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[the-peregrins-trove]

[the-peregrins-trove]

"O sirs! your hearts are every day either softening or hardening."

Spurgeon

[the-peregrins-trove]

After 8 and a half years

When the children of Jacob were led into the wilderness to the Promised Land, they only had two choices: to stay in the familiarity of Egypt or to trust the God who called them out from there to a place they had never seen before. I, for one, felt like my entire wilderness was staged in this academic program. With non-existent knowledge of what exactly this program was all about, I only cared about two things: to have "Engr." attached to my name and to pursue my "love for chemistry". But this wilderness was where I saw the reality of God’s faithfulness, mercy, and favor. I came with puffed-up pride, thinking I could ace every class under this curriculum and graduate on time. Then I began incurring failing grades in major courses. 2017. I contemplated shifting to another course, slowly accepting that I would never graduate on time. I desperately asked God for a sign. I then randomly flipped pages in the bible with my eyes closed. I opened it and directed my eyes to the first thing I read that could probably be God's answer to my prayers. Somehow, God met me in my absurdity of doing this, leading me to the story of Joshua. He led Israel to cross the River Jordan to the land of promise – a land full of milk and honey. The priests were commanded to stand at the edge of the Jordan river until everyone crossed, and God promised to drive out their enemies until they reached the Land. This story became God’s covenant to me: if I choose to remain in the program, He will lead me to the land He has promised - to obtain a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. I admit I became stubborn and hesitated to entrust to Him the rest of my academic journey. I thought that maybe staying was wishful thinking, and deciding on it was out of sunk cost, considering also how much my parents invested monetarily in this program. I thought, "It probably wasn’t God speaking to me that day". And I began sulking on how much time was wasted; delay after delay, detour after detour. Even so, I couldn’t help but see His hand performing miracles in the wasteland. Despite failing a couple more classes and being on the verge of being dismissed from the program, the department chair back then was still keen on letting me stay. Despite becoming depressed and underperforming, it became to me a miracle passing the final year’s major courses. Despite performing the thesis during a pandemic and a year and a half-delay, His promise was true: what He has started, He will finish. And we finished well. Just as raw material is processed to become something profitable, so it has been with this academic journey. The Chief Process Engineer overseeing the process has been Jesus Himself. The delays and the detours were all part of His plan; working all these together for my good. As I now exit this wilderness, I now could say that I am a living testament to His grace, mercy, and favor. And also declare: “Not to me but to His name be the glory, because of His love and faithfulness (Psalm 115:1)” To my family, friends, and everyone who has witnessed this journey, thank you. To the student struggling right now to finish their chosen degree, take it from me: He sees you. He will let you finish too, as you entrust this journey to Him.

[the-peregrins-trove]

[the-peregrins-trove]

Mathematical modeling

This was an essay I have written for a math course in college. It wasn’t supposed to get this way too personal, but the essay’s rubrics led me to it. I still wondered what my teacher thought of this one when he read this. I reckon it was second-hand embarrassment. However, reading this after seven years was an advice from a sophomore college student to an adult in her mid-20s.

Martha, my little sister, would usually chug her favorite drink from her cherry pink liquid container. It resembled a towering plastic mug with a straw of the similar shade and material sticking out of it. It was a post-birthday gift from her godparents just recently. She admired it real well – cleaning it even without me doing it for her. Then, she would constantly tell me about how astonishing it was. “It’s so cool, Ate. The cold water that I just put in would not easily go warm even when I place it outside the refrigerator,” she said with pure hype. Then I wondered why. I asked her to hand it over to me and I observed it intently. It was a familiar structure – a design of two flasks positioned one within the other and a gap between them. It was actually a vacuum flask commonly known to most households as the thermos.

“How does it do that?” She asked. She’s quite the inquisitive mind – asking questions about how certain contraptions like this worked – probably the reason why she aced her sciences at school. The thing is, her question of how reminded me that the world is full of phenomena. The phenomena that attracted many astounding inventors and scientists alike to model these situations and finding explanations to such. These scientists would also model these situations, modify it, and answer the problems in their line of work – eventually answering the problems of society too. Like this vacuum flask for instance: to answer for those who wanted cold lemonade on a summer’s day and warm brewed one-hundred percent Arabica coffee on a winter solstice for lengthened periods of time.  

“Your mug tries to stop heat outside from going into it. That is why your water stays cold,” I answered my little 4th grade sister’s question the simplest way possible from what I’ve learned about insulators and heat transfer from previous knowledge. The gap between the two flasks that is moderately evacuated of air (or near-vacuum) actually serves as an insulator to prevent heat transfer by conduction and convection. At least that was what I knew of. I then wanted to research more about this contraption. And boy was it getting a little bit more interesting.  The thermos spoken of was actually an invention of someone by name Sir James Dewar. He was a Scottish chemist and physicist. His study in the field of cryogenics (one field in physics in the study and behavior of certain materials at low temperatures) greatly influenced the invention of this device. Side track to other of his discoveries was also the invention of liquid hydrogen – the coldest substance ever made during his time. Cooling gas like hydrogen to a point wherein it would liquefy was actually pricey during his time and he needed to find a way to prevent it from evaporating. One news article about the history of his invention stated that he built boxes insulated with cork, hay, and newspaper to keep the liquid hydrogen cold but none of these kept it cool enough. It eventually led him to designing a double-walled brass chamber, removing the air from the gap between the two walls to create a near-vacuum void. As he placed liquid inside the flask, the temperature stayed the same because air molecules cannot serve any longer to transfer heat from the surroundings to the liquid inside the chamber. This idea by Dewar led to greater inventions. His idea was modified and modernized to be used as storage for super-cooled gases to gear up space rockets. These modern Dewar chambers can actually keep cooled gases cold for three years! This was one of the greatest innovations and applications of Dewar’s idea.  

From this simple idea, many applications served its purpose today – including Martha’s mug. Now, I’ve been thinking: What could have been done by Sir Dewar to be able to engineer this vessel for keeping gases cooled? My hypothesis: he could’ve modeled it. He was a physicist and a chemist after all (close to being a chemical engineer when both fields are combined), so he could’ve quantified the amount of heat loss and gain and used ways to modify this chamber so that the amount of heat loss and heat gain would equate to zero. This kind of reminded me of the modeling exercises we had in class about energy balances. I’ve read more about his vacuum flask contraption and was aghast (in a seemingly good way) by the way heat transfer by convection, conduction, and radiation in the flask could be analyzed by math and physics through thermodynamics. Generally, everything in the flask – from the heat capacity of the material to the temperature of the liquid stored to the specific heat – is quantified and modeled!  

I then sat down on my chair and contemplated. I declared, “Math is a language too.” Epiphany capsized my sentiments on mathematics knowing that it can actually be used to translate a lot of phenomena. Mathematical modeling and mathematics in general changes the development of the society and the world. And in fact is a great impact in our lives.

Contrary to the previous paragraph, I’d be honest. I hate math, actually. And you’d be wondering now why I took up engineering. It’s normal for me anyway. I took up engineering, specifically Chemical Engineering, for the purpose of trying to appreciate the mathematics more. Many people actually think illogically of me after notifying them that I took it up because of my hatred for mathematics and my love for Chemistry. If you’d see my grades right now on my record, I barely had passing grades for all my math courses. So I couldn’t say I excel in my mathematical ability but am just good enough. Ever since I encountered the subject and idea of it, I’d shun it.

Even answered the portion that says “Least favorite subject” in the slam books of my friends when I was younger – Math. Probably this loathing attitude on the subject led me to failure in most of my exams to date. To evaluate my mathematical ability now, I can’t make up the standards of a good engineer – one who has the passion to solve problems quantitatively.  One afternoon at a mall, along a stand of the Famous Belgian Waffles, sat me and my dad. It was the 2nd of April, a Saturday. We ordered two waffles for each and talked about some of the things I’ve been struggling in my life as a chemical engineering student. One of which is my struggle in this differential equations course. My dad’s a wise guy. And practically one of my life coaches. As I opened up my problem in the math course, he retorted, “Why do you have to force yourself into it when you don’t have the passion to do it at all?” I then took note of the word passion. Many people would scare me that the practice of chemical engineering is the hardest among all disciplines. But in my case, I guess not. It’s not that it isn’t difficult for me; it’s just that, I lack the passion to get myself to appreciate it.  

He then elaborated one of two things: first about the Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective

People by Stephen Covey and emphasized on the second habit which was: “Begin with the end in mind.” I remembered my instructor mentioning about this during the first week of classes but I didn’t practically mind it at all. Now that all has come to pass, I regretted not putting into heart this essential habit. I didn’t have an end to this in mind at all and allowed myself to just roll with it. And go with the flow. “You did not begin with the end in mind,” were the words my dad said. I was in on a sermon this time after having thoughts of shifting to another discipline that is more appropriate for me. Flashback to the time that this didn’t happen yet, I had several drawbacks. When it comes to improving in my mathematical ability, I failed. Though I had garnered some skills from the past courses in the field of engineering mathematics, one thing I failed doing is this – task management. This course was a breeze to some because they managed their tasks properly. As for myself, I never did spend time in doing the most important thing in this course – practice. I do practice at some points in this semester but once I can’t answer a certain problem in the Succeeding with Differential Equations textbook, I tend to withdraw from doing more practice. I had my mind set on doing what needs to be done but when there is a hurdle along my way, I retreat. I surrender. I easily gave up on certain circumstances and my dad evaluated that the attitude of surrender wouldn’t make me become successful one day.  

Second thing he elaborated about was the nature of result. “Intention plus mechanism is equal to result,” he said. I then thought about it: What was my intention? What was the thing that I did to add up to my intention? Or did I have any intention at all? Did I do something about it? I did have my intentions, yes and that was to be able to model and solve problems and use the mathematical tools to be able to do such. However, I stumbled upon a block when I did not do anything about it at all. If I did, only a minimal amount of it. After roughly four months of compromise, I reap no good result. I failed miserably in the formative assessment of my understanding and modeling with problems.

My dad delivered a long sermon about the things I failed to do this semester and particularly this course but these were what remained in memory after finishing the last of my snack. The last thing he said to me was, “Read a lot of books. I regretted doing this when I was younger but I believe I’m not too old for reading. It would really enhance your knowledge and guiding principles…” This was one thing I also regretted doing – reading books. I recalled reading in the syllabus Read Zill and Wright pp. so-on-and-so-forth. But I disregarded it. I guess if I have read more, I would understand better.

But I think he didn’t only mean supplementary books for studying but also inspirational books like some of John C. Maxwell’s, Stephen Covey’s, and Harold Sala’s. And above all the daily guiding principle found in God’s word, the Bible.  

“…and don’t forget to apply what you have read in your life.” Not only did he mean the inspirational books but even the textbooks found in the library. So far, I believe this is the best concept of modeling – translating what you have read into practice.

Regrets and realizations. I did have a heavy load of both. Though this would probably be the end of this semester, the heavy load that I have right now would be a continuing schema to this lifelong learning experience. And Stephen Covey calls it the seventh habit: “Sharpening the saw”.

[the-peregrins-trove]

Hi

It’s been a while since I last visited this blog infested with cringey posts from high school.

To start off, I am sort of rebranding this blog into a new direction.

I have once been obsessed with all sorts of people and went down the rabbit hole of different fandoms. Mostly k-pop ones.

I realized that this doesn’t, in any way, serve the purpose of why I should be writing and reblogging posts. And why I should have a tumblr account in the first place.

Initially, I thought having a tumblr blog was cool. I found out tumblr when I was in high school through a friend. And I loved writing.

Back then, I was once a lost sheep, looking for things that shimmered - but never glowed. Until, God finally found me. I was away from Him for quite a long time and didn’t knew Him.

At a point in my life, I took up the chemical engineering major in a university in the Philippines. This place was where God led me to know that He is indeed the real deal. And that I could trust Him.

As I am walking with my Lord, I now unveiled the reason why He placed a desire of writing in my heart back then. It was to write solely for His glory.

Hence, this blog will serve the purpose of being filled with stories of Him journeying with me through the wilderness called college.  This will be a trove full of memoirs from my college life. And maybe in my life now as I transition to becoming a corporate slave of some sort..hehe.

All the reposts that I had about k-pop, TV series that I don’t even watch, and weird fanfics are now put to death. Some of my original posts will not be deleted however. I would want to see for myself how much God has changed the words I put in my mouth back then into something that is praiseworthy - rather than depressing and downright pessimistic.

God will be doing a new thing in this blog. And I hope you’ll be one of those who’ll witness His power and presence through the stories that will be told here.

Thanks for reading! Hope you’ll have a great day and praying you’ll meet Him here too.

[the-peregrins-trove]

“You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace. He intends to come & live in it Himself.”

— C. S. Lewis (via peterdwebb)

[the-peregrins-trove]

Photography, to me, is the reflection of the past which reserve passions inside. Besides the only reason of our lives is just our passions. I am just running after mine.

[the-peregrins-trove]

Optical Delusion

The struggle within me seemed too infinite. This struggle is something I deliberately fear and will somehow consume me from my deranged capabilities as a human being. A child. And a student.

Teachers.

I recalled January of last year when I involuntarily forced myself into messaging my 3rd year adviser during high school about ruining our class. And for that I hoped he’d change. I was unfortunately believing that he would transform into a metamorphosis we’d want him to become. But alas, it was a no. A no indeed. I was downright delusional to think that he’d accept us. I realized for a couple of months that his body was as humongous as his hatred against us. Well, there is nothing I can do more about it (which I probably-almost did when I was supposed to invite him for a Christmas concert). My self-dogma on this resulted defeat.

Second encounter was when my current adviser abandoned Christmas away from us. I wasn’t there. I was aghast when people told me she growled at my friend for everything our class had done. Said she was tired of it. I was thinking that I should not be doing the same mistake again. So I chose to side her through a post. Concerning this, only a few in my class sided with me. The others, no. Said we all needed room to grow too and dreamed of an adviser that would definitely consider our class wholly-educated for that matter. So draws this untimely conclusion of disbelief. I was made of a fool again.

Beliefs.

All of what I believe in (except my God) is practically delusional. From my choice of music to the people I ship with — seemed that less would even bother to care. For instance, I ship two individuals from various Korean pop artists (and eventually considered them as an OTP), however many people think its nothing. They’re just friends. They aren’t a couple. Am I too deprived of shipping them so much thinking that they have this spark? Same and similar to the Ryan Ross x Brendon Urie pairing for when at the end of the day, they kick butt and kiss their planet goodbye. Why is it that I only admit delusional adventurism in my whole life? Is there nothing more critical that I can do to at least let some people know that they’re also in on it?

That’s how the cookie crumbles. And that’s how my thoughts revolve around everything unreasonable. And I am labelled the delusional freak. Save me.

[the-peregrins-trove]

Applied Physics or Engineering? Or Both?

The first dilemma in my subconscious at this moment is my college life. Well, sad. It's barely three months and I would probably be receiving a diploma from all the darn hard work. Studying in an institution where everyone tells you what to actually do. But I already played the part of getting used to. Therefore entering college is my succeeding problem.

 This morning, I took the quiz on Economics about the economy of the country in general. There was this one item in the quiz that asked for courses in demand in our country. I answered engineering. This was my first college prospect choice.

Later in that afternoon, a team of several alumni from my institution introduced Applied Physics. I hate Physics (if you'd want to know why, well it's your loss).

They discussed and literally convinced most of my mates. The prospectus was ok, the program was ok. I might be mentioning ok, fine, and whatever but I have to tell you this. I am convinced.

Here's the catch. I have the passion for engineering. Of any darn kind. Why then am I stuck between the walls? I do not know what to do.

The difference between passion and desire may be millions and billions of light years wide. So how do I handle this intuitive situation? I cannot fathom the idea of being in disclosure between two.

Well, I still have my faith. Something would probably crawl in my brain wrinkles. The thing is, I have to decide in immediate apparition. If not, my life would be at stake.

Intermission (Why Applied Physics inspired me):

Career Directions for Applied Physics Majors

Applied physics provides excellent preparation for and is a traditional pathway to graduate programs in physics-related areas including the applied physics areas of condensed matter, plasma, and optical physics, and biophysics, as well as areas such as high energy physics and astrophysics.

Applied physics is a great vehicle for entry into many types of graduate-level programs in engineering fields, with a background as compelling for these graduate programs as are bachelors degrees in engineering.

Applied physics provides superb preparation for a wide range of positions in university, government, and industrial organizations, in part because the applied physics curriculum is highly customizable with elective chains possible in diverse applications of the student’s choice.

Applied physics is perhaps the best preparation for careers in general technology areas, and is ideally suited for up-and-coming areas, such as energy and nanotechnology.

Applied physics is very well suited for any career requiring strong experimental and/or theoretical and/or calculation skills.

Applied physics is a strategic major for pre-med, pre-dental, pre-teaching, and other pre-professional students, in part because it provides a strong background in core areas, combined with great flexibility in the choice in electives.

Applied physics is an ideal background for careers in patent law.

Applied physics offers a seamless way to enter masters programs and then start careers in the highly-recruited area of medical physics.

Applied physics is excellent preparation for careers at the interfaces of biology, medicine, and physics.

Applied physics provides a very desirable pathway to careers in finance.

(c) Columbia Engineering