Divergent World

Uncle Jeff

2008-03-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

I know...it just doesn't roll off the tongue. But I'm officially an uncle. More details will follow, along with a couple pictures.

And I sincerely hope you're reading this off a news feed and not actually checking my blog anymore (try google reader). I might get back to posting at some point, but this semester is three times as time consuming as the previous one. Things are looking great at the moment and I'm making great strides on my 101 list, so I'd like to post about that. Perhaps soon. Till then...

Namaste'.

Gotta Love Bubbles

2008-03-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream. 'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by. 'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed. But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered, 'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude.

- Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

Zeta Psi Step Show - Tulane University

2008-03-02T12:10:00.001-08:00

1st Year Anniversary

2008-01-11T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it's done. It's been 1 full year since I officially smoked the last cigarette of my life. I haven't posted on this since the six month mark, but I've stayed 100% nicotine free since. Not a single puff or drag off a cigarette, and now that I live in a city without smoke-filled bars, it means my lungs have been clean of second-hand smoke as well. Although I am a believer in personal will-power, I know from prior failed attempts that it's not a will-power over the desire to smoke. Just as you can't make a person do something -- you can only make him want to do something -- you can't make yourself not smoke. But you can make yourself want to stop. Cheap psychology tricks aren't effective. Neither are scare tactics. Those anxiety inducing techniques only give rise to one and the same urge they're trying to quell -- albeit in their own perverted way. No, what's necessarily is to literally reprogram the conditioning that created those urges in the first place.

Following a saying I'm quite fond of, "That looks interesting/I want to try that/I wonder how that works....I think I'll pick up a book on it," the title of this post, just as with every post on the topic, is linked to amazon.com product page for The Easy Way to Quit Smoking, by Allen Carr. It looks hokey. It sounds hokey. I'll grant that, at times, it even reads a little hokey. But it's damn intelligent, not preachy, and works with wherever you're at in your attempt to quit. I decided I was being a hypocrite by giving up meat for my health and yet still smoking nearly a pack-a-day. But whatever the reason, it does get better. The first three weeks you think about it, the first few months it crosses your mind, and every now and then it comes up. But Carr talks about a moment when you know it's just done. Well, I had that moment at about the end of the first month, but it's good to say it again at the 1 year anniversary (and every once and awhile, for that matter): it's done.

Namaste' and good health to all.

Day 10 - A Cluttered Life

2008-01-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

One of the pitfalls in attempting to start up any new habit is the overwhelming shift that marks the initial transition. Cleaning your apartment once a week isn't bad. But cleaning it that first time...that sucks.

This past week has been extremely productive. But there's just a lot to be produced. The bed has been flipped, floors have been swept, flat surfaces have been cleared in the living room and kitchen, and the dishes are being done nightly. So far, so good. But I look round the house and realize just how much there is left to go. I still haven't been able to take care of all the filing in my office, nor the requisite shredding that'll entail so as to free up some space for said files. And, in general, I feel like I have too much crap.

I was sitting in my living room, staring at my bookcase and thinking when was the last time I even flipped through some of those books. There are certain books, academic and otherwise, that I'll pull down from time to time. And some are reference worthy...you know, just in case. But there's probably a treasure trove of resale value lying dormant in there. And DVDs. I probably have about 35 DVDs right now. Why? Because the $5 price of some of them, either in Wally-World's cheap-o bin or used from Blockbuster, was worth seeing it once (and, at only a dollar more than the rental fee, what a deal?!?). Of course...I only watched them once. So, really, I'm down a buck, even for an impulse purchase.

The point being, the transition period is taking a little longer than I had hoped to adjust. There's a lot of stuff on The List that, once I'm able to get it done for the first time, it should follow again like clock-work. But I've just been feeling a little behind on the getting things done for the first time department. The title of this post is linked to a great article on beating the clutter entropy in our lives. Hopefully you enjoy it. As for me, I'm getting back to work (...okay, I'm going out for a drink with friends...but tomorrow...really...)

Namaste'.

P.P.S.

2008-01-04T12:09:00.001-08:00

In case you know my good friend Kinney (or if you're one who doesn't read comments, which is fair), I thought I'd repost his comment in the body of a front-page post. I actually defer to his expertise in all things political. While we don't necessarily agree on everything, he's the most politically informed person I know.

"I have never really been inspired by a politician before even though I really like politics. You have to watch the acceptance speech Obama gave. It is amazing. I am fired up and ready to go."

The title of this post is linked to the video Kinney added to his comment.

P.S.

2008-01-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

Completely unrelated to lists or, really, anything I've presented on DW so far, let's just all gather under one banner, hold hands and celebrate the repudiation of Clinton in Iowa (and what a good word choice; click the title of this post for the news segment). Not only did Obama win Iowa, even Edwards came in above Clinton. Even such a whisper of hope is enough to let me sleep soundly tonight.

Day 3

2008-01-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

As you can see in the right-hand sidebar, I've included a version of my list as it was originally posted on Day Zero. In addition to the categorization and numbering, you'll also notice that quite a few of the items have a "(0/##)" tailing them. This is, obviously, to assist in checking off items from the list. Some of them are one time events, so no (0/1) is necessary. Once they're completed, I'll add a script to strike through them. But others which are monthly or weekly, etc., I will periodically update the numerator portion of their ratios-to-being-done.

Also, while I will hopefully continue (or, uh, improve upon?) posting about other divergent events and thoughts, I'll just title the posts regarding The List as "Day #". That way, those of you who have 107 feeds on your news lists (in both your morning and evening checking thereof) don't need to trouble yourself with mine. However, that's not to say I won't still be tagging the title of my posts to interesting and tangentially related sites (this one is to a great article on modest changes in our lives, a focus I attempt to maintain in developing my own list, with a few well-considered allowances).

That being said, in amending the list to include those quantifying numbers, I realized just how quickly the 1001 started up. Luckily, I've made good time on starting things I intended to do anyways (it sure does help keeping to #78). I figure the best way to stay on top of things is to create an abbreviated list of things I need to accomplish each week, month, and year. That way I can easily reference back and forth through them without overlooking one. I know, a little neurotic of an approach to simplifying one's life, eh? Well, like all good habits, a little work on the front side should hopefully make it all second nature as the days progress.

In the meantime, I'm well underway with the more mundane items on the list (#70, #81, #37). And Mardi Gras (#59) is currently in the works. I'll update you on that one soon. It should also be one of the better items for which I'll have some pretty decent photos to post and caption. So, till then...

Namaste'.

Day Zero

2008-01-01T19:28:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, friends! To jump right into things and ignore the absence you've been subject to recently, I'd like to share with you my new resolutions. Mind you, I didn't say "new year's" resolutions; these are simply new goals I aim to complete within the next 1,001 days. In other words, they're long standing habits I hope to develop in my spare time...101 of them. The reasons for such an undertaking are many-fold. First, 365 days is hardly enough time to plan for, work on, and undertake many of the goals I want to have. Second, many goals shouldn't be confined to an all-or-nothing mentality. It's okay to miss a week here or there in your efforts, so long as you have the ability to be successful later. And if nothing else, I'll at least be able to cross off some goals, even if I'm unsuccessful at completing all of them. So in addition to the purpose DW served before today, I will also be incorporating pictures and posts of these events as they get completed.

Some qualifiers: Many of these goals will need a little explaining as they come up, and of course none of them are completely transparent towards their intended purpose. In other words, they shouldn't be judged solely at face value. For right now, they serve as simply a guidepost to be expanded upon in future posts. This is also my first time undertaking such an adventure, so many of the goals which may seem worthwhile right now may end up being trivial. Alternatively, many of those that seem more on the trivial side right now may end up being my greatest challenges. Whatever happens, it'll be a learning experience useful when I attempt to complete #101. And just so it's out there, the stop-date for this list is Tuesday, September 28, 2010.

You can see that they're divided up by what area in my life they most serve to improve. Additionally, many give certain time qualifiers or consistency standards to live up to which are, again, merely guideposts and serve as simply a minimum requirement. If you're interested in a similar adventure, the title of this post is linked to the site from which I got this idea. I'll be updating the general layout of DW to reflect the recent shift in focus, as well as posting more about the shift in the coming days (along with getting started on the goals). But without further ado, here's The List:

Finance:
1. Specifically save money in three different accounts
2. Keep finance records up to date
3. Remain under my envelopes per month
4. Put $800 away each month
5. Keep monthly credit balances under $300
6. Develop means for a passive income
7. Make a will

Purchases and Expenditures:
8. Purchase a house
9. Take on any remaining bills
10. Buy a motorcycle
11. Buy a good road bike

Lifestyle & Experiences:
12. Update my blog once a week
13. Spend one week a year in solitude
14. Grab a pint once a week
15. Be in a committed relationship
16. Reflect on how I’m using my freetime once a month
17. Recap each day at the end of that day, then let it go
18. Go camping once a summer
19. Try a new restaurant each month
20. Cook a new recipe bi-weekly
21. Take one not-for-credit class a year
22. Go to a play once a year
23. Learn to play golf
24. Learn to play the piano
25. Learn yoga
26. Go ice-fishing
27. Take a bike tour/weeklong camping trip around Wisconsin
28. Read one non-philosophy, non-fiction book a month
29. Read one fiction book a month
30. Memorize 5 new poems
31. Eat at the dining nook table once a week

Household:
32. Clean the house weekly
33. Clear off flat surfaces bi-weekly
34. Create a personal library database
35. Get rid of 101 materialistic items
36. Make a list of what I’m looking for in a new house and what I can afford
37. Clean my car weekly
38. Wash my car monthly
39. Wax car once every 3 months
40. Keep up-to-date on car maintenance
41. Brush Relic once a week
42. Get Relic a friend
43. Plant and maintain a garden through a season
44. Organize files in my home office once a semester
45. Organize desk and files at work once a semester
46. Make the bed everyday for a month
47. Do the dishes before bed everyday for a month

Career:
48. Pass Premils
49. Outline dissertation topic
50. Become independent of my second jobs
51. Teach my own course
52. Sacrifice independence at work
53. Keep CV current updated at the end of each semester
54. Get published
55. Keep schedules up-to-date
56. Time manage to create one day of rest per week
57. Attend an Eastern APA
58. Go to at least one conference per year

Travel:
59. Make it to Mardi Gras
60. Make it to each friend’s wedding
61. Make it to Texas
62. Make it to Ithica
63. Make it home twice a year
64. Take a long weekend to nowhere
65. Get a passport
66. Leave the country
67. Take a family vacation

Health and Wellbeing:
68. Make a 101-things-that-make-me-happy list
69. Shop farmers market once a month
70. Work out 3 times a week
71. Learn 1 pack of vocabulary words a week
72. Volunteer tutoring or reading
73. Give blood 6 times per year
74. Get a real massage
75. Bike to campus every day the weather permits it
76. Go on a meditation retreat
77. Meditate daily for three months
78. Keep a daily to-do list
79. Do a years worth of 5-minute writing
80. Compliment others 3 times daily
81. Take my vitamins
82. Take one month of martial arts classes
83. Do home exercises daily
84. Do stretches nightly
85. Train for and run a 5K
86. Take a month off from alcohol
87. Bring packed lunch to work for 1 month straight
88. Go strict vegan for 1 month
89. Achieve a BMI < 13% (Currently 19.5%)
90. Be able to bench my own body weight
91. Remove all caffeine for one month

Relationships:
92. Call home once a week
93. E-mail home twice a week
94. Keep in touch with "My Five" once a month
95. Remember friends’ birthdays
96. Get a family portrait taken
97. Put up more pictures of friends on my walls
98. Write a letter each week
99. Have a dinner party once a season
100. Play more games with friends

Goal-setting:
101. Make a new 101 in 1,0001 List

Food for Thought

2007-11-27T00:51:00.000-08:00

"Man lives on one quarter of what he eats. On the other three quarters lives his doctor."
-Inscription on an Egyptian Pyramid, 3800 B.C.

I'm going to take a moment and let that sink in. I'll be back with a follow-up post shortly.

Happy Tofurkey Day!

2007-11-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

Don't think of this as a "Thanksgiving" post. After all, I take that notion to heart that it wouldn't be thanksgiving without the turkey, and since I'm not having turkey, it's not thanksgiving. Philosophered.

That's not to say I'm not giving thanks. So I thought I'd diverge from my normal world of philosophical musings and far too sporadic life updates to slow it down a bit with some aspects of life that make me happy. While I sit at home, slow cooking a vegan chili and getting ahead on a few journal readings, here's a list of things I'm grateful for:

I'm grateful the fact that more and more people are accepting a loving tenderness towards the wider world around them, in whatever manner they manifest that, be it through striving for peace, environmental change, or more of a small-town economy.

I'm grateful for my parents' kindness and acceptance of others; their unconditional love not only for their sons and our many faults, but towards random people that pass through their lives in the time it takes to offer a joke, a smile, or a simple courtesy.

I'm grateful for my brother's loyalty.

I'm grateful for this white Thursday afternoon and for the smells of a delicious meal in the works, a cat by my side, and friends within reach.

I'm grateful for the opprotunity to do what I love without having to worry about money or tomorrow.

I'm grateful for the potential that exists in a moment's action, and the absorbing, persistent, fulfilling nature of Life once you make that first move.

I'm grateful for wandering conversations with friends from the past that pick right up where we left off regardless of the months or years in between.

I'm grateful for you.

Namaste'.

On Invincibility

2007-11-20T14:44:00.001-08:00

If you're like me, you survive death-defying feats about once every three days. And I'm not talking about the tightrope with a safety net here; we're talking look-ma-no-hands-watch-out-for-that-semi! Ok...maybe not once every three days. But it happens a lot. Each time, do you wonder why your still alive? Seriously, why haven't I died yet?

I think it comes down to one of two possiblities: either I have catlike reflexes and a spider-sense for imminent danger, or another JBP gets killed and out of the two of us I just keep getting the lucky draw. For example, it's possible I died twice on the way home today. In the first instance, a car turned in front of me and there's a possible world (think, Sliding Glass Doors) where I slammed into the side of the car and went flying over it (cracking my neck as I bounced once off the roof) to land in a puddle in a world-silencing "hummmphck" as the misty pavement takes on a characteristic red sheen. But I, not that guy (who, might I add, has shared in every single one of my life experiences, only separated off in his own world), am in this world. An arbitrary distinction, right? Logically speaking, for any set of compossible statements about each of my close-calls, it is necessarily true that at least one of us died in that situation and that at least one of us lived. And the kicker is, there's no distinction between me being the one or the other. True, I have causal efficaciousness to this life, but I can't cause the other JBP to do or not do anything anymore than I can call him up and reminisce about that time at band camp when I (and, hence, he)...well, you get the idea. So, maybe I am banking my own life on both my catlike reflexes and my twin getting killed. But is the fact that I get to choose if I live or die any better in the long run? Since it's logically necessary (which is much more necessary than just causally necessary) that one of us dies, I'm killing him as I apply the brakes.

Who've you killed lately?

Early Birthday Present

2007-10-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

You may have come to the conclusion by this point that my life up in Madison is just a bit too busy to be updating DW like I did back in DeKalb. Or perhaps you've concluded I followed my dream to become an ascetic monk and burned my computer along with all my other worldly possessions (except the loin cloth) in a fire of liberation. Turns out, neither of which are the case, though admittedly this hasn't been on the top of my priorities these past few weeks. But I've abandoned and come back to DW enough times to know how it works. I just gotta start posting when the mood hits me and it'll pick back up as a regular thing in no time.

So, I've decided to post my annual "I'm a sensitive guy who likes to cuddle" post. Not to worry; this isn't another post about a homemade wreath or regarding a new hobby of knitting. No, this is a post about my new cookware set!

You can only see the deep skillet, two sauce pans and an omelet pan in this picture, but to the side is an 8-quart stock pot and a second, smaller omelet pan. They're by cuisinart, hard anodized exteriors with titanium alloyed non-stick surfaces and fully riveted handles. How cool is that, right? My parents were talking about buying me a new set for my birthday when they came up next month, but luck brought me to purchase it this past weekend.

Anyways, one of these days I'll talk about meaningful stuff again like my life plan and being an uncle. But we'll start with baby steps. In the meantime, in tune with the subject matter, the title of this post is linked to the post-punk kitchen's recipe for the best weeknight winter stew I've found (perfect for any variety of substitutions to fit your taste). So till the next, slightly more interesting post...

Namaste'.

Wanna See My Aparment?

2007-09-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

This is pretty awesome, on the one hand, and sucks that I'm at this place in life, on the other. The title of this post is linked to the Stark realty site, who happen to be the deal-makers on the property I'm currently living in. I got word a week and a half ago that the building I'm living in, along with it's mate next door, were going on the market. These buildings are each four unit buildings, each unit has 2 bedrooms, and a full, unfinished basement with built-in storage units. You can check this fact on the website: both buildings were going for the combined asking price of 550,000. I won't go into some other details quite yet, as there's some dealings going on right now, but you'd either have to be insane or completely ignorant to the state of affairs in Madison to not think that's the best deal ever. Do the math (trust me, I did): each unit rents (currently) for about $700, there's a total of 8 units, and even with a 5.75 APR the 30 year mortgage is only going to require somewhere around 35K a year. That leaves you with enough for maintenance, taxes, and some wiggle room for emergencies/vacant units and still turns quite a useful profit the first year! To be honest, I was actually looking into a couple sources of capital this past week. Someone in my position doesn't have the luxury of being able to scrounge the kind of money necessary for a downpayment in that kind of time (give me 2 years, maybe), but as I doubt I've mentioned it yet, the building I live in is perfectly located and perfectly laid out. In other words, if I could buy any property in Madison right now for realistic and practical purposes, this would be it. Of course, following the advice of a wise old woman (don't tell her I called her old), I've in mind to start a little smaller for my first property. But it is a project I actually have in mind to do while I'm up in Madison. Perhaps an older, split level house which has already been converted for apartment living. I could either live in one unit and rent out the other, or, if a second project I have in mind turns out to be feasible, I might purchase such a place and rent out both units (aka, I would be able to live elsewhere...and no, unfortunately that's not with my future med-school girlfriend). But I'm fairly handy around an old house (thank you, 716 Broadway), and Madison is of the nature to ensure there'll always be renters (not to mention, I'm not in it for the money; check my overhead and a little wiggle room for unforeseens, and you've got yourself a monthly payment plan).

So, while the pipedream of buying this wonderful piece of property is out of my reach, the overall plan is in place to purchase a similarly wonderful piece of property in the near future. I'm currently putting together a down payment (yes, I'm just that "thrifty" with my money) and will be actively looking for a place to buy come next March or April. I'll be talking about both that plan and the consequences of the sale of my current residence as the deals get closed. In the meantime, just thought it was kind of odd that pictures of my apartment are posted on the internet (by the way, they're the latter 3, and you can see the matching buildings which sit on either side of the communal driveway from this page, as well).

Hi, I'm Jeff...

2007-09-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

What up, cruel world? It's JBP, back again. Yo.

If I could pin the failure to update on just one thing, I'd say it's the fact that life couldn't rock more hardcore right now. No joke...I have nothing bad to say about Life. Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are falling a little behind -- but Life is really the ring-leader of that show, anyways.

I could attempt to rehash the basic gist of the past month or so, but something tells me my only moral obligation is for the cliff-notes version. So here it is: Classes started up and are going great. I've got a course in Philosophy of Science and one in Metaphysics & Ethics (this one, thankfully, covers my ass on ethics distribution...too much intuition pumping for me). Both classes are going well, as is the course I'm TA'ing for with Prof. Sidelle. I'm in love with the teaching responsibilities this job has. I have so much fun directing class discussions...and I think, just now, I realized why. I make a handful of jokes in class, but I just realized that my enjoyment of the teaching gig is probably, at least in part, due to the fact that my sense of humor -- half dry, half sardonic, half observational -- is perfectly suited for the academic atmosphere. The students laugh and I get plenty of opportunities to be creative with the melding and sculpting of ideas. No, really...the students laugh. I'm funny. Screw you.

As a segway between academia and social life, I should say my classmates are great. I'm quite literally the only single one of them all, but several are in variable-length-distance relationships, so they still come out quite a bit. And that's the problem. I'll explain by way of anecdote: I called up one of the posse a couple days back and, as it turns out, they were all gathered over at someone's house for "a night in from the bars." Fair...but as the night progresses, everyone comes to the understanding that this is, in fact, a pleasant change from the bar scene and we should do it as a regular thing. Thus comes the scheduling conflict. It goes back and forth between, "How about Tuesday nights?"..."No, that's Kareokee."..."Thursdays?"..."That's the night we can actually get everyone from the department out to the bars."..."Wednesdays?"..."No, that's the girls' night/guys' night out"...."Friday?"..."We can't stay in on the weekends."...and it went on from there. Quite literally, since I arrived in Madtown, I've been out at least 4 nights a week. That may sound acceptable, but keep in mind I work three nights a week, two of which I often close past bartime. I almost feel like I'm back at Tulane with the insouciant stops by JMD's room and peaceful nights on the balcony.

How may a man do this, you ask? A PhD program's workload, teaching responsibilities, and a life?!? Simple: give up sleep. You all (unless I've recently acquired new readers up from up here) know my philosophy on sleeping, and how I put that into practice during my Tulane years. Unfortunately, that faded at NIU, where I probably averaged around 7 hours or so a night. Perhaps it was boredom or a general, lackadaisical end-goal, but I just couldn't keep myself occupied enough to motivate less sleep. But up here, I'm back to the 4.5 a night -- and I'm feeling great. So, at least at this point, I'm more than keeping up on all my responsibilities, pulling 9-5's at the office (literally, though they sometimes go to 5:45 or 6 if I'm towards the end of a particularly difficult text), enjoying a couple hours of downtime and general life-upkeep, followed by a healthy dose of social interaction, leading to a well-balanced JBP and a peaceful night's sleep to be repeated ad infinitum.

There are a couple interesting projects on the horizon I'll talk about soon, including updating the whole working situation and (lack of a) love life, but this "update" has already taken up too much of your time. Thanks for all the messages I got berating me in loving kindness to tell tales about my life up here. I know it's the only way I consistently keep up with my friends, outside the occasional, random phone call. I'll try to write again soon and get back into the habit of DW. Till then...

Namaste'.

Confidence and Wisdom

2007-08-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

In this world the wise one holds onto confidence and wisdom. Those are the greatest treasures; all other riches are pushed aside.

- Buddha

What do you think about this quote?

Divergent Attention

2007-08-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

I guess you could say my attention has been diverted into several other aspects of my ever evolving life at the moment so as to keep me away from this, the tangential chronicle of just such a life. But thanks, Tristan, for pulling me back in for an update.

The move went...painfully. Thanks to Brent and Austin, I was actually able to complete the move, but my minimalist life went bankrupt a couple years back. I moved up to DeKalb with my entire earthly possessions packed into my Blazer (with one suitcase on the roof). I moved up to Madison in a 17' U-Haul truck, with two suitcases in the Blazer. Getting old apparently entails getting more stuff...or maybe it's just being single in a two bedroom. But the important thing is that everything got moved in, and only my office is left to unpack and organize.

And Madison...damn. I don't know why I hadn't been up here in the past two years, as its only an hour and a half drive from DeKalb, but I'm already in love with this town. And when I say in love with it, I mean bordering on the type of affection one develops for New Orleans (to my NOLA peeps, don't worry, it's still first in my heart). But this is just a great city; bike lanes on the major roads, bike paths criss-crossing through the city, every restaurant is unique with all their main sauces and spices made in-house, bountiful fresh, local produce, with a strong organic leaning, and bars with personality. I can definitely see myself enjoying the next four years.

I'll get into the school stuff in another post, but as far as my life right now, tonight is my last night of training to bartend at The Old Fashioned. It's a tavern/pub (the title of this post is linked to their website) which stakes its claim on Wisconsin Pride. That means they've got picked eggs, cheese curds, fried eggs on burgers, and their entire beer selection is Wisconsin brewed, outside of the "imports" of Bud and Bud Light. But that still leaves them with a dozen beers on tap and a good three cooler cases of bottles. Ah, and their bar is 49.25 feet long. So that's where I'll be spending Sunday and Monday nights bartending. At the onset, I asked to both serve and bartend, as bartending is somewhat stressful and it's good to have a break to actually deal with people more. But, as it turns out, bartending at the old fashioned is nothing compared to the crap I had to deal with bartending at the Ruby's in DeKalb. So, maybe when school starts up I can either drop the Saturday shift or trade it out for some other bartending gig.

Is that crazy? Having five discussion sections to teach a week, plus my normal coursework, in addition to bartending? Well, that's for another post. In the meantime, I'm getting quite settled in and enjoying the new surroundings. The internet is a little fuzzy up here, but if I can get it to act a little more consistently, I'll try to get back to updating this. In the meantime, send word or give me a call if you like.

Namaste'.

An Excellent Professional Networking Tool

2007-07-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

Facebook, friendster (anyone remember that), Quxo (or that?), myspace, and all the rest of the online networking sites had a great idea; to get people connected and, in effect, show how one is connected to others who aren't necessarily their immediate friends. How do we use such sites? To give running commentary on the mediocrities of life (and, yes, I participate in these commentaries as much as the next guy) and to proposition people to come to our adult only sites (for those interested, my adult only site is linked from the title of this post).

There's nothing inherently wrong about these systems; after all, they are designed specifically for bootycalls. But there is now a system that networks even better than the social sites only it's geared towards professionals. LinkedIn allows you to create a profile that, in essence, is a personal resume'. In constructing your profile, you have the opprotunity to not only list current and prior jobs, but also what field or industry defines your profession. It is even possible to give and receive recommendations, thus providing second or third tier connections knowledge of who is and who is not reliable in their performance. In my experience with the system so far, I haven't come across anything lacking -- they've even got locations categorized. Oh, and its free. We all recognize the expression, "It's not what you know, but who you know." I think this site is finally a positive, productive, and practical (the three holy p's, in my book) step forward to utilizing the power of the search engine to full throttle.

Attachment: A Bad Rap

2007-07-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

Absurdities on the Road

2007-07-18T17:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of interesting points grabbed my attention as I was driving back to Springfield this afternoon. First was a billboard, which I imagine was advertising some sort of concrete sealant, but the only words which could be read at a high speed were "A Dry Crack is a Happy Crack." Naturally, after 6 hours of driving in the middle of a July afternoon, I believed in their message. Ironically, if not in a disgusting way, about another couple miles on I spied a restaurant I hadn't noticed before. No joke, the name of the place was "The Feed Lot." Ok, so a play on farming lingo is fine for a midwestern restaurant (which appeared as though it were part of a chain). However, do Americans really need a feed lot? And midwesterns, at that? An animated version of Animal Farm comes to mind in which Snowball and Napolean slowly morph into humans while a couple human businessmen slowly morph into pigs, the two species meeting as a very unfortunate looking hybrid between the two. And finally, again with the midwestern theme, is the milemarker discrepancies. See, I exit I-44 at 82A (for those who don't know, as I've noticed this appearently isn't very common knowledge, exit numbers corrospond to mile markers). As such, every milemarker I see tells me how many miles I have left through simple subtraction. But then, as just one example, I'd see signs that said "Springfield - 153 miles," or "Springfield - 134 miles"...but these two signs were not 19 miles apart as measured by the similarly governemnt-installed milemarkers. Assuming, of course, that they're measuring the same Springfield, either 1) the government workers of Missouri can't subtract or 2) at least one of these government workers is a crow.

Offline

2007-07-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

I'm off with Relic in tow for a trip back to Springfield, MO. I'll be "home" for about a week, during which time I may or may not have internet connection (or worse, only dial-up), so I might not be posting on DW. When I get back, though, it'll be just one week left to go till I move up to Madison. The crunch time for packing and getting pints with friends will commence, which will hopefully lead to an adventure or two. In the meantime,

Namaste'.

MonoCulture

2007-07-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Best Hummus Yet

2007-07-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

1 can Garbanzo Beans, rinsed and refilled with fresh water
8-10 Queen Green Olives (with those little red things)
2 Cloves Garlic (1 tsp. minced)
1 Tbs. Tahini
Drizzle of Olive Oil
Squirt of Lemon Juice
Salt to taste

Step 1: Add ingredients to your handy Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus, which no self-respecting bachelor should be without.
Step 2: 'Chop'
Step 3: Eat the best hummus yet. Highly recommended with baby carrots.

So Do We Get Our Light

2007-07-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

"It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! […] Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discoverer's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combatted, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."

--Nikola Tesla

The title of this post is linked to a damn interesting article on Tesla's wireless technology. This is for nerds and non-nerds alike, as there are some really cool ideas and potentials here that fate (and western economy) failed to bring to fruition.

Westbrae

2007-07-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

For awhile now, part of my weekly grocery shopping extravaganza has been picking up a can of Westbrae organic corn. I normally heat it up, throw half of it into a baked potato with salsa for lunch, and keep the other half as a side for some later meal. Turns out, though, I never bothered to take a close look at the can. Westbrae is not only a supplier of organic produce, they're also a supporter of the vegetarian lifestyle. Given, they have a vested interest in promoting more vegetables in peoples' diets. But the interesting thing is the vegetarian food pyramid they show on their cans. Instead of being a daily intake system, it's actually divided by tiers of how often each catagory should be eaten. Take a look:

How cool is that? I would say I pretty much have been following that to the 't' without ever really thinking about it. But I thought you might find it interesting to see how a vegetarian's diet is actually broken down. It's not all pastas, or all vegetables, etc. But it's a good balance between energy, protein, and a sufficient distribution of fats and oils...and it's all delicious.

The Third Reason

2007-07-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

Three classic reasons to go vegetarian:

1) You don't kill sentient beings. This both decreases the overall pain in the world and increases the overall pleasure (the utilitarian perspective)
2) You eat a healthier, more complete diet able to not only sustain but promote your well-being regardless of your age, stage in life, or how much protein your daily activities require.
3) It's better for the environment.

I've mentioned reasons 1 and 2 before, but I don't know how public the third reason is or how much you may know about it. So, here's a video (linked to Live Earth's webpage):

Not pleasant? True, but it happens (no, really, there's a famous quote to back me up on that one). And the fact remains that for one person to go vegetarian, they would singularly have a more positive impact on the environment than if they switched to a hybrid and lived the perfect energy-conservative lifestyle. What the video doesn't do a great job of explaining is the big picture of animal production; consider the massive trucks, machines, buildings, processing, McWrappers, waste product (those parts we don't eat), waste product (which the video showed), etc. that go into transporting and producing one cow's worth of meat.

However, what the video was excellent at was not proposing a large paradigm shift. One day a week, "say...Tuesdays," is all that's necessary to make a huge impact on the environment (and the overall utility of the world and your own health, to boot).

Attempt Number 2

2007-07-12T16:40:00.000-07:00

Try as I may, sometimes I just can't live up to my word. I'll try to keep the posts coming, but this time, I'm going to start off a little slower. Today's post is about my new Ficus Benjamini (or is it Ficuses Benjamina, like Courts Marshal or Generals Surgeon?). Either way, I bought a fairly cheap starter plant today at Lowe's, which had five little shoots of ficus. and I'm going to transform them all into bonsai. I've already trimmed off their tops and some very, very minor pruning. I won't be doing any wiring or defoliation for this season, but hopefully next spring I'll be able to start shaping them a bit. As you can already see, though, I re-potted each individual plant and they've got great beginning form. The first two are going be a formal and an informal upright:

One of the five plants was significantly smaller than the others, so instead of 1) tossing it out or 2) having to wait many, many years before I could begin any semblance of shaping, I decided to attach it to a third informal upright, changing it into a twin trunk design:

In a year or two the little guy will grow into a more balanced size next to the main specimen and you'll see some definite bonding going at the base of those two trunks. Finally, we have my favorite shape of bonsai, the slanting:

This one is going to take on a lot of shaping next season. You can see there was a little natural slanting going on to begin with, but I'll be increasing the angle even more with the next re-potting. The sprig you see coming out on the bottom left is probably going to have to go, and I'm not sure if I can't get any regrowth on those two jins right in the middle; I might have the shape the main lower branch back in the direction of the slant to keep the wind blowing. Anyways...this is what I'm starting with. Again, all of these came in a single pot from Lowe's, but I think they show promise. We'll see how they stood up to my root raking and slight pruning, and I may do some slight defoliation to bring the leaves back down to a more appropriate bonsai size.

Six Months...and a day...

2007-07-06T01:17:00.000-07:00

I know...just when I get back into the swing of things with, essentially, a post a day to keep me busy, I pull a disappearing act again. True, it was only a few days this time, but with good reason. The internet connection I use isn't that, uh, reliable. And the past couple days I haven't managed to, um, connect on a whim. And, as anyone out there in blogospherelandshire knows, when a post hits you, you just need to write it then. Otherwise, it'll never come out right.

Like this one: Yesterday marked the 6th month anniversary of me giving up cigarettes. That's right...six months with not a single puffed, dragged or bummed cigarette after many, many years of regular smoking. Of course, the great expounding I had planned on this topic is now lost somewhere within a dream I had last night of myself lacking any corporeal existence yet somehow still bouncing at the bar at which I work. And while that dream was definitely interesting, it pales in comparison to the witty puns I had worked up for my 6th month anniversary post. Ok, so maybe you lucked out in that I forgot the puns.

But I'll get back to trying to keep up with fairly regular posts, here. Mary left a comment, and a question, to my last veganism post I'll be addressing shortly. And as the month counts down, the move to Madison will be ever approaching leaving me with ever increasing complexities in my life. And, as this summer has essentially been a vacuum of experiences, I feel lucky to have had enough material to post what I did. So, in sum, look forward to new posts soon. I'll try to jot down my posts in the word processor program if I can't get the internet rolling, that way DW won't just turn into a messed up excerpt from The Interpretation of Dreams.

Of course, in the meantime, you can check out the linked title of this post, directing you to the amazon.com site for a book on how to stop smoking. I know, it sounds cliche'. But after/while reading this book, I quit cold turkey from the better part of a pack a day, sans any nicotine replacements, and haven't had any trouble refusing offers since. So I recommend it, and would be more than happy to send my copy to anyone who wants to read it. Just let me know. Till next time...

Namaste'.

Book Review: The Children of Hurin

2007-07-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

For graduation, my parents got me a set of bookends shaped like the knight and rook chess pieces. They're great, because I often times have 6 books going at once; you can never know what you might be in the mood for, right? So on my end table, between my favorite spot on the couch and my armchair, there are several books within reaching distance, all of which have a random sliver of parchment sticking out the top marking the moment I had to get ready for work or remembered my rice was done cooking. And as I've nothing else really going on this summer, I thought I might make use of my time by periodically providing a literature review.

I'll begin, then, with one of those books that didn't last long between the bookends, The Children of Hurin (pronounced "Hoo-ren"). And before you discount the possibility you might actually like this book based solely on the Tolkien authorship, allow me to point out the best thing about it: Unlike Tolkien's other works, with myriads of Valar and Feanor's offspring, or cousins and sire lineages going back ages, The Children of Hurin is surprisingly readable with a limited assortment of key players or names to recall with every passing mention. There is an appendix of names (both places and people), but in addition the short cast, the editing his son did resulting in a surprising flow of characters coming into the story and staying in the forefront of the text and your mind till their role in the overall myth comes to a close. As such, I never had to refer to the appendix and only very, very rarely caught myself trying to recall who a person was (mainly because Turin, who's the main protagonist, changes his name from time to time). But I'd say that was no more than reading any well-written work of fiction.

And I used 'myth' in describing this work for a purpose. One of Tolkien's original aims was to create both a cosmologically complete and yet personally relevant system of myths for the island nation of Britain. Those who've undertaking the Lord of the Rings know just how personal and detailed Tolkien gets, and those who've read his Simarillion know he backs up those personal stories with an overarching, coherent mythological system. But that's I think the greatest asset to the Children of Hurin -- it provides a level of myth more easily digested than the tombs of LOTR yet with the artistry and depth of characters, environment, and meaning which made Tolkien's other works so powerful.

In sum, I highly recommend this book, even as a primer/introduction to Tolkien's works. And honestly, seeing the movies is sufficient background for this read; you know there are men and elves who are good, orcs and Easterlings (savage men) who are bad, and anything else you need, if at all, is found in a brief introduction by Tolkien's son. Of course, this is before the time of Suromon, so Morgoth Bauglir, who was Suromon's original master and is the incarnate form of the evil Valar (or Demi-God) Melkor, is the main antagonist. The book is a complete story, in and of itself, and is everything a myth should be. It's rare for me to get but 50 or 60 pages read in any one book at one sitting. However, the first night I read 200 pages of this book and then finished the remaining 60 or so up the next chance I got.

I highly, highly recommend it.

"They Remind Me of Who I AM"

2007-07-02T01:39:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful film, spliced from the longer version of Ashes and Snow.

Fear or Laziness?

2007-06-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

or, Impeccably Imperfect

"Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that [super-]chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit -- the true artist, the saint, the philosopher -- is rarely achieved. Why so few?"

I've been wrestling with a comment SLC left me a few posts ago. In the most convivial manner, I have no doubt, SLC lovingly suggested I not be so hard on myself. In her words, I seem to forget that I'm not a deity. While I'll readily admit I'm increadibly demanding of myself, I view it more as an attempt to be impeccable rather than to be perfect.

The difference is subtle, but, at least for me, it is exceedingly important. To be impeccable, as I use the term, is to have no internal, self-derived faults. In the words of dictionary.com, it's to be flawless; irreproachable; not liable to sin; or even incapable of sin (sin here referring to its original usage meaning "missing the mark"). To be perfect, on the otherhand, is to have no faults, simpliciter. Both outside and inside factors go into that notion, both things one can control and those one cannot, at least how I'll be using it to differentiate between the two concepts.

Now, as always, I must preface any discussion of human potential with a clear and direct caveat that I do not consider myself to be on par with deities, Plato, Nietzsche, or any of the greats. However, I think there is another distinction to be drawn with individuals such as these, of which I do hold myself to be at least near par; there's a difference between the production of great works of art, truth, and life and that of the motivation or the internal constitution to always strive towards the production of such works.

The difference, then, lies within the causes, not the effects, of our rational will. If I am prevented by fate or luck or disaster, so be it. But if it such great works of truth are prevented from coming to fruition by some cause internal to my own design (even if that be in a deterministic understanding of my "free will", so long as that cause passes through my own reasoning), then I am responsible for not doing more and, hence, the lack of such beauty coming into the physical realm of reality.

I might be charged with holding myself to some supererogatory level of existence; but I'm not saying I can't go see a movie or relax with friends. My life is what is in question, here, not the philosophical products of my career, alone. When the common greats that come to mind -- Plato, Beethoven, Einstein, Goethe -- there is some definitive, well-known contribution to the world. But there are those we know personally who have reached even higher potentials, because they do so with a harmony amongst all aspects of their life. Where Mozart may have been a rake despite his art, the archetypal mother in the neighborhood full of wandering kids who treats each with respect and loving appreciation has contributed her due potential of truth and beauty to the world. All aspects of life, then -- be it intellectual, physical, interpersonal, or otherwise -- could and, in my opinion, should be examined with this aim at impeccability. "An unexamined life..." so they say.

So, SLC knows me well; in a sense, I was back the next day "pursuing immortality." Not in any sense aiming at perfection, but with a constant drive towards impeccability. Do I fail at this aim? Often. I fully embrace my "moments of weakness," but I feel that I accomplish so much more with such a greater depth of experience when this is my aim, not necessarily what I'm able to achieve. Instead of turning a blind eye to sleeping in late when I'm not actually tired or watching sitcoms that I don't even find that entertaining, I think I end up with a more interactive life lived and, if nothing else, better stories to tell on DW. It's more of a constant awareness of my actions and the persistent questioning of my motivation behind them; is this what I really want to be doing right now, or am I doing it merely as a default/easy way to pass the time I've got this go around?

Was that a little over the top? I hope not. Either way, I'd appriciate comments and reactions to that. In the meantime...

Namaste'.

The Middle-Man

2007-06-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

"Killing animals to get the nutrients that are contained by plants in the first place is – as in the case of dairy – unnecessary (and thus cruel) as well as terribly inefficient and wasteful."

-Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

What question is first asked when discussing all things vegetarian? The question about the nutrients; not only protein, but the vitamins and minerals, as well. The title of this post is linked to one of the most well-written, non-preachy, purely informative-without-being-overly-technical pieces I've read about veganism (for the best book of similar nature, try Becoming Vegan). The author asks a good question; why is it only when vegetarianism is mentioned that people start questioning nutrient intake? Why not, "Oh, you're an omnivore. That's pretty interesting. How do you get your fiber/antioxidants/complex carbohydrates?"

As I'm sure I've hinted at before, I love animals and all that jazz, and the positive impact on the environment is something I notice, but the real reason I became vegan is for health reasons. This is why the above quote from the article fascinated me so much. Thoreau said it in Walden Pond, something to the effect that all animals lower on the food chain build muscles, bones, a healthy nervous system, etc. by eating nothing but a strict vegetarian diet. Nope, they don't even drink their mothers milk once their digestive system is able to handle solid food. Naturally, then, there's no reason we can't do the same (the things that might be argued to set us apart -- our capacity to reason and have moral worth -- are not dependent on anything found by eating the flesh other animals).

The article talks about a couple interesting points, like how the calcium in milk actually must be artificially placed into the cow's diet, as there's no longer room for them to graze in actual pastures where the green, leafy, calcium rich vegetable matter grows. But if you go straight to the source -- eating green, leafy vegetables -- you get all the benefits of the calcium without 1) the puss from overtaxed udders and 2) the "calcium-leeching animal protein" that accompanies most milk drinkers' daily diets. A second good point made on this issue: imagine, at your age, drinking human breast milk. Even imagine it going through the same pasteurization/processing method used in the dairy industry. Doesn't that still seem odd?

In defense, I know a lot of people just like the taste of a juicy prime-rib, a cut of sirloin, or their 2% on their cereal in the mornings. But I'd wager most people have switched milk types at some point in their lives. Have you ever gone from whole to 2%, or 2% to 1%, or skim? It tastes and "feels" odd for a bit, but after awhile, your old preference is suddenly foreign. What you drank for years just doesn't quite taste right. I found the same thing with Silk. I tried the non-flavored, then the vanilla, and I settled on the Light Vanilla. It's not too thick and has a good flavor to it. It took me a bit (a week or two) to settle into where I wasn't consciously thinking, "this tastes different...oh, that's because I'm drinking bean-juice." One day, just like % did for me years ago, it just became a background for my delicious Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal. I found the same thing as I gave up beef, poultry and fish. In fact, what's better, I found out how much I love red bell peppers, field greens, honeydew melons, and Royal Gala apples (and, yes, I did try about 12 other kinds of apples before I found those). Things I never ate prior to my switch don't "fill the void" caused by a lack of meat, but simply take preference in taste to what now seems foreign and (forgive me) grotesque to my senses.

Ok, to wrap up this little vegan rant my friends were probably wise to stop reading after the first quote, let me just say this; as mentioned in the article this post is linked to, I agree with the author that we've become overly obsessed with single nutrients. We obsess over calcium or omega-3, or worry about whether we're getting the right amount or the right kind of proteins. But I don't think there's any such thing as a well-balanced diet. I eat what I'm hungry for, and let me tell you, biting into an artichoke heart unexpectedly in the middle of an Italian salad is pure bliss. I stock my fridge and pantry with good, solid, whole foods and build my meals up from there. And I gotta say, I'm now in the best shape of my life (even considering my highschool swimteam days...TDZ has the picture to prove it).

Anyways, I hope this wasn't too much of a bore, and that you didn't take this as a lecture (or stopped reading before you felt that way). Feel free to leave comments, but know that I don't look down upon anyone just because they like the taste of meat. I've tasted both sides of the debate, and I simply prefer my food the way I do. This was simply meant to dispel a couple myths and answer the question most often asked.

"The point here is to demonstrate that far from being deficient in essential nutrients, plant-based diets are actually brimming with them."

The Hanged Man

2007-06-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

You are the Hanged Man

Self-sacrifice, Sacrifice, Devotion, Bound.

The Hanged Man is perhaps the most fascinating card in the deck. It reflects the story of Odin who offered himself as a sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. Hanging from the world tree, wounded by a spear, given no bread or mead, he hung for nine days. On the last day, he saw on the ground runes that had fallen from the tree, understood their meaning, and, coming down, scooped them up for his own. All knowledge is to be found in these runes.

The Hanged Man, in similar fashion, is a card about suspension, not life or death. It signifies selflessness, sacrifice and prophecy. You make yourself vulnerable and in doing so, gain illumination. You see the world differently, with almost mystical insights.

[For those who don't know, the title of my posts are always linked to relevant, interesting, or occasionally random-ass sites. So, for instance, this post's title is linked to the online tarot card "personality" quiz. Leave comments with your results!]

As a Languid Torch

2007-06-26T21:33:00.001-07:00

Just about a week ago, I took a nasty spill off my mountain bike while, of all things, riding home from working out. It wasn't gruesome, as I managed to tuck and roll just in time. I only had a minor road-rash on my left forearm, but the brunt of my fall ended up directly on the connective tissue between my left clavicle and acromion. Interesting fact; in attempting to find the impressive sounding name 'acromion', aka the shoulder socket bones (and, be honest, you were impressed), I came across the information that a clavicle fracture is the most common breakage in adults, accounting for 1 out of 20 adult bones broken. Hrm...imagine that.

In fact, I have been worrying on and off this past week whether I actually did break something. I got back most of my movement by the third day, but I've still got some shooting pains and a fairly intriguing bump where there shouldn't be one. Considering the persistence of this thing, I actually went to the campus doc's office for a couple x-rays today. Luckily, they didn't see anything broken; just some severely inflamed tendons.

But there's a bigger problem. I think I've been using this lack-of-a-left-arm thing as an excused to make myself feel better about not doing anything with my days. AS (what's your middle name?) has been calling me trying to get me back to the gym. True, I can't lift weights or really do any upper-body stuff so far, but I haven't even been keeping up with my running. And this is a week off (ok, I did go once) after being at the gym 6 days a week so far this summer. Even more, I don't think I'm living up to Shaw's ideal, brightly burning torch, as I quoted in my last post.

Bouncing at night is great, as 1) I'm already going to be awake and 2) it leaves my days completely free for productivity. But while I've been getting up at 7 or 8, eating breakfast, reading my comic strips (and the news), I end up going back to bed for another couple hours for a lack of anything better to do. Which is a lie. I have so much I could be doing - interesting books I could be reading, some furniture refinishing projects in their final stages, even a couple e-mails to friends which are overdue. The problem is that, at 9 or 10 in the morning, all of that can be done later in the day. But after having gone back to bed, I wake up again with the same mentality: There's always tomorrow, or next week, or after I move up to Madison. But that leaves each day in-between a complete waste of breath. And we've only got so many (though I've decided I'm going to live to 117, just so you know).

The point of this post is to publicly let forth my barbaric yawp from the rooftops of the world: Tomorrow, no more wasted breaths. I'm going to get up and be ready to do whatever doesn't directly cause my shoulder to scream (really, it screams...scared the shit out of the girl on the elliptical next to me the other day) at the gym first thing in the morning. Then, after a shower and shave (the lack of which is a great indicator of how much I haven't been doing anything with my time) I'm going to actually do something with my day. I'll let you know how it goes, but the overall point is to do one thing, each day, directly promoting each of my ideals. I know, it sounds lofty. But, for example, my ideal for my first action upon waking up is to look good naked (in the words of Lester Burnham). I'll let you know how that's going, too.

To Be Thoroughly Used Up

2007-06-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of being a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

— George Bernard Shaw

M-Class

2007-06-24T23:55:00.000-07:00

That's right. Not D-class, L-class, or learner's permit: I'm m-class certified. As was rightly commented the other day, now all I need is a bike. So, on to step two. I've been ebaying and craigslisting (is that a word, yet? like googling?) for a bike that's within my pick-up range. Oh, and within a grad-school TA's income range. You might be surprised just how many bikes fall within that field. Go ahead, craigslist that shit (I don't care, I'm making it a word). The best part about it all is that a Honda from '78-'88 that was taken care of is a good, solid bike still. Of course, I'm looking to get a cruiser style (think classic Harley look, but not a Harley), something around 500 to 750 cc's, and so far I'm liking what I've heard about Honda. True, I'm just now getting into this, so there'll be a learning curve. I'm hoping that I don't do the bulk of that learning from my own mistakes, but I think I can safely approach this purchase within my limited knowledge. Of course, any suggestions will be appreciated, if you happen to be in the know.

Finally, if you happen to be the DeKalb area, I'm sorry for your misfortune. Oh, but you should really check out this basic riding course. You can try virtually every Friday evening; they start at 6pm in Holmes 506. They do a lottery to fill any vacant position with walk-ins and, so far as I've heard, every weekend they've had at least 5 spots open. The class lasts all weekend, but each student gets their own practice bike and roughly 6 hours saddle time both Saturday and Sunday. By the time the weekend is through, you get a certificate automatically granting m-class license (i.e. without any further tests) when you take it in to the DMV. And, the class is free! I won't say it's an easy skill set to get the hang of, but I doubt anyone reading DW would have any trouble passing the requirements. It was a lot of fun, and as you can tell, I'm pretty much addicted to the idea of motorcycling now. Seriously, I'm going to get my doctorate in philosophy...what else am I going to do (besides go to Nepal) but tour around the country staying on friends' couches (you can only stay on one couch for so long before it's time to start moving on again).

You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.

-Robert Pirsig

The Way Things Go...

2007-06-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

When I leave you guys alone for about a month, really the only thing that feels comfortable for me to do is give a rundown of my life. And, something tells me, you probably appriciate Jeff's Life Updates more than you do Jeff's Divergent Thoughts. So, without further ado, my life, in 700 words or less:

I finally finished up my Masters degree this past Monday. Many of you probably thought I graduated this past May...and I kinda did. I walked, received my diploma cover, and was technically done with 98% of my requirements for the degree. But I hadn't yet passed my Ethics comprehensive exam. What can I say? I'd never really had any ethics (sic). The only exception was a course in which the professor yelled at me for being a "fucking socialist." Naturally, I'm not really sure that I got much out of that course. But, a good weekend's studying later, I'm fairly sure that I am now finished at NIU.

Ah, and I'm a bouncer. Surprised? Yup, I bounce at a bar in town that is very, very similar to Bruno's in its atmosphere. Thankfully, that also means I don't have to break up too many fights. But it does provide ample opportunity to work on my small-talk skills. Since I'm only around for the summer (and I told them that when getting the job), I've no chance to move up to bartender, but once I get up to Madison I'm fairly sure I'll try and secure a job bartending straight out of the gates. A Monday night bartender, during the summer (which, for DeKalb, means the entire city clears out), makes close to 300 a night. That'd really help that graduate assistant pay actually sustain my lifestyle. True, it'd be stressful, but it'd be during the hours I had free, anyways, and I think it'd be well worth the stress and pain. Now, I just have to land such a job.

I was told the other day how funny it is that I, the soon-to-be professor of philosophy, of all things, is a bouncer. Quite a disparity of images, I suppose. So I've added another one; motorcyclist. NIU offers a free course where you learn all the basics of riding and, at the end, you're m-class driver's license certified. I just finished up the second day of that today, including some practice at bobbing and weaving and cutting tight corners in third gear. It was an amazing time. I got so pumped from this afternoon's practice (on a Honda NightHawk) that I'm fairly sure I'm going to be buying a bike before the year is out. You can imagine it; rolling up to campus with my tweed jacket with the elbow patches on a classic cruising-style bike. And, to add to the picture (though it won't be visible on my right upper shoulder), here's a picture of the tattoo I'm going to be getting when I head home this July. It'll be my first one, and I'm planning on getting it on my right shoulder, where the center of the crescents will essentially be positioned right on the balljoint of my shoulder (facing towards my right side). It'd overlap up top a bit, but at about the size of my closed fist, it would basically be fully visible from a side angle. And don't mind the colors; the actual tattoo would be monochromatic black/gray.

Finally, a last little rant. I have a friend from a very long time ago (highschool) who happens to be on facebook and is pregnant. Without naming names, is it not incredibly disturbing to see a note-update that someone you knew from highschool is dilating? Just an effed-up realization I had this morning.

Hope life is treating you well, 'cause I ain't got no better stories to tell. If anything exciting happens (which, I'll let you know now, is rather unlikely for the next month of living in DeKalb) I'll post again soon. Otherwise...

Namaste'.

Ashes and Snow

2007-06-13T20:21:00.001-07:00

The most beautiful film you've ever seen...

Perhaps the waves are telling us
'Remember your dreams. Remember your dreams. Remember your dreams.'

Bushisms

2007-06-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

Just for fun...

Nepal or Bust

2007-05-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

Those of you who’ve known me for a good long while probably remember my love of Nepal. Not the current political disruptions, but the peasant villages, mountains, and orchard paths. For a long time, I wanted to spend a couple months from the Fall after my senior year there. The plan was to buy a ticket there, a ticket back, and have 200 bucks in my pocket for the trip. And it could be done. But, due to the circumstances of where I was at and what I needed to do to keep moving forward academically, there was simply no way to not postpone that trip.

And I do say postpone, because the intent to make that trip hasn’t passed. I haven’t thought about it in awhile, but just recently I’ve been realizing that, quite literally, everything in my life is turning out beautifully. I’m moving up to a scenic, progressive, intellectual city; I’m starting work on my doctorate in Philosophy at a school with an amazing reputation which is only continuing to move up the charts; my coursework, advisor, and TA assignment all fell perfectly into place; and, to be frank, outside of all that my heads in the right place, again. So why not make this trip?

It is something I’ve not been telling myself I need to do but have been feeling deep down that I need to do. JMD, when I was out at his cabin in Colorado, asked me why I needed to go halfway around the world when I could achieve the same level of isolation within 14 hour drive. There’s nothing mystical or special about Nepal – it’s just the place that’s calling to me. What’ll I do there? Nothing…and everything. I plan to not plan a thing, outside the aforementioned ticket there and ticket home. And given the recent resurgence of my bike riding, I see no reason why I can’t pack up my bike (and more than a few spare tubes) and send that with me. Add to that some hiking gear, a tent and pad, and the tools to cook some rice, and I’m set. Travel some, hike some, converse some, but spend a good deal about a day's ride from a village for necessities, but far enough away to be completely alone. Completely alone. Maybe I’ll take turns between sitting under a Bodhi tree and letting out a battle roar (in honor of NRZ). Whatever it is, I feel it’s important that I do this.

Naturally, I won’t be able to this coming Fall. As I mentioned in passing, I’ve got a great schedule lined up for the coming term. Add to that getting settled into Madison, acquiring a second job bartending, and finding the intriguing and eccentric med-school student to share my life with, I’ll have a pretty full plate. But after a year in the program, I might see about taking a semester off for Fall ’08. Get someone to sub-lease my apartment for the term having acquired all my inoculations, passports, and languages-learned in the semester leading up to it, and then just go. **Blink** and gone from the world of the known for a couple months. How’s that sound?

Namaste’.

Funny Quip

2007-05-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

"So we were staying in this really old hotel in Chicago. I went into the stairwell, but it was one of those old-fashioned stairwells."

"Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. You mean it was one of those manually operated stairwells, right?"

I suck at being a Vegan

2007-05-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Labels: Vegan

After that title, you might be expecting me to expound upon the deliciousness of a freshly roasted corpse with extra au jus. But, no, not so much, no.

Na, what I mean by this is two-fold; 1) I'm not a "vegan-freak" and 2) I don't mind the by-products so much.

First, I will compromise and eat dairy and egg products when they're prepared for me. For instance, I wouldn't dream of turning down an offering from a friend. If the muffin or cookies were made with dairy products and used egg as a binding agent, that's fine by me. The benefit of allowing a gift to be given far exceeds any cost to me or the animal. Also, when I go out to eat, I find that a truly vegan meal is impossible to order except at specialty restaurants. So, if there's some cream in the pasta sauce or egg used in the tempura batter (does tempura batter have egg?), that's also fine. I wouldn't say that I'm a "convenience" vegan -- I don't simply compromise for the sake of simplicity -- I'm just an exceptionally good vegetarian who knows the practical limits of such idealism. But in my own home, of course, I only cook vegan (and you guys should really come to see me next year in Madison. Since there's very few alternatives, I've become quite practiced at cooking some amazing meals).

And about the by-products; there seems to be something akin to double-effect going on here. I abhor to the means and even the baseline idea of the meat industry, but I also respect the way Native American's used the buffalo. If the animal does die (note, I did not say if an animal "has to" die, as no animal has to die for 1st world dietary needs), every possible good should be utilized from that death. I won't support the industry, but while the industry is still steaming ahead, I see no reason not to utilize the waste products of the machine. Less waste is better, all-in-all. And what about those by-products of which I'm the cause? Click the title of this post for a good defense out of that one.

Namaste'.

Dipping into Oblivion

2007-05-21T06:15:00.000-07:00

“Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, canceled, made nothing? Dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change.”
— D.H. Lawrence

Many things have changed or are in the process of changing since I last posted on DW. It's been a bit of a transitional point in my life.

Two nights ago I went out with some old friends from Ruby Tuesday's, many of whom I hadn't seen in at least 4 months, if not much more. For the first time since one of these aforementioned changes began, one of my old friends asked me about my losing weight. Truth be told, I haven't lost weight; but I have been changing my ratio of percentages of what makes up that weight. Since A-S was finally able to drag me to the rec center late this year, I've been averaging about 6 days a week working out, alternating with weights and adding a bit of cardio each day. A lot of the facts and advice I got from working out with ASH has atrophied through lack of use, but as I'm getting back into it things are starting to click again. Overall, though, I've been feeling much better. As a side note, it's now been well over 4 and a half months since I quite smoking cold turkey with not a single side-puff or cheat in the mix.

Graduation also took place a little over a week ago. I even got to wear the Masters hood, which made for a good picture with the rents. Graduations always make me fairly melancholy, which is ironic considering how many of the damn things I'll have gone to by the time I actually start my career. The cause of that sober thoughtfulness I'll leave to the reader's speculations, but it does mean I'll be transitioning to life up at Madison for the next few months. I found a great place right next to St. Mary's, stuck in between the beautiful jogging paths of both Shore Dr. of Monona Bay and the Arboretum. It's just a quick mile and a half to Campus and State St., and just 2 miles to the capital. That's easily walking distance, but even better is the plethora of bike lanes crossing all of the Central and West regions of Madison. In lieu of this potential, I took my old Trek 6000 into the shop to get tuned up to riding capacity again. There's a great cyclery shop in town who did quite a bit of maintenance for quite an affordable price. I also added on one of those back-tire racks, though I don't have any satchel bags to go with, yet. Since I got it back, I've pretty much been riding it as opposed to driving most of the time. This adds to the working out change, and at $3.50 a gallon up here, the investment I made in fixing the bike up should be pretty quick to return itself.

And, with a lack of school, I've been reading a lot of books left dormant on shelves this past year. I tend to accumulate quite a bit of amazon.com orders over the course of the year, without ever seeming to realize there's no way I'd get to read them until summer rolled around. The thing is, a lot of important aspects about life went amiss this past year: specifically, the important aspect of life, itself. I was dead wrong in my assessment of how difficult and busy an academic year this would be -- mostly self-inflicted, but damaging none-the-less. Between applications, GREs, taking on supererogatory coursework, making admissions decisions, and having a TAship from hell, I lost track of some of the old traits and practices I used to keep up with. Now, I'm looking to get back the Felix Felicis I had when I first moved up to DeKalb. Not that I'm trying to recreate the past, but the combination of practices and habits that likely resulted in the successful navigation of life two years ago are all in place again; working out regularly, eating well, reading good books voraciously, and taking time to center life again.

If you can't dance with you own devils....

I know this was a bit of a long post; just a way of updating the personal side of this blog in one (hopefully not too boring) fell swoop. I'll get back to posting more regularly now that keel is bit more even.

Namaste'.

...All the Razor Perceptions that Cut Just a Little Too Deep...

2007-04-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

Melchior turned his eyes, watching the dust dance in the light. his sight seemed unusually keen, for he imagined that he could actually focus on each mote. Hundreds, thousands, then tens of thousands of them were held in his mind as they formed and reformed into exquisite patterns, ghostly images that poised in air only to dissolve and be reborn again.

"What do you see?"

Melchior opened his mouth to answer but couldn't.

"Good. One should be dumbfounded to see reality for the first time -- worlds coming and going like dust in a beam of sunlight."

What the Killers Want

2007-04-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Everyone seems to have some sort of obligatory post about the VT shootings. This is mine. The title of this post is linked to an article on the Washington post (I can't recall if the site required registration, but if so it's free). Here's a brief quote:

"Even more than these gruesomely gratuitous incidents themselves, I have come to dread the campus shooting's ritual media aftermath -- a secondary wave of atrocity, all conducted under the guise of grief, soul-searching concern and an ostensible determination to ensure that no demented loner ever opens fire on his classmates again. Yet the bloated photographs on front pages, the repeating loops of interviews on cable news, the postings of warped creative writing assignments on the Web, and perhaps above all the airing of Cho's self-pitying, quasi-messianic video clips on every network all help ensure that similar incidents will indeed recur -- and soon."

I know; it ironic to write an editorial criticisizing the promotion of a by-product of the editorial, itself. But I still think Shrivers is justified in his piece. Anyways, that's all I'm going to say about the issue.

rBGH

2007-04-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

Labels: Vegan

Johari Assessment

2007-04-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

So, here's kind of an interesting webpage I came across. No worries, it's not a test or questionnaire or anything. Just a couple clicks on what personality traits you think I have, then you get to see what conceit I assigned to myself (and where we overlap). Give it a go, and then drop me a comment with your own Johari site and I'll fill it out.

Madison!

2007-04-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

Without hesitancy or any coy slights-of-word, I'm going to Madison!

This is a decision made after a long process of pro's and con's, not to mention a long period of waiting to actually receive an offer. I was right on the lip of the waiting list for awhile now; yesterday I received the offer of admission and today, the officially deadline across the country for graduate programs, I accepted that offer.

Naturally, there are a multitude of complex motives and circumstances that influenced this choice. True, I only had a couple schools to consider (Boulder had some financial issues that, on the advice of an old professor, caused that option to be eliminated). However, I couldn't be more excited about this. The tally to the left has since been deleted and today is the last time you'll see the "Application" tag.

Oh, and perhaps now I'll finally be somewhere people will want to come visit (I'm looking at you two, SLC and JMD). I'm thinking of having Thanksgiving at my place next year, so to the gang in general, how's stuffed squash with a mango salsa, sassafras couscous with chickpeas, and sweet potato pie sound (don't worry, I'll stay away from the eggplant)?

In sum, good news all around. I'll be updating a bit more as the week progresses.

Some Interesting Links:
Madison's Philosophy Department
Map of Madison
Wiki-Madison
Definition of an Isthmus
Official Page

Another Post-It Repositioned

2007-04-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

In an effort to get my incredibly pissed off post off the top of the page, I've got some good news. Don't get me wrong, though, as a significant layer of me is still fuming (what can I say, my personal identity is like an onion [just keep pealing...you'll find a center]).

Ok, enough with the elusive metaphors; on to the good news! I just got an e-mail today from CU Boulder with the news that I am on a "very short" wait-list. By the diction used and the information as to when he expected to hear back from the first set of offers, I can only surmise that I fall somewhere within the top three spots on this wait-list. It's not the best news possible, but it definitely adds a layer of hope to an otherwise miserable day. The side-bar is updated, now, and I'll actually be taking an active approach in e-mailing to find out what's holding up the other three schools I have pending. Also, now that it's the end-game I'll be bumping up the actual postings in addition to simply updating the sidebar. Look for tough decisions soon.

Current mood: Calm Storm

One Word

2007-04-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

Ill: adj.

1. of unsound physical or mental health; unwell; sick: He felt ill if ever the name came up.
2. objectionable; unsatisfactory; poor; faulty: ill manners.
3. hostile; unkindly: ill actions received.
4. evil; wicked; bad: of ill repute.
5. unfavorable; adverse: ill fortune.
6. of inferior worth or ability; unskillful; inexpert: an ill example of scholarship.

It's amazing how one word with it's various meanings covers every thought you'd like to express at the moment.

The Bad Omen in Zambia

2007-03-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

First, Blood Diamond is an amazing film. To be fair, it wasn't perfect acting. And the camera work would have been much more apt under the guiding hand of Ridley Scott. But the writing/story-line was amazing. A good movie if you can ignore some of the technical aspects.

In other news, the title of this post is linked to a rather funny story about a bad omen in Zambia (a correspondence piece from the BBC, for those BBC-fanatics in the crowd). I wasn't intentionally looking up depressing facts about Africa, but their co-existence in my phenomenological experience today couldn't be overlooked when creating this post...you know how it is: coincidence turns to omen pretty quick.

Namaste'.

The Excuses We Make

2007-03-24T01:49:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what we'll come up with to keep us from working out. For example, at the beginning of this academic year I bought a combination master lock so that I could keep my stuff safe when I went to work out. Naturally, I took the combination to this lock, committed it to memory, and then promptly ate the piece of paper it was printed on. Two weeks later, I couldn't quite recall whether the 10 went before the 26, or to the right of the 33.

The result; I haven't worked out in awhile.

The good news, though, is that since Christmas (when my parents bought me a nice glass-top, digital, body% measuring scale), I've dropped nearly 10 lbs. To those friends who haven't seen me in a couple months, don't worry: this isn't to say I look famished or that I have that sunken look some vegetarians get about them. On the contrary, it was no secret I kept a little in reserve around the midsection and a good deal of that is what is gone now. As mentioned, I haven't been working out (at least, no cardiovascular, though I do have some weights in my apartment), but obviously my dietary practices have changed fairly dramatically in the past 3 or 4 months. Given, I started the whole vegetarian thing right after Thanksgiving, but it took awhile to get get out of the junk-food-veg phase. Once I started cooking actual meals for myself and stopped relying on overly-processed broccoli and cheese hot pockets (namely, after the first of the year), I saw the bulk of that weight drop.

Anyways, though I know you love to hear about my current physique (you know I'd post pictures, but this isn't that type of blog), the main point of this post is to tell all those of you out there who similarly absolutely can't manage to work out because you, too, have forgotten your master lock combination, there is hope! The title of this post is linked to the first site googled under "lost combination for master lock". It's a process I knew to exist from my lock-picking days a couple years back, but I'd forgotten the exact details of it. Don't worry, despite the deceptive descriptive language the author of said page utilizes, this is very much not a hard process to figure out. And, though it may take a little trial and error when you get to the end-game, it goes a lot quicker than you'd imagine. Running through the digits of my own lock's locked final minutes literally took, uh, minutes. And, for the 3 or 4 bucks a master lock costs, I'd rather spend 10 minutes playing the game of figuring out its combination. Good luck if you need to use it...if not, we'll see what tomorrow's gym session brings about. I'll keep you updated (I might even create a new label...but let's not get ahead of ourselves).

P.S. Thanks goes out to Brad B. for mentioning the idea of motivating your own work-outs by making them public on your blog. Thanks for the idea.

The Riddle of Epicurus

2007-03-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

Labels: Humor, Philosophy

The Tetrapharmakos:
(The Four-Part Cure)

Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.

(Philodemus, Herculaneum Papyrus, 1005, 4.9-14)

Drunken Counterfactuals

2007-03-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Labels: Humor, Philosophy

[The following is adapted and rewritten from a comment made by Adam W. I take no credit for originality of the humor.]

A Counterfactual is the drunk guy at the bar who loses a fight, yet preserves his pride by asserting that:

Well, if x [counterfactual antecedent], I *hic-up* coulda beat 'em. *puke*

Some likely candidates for x in this instance are:
: I wasn't so drunk
: his wife wasn't watching
: I was mad enough. . . but he wasn't worth it
: he hadn't a-sucker punched me
: he hadn't had his buddies there
&c. . .

Statements about such "states of affairs" certainly have no referent. Thus, they have nothing that makes them true. But the drunken counterfactual's drunken buddies would readily agree with the counterfactual's belief that, if it wasn't for the way things really are, he'd be a badass.

Making Vegan Pizza

2007-03-20T23:34:00.001-07:00

Just a cool video if you're in to that sort of thing...but you gotta admit, this looks good.

Just some randomness

2007-03-20T02:14:00.000-07:00

Labels: Humor

Perhaps, but not just now

2007-03-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

Labels: JBP, Philosophy

Perhaps at some point in the new future I will complain and grumble about the absurdities that confiscate my life. If you're curious, in the meantime, I've linked the title of this post to a post 366 days ago on this same topic.

However, I wanted to take a brief aside to point out something I found rather humorous. In studying for these comps, we've been fairly kind to one another by providing our own versions of outlines for the topics at hand. These outlines, by no means, include sufficient information alone to pass the tests, but they're helpful in recalling previous knowledge and in organizing one's thoughts. What kills me is that in the middle of an incredibly detailed outline of Descartes' second meditation, amidst lines of text of definitive information and rational process, of the nurturing self, sensing self, and rational self, is a line stuck in which says "Descartes is really pulling this out of his ass." I can only imagine the state of mind of the individual, whomever it was, who wrote that. Because, honestly, I can only imagine the state of my mind at present.

I hope all the NIU kids had a great Spring Break. I know I did!

With Honors

2007-03-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

Labels: Literature, Philosophy

I took this ethics comp this morning; I have the history comp to take on Monday. And, though nearly completely unrelated to the studying of said comps, I haven't had a good night's sleep in at least three weeks...even for me. Two unrelated aspects of my life which, unfortunately for the readers of DW, lead me to existential angst (insert an emoticon for "morose"). I say this is unfortunate for your reading pleasure because, alas, I am left to give you quotes from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The first one you'll remember from that classic Joe Pesci and Brendan Fraser film, With Honors;

"You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

"Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contain'd between my hat and boots"

"To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so. […] I and this mystery here we stand."

"These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe."

"I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content."

*-All quotes from the poem "Song of Myself".

Testing...One, Two, Three

2007-03-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

Trust me, I have been considering this issue of my recent trend of thoughts; I don't mean to be preachy or in your face about these issues. But I do think they're important. So, I've got new tag: "Vegan". Unfortunately, these tags are placed at the bottom of the post (though, I think I might be able to fix that and put them right under the title...we'll see). If you don't care to read or see about issues involving animal cruelty, the vegetarian/vegan diet, or health issues, I'll try to make it as easy as possible to identify that thread of divergent thought. However, to the post at hand, I found this video and I think it's both incredibly well done and on message.

The GradCafe

2007-03-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

I got curious a couple posts back as to how people were coming across my site. Given, my friends either have the page bookmarked or google "divergent world" when they want to get back here. However, when making fun of the random "fruit loops scrambled letters" google in a comment awhile back, I also noticed a trend. Because I've been blogging about the application process, a lot of hits have been pointing people to my site about admissions, philosophy, grad programs, etc. In turn, I decided to take a look around, and I came across this really good site for application updates. TheGradCafe.com has a continuously updating list of notification letters. If you click on the title of this post, it'll take you to a week-long spectrum of program notifications beginning with the letter 'P' (Philosophy is a couple slots down). Here you can submit notification updates and view whether other people have heard from the schools you're applying to. There's also a column for how the notification was received (phone, e-mail, postal, etc). Quite a few people have been submitting for philosophy, which is good. Of course, quite a few of those have been rejected, which is bad. But any news is good news at this stage in the game. As you can see in the sidebar to the right, I've only got 7 schools left to hear from. Ohio state sent rejections about a week ago and Rutgers did as well, but I don't know how heavily I'd rely on that information (I checked the website and Rutgers has me listed as "No Decision"). But I guess it's just good to see some relevant information now and then. Anyways, for those of you who stumble across my site trying to find more relevant information, the gradcafe is the place for it. Good luck to you and, as my friend recently suggested, "加油" (literally, "add oil"; cultural idiom of encouragement in Chinese).

This Veggie Thing

2007-03-13T01:34:00.000-07:00

I try not to make a big deal out of it. With the exception of BRL (who actually went vegetarian first), not too many people are subjected to my comments and musing about my dietary habits. Sure, I may hint at it from time to time or bring it up when relevant to the situation at hand...and yes, sometimes I post disgusting videos of factory farming. But all-in-all, I don't think it's any more of an issue or imposition than any other hobby I might have taken up.

However, it's also not simply a hobby. It's a way of life. It's not a choice. God made me this way...or...I mean...

What brings this up is a recent conversation I had. After mentioned that I'd be making a dinner based on a meal ASH made for us while we were in NOLA, in passing I said I'd be substituting super firm tofu for chicken, to which the reply was, "So, you're still on that veggie kick, huh?"

The kicker is, this isn't a phase I'm going through. Given, like a lot of people, I too went through a vegetarian phase when I was younger. And yes, like most 8 year olds, I grew out of it. However, that was the classic testing of limits and simply attempting to be unique. But actually becoming a vegetarian was the product of a rational decision well analyzed with due attention to long-term health. I'm pretty much in this for the long-haul.

Now don't get me wrong. With the exception of this little tirade, I'm not what's referred to as a "vegan freak." Oddly, I am, for all intensive purposes, vegan. I use soy milk in cooking and on cereal and I don't eat eggs. However, I also don't freak out if the cookie I'm eating used eggs in the batter or if a soup was thickened with milk. And, for the most part, simply because a soup used chicken stock or the noodles were cooked in turkey broth, that's not a big deal to me. Yes, I wear a leather belt. Yes, I wear leather shoes. But, to be fair, the health benefits are superordinate to the ethical treatment of animals...and those items were bought pre-veganism. In general, though, anytime I have control over the situation, I'll refrain from eating animals or using their by-products.

But the meal itself ended up tasting great. The tofu soaked up quite a bit of the pineapple flavor, which was good, but almost counterproductive. Perhaps next time I'll sear the tofu first with a cumin rub to delineate the different tastes. Also, I underestimated the pepper needs. I only used one green bell pepper; I'm thinking next time I'll use two, one green and one orange. I did sub-out a red onion for the yellow, which I think worked extremely well. Finally, I think it needs something of a sauce. I'm thinking a mango salsa. Anyways, I'm going to try to practice on that a bit so that I can cook it for my non-veggie friends sometime. That and scrambled tofu...Mmmmm.

Ok, that was my one rant on the subject.

Fin.

Death Walks Beside Me

2007-03-11T18:19:00.001-07:00

"Death walks beside me. He is my brother, my shieldman, and my slave. When you face me, you face us both, and Death shall have his way."

A quote ASH sent my way.

The Grump(y old man's) Stump (lectures)

2007-03-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

I realize that I will be a grumpy old man giving stump lectures. In fact, it's my financial plan.

A couple of my closest friends have blogs on financial matters. On this subject, I truly am speechless. This is one of the (albeit few) areas in my life that I have no doubt people look at me and think, "Jeez, how dense can he be? This isn't that hard." But for me, it just never makes sense. I understand the basic idea of investing, but there's still a lot of acronyms I can't place. Sure, I'll still be comfortable; yes, I'd like to buy a house, make improvements, and buy/sell my way up to better houses and perhaps multiple properties; I also have no doubt I'll have a 401(b) (ASH, correct me if I'm wrong on that one) once I start my career as a professor.

But as MS and I were talking about on the drive back up from NOLA, being filthy rich and retiring at the age of 35 -- which I fully expect a handful of my friends to be capable of -- never appealed to me. I'd rather have a job that I love like a hobby and keep working till my death. And what better job to attain that goal than a college professor. I'd make a good curmudgeon.

Do I need a better financial plan than that? Well, here it is. I'm not sure how true this is -- as previously hinted to, I highly doubt it applies to my close circle -- but I think most people end up practically investing such that in their retirement years they're able to live on 60-80% of their pre-retirement income from investments. I heard that somewhere, but I can't cite it. Intuitively, though, it seems fairly close to real-world (i.e. not intelligentsia) goals. So my plan? To not retire. I know, sounds crazy. But think about my career path. Sure, I'll probably be without weekends for the next 10 years or so; an office in my place of residence will be a requirement. Publish or perish, right? But after all is said and done, once I've attained tenure, been department chair once or twice, chaired dissertations a few more than that, and given a few lecture tours through Eastern Europe (or, preferably, Eastern Asia), I can relax a little into the job. Because, without all those young-man's-game items, at the base of my career I have 15 hours a week at the job: 9 or so hours of class lecturing, 3 hours in the office, and a few hours here and there in meetings. But I'm going to be a fit, healthy, and vibrant old son-of-a-bitch. I have no doubt I'll make it up and down stairs and still have the cognitive capacity to teach, what will end up being predominantly the same material I've had taught for over half a century, well into my 90's. So by age 65 or so, my "retirement" will still consist of 100% my pre-retirement income without ever touching my investments (after all, I'll need to leave my 2.5 something of an inheritance, right?). Gotta love tenure.

So, to my money-savvy friends (and anyone else who wishes to comment) how's that for financial planning? Am I far off base?

Apps Update

2007-03-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

An after-thought note before I begin(again): I was curious as to whether this blog was easily found on the net. I don't put too much personal information up here -- then again, I don't know that I want to advertise my list of pending schools to the mass public. So, I googled my name. Using my full first name & last, there weren't too many relevant hits (a couple pings from documents here at NIU). However, using my nickname and last, something interesting occurred. In the first three hits (when viewing the brief blurb down below the title of the address), you learn that (1) I'm a grad assistant at NIU with a B.S. in philosophy and psychology, (2) I was chair of a paper presentation followed by presenting my own paper at the NIU philosophy conference of 2006, and (3) oddly enough, you learn that I was an Eagle Scout (thanks to the Elks magazine). So, I guess it's not a bad thing if people google me. NRZ put up a stumble upon comment about this blog, so at about 8 or 9 hits down, you learn about Divergent World. But it does get very irrelevant before that point. Anyways, just an interesting fact finding mission. What do you learn when your name is googled? Feel free to leave a comment. And without further ado, here's the actual post for today.

I figured it was time for an update regarding my application status. As you'll notice, not too many drastic changes. I did end up getting rejection letters from Stanford and Princeton. Unfortunate, as those were two in my top five. But, as they were in my top five, I knew my chances. I still have 12 applications out in the field, in addition to Madison having contacted me yesterday to notify me that I was officially wait-listed. However, SM, who has been my source for all things political in this application process, mentioned the other day a theory that I think is fairly right-on. She said that, predominantly, the schools we'd applied to have already sent out their acceptance letters and rejection letters; if we haven't heard from a school, we're essentially on the "unofficial" wait-list. Essentially, the schools would wait until perhaps the second or third batch of offers to also send out the official notification of being wait-listed. Of course, it's about that time that we need to know something, so I should be expecting to get the official notification for either acceptance, rejection, or wait-list before too long. Well, without further ado, here's the official break-down.

Accepted

UC Davis

Officially Wait-Listed

Madison, WI

Pending

Rutgers
UC Berkeley
Harvard
Amherst
Ohio State
CU Boulder
UC Riverside
College Park
Wash U
Carnegie-Mellon

Rejected

Stanford
Princeton
Pittsburgh
Cornell
Duke
Chapel Hill
UC Irvine, LPS
UC Irvine, Philosophy

Another one bites the dust. Pittsburgh has just been moved to the rejection pile.

A Classic Novel

2007-03-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

You scored as A classic novel.

Almost everyone showers praise upon you for your depth and enduring relevance. According to your acolytes, everything you say is timeless, erudite and meaingful. Of course, none of them actually listen to you. Nobody listens to you at all, but it's fashionable to claim you as a friend. Fond of obscure words, antiquated notions and libraries, you never have a problem finding someone to hang out with. The fact that they end up using you to balance their kitchen tables is an unfortunate side effect, but you're used to being used for others' benefit. Oh the burden of being Great.

A classic novel

96%

A college textbook

79%

A paperback romance novel

71%

Poetry

64%

An electronics user's manual

57%

A coloring book

43%

The back of a froot loops box

21%

Leci n'est pas une pipe.

2007-03-03T14:55:00.001-08:00

I've been having a lot of Magritte days lately. I can't look out the window (to the soul) without reality stretching tight at the seems. Sometimes I think it's a fault of the previous sickness; a lack of concentration or just a "sick-day" mentality towards responsibilities. But then, for all intensive care purposes, I've been fairly well well for awhile now. So I guess I'm just going crazy. Damn it.

Temperature Smeperature

2007-02-26T13:54:00.001-08:00

After piercing chest pain this morning, I was starting to think maybe I had something other than your quotidian cold. Out of curiosity, I decide I should go ahead and take my temperature. This morning I had a fever of 101. Ok, kinda sucks. But I decided I didn't feel all that bad; outside of the shooting chest pains (reminders of my old habits, I've no doubt), my nose, head and throat all felt much better. Then seven hours later I retake my temperature, and I'm at 95.6. Is something wrong here? Am I dying? Or did I just buy a broke-ass thermometer? I don't get why people pay attention to this stuff -- or how I was convinced I needed said broke-ass thermometer that only comes in purple and looks a little like I'm worried I may be pregnant. I don't have any inflamed lymph nodes, the back of my throat isn't red and blotchy, and it doesn't burn when I pee: In my book, that makes me healthy. But I wouldn't mind kicking the last bit of this crap. I've got a really busy couple weeks in front of me, and the last thing I need is to need to sleep more than 4 hours a night.

I know...

2007-02-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

I'm guessing you're probably saying to yourself, "I sure do hate JBP. Why the hell would he put this video on here for me watch. And at dinner time, too!" Well, this is just a random post, so feel free not to watch the video. Or, you could. Eitherway, I'm not here to press my views, only offer divergent ones.

And as a side note, I eat the way I do for health reasons; however, the whole "but, do they suffer" thing works pretty well, too.

P.S. Still feeling ill, but I might be on the up-swing. After the cold-sweats I've been having and a temperature of 97.6, I hope it's an up-swing.

The Bad News

2007-02-22T21:22:00.001-08:00

Well, inevitably the Gods that be noticed I was flying high for a couple days, so I've been smitten...or, uh, smited? Maybe a little of both. I woke up this morning in some pretty bad pain: chest congested, lower back hurting, a sneaking, woofing cough. And, due to that and, to be honest, a couple other issues, I started talking to my fellow travelers who were headed down to present at the MidSouth this weekend. Originally everyone was riding with me down, and a complication arose as one of the other guys with a car drives an incredibly responsible hybrid...with only two seats. But as the details are getting mulled over, it became increasingly obvious that I would not be able to drive down with them. Luckily, everything worked out; NC is reading my paper for me, they're well on their way, and I've spent the last 4 hours knocked out. Quite literally incapacitated.

So, not everything worked out as planned this week. I'm just getting a huge jug of OJ and heading back to bed at the moment (my eyes are burning, too...). I hope to get the letter from Davis tomorrow with all the facts, as I'm interested to see the details. Till then...

Namaste'.

The Good News

2007-02-21T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official; I have good news. After class last night I checked my voicemail and I had received a message from the graduate adviser of UC Davis. And I've not only been accepted into their program, but with full funding! So, I have a plan!

I received a follow-up e-mail this afternoon with a brief run-down of some details and in a day or two I'll receive a big, fat envelope with the numbers and the more serious facts to ponder over. In the meantime, though, it's a hell of a good day.

To ground this news to reality for a moment, I will naturally be on the look-out for other letters and phone calls. UC Davis is fairly high on my personal rankings, but I've still got several apps out in the field. In fact, since I've gotten a couple questions about it, I've included an updated list of all the schools. For those keeping track at home, you'll notice another new piece of information: I received an electronic rejection through e-mail while I was down in New Orleans from Irvine. However, that was only from their philosophy department and not the LPS program (Logic and Philosophy of Science). So here's the break-down:

Accepted

UC Davis

Pending

Rutgers
Pittsburgh
Stanford
Princeton
UC Berkeley
Harvard
UC Irvine, LPS
Madison, WI
Amherst
Ohio State
CU Boulder
UC Riverside
College Park
Cornell
Wash U
Carnegie-Mellon

Rejected

Duke
Chapel Hill
UC Irvine, Philosophy

So that's what's going on in this world. I'll be waiting to see what other information comes in from those schools still pending. Naturally, I'll keep everyone updated. But it's just feels damn good to know that I won't be without a plan after this year.

And then...

2007-02-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought I was back to posting regularly, something comes along to distract me. This time, that something is New Orleans. I'll be out of contact for the weekend, but I'll be back with plenty of stories on Monday (and, who knows, maybe an acceptance letter or two will come my way while I'm gone).

Rock.

With the Ole One, Two...

2007-02-13T18:13:00.000-08:00

With the one, two punch, North Carolina has taken me out of the running. Today I got notice from Duke that they would be unable to offer me admission. Ironically, I thought their letter was quite cordial. So that's two down in two days.

With Grace and Absurdity

2007-02-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

While I was picking up my second to last load from the dryer today, I noticed the mailman was already to the building next to mine. Perfect -- I'll be able to pick up my mail when I go to pick up the last load.

So there I am, on my way out the front door, when something hits me. All the sudden I get this crazy thought in my head that I've got a letter from one of the universities I applied to waiting for me in the mailbox. With rising anticipation, I open up the door and waiting for me inside is...

A very thin envelope from UNC, Chapel Hill. Given, I didn't open it for a few minutes out of respectful observance of cliche'-voodoo-hopeful-wishing, but when I did, it proved the whole thin-letter/bad news pairing to be true. So, one down. The corresponding sticky note is now off my wall and tomorrow morning I'll be putting up what I imagine will be the first of the wall-o'-shame letters*.

Eh, I never crossed my mind that I would get in to every school I applied to; so it's good to have that rejection out of the way with this first one.

* - The "Wall-O'-Shame" is a cathartic tool the 2nd years used last year in which all rejection letters are plastered to back wall of the TA office. Any and all letters are subject to mocking, scribbling, and ridicule on subjects such as diction, grammar, general turns of phrase, and occasionally just random, tangential comments to help bolster the morale of those applying to graduate schools. We'll see if it works.

Optimist v. Pessimist

2007-02-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

The Pessimist says, "All women are bad." The Optimist replies, "I sure hope so."

-----------

The Optimist says, "This is the best of all possible worlds." The Pessimist replies, "...Yup..."

-----------

The Pessimist says, "This is awful; Life just couldn't get any worse." The Optimist replies, "Oh yes, it can."

Square Worlds

2007-02-09T22:49:00.000-08:00

It was nearly a decent day out today. Given, it never got above 10 degrees, but it also never fell below 0 (though, I just found it, it apparently feels like -15). Considering the past week's weather, I'll take nearly decent any day of the week.

The weather?!? Are you serious? Yes, I'm talking about the weather. But you know me...it's just to lay the groundwork for what follows.

See, I heard it from a reputable source that the bitter cold air we'd been having was actually coming from Siberia. Yup, it's coming right up and over the top of the earth, gaining frost as it passes through scenic Canadia. Walking back from class yesterday, a friend made a comment about how expletively cold it was, and I made mention that the weather was coming from Siberia. Then, on a whim, I cursed whatever luck it was that we happened to live on a round planet. I mean, imagine the benefits of having a nice corner here and there to keep Siberian winds, if not confined to Siberia specifically, at least in Russia? A good cubed Earth, that's what we need. Then one of the more insane conversations I've had in a long time occurred, including questions about whether throwing apples over the side would result in an alarming number of injuries and how it'd feel to "tilt" as you topped one of these corners. The pentacle was a tangent from the gravitational effects of such a planet to the Olympics; the required expansion beyond summer and winter games to center and side games. I mean, imagine a pole vault right over the edge: "And a new world record - he made it all the way to the opposite side, crossing 47 countries and 2 international edge lines before touching down!" Not to mention some gymnastics acts right on a corner. Could you handle 3 gravitational directions at once?!? Anyways, it felt good to have an absurd, conjecture laden, reality suspending conversation like that. I hadn't had a good bought of that in awhile.

Oh, and another absurd turn in a conversation happened today. I was talking to a friend about making scrambled tofu, and second friend interjected to ask what scrambled tofu was. Friend number 1 takes this opportunity to say it's just like scrambled eggs, only instead of chicken eggs you use tofu eggs. I then carry this on to say you've got to make sure to get the freshest eggs, as tofu are self-germinating. Sometimes you crack the egg and out falls a fully formed tofu. I don't know about you, but I'd imagine a tofu (the kind coming from such an egg) would look oddly like a kiwi or some similar blip in evolution's attention. Duck-billed seitan, anybody?

In other news, I got a couple calls on my applications this week. Unfortunately, they were along the lines of "we've received items x and y, but we're missing items a thru r." Ok, not that bad. In fact, all my materials were at the institution already, but simply in the wrong department's office. So, these weren't too serious of issues, and I guess they did me more good than harm. Mainly, it's just good to know that decisions, or at least serious scrutiny, is currently being given to applications at some of my schools. And from the call I got from Davis, I'd imagine I might start receiving the first trickle of decision notifications in as little as two weeks time. But I won't count my tofus before they hatch.

Two trips coming up, but I'll talk about that in a later post. This has already run over my own attention span, especially considering the wain of endurance from not posting as frequently as I could. Anyways, I'll write again soon. Till then...

Namaste'.

The Best Philosophy Comic Ever

2007-02-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

Click on the picture for a larger version.

The Aesthetic Life

2007-01-31T17:43:00.001-08:00

"Your life is too short and you've important things to do."
--Epictetus

Do you imagine one's life passes before their eyes when they die? Perhaps it's true, but I've always wondered; do the cancer patients and the car wreck victims both experience the entirety of their lives? Does one need a monumentally unexpected side-swipe at 4pm on some idle Tuesday to elicit the instant replay function, or does a doctors prognosis of two weeks start an A&E version of the 8mm playing across multiple nights? Because I've been dying since I was about 4 years old. I remember the conversation, actually, and I think there's something to be said for going through life simultaneously acting in and watching one's own play.

If you're reading DW, you'll know I gave up smoking three weeks ago. I don't mind saying it was an impressive feat, though obviously this isn't my own laurels I'm resting on. Maybe I just got lucky this time, but I've been 100% on the wagon without a single "tide me over" puff. Some of my long and fast friends might recall I gave up smoking the night I graduated from Tulane, along with MBB and JMD. The problem was, I only gave up carrying a pack on me. I still bummed out at the bars, and when I couldn't, I was fairly miserable. But something clicked in my head over winter break.

To be fair, part of it was the self-ascribed hypocrisy at giving up my flesh eating practices yet still paying 5 bucks every day or two for some dangerous air. But there was something else in there; a lack of patients for time spent not enjoying life. Of course, a good smoke after a long day at work, in the middle of (and every fraction thereof) a 20 hour paper writing session, and after a good hearty meal...those were enjoyable times. But by "enjoying life", I mean getting the most out of it. I was just tired of not doing everything in my power to get to the important stuff.

The point of this post is two fold. First, I'm getting back to the roots of what I had years ago, of only taking on important, rewarding and fulfilling tasks. Afterall, we all need projects to keep us sane, right? And the second point is to say this; you're dying.

Eh, you never really expected me to end upbeat, anyways...

Namaste'.

My Love of Shoveling Snow

2007-01-29T13:34:00.000-08:00

For those of you who've heard me talk about shoveling snow, here's a more eloquent way of putting it. I came across this poem recently in one of the Collins books BRL gave me for Christmas. I've read it before, but it never quite resonated so much as just now. Anyways, enjoy;

------------------
Shoveling Snow with Buddha
by Billy Collins

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow of the mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm and slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working out way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
the fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside the generous pocket of his silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck,
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

Philosophy; Why?

2007-01-17T20:35:00.000-08:00

"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find...that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge out thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom....it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect...

"Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of a one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears....Philosophy is to be studied...because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good."

--Bertrand Russell The Value of Philosophy

There's a double meaning to the title of this post, which I'm sure has not passed you by. Philosophy often times is assumed to be just that; the question "Why?". But there's also the question of "Why ask why?" Well, Russell summed up nicely a few of my main reasons for pursuing this career. But I don't think it stops there. I think there is also an extrinsic reason for pursuing philosophical questions -- one that has a more practical, worldly end. So much of what now constitutes the practical sciences was once within the realm of philosophy. In fact, in the beginning there was just philosophy and mathematics. That which fell under "natural philosophy" was to give rise to biology, chemistry, physics...much of what was political philosophy has fallen under the heading political science, and the latest departure is currently one of the most popular majors: that of psychology. But that's not to say there aren't issues left behind. That which couldn't be empirically tested was left to yet be contemplated. Perhaps we'll soon be able to put into practice the study of more esoteric political theories or the minutiae of quantum mechanics. Or, my personal goal, to find the seat of consciousness. And there is so much that goes with that: first, freewill, and second, the determination of all those entities we are required to treat ethically, including animals currently used for testing, experiments, fashion accessories, and 9 oz. sirloins at Ruby Tuesday's, not to mention issues of abortion or euthanasia. So there is some practicality left. It just takes little longer to produce results...but you can't really blame us on that.

Anyways, just came across the above quote today and it got me thinking. Surprise.

Namaste'.

Mark: 36

2007-01-13T06:51:00.000-08:00

Well, for many of my friends, 36 hours might not seem like a long time to go without a cigarette. Fortunately, now, for me it doesn't either. But I thought I'd give an update regardless.

So it's been a day and some since I put out my last cigarette. I was talking to a friend of mine last night who said, "I read your blog. Congratulations...or, um, good luck? I don't know what you say in these situations." Fair enough. It's a habit to "try to quit"; as such, often times "good luck" is appropriate. However, I'm not trying. I know I smoked my last cigarette ever two nights ago. As such, there's no endeavors I'm relying on luck to complete (because, even if you don't smoke for three weeks or three months, you'd never be done "trying" to quit as there's always that potential to have another some day). So instead, I'm just done. Simple as that. No patch, gum, or ultra light cigarettes to wean me off. Just a healthy set of lungs working over the next few weeks to repair my idiotic fouling up of them.

Outside that, I don't know that I have a full "year-in-review" update in me at the moment, but I will say things are going fairly good. I completed my applications last week, which felt great. I also started back up at Ruby's, which is at least fun if not profitable. Classes start on Tuesday, but fortunately all of my classes, including my TA assignment, are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I've got 4 day "weekends" every week, outside of serving tables. I did, however, ask off for Mondays, as I'd like to actually have some semblance of a weekend this semester. I'm tired of having Ruby's, Class, or some serious paper writing/test studying/grading/or form filling every single day of my life. I mean, even God rested for one out of seven days. So hopefully that'll help with the sanity issue. Or maybe not...

Anyways, now that things are more stable in the world, I'll try to get back to updating DW a bit more regularly. Till then...

Namaste'.

When you've smoked the day's last cigarette...

2007-01-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

And you always seem outnumbered
You don't dare make a stand -
Make your stand.
-Turn the Page
(preferably the Metallica version)

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tonight I smoked my last cigarette. Seriously. I figure, if I don't update this often enough to keep you interested, I might as well add a little shock value now and then.

"Ta-Da!"
-A liscence plate seen coming back from Glennedith's wedding.

Phlogistons at the KA House

2007-01-04T06:16:00.000-08:00

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A two-alarm fire badly damaged a fraternity house near Tulane University, leaving five students searching for a new home.

The residents, all undergraduate students at Tulane and members of Kappa Alpha Fraternity, were away for Winter Break at the time of the fire, said Kirby Newburger, president of the Kappa Alpha Alumni Inc., which owns the house on Audubon Street.

It took about 70 firefighters over an hour to exinguish the blaze, which started about 9 p.m. Monday, said acting fire cheif Victor LaCaba. Firefighters are investigating the cause of the blaze, he said.

Happy New Years!

2006-12-30T19:54:00.000-08:00

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!

Merry

2006-12-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

A bad place...

2006-12-13T22:45:00.000-08:00

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

Persuasive demons are getting the better of me right now.

You Know You Go To Tulane If...

2006-12-12T21:32:00.000-08:00

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

Rough Neighborhood

2006-12-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

"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

2006-12-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

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.

Everything Lies Ahead

2006-12-02T22:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

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!

The First

2006-12-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

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:

Always; In Perpetuum

2006-11-23T16:12:00.000-08:00

Well, hopefully you're surrounded by family, meeting up with old high school friends, and/or drinking yourself into oblivious with the obligatory bloody mary. But whatever your poison, I figured I would shoot out an post to grumble, complain, yadda yadda, about the regular, run-'o-the-mill, "applications are the bane of my existence" sort of thing. If it's not two papers in the same weekend, it's a wrench thrown into an otherwise well oiled machine.

Everything was ready to roll. All I needed was an hour and a half and all my hard copy materials and online applications and fees would be completed for my first official school in GradApp'06 (catchy title? we'll give it a couple more test runs before this post is over).

Unfortunately, I stopped to check-in with all my letter writers, just to make sure they still had in mind to get my first recommendation sent off to Princeton by Dec. 1st. Well, in talking with Mylan, he pointed out a couple things I hadn't considered. Most importantly, my writing same, the paper I turned in for his Epistemology course last year, then presented at the MidSouth, the most time-tested and polished paper I have, might not be my best official writing sample. The issue breaks down thusly;

The paper is on a '79 article, which was later revised (I just didn't have the revised copy when originally writing the piece...and an update would be very difficult and, hence, destroy the polished feel I've worked into it).
The paper is on a coherence theory of justification, one of the least utilized methods of epistemic justification and, hence, not a "hot topic" paper.
It is also an incredibly probability and statistically laden paper, which causes a bit of a hindrance in working through the examples for many people and may prevent an admissions board from actually giving my paper due consideration.
Finally, it's the same paper I presented at the MidSouth Conference. If I send off the same paper as my writing sample, 1) it may appear I'm resting on the laurels of one decent paper and 2) it will discount putting the MidSouth conference on my CV.

Mylan was suggesting that I might try to revise and send off the paper I'm currently working on for his Contextualism course. It's responding to a 2004 paper, Contextualism is a very hot topic, it's on freedom, which is one my foci in a graduate school, and it contrasts nicely with my epistemic justification paper on my CV. The problem is that, although I presented this paper at the Contextualism conference this past weekend, it's nowhere near as polished as my previous work. I could do it, but it would take the next week's worth of heavy work to get it done by Dec. 1st. Luckily, everything for Princeton is online, letting me up-load the files for my personal statement, CV, and writing sample directly through their electronic application. So, it could take me a full 7 days, and I'd still be able to get GradApp'06 officially started before the first deadline (hrm...maybe it'd be best to use that title sparingly). On the flip-side, I've also got a paper for Metaphysics due and studying for the GRE (again) which is on the 11th. But, as it would be in my best interest to have this as my writing sample, we'll see if I can't do something more with it. Dangit...and I was really looking forward to having a couple days break, too.

Anyways, sorry, as this wasn't intended to be a rant. More of a "Let me clear my head and argue out in the world" sort of thing. Well, comments would be appreciated. As for me, I'm taking tonight off, at least. Peace.

Stupid Reality

2006-11-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

The Extension

2006-11-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm working on a 20 page research proposal for my Psych of Language course. It's deadline is 3pm today. I'm not going to make it.

Fortunately, I e-mailed the professor Saturday night and got a 24 hour extension. So maybe I'm a little bit of a procrastinator, but this semester I've actually been on top of my game. The reason I needed an extension was due to a conference I had to attend this weekend for my Contextualism course. 15 hours, split between two days, where I not only had to have my 3,000 word term paper ready for presentation, I also needed to have a useful handout for my presentation, a 1,200 word commentary on one of the other students papers ready for presentation, and a corresponding relevant handout for that commentary. It took up a lot of time that, quite honestly, I didn't have at this point in the semester. So, I'm behind on my Psych proposal, which in turn puts me behind on getting a few last things done for my apps and my trip home in a couple days.

But that, in conjunction with a conversation with DJL, brought back how much I miss the Tulane lifestyle. I remember putting off papers for parties, randomly regular nights out drinking with the guys, and the ubiquitous dork games. I remember working on a paper intermittently between turns at a board game, or worse, the umbilical dork-cord from ADP's room down to JMD's dorm room our freshman year. I didn't mind adding to the stress of a paper by putting it off for a little R&R. I don't even mind, now, having had a lower GPA because of it. My time at Tulane was the perfect balance. It just sucks now that, quite literally, I have to put off a paper for another paper. Oh well, with the extension, and now the paper well underway, I'm not too stressed. I've got 3 good, solid, pages and I only started an hour and a half ago. No offense to those of you in the hard or social sciences, but paper writing is unbelievably easier when you don't have to convey three different and sometimes conflicting thoughts within the same 14 word sentence. Anyways, it's back to work for me. Maybe sometime soon I'll have a couple hours to kill on an adventure. Till then...

Namaste'.

Exclamation Point!

2006-11-18T01:22:00.000-08:00

Mardi Gras Mambo or Metaphysical Mumbo

2006-11-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Great news; the Midsouth Conference this year does not corrospond to Shopping Cart Day weekend. The conference is the weekend after, allowing time to get down to New Orleans to see friends and still be all professional and responsible and whatever. Don't worry, my head was in the right place. I would have foresaken another notch on my CV for a trip South, as it's been far too long since I've seen everyone.

I know, not a substantial update, but I might as well keep up on this daily posting I've been doing. And who knows, maybe there'll be a mass of excitement later worthy of posting (like, say, finishing a paper or dusting my apartment [Em - I'll take you up on that someday soon]).

Namaste'.

On Selling Oneself

2006-11-13T19:08:00.000-08:00

A humurous anecdote to share from my Psychology of Language course:

We were discussing the metaphor today, and the student presenter put up an example that the professor used all the time;

"Prostituting my dignity for laughs."

When asked what this metaphor of 'prostitution' conveyed, one of the female students was called on and responded;

"Like, selling something special in exchange for something small."

Naturally, there was a slight pause, out of respect, before the class lost it.

Procrastination at its Most Productive

2006-11-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

If the barage of recent posts on DW hadn't clued you in yet, let me make it explicitly clear; I am procrastinating to the fullest extent of my potential. I have an increadibly complicated week ahead of me. Let me count the ways:

My Contextualism Paper, for presentation, must be completed by Thursday
120 kids in my TA class will be turning in their homework tomorrow, which I'll need to grade by Wednesday.
On Thursday, I'll recieve the paper I'll be commenting on for the Contextualism Conference this weekend. Yup, I have a 24 hour turn-around time between when I recieve the paper and when I should get my completed commentary (3-4 pgs) back to the presenter Friday evening.
All day Saturday and all day Sunday will be taken up with the Contextualism Conference.
My 20-30 page research proposal is due in Psych of Language next Monday. Nope, haven't got a word written...yet
thru 41. All the normal stuff; apps, writing sample, mailings, transcripts, general corrospondence, personal statement, GRE studying (yup, taking it again), prepping for my trip home, my Metaphysics paper and discussing said paper with the professor, etc, etc, etc....fortunately, when I get to #42, I'll have the answer to everything.

But I figure, while procrastinating, why not be productive? So, for those of you who thought I couldn't be any more Martha Stewart, I have now proved you wrong. Here's a picture of my Christmas Tree (Holiday Bush, Pegan Alter, whatever)

Next, the newest roomate(s) to my apartment (a re-cap: Relic, my cat; Seppuku; Taiwaz; Avelbane; Rosencranz (or Gildenstern, one of them died); Bristol; and Sham (another new addition, but not worthy of a picture, as he's just an air-plant). I think I got everyone. The cool thing about this picture is that it's actually two new additions -- the fish, naturally, but the plant in there is a living water plant. Cool, eh? I'm thinking "Zephyr" for the fish. And, you know, it wasn't until just now that, thinking about Zephyr (meaning the wind, not the flower, sports team, or hat-making company), I thought of a cool name for the plant. "Coriolis". Nice. Ok, it's decided. Here's Zephyr and Coriolis.

As for me, I think it's time I get back to work...Namaste'.

On Fatherhood

2006-11-12T16:26:00.000-08:00

This morning's trip to Panera was very strange. In addition to this little girl who was possessed (quite close to speaking Aramaic in a demonic tone), there were three little blonde children of the corn. Of course, such odd encounters give rise to thoughts of one's own (future) kids. So, thinking about how children are the product of not only their parents genes but also the environment of their homelife, I made the offhanded remark, "My kids are going to be so messed up."

BRL's reply from across the table, after a moment's pause, "Am I supposed to jump in and disagree here?"

Comments?

2006-11-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

And now, for a little light blogging...

Scorpio

You are very dominant in bed, and you like to control your relationship in general.

You are so intense in the sack that none of your partners will ever forget you. You are an amazing lover, because you like to have an equal amount of give and take.

Sex matches: Cancer, Capricorn, Pisces