Graduation

I applied for graduation! Somehow, having given the school $15 to print out my diploma just makes it all so much more real. Too bad I'm still here for another 4 months.

Also, I'm really cuddle-hungry. I've been thinking all day about how much fun it is to relax on the couch with someone you love, and also how much of a difference it makes if that love is of the romantic sort. It's too bad my beliefs disqualify me in the eyes of a substantial percentage of the school's available women.

It's probably the most frustrating part of my day-to-day here at this school that I realise this is one of the few places in America where my faith is semi-criminal. It's strange how persecution can be both the cross a community professes to carry and the weapon it wields against those around it; at the same time, it's the abused that are most likely to become abusers, isn't it? Maybe I should concentrate on that point of view so I don't fall into the same pattern myself.

Confucianism versus Mormonism

Sometimes, I think I'm trying to get myself expelled from BYU. It's a good thing my TA is Understanding. Here's the last paragraph of my most recent homework entry, on the differences between Confucianism and Mormonism.

The greatest difference I can see between the two schools of thought is that while Confucianism is rather misogynistic, it makes no attempts to justify its beliefs, nor does it pretend to put men and women on any sort of equal ground. The Church of Jesus Christ, instead of embracing its sexism, continues to make bland and unconvincing claims that the roles of men and women are separate, but equal. While my position is obviously very much an inflammatory one, I stand behind it, and am quite willing to discuss it in greater detail. I consider the chauvinism of the Church quite beyond reasonable doubt, and while I reserve a personal opinion of the Church's gender roles, I don't mean to suggest God would have them defined otherwise.

K'iche' play

The play was entitled "the Death of Seven Macaw". When I read the Popol Wuj version of the story, it seemed more to me that he just lost all his coolness, and therefore had nothing to make him noteworthy. He does die, though, so it must have just been the translation I read that confused me.

I have pictures on Facebook. I think you should be able to view them even without an account, but if you have a problem, let me know.

View the program for "All the College is a Stage"

Updates I realise I never provided

A) I am single. Classic Red and I broke up in January. Her choice.

B) I am an existentialist. This also involves weak atheism.

C) I am trying not to hate God anymore. If He doesn't exist, there isn't much to hate anyway, is there? Also, I have a feeling that when I leave BYU and feel somewhat liberated from Big Brother, I may realise that the Church itself wasn't all that bad. I may even decide the same about God.

D) I am probably taking way too much lithium. I can't see how anything else could be knocking me out like this.

Too lazy

There are so many important things I should be doing with my time. Why am I here, writing a blog post?

Too lazy.

Now, I feel great pride for the simplicity of life that is mine right now. I love the fact that I can sleep 10 of the 14 daylight hours with minimal damage to my agenda, but that doesn't mean it ends up being much fun. I mean, the first 8 hours of anything can be okay, depending on what it is and who's on your team. But after 13 hours of being unconscious, you want to spend some quality time building enough memories to keep you believing that it really is possibly Tuesday already.

Classes are going great. I'm feeling good about grades, and pretty okay decent maybe not so much about language fluency. I tell you what though, there's nothing like taking K'iche' and ASL at once to get you translating everything that walks by into ideas, rather than words. I hear that's harder than it sounds - that many people don't really believe that it's possible for most people to think in complete thoughts without introducing a syntax and sound system to the brew. Maybe they're right, but I feel that, at certain times of clear thought, I can manage it.

There's a couple being ridiculously cute just in my peripheral vision. She looks a bit like Broom Curls. He looks nothing like Existential Linguist. As expected, they've raised my blood pressure a tad.

And I'm officially watching my weight. Yes, the referees of my health are sprinting to my navel as we speak. The goalkeepers of my marrow are beelining it for my bones.

Two months later

Not much of a post, but here it comes.

In the new section of the library, from the first floor to the second is 15 feet. From the second to the third is 17.5 feet. The scale model that is located on the first floor has the school floating about on a level with my belt (measurement pending). The scale is 1":40'. From the first floor to the third floor totals in 32.5 feet, or 390 inches. 390 inches on the scale equals 15,600 feet. The distance from the first floor to the surface of the model is about 3.5 feet, and the distance from the third floor to my eye level is about 5.5 feet. That means an extra 2 feet for the total height from my eye to the model. 2 feet equals 960 feet on the scale. Therefore, when I look down at the model, the model looks as it would if I were 16,560 feet above the campus, which is a moderately high (but common enough) altitude for skydiving.

God is greater.

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I'm not sure how to feel about this. From what I read on the website, seems (I'm not good with Arabic) to suggest that God is the one who made the cows fly past the car in Twister and is also the one who killed 300,000 people in the 2004 tsunami disaster. Comments from the peanut gallery?

Hermestra is the name of my Daemon. Huh.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Phew, life's been busy. I'm not sure where I should start.

I just started dating Classic Red officially, and then today I find out the girl I had a crush on for like two months turns out to be my next-door neighbor. If there's any celestial superpower, it must not want me dating French Linguist, or really wants me dating Red. As it is, I'll pretend like I have some modicum of choice in the workings of my life.

Anyway, to catch you up, Red and I sent frequent emails to one another during her stay at home. She came back Friday, and Friday night I informed her of the crush I had on her. She said that she might have one too, or something like that. We finished off the night by arranging a date the next day, to go on a picnic.

Saturday: It was getting cold (autumnishly cold), so I made us grilled cheese sandwiches and this organic pepper and tomato soup that comes in a carton and is amazing. The soup went into a thermos, and the sandwiches went into a Tupperware container with some apples and carrots. That evening I told her I'd like to hold her hand or maybe hold her around the waist. She didn't know how she felt about hand holding. She'd never tried it. In an awkward demonstration of her kindness she said that I could choose one (hand or waist). This bland offer of 'action' was just too odd, and we decided we'd wait until she was more sure of how she felt.

Sunday: I slept through church, which I'm sure made a great impression. Anyway, she got back from this or that (laundry?), and so we went to my place to watch 'My Man Godfrey' via http://www.archive.org. The battery started running low on the laptop, so we went downstairs to plug it in. At some point she suggested we would be more comfortable on the couch. I positioned the laptop on my thighs/knees, and tried to sit comfortably. After some number of minutes, she put her head on my shoulder, and some time after that she grabbed my hand. I was ecstatic and confused. We finished the movie, watched Flight of the Conchords and 'Making Fiends' for a while, and then just cuddled. Neither of us knows what changed her mind.

Monday: We kissed. With the help of my contagious cold, we've been trying to build a friendship, and not base our feelings on physicality. Wish us luck.

The Classic Red Story

So, we met at ward break the fast. Roommate H and Red's roommate Indy Vintage, finished eating and went to my place for dessert. Then we went to the reading for a ward member's sitcom-to-be. It was good. Then we went to the CES fireside. Then we went back to our place, and Red and I ended up spending a number of hours talking about various things. Around 10:30 or 11:00, she had to go home to bed for school the next morning. I walked her home, and asked her out for that Wednesday. She said yes.

On Wednesday, I picked her up from her place and we went over to my childhood friend's place. There, we set up a tent/fort out of twine and blankets and then went and had crepes and smoothies. After the crepes and smoothies, we sat under the blanket, and read a scary ABC book with various voices. Then people who had them told ghost stories. Before the momentum could run out, it was time to go home. I was glad, because that meant we had momentum left for the walk home. We talked, and then arrived at her place. She showed me her back yard and a hammock, both which she had recently discovered. We sat in the hammock and talked about all of the things we liked about the Bubble and all the things we liked about home. It was getting late, so we walked to her door and shared an awkward hug.

I can't remember how or when I asked her, but a weekish later, we went to go see Amelie at International Cinema, first stopping by Sugar 'n Spice for my best try at the perfect milkshake. It ended up that I'd gotten Amelie's date wrong, so we just went over to the MOA and checked out two of the exhibits while talking a ton. Then I went to a showing of the Seagull with a friend.

On Friday afternoon, I brought over a yellow Gerbera Daisy and a note, thanking her for hanging out with me the day before. Late Friday night, I got a call from my apartment saying I had a gift. I got home, and discovered a pomegranate, two Tofutti Cuties (soy ice cream sandwiches) and a really nice note. According to witnesses, it's promising.

So now we've just talked a few times over the phone and email, as she's been with her family. Hopefully there will be more to the story in about a week.