Something I read a while ago on tumblr was a “life lesson learned from video games,” along the lines of–when life gets tough and you seem to be attacked from all sides, remember that you are headed in the right direction and it is almost time to level up. It was something that stuck with me, but I was never really sure why other than I liked the video game analogy. I am not that much of “a gamer” myself, but the majority of my friends are and I have dabbled to their amusement. Although, alas, unless it is on the Nintendo 64, I am probably useless and ANYONE else should be your partner–for your own sake.
Well, it is time that I listen to my own stored knowledge and change my perspective on my current life situation.
Within the college of engineering here at UT, in a student’s last year of classes there is a Senior Design Project–which is equivalent to a Capstone project, where the student’s are put into groups and work together for the entire year (in bioengineering’s case). In my case, my senior design project group has nestled themselves into a very special place in my heart–a place where many times I love them, but I also want to strangle them. However, a running joke (albeit said with as much affection as they can muster) is “Where on the Stress-Strain Curve is Bethany’s Face?”
For those of you who are not engineering lingo literate–a stress-strain curve (see Figure 1 below) is a graph of how much a sample piece of material can withstand stress before breaking. When looking at Figure 1, the first non-linear point, the “Yield,” is where the stress surpasses the strain point where it will go back to normal proportionally to the the amount of stress applied; the point at the top of the curve, this “Ultimate” is the point of no return; and the end of the curve, marked with a large red “X,” is the “Fracture” point–a point where the sample is permanently broken and no longer is in one piece.
Sadly, I was already at my “Yield” point when the semester began, for this is my last semester of classes before I graduate–6 years in the making–plus I am taking 20 credit hours (students are expected to put in 3x the number of hours into the class outside of the scheduled classroom time and the university set maximum is 21). My “Ultimate” point was reached when professors keep adding assignments, and continually is reset, as the semester continues. That reset, in reality, would make my stress-strain curve look closer to that of a Shape-Memory Alloy, but I will spare you the explanation, other than that their curves basically loop around so that it has a much harder time reaching its fracture point. However, I digress and this is not a material science lecture, nor a lab report for Dr. Hefzy, so I will not go into further explanation…. Back to the original graph, I lastly have hit my “Fracture” point a couple of times–this is where I tend to burst into tears. I’d like to give a shout out to John for handling me at those point–guys don’t normally know how to handle a crying female, but you managed to get me to laugh and eventually calm down–so thank you, honestly.
However, now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with the World Race, and truth be told, not a whole lot directly, except I am asking for prayer and support because sometimes life sucks, is stressful, and seems to want to swallow you whole, but as long as perseverance and a deep-rooted faith in God’s plan is utilized, this “level of life” will be completed and you will be onto a new adventure (in my case, the World Race), with its own set of fears and uncertainties. Yes, even for the girl who people joke is crazy and fearless, something as large as the World Race is utterly terrifying.
