Saturday, December 30

Happy New Years!

You may be asking yourself why I'm wishing everyone a happy new years one day early. It's for two reasons, really. First, I'm going to a wedding down in Peoria tomorrow, so I won't be around to post (not like you'd be expecting me to post, anyways, after this month long hiatus). But second, it's because I want to give each and every one of you time to practice the subtle art of champagne decapitation. Click the title of this post for instructions. Salute!

Monday, December 25

Merry

Wednesday, December 13

A bad place...


Yo soy lo que soy.
No me voy.
Buscandome.


Persuasive demons are getting the better of me right now.

Tuesday, December 12

You Know You Go To Tulane If...

Someone else wrote this up for a group on Facebook, but I figured I might repost the ones that really hit me. I know quite a few of my readers aren't from Tulane, but they're not all inside jokes...especially the one about 6 degrees of separation.

-You plan your week around drink specials at your favorite bars
-You get through the week knowing on Friday you'll be at happy hour for 5 hours with 200 of your closest friends
-Everyone you know and their mom wears pink polos with the popped collar- and its not a good thing.
-Even though there are almost 6,000 ungrads, you feel like you know everyone because you see everyone who actually goes out
-You've met high school kids at the local bars
-The Boot is a closer walk from your dorm than most of your classes
-Even if you're off campus you go to Bruff for monday red beans and rice and weekend bruff breakfast
-And just when you thought you would never go to Bruff again, Tulane Days began
-You've pulled an all-nighter... for Mardi Gras day
-You know how freshly showered someone is by how faded the X on their hand is on a Friday or Sunday morning
-Your weekend starts Tuesday night
-You've walked out of Snake and Jakes to see the sunrise...
-You know what a parish is
-you know better than to pronouce new orleans with an emphasis on the EA and shun those who do
-You know how to pronounce Tchoupitoulas
-You're pretty sure the UC will never be finished now.
-You are interconnected to everyone in your school through hooking up...
-You tailgate for the football games... but may never make it to the actual game.
-You have learned to love crawfish (or at least attending crawfish boils)
-You have learned that it is perfectly acceptable to spend a Sunday killing a keg at the levee
-Some students drive nicer cars than any of the faculty
-You dont understand why its a green wave...and a pelican.
-You've experienced the JL expereince
-You hit your heads on the bookshelves over the beds in Sharp
-You've hit the booty call button when checking someone in
-Your professor has held class at the bar
-You've brought beer to class - and offered one to the professor
-You dont remember last night but know it was amazing

Tuesday, December 5

Rough Neighborhood

"A Northern Illinois University professor has been charged with assault after police say he hit a fellow professor on the head with a metal bar."

But, really, this is "very, very rare." To read more, click the title of this post.

The Stump

In my bookmarks I have a folder for blogs that I read. Don't worry, the mass total is perhaps 10 or so. But I also have a folder within this folder for blogs that I feel an obligation towards (due to being old friends or what-have-you) but don't actually read for one reason or another. Well, grumpstump has just made the leap to the main folder, and it seems like fairly good information. It's JMD's old site, originally for ranting and facilitating some dialogue between old friends, but he's changed it over to an actual blog now, somewhat akin to ASH's Thoughts from a Young Investor. Actually, very akin to it, as the subtitle at grumpstump is Money and Musing from a Young Professional. Anyways, I've linked the title of this post to his page and would recommend checking it out.

Saturday, December 2

Everything Lies Ahead

Sometimes I play a game with myself. Wow. Ok, check that. I call a mulligan.

Sometimes I ask myself some damn deep questions. But, given that I can't really tap into the subconscious to pull forth the answer I'm looking for, I instead go to some great minds to get their take on it all. Tolkein, Rand, Nabakov, Hemingway, Bach, Hesse, Miller, Lewis...they've all got good input. You just have to listen sometimes. So here's what you do. With the question firmly planted, staring you straight in the eyes, you pick up a random book off a sufficiently well-stocked bookshelf, and without noting special interest in the title or author, you flip to a random page. Run your finger down the page till it stops (it will stop), and read. Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of a sentence and you just start reading from there. Other times, that doesn't feel right, so you back up to the beginning of the sentence. And if you have really difficult issues, it might be best to take in a whole paragraph, though sometimes the shortest phrase is 10 fold as potent. You have to allow yourself to make the connection...and it will happen. Same idea as reading runes or horoscopes: It's not the content or intended meaning which matters, but only how you perceive it and how you make use of it yourself, to your own life. So I did that tonight, as I sometimes do, and it was so pertinent that I figured I'd share it with you. Of course, it doesn't often work second hand, but this is such a genius piece of writing, go ahead and bring a question before your mind before you proceed. Then simply read. See what happens. If it doesn't quite get to you where it count, pick up your own book off a bookshelf. Try just a sentence or just a phrase. Naturally, it works better starting off with poetry or great prose. But, as the connections become easier, reference books and newspapers can serve the same purpose. Better to start out with your favorite author (it's ok to cheat a little, just make sure the sentence itself has been sufficiently randomized)...

Lie down, then, on the soft couch which the analyst provides, and try to think up something different. The analyst has endless time and patience; every minute you detain him means more money in his pocket. He is like God, in a sense -- the God of your own creation. Whether you whine, howl, beg, weep, implore, cajole, pray or curse -- he listens. He is just a big ear minus a sympathetic nervous system. He is impervious to everything but truth. If you think it pays to fool him then fool him. Who will be the loser? If you think he can help you, and not yourself, then stick to him until you rot. He has nothing to lose. But if you realize that he is not a god but a human being like yourself, with worries, defects, ambitions, frailties, that he is not the repository of an all-encompassing wisdom but a wonderer, like yourself, along the path, perhaps you will cease pouring it out like a sewer, however melodious it may sound to your ears, and rise up on your own two legs and sing with your own God-given voice. To confess, to whine, to complain, to commiserate, always demands a toll. To sing it doesn't cost you a penny. Not only does it cost you nothing -- you actually enrich others. Sing the praises of the Lord, it is enjoined. Aye, sing out! Sing out, O Master-builder! Sing out, glad warrior! But, you quibble, how can I sing when the world is crumbling, when all about me is bathed in blood and tears? Do you realize that the martyrs sang when they were being burned at the stake? They saw nothing crumbling, they heard no shrieks of pain. They sang because they were full of faith. Who can demolish faith? Who can wipe out joy? Men have tried, in every age. But they have not succeeded. Joy and faith are inherent in the universe. In growth there is pain and struggle; in accomplishment there is joy and exuberance; in fulfillment there is peace and serenity. Between the planes and spheres of existence, terrestrial and superterrestrial, there are ladders and lattices. The one who mounts sings. He is made drunk and exalted by unfolding vistas. He ascends sure-footedly, thinking not of what lies below, should he slip and lose his grasp, but of what lies ahead. Everything lies ahead. The way is endless, and the farther one reaches the more the road opens up. The bogs and quagmires, the marshes and sinkholes, the pits and snares, are all in the mind. They lurk in waiting, ready to swallow one up he moment one ceases to advance. The phantasmal world is the world which has not been fully conquered over. It is the world of the past, never of the future. To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the greatest crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What these powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything God-like about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.

by Henry Miller,
Sexus, The Rosy Crucifixion. New York, 1965, pps. 340-41.

Peers Improving Papers

An actual comment on the paper I presented a couple weeks back:

"Where [the rule of actuality] does matter is in those cases in the middle of the spectrum: cases where I can spray the mule with a hose."

Later on, I found this:

"Parmesean
Rosemary
Ground Pepper"

Here's to the long-standing bond between alcohol and philosophy!

Friday, December 1

The First

The first application has been submitted. Last night I wrapped up the last of my work on my personal statement, CV, and writing sample and officially paid my dues. Now, I wait. Of course, while I wait, I've also gotta revise my personal statement to Stanford (no carbon copy on these, which pretty much kicks my ass). That's due the 5th, though all the official fields on the online application have been filled out already. And, in between all that interesting stuff, I also have a couple papers to finish up, a GRE to retake, two finals to study for, and a vegitarian diet to get the kinks worked out on...

And, the first snow of the year happened last night. I know a few of you were hit by the same snow as it came up from the Missouri area. Classes were actually cancelled today, and I think it was maybe 6 or 8 inches. But, given that, I couldn't have my autumn wreath on my door anymore. This morning, not having my TA class to go to, I sat down at actually got the wreath and schwag (that's how I pronounce it) completed. The wreath is on my door now and the schwag is down at the half-way landing coming up to my apartment. I've got a good picture of the wreath I've posted below, and a bad picture of the schwag. The way it's placed, it faces a very bright snowy background, so I wasn't able to get a straight on picture where you could see any detail. I'll try to take one tonight with the flash on to give a better idea of what it looks like. But, without further ado, here's the pictures: