jonchiew

[jonchiew]

Prodigal God

I’m stealing Tim Keller’s title, but it’s so apropos. Today in church, the sermon was about the parable of the prodigal son. I’ve heard many messages on this passage, but today I was just blown away by how amazing God is. This thought hit home so hard - Father to the older son:

“Everything you’re trying so hard to earn by doing the right things, it is already yours!”

[jonchiew]

Grace and glory differ very little; the one is the seed, the other is the flower; grace is glory militant, glory is grace triumphant.

Thomas Brooks (Puritan)

[jonchiew]

2015 - Year in Review

This year has been an interesting combination of change and constancy. I’m not really sure how else to describe it. Lots of ups, with a few downs along the way, but ever filled with learning and hopefully maturing as I get old(er). 

I‘m still working on a PhD in Aeronautics & Astronautics out here in California. I’ve narrowed down my thesis topic to computational fluid dynamics analysis for multicopter UAVs. The exact details are still in work, but it’s a really interesting area for me, which combines my background in rotorcraft with the exponential growth the industry is seeing in small unmanned aerial systems. It’s a lot of fun and I’m really enjoying the research. I had a paper published this year, although I only contributed to a small portion of the work, and I also submitted my first “first author” abstract for an aviation conference paper next summer in D.C. I’ll find out in February if it’s accepted. The work at NASA is good and gives me a lot of opportunity to interact with the experts in my field, which has been a real blessing. I probably have 1.5-2 years left before I graduate, and I’m not sure what the step after that will be. I’m not looking to pursue a career in academia, so it’s likely to be back to my job at Boeing or something similar, but perhaps a little more research-oriented. I’ve finished my required technical classes, so now I only take classes that I find interesting or are relevant to my research. 

The biggest change this year was joining a new church. Through a variety of circumstances, conversations with friends, and time in prayer, I felt God calling me to a new local Christian community. There were a number of factors in that decision, but mostly that spiritually I felt that I had grown relatively stagnant and didn’t feel like that church was a good fit for me personally. This started at the beginning of the year, and I settled on Peninsula Bible Church in March. It’s been good so far, I’ve been slowly making friends and getting plugged into the young adult group there. I’ve served on the worship team a few times over the summer and am a sub for the Sunday teams this school year. While my current church is a better fit for my personality, I’ve tried to not simply settle into what is comfortable for me, but to also hold on to some of things I learned at my previous church and stretch my experience and knowledge of God in new and different ways. Specifically, this year I started volunteering as a mentor at a charter school in East Palo Alto, which is one of the rougher neighborhoods in the SF Bay area. A group of us works with the seniors, who are typically minority students and (hopeful) first-generation college graduates. Their parents know little to nothing about the whole process and are often busy just making ends meet. Through this mentorship program, I’ve learned a lot about how blessed and privileged I am and have had to interact much more personally (although still 2nd hand) with issues of racial discrimination, health insurance, and learn how to relate with someone from a completely different background, since I didn’t exactly grow up in the hood. In addition to the college admissions advice, I also volunteered to tutor my mentee in algebra and SAT prep. I hate being cliche, but it’s been so fulfilling just to give to someone who can’t really give anything back. It takes about 6-8 hours a week on average, but it’s been one of the highlights of the year for me. I’ve also realized how hard it is to be a good mentor. How to truly care for and advise someone, but ultimately leave her or him with ownership of all the decisions; how to let someone make mistakes and learn from them, instead of simply listening to you try to point them all out. I suspect this is all good practice for parenting, but I really wouldn’t know, and won’t be able to verify my hypothesis for quite some time.

In addition, I’ve been trying to stay fit by keeping up with my sports. I’ve been taking various PE classes ranging from golf to badminton and table tennis. I’ve also been playing soccer with a group from my old church and done several hikes this year. Unfortunately, I’ve also had a couple of lingering health issues (nothing too serious) that have challenged my faith (and ability to keep exercising) this year. It’s been tough, but I’ve learned how important it is too take care of my body, avoiding both extremes of a sedentary lifestyle and pushing my body too hard in my athletic pursuits. I’ve learned to be grateful for my health (and health insurance) and trust that God will continue this healing process if He wills.

In July, I moved into a new living situation which has turned out to be really good. I rent a room in a house from an elderly, live-in landlady. We get along well and I’m spoiled to live in an affluent area. I often bike the 5 miles to school and get extra exercise on my way home since we live up on a hill. Which makes for some pretty awesome views. I’ve also spent a few weekends rekindling my amateur photography hobby, with the highlight of this year being a personal trip to the Sierra Nevadas and enjoying both astrophotography and fall foliage (The pictures are up on facebook and I’d be happy to send a link if you’re interested). I also spent Labor day with my family after a trip back East for a wedding. We got to visit upstate New York (1000 Islands) which was a lot of fun. I’m spending the last few days of the year in Portland, OR where my brother and sister-in-law live. It’s been a good 2015. I’m hoping for more of the same next year. More progress on research, continuing to settle into my life here in CA as a student, but also some stretching to not get too comfortable, and in all of it being able to glorify God in some way. He may have completely different plans for 2016, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all of God’s best for the coming year!

TL;DR - It’s been an interesting year with good steady progress in my education and research, and some changes with respect to church and volunteering. Overall, it’s been a good year, although I have face a couple of health issues. Merry Christmas and Happy new year!

[jonchiew]

The Lord gave me everything I had, and they were his to take away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Job

[jonchiew]

Hiking Hiatus

Patellofemoral syndrome. =(

[jonchiew]

Mono Pass Trail

I was searching for fall foliage this past weekend, but stumbled upon the Mono Pass Trail at Rock Creek lake. I didn’t hike very far along the trail because it was getting late, but I did go far enough to snap a picture of this view. Definitely want to go back sometime and hike all the way up to Mono pass! There’s even covenient campgrounds nearby with bear lockers! 

[jonchiew]

Windy Hill Open Space Preserve

I hiked from the Portola Road parking lot up to Windy Hill and back down. You could also park up top on Skyline Blvd and hike down and back up (or park a car at each end =P).

I took the Spring Ridge-Hamms Gulch-Lost-Anniversary-Spring Ridge-Betsy Crowder. About 7 miles in total. Hamms Gulch is mostly shaded with lots of switchbacks, while coming down Spring Ridge is just a wide dirt road most of the way that follows the ridge, and it’s basically flat or up/downhill all the way as you can see in the elevation profile.

Bench with a view from Windy hill.

Hamms Gulch trail

[jonchiew]

Transient transformation to trail triumphs

I’ve recently started to do solo hikes on Saturday mornings to get in better shape, and I’m going to do short hike synposes here on tumblr, just so I have something to go back and look at later. =)

I may intersperse other posts from time to time....

[jonchiew]

Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves. Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me - The very thing you've been unwilling to do. You've said, 'Nothing doing! We'll rush off on horseback!' You'll rush off, all right! Just not far enough! ... There'll be nothing left of you - a flagpole on a hill with no flag, a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off. But God's not finished. He's waiting around to be gracious to you. He's gathering strength to show mercy to you. God takes the time to do everything right - everything. Those who wait around for him are the [blessed] ones.

Isaiah 30:15-18 (MSG)

[jonchiew]

Walking the Talk

I have some ambivalence about The Message. On the one hand, I really appreciate what Peterson is doing in colloquializing the Scriptures, but sometimes it frustrates me that people just use The Message as a translation. It's not a translation, but rather an interpretation. And while I generally don't have a problem with Peterson's theology, you just have to be aware of what you're actually reading. Sometimes I feel like The Message amounts to the Scriptures being told by a grandparent trying to relate to his/her teenage grandkids. Strained modern language. But I'm seriously digressing. Here is today's gem from devotions:

"If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong." (Rom 14:23)

Ouch. In a very good, challenging, sort of way.

[jonchiew]

Looking back on 2014

Last year, I wrote about how 2013 was full of change. I moved to CA (twice), sold my townhouse, and re-entered the full-time student life. This past year has been more settled as far as major life changes go. I finished my first year as a full-time grad student and completed all my M.S. degree requirements. It's been an interesting road to getting my Master's. Originally, when I started as a distance learning student while working at Boeing, I was seeking a terminal Masters. So in some sense, even though I am now continuing on for a Ph.D. (more on this later), I felt like a chapter of my educational journey was complete and walked in June at commencement. 

This summer, my older brother Daniel got married in Oregon. We had lots of family come in from around the world, and it was good to see everyone. It was the first time I've been in a wedding party (discounting any ring bearing I did years ago). It ended up being a West Coast family vacation sandwiching a week in Portland for the wedding. I don't think I want to combine vacations and weddings like that again, but it was fun. At least I got to check Yosemite off my bucket list! And I visited Crater Lake again, which is one of my favorite US National Parks.

Academically, I've been able to take classes on topics I'm really interested in, which has provided a lot of mental enjoyment. I've learned so much in the last year and continue to realize how much more there is to learn. In June, I started preparing (very casually) for the Ph.D. qualification exam - a battery of oral exams from 8 professors on 3 different subject fields. This was by far the most stressful event of the year - I don't think I've studied that much for anything else in my life so far (and hopefully not ever again). It caused me to depend on God for my future plans and to face my fears of failure. Praise God that I passed! Psalm 23 was very real to me the night before my major exam. You can read about this more in a previous blog post. The next major milestones for my PhD are to pick a thesis topic, do my research, and write the dissertation. I also have about 8 more technical classes to take. I'm not sure exactly what my thesis topic will be, but it will be in the realm of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

Looking at the bigger picture, I'm not sure how to put 2014 into words. Perhaps, it would be best described as a stepping stone towards the future. Spiritually, I don't think I've grown as much as I would have liked. I can't exactly pinpoint anything right now, but I just feel that this year things have been somewhat stagnant. One song (certainly not a happy Christmas song) that meant a lot to me this year is Though You Slay Me. By God's grace, things have been going well overall. I really can't complain. Sure PhD quals was a grueling experience, but I am a better and more knowledgeable student because of it. Hopefully the rest of this PhD, both 2015 and beyond, will be a source of growth for me. Not just as a student researcher, but as a child of God as well.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2015! =)

[jonchiew]

Facing my Fears - My Journey Towards a PhD

The summer before my senior year at Georgia Tech, I was deciding between going straight to grad school and working in the aerospace industry. I had taken the GRE but ended up really burned out from all my classes and decided to go work for Boeing. I knew I wanted to get my Master's so I applied to Stanford for their online program. I also knew I didn't want a PhD, especially because of that thing called quals.

Fast forward 5 years, and I had finished 2/3rds of my M.S. online and was planning to go to Stanford for 1 year to finish up and take the classes I was interested in but weren't offered online. So I was trying to find short-term funding for a year. But people said most of the funding went to PhD students. I wasn't really planning on doing a PhD to avoid a year of student loans. Plus there was that quals thing.

God, on the other hand was planning something totally different. As I moved to California, went back to school full-time, and learned to live more simply, I really started to enjoy the grad student life (despite the 50% pay cut). I was so blessed by the opportunities to try new things as a student again (karate and golf, for example) and just loved learning. I was able to get connected with (read as: God provided through) NASA Ames for a research opportunity/funding. So I felt that God was clearly directing me to do a PhD...which would entail passing quals.

Every "doctor" (engineering PhD graduate) that I talked to clearly and not-so-fondly recalls their season of life when they took quals. Some had taken it more than once; all were able to commiserate and remember how glad they felt when it was all over. Maybe I was making it out to be a bigger deal than it was, but it certainly seemed like a daunting task.

Our quals exam is a battery of oral exams with various faculty members in 3 different areas. My exams were in fluids (major), linear algebra (minor) and structures (minor). Although I took most of the classes online and didn't have many friends here at Stanford, God helped me get connected with a quals study group through a classmate from last year. That was really helpful in motivating me to be more prepared.

A few weeks out, and I started to panic because I was really behind on my studying and just couldn't get into a groove. I finally "discovered" the Sunnyvale Public library just a few minutes drive away, which was a super study spot. I was feeling a little better, but then it really started to sink in. 10 days left, too much material to learn. Some crazy things happening with getting a "wrong" professor on my major panel. Anxiety level was rising. Semi-panicked email to friends and family who were a major encouragement through it all. Especially everyone back east. Then quals week started. And I was doing HW for this other class.

Friday came and the research presentation went well. My very first exam was Friday afternoon, and I totally dropped the ball. I had very little idea how to solve the problem and stumbled across various ideas and parts of the question. The problem didn't seem that hard, I just wasn't prepared. Ah well. I had to shrug it off and study hard over the weekend.

Sunday night before my major exams, I got through a lot of material, but still felt relatively underprepared. I was so nervous I could not sleep even though I was really tired. After unsuccessfully trying to shake off Friday's performance out of my mind (good thing I'm not a pro athlete), I turned to the Word. God brought Psalm 23 to mind. I spent a while just meditating on the beautiful truths in that passage - it had never been so real and so meaningful to me. I slept well.

Monday's exams went really well in general - praise God. Then that evening my final examiner tells me she has the flu and wouldn't be able to make it. After trying to find substitute examiners, we end up deciding to have the exam via Skype. Way weird since her video camera wasn't working, but it actually went well too! I was fairly hopeful that my scores could overcome the disastrous performance on Friday.

And by God's grace they did. I was afraid of quals. For 6 years. But the Lord graciously brought me all the way to and through the exams. Sometimes by still waters, sometimes through the "valley of the shadow of death," but always restoring my soul. I never would have made it this far without Him. Some people say religion is a crutch for the weak. They might be right. Probably more than a crutch for me. But I will readily admit that I am weak and would not have made it this far but for my Lord and Savior. So thanks be to God! Here's to several years of God-glorifying, new-experience-filled, grad student life. So glad to be in His will, no matter how scary it seems. And yes, I probably overdramatized quals - but it was a very real battle for me.

Just for fun! Notable places I studied for quals: -on vacation/family wedding -airplane -DMV -Ford dealership -Chick-fil-A

[jonchiew]

A cursory look back

It's been a year since I moved out to California. Academically, it's been a good year. I've learned a lot of the things I went back to school to try and learn, so from a career point of view things are progressing. In some respects I have learned to live more simply and trust in God more, so that's good. 

I'm "busy"  studying (or perhaps equally likely, procrastinating on studying) for my PhD qualification exam which is in November. I definitely feel the tension between trusting in God (not depending on my efforts) and "[studying] hard as to the Lord." I generally feel at peace about it, which is good, but I feel like I should be studying harder.

And with that, I'm going to disappear again for a couple months. When you hear from me again, it'll probably be Christmas 2014, and hopefully I will have passed the qualification exam

[jonchiew]

2013 - How God Proved Himself Faithful (Again)

This year's summary post is almost the complete opposite of 2012's. Last year, I wrote about how hardly anything had changed, but this year there are plenty of new things to talk about! (TL;DR at the end)

A quick review: I've been working for Boeing in Philadelphia as an engineer since 2008 and taking graduate classes part-time through Stanford's online distance learning program. However, I was interested in a particular area of aerospace engineering that didn't offer classes online.

So I took 3 months of leave from Boeing and spent April to June as a student at Stanford. I only took one class, so I had lots of free time, which I spent re-reading Sherlock Holmes, learning karate, practicing piano, and familiarizing myself with the Bay Area. My plan was to come back for the 2013-2014 school year full-time to finish my Master's degree, and I needed to find funding since Boeing wouldn't pay if I was on leave. Through divine providence (and my academic advisor), I got connected with a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) group at NASA Ames that was looking for some short-term help. They weren't positive they would have funding, but if it came through, I had the position.

In mid-June, I moved back to PA to work at Boeing for the summer. After living for three months with only what I brought in two suitcases, I felt the confirmation of a growing conviction that God wanted me to live more simply - to live as a stranger and pilgrim in this world as the Apostle Peter would say, and to that end I decided to sell my townhouse in PA. I started doing some improvements on my own, but soon realized I had bit off way more than I could chew. So I focused on moving to CA, and hiring people to do the rest of the work.

I had planned to drive out to CA so that I would have my car there, and it was a good excuse to visit many of the National Parks that I've always wanted to go to. On Sept 9, I drove to NJ to say goodbye to my parents and proceeded to get rear-ended 10 minutes from their house. With a non-functional trunk, I was now going to live more simply than even I had planned for. But God watched over me (and my travel buddy) for the rest of the 5000 miles until we arrived safely in Mountain View.

If you've ever tried to find housing in SF, you know how expensive and crazy it is. After several weeks, I found a room on craigslist for a good price in a great location with perfect move-in dates, and proceeded to rent it without seeing it first. By God's grace, it's a great living arrangement, and my landlady is super nice.

But with two rent/mortgage payments, home repairs/staging, car insurance claim denials, and other assorted moving expenses, I had quickly exhausted my entire emergency fund and overwhelmed my meager grad student budget. But God always provides. After taking a generous loan from my parents, things started coming together. My insurance claim was approved (two months after the accident), my house sold fairly quickly, and Stanford approved a late fee waiver on my account. Slowly but surely, God is undoing my prideful self-reliance and continually reminding me of how I need Him every day, for both big and small things in life.

Even with all that going on, my first semester back as a full-time student went well. My research position at NASA came through and it's been a good experience to work there. I'm learning a lot of C and Python programming and getting a wider and better perspective about my field of interest. I also learned a lot from my classes and just enjoyed the opportunity to further my education. So much so that I'm most likely going to pursue my PhD at Stanford as well. As you might expect from my experiences this year, funding is still a question mark and nothing is certain yet, but this is the path I feel like God is leading me down.

2013 has definitely been a year of change for me. Through it all, God has shown Himself faithful and reminded me of how blessed I really am, especially with my family. Here's a song that encouraged me throughout this year: Never Once.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Here's to God-glorifying 2014!

-------------------------- TL;DR - I moved to CA to pursue full-time graduate studies at Stanford. I faced a lot of challenges as part of the move (finances, selling my house, car accident), but God revealed Himself as my faithful father and reminded me of how much I truly need Him.

[jonchiew]

Back to the East Coast for summer. 

-Stanford recap pending-

[jonchiew]

Round 2

Time to play the SF Bay  area housing game again...

[jonchiew]

Efficiency

As I've been reading through the OT, I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for Caleb and Joshua to spend 40 years of their lives roaming around the desert waiting for everyone else to die because of their (the Israelites') unbelief and disobedience. It seems like these were the prime years of their lives - I haven't even been alive for close to 40 years and their prime years were "wasted" in the desert.

And yet as I think about it, God is sovereign. His ways are not ours; no, they are so much higher. What one considers wasted time, God probably used as leadership training and relationship building for the next-generation of Israel.

So as I spend time this summer ascertaining the direction God is leading, I have confidence that no matter how financially, academically, career-ly sideways or backwards this next step seems, God is in control.