Swing, swing, swing

This is the time of the semester where I am incredibly busy. I've spent the last several weekends engrossed in papers and projects and will spent another one this weekend, but realize that by Thursday next, it will all be over. We'll have finals to worry about then, but I'm not overly concerned. I'm doing well in all of my classes and don't feel as if the material is slipping me by. Even though I'm staying busy, I don't have any obnoxious classes like last year's "Marriage and the Family", where we were routinely tested on things the professor had forgotten to go over in class.

I had a respite this past Saturday: on my invitation, my family came up to Montevallo and we spent the day together, which was really quite nice. My parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew came up. They arrived late morning and we walked down to the town park. They have swingsets there that are big enough for adults to sit in, and so I started swinging along with my sister and neice. We must have been a sight to people driving by, but I didn't care. An adult swinging on a swing would look pecuilar alone, but with others it was fine. We walked through the park, admiring the wooden bridge and brook. On the top of a hill was a jungle gym, and my neice, nephew, and father cavorted around there for a bit. I just enjoyed watching them. It was a gorgeous day -- simply perfect.

For lunch, we went back down to the swings. There was a little covered dining area tucked into the woods. We thought we were getting out of the wind there, but as it turns out the building just focused the wind. We spent the rest of the day on the swings, playing frisbee, and just talking. It was nice.

I'm staying busy with a number of items:

• An English paper about the importance of England's alliance with Burgundy during the Hundred Years' War.
• A European history paper about how Wilson's Fourteen Points can be used to find the causes of the Great War.
• A "content analysis" for socology, where I'm analyzing three hours of prime-time commercials for their gender content. Turns out female narrarators are used a lot.
• An "annontated bibliography" for sociology. I'm reading six sociology articles and then writing a paper comparing and contrasting them. Mine appears to be on gender and its relation to values. I don't have a good feeling about this one.
• Also, as a hobby, I'm "working" on a fanstasy novel on and off. It's one I've had in my mind since high school, set in a world that is like Earth, but not earth. It features humans, so it's basically a bit like Asimov's "Nightfall" or LOTR -- it's a familar setting, but not Earth. It's a political-historical drama, set in a world with a technology that's quasi-Roman, quasi-late medieval. When I was younger, the story was much simpler: it was romanticized and rather unworkable. A I have matured, so has the feel of the story. One of the most fun things about this hobby is creating a religion and the symbols that go around it. Creating the various societies competing in this drama is incredibly fun. I'm thinking it's set on another planet, but in creating the world I keep running into problems, like seasons. Earth has seasons because of the moon. Do I give my world a moon? I don't want to. I want them to have seasons, but not a large moon -- but I don't think I can have a planet with a stable tilted axis unless I have a moon-thing. This is annoying, because the religion began with a fertility goddess, and if they have seasons I damn well have to have seasonal holidays.

I'm also reading and doing my book commentaries as well as various philosophical and political essays. Recently I discovered Pandora.com. I now have a number of stations:

• "Enya Radio"
• "Bubbly Radio"
• "Contemporary Jazz" (Joshua Redman search)
• "Classical" (Berlin Philharmonic search)
• "Big Band" (Miller Brothers search)
  
• "Crooners"( Frank Sinatra search)

Interesting

I had an interesting dream last night. For some reason I returned to Selma and decided to spend the night in my childhood church. When I woke that morning from my position on a couch in the foyer, I found the carpet covered with snow; it had been blown in by virtue of the fact that the glass doors in front of the church were partially broken. I was delighted that it was snowing, so I went outside (in a t-shirt, gym shorts, and no shoes, I might add). This being a dream, I wasn't cold or anything. Once I got outside, though, I felt the sun come out from behind a cloud. I could hear the snow melting. I turned around and watched as an inch or so of snow melted away, leaving behind dead grass.

Now that the snow was gone, I went back inside and sat down. Then to my horror I spotted the church's pastor and his extended family driving up -- his oldest son, his oldest daughter and her husband, his youngest daughter, and some other people. I wasn't supposed to be in the church, given that I'm no longer a member of it and indeed am quite the heathen, so I was at a loss as to how to explain myself. I went outside to greet them (since hiding would've been futile). I explained that the back door was open and I spent the night on the couch.

He pointed out that his office door was open, and I said I hadn't unlocked it. This much is true: no one has keys to his office, even the janitor. I've been in there before, though: there's not much to it. A desk, a computer, a few bookshelves, lots of pictures and certificates. I don't think he believed me, but I don't especially care. I greeted one of the people outside, who I then recognized as an old youth group leader. I greeted him again with more enthusiasm after I recognized him. Since they had shown up, I decided to clear out: the church building feels rather like home to me, even after my year of estrangment, but I didn't want to be there when their church service started.

For some reason I had moved a television set and a stereo into the assembly area. They'd call it a sanctuary, but I reserve that term for other places. As I was moving my stuff into my car, I stopped to watch a stream beside the church. Normally dry, or at the best boggish, all of the melting snow from a field behind the church had resulted in a babbling brook. I stood and appreciated it a while, noting that now spring had arrived and everything was amazingly green. Then I left.

Conclusions:
- I still dislike my childhood pastor for reasons too complicated to go into. I have my own opinions regarding him, and they're well-formed, I think.
- Maybe the winter/spring thing means that...my life in the church was cold and dead and my life after I've left it is vibrant and healthy?

I'm not much for Freud. Real conclusions: I still think that man is an obnoxious ass, a vile boor, and so on. Also, spring follows winter and melting snow does result in runoff streams. So...my dreams are scientifically literate. Huzzah.

ngment, but

Gubernatorial

"John McCain has been running this campaign based on 'we're at war, it's a dangerous world out there, the Democrats don't get that it's a dangerous world...I, John McCain, am the only one standing between the bloodthirsty Al-Quedas and you. But if I die, this stewardess can handle it." - Bill Maher

Current Music: "Working Class Hero", John Lennon


I had an odd dream last night. I was at my childhood church for some unfathomable reason. The last time I was there, the preacher kept screaming about the dangers of secularism and humanism and that sort of thing. Hearing him mentioning humanism was a reminder of the tyranny that my parents live under; they're so possessed with fear that I am going to Hell that they have to divulge their great shame to their pastor: their son, named after a martyr and an well-behaved youth all throughout high school, is now as much of a sinner as one can get: he's a skeptic. He thinks he's better than going to church. This news has somehow drifted to the extended family so that whenever we met for a someone's birthday, I am informed that I have merely subscribed to the fad of not going to church. This manages to be both annoying and amusing.

The last time I visited my childhood church -- Mother's Day -- the preacher screamed (Pentecostalism is a branch of Christianity thoroughly wrapped up in emotionalism so that nothing, not even sermons on the most hum-drum of topics, can be delivered without excessive screaming. ) about humanism and secularism and godless colleges, and that sort of thing. He kept going on and on and on and I got bored, so I started provoking him by winking at him whenever he'd look at me. I also started giving him visual feedback -- like when he said "YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO SHEEP WHO FOLLOW THEIR SHEPHERD?" I made a "knife across the throat" gesture and made a little sound to indicate that good sheep who follow their shepherd turn into...well, shepherd's pie. Mutton. Tasty lambchops. Best case scenario, they get fleeced for a few years until their fleece-producing abilities start to wear out, at which point they're turned into tasty tasty lampchops.

Looking back now, I can see that I was being an ass, but I don't really regret it. I eventually grew bored. I mention all of this because of the dream. In the dream I was at church with a book -- Foundation's Edge, probably -- and the pastor was screaming along the same lines as in that sermon. This time, though, I wasn't paying any attention. I was listening placidly and occasionally stealing a glance at my book to read it. Then he started screaming about humanism, sensualism, and somethingelse-a-ism. There were three of us sitting there on my pew -- myself, the pastor's daughter, and a young woman who is married to the assistant pastor. I was guilty of humanism, his daughter was guilty of sensualism (?), and the ymwimttap was guilty of the something else-a-ism. While they were sitting there feeling ashamed of themselves for their apparant sins, I was simply sitting and watching with confused amusement. Then he scowled at me, wrote out a formal request that I get the hell out of his church, and handed it to me. IN my dream-world this constituted a "Get Out Or I Will Call the Cops" measure, so I left, protesting that I hadn't done anything and that this entire thing was irrational.

And then I woke up. My Fridays are completely bereft of responsibilities, so after I went to breakfast, I decided to go to the library and read a little. I read from from various papers by Karl Marx and understood little. In The German Ideology I think he was saying that human beings have to have a dogma or a set of unquestionable ideas to live under, or else our entire intellectual world will fall in upon itself. He called out freethinkers in particular. I don't agree. After that I read a little about Zeno, the father of Stoicism. I wasn't in the library long, and after I left I realized that today was a gorgeous day; the wind was blowing, the temperature wasn't unbearable, and the sky was pretty. Realising that I couldn't just spend the day indoors, I spent from then until lunch sitting under a tree reading Foundation and Empire.

It was a lovely morning. The tree I like to sit under is perfect for either sitting against or laying back against, and whenever I tired of reading I'd lean back and look up into the tree at the passing clouds above. Someone asked me if I thought I was Woodsworth. It was all quite perfect, and I was relucant to leave. When the sun's position made reading uncomfortable, I went to the library again and read from American Heritage, then got online in the library until the lunch-time crowd thinned out. After that I went to the Records Office to check on my job application.


English History:
- This week had repeat lectures for me on Feudalism and Peasant Life in the Medieval Era. I heard this in Medieval History.

Human Geography:
- We learned about classes and were informed about the "Social Register". Most of the class was offended by the idea that there was a book of rich prats that listed where their yachts were mored and that admittance to this book of people was chosen by a snobbish few. We spent Wednesday talking about the upper class and their institutions -- boarding schools, private colleges, social clubs, etc. My professor said that 50% of all admittances into places like Harvard are reserved for people whose ancestors went there.

European History:
- We learned about Italian and German reunification. I'm more interested in Weimar Germany and Germany post-Reunification. The Imperial Germany that was ruled by the Prussian aristocracy has quickly lost its appeal.

German 201:
- Our teacher returned and I'm suddenly enthusiastic about German again. We've had fun both class sessions so far. Yesterday we interviewed four German exchange students, one of whom sits in front of me in English class. I'm forever trying to see if she takes her notes in German or English. I'm betting English and could ask her, but I like trying to find out even though I'm not liable to.

Sex and Gender:
- We moved on to horticultural societies, or those that engage in simplistic farming. Very interesting stuff.

The Antelope Graze

Current Music: "I'm Into Something Good", Herman's Hermits

I spent last week recovering from a cold -- a cold that now appears to be over. Well, thank Olympus for small favors. Actually, the cold lasted two weeks so I probably don't have anything to thank the Olympians for. Nothing really went on last wee.

German 201:
- Nothing happened in this class as my teacher was off cavorting in Las Vegas. She's returned this week, though, so I actually have to go to class. Boo.

English History I:
- Last week William of Normandy landed at Hastings in 1066. Yay Normans.

Human Geography:
- We started talking about religion in the United States. My instructor postulated something I've heard before -- that the United States' lack of an official state church keeps the various denominations vying for souls/tithes, and as a result Americans are more religious than western Europeans, who have state churches that everyone belongs to but that no one believes in.

European History Since 1815:
- Last week we were sorted into six groups, one for each major country we'll be studying. Our groups will present reports on our countries at various intervals throughout the week, and our first report was this past week. I was sorted into the Italian group. I learned about an interesting liberal democratic terrorist group called the Carbonari in the course of my research.

Sex, Gender, and Culture:
- This is still my most interesting class. This week we discussed sex/gender roles among foraging groups.



I didn't do anything during the weekend except watch Planet Earth DVDs, read, and make paper out of fallen tree limbs. I'm kidding about one of those.

A little morning psychosis....

Arise you workers from your slumber!
All you wage-slaves, everyone.
The Revolution comes like thunder,
And the age of hypocrisy is done.
Turn off their televised illusion
Stand up and look them in the eyes.
Declare your mental liberation;
Shake off the dust, and claim the prize.

So comrades, come rally.
And the last fight let us face.
The Internationale unites the human race.


I had a weird night and a weird day. I had a series of dreams, all uncomfortable.

Dream 1:
- My German teacher returned from her two-week vacation with a surprise exam for us; turns out we were supposed to have self-taught ourselves a third of the course while she was away. I was reduced to tears and ran from the room.

Dream 2:
- Al Pacino was chasing Angelina Jolie because she was evil. He was also evil, but fighting on the good side for whatever reason. The only scene I remember is when Pacino is chasing Jolie through a massive swamp with obstacles built into it. Pacino was able to kill her, but then the screen reset and I was trying to get to her before Pacino did. So there I was, swimming in a swamp with a shotgun that looked plastic, anticipating when she would surface for air. There was platform in the water and she pulled herself up on that, but I was already there. I tried to shoot her, but I had forgotten to set the gun, because I'm not a gun person. She called out for her killer dog to come get me, and then I was able to shoot her. Because I am not a gun person, my little plastic gun just went "Click" and her head flopped over. She was "dead".

Then I had to shoot her killer dog, which was really incompetent. It was slow, and it had lost its teeth. Still, it was supposed to get me, so I "shot it" with my plastic shotgun as well. Then my thoughts turned to Al Pacino, who was surely going to kill me for getting to his mark before he did. Fortunately, Pacino had turned into Patrick Stewart dressed like Picard from First Contact, and he congratulated me on bringing her to justice.


Dream 3:
- For some reason I snuck my parents' chihuahua Charlie into my dorm room. I realized in the dream that this was a really bad idea, because that chihuahua hates being alone and will howl at the door if he thinks he's been deserted. Someone would definitely hear. In the dream, I was outside with some friends watching a soccer game and we saw the police escorting someone out of the building, and someone said "Is that Karl Marx?". For some reason I was under the impression that the dog had a human form and that his name in human form was Karl Marx. I really don't understand this part of the dream.

I left the game in a panic to see if they had gotten Charlie/Marx, but they hadn't. He was hiding, only now he looked like Charles Darwin. I knew I had to get him to safety, so we left. I apparantly had a sportscar. We eventually wrecked -- or rather, the car was run off the road and upside down. Then, as if I was living in the world of Grand Theft Auto, the car exploded. I think it killed Charlie/Marx/Darwin. To make matters worse, my schoolbooks had been in the car when it went up in a fireball. All I was left with was a DVD on the genetics of sex.
=======

After that strange series of dreams, I was in a strange mood this morning. I felt paranoid, as if I had done something wrong. I was also very tired, which is not surprising given my activities while I was sleeping. Swimming through a swamp with a shotgun is tiring work, you know. There were a number of instances this morning that made me paranoid:
- when I was crossing the street, a car had to stop and wait for me because my legs accidently moved an inch, thus giving him a reason to think that I was going to try to walk across the street. Rather than playing the "You move - I move" game, he stopped and waited while I walked across.
- when I went to breakfast, the machine checks our mealcards was malfunctioning, and I started thinking I had been removed.
- when I was getting my food, the cafeteria lady told me to stop pointing to things and start talking to her, because I often complement my requests with hand gestures. This morning my requests must've been too quiet.
- when I was walking to my table with my food, a piece of bacon fell off of my plate. I felt bad about this for some reason. It's not as if I wanted the bacon, it just seemed a crime to let food randomly fall from my table. What, was I incapable of walking from point A to point B without losing things?

Very strange. After eating and reading a Carl Sagan biography, though, I felt much better. OFf to class now.

Golden Ticket

I never thought my life could be...
Anything but catasophe..
But suddenly I begin to see..
A bit of good luck for me.
'Cause I've a golden ticket...
I've got a golden twinkle in my eye...

It's Monday, and although people are whining about how they hate Mondays, I'm a good mood. A great one, even. There's no real reason why, but I scarcely need one. The weekend was fairly uneventful. I had planned on doing something productive, but I didn't. Imagine that! I can't actually think of what I WAS doing during the weekend, outside of reading a biography of Carl Saga and binging on The Office and Monty Python's Flying Circus. That would explain my utter lack of productivity.

Yesterday I met a grotesque little animal I named "Mr. Grotesque". Mr. Grotesque is a spider, although he's not any ordinary kind of spider. While other spiders are basically a little orb with eight legs, this guy was built like a tank. I would expect to find him in Shredder's Technodrome. If I wanted to built a very large robot that terrorized people with its looks, I would build this guy. Intrigued by the thing, I stopped to look at it. It didn't look very much like a spider, but there it was sitting in the middle of this web.

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/images/g_cancriformis.jpg

That is not the spider I saw, but it's similar. One half of it was like that -- but the spikes were black. The other half of the spider was rather dull black. Anyway, from the side the thing looked amazing, like some mechanical horror. I spent a good bit of yesterday staring at the thing. Occassionally the wind would blow and the Mr. Grotesque would go right back to building his web. Most of the webs he built were triangles. I got to see some little bugs all wrapped up in the spider's silk, but sadly didn't see any of them actually fly in. One of my friends took a picture of the little beastie. If he uploads it, I will share it (with his permission).

On a minor note, this morning I used a brochure a friend sent me as a bookmark. The brochure is a map of "Cape Disapointment" in Oregon. Imagined interview with whoever named that:

Me: So, er, why'd you name the place "Cape Disapointment"?
Director: Well, you know, every summer we get this great horde of surbanites who want to experience the 'great outdoors'. Well, what they find is that the great outdoors is full of skunks and bugs and rocks in the ground that annoy you when you're trying to sleep. They've a tendency to complain. So we named the place that way to ward off those people. If anyone complains about their experience, we say "Well, we warned you!".


Lastly, last night I watched Dogma for the first time. I saw a scene from it on YouTube that intrigued me, so I decided to take a look. I was sold on the idea when I saw that Alan Rickman was in it. The film is about two fallen angels named Bartleby and Loki who want to go home. They were banished from Heaven after Bartleby convinced the death angel Loki to resign his post as Genocidal Maniac. God, angry at not having been given a proper two weeks' notice, expelled them both to Earth. Why is it we get all that guy's rejects? Why does he send ALL of his fallen angels here? Why not Mars?

Well, these two guys -- played by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon -- find a way to get themselves forgiven and back home. The problem is that if they exploit this loophole, existence will cease to exist, because all of it is built on the assumption that God is infallible -- and if they prove that he isn't, well. God can't do anything to stop these two because he's tied up, so his angels and a human servant are trying to stop the two angels before they muck everything up. Satan is also trying to stop the two, because in spite of the whole "In Hell" thing, he still fancies getting out and taking on a being of infinite power and infinite knowledge and winning. This guy isn't all that bright, clearly, but then again he used to be God's chief worshipper, so there you are.
Behind this scheme is another fallen angel named Azrael, who tried to play both sides and wound up in Hell with Satan. He wants to terminate all of existence because life in Hell isn't pleasant.

The film was funny, although not as irreverent as I'd been led to believe. It ended like a Joan of Arc episode. While the film did entertain me, it mostly reminded me one of one of the biggest reasons I couldn't take religion seriously: it was such a story. God creates everything; his angels rebel against him, so he creates humanity and gives us a choice. The fallen angels make us fall out of spite, and now Satan and God vie for our souls.



See? Christian mythology takes humanity WAY too seriously. The same is true of Jewish mythology and so on.

Morning reflections

Current Music: "Listen, People", Herman's Hermits

My father, looking at a map: Now where is Rising Sun?
Me: It's a house in New Orleans.

Last night, as I sat on my bed watching Scrubs and chuckling with merriment, I heard a knock on the door. The shirt I wasn't wearing wasn't really fit to be seen by anyone else -- it was one of my ratty undershirts I only wear in my room -- so I said "One moment" and quickly started to change shirts. As I did so, a lilting female voice said "May we come in?"

I was expecting the knock on the door to be an RA, passing out something. The female voices had to be outside someone else's door -- there's no reason I can conceive of that I would have females outside of my door. I put on a new shirt, and opened the door to find three female freshmen -- who were all probably a foot shorter than me -- staring at me.

"Hi!" one said. They all went around and introduced themselves. The one in the middle was someone I had seen before, and she was looking uncomfortable. One of the girls took the lead and said "Did we just see you a few minutes ago?". Clever words failing me, I merely shook my head and said no. The girl who was taking the lead -- Cecilia or Celie, I think her name was -- asked me how I was, and I said I was fine. I asked them how they were -- I have no idea what's going on here -- and they were fine, although the girl in the middle was still looking uncomfortable. Celie said that they were just going around saying hello to people, which strikes me as being a pleasant thing for them to be doing. I certainly like encountering friendly people, although the "WTF?" factor was mitigating the pleasant effects having a conversation.

I said "I'm just watching Scrubs,". The conversation wasn't going anywhere, so we bid one another a good night and moved on. I returned to Scrubs. I have no idea what that was about. I don't know anyone who want to play a trick on me. "Hey, go knock on that guy's door and see what he makes of being greeted by you!". I don't think they were lost, because my name is on the door. So I'm going to assume they were either looking for someone or were actually going around greeting random people.

This is as surreal as my life gets -- this, and spotting Hanes underwear in the middle of the dining room floor.

2nd Week

My second week back at Montevallo is nearly over. As far as classes go, it's completely over: none of mine meet on Fridays.

Human Geography:
- This class hasn't really taken off yet. Our first lectures have been on population, and they're the same basic lectures as last year, when I took World Regional Geography. It's not too bad sitting through the same lectures again, although I do manage to look like a pompous know-it-all even though I'm not saying anything.

Dr. Higley: Does anyone know how Norway can afford to be that generous? (Pointing at me) I know you know, but does anyone else?
Everyone Else: *stares at me*

I'm sure things will get more interesting once we move on to the actual meat of the class.

English History from the Roman Conquest to Elizabeth I:
- So far, nothing I don't know because I've read a lot about early British history. We've made it to the Viking invasions. My professor looks the part for this class; he's short and muscular, and has a shaven bald head with the exception of a goatee. He could play the part of a Saxon hacking some poor Celt apart or ripping nearly-raw lamb meat off of a bone with his teeth.

German 201:
- No activity in this class, as my professor is in Las Vegas with family from Austria. It's nice to know that her family's impressions of America will consist of a small college town and Las Vegas.

European History Since 1815:
- My sole night class. I'm taking this for a few reasons. I enjoy the professor's style; I like the subject; and I'm interested in learning more about Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. During the semester we're going to be doing group presentations, with each group talking about a particular country. We did a lottery tonight to see who was going to be in which group. There were six choices -- the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Russia. I was hoping to be sorted into either the U.K. group or the Italian group. I'm fairly well-versed in German history at this point, and I'm growing weary of the "You study German history and aren't religious, so you must be a NAZI!" spiel I have to endure every time the subject comes up. It's sad that a nation with centuries of rich history is judged by twelve years -- even if they were a dramatic twelve years.

Sex, Gender Roles, and Culture:
- This class is one of the more interesting ones. We have a lot of discussion. For whatever reason, sexes and gender roles have always been interesting to me. Even at an early age, I realized that the "natural, godly" roles that we were supposed to believe in were just cultural constructs, although I wouldn't have called them that. I realized that people were just making this stuff up. It helped that I was really uncomfortable with the idea of lording over someone. In the church I was raised in, there was a hierarchy: God was at the top, and told men what to do. Men told women what to do. Women were supposed to obey their masters -- erm, husbands -- completely, and husbands had some completely patronizing role. (Pun!)

Also, I was intrigued by what "made" sex considering that some people were born who didn't match biological and cultural expectations. In today's lecture we discussed some sex abnormalities -- Turner Syndrome and so on. I have a lecture on the biology of sex, but it's difficult for me to really grasp genetics.

======
I spent Labor Day weekend in Selma with my parents. On Monday I drove back to Montevallo, developing a sore throat on the way. By that evening my throat was quite irritated. I only got four hours of sleep because I was so congested. On Tuesday -- the day I had to cope with four hours of sleep -- classes were hell. My nose was stuffed, my throat hurt every time I swallowed, I kept coughing, sneezing, and sniveling, I was sleepy, my sinuses hurt, and my head hurt. After lectures and lunch, I spent the afternoon in bed trying to find sleep -- but I wasn't all that successful.

Yesterday was much better: my sore throat hardly hurt, I had gotten some rest, I could breath through my nose for the most part, and I didn't have any sinus trouble. It was a good day. Today I'm just having to put up with the sniveling and coughing. I don't know how many napkins I've gone through.

Not having a computer last week has resulted in me discovering Scrubs, which I really like.


And that's about it.

Back to School

Current Music: "I Can't Get Started With You", Sammy Davis Jr.

A week ago today, I moved back to Montevallo to begin the 2008/2009 school year. I brought my parents with me to speed up the move–in process, which would have otherwise taken hours and exhausted me completely. Since my father was helping me haul stuff up Napier's many flights of stairs, we finished quickly and were both only a little tired. I was able to introduce my parents to the Behavioral and Social Science office's secretary and department head, both of whom I used to work for. (Not this year, sadly; I was robbed of work–study for some reason.)

I picked up my books from the post office (I bought them used via Amazon and had them shipped to the school). The post office also had a few free items for me –– a "Milestones in Science" poster from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a few DVDs from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which sends DVDs to students and teachers. The three I had waiting for me were on the biology of sex and gender, on the building blocks of life, and another one on the AIDs virus. I like biology lectures.

After my parents left, I took a shower and started getting settled in. I discovered to my partial horror that my computer no longer functions: there's something screwy happening with the tower's electric system. While not being able to play computer games and access the internet from my room is annoying, what I really have to get used to is the fact that I no longer have a computer monitor illuminating my room. As it is, I have to position a lamp over there so the distribution of light in my room is at a comfortable level. I don't like large florescent lights, and prefer to have little lamps perched in various parts of the room to provide light.

The weekend was dull: the libraries were closed, television was boring, and the only entertainment to be had outside of Mythbusters was walking to the dining hall in the rain with my umbrella. Happily, though, school soon started. I'm taking five classes.

Human Geography:
– the geography of language, religion, economic systems, etc. This class isn't required but I'm taking it regardless because I enjoy the subject. I like the humanities.

English History from the Roman Conquest to Elizabeth I:
– This class is packed, which is strange for an upper–level history course. It's also dominated by females, although it's not as if I'm complaining. Male historians tend toward being chiefly interested in military history, which bores me even though all of my papers at Montevallo have been related to military matters. I'm fairly well prepared for this class, but I don't know what my paper will be on. I'm thinking along the lines of William I's castles.

Sex, Gender Roles, and Culture:
– This class is for my sociology major. It's rather large (for a BSS class) and is likewise dominated by females. Most of the people in it are sociology or psychology majors, although there are at least two history people (myself included) in there. It's rather interesting so far.

German 201:
– We've lost a number of people from those early days in 101, but the class feels the same. Yesterday we interviewed a young Austrian woman. She actually understood my strangely–pronounced and perhaps clumsily constructed "How many generations has your family lived in Austria?" sentence. Perhaps I'm making progress at being able to use German sentence structure.

European History Since 1815
– This class meets at night, and we've only met once. As I've taken French History since 1815 and German History 1815 – 1945 and am generally interested in this era of history, I'm fairly prepared for this class and am mostly taking it because I want to learn more about the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, and the Iberian peninsula.


I don't know if my computer is dead or if it can be repaired. It dates back to 2003, so it's rather old by computing standards – especially so given that I'm a PC gamer. Do I want a new computer? Zeus, yes. I don't know how I could get one, though. I imagine even when I do find a job up here the UM cashier's office will just take it all away. If my now–comatose computer is dead, I'm going to remove the hard–drive. There's stuff on there I want. Thankfully my essays and such are online, but I had big picture collections (nature, cities, screenshots, etc) and I don't want to have to rebuild them from scratch. Not to mention the mp3s!

This I Believe

I wrote this over a year ago for when I was planning on leaving Selma for Montevallo. I never posted it, though.
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If someone had asked me what I believed in a few years ago, I would have been hard-pressed to give a sensible and sincere answer. A couple of years ago, however, I began to evaluate myself and life. I began to think on who I was as a person and what I wanted to do with my life. Up until that point in my life, all of the big questions had been answered by the religion I was raised in. Despite my embracing the faith of my parents, I found that I was deeply unhappy and sought the reasons why; and I sought the remedy to my discouragement and weariness. I am happy to report that I did realize why I was unhappy, and I did find the answer to my problems. In the process, I established a new worldview -- one built upon lessons learned in childhood and supported throughout a lifetime of experience.

I believe that the only thing that ever has or ever will matter to us is the needs of humanity. For this reason, I have no sympathy for gods who demand worship and threaten torture. If they are real, then I pity them -- because they are lesser beings than we have grown to be. I have never been attracted to the idea of streets of gold and walls of jasper, but I have longed for Heaven on Earth. It is my heart’s desire to see people united in love for one another -- overcoming the boundaries of language, ethnicity, religion, and nationality. I spurn any idea that promotes divisiveness. Is a united and healthy Earth an impossible ideal? Perhaps, but think how wonderful just realizing part of that ideal would be. It is this idealism, born of love for humanity, that drives me. Because this idealism has served me so well, I give no quarter to ideas that would rob me or other people of that idealism by telling us that we are worthless and depraved or dependent upon anything but ourselves to effect the changes we need to see. That idea is worthless and depraved. I believe in the power of idealism: I believe we can be better than we are, and that we should set goals for ourselves. Even if we don’t reach them, we are made better by our struggle to overcome our failings. To lose faith in ourselves is to die -- as individuals, as a society.

As I see that there is no difference between the needs of myself and the needs of my neighbors -- whether they be next door or across the oceans -- I live my life in the sprit of empathy. I strive to live in love -- to be compassionate and understand the needs of those around me. After all, that’s all that really matters. I want someone’s life to have been improved in some miniscule way by my existence here. This is done in recognition of the fact that ordinary kindnesses from other people have helped me, and I want to improve other people’s lives in the same way that mine has been improved.

Because I recognize that life is fleeting and that regret is rarely satiated, I strive to live my best life now and to realize the potential of each moment; to be as happy sitting at a red-light as I am driving through the countryside on a sunny autumn day. I recognize that I will have good days and I will have bad days -- but I deserve neither. All I can do is appreciate and make the most of each. I do not live in the past or future, but in the present; and I make the most of it. I am in awe of the world that I live in. When I gaze out of my bedroom window and see the lush green of the trees set against the unbroken blue sky, I understand worship. I am delighted by the pursuit of knowledge, because being able to understand the world that I live in enables me to appreciate it all the more.

I see reason as a flaming sword -- not one that keeps us from paradise, but one that allows us to do away with the choking brambles of ignorance and superstition to make paradise. I recognize that the scientific method, that uncompromising search for real answers, is what has helped humanity rise “from the swamp to the stars”. Inspired by what science has achieved, I adopted the principles of freethought in my life and have found my life to be all the better because of this. I recognize that science and reason must be tempered with empathy , because as Paul Johnson once said, “The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.” The only thing that matters is people -- and that is what I believe.

This Week at the Library

Current Music: "Let the Music Play", Barry White

I started a habit over a year ago of commenting on the various books I read. While it started at this blog, this blog became inactive when I moved to university and I started doing my library posts on MySpace instead, gradually creating a separate blog for it for my own purposes. (You can click the title of this post to go there.) I do this mainly for my own benefit, as I like to keep track of the books I read.

Books in this Update:

• The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
• The History of Science from the Ancient Greeks to the Scientific Revolution, Ray Spangenburg
• Charles Darwin: the Naturalist Who Started a Scientific Revolution, Cyril Aydon

I began this week with The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin. I read this book for historical, rather than scientific, reasons. I imagine that it is of little use as a scientific text today as it was published in 1859 -- before heredity and DNA were discovered. I decided to read it to see what the book was like, since it caused such a sensation in its day. I would do the same for other historically important texts -- The Wealth of Nations, The Communist Manifesto, The Jungle, etc. As a student of history, and a fledging student of the history of science in particular, I'm quite interested in this book. It also helps to be armed with facts for those chance encounters with fundamentalists who are prone to saying "Darwin said…". I figure if I read The Origin of Species, I could call them on their BS promptly. (Some people hunt. I call BS. We all have our sports.)

The Origin of Species, despite being written in the Victorian era, is actually rather readable. The edition of the book I'm reading features commentary (sometimes corrective) to help put things into perspective. While Darwin's book introduced the idea of descent with modification to a larger audience than the Royal Society, his chapter on "The Struggle for Existence" bespeaks of ecology to me. I do not know enough about the history of ecology to say if many naturalists had observed it, Darwin certainly did. Take, for instance, this passage:

I am tempted to give one more instance showing how plants and animals are bound together by a web of complex relations. I find from experience that [b]umblebees are almost indispensable to the fertilisation of the heartsease and some kinds of clover. [B]umblebees alone visit red clover, as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence we may infer that, if the whole genus of [b]umble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear. The number of [b]umblebees in any district depends in a great measure on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests. Now the number of mice is largely dependent on the number of field mice, which destroy their combs and nests. Now the number of mice is largely dependent […] on the number of cats; and as Col. Newman says, 'Near villages and small towns I have found the nest of [b]umblebees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.' Hence it is quite credible that the presence of feline animals in large numbers might determine, through the intervention from mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district. "

How else to describe ecology rather than 'plants and animals bound together by a web of complex relations'? Wikipedia says that "ecology" was coined in 1866, and that its founder was Eugenius Warming. I may read more on ecology later on; it's an interesting topic. Most of the chapters are fairly interesting. I thought "Instinct" was a little dull, but other chapters, like "Geographical Distribution", made up for it. That chapter was particular interesting, as Darwin describes his experiences in probing to see how seeds could be transferred from one island to the next. Three methods he came up with were (1) seeds carried by seawater, (2) seeds in dirt clumps attached to natural debris that is shuffled from island to island through the currents, and (3) through animal scat, since birds can often be blown hundreds of miles from their natural routes by prevailing winds. Darwin actually tests these ideas -- submerging seeds in seawater to see if they would germinate, liberating seeds from animal feces and successfully planting them, etc. The man was meticulous.

Next I read The History of Science from the Greeks to the Scientific Revolution. I am enjoying a growing interest in the history of scientific thought. It combines my lifelong interest in history and a newly awakened and burgeoning affection for science rather nicely. This book was quite excellent, I thought, in presenting its information. The book is divided into three parts. The first starts the development of natural philosophy in the Greek world and its progression and moves through the death of the classical world to the rebirth of knowledge in the medieval era with Copernicus. As I read about Copernicus and Galileo (who promoted Copernicus' idea of heliocentrism), it struck me that all Copernicus had to substantiate his claim that the Earth and planets moved around the Sun rather than the reverse was simple math. All either Copernicus or Galileo could do was observe the movement of the planets and other celestial happenings and say "This is what we think is happening. It seems to fit the facts at hand." There was no hard, undeniable evidence outside of the math, and there wouldn't be until the space age. Imagine that! For hundreds of years, people were taught that the Earth moved around the sun not through undeniable evidence but through simple rational and math. As I read about this, I realized that the same was true for both Darwin and Mendel. Darwin spent years observing the natural world, just as Copernicus and Galileo observed the heavens, and then made an observation. As I found out in a later reading, Darwin's initial title for The Origin of Species began with "An Abstract of an Essay On…". Darwin's idea was just that, an idea: a mental abstraction, just like Copernicus'. Here's where it gets interesting: Darwin saw natural selection as the basis for evolution, but had no idea what made that work. How did parents pass on traits to their children -- faster limbs, bigger brains, etc? Mendel figured that out when he realized what we now call genetics, but he lacked the tools to find the actual genes that were doing what he described. Later on, DNA was discovered, meshing Darwin, Mendel, and Watson's discoveries together. I find this sequence of events uncommonly fascinating. Anyway, after finishing the introduction, the book is split into two more sections: the physical sciences and the life sciences. Both are interesting in themselves. The history of medicine isn't something I know a lot about other than what I learned in Theories for Everything, but this book's section contained a wealth of information. Speaking of Theories for Everything, I wonder if the thrilling narrative presented by that book is what prompted my interest in the history of science?

Next, I read Charles Darwin: the Naturalist Who Started a Scientific Revolution. I found this book and the one preceding it by searching for "scientific revolution" at my local library in the interests of expanding my knowledge of the history of science. It's a biography of Charles Darwin. I recently watched a video that piqued my curiosity about the life of Charles Darwin, and specifically the voyage of the Beagle. As far as narratives go, I have to say this one is excellent. Biographies can be dull despite being about an interesting personality, but this book is anything but dull. The author presents a lively telling of Darwin's life, drawing conclusions about why he was able to do what he did based on his surroundings. The book concludes by saying that Darwin was marvelously fortunate. He was born into the landed gentry, which made his life as a naturalist much easier. His father supported him financially, allowing him to spend his time doing research and writing. He married a woman who gave him immense emotional support, and he was able to surround himself with some of the leading minds of the day, who inspired and encouraged him. This book gave me new insight into Darwin and his book. I got a good laugh when perusing the "Suggested Reading". The author mentions Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, and says that Dawkins has taken Alfred Huxely's role as "Darwin's bulldog". The author says that 'like Huxeley, he is a tremendous popularizer [of science], and like Huxeley he takes no prisoners.' That's one way to characterize Richard Dawkins: a bit like saying FDR had a way with speeches.

I have other books -- namely, The History of the Ancient World, Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization, and Biology: Demystified. However, each presents problems: the first two are large, while the last is a self-teaching book, and as such I cannot read it straight through. I have to re-read sections to make sure I remember everything. I checked out Biology: Demystified in the interests of helping me better understand biology (as you might imagine) and thus far it is -- although I do have problems with the book, which I will elaborate on should I finish it and include it here.
Instead of trying to make more progress with those larger books, I decided to visit the library today (I had the day off of work because we had no work to do) and fetch some other books. I began with The History of Science in the 18th Century, which is the second book in the series that The History of Science […] to the Scientific Revolution began. Next I checked out Christopher Hitchens' god is not Great: How Religion Ruins Everything. I should note that I have read Hitchens before (his biography of Thomas Jefferson) and didn't really like his tone, which seemed to be…overly academic. I've seen the guy in interviews and enjoy him there, but not in that book. You can probably guess the book's theme from its title. I'm only reading it to say I have: I'm actually not interested in books about atheism. It does get old.

Next I'm reading -- or attempting to read -- Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. I have tried to read this book twice before, only to be stymied by the fact that my brain yelps and hides under the couch when it encounters genetics. I know a smidge more about genetics now than I do the last time I read this book two years ago, but as evidenced by the slow progress I am making in Biology: Demystified, this subject does not come easily to me. I've heard that the third time's the charm, but even if I can't get through it, I will try again. I will continue trying to read the book until (1) I die or (2) Athena tells me not to. I don't know how long I have before case one is reached, but I doubt case 2 will be realized any time soon. Why am I so determined to read this book? Because I tried once, and failed. I won't have it said of me at my funeral that a book got the better of me -- even if it was written by an Oxford professor.

Next I checked out a book on Greek mythology and I finished my round with a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. I think that's everything. I was thrilled to find the Asimov collection: I was concerned that I had read all of his short-story collections at the library.

Termination

I'm tired after a long day and a dramatic weekend. On the weekend, I decided to terminate a relationship that I've been struggling with since...September or so. When I moved to Montevallo, I immediately met and befriended a guy whom I'll name Fitzroy. We got along quite well, he and I, even though we disagreed on much. While we got along smashingly, there were problems -- namely in his treatment of people, as he constantly made fun of people. This did not sit well with me, as I saw no need for it. Because I enjoyed his company so much, though, I would ignore these incidents. When he began to make more and more snide remarks about me, though, and my writing, I began to realize that something was amiss. As time wore on, I became more and more tired of the way he treated others and myself. Things came to a head yesterday, when he decided to mock me on his website -- misrepresenting what I said in a private discussion of ours and making intensely personal attacks for the amusement of his other friends, who commented and attacked me. It was then that I realized that I was done with him. I sent him a message to inform him (rather politely) that he was an asshole for what he had just done. I no longer consider him a friend.

Making the decision to do this made my Sunday a touch dreary, and my spirits lifted only when I listened to a program of the local NPR station, "Getting Sentimental Over You". They played several Sinatra records, and those always brighten my mood. Even so, I was glad to go to bed, anticipating the workweek ahead of me and knowing that it would distract my thoughts from this affair and bring me closer to being able to not be concerned about how I am to pay for college tomorrow. Today was a full, and oddly fun day. Breaks seemed to come more quickly than they usually come, and my feet took much longer to grow tired. Around 3:50, we ran out of work and proceeded to simply clean up until we were scheduled to leave at four. At a few minutes 'til four, our supervisor advised us that we were out of work, and thus we new hires weren't needed for a while -- not until the agency we were hired from calls us.

So now I sit no closer to meeting my financial needs and one "friend" short. I'm looking for new work, and am anticipating being able to go to the library tomorrow.

Life, continued

Time for me to fly!
Oh, I've got to set myself free
Time for me to fly!
And thats just how it's got to be
I know it hurts to say goodbye
But it's time for me to fly. (REO Speedwagon, "Time For Me to Fly")


So life has continued recently, although I've been neglecting both this and my "real" journal. I'm sure future me will be angry at my current negligence, but the joke is on him -- the present is fluid, and as such present-me can't be touched.

I finished the spring semester with a 4.0, which is damned impressive given my performance in Marriage/Family, where we were routinely tested on information not covered in lectures -- our only source for information. I figured I'd do well to finish with an 86 in that class, but I took advantage of every extra credit opportunity I could. It apparently worked, as I got an A. I don't know how high, and don't especially care. It's a friggin' A. (Pun unintended.) After returning to Selma in triumph, I spent May doing nothing but looking for work, reading, and playing computer games. After a couple of weeks my life in Montevallo seemed as if but a dream. Was it only a few months ago that I lived in perpetual bliss? That is not a romanticized view of my life in Montevallo: I constantly wrote in my real journal about how damn pleasant life was there. It was amazing. I woke up, and I was happy to be there. Here...well. I'd say Selma isn't that bad, but I'm tired of it. So many tired, bad memories. But here I am, and I'm determined to make the best of it.

A few days ago, I called one of the staffing agencies in town as soon as I woke up, and lo! They had a job for me. They said it was only for four weeks, which caused me some worry. I might be able to find a job for June, July, and most of August -- but it might be a bit more difficult to find a job for just July and most of August. I figure, though, if four weeks from now arrives and I still have no job, I'm going to be kicking myself. So I took the job. It's at a factory that distributes various kinds of oily crap -- lighter fluid, lubricant for cars, windshield wiper fluid, transmission fluid, that sort of thing. My job is to dump boxes of empty jugs onto a line, where they are subsequently filled and re-boxed. On my first day there, I was given a pair of safety goggles and a back-support belt and told that I would have to turn them in at the end of every day. Damn! There went my plans to make off with them. Safety goggles would have SO caught on in Montevallo as a fashion statement.

The first day was absolutely exhausting, but things have gotten better. I know how to take advantage of lulls in production now (read: sitting down when there's no work), and I'm getting plenty of sleep. It's an unpleasant way to spend 40 hours a week, but I don't really have a choice. As Isaac Asimov said, "Miracles don't happen. Sweat happens". I can't expect the gods* to grant me a financial miracle to pay for college, so I have to work for it. Considering that I dislike getting dirty, factory work is definitely not what appeals to me. I'm not one of those people who has to work to feel good about themselves: the only reason I'm working there is for money, as distasteful as I find the premise. I'm doing so that I can go to university, enjoy life to its fullest again, and then start working in a library, where I'm working for something I BELIEVE in. This base "working for money" thing won't last too much longer.

To end on a somewhat amusing note. The people in management are all "white" and the peons all "black" -- with the exception of myself. The managers (who ride around in golf carts frowning at us) work from an office that is labeled "Overseers' Office". This carries an unfortunate connotation to a history major -- even more so considering that this place used to be a cotton mill.