Here's the deal, folks. I went in and talked to my advisor yesterday and got a tentative graduation schedule, as well as the complete list of all the classes I need to take in order to graduate. There are 18 classes left for me to take. If I take 18 credits next semester, 2 in the summer, a recommended GRE course in the second half of the summer, and 18 credits the following semester, I can walk away with a Bachelors Degree in Psychology. If I do this, I won't be able to work very much, which means that student loans and I will be fast friends. This is a little scary to me. The thing that scares me is my lack of ability to work hard when I don't want to. I'm hoping that this will be just what I need, a schedule to follow and enough things to keep me busy that I won't have time to stop. I figure though that it can't be worse than I have been doing. This semester is not one of the highlights of my life, academically speaking.
Another thing that kind of freaks me out is that I don't know that I'll have time for anything but school, including work, music, or girlfriend. Without work, I am afraid I won't be able to afford life. Without music, I'm afraid my brain will melt out. Without girlfriend, I don't know. I know I can live without a girlfriend since I've done it for so long, but I don't know that I want to give up Kana just yet. Then again, she may just want to give me up.
I need more sleep. I need to graduate. I don't know if I have either in me.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
it is late, tralala
Ja ne panimaju kak ja, ka*di raz - tot 4elovek. Ka*di. Sevodnja ve4erom ja poznokomilsja s krasivoj devu4koj, no ja prosto ne kak ne smog bitj soboj.
I am too tired. I should be in bed. This should not be published because it makes no sense.
Ifferentday anguagelay.
I am too tired. I should be in bed. This should not be published because it makes no sense.
Ifferentday anguagelay.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thoughts on a book, pt. 2
Check this:
"All is summed up in a prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: 'Oh God, make me a normal twentieth-century girl!' Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly, 'make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.'"
I've had several little pieces in this book really jump out at me, but for some reason I felt like this was an important thing to think about. Screwtape is giving a toast at a graduation ceremony and is talking about the way that modern life is making less of us all because we want it to. Too true. How many people do we know who simply go with whatever is popular at the moment? How many people do we see walking around looking like fools because it's what it fashionable? I know that in Provo, this mindset of idiocy abounds. People will follow the idiot crowd all the way off the cliff of indecency if given the chance, and it's like it's what they want more than anything else! There's no reason for any of them to think for themselves because the mass cloud of smug over their heads dictates their thoughts for them. It's bothersome and makes me sick to my inside parts. To the minxes (male and female), morons and parasites, you have my pity. I can't even begin to imagine the horror that is your life of blind stupidity and blissful idiocy. You deserve it.
"All is summed up in a prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: 'Oh God, make me a normal twentieth-century girl!' Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly, 'make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.'"
I've had several little pieces in this book really jump out at me, but for some reason I felt like this was an important thing to think about. Screwtape is giving a toast at a graduation ceremony and is talking about the way that modern life is making less of us all because we want it to. Too true. How many people do we know who simply go with whatever is popular at the moment? How many people do we see walking around looking like fools because it's what it fashionable? I know that in Provo, this mindset of idiocy abounds. People will follow the idiot crowd all the way off the cliff of indecency if given the chance, and it's like it's what they want more than anything else! There's no reason for any of them to think for themselves because the mass cloud of smug over their heads dictates their thoughts for them. It's bothersome and makes me sick to my inside parts. To the minxes (male and female), morons and parasites, you have my pity. I can't even begin to imagine the horror that is your life of blind stupidity and blissful idiocy. You deserve it.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Thoughts on a book, pt. 1
I've had a copy of "The Screwtape Letters" sitting by my bed for about 2 months, and I figure that now is as good a time as any to read it. I feel very fortunate to have the ability to read good books at work. It's been good for me. I feel like all I ever write about now are books and how they make me think. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
I just want to copy out a chunk of one of the letters and leave it at that because it is something that is good that too many people don't know or chose to forget.
"But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves.; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, in not in fact, t least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. he leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone the duties that have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature that He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in this state of dryness are those which please Him best... Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
I just want to copy out a chunk of one of the letters and leave it at that because it is something that is good that too many people don't know or chose to forget.
"But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves.; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, in not in fact, t least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. he leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone the duties that have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature that He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in this state of dryness are those which please Him best... Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
Final thoughts on a book
I finished "To Kill a Mockingbird" on Monday morning and I can honestly say that I don't remember it having such an impact on me as a high school student. It was 282 pages long, but it was an incredibly easy read. I had vague memories of the two kids (what were their names?) going to the black church, though I didn't know why. I remembered the dead dog, Boo Radley saved the day somehow, and that Atticus said that killing a mockingbird is a sin because all they do is sing pretty for you (which is why my first band was named Atticus [I'm pretty sure I already said that]). This time though, there was a whole spectrum of things to see and feel.
I actually got mad at some of the characters several times in the story. A prime example of this is the Missionary Meeting that Aunt Alexandra asked Scout to join in. Those women were infuriating! Talking about how at least they weren't two faced in their dislike of black people like the Northerners. Ridiculous. I had by that point come to dislike Aunt Alexandra for the way she was always second guessing Atticus and trying to force a preconceived notion of what a woman was supposed to be like on an 8 year old girl, but the way she handled the unpleasantness was very showing that she was, in fact, a Finch. I got mad at the way Maycomb reacted to Atticus' defense of Tom Robinson. It seemed like there were a lot of people sitting in the shadows without voicing support for Atticus. It seemed wrong to me to be doing right but only in the privacy of your own mind.
Atticus is now, as he is with Neibaur, my new hero. For a fake person he seemed very tangible to me. I was impressed with the way he handled everything in his life, the way he always strived to teach his kids to behave in a truly Christian way, even if it wasn't labeled as such.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book and thought that it was important in the sense that it taught very effectively the importance of equality and the evils of silent acceptance.
I actually got mad at some of the characters several times in the story. A prime example of this is the Missionary Meeting that Aunt Alexandra asked Scout to join in. Those women were infuriating! Talking about how at least they weren't two faced in their dislike of black people like the Northerners. Ridiculous. I had by that point come to dislike Aunt Alexandra for the way she was always second guessing Atticus and trying to force a preconceived notion of what a woman was supposed to be like on an 8 year old girl, but the way she handled the unpleasantness was very showing that she was, in fact, a Finch. I got mad at the way Maycomb reacted to Atticus' defense of Tom Robinson. It seemed like there were a lot of people sitting in the shadows without voicing support for Atticus. It seemed wrong to me to be doing right but only in the privacy of your own mind.
Atticus is now, as he is with Neibaur, my new hero. For a fake person he seemed very tangible to me. I was impressed with the way he handled everything in his life, the way he always strived to teach his kids to behave in a truly Christian way, even if it wasn't labeled as such.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book and thought that it was important in the sense that it taught very effectively the importance of equality and the evils of silent acceptance.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Thoughts on a book, pt. 3
After Tom's trial and conviction, Atticus and his kids are sitting in the living room and Jem proposes getting rid of juries because of the bad verdict. Atticus says some important things that for some reason people are still struggling with. "As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men everyday of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash... Don't fool yourselves, it's all adding up and one of these days we'll have to pay the bill for it. I hope it's not in you children's time."
I think one of the reasons that Atticus is such a great character is because he is the embodiment of everything we wish we could be. I think we all wish that we could be strong in our beliefs, that we could stand in front of a mob and do nothing, that we could be called the worst insult a community has and take it in stride. He never seems to blow things out of proportion, and that's really the true definition of humility, seeing things only exactly as they are. What a stallion. And how sad that we still don't get what he was preaching through Harper Lee in 1960.
I think one of the reasons that Atticus is such a great character is because he is the embodiment of everything we wish we could be. I think we all wish that we could be strong in our beliefs, that we could stand in front of a mob and do nothing, that we could be called the worst insult a community has and take it in stride. He never seems to blow things out of proportion, and that's really the true definition of humility, seeing things only exactly as they are. What a stallion. And how sad that we still don't get what he was preaching through Harper Lee in 1960.
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