'"allah is wonderful"'enthusiasm'rain-swim'

Current Mood/Status: Pretty tired (DePauw has started, after all)
Currently Doing: just a bit of webbing before homework
Song of the Day:

So...I guess that I lied on my blog (again). I'd just gotten too idealistic and thinking that I'd send this blog in the direction, of, say, any given A-lister, but I neither have the inspiration (at least, when necessary) nor the time (you know, things like school). I think that they're kind of connected, at least roundaboutly, but I'm not entirely sure...

Anyways, obviously DePauw's started again. My math class, "Analysis", seems pretty interesting; when somebody asked my professor (prof. Smock, if you happen to know him) what our class would cover, he told us that, rough quote, "You remember all those bits in your calc book between actual sections and at the ends of chapters or referenced in the appendix? And all those really weird or hard questions at the end of problem sets? Yeah, that's Analysis." Cool.

My other class's "Logic", of philosophy. I guess they're pretty related, and that's cool, but I didn't plan it that way. Logic's my first class to meet twice a week for two hours--Tuesdays and Thursdays (well...from two to 3:50, but almost two hours). So far, while I didn't much enjoy the homework (as far as we are, it's ridiculously simple and almost wholly busywork), I'm enjoying class; we're having pretty cool discussions about things that I would normally find interesting; plus a pretty cool (or at least enthusiastic--more in a bit) prof., Marthe Chandler. Indeed, the class is so interesting, and, likewise, the prof., that I decided to blog about it.

Three things occurred in class today of bloggable interest; I'll try to hit them chronologically. First, enthusiasm. I realized that in some people, who I'll leave up to imagination, since I'm sure that we all know individuals of this type. Enthusiasm, bubbling, and befuddilng; Prof. Chandler is really, really into her subject, philosophy, and that's awesome; it makes her a great teacher. I have absolutely no problem with it--far from anything like that--it's just that I was thinking about how some people, when they have too much energy or are always too much into something (or everything). Those guys tend to get way out of hand and drive me almost as mad. Part of that is probably that I just don't see from where they get it all the time, myself being so different; in some bad cases, some people almost flaunt their inexhaustible wealth of energy. But a larger part of it is, I think, that it seems like if they have this much excitement to pour into boring stuff, then what can they pull out when they actually care? The word's not coming to me right now, but all I mean is diluting the significance of a sentiment by redescribing, rehashing, and reiterating it. Not that I don't end up doing that a lot despite my best efforts, and not that passion's a bad thing, but obviously, very few things in the concrete world are boundless. It's all pretty curious, though.

Heh...second thought: as the words came into my head (rather than the thought), and as I wrote it down, "rain-swim". Today was a pretty grey day in terms of weather; so grey, in fact, that it was foggy enough in the morning to "warrant" a two-hour delay (of which I was unaware until I drove up to school, looked over the almost perfectly empty parking lot, and called Davis (I figured that he'd be the most likely of my friends to stay awake through either a delay or a cancellation)). Well...aftewards, I headed over to Jamie's, where she, Mark, and Mary Michael (evidently) were watching House (the series) and generally hanging out until tenish. It was kind of cool, but I mostly concentrated on the philosophy homework which I failed to do due to my extreme and utterly overpowering exhuastion last night (direct effect of my having gotten about two hours of sleep through three installments the day/night before. And if I said something like, "Yeah...don't ask," then I'd have to drag into the street and kick myself or something, because leaving others hanging and just trying to get them to ask about your life that way is an undeniable sin.)

...Just kidding, I'll continue with the tangent before getting back to "rain-swim". Well, the day before (Tuesday, then, this is), I may have gone to morning swim (I can't remember; I know that I have at least once this week, anyways), but I definitely had school, then class until four, then swam against Crawfordsville (we beat them! First time in about ten, perhaps more, years! Yes! I didn't do very well for myself, but we did as a team!). *Then* I had a science academic team meeting, from which I arrived home at about 9:40ish, I think. Dinner, then FAFSA. Ugh...found out that Caltech actually wanted theirs in on the 15th of last month. You know, the 15th; barely two weeks after it was bloody available. Well...hopefully the won't mind. Hopefully I'll also end up going to one of the six schools for which space was allotted on the form. Then...ah, yes. Homework. Consisting of, among other things, a thirteen page research paper. Well...not like I wrote all thirteen pages that night, but it's not like I had anything close to half of it done or anything. It was/is on blogs, titled "I'm Blogging This"--which I'll do either shortly or in a while, whenever I remember and find it convenient.

Back to the story. Grey day, because after the fog, today consisted of much drizzle and mist (made it to Logic late and wet, too; late because I'd forgotten that a two-hour delay means that all of my high school classes start late, not just the first one, so I should have left Wheeler English early rather than wait until four to two, just after sixth, Econ, started, when somebody else reminded me, to). Well...I realized that while rainy days are not necessarily absolutely nice, when it's dark and rainy enough, I'm definitely more than very slightly happier. Especially to swim, curiously enough. I tried to figure it out, but I couldn't really come up with any reason explaining why I'm more motivated to jump into a bunch of water and thrash around for a few hours, but I certainly did much enjoy practice today, despite the relative difficulty. Yays.

Third thought...God. Well, not specifically and directly. One or the other, but not both and now. Prof. Chandler imparted a very worthy snippet of a conversation that she had once regarding assumptions that we all make when we're messing around in logic. When we're dealing with, say, deductive reasoning (the vast majority of this class), all arguments have one or more premises and a conclusion brought about by logical (duh) inferences from the premises. There are certain facts that are taken for granted or assumed; namely, the ideas that we're talking about the real world, that things like animals are generally alive and have two sexes, male and female, etc.; common sense, unless otherwise specified. And the idea that we're speaking in English with all commonly used definitions and connotations. Well...Prof. Chandler told us that she used to teach to students to whom English was not a first (or second, or even third, in some cases, it seems) language. In one class in specific, she presented a problem with a chimera in it. One girl, though, didn't know what a chimera was and asked her to explain it. "Well," Prof. Chandler replied, in more or less these words, "it's this fantastic beast with the head of a dragon, the body of a dog, a snake's tail...," and went on telling about how incredible chimera's are. An awe-full look grew onto the girl's face. Said she, "Allah is wonderful."

Last night, or perhaps after Crawfordsville, I had a brief chat with Chris Krag about religion. It started when, as it so happens, Nick Stevens' parents had to leave something at their church to pick him up, and Austin Woodall commented on that, and somehow asked me what church I attend. Just told him that I'm atheist. But afterwards, Chris and I spoke a bit before I headed off--he says that he wants to discuss if further, though, which is cool. He has his faith, but he says that he only really does it for the principles and morals. He agrees (without any influence on my part) that altogether too many deists (in my experience, generally Christians and those atheists who don't believe in higher powers in specific) worry more about their god(s) than what on high is trying to get them to do; busying their efforts with refuting or "proving" that certain inconsequential (to daily, mundane life, anyways) events occur, etc. instead of taking things from those collectively understood experiences. We even encountered this problem today in class when most of the class fell into arguing whether or not the argument, "If all cows are mammals, then a purple cow is a purple mammal," is valid and sound. My answer, and what we finally really decided, was that yes, because the conclusion, the latter clause, is hypothetical and perfectly reasonable. I don't really want to get too in-depth concernin theology or anything here, since the entire topic (at least, when I'm the only one writing about it and it's a monologue as opposed to a discussion, or at least news to somebody) is approximately old'd^30, but my point here was supposed to be that Chris Krag gets at least a solid bunch more points solely on the basis of good thinking. It makes me happy to see other people who generally don't seem especially distinctive or extraordinarily intelligent/weird (in the manner of my friends)/cool coming to conclusions like that on their own. Almost makes me hopeful...

So...what made me come back and blog this? I guess not solely the fact that they were the first blog-worthy thoughts that happened to come along on a day on which I had time and will to do so; two other things which finally connected enough dots.

First, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", again, with the quote (about which I've been thinking a lot lately, for whatever it's worth), "Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating." (Not that the concept is anything especially new, but maybe it's just the association for me now.)

Second, from One By One Media,

So, when does blogging become something else?

My answer? Simply, blogging becomes transmogrified into a “conversation” and then the ripples in the pond grow from there. A blog is merely the stone cast into the pool.

(With thanks, as almost always, to Hugh MacLeod.)

Thanks. Nothing much in the last two posts; there's my real inspiration, all of it that you can see and read there, and all of it that you may feel and think about this/me otherwise.

EDIT: Due to my weirdness in nature and general business, I've been neglecting meals lately. No fear, though, since I managed to get in not only one full dinner today, but two!