"Hello there, good to see you. How are you? I need you."

So the other day (Tuesday), I had a "Come-and-Seer" stay in my room. He was a little awkward, not in the "home-schooled and doesn't talk" way but more in the "seems to have strange ideas about social interaction". And I don't even mean like that one "C&Ser" who second-based Pinne. This guy's deal was that he asked a lot of questions. Conversation would pretty much consist of him asking a question, me answering it, him asking another question, me answering it, ad nauseam. Now, that's alright in itself. Questions are a great way to get to know people and what sort of people go to a certain school, and at least he didn't just sit there awkwardly. The strange thing (I come, at last, to my point) was the nature of his questions. They were all extremely /factual/, for lack of a better word. Things like "What's your favorite caf meal?" and "Do you often have a lot of homework?" These may seem innocent enough in themselves, but the way he asked them was purely data-gathering, which made it a little weird.

Then we get on to the /really/ special part: personal questions asked in the same spirit of data-assimilation! He says: "So have you dated anyone on campus?" I figure, well, maybe a little personal right off the bat but, hey, I'm not /that/ private of a person. So I say: "Yeah, but we broke up." Now, I'm ready (if he asks) to give a civil explanation of the reason why, and how (as far as break-ups go) it really went pretty well, etc. but his next question is anything but "Oh? Why's that?". It is, in fact, "Was she pretty?". Now, /that/ was kind of weird, but I shrug it off and say: "Well, yeah. I mean: /I/ sure thought so." To which he chuckles and replies, "Yeah, I mean: we're guys..." So at that point, I'm not even sure /which/ is weirder: that he thinks the most important question to ask about a relationship has to do with looks, or that he thinks the only reason I was in a relationship with this girl is because I'm a guy and ergo think girls are pretty. So, needless to say: a weird C&Ser. He also dropped an awkwardly-placed "I'm hanging out with college guys" F-Bomb while we were talking. Oh well... I guess he was only a High-School Junior. He has some time to grow up.

However, one amazing thing did come out of the experience: I ended up watching 28 Days Later with a bunch of guys. Well... I don't think I can really credit the C&Ser with that one. I mean, he was /there/, but I watched the movie because Mr. Tumnus and Dirty Dan both gave it high recommendations. I was very pleasantly surprised. The movie was billed as a zombie-flick, but that's really not what it's about. It's more of an "epidemic movie", as Double-D asserts. The zombies only appear in a few scenes, and are more of an aspect in the plot rather than the reason for it's creation. Despite the USCCB's hyperbole, it was not "excessively violent", especially for a zombie-film, and only had two "cringe-moments", both pretty minor.On the whole: it was a film about man's will to survive, the importance of family in hard times, "man's inhumanity to man" and ultimately: hope. The movie also starred Cillian Murphy, who lends a lot of intimacy and authentic humanity to the movie. I think that after Batman Begins, Red Eye and now 28 Day Later, Mr. Murphy is on my "Sean Connery List" (which, to the uninitiated, means that any movie he's in is bound to be good at least insofar as he's in it). The soundtrack for the movie was also pretty rocking. At one point during an instrumental post-rock piece, I leaned over to DD and said, "Hey, do you know who did the soundtrack? This sounds a lot like Godspeed You! Black Emperor." He had no idea who did the music, and I resolved to check later. Upon checking, I discovered that GY!BE did in fact contribute a track to the score: a fact which made me very happy. Identifying obscure Canadian bands from an obscure genre by a minute-long (their songs are generally around 15min) instrumental segment is pretty much what I live for.

I really need to start working on my paper sometime. I'm turning it in on Monday. I have CTL Date Night this Saturday... Sheesh. I just need to get this thing done with!

Hesychia,
-L

"Well there's a frieght-train coming to put your head in check: our love is never coming back..."

So I figured maybe I should write a post-Easter update. Yeah... I finished my Honors paper on Tuesday morning of Holy Week and turned it in during class. I hope to get a good grade on it, seeing as he probably won't do more than skim any of our papers. I then took the next few days off, and left for home on Thursday at 2PM.

It was really interesting to go home. I hadn't been home since Christmas, so I was definitely looking forward to it. Kirsten and I drove straight to Christ the King (Church, not Chapel) to make it in time for Holy Thursday Mass. It was strange because as soon as I got out of the car, I was "back in Ann Arbor" in that way that feels like you've never left. Everything seemed the same as when I had left home in January. Of course, things had definitely changed. I went to Mission Christ on Friday and (perhaps because it was Good Friday and attendance was slightly low) there were a fair number of kids that I didn't even know. It was very interesting seeing how much Mission has changed since John Luton left, as well as how much its spirit has stayed the same. It was like a time-capsule, going to Mission and hearing some of those unspoken assumptions about what the Christian life really is. Those assumptions that I bought into most of the way through High School. I see myself back then, then look at myself now and realize how much my faith has grown from the Mission Christ standard. Mr. Tews, during the Pizza Time, told me that he wants to have a sort of get-together over the summer with the seniors and some of the Mission Christ "alumni". He wants to just get us together and talk about what life in college is like, especially after/compared to Mission. I told him that I'd love to do it, and it sounds pretty exciting.

On Saturday, Reez and I went to Raja Rani's (sp?) for lunch. It was a sorta expensive buffet considering how not-hungry I was, but it was pretty good Indian food (though perhaps not comparable to the stuff we had in Little India). All it all, it was one of those excellent brother-sister times we have. It's going to be pretty cool going to school together again next year. My great-aunts came over on Saturday night along with the Mr. & Mrs. Rykowski (family friends). We had a great dinner then played Taboo (which is a pretty fun game). Our conversation throughout the night was very interesting and, as my father observed afterwards, somewhat centered around death. Definitely the kind of conversation that makes you think a lot...

All in all, it was a good time at home. I got to weigh myself for the first time since January (for those of you who are unfamiliar with my idiosyncrasies, I usually weigh myself at least three times a day when I'm at home). I had dropped from 168lbs to around 158-60lbs. I guess I generally do lose weight at school. I got to see Aaron, Ross, Bobby, Ed, DC, Dave Hotburg and Flat Panagan and spent the wee hours of Easter Morning puff-puff-passing the peace-pipe with them. My mother baked an excellent Sunshine Torte which I unfortunately did not get a picture of for my Facebook "Cakes I Have Eaten" series. On the upside, however, I talked to Beez on the phone and she said that she had copies of my French Braiding pictures, so I can probably put those up once she emails them to me. Also: I bought the latest "Mates of State" album (called "Bring it Back") which thus far seems pretty excellent, though more mellow than "Team Boo" was. I also purchased "The Machinist", and watched it with my family on Easter Night. My mother, who has a history of watching good Hitchcockian thrillers, enjoyed it more than my father or sister. The movie is seriously great though...

The downsides of the trip were: I didn't really have enough time to apply for jobs, so that will have to wait until I get back for the summer. Break was not long enough, and now I have to write my Epistemology paper (which I really don't have enough time to do). Also: I genuinely noticed the lack of Beez's presence, which was pretty sad. At least she is coming home this summer! There was also one other person who I had a morbid (or perhaps no longer so morbid?) desire to see who was out of town.

So now I'm back at Steubenville for three weeks... there are some books sitting in front of me, and I've got to start squeezing a five-pager out of them. I'm not too excited to be back. At least I have something to look forward to: Ms. Fogarty is having a Napoleon Dynamite pizza party tomorrow at 9PM... so I'll try to finish the paper by then. Dr. Harold likes me, and would probably take the paper up to a week late (esp. considering that it's a night class).

Hesychia,
-L

"We've got a dreamer, she's going up in flames. Fire it now and sort it out."

So the other day, I was watching a bunch of movie trailers on apple.com, like I often do. I was actually pretty surprised by how many films there were that had a gay character, not just as the old "wacky friend" motif but as the star character, and even the entire basis for the story. I think that our culture is currently going through its struggle to discover what it thinks about the whole thing, and we're seeing that enacted in our media. While there are semi-serious films dealing with homosexuality, most of the movies that currently feature gay characters/premises are comedies. Now, most comedic premises are pretty edgy. They have been ever since the Romans. We take things that we are unsure of, afraid of or angered by and we see if there's another side to it: if we can laugh at it. I think that's what society's doing now, and I think we are all pretty sure which way things are going to go in the end, because that's how they've been going since the 60's.

I believe in the power of God's grace. That's a basic premise of my life, although it's also something that I have to remind myself of daily. I believe in the power of God's mercy to save what look like hopeless situations, and I believe that His love is so great that He desires to save us. At the same time, watching those trailers and realizing just how young our culture is becoming desensitized makes me very nervous about the idea of raising children.

I think that perhaps it's worth noting here that I don't wholeheartedly condemn the concept behind the buzzword "desensitized". I think that a shocked or naive reaction in many situations is not ideal, morally or practically. However, the age at which kids are now getting exposed to things leads not so much to desensitization as such but more to indoctrination. I guess it just seems like it would be so hard sometimes to have a group of little, naive souls that you're trying to lead to mercy and grace in a world as unforgiving and despairing as this one. I guess God will give me the grace to do that when the time arrives, and I think that patience, or perhaps more appropriately "long-suffering", is the most vital virtue to parenthood. It just strikes me sometimes what a big vocation this is...

Hesychia,-
L

P.S. I downloaded a PlayStation emulator today, and spent most of the day downloading Genso Suikoden I in parts... I have yet to see if it works but, if it does: nostalgia, here we come!

"Everybody look inside their hands, and everybody tell me what they feel."

Sometimes I think that I live in a very different, much simpler world than everyone else. At least the weather's nicer here...

I feel very accomplished today. I got up this morning at 9AM, took a shower, went to the Financial Aid desk, paid off my housing deposit, went to the housing fair /and/ mailed out my taxes! What a way to start the day, and all that before lunch! I have some thoughts I could write about, but I might leave that to later today. For now, I've gotten questions as to why I haven't updated all week, so here's a week's worth of Material Update, focusing on my awesome weekend:

So I spent all last week in three stages: sick, recovering from sickness and healthy but tired from being sick. This is why there were no updates all week. I spent all of Monday night throwing up, then most of Tuesday sleeping, aching and fevering. Wednesday and Thursday I dragged myself to class and got to bed early. Then this weekend, which I knew ahead of time would be busy, arrived.

So this weekend two close friends visited at the same time. Two close friends from two completely different social circles. One was a graduated household brother: Andrew Gill, and the other was my longtime comrade: Aaron Harburg. The weekend actually ended up being a good time with both of them, and I didn't really feel like either one was ignored. I saw Andrew Friday night at Household Mass and talked a bit beforehand. Then the "Ann Arbor Eight" (it's been quite a while since there were eight of us on the same campus) + friends watched Devdas, which all of the guys at least agreed was a very good, deep movie. The girls haven't really expressed an opinion aside from it being one of the most depressing movies ever.

On Saturday I lead my first Lord's Day as Coordinator. It was weird because I've been saying the response part for about two years now and can practically do it from memory. I also practically know the Coordinator's part by heart, but it was really weird to be /saying/ it, so I messed up once or twice. It went pretty smoothly though, and no one got hurt. After that, CTL had a formal dinner with our sister household, SOL. They spent all day cooking it (some of us helped where we could) and it was delicious. It was angel-hair pasta with heavenly meatballs and wonderful garlic bread. I may not be at all Italian, but they have some good food! After that, I just felt like goofing off (rather than starting on my Honors paper), so I challenged Don Thomasino to a game of Halo (he could play, since he starts his Sabbaths on Saturday evening). Odin came along, and we ended up playing Star Wars Battlefront co-op for three hours! That was fun, just sitting around, shooting the breeze as well as Rebel Scum. The Empire pwned that night, and afterward we sat around talking a bit more. JP Nunez came over from Francois and Thomasino and he and I did a few rounds of Halo. I actually held my own in one of the games, which was nice! After JP went home, Thomas and Michael Miller and I stayed around (well, it was Mueller's room) for at least an hour more just talking. Subjects covered over the course of the five hours I spent in that room ranged from music to relationships to girls themselves, and there were many lines that we swore never to quote in any context. All in all, it was a blast and I got to bed about 2 hours later than I had intended, without having started my paper!

Sunday morning I woke up kind of early because Mass was at 10AM instead of 11. Afterwards, Aaron and I went off-campus to Amy Brockman's house. She made us scrambled eggs with cheese and spinach in it, which tasted sehr gut. We spent the brunch and about an hour or two afterwards talking about relationships. Not like, /romantic/ relationships (for once) because all three of us are single, but more along the lines of friendship. The major focus of conversation was how the relationship of Superior, Support Group and Person That You're Ministering To changes the friendship. I mainly took a silent role, and was content to listen to them talk. We also covered some practical catechetical issues and while we didn't solve /all/ of the world's problems, well... we didn't have any pipes or cigars either. When I got back to the dorm, I stopped by Thomasino's room and got roped into a round of Halo while he took a break. I ended up playing Will Marks and some girl I don't know. They were both decent beginners, but I still pwned them. It's nice for me to do that sometimes because I generally only play really good Halo players, so I sometimes forget that not everyone can kick my butt. I guess I'm just on the Accelerated Learning track. :)

I finally started my paper Sunday Night before Men's Group. I spent about an hour distractedly researching while listening to excellent music. I currently have 3 pages of quotations, and that's only with not even 2 of the 6 books I need to use for this paper. Once again: I am stuck with way more information than I need. But that's better than the alternative and, it looks like it'll get done! At 9:30PM, JoeG stopped by my room on his way to Men's Group, which is good because I had totally forgotten about it. Men's Group actually got done pretty quickly (done by midnight like usual, but we started at 10 rather than 9) and I was in bed by 1:30AM. And that's all she wrote!

A Material Update

75% of my Wing and I all have the flu. I'm doing alright and it should be gone in around 24 hours. Until then, prayers for all involved are appreciated. Some people are having it a lot worse than me (so far). On the bright side, I barely notice my cold anymore. There's nothing like vomiting to clear out your sinues. That and Indian cuisine.

Speaking of infectious illnesses that destroy the lives of many, I joined Facebook. I have been pretty vocally against my friends' Facebook addiction, and I figured that at this point the strongest statement that I can make at this point is not to not join, but to join and /not/ get addicted. Or something. I read articles on Dadaism on Wikipedia this morning and felt like making an absurdist action/statement. ;)
I wrote half an entry today, which I might finish tomorrow when confined to the dorm.

Hesychia,
-L