Changes. Big Changes.

In about two weeks, I leave for Greece to visit Victoria's family.  And as many of you have guessed, I plan to ask her to marry me while we are over there.  I would ask you to wish me luck with it, but she and I have already discussed marriage, and I'm pretty sure what her answer will be.  (If it turns out I am wrong, well, you won't want to be around me for a while.)  As of now, my parents know nothing of this.  My mom might be suspicious though since I asked her for my baptismal certificate so that I can have it if we need to pick out a church while we are in Greece.  So there should be excitement in Crete for me this summer.  We'll put it on Facebook when we've informed our families.

Also, once Victoria comes back from China, I will begin moving into her apartment.  Yes, we are going to live together before we are officially married (legally in January, in all likelihood).  Make your jokes in the comments section.

Okay, post over.  I figured you guys, who have supported me through a lot over the years, deserve a heads-up on this.

2012: Not the Last One, After All

Well, despite all the hoopla about the Mayan doomsday prophecies (interestingly NOT coming from Mayans), we are still here, on the brink of entering 2013, and for those in the United States, falling off the fiscal cliff.  And despite the lack of posts this year (this will only be the eighth), 2012 has certainly been eventful for me.  Now going generally in the reverse order from the list I made at the beginning of the year, here is my year in a single blog post.

• Well, we survived Campaign/Mud-War 2012.  Obama was reelected (fortunately), and every ballot item in Maryland passed (fortunately for some, unfortunately for others).  
• I'm still on the church council.  Unfortunately, the interim pastor we had found a full-time job somewhere else, so I have preached twice since the beginning of November, which meant Victoria finally got to see me preach (more about her in a bit).  Hopefully the council finds someone soon, because I have that dissertation thing to work on the first few months of 2013.
• The job hunt has begun.  I have already been short-listed for a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon, but more interestingly, St. Mary's gets a new tenure track line starting next academic year.  I'm kind of hoping for that one, but realistically, not incredibly optimistic.
• I visited Europe for the first time, going to a conference in Italy and giving my first conference talk.  I also spent nine days in a row outside of Maryland, the longest such streak in my life.
• The proceedings article has been written and another paper submitted.  And the dissertation is well on its way, already at 96 pages.
• I attended three weddings this year: Adam and Ranwa, Laura and Nick, and two friends from graduate school.  And for the last two, I was able to bring a date (although she was invited in her own right to the last one), which leads to
• I have a girlfriend after just over six years of being single!  And each day I spend with her, I feel closer and like a love her even more.  No offense to anyone reading this, but she is probably the best thing to happen to me this year, or in several years.  She has also met all of my relatives I see on a regular basis (that is, more than once a year), and is well liked.  Indeed, my mother adores her.

Well, that's it for 2012.  Hopefully I see many of you New Year's Eve.  If not, best wishes for a fine 2013.  The look ahead will come later, hopefully before I go to San Diego.

Gay Marriage in Maryland

This year, Governor O'Malley signed legislation making gay marriage legal in Maryland on the first of next year.  Now, the legislation is subject to a referendum in November.  As such, those of us who are registered voters in the state have a decision to make: will we support the legislation?  Responsible Christians (this post is written from a Christian perspective, so the arguments herein may not apply to everyone) will wrestle with their faith on this one.  Here is my line of thinking about some of the reasons we as Christians are not to support this legislation.

1. Homosexuality is a sin according to Scripture.  This very well may be true.  However, we do not live in a theocracy, something Christians should be very happy about.  Otherwise, it would be less likely we would be able to have disagreements about Scripture for fear of government reprisal.  Remember medieval Europe?  (On the other hand, the mainline Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church would be able to put an end to the creationism movement.)  As such, just because something is a sin is not enough for the government to outlaw it.  Otherwise, the Constitution of the United States would not exist (that whole free exercise of religion thing).
2. The law redefines marriage.  This statement is completely true--for the government's definition.  However, because of the doctrine of separation of church and state, the government's definition of marriage has no bearing on the church's definition.  In fact churches are free to refuse to recognize interracial marriages, if they so choose (and has been done in the past couple of months).  Granted, there may be some explanations needed at Judgment, but the legal right is there, free of government interference.
3. Gay marriage will ruin the sanctity of marriage.  I'd say we heterosexuals have done a good job of that, with the divorce rate the way it is.  Besides, I doubt gays getting married will have any effect on my parents' marriage of over 32 years.  And if opponents of gay marriage actually want to preserve the sanctity of marriage, divorce would only be allowed in cases of adultery (or, for the sake of argument, abuse, although Jesus doesn't actually mention this, unless you consider spousal abuse a form of adultery).
4. The nuclear family is the foundation of American society, and this legislation will undermine it.  With the number of single-parent and step-parent households, this "fact" has changed, if it was ever true at all.  Don't get me wrong; the nuclear family is a foundation of American society, perhaps even the best one.  But it is not the only viable one.

There are other reasons, along the lines of homosexuality being a mental illness or such.  However, the psychological community does not agree, and I'll side with the experts on this.  As such, the only reasons with truth behind them involve homosexuality being a sin.  Ignoring the fact that according to Scripture, only the act is a sin, not the attraction, and there is no legal way for anyone but the people involved to know if the marriage has been consummated, this is not sufficient reason for a pluralistic society to ban something that does not impact the liberties of any other citizens.  As such, we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto the Lord what is the Lord's.

But wait, aren't we Caesar?  This is a democracy, correct?  Well, not quite.  We live in a democratic republic.  And in our government, the majority rules so long as the rights of the minority are protected.  Thus, we Christians must render that responsibility onto our society.  Not doing so means that we are not giving our full abilities to our society, which God calls us to do.

The only exception to this is if the government requires us to do something against our beliefs.  However, no one is being forced to have or even condone homosexual marriage.

Therefore, I will vote in favor of the legislation, not in spite of my faith, but because of it.

An Open Letter to the University of Maryland's Human Resources Department

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing to you concerning an error you have made that is preventing me from getting the fellowship stipend for the fall semester that I am due.  The problem is that when the charges for the semester were posted, not only did the fellowship post the tuition remission I was supposed to get, but your office posted an extra one to my account, presumably still considering me a graduate assistant for the fall.  However, I informed the math department in April, who subsequently informed you, that I will not be a university employee in the fall.  As such, you had about four months to make the appropriate changes to your records, which apparently, you did not.

While the ideal solution would be to request a partial refund from my student account, the Bursar's Office has informed me that I cannot do so.  And since in trying to do the right thing I informed them that you would be taking the extra tuition remission off my student account, I do not believe that the Bursar's Office will give me the refund since they know that there is a credit in error on my account.  Thus, I cannot get the stipend that is owed to me because of your office's mistake.

After some correspondence with Ms. Celeste Regalado, she forwarded an email to me from your benefits office that stated that the change would be made to my account Friday, August 17, 2012.  However, such a change has not been posted as of the morning of the 18th. 

I do not know why it is taking so long for you to fix your mistake, but it should not take over a week and a half to fix this relatively simple issue.  And since it has not been fixed, I cannot get paid for the fall semester, which is a considerable problem since once this gets fixed, I will not have a lot of time between getting the refund check from the bursar and paying rent, airfare and accommodations for a wedding I have to attend in October, registering for a conference I have to attend in January, estimated income tax payments due in mid-September, and other assorted bills.

I hope that you will be able to quickly fix your mistake and that your office will institute changes that will prevent this kind of mistake from occurring in the future, or at least resolve this kind of error much more quickly.  I have been supremely disappointed in how this has been handled on your part.  If you cannot fix it by August 20th, I may be left with little option but to explore options for help outside of the university (including, but not limited to informing legislators in Annapolis).

Sincerely,

Joshua Ballew

Traveling (and Other Observations)

About a month ago, I returned from my trip to Italy.  Although most of you reading this have heard about the trip, for the sake of completeness, I'll post the high- (or low-) lights here:

• I still don't eat a whole lot when I'm nervous.  And I get nervous traveling alone.  As such, by the time I arrived back in the United States, my belt was fastened at the last hole and was still loose.
• I missed the derecho on June 29th.  Fortunately, it appeared that my apartment didn't lose power.
• The city of Padova does not have many English speakers outside the university or train station.  However, Venice is practically bilingual.
• I was glad that I decided to book a hotel next to the airport the night before returning as the organizers did not call me to let me know when the airport shuttle was supposed to pick me up the next morning.
• One gets a lot of food with a meal in Italy.
• My adviser found out about Victoria and me, and is very happy about it.  I think she may have been happier for Victoria than she was for me.
• I had to give my talk in front of one of the experts in compressible fluids.  Yeah, my first talk at a conference--no pressure.  But, my adviser says it went well, and was extremely excited about it until, well, see the previous point.

In other travel news, my parents and sister went to Hawaii for about two weeks.  I didn't go, and am glad I did not since I would have just gotten back from Italy and I need to save up for a couple of upcoming trips.  First, I have to go back to San Diego for the AMS/MAA Joint Meeting in January (and hopefully will get to take Victoria with me, but probably not), and then next spring or summer after I defend, I am planning to go to Greece.  You can probably guess why.  So for someone who didn't fly at all after the summer of 1994 until November 2011, I have and will have done a fair bit of flying from November 2011 through the summer of 2013.

Oh, and for those of you who missed the Facebook update, this post has been typed on my new computer (thank you Nick for getting it ordered).  Yes, after nine years, I have retired the Gateway.  I still have it as a backup, but it has earned a bit of a rest. Thanks to Jon, the computer is properly equipped in the way of software (i.e., Portal and Portal 2).  Now if I can find a nice LaTex editor and compiler, I will really be set.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooo!

First of all, congratulations to Laura and Nick on their wedding, and thanks for letting me be a part of it. 

Second (and the reason for this post), after 2195 days (I did the calculation waiting at a red light while driving home this morning), I have a girlfriend, whom most of you met at the wedding, so I will refrain from gushing about her here. 

Now comes the hard part: telling my adviser this week.  That should be interesting.

But yeah, it may be a while before the smirk disappears.

Mate In Two?

On Saturday, for the first time in my life, I will be bringing a date to a wedding.  Yes, that means those of you at Laura's and Nick's wedding will get to meet Victoria.  As such, I believe I may be well into the endgame of things (the chess reference leading to the title, despite how dirty you may want the title to be--*cough* Jess *cough*).  It couldn't hurt that I had barely finished the question when she said yes, right?

So, yeah, today was a good day.