A tale of a forgotten blog and 200 bags of tea ...

So it's been a while, and I promise I have an excuse! I've been fairly busy, although I must admit that I have been consciously putting this off. Keeping this up is going to be harder than I thought!

I had the opportunity to attend a conference of the Pentecostal Students Association (PENSA) of Ghana last weekend in Valley Forge, PA. And it was the funnest thing I've done in a while! At least a thousand Ghanaian youth showed up - mostly Ghanaian natives, with a generous sprinkling of second and third gens. It almost felt like home - the music, the jokes, the laughter - and I realized, as the weekend progressed, just how much I missed being at home. And then it hit me - I've been away for two years. Two years. That's the longest I've ever been away. Just four years ago, I could not stand been away from my family for more than 12 hours - I avoided boarding school like the plague and had no plans whatsoever of leaving. In an age where teenagers seem to want to cut the bonds to their families, mine was the rock of my existence. My life revolved around home, school and church - these were my reference points. These points dictated my life. And now, I realize I've been removed from them for two years. These days, when I call home, I realize the laughter of my parents is a tad more distant, that the playful banter with my sister has gotten less vicious, and that my little brother doesn't quite know how to relate to me anymore. It's been too long - it's time to go home.

On reading, I'm slacking off - a lot. I'm supposed to have read 'A Case for Christ' and two other books by now, but I'm still stuck on 'A Case for Christ' partly because of the demands of my job and the excessive number of movies I've been watching. I'm hoping to be done reading that by early next week so I can move on - I have a long (and perhaps unrealistic) list of to-reads this summer. 'A Case for Christ' has been illuminating so far, asking the right questions and providing convincing answers for skeptics and the unsure Christian. I hope I can give you a rundown on that by next blog, when I hope to be done.

On research -- we have major progression! I'm looking at lamprey locomotion and how this effect called vortex shedding affects the forces on the body of the lamprey during swimming. In short, I'm going to model the swimming in MATLAB along with the vortex shedding effects. For this problem, I'm using code produced by a PhD candidate about six years ago, in which he modeled the swimming of a three-link robot. I'm tweaking this so that we can use it to the purpose I stated above. The code is THE most sophisticated program I've ever seen - there are at least 10 subroutines (Hey, I'm a MECHANICAL engineer!). That said, the real complexity lies in the math. MY GOD!! It's a lot of math but thankfully, I understand the code quite well now -- so let the tweaking begin! I'm going to make a movie of the motion of the three link robot sometime tomorrow, hopefully -- I'll post that up when it's done. I'm actually getting a kick out of this!

In other news, I'm learning to sightread. No, that's not quite right - the pianist in my church flew to South Korea for two months and apparently I'm first in line to fill the post of pianist! So, Kwesi must learn to sightread or perish! Until now, whatever I could play on the piano, I played from memory. But that won't do anymore so I'm crawling along and learning. However, its been fun so far and they're not putting too much pressure on me (my catch-phrase whenever something goes wrong: But I can't read!!) so it's actually nice and it will do me good. I'm no Chopin yet, but we're getting there.

Movies. Two words - too many. I can't even remember how many I've seen - Kill Bill, The Hangover, The Proposal etc and I'm seeing almost every movie that comes out... But it's summer, right? So what could go wrong??? Problem is this: new movies are popping up at a rate greater than I can realistically watch them. Not good - this could go horribly wrong! As it is, I'm sleeping at 5am everyday (lol).

And does anyone know of a cure for an addiction to Taylor Swift - because I fear my roommate might overdose soon. And it might be contagious, because I think I'm catching it too. (Fight it, aargh!)

Well, I've got to go -- except I have a rather funny (maybe not to you!) incident to recount. I went to CVS the other day and, for some inexplicable reason, I was comparing two boxes of Lipton Tea. I had no intention whatsoever of buying any tea. I had a lot of things in hand so I must have forgotten - all I know is I got to my room with two boxes of tea bags, 200 bags in total. 200 bags of tea! It's going to be a fun, over-caffeinated summer!

Shalom, Peace and Life to You!

Kwesi

Reflections and the Genesis

'The unexamined life is not worth living' -- Socrates

'Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun' -- Ecclesiastes 2:11

I am no fan of diaries, blogs or things of that sort. Believe me. My father had to try, for five years, before I got my first diary, which I then lost in no more than two days. So why this blog, you ask? To be truthful, there are no deep answers. It's only, lately, as I look back on the journey that has been my life, I realize I have undergone very radical changes. Changes of the sort that would have surprised the timid, introverted young boy that I once was. Certainly, the Kwesi of yesteryear would have laughed his head off if you'd told him he'd be anything like he is today - and oh, good luck on telling him he'd end up at one of the most prestigious universities in the world! And then, of course, there are the more subtle changes, that I hope you become privy to as I continue to write, and which all the same count for who I am and the sort of person I want to become.

And so, I have reached one of my primary motivations for this blog. I would like to track these changes and to have the ability to look back on my past and identify it as my own. I want to reflect on and know what decisions I made, why I made them and how that informed the person that I am at every point, if that is in any way possible. Especially, I want to be able to stay true to the conditions that helped me reach where I am today - I speak of my family, friends, teachers, community folk and everyone who influenced me and touched my life positively in any way as well as the relative poverty in which I grew up. I believe I can rightly call these my roots. In this vein, then, I say: Roots, roots, if I forget you or whence I came to be what I am, or the nourishment you gave me so that I have bloomed, may you shrivel up and smother the life out of me! (Adaptation of Ghanaian Proverb)

I do not think I have ever lived life as fast as I am living it right now. College life is filled with deadlines to be met, papers and problem sets to be mulled over and meetings to rush to and from! I have certainly never done as much in a day before as I do (perhaps) in an hour today! And the odd thing is this - we like it! It feels oddly good to be as busy as we are. The seconds between activities are spent twiddling our thumbs in expectation of the next 'big thing'. I find, and I think you must have too, that time seems extremely slowed down outside Princeton, or any other college, and it can be really disconcerting! In this vein, I hope this blog helps me to slow down and reflect on what I give my time to - it is only too easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and to go through life here without thinking about the big things such as why we're here in the first place or why we do the things we do. (By the way, you should read David Brook's article 'Organization Kid' on life in Princeton, and college, in general. It's fairly accurate and a great read albeit a bit on the long side: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200104/brooks It's definitely a worthy read though and I highly recommend!) I hope this blog helps me to think about these 'bigger' things.

Did I say 'bigger' things? I think that was the perfect cue for my third motivation. Brooks mentions the lack of a search for virtue as we rush from activity to activity. I believe that the search for virtue coincides with my search for God. Yes, I am religious - specifically (and unabashedly) Christian - and I will not apologise. Psyche. There was a time when I could have said that - when I thought I was sure of what I believed. Then came a time of utter confusion in which I would have described myself as agnostic as best (I do believe there is a God. As to whether he cares about us at all, that's what I'm out searching for) and questioned all the assumptions I'd been raised up to make. Thankfully, I'm gradually getting back the foundation for my life and I'm eternally grateful that the search for truth, in whatever form it exists, is alive and within the grasp of whoever is willing to search for it. I am still struggling in my search (and make no mistakes, I will not be disappointed if I find nothing. I think it is worthy, though, of my time. Yours too!) This blog, then, will serve as a space where I collect my thoughts as I go through my spiritual journey. I am currently reading 'A Case for Christ'. A truly fascinating read. Will keep you posted on that.

Lastly, I should have told you, and I should not forget, that I am an engineer! I'm not exactly sure why I said that and particularly in that way (lol). Anyways, I am involved in a project currently with Prof. Holmes of the Mechanical engineering department. It's basically modelling the swimming motions of lampreys so that we get the thrust and drag on the bodies of lampreys right. It's actually really exciting and although I'm having to wrap my head around math that I'll probably never use in the rest of my undergraduate career, I'm learning a whole lot and reassuring myself that engineering is the best thing you can do with your life (I can't hear you, naysayers!) More on that project later - I will use this space to log my progress as much as I can.

Shalom, Peace and Life to You!

Kwesi