Interestings, Fri. Sept. 04

Interestings for the Week

What is an interesting, you ask?

It comes from a now-older KDUP radio show called The Mean Saints, in which a couple of friends of mine pretended to be miraculously radio-ized dead saints Athanasius and Jerome, and Jerome accidentally said "an interesting about G.K. Chesterton" instead of "an interesting fact about..." Anyway, it got me and a friend from the Faith and Leadership House using adjectives as nouns like no tomorrow. So here's some interestings from the last week that I've picked up, blogosphere or otherwise.

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I found an interesting. Apparently, according to the USCCB and numerous Vatican documents, health care is a right,, not a privilege. I'm down with that. The unfortunate thing is, well...

Catholic teaching on health care + Catholic teaching on why the heck health care is even a right in the first place --> If any governmental system, a governmental system that nobody wants to run because it won't be allowed to provide abortion.

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There's an awesome about the new NIV Bible coming out...

How does that make you feel? If you're reading this you probably knew already, but at any rate. Roger Pearse, a hobbyist of classics and church Fathers, gives an awesome here. He also provides what amounts to in my mind a thought-provoking (if unintentional) commentary on the nature of corruption, as opposed to legit theological development.

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Do yourself a favor and check out the gigantic that is Brickistan. It's a city made of Legos and it is nothing short of crazy. Overview photo of Brickistan follows:


So go to the Flickr page and check it out in detail.

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Here's an impressive. The President is apparently going to give some speech to school kids about staying in school and trying hard or somesuch other after-school-special stuff that the kids probably really do need to hear, and some parents don't want it heard because they're afraid Obama's going to go socialist on their kids.

The official government website for the speeches is here and contains some classroom materials. I'm still not sure I really understand what the criticism is. I'm also putting this forth regardless of the question of how outraged we'd be if Bush wanted to talk to our nation's children without parental consent or...state education oversight of speech content? are you kidding? If Obama had said "I'm going to talk to the children about health care," then there'd be concern. Then this would be political, like if Bush had wanted to talk to kids about the War on Terror, which is, sadly, a much more politicized animal than anyone wants it to be.

But quite frankly if anyone who's the President of the USA wants to present an after-school-special message to kids about trying your hardest and how YOU can make a difference or whatever. If anyone's got an actual excerpt of this speech that shows it championing socialism, I'd like to see it. The White House plans to release the speech on Monday, a day before it's given, so opponents will have their chance to skim it for socialism if they want. As far as I can tell, though unless Obama tells the kids they're clinging bitterly to small-town values, he's fine. As it stands the only real case I've heard made consists of empty rhetoric, and that's not cool.

But it sure makes for a fun week.

A Peculiar Manor

The following is a short story. The world it is in is one that exists mostly in my head. To clear up any theological confusions it is a world in which—sort of like in Lewis's Narnia, but not really quite like Narnia---persons know Jesus “by a different name.” There are a few theological ideas that I wanted to explore when I started thinking about this world, and I began to think up a series of stories with an unsolved murder acting as a plot device to connect them (though ultimately forming a sort of story in itself). This is one of those stories. It is not at the beginning or at the end, in part because I haven't got the murder part worked out totally yet, and don't know if I ever will work that out or write other pieces of this story. The attempt I have made here is an attempt to write the story in a largely self-contained fashion. Within you should expect to find a few Biblical themes explored, as well as other, less Scripturally explicit, theological ideas. If you do read it and you find some of these ideas, or other ones that you're not sure I meant to explore, please do feel free to post a comment and let me know what you've found. I would love to know what you find in terms of theme, even if you're not comfortable posting it here.

Lastly, anyone who knows me might guess that I owe a lot in terms of imagination and ideas and wit to G.K. Chesterton; I do, but I also hope and pray that what I write might be more than just a shadow of the work of those authors I admire, and a vehicle for Christian expression and exploration in its own right. Please enjoy, if you can.

A Peculiar Manor

Two travelers were huddled on the front porch of a great house in the country. It was night-time, and raining rather violently.

One was a man. Fairly young, sporting an off-white shirt under a brown vest underneath a gray trench-coat, with gray trousers. His skin was fairly light, his frame lanky. He had brown hair and wore a tasteful brown bowler. The other was a woman, two or three years his senior, who wore a white jacket over a light purple dress. She was tanner than him and held an average frame. Her hair was blonde and she wore what appeared to be a purple bowler, except stretched to three times its height.

The two had come a long way from a nearby city and had not a few scares, mostly because he had suspected her of a murder and, as the detective, had been forced to look after her and see her safely to somewhere within town. But friendly people thought to be unfriendly had chased them away, to the point where they had spent all the money they had, and found themselves faced with a twenty-mile walk back in the rain; two miles along they had found the house. Due to the aggressive weather, the pair hoped they might get out of the rain for awhile and perhaps have some tea or cocoa. The man knocked on the gigantic door and then turned to the woman. “Oh, come on! Where's your sense of adventure?”

“I lost it somewhere between being trailed by that man in black and riding in that flying deathtrap you called transportation.”

“Well, we've got to make the best of these things. Sometimes you can't...”

The door creaked open, revealing a servant girl about two years younger than him, dressed in what appeared to be a uniform of sorts, a white tunic and shorts, whose plain face was full of joy. The sight of rain-soaked strangers filled it further still. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello. I'm Ben Simonson and this is Lady--”

“Oh, no need for all that now. Get yourselves out of the rain first.”

Ben and the lady obliged; the servant addressed them again. “Now, you were saying?”

“I'm Ben Simonson and this is Lady Rose.”

“Lady Rose Alston.”

“Could we have a sit for an hour or two, to see if the rain subsides?”

“We can do better than that! Our master is always happy to have visitors for dinner.” She motioned to them to follow her and led them down one of a dozen hallways. “Can I get you a drin--?” she asked, as she led them into the parlor.

“Tea.” Rose was hasty.

“...Cocoa.” Ben gave it maybe too much thought.

After she left Rose turned to Ben with a serious face. “If it turns out they are cannibals, I won't be pleased.”

“Cannibals?”

“'Have visitors for dinner?'”

“That is not what that means.”

“Given the trip so far, I would not be surprised.”

The servant reentered and handed them their hot drinks. “Excuse me miss; what is your name?” asked the lady.

“Bernadette, ma'am. Also, the master will want you two at the head of the table tonight. Mr. Simonson on the right, and you on the left.”

“Can we meet him before dinner? Get introduced and whatnot?” Ben was sincerely intrigued.

“Well, he's not actually in at the moment and, well...” The plain face grew apologetic. “Master Nathan's only reliable appearance is at dinnertime.” The pair appeared quite puzzled, and so Bernadette continued. “He's like that.” She flashed a smile and left the two confused travelers sitting in the parlor and drinking their exceptional drinks.

****

When dinner came a male servant named Mark arrived to escort them to the dining room. The room itself contained only one table, but a large table. It seated twenty to a side on its long ends, and two or three on each of the short ends. When they arrived the last of the food was being set out, and it appeared that when the serving was done and the master arrived, the table would be full.

Once the table was full there were about five minutes of waiting, and then the same creak of the giant front door, and a loud slam. A few shuffles and footsteps later and the Master Nathan came bumbling through the dining room door. Now he was neither skinny nor heavyset, tall nor short. His skin was a mysterious tone; persons attempting to guess at a race usually failed. He wore a fine dark-red three-piece suit, with a top hat that fit his head perfectly. The suit was torn a little, and more than a little wet and muddied. “Apologies on my lateness, everybody. Now please--” here the master turned and noticed his guests. “Wonderful! Can someone say who they are?”

Bernadette piped up. “Ben Simonson and Lady Rose Alston.”

“Wonderful!” Now please, let us say grace. Rex, would you?”

A small servant stood up. He was one of the Reptilians, a strange and sometimes primitive people who were, well, quite reptilian in skin and face, though 'human' in their standing, walking and talking. Lady Rose wondered a bit at the sight, because like most city-folk she had heard so little about these strange people that she doubted their existence. Rex stood as Nathan sat, his tail wagging excitedly. “Oh, yes.”

The room silent, Rex spoke the prayer in a poem.

“God bless this house,
And bless our guests,
And the food upon this table.

God bless our friends,
And bless our foes,
And the horses in our stable.

God keep us safe and keep us free,
Of anger, hatred, greed and lust.

God keep us safe and help us grow
In Inri, wisdom that we trust.”

Rex Sat, and the serving and passing and eating of food (and not a little conversation) commenced.

Master Nathan asked his guests many questions, like who they were exactly and how they had come to his manor. And so the two recounted a few bizarre events to him. First there was a murder in the city they had come from, originally thought to have been part of a duel, on which Ben was a detective and in which the Lady had been a suspect, which was how the whole mess started. Second, a strange cloaked man had chased them to a small town shortly out of the city, and he had had to stay with her because, after all, she was still a suspect. Third, still fleeing from his man they had fled by way of bird-basket to a farmer's market a few acres from the house, where the cloaked man appeared to meet them, and turned out to be harmless. And last, trying to make their way to the city, their arrival at a strange house with one master and forty-three servants.

Nathan also asked whether Lady Rose was still a murder suspect. Rose's voice had more than hint of frustration when she responded that no, she wasn't, and she wouldn't be on this terrible adventure if anyone had had the sense not to make her a suspect to begin with.

“It was my fault,” said Ben. “I was supposed to keep an eye on her, and I didn't figure out she was innocent until we were up in that basket, pulled along by a flock of doves.”

“Ah,” said Nathan.

Now they in turn learned from Nathan and his servants the ways of their house, including their duty to do dishes after dinner, the master and servants' insistence that all guests stay the night, all the odds and ends of work at the manor, and Nathan's generosity and frequent misadventures outside. Most recently he had helped two farmers returning from the market to get their cart and mule out of a watery ditch.

The meal itself was quite good, and the guests at least okay with the duty of dishes. When those were done, they were told their clothes would be cleaned overnight and that they had servants' clothes waiting for them in the meantime.

****

Shortly before the house curfew the two relaxed in the servants' general room, talking with Bernadette and Rex. Lady Rose raised a practical question, asking whether the whole business with the dishes was payment for their stay.

“Not exactly,” Bernadette replied. “It's because whoever sits at his right and left always does the dishes. He always calls two of us in a night.”

“And the guests always get a shot,” Rex interjected. “Once a group of eight came, and he made 'em stay for four nights. Sometimes.” He paused. “Sometimes he picks someone who's mad at him. It's awkward, but fun. Remember that day the horses had diarrhea and stable-hand Ted was on his left, Bernie? That was classic.”

The servants exchanged a look and a laugh, then turned somewhat embarrassed to their guests when they remembered it was an inside joke. Bernadette spoke. “Sorry. If you're ever here again we'll fill you in. As it stands it's almost time for bed.”

Ben and Rose parted with the other two and left the servants' chamber. With the aid of one or two stragglers they located their guest rooms, across the way from each other and down a long hallway from the servants' quarters. “Hey Ben,” said the lady. “For what it is worth, this is probably the least terrifying part of the trip so far.”

“Heh. Yes.”

“Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Unintentional Spiritual Themes 1

There's something unintentionally spiritual about this song. It feels a little bit Chestertonian, in terms of the theme of becoming like little children.

[Later edit: That theme, in connection with magic. Of course that theme and of itself belongs first/foremost to the big J.)

And Ain't I a Woman?

One of the awesomest sermons I've ever read. Has one major theological problem, but it's in the phrasing, not the intention--and it's one of the greatest speeches I know of.

An Awesome Short Play

This is a short play by David Ives called Sure Thing it's about two people who meet in a cafe and whose conversation continually goes awry. Each time it does, a bell is rung and time resets to the last "good point" of conversation. It's...pretty hilarious.

Content warning: A single f-word is present in the script, which occurs here about 5:40 in the part 1 video. If you skip from 5:40 to 5:46 you should miss it. So you don't miss stuff, the gist is something like "Django Reinhard record...only all you'll really want to do is--"

Part 1:



Part 2:

Silly Quotation Time

From IRC, blatantly stolen from someone's signature on DigitalMZX.

ajs: I like how people talk behind my back when they know I'm asleep. I like to think that it's because I would superbly defeat their lies if I was active.

Bonus! Silly religious quotation!

Terryn: I've never heard anyone take umbrage to "old" and "new"
Es: terryn "old testament" is a horrible offense against the jews
Es: It implies that their religion be not poppin' fresh

I was definitely there for that one, and it was awesome. I wish I still had the full discussion there. That said, if you want to talk supercessionism, or talking behind peoples' backs, go ahead. You can even feel free to talk about supercessionism behind my back here while I'm away on retreat this weekend; I won't be able to do anything about it until tomorrow night!

Good day and God bless!

I'm Insane

Apparently I don't need Cryptography next semester. I don't even need to be in Differential Equations.

I also don't need to be in two of my theology classes, but those are good to have on hand for fulfilling my General Education upper-division stuff.

Sometimes it pays to actually check one's plan for graduation. If I had I might've been actually able to double-major-double-minor. Oh well.

Adventure and Inconvenience

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." - G.K. Chesterton

To be honest, sometimes these words seem to fit Disney movies more than they fit real life; what right-minded person looks at inconveniences as if they were adventures? But I'm starting to think they might be much more applicable to real life than I had started to think. After all, Chesterton never promised the resulting adventure would be fun or that the resulting inconvenience would not. He only said that an inconvenience can be looked at as adventure and an adventure as an inconvenience, and at least in the vast majority of cases I would say he's probably right.

Also, in other news, I've started a new thing where I'm trying to pray (not long, just like a line or two) every time I wash my hands.

Interesting Song

I actually was told of this song by a MegaZeuxer a long time ago (note: not everything on that website is appropriate for kids.) It's a song by a band called "Hatfield and the North" called "Share It." The lyrics can be found on this webpage, and are quite awesome (there's half a stanza in there ranting about shampoo commercials), but I haven't quite worked out the meaning of everything in the song so again, there's the advising that it might not be fully appropriate. Anyway, here's the song: "Share It" by Hatfield and the North.

Hey Guys I Took A Quiz

I took the hermeneutics quiz that's been going around some of the Christian blogosphere. I scored 66, which puts me just barely, barely in the progressive camp. So I guess take the quiz and post your scores. I doubt any of the people reading this will manage a 20 (lowest end of "conservative" but I'd like to see where you place.

I can't find the thing right now and I'm not going to try, but Henry Neufeld who does the Participatory Bible Study Blog took the quiz, got "progressive" but noted he had some issues with some of the questions. He didn't say what issues.

WOw

Soy Yogurt is bad. At least, the stuff I had was pretty bad. As in, it was as bad as soy milk when I had soy milk (and I had soy milk about 10 years ago.)

200th POST: THE LENTEN SEASON BEGINS

It is now officially 18 minutes into Ash Wednesday. What this means is that Lent is here, as are my Lenten Sacrifices. This year:

- No making "That's what she said" jokes. Expanded, this rule means: No making new "that's what she said" jokes or quoting Office iterations, no matter how tempting. No quoting other "that's what she said" jokes unless repeating a story. No intentionally setting up other people for a good "that's what she said" quip. Special situation: If I'm halfway through a phrase and then realize that it's a "that's what she said"-worthy phrase, I am allowed to finish the phrase as planned. In other words, it's about the intent at the moment the phrase leaves my mouth.
- No fries. No French fries, period. Not at the Cove or anywhere off-campus. I thought about giving up cheese but that's going to have to be a Lenten project all its own.

Additionally, I'll be giving up desert at the Commons / Cove only (so family gatherings and Burgerville shakes are allowed.) That last one's more of a health thing that I'm using Lent as impetus for, so I'm not counting it.

Other things you may want to know about, as far as goals for the year:

- I'm attempting again to memorize the book of James, which currently means reading it cyclically throughout the Spring semester.
- I'm going to try and learn to Waltz sometime before the year of 2008 is over and preferably before the start of the 08-09 year.
- I'm going to start learning to savor food, preferably before the end of the 07-08 school year. This will probably involve bugging Stephanie to see if she'll take me out someplace that serves good food in small portions.
- I'm going to try and work on my lindy-hop "game" (which means the swingout and building on that) and get the swingout down more solidly. Not sure how to do this, aside from going to swing on Mondays and maybe finding one or two times this semester I could go out for Lindy social dancing.

Lastly I went to the Mardis Gras celebration at the Commons tonight and the Jazz band played some swing-worthy stuff--on the last song a bunch of swing people got up and did some lindy hop and that was fun--at least for a few minutes I was back on my game, but I definitely felt dried out and wanting water afterwards.

Peace out and God bless!

Fun Stuff Found in an Old Assignment Tracker

I was looking through my old notebook for keeping track of assignments. It's the one from my Senior year of high school. Most of the pages have been thrown out but I kept a scant few temporarily, as they have awesome quotations from different people. I think an old friend of mine, Marcus, is the leader. I'll list all the quotations followed by the person they came from following:

"I think I saw my life flash before my eyes." - Stephen
"Was it shiny?" - Marcus

"You got a lot of points. Too bad you're shooting at the wrong basket." - Marcus

"Surround yourself with smart people." - Marcus, probably

"I'll give you participation points if you can read my notes." - Marcus

"Today's gonna be a good day, because I don't have to go tomorrow." - Marcus. I'm pretty sure that "going tomorrow" refers to CIP work-days, but I'm not absolutely sure.

"And the majority of dorm windows don't have trampolines under them." - Mr. Huelskamp

Not that many if any De La Salle people will ever read this, but this one came from a poster in Mr. Z's room. I think the context was to make posters revolving around issues from the 1800s: "A slave is a slave no mater who owns him. Stay nutral / It for the best"

I also found two other things:

"CLINTON VS. NEW YORK CITY!"

This was funny because when Mr. Boyle said it, I got this picture in my head of a king-kong sized Bill Clinton taking on the city of New York in the style of a giant-monster movie. As such it did at the time (and still today) strikes me as incredibly humorous. I believe the actual court case involved Clinton's ability to do a line-item veto, but I don't know.

Also, someone wrote "Hi Daniel!" randomly on my notebook. I think it was a girl, based on handwriting. Don't know who, though.

Anyway, I found this a fun ride. Hope you did too.

Adventure #1: Blues Dancing

First thing's first...this Wikipedia article attempts to explain what Blues dancing is. Trying to explain it myself made me feel like a dork. There's a certain degree to which you just have to see the dance. (If you decide to YouTube something, you shouldn't automatically assume I'm dancing at the same distance as those people...Just thought I'd clear myself right now on that one.) Last Tuesday I went out blues dancing with some people from the Swing club. It was pretty awesome. It took about a total of 5 hours, from leaving from UP to returning.

When we got there, there was about an hourlong lesson followed by about three hours of dance. I got to dance with some people I hadn't ever even met yet, which was actually not the best experience in the world. From one of those dances, I'm convinced that I'd rather have someone say they don't want to dance with me if they don't want to, because I had someone agree to dance, and then make it really obvious that they weren't 'into it' (my phrasing) which made it not really fun for me either. So yeah. But there was another person I danced with a couple of times and she was pretty chill.

I was however appreciative of the people I came with, as far as dancing goes. I learned, a little bit, how to "dip" a follow, which was cool. I'm still not very practiced at it, but I'm all for learning new moves. I also pulled off a move I didn't quite expect to pull with someone from Swing club; I'm not sure quite how to describe it here, but if you're reading this there's a good chance I'll... Oh yes. I just remembered I have MS Paint on this computer.

Okay, hopefully that gives you a better idea. On the left is the connection (two-handed connection) I started with, the right is where I went with it. It might not look like much but I think it might be a little harder to communicate than it looks, or maybe I just felt really hardcore for nothing special. Whatever.

Anyway, I learned a lot, and it was a fun experience, and I am definitely glad for the people I went with because it's easier to try new things with people you know than with people you don't.

Blues-Dancing was the Adventure

I decided I'm going to be more adventurous from here on out. I counted off-campus Blues-Dancing as my adventure this week because it was my first time going.

I'll post something more awesome about it in a...well, I'll probably post on Thursday.

Best. Shower. Ever.

Dan's recipe for cold shower appreciation:

1) Stay up all night working on Modern Algebra and Computer Science.
2) Begin losing steam around 6:00 AM.
3) Take freaking cold shower around 7:15 AM, preferably with peppy Christian rock stuck in brain (Tree 63 was my example.) Just dive in. Don't be a wimp.

You might think I'm joking, and I'm probably a little high on lack of sleep, but that is seriously better than any other recent shower I've had.

This is easily going to be the best day ever. Oh, also, I don't stand a chance of finishing that book, but I do intend to read the first half and skim the rest. However I did get my CS done, and my Modern Algebra is to the point where the test won't kick my...hindquarters nearly as much as the first time. Anyway, it'll be breakfast time soon. Bye!

Do You All Hate me a Little Bit More?

After next semester I will only need a combined total of 21 credits to graduate (taking both majors into account.) For those of you playing at home, that means that--assuming I take a standard 15 each semester still--I have 9 credits to just play around with next year. I mean, if I can convince myself it won't just be really bad for my work ethic (at present, I'm convinced it will, so I'm leaning towards 15 credits a semester) I might even take one of those semesters at the minimum full-time 12.

Of course, that also means I must work hard. And I'm going to do my absolute best to make sure I get my Liturgy requirement for Theology out of the way next Fall so I don't have it hanging over my head in the Spring. And this is seriously the biggest possible threat to my Theology major.

Still, though. Considering how disparate my majors are in terms of requirement and how...I'm just amazed.

I Hope You Guys Have Seen This

Stephen Colbert is running for President. Here's hoping his...quite over-the-top social commentary has something awesome to tell us about the state of American politics, or at least something funny.

Also, here's an article about a Facebook group started in response to two previous groups: "Barack Obama: One Million Strong for Barack and "Stop Hilary Clinton '08: One Million Strong AGAINST Hilary". These people started one for Colbert and they're almost to 1,000,000 members as of today (as in, I'm looking at the group page a few seconds ago.) I just checked again--and within the last few minutes the group grew 2,000 members.

Granted that nobody's taking the Colbert group or their membership therein quite as seriously as they would with the Obama or Clinton groups, it's still pretty funny that, well, check this quotation from the Colbert group guy:

It's taken Obama's 1,000,000 Strong Group more than 9 months to get 381,000 [384,272 as of my last check] members, We beat it in less than 5 days! We overtook them at 2:25 PM (EST)

Furthermore, It has taken the "Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary)" more than 8 months to get over 488,000 [as of my last check, 501,675] members. We beat this within 6 days!

That makes me happy. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. Your thoughts? For the record, the Colbert group we're talking about hasn't even been up for a whole month yet, so far as I know.

Fun with Theology

I had a fun thought today about one of Thich Nhat Hanh's fourteen precepts of the Order of Interbeing. This happened in my Biblical Spirituality class. I will quote the precept as follows. If you can guess what I did to it, please do. At the end of the post you'll see whether you guessed right! This is from the book Peace is Every Step.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

Now, laying aside the fact that I actually have a fair amount of agreement with the "truth is found in life" part, and I do actually respect the idea of dialog between viewpoints and worldviews (though not necessarily Nhat Hanh's idea of dialog), I felt like being mean today, so I wrote something in my book that I'll share at the end.

I'm also going to complain about ridiculously epic course titles in theology.

"Poets/Prophets/Divas/Divines." Name for a course being taught next semester on, I believe, the prophetic and wisdom traditions in the Old Testament. Compare with the NT course offered, "Jesus' Ministry in Gospels."

"Revelation, Reason, Reform: 800-1600." Name for a course going right now about the reformation. For the record I've taken two classes from this professor already, and he's awesome--but his class titles have all contained at least one colon.

"Sages, Singers and Songwriters."
"The Life and Work of Augustine of Hippo." Same guy as R,R,R. I don't remember what but there was more in this title.
"The Drama of Modern Christianity." There was more in this title too.
"Biblical Spirituality: Saints and Sinners on a Journey with God."

Anyway, I'm not putting down any of these professors as professors. They're all what I like to call "smart people." Their class titles are just so epic.

Anyway, here's what I did to poor Mr. Nhat Hanh. I should probably feel bad about this, but I don't.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. [Except math.] Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

Now I'm going to do some more.

2. Do not think that the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. [Except math.] Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. [Except when your present view is that you shouldn't be bound to your present view.] Learn and practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. [Unless those others' viewpoints are that you should be attached.] Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. [As said before, I like this. I agree with this.] Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.[I agree with this too. Maybe not quite the way it's meant, but I do agree.]

This is me getting out the stuff that I hold inside, for the most part, during class. Also, since when did nonviolence in all circumstances actually become a realistic moral goal?

Ladder-Climbing

This was pretty awesome. Happened just yesterday, too!

Warning: Includes one "that's what she said" remark, if you care about young ears hearing that.