ideology

I’ve recently been made fun of/criticized (I don’t know which, perhaps both) for being “young and ideological.”

Apparently that will all end when I grow up. Right now, I’m just too inexperienced to know that my opinions are impractical.

That might all be true, but of course my young ideological brain cannot accept it. This is probably just me being ideological, but isn’t that a GOOD thing sometimes? I hope that when I turn 30 my mind doesn’t automatically revert to the factual and the realistic. I refuse to allow myself to stop evaluating what I think and what I believe and instead settle for what has always worked. What if the conventional takes you in exactly the wrong direction? What happens when you reject all new ideas because they’re not what you’re comfortable with? What if you become so disillusioned that you mistake habit for truth?

I believe that you can see someone’s life change with one conversation. I believe that my job, especially as a Christian, is to give whatever I can of myself to others without an ounce of selfishness (which I will be working toward getting right until the day I die). I believe that it is those who are naive who usually accomplish the most positive change in this world - because they’re too unseasoned and unaffected by realistic limitations to know what they can’t do. I believe that God is bigger than any church or any person or any generation or anything we’ve defined him as, and I want to know him better because I’ve seen enough to know that I know very little. I believe that Christianity demands infinitely more of us than we (myself included) have ever been willing to admit. I believe that I should love people no matter what they did, are doing, or will do. I think that the American political system is disappointing, but it has enormous potential. I think war is terrible on many levels (though I will most likely never become a protestor) and I really wrestle with what to do with that concept as a follower of Christ. I believe that my education is my responsibility (and that it is important) and that it is healthy to learn things I don’t agree with and respect the opinions of others if I want them to respect mine. I want to adopt at least one child because I believe that I (personally, as this is not for everyone) can do more good for that individual child by getting my hands dirty and giving them a real home with a lot of love than by donating to an orphanage.

I could go on and pack this poor post to the brim with what I believe about the world. But the basic bottom line is that I would hate to imagine my life marked by a resignation to the realistic instead of a search for what more there could be.

So please don’t dampen my excitement or my inquisitiveness because you think I’m too ideological. You might be right - but I think the minute I stop looking at the world that way is the very minute I will lose the desire to change it.

don’t give up so easily

As an intern, I was expecting to get experience that would teach me that people with more experience are smarter than I am - and it has, to some extent. More than that, I’ve learned to have confidence in my own ideas.

I have a tendency to rely heavily on the advice of those I trust, and to place more confidence in the ideas of others than in my own. I’m having to learn that it’s okay to disagree with someone who “should” be more intelligent than you are if you are truly convinced that you’ve arrived at your conclusion the right way.

And I don’t think I’m alone. My advice is this: trust your mentors, your supervisors, your friends, your parents, your investors, your customers, the author of the book you’re reading, your pastor, and your professors - but know how to stand your ground if you really believe you’ve got the right idea, and don’t just give up because they have better credentials.

Of course, don’t take that advice if you still disagree with me. You might be right.

why you should never be a startup girlfriend…

…and why I don’t take my own advice.

startup (stärt’ŭp’) noun : a fledgling company relying primarily on investment funding in the earliest stages of development; a recently-founded business enterprise.

For all of you ladies who may or may not be flirting with the idea of dating a startup programmer, you should know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.

~Weekends should not be assumed to be open for dates. In fact, all plans that are scheduled to occur immediately after your date finishes working should be considered flexible, because when you carry the sole responsibility for the proper operation of your company’s web services and you have a problem on Friday night, it needs to be fixed five minutes ago. Monday through Friday nine to five is a joke.

~If your “stable” job requires you to work in a cubicle, you will probably be the target of a lot of criticism and/or sympathy from your significant other and the startup world he lives in.

~Be prepared to wonder if you are prettier than his iPhone and if so, why he stares at it more than at you.

~Learn to appreciate the whiteboard.

~Own a Mac or be willing to admit that you should.

~Understand what “the zone” is, and don’t be offended if it takes a little while to get his brain to stop thinking in code. This should effectively remove the glazed look from his face, which should not be taken personally as it cannot be controlled.

~You may begin to evaluate your level of importance in his life by how often you are mentioned in his Twitter updates.

~Don’t be shocked when he assumes that sustaining a successful relationship can be boiled down to a simple algorithm.

~You are expected to use (or at least try out and give your opinion of) the latest social media, tech gadgets, and all software or products that are made by or have any association with Google. What you are using now is probably obsolete and nearly laughable, which is a poor reflection on the tech-savvy man in your life.

~In a word…NETWORKING.

~If you want to understand your boyfriend, understand computers. It’s not that difficult.

~You will have to appreciate the time and effort it took to run a search engine optimization campaign on the website he made you for your birthday, and how important that is to him. He shows his affection differently than other guys do sometimes.

~Saturday afternoons might be spent sitting across from him in a coffee shop writing a blog post while he codes. Hence this blog post.

And being perfectly honest…it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. In fact, I would recommend it to anyone who is willing to try with the understanding that it’s not going to be normal. This business attracts passionate, independent, and creative people who find it easy to take that attitude into everything else in their lives. I owe a lot of my desire to change the world someday to a boy who has taught me that if you try, you have a 90% chance of failure - so try more than once because then your odds go up. When you have that much responsibility you can’t afford to be mediocre, and you won’t find anyone with more desire to be excellent in everything he does.

You have to be willing to take risks too and take advantage of the opportunity to develop who you are around something other than the attention of your significant other. You will probably be challenged a lot and forced to ask yourself some tough questions about how motivated YOU are. You both have to learn how to put the best interests of someone else over what you want. And even if it doesn’t work out, if you haven’t learned anything in the end rest assured that you passed up a fantastic opportunity.

So occasionally against my better judgment, I’m still a startup girlfriend. And I kind of like it :)

faith and/or politics…

I think this is one issue that has been misunderstood, unbalanced, sensationalized, and intentionally distorted from every angle by far too many people.

I am a Christian. I believe that when God says something is wrong, it is wrong. I try to live my life by the standards set by the living example of Jesus Christ, and I believe that it is my responsibility as a believer to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with [my] God.” And I absolutely refuse to vote for a presidential candidate based solely on whether or not he (or she) supports same-sex marriage.

If you’re still reading this, thank you. Let me explain.

The United States was founded on Judeo-Christian values, but it was never intended to be a Christian nation. When religion had strict control over government decisions, it became corrupt and intentionally misrepresented Biblical teachings to those who had no access to the truth - which is why so many people of faith made the journey across the ocean to escape religious persecution. Why? Because even Christians are human, and humans are often corrupted by power.

The Constitution is not a sacred text, nor are laws and judicial rulings intended to regulate the religious temperature of the citizens of our country. They were and are written to maintain a stable society as free as possible from injustice and harm. I would argue at any time that any society that is governed by Biblical principles is more stable than any other. However, I would also argue that Biblical principles are intended for those who claim to be Christ-followers. To criticize someone for not acting like a Christian when they never claimed to be one in the first place is ridiculous. When Jesus gave instructions, it was to those who followed him and who wanted to know how to walk in a better way - not to those who were far from him. And when you think that this is not a country that is comprised entirely of believers, does it reasonably follow that the laws that apply to EVERYONE should be strictly Christian?

The underlying theme in Jesus’ teachings is that there is something deeper involved in committing any sin than just the sin itself. The Old Testament law was based on outward obedience. Jesus very clearly explained that actions are direct results of internal spiritual problems that are much more difficult to resolve than simply ceasing to act on the improper motivations. By making Christian laws, you do not create a Christian country. You create a country full of people who are afraid to do what is biblically wrong because they’ll be put in jail. If we can focus on reaching out to those people and leading them to a God who has freely extended mercy to them, we will create a country full of people who are more than willing to do what is right - because they have fallen in love with Jesus, not because a police officer told them not to.

I am not advocating that religion should fall out of every political discussion, nor am I suggesting that your faith cannot impact your political beliefs. I am simply saying that it is entirely possible to be a really good Christian and be a really horrible politician (no attacks on individuals in the comments, please :) let’s keep this clean), and that it is entirely possible to define marriage as between one man and one woman without actually preventing the degradation of the family unit.

The only response I personally have then is to find politicians who, regardless of their religious views, have a commitment to make decisions that protect people and encourage a safe and stable society. Who refuse to use religion as a political springboard, because that in itself more offensive to me than supporting the removal of a phrase from the Constitution. I’m taking the responsibility of spreading Christian values away from non-Christian politicians and taking it on as a caviot of the Great Commission that Jesus gave to ME.

when you aren’t standing close to the wall

Sometimes I feel sorry for the non-engineering interns I work with. We’re kind of a geeky group and we work together every day, so most of our lunch conversations center around our projects and research and test fixtures. This would work out a lot better if the intern lunch table were all engineers - but it’s not.

So as I was about to express my newfound fascination with something whose explanation would inevitably include a healthy dose of physics theory, I realized something -

To appreciate a lot of things in life, you have to be familiar with them. I have a really hard time getting excited about groundbreaking advances in financial planning practices, mostly because I know very little about it. I can’t really make valuable contributions to an emphatic discussion on search engine optimization (aka becoming the first page listed in a google search for a given topic - which, thanks to Josh, this website is) or the latest and greatest FTP software. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I don’t know anything about it.

I’m starting to understand that it’s very difficult to become truly excited about an advancement or a new discovery unless you had a very personal knowledge of the challenges it overcame. If you have agonized for hours over the severe constraints of mechanical advantage in the system you’re studying and then have a moment of enlightenment that solves your design woes, you can emphatically scribble your equations on a white board, thoughts jumbling with excitement, eyes bright with discovery, all to realize that YOU’RE EXCITED ABOUT IT BECAUSE YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHY IT’S A BIG DEAL. And unfortunately for you, not everyone you try to explain it to will be quite as floored by your newfound ability to seemingly defy the laws of physics (thought that might be stretching it a little).

In short, you have to know the intimate details of how high a wall is to appreciate the jump that successfully clears it.

The wall looks shorter the further you’re standing from it.

the pretty new website known as stephaniefinch.com

Welcome to stephaniefinch.com! Many thanks to Mr. Joshua Fraser, my blog has a makeover and a new home. More to come soon, but for now I’m just amazed by how pretty it is.

:)

so…

I’m now the girl who passed out on the concrete floor at the quarterly company meeting and had to be taken to the emergency room for a few stitches. Which is REALLY good to be when you’re the two-week-old intern.

No worries folks, I just have a pretty awesome bruise on my jaw where my stitches are. I got the day off of work, and lots of sympathy :) You know it’s good when both of your bosses pick you up from the hospital and take you home.

A few tips I’ve learned from experience today:

1) Eat more than cereal for breakfast.
2) Drink LOTS of water, not just a little bit.
3) Don’t lock your knees when you have to stand at the back of a presentation for a long time.
4) If you start to feel warm and dizzy, SIT DOWN. The fall will be a lot shorter.
5) If you want to be more than just the lowly nameless intern in the basement, black out in front of everyone in your company except the president (who had just left and will likely hear about it) and get taken off in an ambulance.
6) Try to sit down if you’re being shown videos of a surgery. Even if you’re not squeamish about blood, a combination of several of the above problems might take you out.
7) Have a sense of humor when you completely humiliate yourself.
8) Work for the kind of supervisors who will drive to the hospital, sit with you, and take you home (which I do) and with the kind of people who will call you to see if you want to go get ice cream after they get off work since you’re new in town and don’t know many people (also, I do).

Fortunately, I am blessed to work for great (and compassionate) people who are really concerned about me and just want me to get better. So for now I’m just going to eat lots of mashed potatoes and soup and get my 5 stitches out in a few days.

Oh, and for the record…I’M NOT PREGNANT (this is the first question at least 10 people will ask you if you pass out and go to the hospital). Just in case you were wondering.

:)

boulder

I’ve been living in Boulder, Colorado for a little over two weeks now…crazy, isn’t it?

I have a phenomenal roommate, Katie. We haven’t crossed paths a whole lot recently, but I’m really looking forward to staying with her this summer. I live just a few blocks away from the pedestrian mall downtown and within walking distance from a ton of cool stuff. My job is amazing and I’m learning more than I ever thought I would with a great company. The view all the way home from work is a panorama of beautiful mountains just a couple of miles away.

I love it here. Everything is beautiful, you can walk five minutes to the base of a mountain to hike, bikes are everywhere, everyone’s healthy and loves the outdoors, the city is clean and sunny most of the time (except today when the weather is disgusting), the pedestrian mall downtown is always full of people, the community atmosphere is really awesome. And as much as I love it here…I’d never live here long-term.

It’s awesome to be here for now. I have an amazing job that I’ve unofficially been re-offered for next summer, as well as a really great living situation that might even be open again next summer as well, and I’m really enjoying the whole feel of this place. But I also know that it’s probably not going to be my home in 10 years. I can’t really explain that, but I’m realizing that not every decision you make or every job you start or every place you move to has to be long-term. Some things are just meant to be temporary parts of your life that you enjoy, thrive in, learn from, and move on.

I love learning and having new experiences and absorbing life around me, and I’ve never learned more in such a short amount of time. I’ve been spoiled with supervisors who take lots of time out of their really busy days to literally mentor me and make sure I’m challenged but not overwhelmed. People here are really…different…and you can learn something from all of them. It is really different without actually feeling that different.

More updates are coming soon…meanwhile, I’ve become an old person with a full-time job who can no longer stay up late. Goodnight friends, I miss you!!!

dreams

I’ve learned that what you dream of rarely turns out the way you plan it or imagine…sometimes better than you could ever expect, sometimes you get disappointed. But here it is - what I dream of for my life.

~A life fully devoted to my Savior. Every morning waking up, as my mom would say, with a song of worship in my heart and in my head. Seeing God’s hand move in the lives of the people around me, and watching him infuse our lives with his reality and his tangible/visible presence. I won’t compromise this one.

~Leaving this world with the love of one man, a relationship that above all else has pointed me consistently in the direction of the true divine romance, still a very real part of me after years of the world cutting in. Serving and adoring and being pursued by my best friend. Fighting for it. And being able to look my husband in the eye seventy years from now and say that he’s still the greatest and most passionate love affair of my life and that our wedding day was the most distant we ever felt from each other from that point on.

~I want to adopt children. Don’t ask me how many, I don’t know. But children who have no family need excesses of love, and that is one thing I can give them in abundance.

~Turning a highly-paid, grossly mis-motivated industry into a career with a purpose to serve and aid and love people the way Jesus loves them.

~Being surrounded by people I respect, love, and am challenged/encouraged by on a daily basis. Basically having amazing friends, and not just while I’m in college and unmarried.

~Having a dog. Not any time soon, but I really like the idea of a morning walk with my dog. Not tiny sissy dogs - “robust” enough to still be a respectable and outdoor activity-loving canine, but not so big he won’t be perfectly happy with me hugging him all the time. I’m a cuddler. I expect my dog to be. Is that so much to ask?

~Having adventures. Exploring. Traveling. Pushing my own limits from time to time. Trespassing.

Did I say that?

~Staying healthy and enjoying life outside of my living room. I’m actually kind of the outdoors type. Surprise!

~Having a close-knit family. My kids are going to be really good friends with their cousins. I’m going to talk to my brother regularly and we’re going to spend holidays together. No matter where I am or what country my mom’s in, I’m never going to be too old to be her little girl or to need her advice. All of that is kind of (very) important to me.

~I plan on singing until the day I die. All for Jesus. I made that commitment years ago.

~I want to be the best mom of all time. I have a really high standard to live up to…thanks Mom, you made my job harder :)

~I don’t ever - EVER - want to stop believing that anything is possible, or that life is good, or that I should be an idealist.

Ephesians 3:20-21

it’s a small world after all…

I am so thankful for technology and easy communication and freedom of travel.

Because of all of that, I can successfully keep up a relationship from 1500 miles away (coming up on six months in about 11 days…hip hip hooray!). Because of it, I am spending the summer getting awesome experience and learning from some ridiculously brilliant people half a country away. Because of it, I can go experience the world and make decisions on my own while knowing that if and when my family needs me, I’m just a plane ride away. I can live my own life and still call my mom every night for advice if I need to.

Maybe it takes the daunting difficulty out of striking out on your own. I’m pretty sure I’m ok with that.

:)