Day 51

The night before last, an immense amount of crap blew around outside. I emerged from my dorm at about 11, after more typing on a paper, to discover branches and debris everywhere. Trees were broken in half. Our dumpster had rolled east to the top of the ridge, where it promptly fell over. I also spent the day sick, much of it in bed and when I wasn't sick in bed, I was in the library writing my paper.

Today, I stayed in bed resting through my classes, then went to the store to buy drugs for my aching head. I picked up some Buckley's (those of you who have been sick in Canada know the stuff,) tissues, and vitamin C hard candies. I do feel much better, thank you for asking, though I still have some stuff to get over.

Otherwise, I spent today reading and putting finishing touches on my paper. That's pretty much the extent of it.

I'm hungry again. I put onions and BBQ sauce on my chicken burgers at dinner, and it was pretty close to being fantastic.

Day 49-SPLAT! That's crap hitting the fan...

So today, I woke up at about 11, ate, did laundry, typed on my paper, and talked on the phone. That's about the extent of it, though around 9:15 I decided I needed some alone time and drove my truck on the freeway up to Birch Bay. Then I turned around, got Arbys, and came back. Plans were in the works for another fast food run, but I feel myself getting a cold and that's pretty lame. Tomorrow I have to get a bunch of school stuff done, so I would prefer to not be sick while that's happening.

Tootles.

It'll be Thanksgiving soon.

Day 46

Slept like crap last night. Went to sleep at about midnight with every light on, because John was still working on school stuff (or YouTube-I never know-) I had a crazy dream or spasm or something. All I know is that the lights were still on at 2:00 when I woke up yelling "NO!" and swatting my empty water bottle across the room. I remember this because John said, at this point -and I know he was talking to me because we made eye contact- "Way to go, Spiderman!" WHAT!??! That was it, because I was out again like a light. But not like ours. Because John woke me up again at 5:00 getting into bed, and didn't bother to turn the lights off. So I got up and turned all the lights off before climbing into bed once more.

Otherwise, today has been alright. I've been analyzing letters from Chinamen in John Day OR in the really late 19th century pretty much all afternoon, except for the phone call I made and the late lunch break I took right after class to go meet my friend James who was in town for the day.

Overall, I think I need to have a breakdown every once in a while to keep me from getting too comfortable, and that's what happened last night. There's a lot of things I still have to do, but it looks a little less daunting now.

Read the first half of Ecclesiastes again. Man, I love that book. I also came across a quote in one of the letters I've been working on. "Who could know that Fate is always opposite to man's design?" It's like Murphy's Law, except cooler sounding.

I think that's it for today. Overall status, I'm doing well.

45 Days of this Insanity

Today, I woke up at about 10 and made it to all of my classes, then ate lunch. Then, I came back to my dorm and spent two hours analyzing this letter from a Chinese immigrant, written in 1897. I developed two pages worth of notes on a two page letter. My head hurts. Then I pretty much played guitar, ate dinner, sat around, went to a suite meeting. No, it wasn't "sweet." It sucked. Then I watched TV, played Halo, and here I am.

Pray-ers out there. Pray for God's peace in me. Pray that I would have wisdom in all that I do and how I spend my time. It's pretty much all hitting the fan in the next week and a half, and a pot of coffee is not always an option. In addition, my brain pretty much shuts off to anything academic at about 10 PM, so pray that I would get good sleep and think clearly. It's gonna get loud around here the next few days (for the record, I will not be participating in the "festivities,") so pray that no one gets hurt Thirsty Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And I guess Sunday too, because Monday is Veteran's Day.

I think that's all.

This is my head hitting the keyboard.


7u7u

nh

Day 44. I had another one of my thoughts today

What is morality? Can anyone put a definition on it? Yet we call upon governments to regulate it, and design political parties to promote it in order to gain power in government. I know you all (all two of you who actually read this thing) know of the Moral Majority. This implies that the rest of people (non-believers according to the logic of those minds) can't possibly be moral because they don't belong to the right political party. Since I'm on my soapbox now, I have heard that a Democrat -or Liberal (you're supposed to say it with a sneer)- and I'm referring right now to Ann Coulter's book Godless, are less moral than Republicans, making the bold assertion that a belief in God is what seperates Liberals from Conservatives. I have to note here, though, that I acquired this information via TV interview with the author, and I haven't actually read the book. Yeah I know, I'm supposed to leave that out because it detracts from my argument, but it's better than someone asking me about it and me saying "Uh, yeah, I haven't actually read that." So there it is.



I'm upshifting now, since going 60 mph in third can be kind of grating. Except I'm going to skip fourth and go straight to fifth. The reason I ask this question of morality is that there are so many people that don't have Christ in their life that believe that murder, lying, and cheating are wrong. I was watching an interview with Jon Stewart and Chris Matthews in which Chris Matthews had written a book arguing that one should live their life like a politician, doing everything they could to stay on top of the system. Much to my delight, Jon Stewert let this guy HAVE IT. Stewart said that Matthew's book saddened him, that someone would promote deception (which Matthews specifically mentions) and say that that would lead to a better life for that individual. (It was also very funny because the next day, in response to Matthew's comment on the air that this was "the book interview from hell," Stewart said that it was too bad that Matthews had expected the interview to be good, because Stewart had taken the time to read Matthews' book, but Matthews had apparently neglected to ever watch Stewart's show.)



On morality though, and I am so sorry this is so disjointed, I am pretty much free-writing at this point, most of us have this innate sense of what is write and wrong. For one, to kill another human being for no reason at all is wrong. To sleep with someone else's spouse is generally considerred wrong. Now, in a non-western society, this may not be the case. And that's why I don't know what morality is. I know what I believe is moral, but my morals are likely completely different from someone elses.



I have long struggled with this idea of tolerance. Is morality dependent upon the society in which you live? I don't believe so. I am going to be "intolerant" at this point and say that there are certain things that are wrong no matter where you are. However, it's not likely I will call someone out for breaking my idea of morality. I can think one one case recently in which I had to, because I felt that it caused people to derive certain things about me that just weren't true. And of course, if we're friends and of the same belief system and you do something I believe is questionable, I will at least ask about it. For the record, I would expect my friends to do the same thing with me.



Anyway. I think my mind is tapped out on this right now. I know this, because it's starting to hurt.



Last night, John left at around 11 and I haven't seen him since. There are hardly any clothes in his closet, and he left in a hurry, although I wasn't paying attention, I just heard the door slam. I know I shouldn't, but I worry about him sometimes. I hope he didn't get hit by a truck or something. I like him too much.



It does at this point appear that B-ham has decided to rain at last, after yesterday's glorious sunshine. So I sit in my room, think, type, and play guitar, thinking about how I should be reading two books for tomorrow's lecture and discussion.

So I should probably do that.

Hope everyone's days were awesome. Or at least better than mine.

Day 42. It Took Me 6 Hours To Get Here

This weekend, I paid a visit to my hometown, the 'Couve, to play the bass on Sunday, which just happens to be today. While I was in town on "business," I was able to get out and hang out quite a bit. The end result: going to bed at about 2:00 AM each "night," not sleeping much last night, getting up and giving every ounce of energy within me back to God in worship, then hopping back on a train for a six hour ride to B-ham only to get pwned by my suitemates in a Halo match. I'm spent. AND I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR THE WORLD. I had so much fun this weekend! And I want to that everyone who saw me or that I saw for the amazing weekend. Yeah, I'm wasted. But I can rest when I'm dead. So. Thank you. You're awesome.

Otherwise, things seem to be normal here. There's a bunch of school work I have to do here, with two papers due before Thanksgiving break. So I should probably go to sleep so that I can focus on school in the morning. That's all.

Day 39- What in the WORLD does that mean?

For the last few days, I've been thinking. We all know Jefferson's words (borrowed from my good friend John Locke) in the Declaration of Independance. Ya know. Inalieable rights, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness."
The meaning of each of those terms depends drastically upon whom you ask.

For example. What is life? Breathing? Working in a cubicle all day crunching numbers? Cruising down a mountain with a piece of fiberglass strapped to your feet? Worshiping the Creator of all things in music, prayer or service? Climbing a mountain? Working in the garden? Partying until you start puking? These are all plausible answers. Here's the question; who is right? People may agree on who is right, but who really is? What Jefferson meant back in 1776 was likely completely different than what we mean now. He may have meant the simple act of breathing. Which I suppose means that people have the right to actually be alive. Ok. Fine. I'll buy that. But if all I did was breath, this would be some crummy, mundane existance.

Liberty. What does that mean? To be free? How free of a society is it when a group of friends can't ride their skateboards in a parking lot without being told that their fun is intolerable and that they can't skate on campus, like what just happened to myself a few minutes ago. The thing is, you can get a ticket for riding a skateboard anywhere in Bellingham. Some freedom. What would Jefferson say to that? Chances are, he didn't realize that the capitalism which he so willingly supported would grow so intense that the simple of breaking an arm could mean years of legal wrangling over who had to pay for it.

The pursuit of happiness. OK. This is the one that's really been on my thoughts. There's two parts to this: the "pursuit" part and the "happiness" part. The pursuit is intersting, because it sort of implies that happiness cannot be obtained. However. As a United States citizen, I have the right to try to be happy. Happiness. What does it mean to be happy? To me, the first thing that comes to mind is to be content with the situation, if only for a moment in time. Say, I'm playing the bass in a church service, and I'm helping lead people into the presence of God with the worship team, and while I'm playing, I feel so close to my Creator that I just want to dance. To me, that's happiness.

Reading in Ecclesiastes about "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" That makes me happy, because it's a really righteous guy (Solomon) being brutally honest about the world.
Ecclesiastes is what actually got me on this topic. If you own Switchfoot's album Nothing is Sound, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you need to read the entire book of Ecclesiastes, then listen to the album again. Because it's definitely a driving force in Jon Foreman's writing. I'm a student of history, and every day I become more evident of this world's brokenness. Where others see beautiful cities, I see corruption, violence and a policy of forcing Native Americans to assimilate because white people "do it better." Pastors in big churches across the country being discovered in sexual sin. Wildfires burning down people's houses. Centuries of deception and distrust in the Middle East accelerated by oil hungry, faction splitting, deceiving imperialist nations.

That's why I like Ecclesiastes. It tells me I'm not alone. One of the wisest people in the history of the world felt the same way that I do. He comes to a few conclusions. One: Have fun while it lasts. You have one chance at life on this dustball we call Earth, so make it worth every second.
Second: "Fear God and his commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgement, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil."

We've got one shot. Make it worth it.