Gas vs. Electric Handheld Blower (Paper #4, ENGL 1101)

Lawn mowers can mulch leaves into the lawn, but they leave behind messy swathes. Rakes pick up almost every leaf, but they are painstaking and pain making. Electric blowers are simple in function, but they are not very efficient on larger lawns. Gas blowers require the most maintenance, but they have far larger power capacities. When I began removing leaves from lawns as part of my handyman business, I realized that I had to make a choice between these options. I narrowed it down to electric and gas handheld blower models. After starting out with a used Weed-Eater brand electric blower, I determined that it was prudent to invest in an Echo brand gas blower. In an attempt to explain why I made the switch, I would like to compare several categories of strengths and weaknesses in each; they are usability, ergonomics, sound, and effectiveness.

The Weed-Eater electric blower I started out with was very easy to operate. In order to start moving leaves, all I needed was an outlet, an extension cord, and the blower. As simple as that sounds, it did pose difficulties. With power supplies located only on our porches and in our garage, it was an uphill battle trying to reach the extremities of our property. I had to link multiple extension cords together in order to span the 300-400 ft “back forty.” I ended up having to tie the extension cords together because the plugs pulled apart every time I got close to the end of the cord reach. Storing the extension cords was also a disaster. Unraveling the pile of spaghetti every time I needed to clean up some leaves tried my patience sorely. There was no easy way to manage the power cords.

Persepolis (Ethics of Leadership Reflective Paper)

Since the first English publication in 2003, Persepolis has stood almost as an invention among books. The first of its kind, a comic novel, it is itself a novelty. Marjane Satrapi exposes the story of her childhood, beginning in 1979 when she was ten, and moves forward to her eventual departure for America at age fourteen. During the intervening four years, wars and revolts revolutionized her world. Many factors came into play and forced her to deal with reality beyond her years. Hers was a culture and a circumstance far different from our own. I would like to examine an important difference and two similarities between Iran of the past and America of today: social classes, views of education, and religious natures.

Early on in the book, Marji’s maid, Mehri, comes to her for help. Mehri has a suitor, the next door neighbor’s son Hossein, and she wishes to write letters to him. However, she cannot write, and so she convinces Marji to transcribe letters for her as she pretends to be Marji’s sister. Word gets around and eventually comes back to Marji’s father, Ebi, who does not like the idea at all. Ebi immediately walks next door and confronts Hossein with the truth that Mehri is only pretending to be his daughter but is in reality his maid. Hossein rejects Mehri, surrenders all correspondence, and terminates the relationship.

Scarce Resources (Ethics of Leadership Reflective Paper)

Someone has said that we live in a finite world as humans with infinite wants. That presents a problem. The problem is further compounded when we realize that the wants we have can be broken down into smaller components, called needs. The prompt asks for a decision on the process of scarce resource allocation in “a hospital setting where there are limited resources available to treat patients who are seriously ill. There are short supplies of medicine, doctors, nurses, and very expensive, highly-sophisticated, diagnostic equipment.”

I do not think that there is a set-in-stone procedure that will work for this entire setting. I think each resource has to be dealt with individually and allocated accordingly. For example, I do not think you can spread the nurses and equipment over exactly identical areas because nurses are far more numerous. Therefore, the resources cannot be distributed by formulas because neither three patients to one resource nor two of resource A to one of resource B is a functional equation. There has to be another standard.

The Fourth Commandment (Ethics of Leadership Reflective Paper)

I am a Christian. The word Christian derives from the Koine Greek word Χριστός (Christόs). Essentially, to be a Christian is to be a little Christ. Christ, when He descended to the earth as God Incarnate, fully God and yet inexplicably and simultaneously fully human, fulfilled all the biblical law as per Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (emphasis added). Now that the law has been fulfilled in Christ, the elect saints receive the benefits. Romans 8:1-4 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (emphasis added). Although Christ has fulfilled the law and I am no longer condemned because I cannot, I have been regenerated and made alive by the power of the Holy Spirit and so now, it is my desire, in addition to my duty, to obey God’s moral law.

The fourth moral law is to honor the Sabbath day (now Sunday) and keep it holy by refraining from common labor on that day. Because I am under obligation to keep the God’s law, I am under obligation to refrain from labor on Sundays. Every Sunday I have to make a decision about what I am going to do with my time. Because, as a Christian, I hold the commandment of God supreme over any instruction of man, I choose to neither work nor study on the Lord’s day. I have six other days of the week to pour into academia, and it is enough. I also have those same six days to arrange a work schedule within; that is enough. I am convinced of this truth to the point that I do not fear to lose my job over it. Because I hold the moral law of God to be the highest standard in my life and the measurement by which I distinguish right from wrong, every week I choose to keep every Sunday holy to my God. I do so by refusing to allow common weekly labor to encroach on the one day each week I can devote to delighting in Him through worship, in Scripture (preached, taught, read, and studied), prayer, singing, fellowship, and the ordinances (baptism and communion).

Pastor (Paper #3, ENGL 1101)

What Makes A Pastor? 

I recently had the opportunity to attend the annual Georgia Assembly of Confessional Baptists pastoral conference. For three days straight, nearly twenty pastors from various other Reformed Baptist churches from around Georgia, and even one from Tennessee, gathered for fellowship, prayer, and worship. During this period, four pastors each preached a sermon, directed toward the other pastors, detailing various aspects of the pastoral ministry. I aspire to a future pastoral ministry, and those sermons hit home. Since the conference, they have prompted me to consider seriously the pastor’s exact identity. I would like to explain the three crucial relationships that define who the pastor is: his relationship to God, his relationship to himself, and his relationship to his congregation.

The pastor is a man who prizes his relationship with the Lord before and above all else. Victor Harris, assistant professor and extension specialist in the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences at the University of Florida, states, “Effective communication is critical to successful relationships.” It is imperative that the pastor lead his congregation by modeling for them a worthy example of dedication to communion with God through consistent prayer and Scripture reading. Pastor Tim McGehee has said, “The best kinds of pastors are those who lead by example.” Because his relationship with the Lord sets the tone for his congregation, a true pastor must live as a pastor by growing in his knowledge of God and not merely preach as a pastor.

Homeschoolers (Paper #2, ENGL 1101)

Dear Homeschoolers,

Congratulations on your acceptance to Middle Georgia State College! Is it not an amazing feeling finally to be finished with the admissions process? My name is Josiah Chin-A-Young, and I am writing this as a freshman in my first semester English Composition I class. I have not been at MGSC for very long, but I have been busy. Life has been crazy, especially during the first few weeks of school. Everything was so new and unfamiliar. I would like to explain several things I have found that might be a help toward finding the way in college. Let us look at the Academic Resource Center, note-taking skills, Club Rush and intramural sports, and the Counseling Center.

The Academic Resource Center is a fantastic service available to students at Middle Georgia State College. Amy Carter, our Student Life Program Coordinator, recommended the ARC as “the best place to start” and commented, “Those people know what they are talking about.” Group study rooms, provided by the ARC, are a great way for homeschooled students to adjust to the collaborative college community. “The rooms all have whiteboards and some have computer terminals for group work. The rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis for study groups of two or more” (MSC “ARC Services”). The ARC also provides students with peer tutors who can work with them one-on-one in a wide variety of subject areas including, but not limited to, Math, English, History, Economics, Communication, and Public Service (MSC “ARC Staff”).

Conflict Over Conflict (Ethics of Leadership Reflective Paper)

This past Friday evening, I went over to a friend’s house to play a group board game, Settlers of Catan. After playing the game, most of the people packed up and left. I, however, stayed after for several hours and talked with the hosting couple, ... and .... Over the course of the conversation, we discussed relationships extensively. I made the comment that it is not possible to have a deep, healthy relationship without conflict. ... disagreed, saying that his parents never had any conflicts in all the time he was at home.

After a couple shots back and forth about the conflicting views, we realized that we were defining the term conflict differently. I meant conflict to have a general definition, meaning a simple difference of opinions, no matter how small. Any discrepancy between perspectives equated to a conflict; a conflict was just the area in which A did not exactly match B. ...'s premise for disagreement, on the other hand, was an assumption that conflict only meant a resolute decision not to acquiesce to the wishes, intents, or opinions of another: a stubbornness that would strain, or perhaps debilitate, the relationship.