Upgrading Skills

Like many students, I attended college immediately after high school. Thankfully, I was able to earn my Associate's in Information Technology in 2003. A few years later, I returned to school to try to get my Bachelor of Science, but had to stop about halfway through the program due to health needs. I briefly tried online college, but quickly learned it wasn't worth the effort.

Therefore, it has been around 15 years since I have done anything in the formal education. I have done several online courses in creation science and read about upgrades for web technology, but not much. A few months ago, I received a message from my cell phone provider that I could get 60 days of free courses through a program called Upskillset. I looked through the course offerings and didn't find any that sounded interesting except one, graphic design. It's no secret that I am more of a web programmer than designer, so I thought I would give it a try.

Word Art

Since March 30, I have been trying to take 2-3 classes per week in graphic design. The program covered three programs from Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. I knew the very basics of Photoshop, nothing of Illustrator, and haven't touched InDesign (or its predecessor) in over 20 years. For the most part, I would say it has been a fun exercise in learning the programs and thinking a little differently than I normally do.

The course has you watch a video for 45-60 minutes that shows different techniques and make different projects. You can either follow along, or make your own project after the lesson. I mainly worked along with the video and did a fair amount of pausing and restarting. After completing 16 lessons, I created word art, flyers, a magazine cover, a magazine, mood boards, and a few other items. Unfortunately, some of the lessons required A LOT of clicking to produce an item (such as artwork) I never foresee needing. I mainly just watched those for information and tried to learn new techniques.

A test/assignment was available after every two classes. I was studying more to learn programs than tests, but didn't do as bad on them as I expected. Now that my free time is complete, I don't plan to pay a hefty fee to continue through the remaining 16 lessons. However, it has been a fun challenge and time to learn.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I'm thankful for those that have given me, and others, the freedom to do things such as take classes and work independently. I'm also thankful that God continues to use me and allow me to learn and see this world He has given in new perspectives.

Drugged Speaking Week

It's a new week, but the challenges have been continuing. On Monday, it was confirmed I had a bladder infection and I needed to continue on the antibiotic I had already started. I had expected the result, and had planned accordingly.

In order to prevent digestive issues while on antibiotics, I increase my yogurt and probiotic intake as well. I have mostly remembered to do this with every meal and it seems to be keeping everything working well. Tomorrow should be my last day on the extra medication and I look forward to getting back to my regular med schedule. However, every type of treatment also has associated problems.

Tuesday was my first college visit of the year. Going from grade school to college is a bit of an adjustment, but it went pretty well. My allotted one-hour time slot was easily filled and I could have gone longer answering questions. It seemed odd talking with a class of only seven students, but I hope my brief time with them helped.

On Friday, I had my last grade school visit for the year. While driving (riding) to Tuesday's college talk, I noticed I was really tired. Preparing for Friday's talk, I couldn't keep my eyes open. While I took an impromptu nap, my caregiver looked at my antibiotic's side affects and found it included drowsiness and inability to focus. It explained my foggy feeling at Tuesday's class, but didn't help solve anything.

Even with the nap delay, I arrived to an energetic class of third graders with a full minute to spare. I didn't have time to feel tired or not focused as the class kept the teacher and I busy maintaining an appearance of order. I'm thankful I was able to get to visit this school again and now can focus on more upcoming college classes.

Working with students of all ages and teaching them about the quad life is something I enjoy. I'm thankful I know the routines well so that I can do everything without much thinking and the audience can learn even when I'm in a fog. I don't know if I'll be able to visit more next school year, but I will do what God allows.

Debates, Equipment Trouble, and School, oh my!

Last week's entry concluded with me being exhausted after several days of evangelism. I was hoping it would pass quickly, but that wasn't the case. Along with not feeling well, this has been a week full of challenges on various fronts.

As a quadriplegic, I can't control my body temp and it is highly dependent on my environment. This past week was nice for outdoor temperatures, but my room stays on the toasty side. It gets cool when the air runs, but then pops back up again. With that, and just generally feeling run down, I had several nights where my temperature was over 100° and a few over 101°. Doing my skin checks, I also noticed a large rash on my upper right leg. An impromptu visit to my dermatologist resulted in a few med changes to combat a likely allergic reaction to something. Finally, I also am suspecting a bladder infection and started an antibiotic "just in case" while waiting on test results. That's a lot already, but just wait, there's more!

Tuesday was my fifth grade school visit. I debated about going due to health, but I didn't want to cancel with not much school year remaining. The combined 3rd/4th grade class was fun to work with and the students like seeing Mr. Joel. Several pictures were posted on the school's Facebook page and said they enjoyed the visit. I was thankful I made the trip and it turned out well.

I have had my hospital bed for almost a year. In that time, I've had a lot of trouble with my bed rails getting loose and needing tightened. Sunday, one rail was nearly falling off, but the bolt was stripped after too much tightening and would no longer adjust. It took two days' work, but dad was able to make a solution that works, at least for now. Early Wednesday morning, the machine that monitors my heart rate and oxygen level started making unusual alarms. My nurse worked with it, but the annoying beeps wouldn't stop, even when unplugged. It was sequestered to the next room under towels until it behaved, but it rarely did. A replacement was brought late Wednesday morning and the trouble-maker taken for maintenance. The new monitor works well, but has a very loud alarm on it. If my numbers drop, or the machine thinks they dropped due to a muscle spasms, the entire house can easily hear it. Hold on, one more item from this week awaits!

Two weeks ago, I posted about videos I was doing on world religions. The first three didn't much response in the comments. However, the latest video did not sound correct with one person who watched. He (I'm guessing, not sure based on name) brought up multiple points of contention of where Christianity is wrong. I carefully researched his points and gave answers to each and a resource to check. Not long after my response, an additional reply, plus another, came with many more points and problems. Amidst everything else going on, I tried to give daily responses to every 1-2 rebuttals each time. I want to see everyone come to saving faith in Christ, but I have to remember that it is a spiritual body we're fighting and isn't up to eloquent replies or what I do. I am trying to give it over to the Holy Spirit and pray this person (and many others I'm in contact with) repents and comes to Jesus alone while they have time.

It has been a busy week in the quad life and I hope this one ahead is calmer. I'm scheduled to see two schools and attend a wedding. I pray those will be the main events with little else going on.

Tired Outreach

The past few days were my annual volunteer time for an outreach group at the local tulip festival. Last year, I was only able to serve for two days due to weather and caregiver concerns. This year, I volunteered for all three days, and I can feel the extra effort.

May in Iowa is always a mixed bag of weather. The last few weeks have been chilly with highs in the 50's and 60's. However, last week's forecast predicted these three days as low 70's and partly cloudy. It ended up that Thursday was mostly sunny with a high near 80°. Friday and Saturday were cooler and cloudy with rain Friday afternoon and a tornado watch cancelling Saturday's evening parade.

This year's schedule had training sessions from around 9:00-12:00 each morning and then two-hour time blocks of each team canvassing a certain area. For me, it meant getting up early every day to start my morning routine so I could get to church on time. The first thing my team and I did after training was find lunch.

By the time we got through long lines and were actually ready to go out, it was between 12:30-1:00. That meant we only had about an hour to hand out gospel tracts and speak to people. When 2:00 came, another leader took over my group and I headed home to do my afternoon medical needs before my caregiver's shift was finished.

After winter hibernation, this was my first extended period of being active. Saturday evening, I didn't feel like eating much for supper and just wanted to rest. With the short time period, I wasn't able to give out many tracks or have conversations. Sara and I did come across a Spanish speaking couple on Friday afternoon. I had prepared by studying apologetics, world religions, and taking someone through the ten commandments, but not Spanish. The encounter caught me off guard and I managed to speak with them some, but not as much as I potentially could have.

If I'm able to volunteer next year, I may consider only doing two days and study Spanish further. Like it or not, this quad life is starting to get older and I can't bounce from little activity to super active as well as I used to. This coming week just has one school visit and I look forward to time of recovery.