Argh. I've been going through all the dresses which I custodyed (is that a verb now?) for Oktoberfest, and and so sad to find a few in need of repairs. Angry is I.
So, it's a beautiful day outside, with trees turning lovely colors and the breeze blowing, the temperature just perfectly cool after a few days of bone-chilling rain. Oh, yes. God is good to us here in the mid-southeast-central region. Coast. Thing.
However, all this good stuff does me no good--I'm stuck inside the library working on an exegesis. Wait...what am I thinking? There is the entirety of Macbeth and Othello to be read! Off I go, to a sunnier clime. Exegetical suffering may be deferred to Monday with no alteration to the warranty thereof. Must be 18 or older to play, offer not valid outside the Unuted States, void where prohibited.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Calvin and Hobbes
Well, they don’t jump off of roofs with sheets around their shoulders, but the younglings I spent yesterday afternoon with were certainly a lively bunch. You see, my roommate baby-sits for one of the professors on Monday afternoons, but she was sadly taken with a sore throat and couldn’t make it. Being the sweet and generous soul that I am, however, I offered to take her place and watch the little darlings myself. Boy, did I get a show.
The first thing that happened when I arrived was a general putting on of shoes. You see, since its been raining and the temperature has not gotten above 45 degrees in the last four days, wearing shoes while playing outside is usually considered a good thing. Yeah. Anyway, we all put on our shoes and I got to (slowly) accustom myself to the crown, which moved at a rate of velocity roughly equivalent to that of electrons. I could have sworn when I arrived there were ten heads running around that yard, in various sizes, and stages of undress. “Maddie, put your shirt on.” Anyway, after a while the movement slowed to light speed and I began learning names, connecting faces, and getting a more accurate body count.
There were only nine.
The fifteen, fourteen, and twelve year olds took care of themselves. They found food (all boys) and trooped upstairs to promptly be quiet for the ensuing two hours. That left me six. Twins age of ten (boys), a seven, a five (both boys), a three, and a one (both girls). Hoo-boy. The really fun part was when they had me guess all their middle names (each has two). I had the first names given to me by mom and they were pretty easy, being largely drawn from the canon of the Mass. However, the saints in the middle were a little more obscure. I felt somewhat uneducated when I was guessing name number four.
“This saint talked to the fish and when he died everything shriveled up but his tongue.”
Turned out, it was St. Anthony of Padua. Cool. Only a ten-year-old boy could find it in his unsqueamish little heart to give the babysitter that clue. I guessed most of the rest of them with ease, though, once some obscure feature was trotted out for my guessing aid and enjoyment. These are really well-rounded kids, man! I mean, the next thing that happened was a play production, of all things. They sat me down in the darkened bedroom (bunk beds make a better puppet theatre than any other article of furniture have ever seen) got all the little ones quiet, and a ten and a seven performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It went like this:
Mickey Mouse: Hello, everyone! I’m here to introduce our play, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the star of the show, Donald Duck.
[enter Donald, left]
Donald Duck: Hello!
MM: Okay, let’s begin!
[exit Mickey right, Donald left]
[enter Donald, lies down and begins to snore]
[enter Mickey, with Lincoln Log gun]
MM: Wake up, Donald! It’s time to go hunting!
DD: Oh, boy!
[produces Lincoln Log gun from thin air]
DD: Let’s go this way!
[they hunt up left, down right]
MM: Nope, let’s try the other way!
[hunt up right, down left]
DD: There’s something!
[sounds of gunfire, giant stuffed duck enters center, quite dead]
MM: Yay! Let’s cook him!
DD: Yeah!
[they cook the duck and eat him, duck exit up]
MM: Time to throw out the bones!
[various Lincoln Log bones are spewed forth from the stage into the audience. One-year-old’s face covered by babysitter]
DD: That was great!
[exit Mickey, scene change, Donald sleeping]
DD: (waking up) Wow. What a great dream that was!
[enter Mickey]
MM and DD: The End! (bow)
[curtain]
I kid thee not. I’m going to write a paper on it for my Shakespeare class someday. It was just too rich. Anyway, I recovered from that to my immense self-satisfaction, no diaphragm muscles were damaged, and we moved on to something slightly less edifying, yet still culturally rich. Catholic Simon Says. This disintegrated into a tickling party after a while, though, so we got up and decided to play the piano. This was the miracle bit. Each one of the noisy, rambunctious, excitable little guys say down in some manner or another (theoretically the feet should be closer to the ground than the head, but I’m not picky) and watched me play the piano. I sight read a Chopin Waltz for them, played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata for them, and then (really impressive) did the Pink Panther Theme. That was their favorite.
In fact, when mom got home that was the first thing she was told.
“Mom she plays Pink Panther!”
“He’s wearing my shoes even though they’re to big and I can’t wear his make him give them back!”
“Can I go to Cameron’s house?
“No, I didn’t finish my school!”
“I’d hadded a dordy diaper, mommy!”
“Aaaaaaa burble burble.”
“And she’s the first babysitter we’ve had who was good at piano and she’s the weirdest babysitter we’ve ever had and she’s left handed!”
I think I made an impression. Mom asked me if I’d come armed when I return on Monday to watch them again.
The first thing that happened when I arrived was a general putting on of shoes. You see, since its been raining and the temperature has not gotten above 45 degrees in the last four days, wearing shoes while playing outside is usually considered a good thing. Yeah. Anyway, we all put on our shoes and I got to (slowly) accustom myself to the crown, which moved at a rate of velocity roughly equivalent to that of electrons. I could have sworn when I arrived there were ten heads running around that yard, in various sizes, and stages of undress. “Maddie, put your shirt on.” Anyway, after a while the movement slowed to light speed and I began learning names, connecting faces, and getting a more accurate body count.
There were only nine.
The fifteen, fourteen, and twelve year olds took care of themselves. They found food (all boys) and trooped upstairs to promptly be quiet for the ensuing two hours. That left me six. Twins age of ten (boys), a seven, a five (both boys), a three, and a one (both girls). Hoo-boy. The really fun part was when they had me guess all their middle names (each has two). I had the first names given to me by mom and they were pretty easy, being largely drawn from the canon of the Mass. However, the saints in the middle were a little more obscure. I felt somewhat uneducated when I was guessing name number four.
“This saint talked to the fish and when he died everything shriveled up but his tongue.”
Turned out, it was St. Anthony of Padua. Cool. Only a ten-year-old boy could find it in his unsqueamish little heart to give the babysitter that clue. I guessed most of the rest of them with ease, though, once some obscure feature was trotted out for my guessing aid and enjoyment. These are really well-rounded kids, man! I mean, the next thing that happened was a play production, of all things. They sat me down in the darkened bedroom (bunk beds make a better puppet theatre than any other article of furniture have ever seen) got all the little ones quiet, and a ten and a seven performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It went like this:
Mickey Mouse: Hello, everyone! I’m here to introduce our play, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the star of the show, Donald Duck.
[enter Donald, left]
Donald Duck: Hello!
MM: Okay, let’s begin!
[exit Mickey right, Donald left]
[enter Donald, lies down and begins to snore]
[enter Mickey, with Lincoln Log gun]
MM: Wake up, Donald! It’s time to go hunting!
DD: Oh, boy!
[produces Lincoln Log gun from thin air]
DD: Let’s go this way!
[they hunt up left, down right]
MM: Nope, let’s try the other way!
[hunt up right, down left]
DD: There’s something!
[sounds of gunfire, giant stuffed duck enters center, quite dead]
MM: Yay! Let’s cook him!
DD: Yeah!
[they cook the duck and eat him, duck exit up]
MM: Time to throw out the bones!
[various Lincoln Log bones are spewed forth from the stage into the audience. One-year-old’s face covered by babysitter]
DD: That was great!
[exit Mickey, scene change, Donald sleeping]
DD: (waking up) Wow. What a great dream that was!
[enter Mickey]
MM and DD: The End! (bow)
[curtain]
I kid thee not. I’m going to write a paper on it for my Shakespeare class someday. It was just too rich. Anyway, I recovered from that to my immense self-satisfaction, no diaphragm muscles were damaged, and we moved on to something slightly less edifying, yet still culturally rich. Catholic Simon Says. This disintegrated into a tickling party after a while, though, so we got up and decided to play the piano. This was the miracle bit. Each one of the noisy, rambunctious, excitable little guys say down in some manner or another (theoretically the feet should be closer to the ground than the head, but I’m not picky) and watched me play the piano. I sight read a Chopin Waltz for them, played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata for them, and then (really impressive) did the Pink Panther Theme. That was their favorite.
In fact, when mom got home that was the first thing she was told.
“Mom she plays Pink Panther!”
“He’s wearing my shoes even though they’re to big and I can’t wear his make him give them back!”
“Can I go to Cameron’s house?
“No, I didn’t finish my school!”
“I’d hadded a dordy diaper, mommy!”
“Aaaaaaa burble burble.”
“And she’s the first babysitter we’ve had who was good at piano and she’s the weirdest babysitter we’ve ever had and she’s left handed!”
I think I made an impression. Mom asked me if I’d come armed when I return on Monday to watch them again.
Most Decorated Boat Honored With Coin
After completing nineteen daring deployments over a stunning thirty year career, The U.S.S. Parche, the most decorated boat in U.S. Navy history, lowered her colors for the last time in the fall of 2004.Parche (pronounced PAR-chee) was the last of the Navy’s thirty-seven Sturgeon-class attack submarines to be decommissioned. During her career, Parche earned an unprecedented nine Presidential Unit Citations. Additonally, the sub was awarded ten Navy Unit Commendations and thirteen Navy Expeditionary Medals. Parche also holds the U.S. record for submerged endurance.
During one of the boat’s legendary deployments in 1982, under the leadership of Captain Peter Graef, Parche maintained submersion for an amazing 124 days before resurfacing.
Demonstrating its remarkable endurance, Parche came close to breaking its own record in 2002, when the boat and her crew completed a 121-day submerged deployment.
Many former crewmembers expressed the desire to commemorate Parche after learning she was going to be taken out of active duty after thirty years of service, but one man stepped forward and took up the challenge. In anticipation of Parche’s decommissioning ceremony, Senior Chief Petty Officer Shaun Peirsel, who served on board Parche from May of 2000 until August of this year, spearheaded an effort to have a special commemorative coin made to honor the service of the boat and her crew. “I wanted to do something special to honor the ship’s history and to help carry on her name,” Peirsel said. “The coin seemed to me to be the best way to make it happen.”
With this goal in mind, Peirsel began to sketch out the coin’s design. In early 2004, he set out to find a company capable of transforming his vision into reality. After months of scouring the internet, he made contact with Northwest Territorial Mint. Working closely with the company’s design team, he was able to create a unique commemorative coin worthy of Parche’s proud heritage.
More than just a symbol of Parche, the 1,100 coins produced by Northwest Territorial Mint exclusively for the boat’s decommissioning were made from metal taken directly from the Parche itself. Eighty-seven of the original 1,100 coins that were produced at Northwest Territorial Mint’s facility in Auburn, Washington were presented in August of 2005 to the members of Parche’s final crew. These eighty-seven coins contained a special reverse and were inscribed with the names of the respective crew members.
The remaining 1,013 coins, which were distributed to Parche’s past crew members, featured a more generic reverse and were not inscribed with the names of the recipients. With the original coins distributed, Northwest Territorial Mint has announced plans to mint a second coin commemorating Parche. The new coins will be struck using the same die as the original but will not contain any metal from the boat.
The first Parche (SS 384) was commissioned in 1943 and earned acclaim during World War II as part of the Navy’s famous Pacific Submarine Force. During her five years of service, the boat earned two Presidential Unit Citations.
“All of us who served on Parche were aware of how important that first boat was,” said Peirsel. “We were proud to continue in that great tradition.”
The reverse of the coin that Peirsel helped to design bears the shield of the Parche, inscribed with the Latin phrase “Par Excellence,” the motto shared by both boats. Parche is depicted returning from her last mission on the coin’s obverse. Flying high above her deck are the Presidential Unit Citation and Navy Unit Commendation flags.
The new coin salutes Parche’s outstanding service to the Navy and the nation at large. As he considered the final commemorative coin, Chief Peirsel said “I hope it helps people come to appreciate Parche and how important the ship was to America’s naval history.”
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Good stuffs.
Hey, peoples. I added a bunch of new links to the sidebar, all blogs of good friends. Check them out.
Fall break has been a whirlwind--only two full days left of it, and those will be spent in peace and quiet at the convent! I'm so excited...three days with nuns and their wonderful cooking. I love it.
It seems like I've done nothing all week but spend money. Buying clothing is a depressing, boring, and not-really-fun-at-all occupation, which I plan on not doing at all for at least the next seven years or so. There's going to be a shopping famine in my house, just you wait and see.
Oh well. Buying lunch for the birthday girl and fun stuff like that was totally worth it. I'd do it again. But not for a whole week, gosh, no. My poor mommy hasn't gotten to see me at all. I think she misses me, judging from the longing look I get across the dinner table from time to time.
Fall break has been a whirlwind--only two full days left of it, and those will be spent in peace and quiet at the convent! I'm so excited...three days with nuns and their wonderful cooking. I love it.
It seems like I've done nothing all week but spend money. Buying clothing is a depressing, boring, and not-really-fun-at-all occupation, which I plan on not doing at all for at least the next seven years or so. There's going to be a shopping famine in my house, just you wait and see.
Oh well. Buying lunch for the birthday girl and fun stuff like that was totally worth it. I'd do it again. But not for a whole week, gosh, no. My poor mommy hasn't gotten to see me at all. I think she misses me, judging from the longing look I get across the dinner table from time to time.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Librarian Finds Lost Beethoven Score in Dusty Cabinet
( Historic work missing for 115 years gives rare insight into composer's methods)by Jamie Wilson in Washington
Friday October 14, 2005
The Guardian
A handwritten score of one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most revolutionary works has been discovered by a librarian cleaning out a cabinet in a seminary in Pennsylvania after being missing for more than a century.
The 80-page manuscript for a piano version of Grosse Fuge, thought to have been written by Beethoven himself, dates from the final months of his life when he was completely deaf. The work was described by scholars of the German composer yesterday as an "amazing find" and "extremely important".
The lost work came to light in July when Heather Carbo, a librarian at the Palmer Theological Seminary outside Philadelphia, was cleaning out an archival cabinet.
"It was just sitting on the shelf, I was in a state of shock," she told the New York Times. "I'd heard oral history about a Beethoven manuscript, so I recognised what I had found immediately."
The fate of the manuscript has been one of the great musical mysteries since it was auctioned in Berlin in 1890. It is written mainly in brown ink and was described by the New York Times as a furious scattering of notes across the page, with many changes and crossings out.
The work, which went on display yesterday at the evangelical seminary, will be sold at Sotheby's in London on December 1 and is expected to fetch around £1.5m.
Grosse Fuge was composed as the finale for the string quartet in B flat major, Op 130, which Beethoven began in May 1825 and completed in September of that year. It is a notoriously difficult work, and when first performed the audience apparently demanded encores of only two of the movements. "Why not the fugue?" Beethoven demanded. "Cattle! Asses!" he is reputed to have shouted. But despite criticism by contemporaries it is now seen as one of his most important works.
The composer later produced a version for piano, and it is a manuscript of that reworking that has been discovered in Pennsylvania. Stephen Roe of Sotheby's said it was an amazing find: "The manuscript was only known from a brief description in a catalogue in 1890 and it has never been seen or described by Beethoven scholars. Its rediscovery will allow a complete reassessment of this extraordinary music."
Maynard Solomon, a biographer of Beethoven and a world expert on the composer, who has seen a selection of pages from the manuscript, said it was an extremely important find. "It is in beautiful condition and has many interesting compositions and will be the subject of much analytical work because it fills an important gap in the compositional history of one of Beethoven's major works."
Dr Roe said the manuscript was written in brown and black ink, sometimes over pencil, and includes annotations in pencil and red crayon. It shows the extent of Beethoven's reworkings and includes deletions, corrections and deep erasures - occasionally the paper is rubbed right through leaving small holes - smudged alterations and several pages pasted over the original or affixed with sealing wax. The passion that Beethoven endured is also in evidence on the manuscript: the higher and more intense the music becomes the larger the notes.
"What this document gives us is rare insight into the imponderable process of decision-making by which this most complex of quartet movements is made over into a work for piano four hands," Richard Kramer, a musicologist at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York, told the New York Times.
The manuscript last surfaced at an auction in Berlin in 1890 where it appears to have been purchased by William Howard Doane, a Cincinnati industrialist and hymn writer.
Stuff and nonsense.
I've been alerted to a very interesting blog, which has some neat insight from a Marine currently in Iraq. I thought it was cool.
Yep. And the quarter is winding down and fall break begins at 0920 tomorrow morning. I'm excited. My dear widdle roommates are coming home with me for the week, and we're going to get to go see them nuns from the sidebar, and all sorts of good things are going to happen.
Right now, though, I'm waiting for my fmaily to arrive from their long and arduous drive, at which point I will greet them, send them to their hotel, and promptly head inside to throw a party for roommate number two. At midnight. Considering the fact that I got up at 5 this morning, that really counts for something. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm being psychotically wierd right now, which means I should probably run back and pack my little self up so's I can leave in the morning. Yeah....bye. I'll probably blog over break while I'm writing all those papers that are due.
Yep. And the quarter is winding down and fall break begins at 0920 tomorrow morning. I'm excited. My dear widdle roommates are coming home with me for the week, and we're going to get to go see them nuns from the sidebar, and all sorts of good things are going to happen.
Right now, though, I'm waiting for my fmaily to arrive from their long and arduous drive, at which point I will greet them, send them to their hotel, and promptly head inside to throw a party for roommate number two. At midnight. Considering the fact that I got up at 5 this morning, that really counts for something. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm being psychotically wierd right now, which means I should probably run back and pack my little self up so's I can leave in the morning. Yeah....bye. I'll probably blog over break while I'm writing all those papers that are due.
Beardless in Front Royal
I just gave the lab tech a good laugh. You see, his most definitive characteristic for most of the year was a big, thick, long, dark beard. I mean, this was one heck of a beard for a young man of nineteen summers to be sporting. Anyway, he had this beard at the beginning of the semester when we all had identification cards and things like that issued. This included the photograph which is next to his name on the list of lab technicians. When Mr. Beard is on duty, there is a poster next to the doorway which denotes who is on duty, and a photograph is included for the benefit of the computer crashers and printer killers on campus.
Mr. Beard was well known on campus, and everyone knew him by that beard. Until one day. When the amazing happened.
He shaved.
Oh, wow.
Now he has no beard. His face looks…different. His entire person looks…different. Wow.
Anyway, I approached him just a few minutes ago and asked whether he was planning on perpetrating a heinous crime over break and his shocked response was, “No! Umm…why?” I then went on to explain that a classic sign of criminal behavior is to disseminated one’s photograph widely, then dramatically alter one’s appearance so that the photographs are all rendered ineffectual.
He laughed long in hard as a response to my explanation, and I passed on. My work here is done.
Mr. Beard was well known on campus, and everyone knew him by that beard. Until one day. When the amazing happened.
He shaved.
Oh, wow.
Now he has no beard. His face looks…different. His entire person looks…different. Wow.
Anyway, I approached him just a few minutes ago and asked whether he was planning on perpetrating a heinous crime over break and his shocked response was, “No! Umm…why?” I then went on to explain that a classic sign of criminal behavior is to disseminated one’s photograph widely, then dramatically alter one’s appearance so that the photographs are all rendered ineffectual.
He laughed long in hard as a response to my explanation, and I passed on. My work here is done.
Too good to be true!!
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Trailing by seven points against Air Force with 3 minutes left, Navy appeared destined to relinquish its grip on the coveted Commander-in-Chief's Trophy.The Midshipmen had gone 24 minutes since their last touchdown, and now they faced a fourth down on their own 29.
"We stayed calm,'' quarterback Lamar Owens said. "We can score quickly when we are doing things right.''
Owens ran 2 yards for a first down, and Navy scored 10 points in the final 2{ minutes to pull out a 27-24 victory Saturday.
Joey Bullen kicked a 46-yard field goal with 0.4 seconds left, capping a stunning comeback before 35,211 rain-soaked, appreciative fans.
Three plays after Owens' first-down rush, Reggie Campbell tied it with a 40-yard run with 2:22 to go. Then, after a shanked 9-yard punt by Air Force's Donny Heaton, the Midshipmen moved 7 yards to set up Bullen's game-winner.
"We just found a way to make one more play at the end,'' Navy coach Paul Johnson said.
The victory gives Navy (2-2) a leg up in its quest to retain the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, awarded to the team with the best record in games between the three major service academies. Navy won it in 2003 and 2004, and will retain the trophy unless winless Army beats Air Force and Navy.
"We now control our own destiny,'' Johnson said. "We still will have to beat Army, but at least things are up to us and we don't have to worry about needing a win from someone else.''
Air Force (2-4) has lost four straight, and this one - against its archrival - surely hurt more than the rest. The Falcons never trailed until Bullen's low-flying kick sailed through the uprights.
"We had control of the football game, and we let it slip it away from us,'' Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry said.
The Falcons made one first down in the fourth quarter.
"They didn't put us away. They let us hang around,'' Owens said. "When you let a hungry team hang around, that kind of stuff happens.''
Jason Tomlinson had four catches for 114 yards and a touchdown for Navy, which has three straight wins over Air Force for first time since 1977-79.
Shaun Carney threw two touchdown passes and ran for 71 yards for the Falcons, who led 24-14 in the third quarter.
"It hurts. The goals of our program are gone,'' Carney said. "I guess it's still possible to go to a bowl game, but we've got to play for ourselves.''
Down by 10 at the half, Navy closed to 17-14 on a 61-yard touchdown pass from Owens to Tomlinson early in the third quarter.
Air Force answered with a 7-yard TD run by Justin Handley, but Navy made it 24-17 when Tomlinson's 37-yard catch led to a field goal by Bullen with 5 seconds left in the third quarter.
The Midshipmen didn't get into Air Force territory again until Campbell caught a 29-yard pass one play before his touchdown run.
A driving rain let up before the start of the game, but the wet field contributed to five fumbles during a sloppy first half that ended with Air Force up 17-7.
After Navy's opening possession ended with an interception, Air Force peeled off 12 straight runs, half of them by Jacobe Kendrick, to set up a 20-yard field goal by Scott Eberle.
Two plays later, Air Force linebacker Aaron Shanor recovered a fumble on the Navy 27, and the Falcons went up 10-0 on an 8-yard touchdown pass from Carney to halfback Chad Smith.
Air Force moved to the Navy 17 on its next possession, but the drive was cut short by Keenan Little's interception in the end zone. The Midshipmen then closed to 10-7 when Karlos Whittaker scored on a 3-yard run to cap a 16-play drive that consumed nearly eight minutes.
The touchdown came with 66 seconds left in the half, but Air Force wasn't done. Carney rolled to his right and threw long down the middle to a wide-open Greg Kirkwood, who caught the ball inside the 5 and squeezed into the end zone with 6 seconds left.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth.
We call it an eclipse, and it has singlehandedly saved more herioc storybook characters than any other natural phenomenon on the planet. But that has nothing to do with this. This is an 'I'm still alive' post. I'm still alive.
School has been going quite well. I'm getting away with what I hope is an A- average (or it will be when I get a certain exam back), everything looks tasty, and there is only one paper and two exams between me and a week of freedom. Freedom being a relative term, of course. Freedom to write an exegesis, read all of Macbeth, read almost all of Lord Jim, write a paper on Till We Have Faces, and get geared up for spending three days with the nun. All of which I plan to do using my clone, whilst I sleep.
Actually, I think I need a little bit of that now. I'm really writing odd things. Let me compose myself and try and say something normal...
composing.....
composing.....
Allright. Highlights of the semester so far have been varied and interesting. The most recent was my involvement in the Oktoberfest event on Saturday. That was grand fun--I ran all over the countryside, going to orchards, getting straw bales, buying and carting pumpkins about, wrapping crepe paper in the German national colors all over every pillar in sight, and just generally having a crazy busy time of it for about two weeks. Lots and lots of people were extremely helpful, though, (some more than others) and so it ended up going off without a visible hitch.
That sentence should be read to mean: Few if any of the people attending were aware of how narrowly we avoided having the entire event bomb, much less how often that narrowness happened.
Oktoberfest was fun. I got my toenail busted real good in the polka contest, which means I won the prize for "leaving most blood on dance floor" (just kidding), and all the professors were telling me that the event went well, and there was good beer I'm told, and all was hunky-dory. What a wierd word....wow. Anyway. Where was I?
Oh, yes. Another highlight had been going to Washington DC every Saturday to pray and counsel at the abortion clinic. We did not go this past saturday due to Oktoberfest, and I really missed it. The chance to get away and concentrate on the prayer and everything is nice, because its so easy to get distracted by school and things while on campus. I enjoy going, and I hope that the situation with our transportation (its a little shaky from week to week) gets itself all sorted out, especially since the winter months mean many fewer trips because of bad weather. Our chances to go are mainly in the fall and spring.
Yet another highlight was the recent rash of really rambunctious pranks we had going on. For example, a group of gentlemen arrived home one afternoon to find only the controllers missing from their Nintendo and Playstation systems. They're also missing a camoflauge suit, too, but I don't know if they've discovered it's absence. Then, there was the great pillow steal, and the great pillow return, and the great throw-the-head-ra's-furniture-out-the-window-on-a-school-night-because-you-can prank, and the steal-the-head-ra's-ties-and-give-them-to-everyone-to- wear-the-next-day prank, and the steal-darth-vader-and-put-him-at-the-podium-in-the-commons-for-breakfast-to-give-everyone-a-heart-attack prank, and many others. That was a good week.
Academically speaking, I can't tell you much. Having spent a year here now and become better able to see how the liberal arts system of education works, I have a little more insight. I now understand that having history, theology, philosophy, and political science all overlap in their course material is a good thing. Reinforcement, as it were, in addition to the obvious fact that you get all this really neat perspective on what you learn, be hearing about it from different angles. For example. we read Machiavelli for history the week before he got brought up in polysci, and now we all know what our philosophy and theology professors are talking about when he gets mentioned. Very cool stuff.
However, the cool stuff will have to be on hold till I get back on here to waste time. A paper wants writing (due next friday) and I've a test in literature in 44 hours.
School has been going quite well. I'm getting away with what I hope is an A- average (or it will be when I get a certain exam back), everything looks tasty, and there is only one paper and two exams between me and a week of freedom. Freedom being a relative term, of course. Freedom to write an exegesis, read all of Macbeth, read almost all of Lord Jim, write a paper on Till We Have Faces, and get geared up for spending three days with the nun. All of which I plan to do using my clone, whilst I sleep.
Actually, I think I need a little bit of that now. I'm really writing odd things. Let me compose myself and try and say something normal...
composing.....
composing.....
Allright. Highlights of the semester so far have been varied and interesting. The most recent was my involvement in the Oktoberfest event on Saturday. That was grand fun--I ran all over the countryside, going to orchards, getting straw bales, buying and carting pumpkins about, wrapping crepe paper in the German national colors all over every pillar in sight, and just generally having a crazy busy time of it for about two weeks. Lots and lots of people were extremely helpful, though, (some more than others) and so it ended up going off without a visible hitch.
That sentence should be read to mean: Few if any of the people attending were aware of how narrowly we avoided having the entire event bomb, much less how often that narrowness happened.
Oktoberfest was fun. I got my toenail busted real good in the polka contest, which means I won the prize for "leaving most blood on dance floor" (just kidding), and all the professors were telling me that the event went well, and there was good beer I'm told, and all was hunky-dory. What a wierd word....wow. Anyway. Where was I?
Oh, yes. Another highlight had been going to Washington DC every Saturday to pray and counsel at the abortion clinic. We did not go this past saturday due to Oktoberfest, and I really missed it. The chance to get away and concentrate on the prayer and everything is nice, because its so easy to get distracted by school and things while on campus. I enjoy going, and I hope that the situation with our transportation (its a little shaky from week to week) gets itself all sorted out, especially since the winter months mean many fewer trips because of bad weather. Our chances to go are mainly in the fall and spring.
Yet another highlight was the recent rash of really rambunctious pranks we had going on. For example, a group of gentlemen arrived home one afternoon to find only the controllers missing from their Nintendo and Playstation systems. They're also missing a camoflauge suit, too, but I don't know if they've discovered it's absence. Then, there was the great pillow steal, and the great pillow return, and the great throw-the-head-ra's-furniture-out-the-window-on-a-school-night-because-you-can prank, and the steal-the-head-ra's-ties-and-give-them-to-everyone-to- wear-the-next-day prank, and the steal-darth-vader-and-put-him-at-the-podium-in-the-commons-for-breakfast-to-give-everyone-a-heart-attack prank, and many others. That was a good week.
Academically speaking, I can't tell you much. Having spent a year here now and become better able to see how the liberal arts system of education works, I have a little more insight. I now understand that having history, theology, philosophy, and political science all overlap in their course material is a good thing. Reinforcement, as it were, in addition to the obvious fact that you get all this really neat perspective on what you learn, be hearing about it from different angles. For example. we read Machiavelli for history the week before he got brought up in polysci, and now we all know what our philosophy and theology professors are talking about when he gets mentioned. Very cool stuff.
However, the cool stuff will have to be on hold till I get back on here to waste time. A paper wants writing (due next friday) and I've a test in literature in 44 hours.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Terri Schiavo's Parents Address Local Baptist Convention
by John Graeber
posted October 3, 2005
In a brief, emotional moment at Highland Park Baptist Church Monday night, Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents of Terri Schiavo addressed the Southwide Baptist Fellowship, a conference for Baptist ministers.
Looking weary Bob Schindler strengthened his voice to say, "If not for God we could not have endured this process." He expressed their profound gratitude for the support they have received from the Christian community during an ordeal that is still very real and present in their lives.Mr. Schindler went on to say that "people like Terri are victimized and nobody knows about it." He related how "many families have shared with them how their loved ones are being murdered."
Dr. David Gibbs III, one of the Schindlers' attorneys, described at length Terri's condition and described the last days of her life. Sharing how her health rapidly deteriorated, her demeanor changing from outgoing and engaging, to a struggle for survival, Dr. Gibbs asked how a civilized nation could allow a person to be "put to death in such a barbaric fashion." He also related how foreign journalists would ask "by what moral authority does the United States let this woman die."The crowd at Highland Park stood to their feet as the Schindlers werepresented with a plaque to recognize their long and hard fight on behalf of their daughter.
The Southwide Baptist Fellowship was honoring the Schindlers "for their courageous stand defending the life of their daughter, Terri Schindler-Schiavo."The Southwide Baptist Fellowship is celebrating its 50th anniversary at Highland Park Baptist Church.
posted October 3, 2005
In a brief, emotional moment at Highland Park Baptist Church Monday night, Bob and Mary Schindler, the parents of Terri Schiavo addressed the Southwide Baptist Fellowship, a conference for Baptist ministers.
Looking weary Bob Schindler strengthened his voice to say, "If not for God we could not have endured this process." He expressed their profound gratitude for the support they have received from the Christian community during an ordeal that is still very real and present in their lives.Mr. Schindler went on to say that "people like Terri are victimized and nobody knows about it." He related how "many families have shared with them how their loved ones are being murdered."
Dr. David Gibbs III, one of the Schindlers' attorneys, described at length Terri's condition and described the last days of her life. Sharing how her health rapidly deteriorated, her demeanor changing from outgoing and engaging, to a struggle for survival, Dr. Gibbs asked how a civilized nation could allow a person to be "put to death in such a barbaric fashion." He also related how foreign journalists would ask "by what moral authority does the United States let this woman die."The crowd at Highland Park stood to their feet as the Schindlers werepresented with a plaque to recognize their long and hard fight on behalf of their daughter.
The Southwide Baptist Fellowship was honoring the Schindlers "for their courageous stand defending the life of their daughter, Terri Schindler-Schiavo."The Southwide Baptist Fellowship is celebrating its 50th anniversary at Highland Park Baptist Church.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Some stuff....
Courtesy of a friend of mine....history as it really happened.
1.. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
2.. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"
3.. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.
4.. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
5.. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
6.. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
7.. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
8.. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java.
9.. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
10.. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out:"Tee hee, Brutus."
11.. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them. 12.. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw.
13.. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
14.. In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.
15.. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
16.. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."
17.. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
18.. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroicouplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.
19.. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
20.. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
21.. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
22.. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
23.. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of The Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
24.. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
25.. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
26.. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
27.. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.
28.. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
29.. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.
30.. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
31.. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the steamboat.
1.. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
2.. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"
3.. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.
4.. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
5.. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
6.. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
7.. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
8.. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits, and threw the java.
9.. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
10.. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out:"Tee hee, Brutus."
11.. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them. 12.. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw.
13.. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
14.. In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.
15.. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
16.. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."
17.. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
18.. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroicouplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.
19.. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
20.. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
21.. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
22.. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.
23.. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of The Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
24.. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
25.. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
26.. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
27.. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.
28.. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
29.. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.
30.. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
31.. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the steamboat.
The Blog is dead....long live the blog.
If you want something giggle productive, honey, you're going to need to visit a blog other than mine. I've got 27 hours to submit an exegetical topic which I haven't even chosen yet, I've got a paper due Wednesday, an exam friday, a newsletter to mail, my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it.
I'm swamped. Get with me in about three years when I've done graduated and have time on my hands.
I'm swamped. Get with me in about three years when I've done graduated and have time on my hands.
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