ended up passing the AP test my junior year, but not my senior year, but that was not where the differences stop. My junior year I really felt as though I had a good understanding of what was expected of me in regards to writing essays. This allowed me to put forth my best work and was even enjoyable (as enjoyable as writing an essay can be). However, my senior year things were much different. We were required to analyze poems, essays, or novels and write some sort of an analysis essay about them. Although I had developed good writing skills, they did not show up in this class. It was extremely hard for me to write an analysis essay; my brain just doesn't work that way (which is why I am a math major). I knew exactly what was expected of me, but I simply could not perform at the necessary level. This was actually really frustrating for me. I don’t feel like I was taught how to properly analyze a text and based off of that analysis write an entire essay. This reflected in my essays and ultimately on final AP score. Although this affected my AP score, I don’t think this had much of an effect on my development as a writer. I know that I can write; I just couldn't analyze properly in order to write an adequate essay. Hopefully, I won’t ever have to analyze a text and write an essay based off of that again!

My Changing Culture

This past Tuesday, I and four friends decided to pile in to my little Honda Civic and head to San Antonio to see go to a church service with a guest speaker and worship leader. The guest speaker was Corey Russell. He is one of the main pastors at IHOP (International House of Prayer) in Kansas City, MO, and I love listening to him preach. This past Christmas break I went to Kansas City to a conference and his sermons was definitely one of my favorites. Rick Pino was the worship leader and although I have never heard him lead worship, I was very excited to worship with him because I have heard great things about him. While driving the three hour drive to San Antonio I was sitting there thinking that my friends and I are a little crazy in the head. We were willing to drive six total hours, get home around three in the morning, and have to turn around and go to class the next morning, just to go to a two hour church service. This thought brought me back to how in high school I would drive three hours just to go see our football team play a game or another sporting event. When I did that I never once thought I was going crazy, but why would I think such a thought when going to worship God? It’s because our culture thinks it isn’t worth it. You can go all out and look like a crazy person for a sporting event, but if you worship and love Jesus with the same enthusiasm you are considered to be crazy. The thing is, is that it was totally worth it! God met my friends and I in a powerful way that night and I would totally do that all over again. It’s really cool that my culture is changing to where I use to drive and do crazy things for sports, but now I am doing that for Jesus and it is so much more worth it and life giving! Have you noticed little culture changes in your life since coming to college?