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| As I stood there, looking at my sleeping niece nestled in my arms, I wondered what it would be like to be in my brother-in-law’s shoes. This little bundle of joy brings so much pain, sorrow, and apprehension along with it. The haggard expressions on the faces of my sister and her husband bespoke of the trials to come, but the smiles on their faces betrayed their satisfaction and joy. It’s amazing that just four days prior I was drinking coffee with my sister and her huge belly; now, I have stood and looked in the face of my new niece. At 8 lbs 13 ounces, she is not the lightest baby in the world, but this was the first time I’ve held a baby within two hours of it being born and she felt like one of the most fragile things in the world.
Her parents fell asleep, she stayed there quiet and sleeping in my arms. As I sat in a chair cradling the sleeping babe, I thought about how much parents go through during the process. It is definitely a trying time for both of them. The woman is forced to have physical strength beyond what she has to deal with on a normal occasion, but so too does the man need emotional strength. It is odd that during this most precious of times the perceived strengths of one must become the strength of the other.
Addressing this, I fear that my emotional capabilities will not allow me to do as well as my brother-in-law did. Sure, he is still naive in thinking that now he can sleep at night, but he will learn that quickly. before I have my first child, I shall have to learn how to let go of trying to be in control. The feeling of not being able to do anything is horrible, but it is one that man must tolerate during the birthing process. Even if something is going horribly wrong in the whole procedure, there is nothing he can do. | | |
| I remember the long talks we had at night,
standing in front under the cold street light.
We talked of dreams and plans for our lives,
skipping through years in steps of five.
Thine eyes shone every time we met,
and thy smile sparkled so I couldn't forget.
I remember the bus ride to Colorado,
thou held my hand and wouldn't let go.
Kyrie eleison.
The knife which thee plunged in my back,
I have taken out and burned it black.
I would cut all ties and never speak with thee again,
if it weren't for my family whom thou didst befriend.
Times have changed, and I wish I could forget
how it felt the first time our fingers met.
To erase all memory of thee from my mind,
seems to me to be completely sublime.
Domine, miserere dies irae, dies illa.
Thine eyes which once shone with light,
now shine with pity for my supposed plight.
I refuse to look thee in the eyes,
for in them I only perceive thy lies.
Note: This is not about Victoria, but is about a girl from high school.
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| Life has taken quite a few unexpected turns lately. My mother recently secured the position of a music minister at one of our old churches, my older brother signed with the agent who represents Yo-Yo Ma and Gil Shaham, and my sister is pregnant. As the third child, I have always considered myself to be slightly under-noticed, except when people want help with things. I have no problem with slipping by mostly unnoticed, it helps me keep most of my time to myself and work on school. Unfortunately, I have chosen a major that is extremely different from those of my parents and siblings. I have not been able to hide in the obscurity that my family otherwise offered.
Some people dream of leaving their mark on whatever they do, but I have always wanted to stay in the background doing my own thing. People talk about being remembered after they leave here, but I would prefer to be forgotten the minute I am out of sight. When I first came to school, I figured I would stay in my room all the time, not make any friends, never be known outside of class, and yet still get low B's or C's in all my classes. Boy have I failed to meet my expectations.
I decided not to be an APA in the fall because of senior project, etc., and it has turned out to be one of the best decisions I have recently made. I have been working with Dr. Matsson on finding a physics society for the department to start up a local chapter with, the paper that Dr. Halsmer, Jon Marc, Tyler and I were working on has been accepted to the conference, meaning it will be published along with the other papers. Also, I was approached by Nate Hunt who had an interesting proposition for me, which I need to discuss with some professors.
Where does the title come from? I was helping people in the fishbowl as they were preparing for a differential equations exam. I don't remember who it was, but somebody came up to the table and said, "Hey, it's Nate Roman, the Engineering Physics Legend." I argued the point, saying that Tyler Todd is actually a better student than I am, but the reasoning is that he is not as well known. Where did I go wrong in my plans for obscurity?
This post might seem like it's just me boasting about myself, but all of these "blessings" are actually causing me great trepidation. Who am I that so much should happen to me? Have I managed to do everything the best I can, especially in the case of the paper? Or will I be laughed at and ridiculed by the field of Science that I have dedicated the last three years of my life to?
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? | | |
| "Nate, would you and Victoria mind taking some fudge and biscotti to your Aunt Betty?" That is the question I would have liked to have heard, instead it was a statement, "Nate, when you and Victoria go to the farm we want you to stop by and deliver this fudge and biscotti to your Aunt Betty's house." How can you argue with your mom and uncle? I didn't really want to go, I wanted to spend more time with Victoria, but I knew that Aunt Betty would enjoy getting the fudge and having me stop by. So, I grudgingly accepted the fact and plotted how to keep visitation time down to a minimum; after all, it was Christmas Eve and I had things to do before playing for the evening services. When Victoria arrived, I let her know the change of plans and we set off. Before walking in to Aunt Betty, who is actually my great-aunt, I let Victoria pick whether she would stay in the car or come in with me, she choose to stay. I went inside, greeted Aunt Betty, and stood there talking to her for a few minutes. She remembered a Christmas present for my grandfather, her brother, and asked if I wouldn't mind taking it to him. I agreed, saying that I was more than happy to do it for her. She asked if I could stay and sit for a while and visit, but trying to stay on my own schedule, I told her I would have to do that sometime later. She seemed a little crestfallen, but said she was glad to see me and to get the fudge and biscotti. I hugged and kissed her goodbye, then said "I'll see you later, Aunt Betty." As I left her house, I had no way of knowing I would never see her again. I don't know how close any of you are to your "great" aunts or uncles, but Aunt Betty was almost like a regular aunt, or possibly even a grandma, to us. We used to play badminton or volleyball in her backyard, run around with her poodle, or collect numerous amounts of pecans to eat or bake. She always had a big bowl of chocolate kisses in her living room, and we would grab a few while we sat down to talk or watch television with her. My last memory of her might not seem like a very happy one to most people, but I am very glad that I went and saw her, even if I was not in the right mind set at the time. My second to last memory of her was my aunt coming into the family room at my uncle's house and yelling at us to turn off the television and go say goodbye to Aunt Betty, which we did grudgingly not towards Aunt Betty, but towards our Aunt Deb. Nonetheless, I do wish I would have taken the time to sit down and talk to show her how much I loved her. | | |
| Four days ago we had arrived at the base of the Ouachita Mountains, which I always considered to be more hills than mountains. We only had one week left before college started, and we both wanted to get out in nature before we were forced to be around people continuously. We had grown up in the same hometown, excluding the year and a half that my family lived in Mississippi, and we were so close that people thought we were twins at times. Now, however, we were getting ready to go to two different schools. I had chosen to go to Oral Roberts University, a christian university in Tulsa, and he was going to South-Western Oklahoma State University(SWOSU). Our camping trip had gone well at the beginning, we had hiked and then set up camp somewhere around 20 miles away from our vehicle. We had only brought a little bit of food, figuring that we could forage for food in the wilderness. We thought we had everything worked out to a "T"; the one thing we hadn't planned on was rain. The storm had rolled in while we were sleeping. bringing torrential rain, flooding, and, of course, lightning. We had gathered our clothes as quickly as possible, ran through the rain, climbed up rocks, trying to get to high ground. We found a small cave halfway up one of the big mountains, stumbled inside, and tried to find out more about our little shelter. It wasn't very deep, nor, judging by the stalagmites and stalagtites, very old. We took off our shoes and socks and spread them out in the hopes that they would lose some of their moisture by the time the rain stopped. We fell asleep. My friend woke me up a few hours later. As he did so, he bade me to stay still and to not make any loud noises. The sun was just beginning to rise outside, the birds were singing, and the humidity was extremely high, thanks to that rain. Did I mention that that part of Oklahoma has a lot of scorpions? While we had been sleeping, these poisonous invertebrates had come out of the back of the cave towards the heat generated by our bodies. For some unknown reason, there were only a few scorpions crawling on me while my friend was covered by a multitude of them. I managed to get the ones off of me without too much trouble, excluding a few small cuts on my fingers. I looked around for some way to get them off of my friend but couldn't find anything. I ran outside trying to think of something I could use, but then I remembered the clothes inside. I asked my friend if he had the matches, but they were in his jeans pocket. I spent the next five minutes persuading him to try and get them so I could help him. He finally managed to get them out and handed them to me pleading with me to hurry up. As I struck the first match, I realized I needed something to put the clothes on so that I didn't burn myself or my friend. I quickly put out the match and ran back outside to find a stick. When I had found a stick, I raced back inside to find my friend moaning and the scorpions acting aggitated. The nearest thing I could figure was that smell of burning sulfur made them angry. I quickly wrapped the clothes around the stick, set the othermost layer on fre, and tried put out the flames so that all I would have was smoke. I finally got the smoke that I wanted and waved it back and forth by the scorpions, trying to make them flee. Eventually they couldn't handle it anymore and they scurried away from wherever the smoke was. As the last one ran off, I pulled my friend up, threw him over my shoulders, and carried him to a place about fifty feet away. He had been stung multiple times and had several bad cuts on his hands and feet. I forced him to stay still so that the poison would not spread throughout his body as quickly, but I knew that without immediate help he would be violently ill at the least. The calm of his mind was evident even through the gasping of his breath. He gave me instructions on what to tell his family, his girlfriend, and his other friends. As I held his hand in my hand and his head in my lap he told me that he loved me and would rejoice the next time we met. Tears rolled down both of our faces; his knowing he would never again be able to tell them that he loved them, mine in the knowledge that my friend from the cradle would soon pass away. As he took his final breath, his eyes slipped away from my face and focused somewhere far up in the sky before clouding over. I closed his eyes, stood up, and brushed away my tears.
Disclaimer: This is not a true story. I wrote this story as a metaphor of how most of my friendships from high school did not make it even to the first week of college. The scorpions represent things such as alcohol, sex, etc. While I escaped mostly unscathed, a lot of them were completely submersed and though I tried to help them, I was too late to save them from themselves. | | |
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