Re:Creation

july enters. now come the heavy dog days. to complement the blog dog days.

for some reason that makes me think of logalogalogalogalog and efrafa, hlessil-rah and salamandastron. weird.

well, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it.

finals week came and went, without much in the way of commendation. i fared decently in terms of grades–not too great, but not failing. but god damn mediocrity (that’s a sincere request, not profanity). you know, i really want to be excellent in my academic life, but i just can’t seem to bring myself to get there anymore. i suspect some deeply rooted problem which if i’m smart i’ll get sorted out, with god’s help, before september.

the weekend after, i moved into my apartment in the basement of kingscote. it’s a dark, musky, ratty sort of place with one small room, one small kitchen, one small closet, and a bathroom down the hall (which i share with an invisible man named bob).

everyone else was at graduation, so i rented a car for the week, to help move things, and to take myself to the airport the coming thursday. anyway on sunday i moved all my belongings, virtually alone [jon parr and shannon helped for a few minutes here and there, thanks guys], and exhausted myself after 13 hours of carrying stuff and shopping for food and necessities.

the next morning i started my job, which is creating and managing three websites for the stanford in vivo medical laboratory (or something like that). unfortunately, my boss seemed to have left on a three-week trip, so i was left to do whatever i would in the way of getting things going. that being the case, i worked half days monday through thursday.

i’ll pat myself on the back, here: i’ve been eating pretty well. i’ve used the stovetop to cook about 80% of my meals, and they’ve all been more or less well-balanced. i like cooking, and i’m already feeling like buying some more arcane sorts of things (a griddle, for instance) so that i can experiment with extremely difficult recipes (for example, a decent chicken and pasta entree). [i realize that one doesn't cook that sort of dish on a griddle, it was just to give an idea]

on thursday at noon i drove to the airport and flew to orlando for a weekend at home. you see, alister mcgrath and graham tomlin, of wycliffe hall oxford, were coming to orlando to discuss some things with CNL about plans for new facilities at oxford. moreover, they were going to be involved in some planning meetings with wycliffe execs [to make things more confusing, 'wycliffe execs' refers to leaders, not of wycliffe hall, but of wycliffe bible translators, based in orlando], etc… so, wycliffe hall is a college of oxford which focus is theology and christian studies. my dad (a wycliffe exec) and i thought it would be advantageous for me to meet these gentlemen (being rather important scholars, christian or otherwise) in the event that at some point i want to go to oxford to pursue a d.phil or what have you. the weekend went well–i attended various meetings and other functions, and met a lot of orlando business leaders as well as the oxford duo. “networking”, some people would say. i’m not much of a networking person but it was good.

needless to say, it was also great to see my family.

and now i’m back. and done with a 9-hour work day. the first in my life? maybe… the last? no.

not to mention, [cf. my last post] i feel like i’ve just been told the last spoken line in the matrix.

virtual disc on spin: false cathedrals | elliott

i claim, nothing embodies mediocrity more than sin. you might respond, but nothing embodies evil more than sin, for isn’t that just what is coequal with it? and i say, then nothing embodies mediocrity more than evil. isn’t that obviously true? we all commit evil, but there are few to none who can rise above it. there is nothing heroic about evil [i say to myself: and haven't i always wanted to be a hero?]. it is not difficult to be evil. evil is a failure. case study: it is not the genius of the archvillian which is evil; if it were, my point would be refuted. no, the genius, the strength, they are good–it is the archvillian himself who is evil, and if evil he is, it is only out of a failure to be good.

therefore sin is mud in water, a smudge on the canvas. it threatens to blur the sharp lines of reality. it takes beauty and stifles it–no, instead it dulls our senses of beauty and truth (it can never actually harm them). it is self-replicating and narcissistic. the only paradox is that it does not self-annihilate. or maybe, it does, in a vacuum–it requires hosts to thrive. weak hosts–but not too weak, or it won’t last long. whatever the case, it never lasts forever. either the parasite or the host die. if the host waits too long, they both die, passing from existence with the mingling strains of the shrill laugh of victory and the echoed whisper of powerless regret.

if only regret weren’t powerless. it’s such a great injustice that that which most naturally motivates us not to sin always occurs after the error we should not have made.

i suppose that’s what was wrong with nature.

romans 8:20-21.

no time for reading
neither for writing a blog
there is work to do

how’s that? a little haiku for you all. haikus make me think of lush chinese rainforests. are there rainforests in china? i don’t know.

moving and organizing takes a lot of time. buying crap takes a lot of time. working less than 8 hours a day takes a lot of time.

goodbye to my dreams of lazy summer evenings spent reading good books!

i will be in orlando this weekend, for meetings. see you there.

[computer wakes up in kingscote]

[computer leaves soto]

my room is strangely empty without a roommate. now it is just me and david bazan, et al.

the great battle in the world [and my soul] these days is between joy and cynicism. the face of evil i see is not hate, anger, or death: it is passive, sarcastic, and useless, with lips twisted in a knowing sneer.

the blogger template updater is not saving my changes. i guess no webpage updates for a while.

summer fell upon me like an unexpected kiss. mmmm, it’s good to be done.

on friday morning, i woke up at 8:20, rolled out of bed and on to my bike (it was waiting beneath my bed like a trusty steed). i was seated in the room for my philosophy 102 examination by 8:30. at roughly 8:50am, i left the room after stamping my seal on the completed exam. i was sound asleep by 9:05.

when i woke up again, i was too busy wondering whether i’d missed lunch to realize that, oh most glorious of days, my sophomore year was over.

well, not competely: there is the small matter of reading 5 different selections of ancient greek from various texts by wednesday, but that’s so far in the future i can revel in the summerness of summer for as long as i want. and, it’s just reading.

so i celebrated. i went to a cornerstone party-like-event at the oval, and also to jenna shuer’s birthday party. i kicked back and hung out, having nothing else to do. finally dan and i celebrated by beating return to castle wolfenstein, the end of which was great–i had to defeat a resurrected, immortal [wait--if he was resurrected, he was dead..so he couldn't have been immortal. ah, don't think too much], undead, battle lord named Heinrich I. how cool is that.

now i’m back from climbing at the wall for an hour, sitting in my room amidst the usual mess, compounded by the various boxes sitting on the floor waiting to be filled. i can’t wait to move into my apartment for the summer. only one complication: i have to vacate my current room by 10am on thursday morning, and more than likely i won’t be able to move into kingscote until friday. a dilemma, then.

goodbye plato, descartes, locke, kant, hume, wittgenstein, and gettier. hello dreamweaver, flash, asp, perl, javascript, html, and c++. from one world of abstraction to another. perfect. i think i’m going to love my job.

song on spin: “drive on to me” | elliott