A question...

My school semester ends in a bare four weeks, which means that (for better or for worse) I'll soon be blogging again.

The problem? How in the world to regain a readership. My faithful friend and sturdy Washingtonian shelter has moved to the Ranch! My faithful friend and sturdy Pennsylvanian shelter is going to summer camp with the Marines. Who else reads my blog? What will happen?

Gasp.

"Are you a marsupial?"

My brother greeted me with the above question this morning.

Which would be fine if he weren't eighteen years old.

Marshner Thingie

Sigh. Matthew, I've started working on my thingie for Marshner (yours is due the same day, right?). It's going to be kick-butt fun doing the research, but I fear actually presenting. What are we doing? How is it not unconstitutional to be forced to give a presentation on a topic in front of a professor who knows more about the topic than anyone else probably this side of Vatican City?

Siobahn's comment on Dr. Marshner:

"Um, Dr. Marshner, I have a question about -----."
"Oh. Well, in this book I wrote about that, it says..."

You get the idea. Why does it seem appealing to me to research the General Instruction on the Roman Missal for hours? Knowing that he's going to deep fry me in better information as soon as I open my mouth?

Who is out there reading this, I wonder.

Random Nonsense?

Uh, how about a confession? I watched a bit of a Family Guy video someone showed me yesterday...and I laughed my head off. Stewie is teaching music, and he's like, 'Okay, Eric, try againg. And remember--the wrong keys are electrified." Too funny.

Don't see that movie.

Incidentally, I have a biblioraphy due for a paper without a topic, title, or thesis. Crumbs.

Something else.

Hmm....now I remember why I did't post anything for weeks and weeks. It was making me sign up for the new google-powered Blogger. And I totally lacked the time, energy, and inclination.

Hmm. Here's your post, Massew. I ruuz you!!

Dead Blog

Ugh, this is sick.

*echo*

Lordy.

*echo* echo *echo*

Remind me to post something here later, will ya?

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should. Amen.

Feast of Epiphany [celebrated]

I'll pass on that, though, because we celebrated it in my house yesterday--on the feast itself.

I spent several hours with my brother, my laptop, and three guitars the other night. We sat up till all hours searching for tab on the internet, which we proceeded to play with gusto. He's really good, and I stink, so it evened out. I now know the words to the entire chorus of Sweet Home Alabama! Go me.

So, I go back to school Thursday. I have Poetry and Poetics, Shakespeare, Social Teachings of the Church, Theology of Worship and its Music, Modern Philosophy, and Apologetics to look forward to. I have a proctorship at a house dorm, which means time 'away from campus' will be somewhat more plentiful, and I think I have a job as well. Yay!

My job here in town wound down (again) last night, with a staff dinner at the Italian place we like. Fun stuff--I was made to demonstrate the way I count on my fingers, soundly made fun of, and that was that. The trick is, of course, that I know more about the entire student body than almost anyone else in that place. They'd better be nice to me, or the mailers will never get sent out. ;-) I won't come back in the summer unless they're going to treat me right.

Electronic Guilt

I think my subconscious was in on the game when I made my blog my homepage. Considering the fact that I get online about 40 times a day, or at least open internet explorer 40 times a day, that means I get to see this page 40 times. In all it's unchanging, outdated glory.

Every morning, I get up and see that I haven't posted in a week. Blah.

Love Begins with a Dream

"Written on the heart of every person, begins Archbishop Sheen, is the image of the Love of their life. This is how we can claim to experience "love at first sight"; we have known that special someone all our life, in the form of that image inscribed within us. God, too, has within Himself blueprints of everything in the universe, and so there is an archetypal idea of every living thing on the planet.

"There is actually only one person in all humanity of whom God has only one picture, and in whom there is a perfect conformity between what He wanted her to be and what she is, and that is His own Mother. She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the world’s first love. Indeed, the very first announcement of the "good news" in salvation history, made immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve, mentions the Mother: "I will establish a feud between thee and the woman, between thy offspring and hers; she is to crush thy head, while thou dost lie in wait at her heels." (Gen.3:15)

"God specially chose her for this mission, and made it clear that just as a woman was the cause of the fall, so a woman would be the ‘cause’ of redemption. This woman, His Mother, was not like ours, whom we accepted as something historically fixed, which we could not change; He was born of a Mother whom he chose before He was born."

Carnivorous

I am dat, sho'. I mean, I run around like a maniac sometimes, craving very large servings of properly cooked meats. Good thing I don't have easy access to anyone's 4-H project, or I might start snacking on it.

So, Christmas is coming, eh? I'm ready. Bring it on.

It looked even worse in person.

Hmm. Such a sad and lonley little blog. Somehow, with life going on in the background, I'm finding less and less time to write. However, this doesn't mean I have ceased to think odd things, do stupid things, or ask dumb questions. Here are three examples, or proofs, for the existence of me:

1. I ate spice cake for lunch. Basta. Then I had skittles for dessert.

2. I yelled "touchdown!" at my brother's basketball game tuesday night. This was, admittedly, largely done on purpose and for effect, but the resulting looks told me that the humor of my faux intelligence was lost on the crowd. Sitting in an unheated gym does that to people.

3. I wondered to myself whether Huxley intended to bash, or to resign himself to, the 'social system' which built itself on abortion, cloning, genetic engineering, and widespread promiscuity. Until, that is, I remembered that he wrote the dang book about half a century before half of those things were widespread, and before some of them were even thought of as possible.

Yes, sports fans, I'm going out of my mind. Which reminds me of another direction to which I can ramble. Basketball! I have been to more basketball games in the last two weeks than in the entire rest of my life. Last night, in fact, I was feeling comfortable enough with the game to start yelling my own opinion to the coach, the players, the refs, and the concession lady. Finer points still escape me ( how do you tell what kind of a foul it was, or how many from each time line up at a foul shot?), but on the whole it's a very interesting game. Still high stress, though. It goes so fast!

I can't think of where my next ramble went. I should probably write about my grand adventures in Europe. Tune in next week.

Man Impersonates Cop to....Bowl?

SAVANNAH, Ga. (Dec. 11) - A Savannah man went to jail this weekend for impersonating a sheriff's deputy so he could go bowling. Jeffrey Eugene Ferguson, 46, pulled up to a gate at Hunter Army Airfield on Saturday and showed a guard a driver's license that was cracked in half, police said.

When the guard requested a second form of ID, Ferguson pulled out a Chatham County sheriff's lieutenant badge.

The guard called Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police, who responded and discovered Ferguson's license had been suspended for failure to pay child support, according to police Sgt. Mike Wilson. Ferguson, who was jailed on charges of impersonating a police officer, later told authorities he found the badge at a work site. He told them he was not trying to get any special police priviliges - just to get on the military post to go to its bowling alley.

A Rose by any other name...

...would be just as confused. Trust me.

I went by the store to grab a half-gallon of ice cream, right? As Mike and I are checking out, I see the cashier's nametag out of the corner of my eye, and my eye's corner gasps. Chastity? There's an outdated, Puritanical name, I muse.

No wait.

It's Chasity. Never mind. I wonder if maybe, somewhere along the line, someone just couldn't spell.

That thing you do...

Sheesh. There are entirely too many things going on in life right now. You don't want to hear about them, trust me. For starters, my standoffish cat has been traded in for some alien cat--wearing her old body, though--that cuddles and sleeps in laps all the time. It goes downhill after that, believe me.

BAY-bah!!!

Dude. I'm home now, childrens. Gimme, like, two more days to get my brain on, and you'll get posts once more.

Il bene, e il male.

The good news is, my blog still has the most recent update, even though all the groups blogs I am on still have people in the US, who theoretically have time and internet connections which promote blogging.

The bad news is, I still have a week of finals left, then a week in PA, then a week in VA, then a crazybeautiful Christmas break, then being a *@#$! proctor for the entire spring semester. You might not hear from me for a while.

Discovery, delimma, and others.

When one sleeps with one's big toe stuck through the hole in one's sock, the aforementioned toe will be quite asleep by morning. And it will hurt.

I have a problem, y'all. I joined facebook in a moment of extreme weakness. Now, I'm not sure what to do with myself...can I keep a blog running decently, and yet function on facebook?? I mean, facebook is a much more unifying, humble thing to engage in, compared with solo blogging. What do you think?

Only in America...

LIVINGSTON, Mont. (Oct. 25) - A high school principal received a six-day suspension and a letter of reprimand for giving one of his students a wedgie.

Eric Messerli pulled a Park High School senior's soccer jersey over his head and yanked upward on the waistband of the boy's underwear at a soccer game Oct. 5. Other school officials said he was joking around with the student and did it playfully. He was suspended for two days without pay and four days with pay before the school board decided Monday to let him return.

He tearfully told the board: "I've made mistakes in my life, but none have had the impact that this one has had." Messerli, who was back on the job Tuesday, will be required to talk with students and staff members about the incident to restore respect and authority. He said his first reaction was to resign, but he decided to "tackle this mess" head on.

"I want to live in a world where we don't have to hide when we screw up," he said.

Divide and Concord

The man next to me on the metro today had a big bunch of flowers in his hand, a nervous look on his face, and kept dialing the same phone number over and over. No answer. I hope she forgives him.

It appears that we have a mere month left here in Italy. Where does the time go? Sunk into classes, tests, tours, sleep, and train trips, I suppose. Speaking of, I need to get a train ticket. I also need to study for a quiz on a Ratzinger article (yay!! intellectual/theological works that are actually accessible to the average mind), and study for a history/english/theology/classics exam. Whadda class...four subjects in one. Oh, and also an acting class. Monday was "act out a scene from this book that Thomas Bowdler thought racy enough to merit expurgating" day.

We the story of the rape of Semele, but we did it politically-correct style. I didn't think it was that funny, really, but the class sure did. If I feel like embarassing myself to death, I might post the text next week.