the scary thing

Add date is next Friday, March 5.

I have now officially decided I am not staying an extra term for a second major in biology, and thus not turning in the proper forms by that date.

I make this decision because:

a. I don't want to go to grad school in biology. I had this revelation this week. While I enjoy 7.02, I don't want to do it forever. Or even for three more years.
b. I'm not sure how this degree would help me in my eventual career, whatever that may be.
c. There are definitely some classes I am excited about in the biology department here, but I would only get to take one of them next term, plus three I'm not as excited about.
d. I am finally starting to get some ideas for what I'm going to do for graduate school in fall 2011, and they are not biology centered.

I hate being almost-an-adult sometimes. I really, desperately want someone to validate my choice, to say "This is the best idea, and here is why." I'm used to being an overachiever, but all the paths traditionally open to those of my ilk -- med school, law school, MBA (maybe) -- all make me wince. I think the only thing worse than slogging through something that is not always particularly enjoyable with some vague hope of a light afterward (a la high school and MIT, thank you very much) is slogging through something with the knowledge that even if you can't find a job you like in your field, you'll be saddled with enough student debt to bring a pack of camels to their knees. This has frankly channeled a lot of my decision making in regards to grad school, because I'll be on my own paying for it. It damn well better be worth it if I'm going to be paying for it for ten years.

(It seems odd to think that maybe I am being asked to do what makes me happy, what I can dive into with joy, and not what will make me the most prestigious person with the most clout and the most money to make people listen and good things happen. (And perhaps it says something about me that this seems odd.))

(But.)

(Maybe.)

maybe

One of the blogs I read is written by a fellow student at MIT who I know peripherally (as, I'm convinced, she knows virtually the entire campus.)

She posted a video of one of her friends singing Beyoncé's "Halo," with various inducements to watch it. The funny thing is (because we don't so much run in the same circles), I know the girl in the video, because she was my first freshman year roommate.

The funnier thing is, because she was only my roommate for maybe two and a half months before she moved into a different room, seeing her reminds me of a very short, very specific frame of time, the time when I was still discovering MIT, still discovering the people here, when some people who would later become good friends seemed new and strange, and others (who I would later regard differently) seemed marvelous and exciting.

I wrote this during my first month here --

yes, three posts in one day is a bit much

But I actually wrote MOST of this post a couple days ago, so it's okay. Really.

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It turns out this whole site is worth visiting, not just for giant bunnies: VULGARE > Landscape. Landscape architecture favorites, sort of.

Mammoth. This feels like a blog that I need to get to know better before judging. It deals with architecture -- theoretical, infrastructural, fictional. It also looks to contain a lot on the marriage of architecture and building technology, a subject on which I am shamefully ignorant given my concentration. (I learned some of the technology, and I learned some of the design, but I never skilfully incorporated the two. . . ) I am a bit skeptical, but I feel that I could stand to learn a lot. . .

Hipster Puppies, also known as PUPSTERS! The only problem is that as I look at the pictures, I keep saying to myself, "But this is clearly a NICE puppy! This puppy would never say that!"

I first discovered this website when I was a senior in high school:

rain sucks.

I got home with every. single. fucking. particle. of my being dripping with water.

Also, it hurts to chew gum. Why? WHY DOES IT HURT TO CHEW GUM?

I am now sitting at my desk which is next to the rainy window with my space heater running with no pants and no socks.

---

The last few days have not been so hot on the functionality front. I have been off on my sleep schedule, unproductive, and feeling mightily stupid about the whole thing. I should go to the gym now. But it's raining. I have pottery class tonight. But it's raining. I don't know which of these problems I will be solving. (Not the rain one, unfortunately.)

My body is still pissed at me for the crap I shoveled into it yesterday -- i.e. somewhere around 7-8 cookies worth of oatmeal-coconut-almond cookie dough/finished products. (COCONUT IS SO DELICIOUS. Unfortunately so are sugar and butter.) There is an enormous bowl of bread dough waiting in the fridge to receive similar treatment -- i.e. have me eat 1/6 of it and then bake the rest. Sometimes I feel like my diet is a person, and he likes to go vacationing in the Bahamas every weekend and drives to Wisconsin sporadically during the week.

no entiendo

In Spanish, there are words of death. They are "no entiendo" (I don't understand.)

I think I may be the worst Spanish student ever.

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There is a massive post coming tonight expounding on my feelings, Luke, and my thesis.

I find it amusing and saddening that I am motivated to blog more largely because I don't like what my Wordle picture says my blog (i.e. my life) is about: Things and Coworkers.

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It's a bunny! A pink bunny.

reassessment

The only way that Lenten resolution #3 is going to work is if I actually get ahead enough to do tomorrow's work one morning ahead. After I exercise I am simply not mentally functional; doing the work in the evenings is just not my style (unless I'm desperate. See studio. See tonight's mad thesis crunch.)

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We just finished El Espinozo del Diablo (Spine of the Devil) in Spanish III, directed by Guillermo del Toro (same dude as Pan's Labyrinth. Scary movies usually suck, but this one was pretty awesome. Admittedly, it wasn't a "horror" movie per se -- too much plot and character development for that -- but rather a Gothic-ish ghost revenge story. I saw most of it last term before I dropped the class, but now I can fill in the bits that were missing. And, conveniently, I knew when to cover my eyes. Santi the ghost kid is creepy as all get out.

moral of the story

If a demure layer of cream cheese frosting is good, then a one-inch layer is better.

No one can tell the difference between allspice and cloves after it's baked.

Do not add extra salt to the French Pains au Lait; they have enough already. Adding two eggs and a cup of flour to the recipe, however, is okay.

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I HEREBY RESOLVE to do the following for Lent:

1. Read, study, and pray on one chapter of Luke each and every day (this only covers 24 days, but I'll figure something out.)

2. Give one genuine compliment to a different person every day.

3. Do my work one day before it is due. (Already failing at this one; will begin tonight.)

Dear God, please help me . . .

Lent + work makes me sad

I am deeply puzzled by the pset I am supposed to be doing right now. This means. . . I should blog.

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What to do for Lent? (yes, I realize I'm a bit late.) Last year I gave up pop, and took up incessant swearing. This year I would like to do something a bit more proactive and hopefully less detrimental to my temperament. I was thinking about trying to read a chapter of a book of the Bible every day and trying to implement something from it in my life that day or the next. (I would also find the "look up the cross-references and historical background" part of this fun.)

This should probably include praying. I suck at prayer. Prayer requires two things from me that I do not care for: a) Effort in an area I'm not already good at and b) faith that it will matter. I'm okay with the whole chatting-about-my-life-with-God thing (when I remember), but I'm not so hot on the ask-for-this-and-it-shall-be-given-to-you part. I don't know what's good to ask for (the trip to Italy is probably out, getting As in all my classes is probably sketchy, and asking to be a better Christian makes me doubt my own sincerity), and I'm not very confident that my prayer will make a difference in someone else's life. This is probably because I always suspect that if I'm praying for someone, it's because I'm too much of a chickenbutt to actually do something for him or her myself. (See: Sad, lonely, nasty people that I don't really want to try with but wish God would make less of a problem for me.)

And theoretically God is supposed to be answering these prayers. How? As someone who has been a Christian for three-ish years now, I'm still uncertain about the actual mechanism. Will I be poked to read relevant Bible verses? Will I get some kind of premonition? Will words be put in the mouth of someone close to me? Do I just have to sort of guess and hope? (I'm afraid it's the last one, which I find depressing.) Frankly, at this point in my life, I feel like God is just saying to me, "Kiddo, I'm just going to wait to talk to you until you're a little less deaf and a little more perceptive."

Bleurgh.

Anyhow, what book should I look at? Some of the histories are decidedly difficult to apply, though I like the Old Testament, and sometimes Paul just gets on my nerves. I'm thinking maybe Isaiah, or a re-reading of Psalms (except they would both be MONUMENTAL.) I do like the Old Testament, because I have a better sense of actual human beings moving around underneath the words; unfortunately, this also makes certain books (Joshua comes to mind) a challenge to my faith, because sometimes I have a hard time seeing the people as being motivated by God rather than by their own weaselly plans. I also (I think) have only read one complete Gospel, which are rather markedly important, so maybe I will just go with Mark or Luke.

I also feel like maybe I should complement this somewhat introspective study with a more obvious outward effort to be a better and (perhaps) more responsible person. A sincere compliment to someone different every day? Doing my homework a couple days ahead of time? Trying to volunteer my time somewhere each week? (I get a fair amount of emails from the Public Service Center, as well as "please help us make food!" messages from all different places.)

O Lent, what shall I do with you?

Wordle

If you want to track patterns in your blog, this is an awesome site: Wordle. (Courtesy of Cristen's blog.) It picks out words that are found frequently in your blog/site and makes a pretty picture with them.

Here's the Wordle for this site, with some editing to remove random web addresses:

I find it interesting that, even though well over half of the entries in my blog have been since I left Japan, words relating to Japan definitely dominate here. Clearly I must write more.

self-awareness

Self-awareness is a game you cannot win.

See this guy. He writes plays that are supposed to upset "p.c. liberals," though he is a liberal himself; he is a self-described racist because he recognizes the total lack of diversity in his upper-class background.

So what?

What does this self-awareness gain him besides some kind of hip edginess? Not only is he an obnoxious bastard, he knows it, too. Great.

It's very hip to be "self-aware," to be patently aware of the ridiculousness of one's own life. And in some ways this kind of self-awareness can save you possible humiliation and can lead to enlightenment about the world you live in and your relation to it.

In some other ways being self-aware strips you of the last of the human dignity that you might have scraped from the dregs. The only thing sadder than a pointless person who does irrelevant things is someone who knows he is pointless and irrelevant. See dude above; although he may not think himself pointless, he clearly believes the battle he is fighting (against presumption, self-congratulation, et cetera) is already lost, at least on his own front. So why bother fighting?

I think sometimes we accidentally end up destroying our own reality when we try to remove all of its illusions; just because it's constructed doesn't mean it's not real. See the Prudential Center vs. a mountain. Just because one is man-made and will doubtless be destroyed before the other does not, for the time it exists, make it less solid, less defining of space.

I will now quote C.S. Lewis because he is brilliant, and because if C.S. Lewis knew what was up then some other people must know too. (We aren't totally doomed as a species.)

"The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ’see through’ first principles.

If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ’see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”

Yay Clive Staples.

---

I took another walk today nstead of doing work, because I am lazy. I walked up Boylston, around the Boston Common, and back down Beacon. Then I met Mary Beth and walked to Harvard to get frozen yogurt. Life is good, even if I'm not productive.












Can't get the photos to format correctly, so bear with me. * Le sigh. *

YES,

Okay, so most people probably know Obama is not my favorite person.

That said, A History of Obama Feigning Interest in Mundane Things.

Seventh photograph. It was taken at MIT. All my course 2 (mechanical engineering friends) have had the professor on the left; he is well-known for his penchant for Utility-kilts and looking like a homeless man. The president of MIT (Susan Hockfield) is on the right.

HA!

Vagina Monologues

but first, this blog.

The Uniform Project.

It is effing AWESOME. This designer takes one black dress and wears it every day for a year, while also making sure she doesn't wear the same outfit ever.

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I have never been to see The Vagina Monologues, even though it is done at MIT every year on Valentine's Day. I sort of like the idea of it, as a medium for brutal honesty about what it means to be human and female.

But I also am hesitant, because so far as I can tell, vaginas serve three purposes: 1) To menstruate 2) To have sex 3) To get the kid out.

One of these purposes is not to be celebrated, unless you're on acid, and two of these purposes are not part of my reality at this point in time.

A show focused on vaginas, therefore, seems to be a very narrow representation of womanhood.

The vagina can serve as a metaphor, I suppose. I think part of the show is supposed to be about "reclaiming" that part of the body from male domination, and in turn reclaiming the power of defining womanhood from the domain of men. And that is legitimate. But I don't really like the idea of boiling down a person into one (kind of ugly, possibly even superfluous) part of her body even as a metaphor. Synedoche is less bothersome when it involves a more useful organ.

Also, I guess that there's one piece in it where the performers repeatedly answer the question "What My Vagina Smells Like," and I am just Not Interested.

glum today.

Probably due to a poor choice of reading material upon awakening: Pictures for Sad Children.

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This is cool, though:

I wonder if I could make something this awesome in pottery class. . .

why is it

that whenever I end up in the North End, where there are absolutely NO public toilets, I find myself desperately having to go to the bathroom?

Walked 6.5 miles today -- up Boylston Street, around the Boston Common, through Government Center, and into the North End. Then back, obviously. Good walk.

---

Whole wheat grain cereal is okay tasty. It's kind of like brown rice. I think I like oatmeal better.

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If I hadn't taken studio last term, I could have taken two -- even three -- biology classes last term, and probably graduated on time with a double major.

dear american apparel

your ads look like cheap porn. you are scum.

love, sharon.

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dear h&m,

you are good. I love my gray skirt that drapes at the front; I love my silk-and-cotton blend shirt; I love my ugly-yet-fun turquoise shoes (which were the only flats I found today that neither a) cut into my feet nor b) cost more than $40.)

love, sharon.

---

dear victoria's secret,

theoretically, seamless panties are a good thing. they help one avoid the horror that is thongs and also not feel awkward about having panty lines and not caring.

however, why do all your seamless panties feel like they are made of recycled plastic? or possibly tires?

love, sharon.

---

dear zara,

I'M COMING BACK FOR THOSE SHOES.

(after I have money.)

(and I learn to walk gracefully in heels.)

(really.)

love, sharon.

---

I obviously have been reading far too much girly blog of late; must control myself. It's rubbing off.

today is saturday. . .

I want to go shopping. I should know better.

I should clean. And do laundry. Maybe buy a new calendar, maybe go through a box of papers, maybe package something to be mailed home.

Continue my story. (I was unable to buy whole wheat grain at Whole Foods to test the breakfast food in my story. It might be repulsive. We'll see.)

Work on my portfolio. (Argh. That is forever and always an ARGH.)

Strategize homework for the week; finish my late Japanese homework.

A pleasant blog: A Cup of Jo. Mainly a list of favorites, but still fun.

dumpety dump dump

What?

Pictures!

lack of focus.

I have Japanese writing homework to be done right now. I will try to make this quick.

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Last night I went with the CCC girls to a motivational-speaker type talk with Marian Jordan, who wrote a book called Sex and the City Uncovered. No, I haven't read it; I am more interested in her two other books: Wilderness Skills for Women (on the blurb it says, "going through a season of waiting? facing unmet desires?") and The List (the blurb: "Figuring out Prince Charming, the corner office, and happily ever after.")

She was an engaging speaker. She was funny and pithy, and the two "take-away" messages were sound: a) You will not fill up your soul with things, or travel, or people. b) God holds your body and your soul as precious; treat them as such.

She was a little weak, unfortunately

I am lab fail.

I am lab fail. Today in 7.02 lab (introductory biology lab, with a molecular focus) I discovered that "PE" and "PB" buffer are not the same thing.

Dammitall.

I need to set up some sort of pottery photography location. Most of my pottery thus far has gone the way of Christmas presents with nary a whisper of documentation, but I think (I hope?) I have progressed far enough that some of the things I have made are decent because of actual personal intention.

Notes about glazes:

* "Ron Roy White" on top of "Rosy Dawn" on the white clay was a good idea; sort of a peachy-pinky base with a white cap. The pot is ugly as hell, unfortunately, but the glaze is nice.

* I am sick of browns.

* "Randy's Red" on the interior of a brown clay pot is sort of streaky rusty red with medium brown and chocolate brown. V. nice.

* Mix the cobalt blue better.

life lessons

1. Parsnips are stronger-tasting than carrots. They will make your entire soup taste like parsnips, which is a peppery, musty sort of taste.

2. You will never feel good about time you spent on facebook.

3. You will ALWAYS feel good about time spent writing a story, even if you think it might be a crappy story.

I have been shushed.

Skype is great.

Working sucks.

the new year's resolutions have gone all to hell.

Today I sliced off the skin on the tip of my thumb. I then proceeded to swear profusely for twenty minutes because I was so angry at myself, as I was dripping blood into the sink, on the floor, et cetera. This moderately scared the other people making cucumber sandwiches in the kitchen.

This was after attending the European Career Fair, an event that I attended with utmost trepidation. I spent 45 minutes there before my only pair of nice black shoes, a pair of 2.5 inch heels with very slightly pointed toes, made it expedient for me to leave. I garnered no job offers, left no resumes, but successfully obtained the names of two places I could apply for grad school.

specific goals.

because I spent today screwing around on the internet instead of doing anything legitimate.

1. Rewrite my thesis proposal

2. Decide whether I need to submit a plan to the COUHES committee (these are reportedly the people that make sure my research doesn't give children cancer, but I am skeptical)

3. Return my damn library books

4. Stop reading blogs, even if they are extremely funny (see http://stuffblackpeoplehate.com/)

5. Review some Spanish, particularly verb conjugations, so I don't humiliate myself in Spanish III this term

6. Gondoliers audition poster

7. Trial by Jury quick poster

8. Little Shop ads

9. Portfolio

10. Email folks about getting recommendation letters

11. Write stuff

12. Exercise, dammit

13. All the other terrifying thesis stuff

14. Clean

15. Mail stuff home

Bedtime.

whoa.

99designs.com.

seriously.

man.

Resolutions

I am a bad one for making resolutions. By which I mean, I don't so much make "new year's" resolutions -- I am more in a constant state of resolution-making list-happiness year round.

But here are some I have been thinking about, of varying levels of specificity and do-ability.

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1. Think more carefully.

This one covers a lot of ground, but for a good reason. I am not a careful person, and if I list out all the items in my life that require more of this sort of attention it would be very long and very intimidating.

But of things to consider more carefully, I could start with what goes into my system. I am a compulsive eater and drinker of fluids (none alcoholic, but many caffeinated). And even besides restricting the overall amount of such things (see resolution 2), I need to be more careful about eating things that I actually enjoy, that contain actual nutrients, such as fiber and vitamins, and that don't contain things I don't really need, such as 50% of my daily requirement of salt.

I need to think more carefully about what happens to my stuff. I recently was at a friend's house and had a chance to observe her laptop, her iPod, her camera, and her external hard drive, all things that we both own. Her laptop looks like it is new (she got it senior year of high school), her iPod has a nice plastic case to protect it from scratches, and her external hard drive has a little felt bag in which it resides, such that it positively glistens with newness. My laptop is coming up on a year and a half old. It has a crack in the plastic next to one speaker, part of the "Dell" logo is scratched off, and I cracked the plastic off the corner when it fell out of my backpack that one time last fall. My iPod and my external hard drive are nests of tiny scratches, and I have gone through three pairs of headphones in the last year (sorry parents if you are reading this.) My camera, which I bought new in Japan in August, has a a black divot in the corner of the LCD screen half the size of my pinky nail. I am not good about taking care of my stuff. We could go into things like deodorant stains, but let's not.

I would like to be more careful about what goes on my body. I am not exactly a pleasing shape (see resolution 2, again), and the easiest way to disguise this from myself and others is to not dress like a frump. It is an unpleasant reality that dressing better seems to make people take you more seriously, and a pleasant reality that dressing better seems to make me dislike the person I see in the mirror less. By this I mean choosing clothes that are flattering, interesting, and in good repair.

I need to be more careful about what I do in public. I am often guilty of doing weird things -- scratching my face, picking at my fingernails, and yes, occasionally picking my nose -- without thinking about who might be watching me. This is bad, both for "not disgusting passersby" and "not behaving in a compulsive manner" reasons.

I always need to be more careful about what I say. I am a bit of an idiot, and I talk as compulsively as I eat. Doubtless it would be nice not to nurse daily stupidities so much due to having less of them. To put it another way, I would like to worry less about who I might have offended, inadvertently hurt, or left with a less than stellar impression of my intelligence.

I need to be more careful about how I use my time. Facebook is a bad use of my time. If I'm going to procrastinate, I might as well read a book. I'm actually not so concerned about doing my work in a more timely fashion -- I generally get my work done. I'm more concerned with procrastinating more wisely and getting more sleep.

And. . . I need to be more careful when I occupy space. Also known as CLEANING! I am pretty good about kitchen stuff -- I remember to wash my dishes and put away my ingredients. But somehow that same mentality seems to be difficult to carry out in my own room, which is a haven of crap as far as the eye can see. I only sporadically remember to put away my books, my clothes, and other bits of junk, and I have issues with throwing things out in a timely fashion (both in terms of taking out the garbage and getting rid of stuff I don't use anymore.)

I can't deal with all of this every day, but I can deal with a little of one each day.

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2. Lose weight.

Why is this necessary? Well, I weigh (x) lbs. (x is a lot.) I would prefer to weight about 40 lbs less, and so far as I know the insurance charts would prefer me to weigh about 40 lbs less too. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have pretty much always hated my body and how it looks. Why is a sort of a mystery to me -- a mishmash of cultural expectations, personal experiences, and a severely insecure personality come to mind. I have been intending to lose weight for most of my college career, but instead I have steadily packed it on -- I've gained about 25 lbs since the beginning of freshman year, which was on top of a high school weight with which I was never super happy.

I would like to feel more comfortable in my skin than I am. I would like to feel that I am physically attractive, which I do not. So. This means, among other things (also see resolution 1 about dressing better and resolution 3 about other things), weight loss.

This can be sub-divided into two other resolutions: a. control what I eat and b. exercise. I can do this. I've done it before. Last term I got so neurotic I was verging on binge eating (a whole box of cookies, anyone?) I'm not talking about starving myself, I'm talking about taking one cookie and putting the rest back. Or perhaps eating a real meal instead of eating a box of cookies in the first place. Or. . . correcting a host of other unhealthy eating habits, such as a habitual avoidance of fruit, vegetables, and other nice things that could fill me up without making me chubby.

As for (b) I actually love to exercise. Running or jogging is a cheap high, and my physical self-esteem goes up very quickly when I am doing so regularly. Everything I eat seems more pleasant, especially those bites which are less healthy. Time management (see resolution 1) plays in here. Somehow I can manage to exercise for about 4- to 5-month periods, and then I stop for a similar period (or longer), and then I start again. It would be nice to see if I could keep up exercising for a long-ish period of time -- say, a year or two years -- before a time management crisis causes me to give it up again.

I would also like, in this vein, to take up some form of exercise that works on my large muscle coordination/flexibility, such as some kind of dance or yoga, along with aerobic-type things and weight-training type things, with which I am more familiar.

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3. Take better care of myself.

As a college student, I do a lot of dumb things along with my compatriots. I have never gotten drunk and barfed, but I do habitually neglect things that help my physical well-being. I forget to take out my contacts before bedtime, I forget to brush my teeth, I forget to wash my face, I forget to clip my toenails, I forget to put lotion on my dry hands and feet. (I've pretty much conquered the "showering/washing hair every day" beast of sophomore year.) These are little stupid things, but every additional one makes me feel just a little bit more like a homeless bum, which is not the goal.

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4. Write more.

I have a specific goal for this one, i.e. I want to be able to enter every possible category in the Ilona Karmel Writing competitions in April. They are due April 2. This gives me 83 days in which to produce something like 100 (single-spaced) pages of writing. It could be done. I like to set my goals ridiculously high.

There are two reasons for this. One, I like to write, and I need to build up a writing portfolio of more recent work, in case I should ever get the urge either apply to grad school in writing or finally just drop everything and write books. Two, the Ilona Karmel awards give money, and I need money for my coming year's endeavors.

The awards are as follows:

The Enterprise Poets Prize for Imagining a Future

Essays, short stories or poems, that convincingly imagine a future human enterprise are eligible. (Probably not the place for a dystopian short story, but I have given some thought to how I would go about starting an organization that re-builds important buildings after disasters and builds schools and community centers in other areas. That sounds like an enterprise to me.)

The Robert A. Boit writing prize

Writing by undergraduates in the categories of essay, poetry and short story is eligible. (This one entails three things.)

The S. Klein Prizes

* for Science Writing

* for Technical Writing

Open to MIT undergraduate and graduate students. Entries should be intended for non-specialized but educated audiences and should show evidence of publishable quality. (For this one I would probably adapt -- and shorten -- the paper on daylighting and circadian rhythms I wrote last year, because hey, I know the subject pretty well.)

DeWitt Wallace Prize for Science Writing for the Public

Writing of any length addressed to lay audiences on issues and developments in science, medicine, and engineering. (So basically this sounds like a review paper on something I find interesting.)

The Boit Manuscript Prize

Works of substantial length by MIT undergraduates are eligible in the categories of fiction, poetry, essay, and drama. (Again, four entries. Drama would be hard. I might skip that one. Essay -- say hello to an extended rant on my Japan experience. Fiction -- oh laws, what story would I even pick? I have many.)

The Prize for Writing Science Fiction

Writing by undergraduate students in the category of science fiction short story. (Maybe I would write a story set in Sharon-dystopia-land, but focused on libraries.)

The Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts

Writing by undergraduate students should demonstrate unusual and thoughtful expression on some aspect of contemporary visual art. (Do church windows count?)

This, by the way, is in addition to writing my thesis. Fun times.

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5. Finish my thesis on time.

Self-explanatory.

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6. Study harder.

I am the crappiest student of Japanese ever. Also even if I decide not to stay an extra term for a biology major, it would be awfully nice if I could pull up my gpa a touch and not do so crappily in the bio classes I have chosen for this term.

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7. Mail as much crap home and throw out as much other crap by the end of January as possible.

I have potential to be moving out of Boston soon, man. Maybe.

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8. Be timely and dedicated about my extracurricular commitments.

Already kind of failing at this one, but perhaps tomorrow I will able to catch up? Yay Little Shop of Horrors posters design.

Also, need to spend more time in the pottery studio. Yup. The plan was originally to try to throw 40 pieces by the end of IAP, but that's kind of laughable now. Let's say 20.

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9. Be more involved with my faith.

That's kind of a lame-o way to put it, but there it is. I have a weird feeling that my faith is sort of warping around me, and I would like to be a bit more informed about what it's doing. I think some of my beliefs have changed, but I'm not sure.

The fact that this one is last is doubtless indicative of a major problem in some way. I think I need to be seeking more information on my faith more frequently, and seeking to grow rather than to just keep from falling off the I-love-Christ wagon. I just don't put the effort into this area of my life that I put into every other part.

I know that at this point I feel profoundly uncomfortable with certain parts of my faith. I think this is largely my own fault -- see aforementioned lack of effort. I don't put the time into study that I could, and I actually enjoy reading the Bible and historical-type books that help interpret it. I don't put time into prayer; I've just never quite gotten the hang of the daily thing.

But there is also a weird flux in my heart that I can't quite pinpoint. Some of it is living in an extremely diverse, liberal, and often wacky house, which tends to pull me a lot of different ways due to my lack of fondness for confrontation. Another part is operating for a bit too long without guidance back to the straight and narrow, which has allowed my percolating mind to produce some odd theological possibilities (some random things about universality and salvation based partially on human love, not just emanating from Christ.)

Some of this is a profound hunger for knowledge about other religions and how they actually function in the lives of people who believe in them. I'm not looking for the "hey I'm Shinto/Catholic and I go to a shrine/church twice a year" modern explanation of religion, but knowledge about how people around the world turn upward and outward for explanation of events they otherwise can't deal with. I guess I just don't think the Bible can possibly tell the whole story, because the God I believe in is not encompass-able by one finite book. And I guess I also just don't believe in a God who would refuse to reveal himself in any way to most of the people in the world until some Western missionary showed up to clue them in.

And that highlights one of the largest faith-related that is squirming around in my heart. I don't know what to do with evangelism. It's not just that I'm uncomfortable with it -- I'm not even sure if it's ethical to evangelize. I believe in a (and the) God that offers redemption and unconditional love, and demands a sacrifice of one's life and morals code to His will in return. But I almost think that idea is outside religion entirely. God on earth, so far as I have seen Him, is found in the collective faith of human beings, which I guess you could call religion or Christianity. But I think there is a profound difference between God on earth and religion, although they might be both made up of a similar thing -- the actions and beliefs that a group of people hold -- faith. The first seems to be a faith in some kind of profound goodness that demands action, while the second is a faith in an institution. Pulling back, while I'm sure that a recognition of God on earth is something that is required for ultimate salvation -- whatever that means -- I'm not sure that it's something that's limited to Christianity. Or organized religion. Or even human beings. And this makes evangelism a very odd subject for me to deal with, particularly when one considers the horrific damage that perhaps well-intentioned missionaries have done in the past.

(And then, I have creeping doubt. I have never doubted the existence of hell, but sometimes Christ flickers on and off in my mind like a faulty street lamp.)

I'm sure my questions are answered somewhere, if I would get off my lazy butt and look.

---

Too much.

Good night.