A week ago, I got to be in Greensburg, PA and finally spend some quality time with my girlfriend, Allison. She moved out to Greensburg toward the beginning of August, and although when I moved out to Madison, we picked her up and she helped me move in, We were really only together for around twelve hours, so it was the first time in over six weeks since we had seen each other. And I know that there are people in long distance relationships or in the military who go for months or longer without being together, but when we had been used to seeing each other about once a week over the summer and pretty much daily during our last semester of college, the transition was tough, and we were both very glad to spend some time together.
Allison showed me around Greensburg, we went to an art museum, we cooked together, watched Notre Dame beat Pittsburgh (instead of just texting each other about the game, like we usually do), and we rescued my phone, which I had left on board a megabus in downtown Pittsburgh. These were all wonderful things to share, but some of the best parts of the trip were the little "normal" things. I had some homework to finish up for classes, so I worked on that, while she sat beside me and read. We scanned the channels looking for Saturday morning cartoons. While watching a movie, I could put my arm around her. The little things of just being together were what made the trip so worthwhile.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
On Books
For the three classes I am taking this semester, I bought twenty-four total books.
Three weeks into the semester, I already have nine books checked out from the library.
Grad school is a whole new ball game.
To make life more exciting is the fact that I begin working at two different jobs this week, and my first essay is due a week from today. This is where the fun begins.
Three weeks into the semester, I already have nine books checked out from the library.
Grad school is a whole new ball game.
To make life more exciting is the fact that I begin working at two different jobs this week, and my first essay is due a week from today. This is where the fun begins.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
On Hope
Today is my sister's birthday. She turns twenty this year, and it is the first time in two decades that I won't be around to celebrate with her. That is one of the weird things about living in New Jersey. Much like when I spent a semester at Oxford, you don't realize how many little things you miss. I hope my sister knows how much I love her, and that I wish I could be there with her today.
They say as you get older, birthdays get less significant, mostly because you have had so many and they all bleed together. Eventually only the big milestones get attention. I know that, at only the young age of twenty-two, I have already forgotten a lot of my birthdays from when I was younger. I remember one year where I had a party with friends from both school and from church. My worlds were colliding, but everyone got along fine. We went put-putting, and there was this enormous cake that my mom had made to look like a Chicago Cubs hat, and the frosting turned everyone's mouths blue. I remember the year in highschool when I got to go to Cedar Point with NHS and the trip just happened to fall on my birthday. I remember last year,when I turned twenty-one; it was the day District Bible Quiz Finals for my sister and also the day of her prom. So, on that day, I got up early, watched quizzing all day, then went home where my sister got ready and got picked up by her date, and they went to a friend's house where my mom helped cook Prom dinner for them. My dad had to work that night, so on my birthday, I stayed home alone and watched movies. Fortunately, I had gotten to celebrate with some friends the night before.
I don't remember many of my sister's birthdays at all. For most of them, I just remember that we went out to dinner somewhere or other. I remember one year when she turned eight or nine, she had a birthday party at this incredible place called Discovery Zone. It was like Chuck E. Cheese's on steroids with the most colossal indoor play-place that I have ever seen. For someone who loves climbing on things as much as I did (...as much as I do) Discovery Zone was a mystical wonderland. One year, I would have a birthday there as well, but I'm pretty sure my sister beat me to it. That party was particularly well-photographed, which is probably part of why I remember it so well. My sister had a gap-toothed smile, and I was wearing the only tank top I have ever owned.
A decade ago, on my sister's birthday, our family went out to eat at TGIFridays. I remember we had a booth next to a window where we could look across the street at the cars waiting to get into the Citgo station. They were waiting in a line that stretched all the way down the block for gasoline that had jumped from under two dollars to over four for the first time ever. We tried to be happy for my sister. After all, it was the first year that she would use all ten fingers to show how old she was, but none of us could take our eyes off of the TVs mounted on the wall of the restaurant. The news was on, and was showing endless clips of planes flying into buildings, of smoke filling the air, and of buildings falling. It was a very quiet dinner.
Everyone talks about how September 11, 2001 started out as such an ordinary day. I was in seventh grade at the time at the small private Christian school where I spent nine years. I was taking pre-Algebra that year with a mix of junior high students. One of them was absent at the start of class, but that was not out of the ordinary. What was strange was when he showed up twenty minutes late. The whole class was working on an assignment, probably trying to find that elusive x or something like that, but I sat near the teacher's desk and could hear some of the whispered words that this student told the teacher. There was something about a plane and New York and a second one, an attack. The teacher looked shocked and concerned, but none of the words I had heard made sense to me, so I kept working. Not much later there was a phone call to the teacher. He was speaking in a low, quiet voice, and after he hung up, he stood and told the class that the whole junior high and high school (there were only 10-16 students per class) were going to the auditorium for a special chapel. He told us that something had happened.
The principal at this school was a big man of Russian descent with small, close-set eyes. He looked somewhat like he might be in the mob, which could make him very intimidating when he talked to you one-on-one, whether you were in trouble or not. That day, however, he seemed different. Instead of his usual, imposing presence, he seemed almost frightened as he explained to us that there had been a terrorist attack on America, that planes had been hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and another into the Pentagon. One of the teachers wheeled a large TV into the auditorium and for a half hour, we watched the news in silence. They were showing live footage from New York City. I remember thinking, Why is there so much smoke? Why are they only showing one tower? Is the other tower hidden in the smoke? It was only in a later class, when a teacher announced to us that the second tower had fallen, that I understood what had happened. Later that day, at TGIFridays, I would get to see those towers fall over and over and over again.
Words like terrorist, hijack, Al-Qaeda, and Muslim are common now, but before that, they were not used often. I didn't know what terrorism was. Before that day, the only hijacking I knew was from an episode of Seinfeld. I don't think I had any idea what Islam was before that. The world had changed, and from that day on, I was taught a new vocabulary that could describe that world. It was a vocabulary of fear and aggression, but also of confusion and questions.
I remember playing in my back yard a few days after 9/11, when a plane flew over. It was the first time since before the attack that I had heard a jet engine. I stopped what I was doing and stared into the sky. It would be over a year later that, while looking for something in the deep, dark recesses of the laundry room in our basement I would see a picture pinned to the wall that I had never noticed before. This part of our basement was filled with old toys and boxes of baby clothes, my father's golf clubs that he never used, along with various other miscellaneous things that accumulate in a house when people live there, and as such, we didn't venture back there very often. To this day, I am not sure where the picture came from or how long it had been there, but I will never forget glancing over and seeing a large panoramic print of the New York skyline at sunset, with two pristine towers gleaming at the center of the picture. Once again, I could only stop and stare.
I have grown up knowing that towers fall down, that reason can turn folly into madness and evil, that guilt cannot always be punished, that security is a lie, and that acts of hate and violence will perpetuate hate and violence. I have grown up in a world of chaos. And most of the time, I forget why it is that when I look at the world, that chaos is all that I see. Once a year, I remember.
These reflections could make for a very bleak worldview, and in some ways, perhaps they have. But as it is I have hope. Not the sort of hope that you hear about on television (because I have also grown up knowing that Presidents make mistakes), but a hope in something that transcends the instability and chaos of this world. I know a God who is eternally constant, whose name is love, whose title is peace, whose ways are just, and whose promise is life. Fear and death have power over me, because they are not forever, but God is.
"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." --Romans 5:1-5
They say as you get older, birthdays get less significant, mostly because you have had so many and they all bleed together. Eventually only the big milestones get attention. I know that, at only the young age of twenty-two, I have already forgotten a lot of my birthdays from when I was younger. I remember one year where I had a party with friends from both school and from church. My worlds were colliding, but everyone got along fine. We went put-putting, and there was this enormous cake that my mom had made to look like a Chicago Cubs hat, and the frosting turned everyone's mouths blue. I remember the year in highschool when I got to go to Cedar Point with NHS and the trip just happened to fall on my birthday. I remember last year,when I turned twenty-one; it was the day District Bible Quiz Finals for my sister and also the day of her prom. So, on that day, I got up early, watched quizzing all day, then went home where my sister got ready and got picked up by her date, and they went to a friend's house where my mom helped cook Prom dinner for them. My dad had to work that night, so on my birthday, I stayed home alone and watched movies. Fortunately, I had gotten to celebrate with some friends the night before.
I don't remember many of my sister's birthdays at all. For most of them, I just remember that we went out to dinner somewhere or other. I remember one year when she turned eight or nine, she had a birthday party at this incredible place called Discovery Zone. It was like Chuck E. Cheese's on steroids with the most colossal indoor play-place that I have ever seen. For someone who loves climbing on things as much as I did (...as much as I do) Discovery Zone was a mystical wonderland. One year, I would have a birthday there as well, but I'm pretty sure my sister beat me to it. That party was particularly well-photographed, which is probably part of why I remember it so well. My sister had a gap-toothed smile, and I was wearing the only tank top I have ever owned.
A decade ago, on my sister's birthday, our family went out to eat at TGIFridays. I remember we had a booth next to a window where we could look across the street at the cars waiting to get into the Citgo station. They were waiting in a line that stretched all the way down the block for gasoline that had jumped from under two dollars to over four for the first time ever. We tried to be happy for my sister. After all, it was the first year that she would use all ten fingers to show how old she was, but none of us could take our eyes off of the TVs mounted on the wall of the restaurant. The news was on, and was showing endless clips of planes flying into buildings, of smoke filling the air, and of buildings falling. It was a very quiet dinner.
Everyone talks about how September 11, 2001 started out as such an ordinary day. I was in seventh grade at the time at the small private Christian school where I spent nine years. I was taking pre-Algebra that year with a mix of junior high students. One of them was absent at the start of class, but that was not out of the ordinary. What was strange was when he showed up twenty minutes late. The whole class was working on an assignment, probably trying to find that elusive x or something like that, but I sat near the teacher's desk and could hear some of the whispered words that this student told the teacher. There was something about a plane and New York and a second one, an attack. The teacher looked shocked and concerned, but none of the words I had heard made sense to me, so I kept working. Not much later there was a phone call to the teacher. He was speaking in a low, quiet voice, and after he hung up, he stood and told the class that the whole junior high and high school (there were only 10-16 students per class) were going to the auditorium for a special chapel. He told us that something had happened.
The principal at this school was a big man of Russian descent with small, close-set eyes. He looked somewhat like he might be in the mob, which could make him very intimidating when he talked to you one-on-one, whether you were in trouble or not. That day, however, he seemed different. Instead of his usual, imposing presence, he seemed almost frightened as he explained to us that there had been a terrorist attack on America, that planes had been hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and another into the Pentagon. One of the teachers wheeled a large TV into the auditorium and for a half hour, we watched the news in silence. They were showing live footage from New York City. I remember thinking, Why is there so much smoke? Why are they only showing one tower? Is the other tower hidden in the smoke? It was only in a later class, when a teacher announced to us that the second tower had fallen, that I understood what had happened. Later that day, at TGIFridays, I would get to see those towers fall over and over and over again.
Words like terrorist, hijack, Al-Qaeda, and Muslim are common now, but before that, they were not used often. I didn't know what terrorism was. Before that day, the only hijacking I knew was from an episode of Seinfeld. I don't think I had any idea what Islam was before that. The world had changed, and from that day on, I was taught a new vocabulary that could describe that world. It was a vocabulary of fear and aggression, but also of confusion and questions.
I remember playing in my back yard a few days after 9/11, when a plane flew over. It was the first time since before the attack that I had heard a jet engine. I stopped what I was doing and stared into the sky. It would be over a year later that, while looking for something in the deep, dark recesses of the laundry room in our basement I would see a picture pinned to the wall that I had never noticed before. This part of our basement was filled with old toys and boxes of baby clothes, my father's golf clubs that he never used, along with various other miscellaneous things that accumulate in a house when people live there, and as such, we didn't venture back there very often. To this day, I am not sure where the picture came from or how long it had been there, but I will never forget glancing over and seeing a large panoramic print of the New York skyline at sunset, with two pristine towers gleaming at the center of the picture. Once again, I could only stop and stare.
I have grown up knowing that towers fall down, that reason can turn folly into madness and evil, that guilt cannot always be punished, that security is a lie, and that acts of hate and violence will perpetuate hate and violence. I have grown up in a world of chaos. And most of the time, I forget why it is that when I look at the world, that chaos is all that I see. Once a year, I remember.
These reflections could make for a very bleak worldview, and in some ways, perhaps they have. But as it is I have hope. Not the sort of hope that you hear about on television (because I have also grown up knowing that Presidents make mistakes), but a hope in something that transcends the instability and chaos of this world. I know a God who is eternally constant, whose name is love, whose title is peace, whose ways are just, and whose promise is life. Fear and death have power over me, because they are not forever, but God is.
"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." --Romans 5:1-5
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
On the Economy of Luck
Today, as I was on my way to class, I passed two undergrads, one of whom was opening his umbrella inside. As we were in an echo-filled stairwell, I ended up hearing their subsequent conversation.
Friend: That's so much bad luck.
Umbrella kid: There can't be any such thing as luck.
Friend: Why not?
Umbrella kid (passionately): Think about it. If luck was real, once you got bad luck, you would just keep getting more and more of it. Because if you were unlucky, you'd keep running into more bad luck. It would keep increasing itself.
Friend: What?
Umbrella kid: That's why there can't be luck. Like if I found a four leaf clover, then I would have good luck, and I would find more four leaf clovers, and I would keep finding them and end up getting more and more good luck. So if luck was real, then some people would keep getting good luck and other people would only get bad luck...
I found myself rather amused by this exchange, mostly because of how intensely this fellow felt about the logical end results of "the luck system" and how much thought he had clearly devoted to it. But I found myself wondering if he had ever heard of economics before.
Friend: That's so much bad luck.
Umbrella kid: There can't be any such thing as luck.
Friend: Why not?
Umbrella kid (passionately): Think about it. If luck was real, once you got bad luck, you would just keep getting more and more of it. Because if you were unlucky, you'd keep running into more bad luck. It would keep increasing itself.
Friend: What?
Umbrella kid: That's why there can't be luck. Like if I found a four leaf clover, then I would have good luck, and I would find more four leaf clovers, and I would keep finding them and end up getting more and more good luck. So if luck was real, then some people would keep getting good luck and other people would only get bad luck...
I found myself rather amused by this exchange, mostly because of how intensely this fellow felt about the logical end results of "the luck system" and how much thought he had clearly devoted to it. But I found myself wondering if he had ever heard of economics before.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
On Momentous Events
When I decided to attend Drew University, I had no idea that living in New Jersey would be so exciting. I moved here on a Saturday, and by the next Sunday I had experienced an earthquake and a hurricane (the lovely Irene who has done some significant damage to the east coast).
This all sounds very exciting, but for me, they were not all that tremendous. I was in the library when the earthquake struck, and thus noticed some bookshelves rocking slightly, and somewhat of a tremour, but that was about it. All the buildings on campus were evacuated for about a half-hour, but that just gave me the opportunity to sit outside in the sun, which I enjoy anyway. As for the hurricane, I slept through the worst of it and wasn't awoken once. However, surveying the damage the next morning was quite interesting. Drew is known for the many trees on its campus, and the number of those trees is somewhat smaller after the storm. I actually had quite a bit of fun taking pictures of uprooted trunks and dismembered branches, as well as the flooding on campus.
Of course, when I got back to my room, I saw that Drew had sent out an e-mail including the following notice:
As the storm begins to move out, we are still left with some real challenges on campus, particularly flooding and downed trees. We ask that everyone on campus be aware that trees and tree limbs are expected to continue to come down posing a very considerable risk to safety. People should not be climbing on the fallen trees, walking into large pools/ponds of water, entering flooded spaces or using electric powered devices or machines in flooded areas
As it so happens, I had done all of those things they warned against, including getting hit by a falling branch (don't worry, it was a tiny one). I understood a little better why they were so concerned when, on the following day, I noticed that in the high winds that had continued on Sunday, several more trees had fallen, one of which I had stood under for a little while. Oops. I guess someone was looking out for me.
In other news, classes have officially begun. I am still a little overwhelmed by the prospect of studying history. It is a field that I am not accustomed too, but I am diving in head first and looking forward to seeing what I will learn.
Monday, August 22, 2011
On Transition
This was a momentous weekend for me. Friday night at around 8:45 pm I began an overnight trek to New Jersey (with a stop in PA to pick up my girlfriend), so that I could move into my home for the next several months and begin my graduate studies. Having my mother and girlfriend there was fun and it helped bring even the briefest aura of familiarity to the unfamiliar surroundings. But of course, they had many miles to go to their homes, and so we had only unloaded my things, made a run to the grocery store and tried to bring a little order to my campus apartment before they had to be on the road. The hurriedness of the situation made the goodbyes more like ripping off a bad-aid than a torturous event. As the van pulled away, I went up to my new room, found places for a few more of my belongings, and collapsed into bed for a much needed nap.
I woke up an hour later feeling very strange. I felt better rested, which was a good thing, but I also felt incredibly isolated. This will be my first time entering a new surrounding without knowing a single person. I went to a local college with a sizable number of people I already knew and spent my first year there living with one of my best friends. I travelled all the way to Oxford for a semester, but so did another of my good friends, so even thousands of miles away from my home, I was still not entirely on my own. But here I am in New Jersey--a place I never expected to find myself living--and I don’t know a soul. Now, thanks to the internet and cell-phones, it is relatively easy to keep in touch with people, but I can still feel the distance. It may sound a bit far-out, but there is something about a person’s presence that can be felt, and I miss the presence of people that I love, many of whom I do not know when I will see again.
I have written here before of how my idea of home changed dramatically the semester I lived in Oxford. I found home there, and I fell in love with that place and some of the people there, and I suddenly felt myself an alien. I no longer belonged wholly to one place and felt as though I must not belong to either. Through the process of that revelation and ensuing time, my view has matured somewhat. Rather, my notion of home has changed and can now accommodate what I felt. Home is something bigger for me than just one place. It is something less tangible or definable. It has more to do with getting to know people and places, with familiar sights, with habits, and with love and trust. I believe I can find home here, like I found it in Oxford. I know I will meet people and make friends here, but at the outset, it is a fairly alarming feeling of loneliness.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
On Publishing
A while back, I set a goal of being published by the time I graduated. I wasn't picky about how or what: fiction, non-fiction, criticism, poetry prose. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. I had some close calls. I had a play produced at my college that later went on to be a regional finalist at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. I also did some self-publishing (check out A Breath of Fiction), so I wasn't feeling terrible about not meeting my goal.
Then this happened.
In other words, I am going to be published.
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