New Jersey Update: Sunday

So this is my second update from the hallowed halls of the Gilligan residence in (roughly) Woodbridge, NJ.

We went to Mass this morning at around 10AM. It was very nice. The church was pretty enough, if slightly modern. I think that I enjoyed the music the most. It isn't that often that I get to hear organs played (and they rock pretty solidly when played well, as evidenced by the Mates of State) so it's generally a treat to hear some. They played some pretty decent hymns as well. The homily was entertaining (though right now my brain is too addled to remember what it was about). After Mass we met some of Claire's choir friends. Then Mark and I analyzed the architecture and statues in the church. We also found a wonderful painting of Palm Sunday and spent a good few minutes analyzing that. Then we met Claire's priest, who was fun to talk to for a few minutes (not that he became boring thereafter, but that we left after a few minutes).

Once we got back to the house, we went through the already established ritual of analyzing the comics page, which we had also done the previous day. It is a lot of fun because they have literally twice as many comics in New Jersey as we do in Michigan. It is fun to work one's way through the metaphors, social commentary, pacing and punchlines. And to point out which ones just stink. :)

The day was spent socializing/playing many games with Claire's extended family and friends who came over to her house for lunch. It was a lot of fun. I actually managed somehow to keep myself from going into "turtle mode" (mostly by not saying a word for the first half of the day), and Mark and I had quite a good time with a certain "Chris", with whom we could conduct ourselves sarcastically and speak about all sorts of philosophy and theology. I was not at all shocked later to find out that he enjoys a good cigar every now and again.

We had some pretty sweet pizza for dinner (my half was garlic: God's own seasoning!). After dinner, we watched "Garden State", which I had told them that they needed to see. It definitely got me in the same old mood it does every time I watch it, which is a good thing. And Mark said he liked it. So, hi-fives all around in that regard.

Day-summary ended, and now for the stream-of-consciousness, gosh-I-need-to-go-to-bed "thought of the day":
I was thinking a good deal when kneeling during Mass. This was due in part to the fact that I was kneeling on the stone floor (having gotten that part of the pew that is not kneelered). But I was thinking about our various body-postures during the course of the Mass. As human persons, we are both body and soul, and I believe that many truely "human acts" (so to speak) requires the use (or perhaps expression through) both. For the most part, this is simple to see in the Mass. When we sit, we are contemplating quietly or sitting attentively listening to God's word proclaimed. When we stand, we are in a position of praise and respect, also demonstrating our readiness to actively go and preach the good news. When I was kneeling, however, I had one of those fun moments where you suddenly see a certain action as if it were the first time, and I was struck by the nature of what we mean when we kneel. Kneeling in front of a man means one thing: making yourself less than him. Because we are both body and soul, we often express ourselves bodily to each other, even unconsciously. Kneeling means humbly making yourself less than someone simply by the fact that you have made yourself physically shorter, to symbolize the act of putting their will above your own simply by magnifying their height. I think that's why men kneel when the propose to a woman, or pledge allegiance to a king or ask forgiveness for a great offense. It is an extremely /human/ act, especially when done while "present to yourself", or "standing at your center", or "with lateral self-presence", or any of those other great Dr. Harold terms.

The thing is, as St. Anselm said, the closest that we can get to understanding the Incarnation and Passion of Christ is trying to imagine ourselves dying by crucifixion to save a rather small colony of ants. The only catch is: there is infinitely more innate distance between the nature of uncreated God and created Man than there is between created Man and created Ant. We are so very small in our nature, compared to his. If we truly see ourselves, then we are humbled in the presence of His magnitude. But still we perform this very human act of kneeling. We cannot, though the whole human race might pour its blood out as an offering, increase the stature of God one millimeter. But by making ourselves that much shorter in His presence, we magnify Him and His will to the best of our ability. In this very human act, we humble ourselves before our Creator, acknowledging Him as the supreme and uncreated Lord of our lives, and realize how very small we are in His presence: everything that we are, dust and ashes.

In New Jersey

So I guess I'm in New Jersey now. It was a swift ride with a Massachusets driver (read: at least 80mph the whole way), so it only took 7 hours counting dinner. Don't worry, Mom, he was also a very safe driver in an excellent car and we were never even mildly /near/ a crash. Well, we did pass by a car that was billowing flames and smoke, but that wasn't even as a result of a crash. And everyone seemed to be aight.

The week we have lined up ahead of us looks fun. We went to the local abortuary this morning and protested/prayed a few rosaries. It was closed, but we got about 10 times more affirmative honk-by's as we would have in Ann Arbor. All in all, it was a lot of fun to stand around and pray, then chat with Claire's old-person prolife friends. Apparently we're going to the Zoo sometime this week, which should be a blast. I love zoos and haven't been to one in years! I hope that my memories of zoos are not inaccurately awesome...

Susanna and Claire are shopping right now (they have been all afternoon) for... heck, I don't know what they're shopping for. I think they're getting Mark something for his birthday though (which is Chewsday), in addition to whatever expensive jewelry they see. After dinner I think we're all going to adoration, then we were going to potentially hang out with any of Claire's friends who are available. We were also going to watch some movie with her 11-year-old sister (I had the /hardest/ time thinking of any movies I like that are appropriate for that age-group), then watch Garden State once she went to bed. I don't think that any of the rest of them have experienced the awesomeness of that movie yet, and seeing as we are /in/ the Garden State (though I am informed that it is being renamed) I figured 'What better time? What better place?'

Hesychia,
-L

Excuses, excuses...

So. I have been saying for about a week now that I would write another post based on some "intellectual-type" thoughts I've been having. I know that my one Reader (JAGryniewicz) has been expecting it, as well as MKSpencer (who is out of the "internet-game" for Lent). Just to crush your anticipation: this is not that post. I have been mulling over the ideas that I want to write about (my thought-processes are a complete topic for another time) and have come to the conclusion that I probably need three posts to sum it up. Or at least to divide it into manageable chunks so I don't get overwhelmed and think, "Eh, I'll do it later." So part one was supposed to be written this morning. /This/ post is explaining why it wasn't.

So I sat down at my computer this morning shortly after waking up and figured, "Hey, why not check up on Websnark, just to get the intellectual gears greased." I then spent the rest of the morning on Websnark, reading the thriving debate on the nature of literary criticism. All in all, a stellar read, if slightly anti-climatic due to its nature as a comments section.The other reason that I was camping out Websnark was so see if Eric Burns would post on the latest Achewood. Now, if he did another post on the current plotline, that would make three posts (between him and Weds) on this storyline alone! But hey, LJBH, Chris Onstad is doing a great job! He deserves three snarks and a "tasty, tasty biscuit"! By this point, however, I realized that Eric was busy with his crusade against jargonized academia in the comments section and likely wouldn't snark the latest Achewood. I also realized that I only wanted him to snark it to confirm the excitement that I was already feeling regarding this latest twist. Y'know, the whole "misery loves company" thing, except it's "webcomic geek-outage loves company". So I figured that I would just write down what I thought anyways. I've already tried to hook Ms. Ghilly-gan on the wonders of Chris Onstad's world, but I doubt she's read it. So this will have to serve as an example of the lambasted "writing for the sake of hearing yourself talk". On to the show.When I first was linked to Achewood, I read one or two strips and grew bored. At some point later, probably via Websnark, I decided to give it the benefit of a trawl. The feeling that followed can only be described as love. Chris Onstad's world is so quirky and often funny, yet the tragedy and pointlessness of life is directly in the forefront. The strip started out somewhat unfocused, relying mainly on non-sequitors for humor. As soon as the first major plot-arcs started hitting, however, two main characters emerged. Roast Beef Kazanzakis, the kind of cat who speaks in mainly small fonts. He owns a million T-shirts with slogans like "Who sucks? (Me, I do)" but would never wear them in public. His best friend, Ray Smuckles, is the cat who wears a golden medallion that belonged to the Inca god of fun. Ray is the cat who sold his soul to gain amazing piano skills, then used them only to get rich enough that he'd never have to work again. Now that he can just sit back and drink his days away, he no longer "tickles the ivories". Roast Beef is the kind of cat who had to die and go to Heaven before he found love. He's the kind of cat who went to Hell to save Ray from his own mistakes. He has consistently been the guy who's got his best friend's back, no matter how much stupid trouble Ray gets himself in.

So when the latest plot-arc, "The Great Outdoor Fight" started, we all went nuts. Roast Beef was no longer only going to watch! He was going to enter the fight, so that he could advise Ray on how to win, from the inside. Beef would be there to pull Ray's guts out of the fire again, and help him to win the competition. Ray would win, sure, but we know him. His victory would be nothing more than another conquest in a series of meaningless conquests. He has never had to fight for anything he wanted. Ray has always had so much that anything he has given has been from his excess. We all knew that Beef was there to support and coach Ray, not to win the fight for himself. We all knew that Beef and Ray would have to face off at some point. We all knew that Beef deserved to win that fight more than Ray, ancestry or no. We knew the lesson that Ray would have to learn about friendship, and were genuinely excited to see his character develop.Weds puts it the best in her initial snark on the plot:

"So, Beef is taking Ray to destiny. Beef is telling Ray how to do this thing. But there will come a time on the third day when all this has to come apart, and Ray does not learn well. Ray forgets the lessons that his shadow hands him. The son of Rodney Leonard Stubbs is a coward who would desert a dying man. God only knows if that coward can fight his best friend."
We all knew what it would come down to. In Eric's masterpiece on the plot he took a different spin:

"That's what it will all come down to. Only I'm beginning to think that the cowardly act would be to abandon Beef on the battlefield -- to abandon a friend that Ray was once willing to give a lung to. Whose blood will be on the Son of Rodney's hands at the end of the Great Outdoor Fight?"
He took a different spin on it than Weds, but it was the same concept. We all knew the lesson in friendship that Ray would have to learn or fail at come the Third Day. Then, today we learn that Beef has been KO'ed while Ray was in his drunken nap. Beef is out of the fight!

Chris Onstad has quickly turned our expectations on their head and left us guessing. We no longer know exactly what lesson Ray must learn at the end of this, nor even is Beef is alive or in Heaven (for the third time... or is it fourth?). That makes it all the more exciting to see. Like Jeph Jaques' latest arc, this story will probably prove to be a definitive moment in the entire plot. And, also like Jeph, Chris Onstad is a man who knows how to craft an exciting plot and keep us all coming back for more. Sometimes in the world of webcomics criticism, we can start to think that we know the mind of the author better than they do. This is exactly the kind of hubris that Eric has been ranting about in his latest post, and some of those authors take it upon themselves to turn our expectations on their heads

.All I can say is: I'm geeked.

Midterms

This semester, so far, has been an auspicious one academically speaking.

First off: out of nowhere, I suddenly got the motivation to start doing my Honors reading! (It was actually probably from being called out on not re-reading the Song of Roland) I am still not doing the reading for /all/ of my classes, but it is generally not necessary. I must say though, as satisfying as it has been to just BS my way through Honors without reading for about the past year, it is also very intellectually satisfying, and even enjoyable, to know what the person actually said and to hold an educated opinion on it.

Secondly: I studied (approx 30-60min) for my Logic midterm and aced it.Thirdly: I studied (15-30min?) for my Epistomology midterm and aced it.

Fourthly: I studied (approx 90min) for my Mariology midterm and, with the redemptive grace merited by Christ and through the intercession of His mother, proceeded to kick it firmly in the teeth. It is now, of course, only 7 minutes since I finished the exam, but I believe that I gave each of the essays the best answer that I could, and potentially the best answer that /could/ be given. So, while I have not yet received the grade, I am pretty confidant that I did well! I went in there feeling heck of stressed and unprepared, so this is quite a weight lifted. LJBH, I feel pretty straight-up euphoric."

And that's all I have to say about that..."

It's Been a While

I think I have enough for a couple of posts right now... I may have to just leave most of it until tomorrow. Actually, it's jinxing myself to specify a day. So I will leave it until the ultra-ambiguous "later".

I pretty much woke up in noise-overload today. You know, that mood I get where I feel like I've been around people/noise too much and just want to curl up inside. Maybe you don't know... it's an introvert thing. But anyways... I'm not sure how much of the day I actually spent alone, but by dinner I was rocking back and forth, which is a habit that I had mostly lost. I pretty much wanted to spend this evening alone, but I ended up watching the first half of Braveheart with some kids anyways. I left half-way through because I just didn't feel like being around a lot of people, and I got some news that a brother was having a hard day.

(Fast forward: the previous section was written approx. 12:30AM. Everything after here is written after several hours spent being with a brother in need. Post resumes starting at 3:16AM)

So yeah. I've been thinking a lot recently. I think /very/ slowly and it generally takes me at least twice as long to come to conclusions as other people just because I have an innate tendency against closing off an issue. I always need to "keep the file open in case more evidence shows up", or something. As a result, often when I have to make a decision I'm likely to move slowly and methodically, waiting until I'm sure before I start to act. Sometimes this factors into God's plans better than others. There are many times when He just says "Jump" and I know that I have to, then spend a while afterward figuring out why.

All I knew when I broke up with her was that this relationship just wasn't the right thing, that she wasn't "the One". I had no idea why, though I had vague theories. Just like when God told me not to go to Oestereich, I had no real idea why but several vague theories. God said "You've been mulling this over for long enough, I told you a week ago for sure that it wasn't right and you've still taken a week to 'discern' that. Jump." And I did! It was heck of awkward, but I always knew it was the right thing to do. However, every week that we have spent apart since has lent new perspective to the situation. I see now why/where we were not compatible in several key areas, mainly centering on the fact that we never really /clicked/. It started out pretty forced, all well and good, but it never entirely moved on from "I'm in this relationship because hey, she's a good person and I'm a good person and maybe we can make something work!" In the end it just stayed a case of two good people on two different pages. I realize now how vital it is to me to have someone that I can talk to. I don't just mean in terms of "inner-deepies". I mean, I told her all/most of the stuff that you only tell that "special someone". It isn't really that hard for me to open up to people, unless they're immature. What I mean is someone who draws me out of myself in conversation, and we just never really had enough in common for that to work out.I told myself initially that just because she wasn't /really/ into literature or philosophical discussion was no reason why a relationship couldn't work out. And I'm sure that's correct in many cases. I certainly don't want to be some prick who only dates a girl if she's "on his level of intellect". However, one of the things that I've discovered about myself through this is that I need someone that I can just sit down with and have a long, purely hypothetical discussion about anything from life-perspective to insignificant philosophical points. And I need her to be able to match me, point for point. Heck, it would be great if she could beat the pants off of me! It's not even that we couldn't talk about life-perspective or important issues in personality or our relationship. In those scenarios, she certainly held her ground and we never found any issue that we couldn't talk through. It's just that so much of how I /think/ and relate to people is bound up in these casual sorts of conversations that having a disinterested party, or even an amused but purely spectator-role person just... I don't know. It just doesn't fit. There's a whole part of me there that is neglected or simply channeled onto my guy-friends (who could certainly never be /replaced/ by a woman, but also could never legally marry me).

So I guess that this is part of what being in a relationship is about. Learning about yourself, I mean. Tonight, I told him: "Look, if you can say that you are in a better place now than you were when you started the relationship, then maybe the whole thing was worth it, even if it didn't last." He said he wasn't so sure if it was all that much better now than it was. I told him, "Give it a week or two. You just need some perspective."

Two down, two to go!

The Ethics final is also over!

I'm not sure how well I did on it, but I'd expect hopefully at least a B, with the possibility of an A, if he buys my BS. I also got my paper back from him, marked: B+/B. When I asked him what that meant, he replied: "I couldn't decide which it was so I gave you both grades." So pretty much, I have no idea what I got on my paper.

I love Dr. Harold's tests though. For the mid-term and final he brings his coffee-pot and makes the entire class cups of coffee. They're really good too. So by that point in his tests I'm was running on two cups of coffee (and I don't drink /that/ much caffine) and it was really sweet. By the time I started the second essay, I hit the sweet spot. The whole world seemed great and everything was coo and I was so focused. I started to deviate from the course material to answer the question and just started making stuff up. Y'know, philosophizing. So yeah, it depends on how well he likes that whole thing. I was proud of it though. Man, I love caffine. That's why I don't drink much of it: so that when I do, I really buzz.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the dirty secret of Luke Hansen, Closet Dopefiend.

Another one bites the dust!

One final down, three to go!

I would describe the experience like this: it was as if I combined with 45-minutes-to-an-hour of studying to form a giant robot who proceeded to kick that test right in the teeth!

PD-W won't know what hit her. She'll be all: OH GOSH WHERE DID THIS CHILD LEARN SUCH CORRECT DOGMATIC FORMULATIONS

Also: maybe I should finally start studying for my Ethics final. It is starting in one hour. Let's make our magic, Mr. Study-Time! Giant Robot, GO!