I am taking some time (that I try to take annually) in the proverbial “lab” to do some personal journaling, trying to discern God’s hand in my life over the past year, the hand that “hems me in, behind and before1.”
For my beloved readers who are not as up to speed on the lingo the kids are using these days2, the LAB is actually a relatively old term and is (according to urban dictionary “any place where you can go focus, practice your skills and get work done. Go to the lab when you need to straighten something out.” You may recall from the hype music you listened to before swim meets at age 10 (just me?) Eminem’s lyrics in Lose Yourself:
Snap back to reality, ope, there goes gravity
Ope, there goes Rabbit, he choked, he's so mad
But he won't give up that easy, no, he won't have it
He knows his whole back's to these ropes, it don't matter
He's dope, he knows that, but he's broke, he's so stagnant
He knows when he goes back to this mobile home, that's when it's
Back to the lab again, yo, this old rhapsody
Better go capture this moment and hope it don't pass him
So I’m going to try and go capture this moment, and hope I don’t lose it.
In other news, lots of babbling-on
In fall of 2020 I shared a testimony at our church sharing about how God had provided for my budding education startup despite the challenges of hands-on, collaborative project based learning in a pandemic. The highlight might have been getting to drive home that bizarre and wonderful providence with the statement “I’m building rockets on Zoom with an 11 year old in Sicily!” Well, on Ash Wednesday (as you will quickly see) that extraordinary Sicilian rocketeer interviewed me for his channel3, which you can find clips of here. I believe he will post the full interview soon so be sure to check back at that link in a day or 2 if you want to watch it, or just subscribe to his awesome channel.
In case you missed it, I've also started recording a series of podcast interviews myself with some of the brilliant people I have had the opportunity to work with in engineering, with the hopes of gleaning some of their insights, stories, and experiences to share with my students, alumni, and community. Here is the inaugural interview with Sanjeev Sharma. Be sure to subscribe if you are interested, I have my next guest cued up in a week and he is awesome!
Spotify link and Youtube Link to the Sanjeev episode.
I love you all. Have a good week and see you again soon.
Psalm 139
I am blessed to be immersed in this novel dialect in my classroom.
Where he has many other amazing videos that you should also checkout.
I go to the lab every am
Podcasts! Famous!