Bwah

I'd sort of forgotten about this. I've been seeing so much of the couple of people who read it that I didn't need this for a while. But there are some things I'd like to write, just because it's easier than hoping different things will come up in conversation (the way I used to do it makes for awkward conversations, in my opinion).

It's been a long time since I'd seen many people who showed up Wednesday, and not just family members. My friend at St. Andrews, Click Thomas, came up and said hello, gave his sympathies and all that. It was like he was never sick. Last time I saw him, he could barely get through a service, due to his condition (which I've forgotten the name of, but it makes soft tissue hard, and it has made it so he can't eat very much food, among other things I'm sure). I miss Click. He and his wife Pat, who is basically the kitchen-lady of that church, were the first people to really reach out to me in big ways. I had meant to go Sunday, but the past several nights, I've slept quite poorly. Tonight's not looking any better, due to humidity.

I dunno if you got that message I sent you, dad, but I remember (now) exactly when that picture was taken. Heather pulled out a camera, and it had to turn on or something. I had no idea WHEN in those few moments the picture had been taken, but I think my brother and I were mistaken in assuming when it was done. Alaina was running around Heather's legs, peeking around at us. I remember that. Was not an angry face.

Visited the psychiatrist today, told him about some headaches and twitching I've been having, but, considering stressful circumstances, we're just going to "watch closely" and see if anything's different next month before cutting back on meds.

Tonight I found a birthday check I never cashed, and will have to alert Grandma to this. She lent me another book (God help me), but I've already finished it. It was pretty interesting, was told from the point of view of an autistic kid. It looks longer than it is, the type is a little large, and it's double spaced, so I breezed through it all today. I was gifted (rather than lent, which I originally thought) a copy of the Apocrypha, which I'm interested in, but am going to leave it a little further down the list of "MUST READ NOW". Near the bottom is my Logic book, because I know just by having the class that I'll get through all of it in a matter of time. Here's the list;

1) 13 Thinkers+, A Sampler of Great Philosophers by Gerald F. Kreyche
2) The Art and Science of Fencing by Nick Evangelista
3) Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff
4) Simplicity, The Freedom of Letting Go by Richard Rohr
5) Becoming a Critical Thinker: A User Friendly Manual, 5th ed, by Sherry Diestler
6) The Apocrypha by who the hell knows

I've gotten at least half way through the first three, which are interesting, relatively quick reads. Fencing is the easiest to get through, which is why it's so far up. I'm hoping to be done with SOMETHING soon, I have homework coming up >_<.

For my position paper, I figure I'll just go with the armed martial arts topic I've been dwelling on. I'm going to take the position that we don't need them, because we really DON'T, but... I love them! Ugh. I can't argue that we DO need things like fencing and kendo, because we don't. We flat out do not -need- these things, for a number of reasons I need to stretch into three thousand words. I am not looking forward to it. He may not even approve my topic, in which case I'm fucked, because I can't think of any other thing I could possibly write about and argue for or against. Most "mundane" topics will be even less likely to be approved, as they've probably already been done by someone in a previous class, or taken by someone in THIS one. And they're boring anyway. Everyone has opinions on "big issues," and most of them are boring, for boring reasons, blah blah blah.

In writing that, I had a flash of inspiration. My friend Adam is an artist, and wants to get into the Master's program at Eastern, but he's facing a major stumbling block-- he does a lot of illustrative, fantasy stuff. A lot of his professors are telling him to strip away the fantastic elements, so his paintings will be "better," or more acceptable to them, but they end up being figure drawings with maybe a simple background. The "why" of it all could make a fascinating paper! I just need to figure out how to turn it into an argument, and what position I'd take (probably Adam's). The fun part is that we're allowed to use and even conduct interviews as research. I'll have to call out to Ypsi tomorrow.

I thought Fall started today, where's my beautiful Fall weather?

Logic is moving along, but my other classes are kind of crawling. Japanese needs to start teaching me things I don't know, and PoliSci... I don't where it's going, we only ever stir up some heated discussion about current events, which was fun once, but is really stale now. Our first quiz is Wednesday, and we have to go get our own test sheets, something new to me, but I'm told is an old practice (blue books, essentially). PoliSci would be more fun if the people in our class weren't dumb.

I was talking to Grandma about psychology stuff today, and I totally forgot how much I wanted to do more of it. I don't even know where to begin next semester. The problem is that it seems like I would do better to take one class before another, but it's not required or even suggested like that. In theory, I could just dive into Experimental Psychology. Abnormal Psych might help, though. So I don't know what I'll do yet.

Sean