B.S. Quote of the day: “In religion, therefore, the idea of God does not rank as high as you think.” — from Freidrich Schleiermacher’s On Religion. I had to write a 1-page paper explaining what the heck he means by that quote. Now do you see why I hate Schleiermacher, not to mention my Religion & Its Critics class? 
Monthly Archive for January, 2004
Everyone around me seems to be so concerned about whether women should be leaders in the ministry. I can’t get worked up about it. (A) I’m not a woman, so it doesn’t directly affect me. (B) I don’t co-lead a ministry with a woman. (C) I’m not part of a ministry led by a woman.
I don’t know the whole story, there’s probably much more than this, but this is what I know in a nutshell. This all started when some Wesley guys got mad at women who were being leaders (and I assume those guys felt as though the women crossed the line in some way). So Vance on Wednesday Night Fire publically defended women, saying not only that they can lead but that they can be heads of households as well.
Yay for writing another paper in which I believe 0% of the content! 
I finished a paper on the bodhisattva’s transformation into the Buddha, and how the legend of the Buddha is a guide to anyone who want to become enlightened. I’m a sellout. I should have written a paper telling people how this enlightenment stuff is a load of crap and taken the F. Only no one would read it except my prof. Well, that settles that, I’ll sell out.
Quote of the day: “There’s no quarterbackness.” — Professor Bryan Cuevas, unsuccessfully attempting to explain anatman (the no-self doctrine) in my Buddhist Tradition class
Monday was wet. Wetter than wet. I mean it poured all day. I got soaked on more than one occasion. I wore clothes that wouldn’t absorb water (nylon snap pants baby!) and I still got wet. My suitemate Dave took a dive in the mud when he was trying to come home. His day was worse than mine. 
Quote of the day: “Kyle’s not doing so good.” — Joe Landon. In a speech at the Navigator Honors Reception, after saying that Kyle Kozloski and he wanted to be just like Paul Harlacher back when they were freshmen, Joe commented that just like Paul he became a finance major and got married. Kyle too became a finance major, however, has not yet gotten married. A fact he is all too often reminded of. 
These last couple of days have been insane. Friday and Saturday just seem like a blur. All kinds of preparation for that Nav reception. Friday night was spent playing Halo until 2:30 AM; I didn’t go to bed until 4:30 AM.
Saturday night was great. Everything came together, somehow. All the speakers were fantastic, especially Nicki. I was fortunate enough to be able to pray over Joel as we did a formal send off for him. Both the old and new A-Teams were recognized, and I have to say I was happy about that. I was disappointed at the Christmas party when the old A-Team didn’t get their due. Now they have, and there’s a sense of completion about it.
So yesterday was supposed to be an easy day. I had done the work for both of my classes (yay for being prepared). Navigators was a prayer walk, so no prep work for praise band. Everything was going to be peaches and cream.
And then I woke up to my life. I got back from my first class (so by 11:00 AM everything is still going good) and Kyle calls me. He says that at the Salley front desk there’s a stack of paperwork that needs to be filled out by 5 PM else there’ll be no Honors Reception on Saturday. Perfect. I should have known. Evidently you need to fill out a special event permit before you can… have a special event on campus. As far as I know we haven’t ever had a special event on campus; usually they’re at the Special Complex or the Wirgau’s or something like that. So some of it is easy stuff. But I don’t know about three things on there. So I call Paul, the man with the plan. No answer. Try him at home and at work. Nope. I decide to walk to his work (it’s the on-campus police dept). He’s out for the day at the dentist. Son of a gun.
It’s getting to be about time to go to my second class. I have a 1-page paper due in there, so I have to at least make an appearance. So I drop off my paper and skip class. 
*gasp*
So last night I went to this social for my dorm’s floor. It was organized by my RA, Robert. Nothing too fancy, just pizza and soda down in the kitchen. Robert was just using it as a way to see how people were doing.
Well, after the food ran out only about 6 or 7 of us stuck around to talk. Somehow we got on to the topic of death, then on to the topic of the end of the world. Now I’m standing there thinking, “They’re talking about spiritual things. Say something meaningful that will impact them.” And I’m just squirming there because I can’t think of anything. Andy’s with me, and I’m sure he’s much more calm about it than I am, but I’m sure he’s in the same boat. One of the guys brings up the point that he doesn’t think the world is getting worse, but only that the bad things are more publicized. Andy jumps in by says that in Revelation it says that you will hear about wars and famine, explaining that before they could still be going on, it’s just when the prophecy comes to pass you’ll start hearing more about them.
Of course in my head I’m like, “WOO HOO!” I’m still trying to think of something, but I’m drawing a complete blank. I have to admit, I felt pretty inadequate. You see, we were talking about how all religions feel about going to heaven, and not two minutes before Robert had asked everyone what their major was. Mine is religion. So I should have been the most vocal in the group supposedly. Ugh! I’m just hoping I get another chance to do better. I won’t screw it up this time.
Quote of the day: “Those forensic people, they just see us as walking cadavers.” – Professor Ljubisa Adamovich, my extremely Yugoslavian macroeconomics teacher
January 21, 2004, the definition of an average day, and I mean it this time. No excitement, nothing life changing. It’s hump day, that’s what they’re for. My Buddhism class was as ridiculous as ever, macro was fun but boring just like always.
So today was one of those average days. Same old classes. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. My Religion, Ethics and Medicine class met in a hallway, a computer lab, and a corridor. (We were locked out of our room, and we kept getting moved around.)
And we’ve got this Honors Reception for Navs coming up (i.e. the let’s-not-tell-Andrew-anything event), and I finally know what’s going on. It’s not Paul’s fault. He was trying to save me and the A-Team work, but ended up adding stress. But yeah, with a couple of small exceptions it looks like things are pretty well organized. I might even have a sports coat to wear. 
So just when I thought dorm life couldn’t get any better, it didn’t. As I said before, last night at 5:30 AM we had a fire alarm go off. Some wise guy decided it would be funny to throw a smoke bomb down the garbage chute. What has really started to bug me is that that person is going to graduate from FSU. He or she will represent where I got my education. It makes me feel like my degree is going to be worth less than it would have been. But anyway, I was outside for about an hour before we were yelled at by an RA and sent back inside. I slept from 6:30 AM to 2:30 PM, thus killing any real chance of me accomplishing anything today.
