I'm sorry to keep posting, but as I read, I keep wanting to say more.

Susan, if you define lust as anything outside of what 'god' has planned, does that not come into conflict with the idea of predestination? If all actions were predetermined from the moment that the atomic forces were left to interact, than can you not say that there is no lust because all actions are part of the same great design? Besides, how do I know that 'god' didn't plan for men to like what they see, regardless of age or alternate social relations?

We are sexual animals, I'll agree. It is one of our forms of social lubrication. Your average married couple will have sex over 3,000 times (say a conservative average twice a week, 52 weeks a year for 30 years) and that's a conservative estimate. If they're only producing 2.1 children, there has to be a secondary function for this behavior. If there were a God who made man, he could have made it so that we would simply drop our eggs and sperm, joylessly and simultaneously, and then our genitals could fall off. If we were meant to be a pairbonding animal, than we would be wired so that it would be virtually impossible to cheat. Many mammals and most birds are rigged to be unable to cheat. If we were built, we were built to have primarily heterosexual unions, but prone cheat and to like sex and men and little girls, my evidence is that every documented society exhibits these trends. The market could not inflate drives that did not have some intrinsic base, we have a predisposition towards all of these behaviors as a species, and there is nothing "right" or "wrong" about what we cannot change.

Alex, I say there is no atonement. There is balance and there is progress, but Karma (encompassing both sin and benevolence) is various, and there are no discrete units of good or evil. There is no one for one. How can there be atonement? Just as you cannot unburn a tree or unsay an insult, you can only cultivate another and apologize. The second course of action does not undo the first or equal it perfectaly, but redirects the whole, just as creating a second bend in a river can straiten its direction but not its past.
The deeds you have done exist forever and simultaneously in the great architecture of existence, for the past and future, being physically predetermined, always have, and always will, exist in the same state.

posted by Adrian   [11:07 AM]

Do you like Churchill, Matt?

posted by Adrian   [11:02 AM]

All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

_________________________________________ I say that
1) truth is sometimes true but not always
2) God is not good but neutral, and if not neutral, imaginary.
3) the salvation and conclusion of man will come from man alone

Only the mind of man can understand itself, and only through harmless lies will we obtain peace and enlightenment. Without purely biblical support, someone refute me.

From the Books of Bokonon (Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle)

On the End of the World:

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God,
Why just go ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod. [119]

A poem on pretending to understand:

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand. [ 81 ]

posted by Adrian   [10:47 AM]

I feel that marriage should be the social and civil recognition of the socio-economical union of two individuals, inclusive but not soley defined by its sexual implications. Just as a Hindu or a Christian or a Shinto marriage ceremony can be recognized, legally by any state as "marriage," I believe it should be the prerogative of the involved parties, be they same or opposite biological sexes, to determine if they would like to be legally married. Our nation is secular, therefore I believe religion biases should be removed from any legal argument. I strongly object to any legal issues in this nation becoming corrupted by the idea of 'sacred' because such ideas are personal and various. Homosexuals should be allowed the same legal recognition as heterosexuals for a "civil union," and be allowed the accorded benefits of inheritance, tax status, or other institutional privileges.
While biologically I believe that Homosexuality is 'wrong' it is not the fault of the individuals. There are theories that I support that compare the presence and frequencies of such behavior to other discrete psycho-genetic disorders that continuously occur in high frequencies because of behavioral advantages afforded to heterozygous individuals. Such disorders occur in homozygous recessive individuals, while homozygous dominant individuals are less fit than heterozygotes. In the case of behaviors like homosexuality there are probably many contributing alleles, as well as several compelling factors in the development of the individual, but my point is, homosexuals should not be punished for what they cannot control. They have been rendered Darwinian failures because they cannot communicate their own hereditary material, but there is no justice in treating them any differently than other social or biological variants of the human species.

Hey, is it politically correct to abbreviate Homosexuals to Homos in casual conversation? To be on the safe side, I don't but I'm always a fan for shortening words and 5 syllables is a stretch for my attention span.

posted by Adrian   [10:21 AM]

Jacob, congratulations for deciding. You're funny as hell.

I probably should post an opinion relative to the conversation (and I will later tonight I think) but I logged on first and foremost to relay to you good people something that I found absolutely... I've written too much. It's not that funny. right.

So in The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Nivven, there is a device that can be implanted in the back of a human's skull that sends an electrical signal to the pleasure centers of the brain. People who try this sort of device once or twice become hopelessly addicted; no other pleasure, food, travel, discovery, sex, can ever measure up to the pure and unadulterated joy of direct neural stimulation. There are no side effects accept for the great propensity of weak-willed people to forget to eat and drink (then they die), which over the two centuries of the device's existence, has quietly eliminated many of the unwanted members of human society. This miracle drug cannot be dealt by drug-dealers because electricity costs almost nothing, and once the rather expensive surgery has been performed, it cannot be undone.. This device ladies and gentlemen is called a Droud if portable, and if stationary, as Tasp. The addicts are called Taspers (slang is Wirehead).
I thought it was funny.

Hey do you all ever meet a person, forget their name, and fail to mention it, so that later you are so well acquainted that you can't approach them and say "what's your name?" without appearing to be a complete ass?
I've had a new friend for about a week, and I dread calling her house. Why?
"Hi who is this?"
"Adrian."
"Alright, who do you want to talk to?"
"I don't know..."

Now I've wasted your time and thus your lives. I cannot ever give that back to you. Now, go read something intelligent.

posted by Adrian   [8:33 PM]

A quick question for all, but I think an important one: are we discussing the creation story as metephore or as history? And are we discussing it as the literal word of God (ie, either God telling us a metephore, or Him telling us history) or are we discussing it as something written by man/woman that was somehow learned from God, or something else?

posted by john owens-ream   [2:09 PM]

Note to self: Read the Bible.

posted by Eunice   [1:05 PM]

Alex,
Sorry for the delay, I've been out of town for a few days. This conversation has moved on to things more important than homosexuality. Your opinion that there is no original sin is compelling, in fact this was very controversial in the ancient church. Pelagius, a British monk advocated that there was no o.s. Augustine opposed him and the church decided Augustine's position was correct.
My understanding is that when God created man he created man in his own image yet quite different. God is good. As the way, truth and life all good and truth is bound up and God and God could not be anything but good and true since goodness and truth exist in him and emanate from him. The reflexive property: truth is truth. By the transitive property a God who is Good can not be anything but good. When God created man and His angels, these creatures were able to choose either the true (God) or the untrue (themselves, since truth was not their essence). This was a freedom of will, a freedom so great that it compromised itself: Adam chose to limit his freedom of will trough a free act of will.
It seems true that the more one knows of the consequences of her actions, the freer the choice. This means that only an omniscient God is perfectly free. I think that one can also choose freely when one realizes that a choice has an uncertain outcome; one chooses uncertainty. I don't really know but I would surmise Adam, namer of creation, had enough intelligence that the experience of being formed and nurtured by God (a God who created for him a wife, think of that!) would give him a solid idea of God's goodness and a limited idea of what the negation of that might be. Of course, his knowledge of either could not be full until he experienced both extremes. God seemed to say, "So you want to know good and evil, sin and know cruelty, die, and know pain. Even then I will redeem you." I descend into the possibly false, sorry.
You are right that there is a great moral and aesthetic beauty to man's fallen condition, but this comes only from God's grace. God has turned man's evil into his good. Still, I shiver to think what he could of done with an unfallen humanity. Without WWII there would have been no Churchill and without the Holocaust's horror Schindler would not be the hero he is. Still, these goods, brightly as they shine in the darkness, fall far short of justifying the horrors that birthed them.

Evil has no positive existence,it is merely the absence of good, since God could create no evil. That we inherit the curse of original sin (which is the natural evil in human nature) merely means God has departed from us, which makes us absent of the good and thereby "evil." The extent to which we are good is no longer absolute but only partial. At moments we are able to understand and enact this good, to bring God into our lives, but he no longer fills us.

The fact that we inherit this curse is indicative of the importance of the body and reproduction, a Christian truth that was slandered by platonic philosophy of the ideals supremacy over the physical. God created the physical as well as the spiritual and will resurrect our bodies. Just as we have a physical inheritance we have a spiritual one and we are just as much spiritual as physical children of Adam. It is not logical that something greater could emerge from something lesser, consequently, when Adam and Eve sinned they lost the ability to birth sinless children. It would be a mockery of reproduction if each new generation was injected with a new shot of moral perfection. Instead we are given the chance to confront this sinfulness and be redeemed from it by the death of a sinless man.
No matter how one slices it, whether man is free, bound, sinful or not, he should be humble, since he did not create himself. Aquagensis will lead one to an absurd humility with no object but material forces. Understanding of sin and redemption will lead one to joyful humility. (Disclaimer: I often fall far short of living by these truths, which perhaps argues for their truth and my humility).

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [6:58 PM]

Kelsey-
It doesn't necessarily. I think a lot of opposition to gay marriage stems from homophobia and knee-jerk conservativism, just as much support for it comes from unthinking, reflexive civil libertarianism.
The highest sin, according to Jesus, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and since my fellow Xians are not agitating for a law against this greatest sin it is unconvincing when they oppose gay marriage solely because it's sinful. Obviously it's God's role to punish those who sin a against him and society's role to punish those who sin against society. In other words, in my mind, the only reason society should restrict gay marriage would be some harm caused by g.m. to society. God once judged Israel for its communal sins but now that the Christian church is "the new Israel" or the new "chosen people" (in Calvinist terms) God judges the church for its communal sins as harshly as he once judged Israel. However, any judgement on America, since America is not a religious group, will probably not be as harsh. I mention this because many Christians who have read the old testament accounts of Israel think of America as having the same moral accountability as Israel once did whereas this accountability now rests on the church.
Of course, if there really is a God, his commandments aren't idle, so one should seriously examine the effects gay marriage will have on society. Of note here, is that unlike most civil liberty questions gay marriage does not merely permit people to do a thing, it involves the society positively endorsing and institutionalizing it.
It is trendy and compassionate to endorse gay marriage, but is it rational?
I guessI think we should move swiftly to recognize civil unions, to allow gay couples to visit each other in the hospital and receive inheritances. This should not be called marriage, since the community would be naive to endorse something harmful to it with its most sacred stamp. A middle course will address the reality of American homosexuality without requiring the community to endorse it.
This harm to society comes in the form of a redefining of marriage...what the heck, I need to go to bed. I'll think about this at work.
What is marriage? Question: If one does not perceive marriage as a committment before God, can it be anything more than legal convnience or at most ceremonial sentimentality? If not, civil unions can provide both these things.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [6:28 PM]

so, how exactly does the doctrine of original sin justify denying legal rights to homosexual couples?

posted by Kelsey   [11:41 AM]

Read this if you wonder why (some) Christians "oppose" homosexuality:

I don't believe in free will. Our will is partially free but people are also partially incapable of carrying out their own wishes. I have found this true in my own moral struggles against my personal vices. Alcoholism, lust and gluttony are real forces that overrun the freedom of the will.
I do believe in original sin. When each person is born, within them lie the seeds of vice because every person, even if they wish it, is unable to acheive moral perfection, which could be defined as perception of the truth and the freedom of will to live that truth. Gluttony, lust and other sins are sins precisely because they overcome the freedom of will and then enslave a person and pervert that person to passions that are harmful and unnatural and unfree. This is the idea of original sin. Desire as I may, I will never of myself be able to overcome vice. Even if I one day was no longer a horny teen and had conquered lust I would still be enslaved to other vices, and lust would be barely suppressed. This truth is beautifully illuminated by homosexuality. The nature/nuture debate is not really a debate. Many gays want to be straight but despite intensive religious indoctrination and forced heterosexual sex and their own will to be straight, they remain gay. So conservatives are wrong when they say people choose to be gay.
This fact that there is often choice doesn't immunize homosexuality from being sinful. As a Christian I believe that homosexuality, natural as it is to gays, is sinful, just as lust is sinful in someone straight.
You're probably thinking, well why isn't being straight sinful? I believe heterosexuality (notice I do not say lust) was how people were designed to interact, yet because of the fall of man each man has becom perverted in many ways, for some, these perversions include homosexuality. I do not deny that their love is genuine, (for they do love) i contend only that the erotic element of that love, genuine as it is, is sinful. This sin is their participation in a universal sinfulness all men share.

In the end, Xianity is not about condemnation, thought that is an element in all redemption. No person will ever be able to overcome their own sin, but by coming into contact with the Truth that is Jesus they can repent of even inescapable sins and thereby justify the lie and perversion that is each human life. In other words, being gay is fine, so long as one realizes its immorality and strives to turn from it. A gay man stands no better chance of becoming hetero than I do of becoming chaste. This is not in man's power but in God's. There should be no peculiar condemnation on gays besides this general condemnation on all people and their innate sinfulness.
So, in summary, to say that homosexuality is moral because it is natural betrays a naive ignorance of the fact that immmorality is often natural and inescapable, just as singling out gays for special condemnation beyond that directed at any person is equally ignorant of this truth. My point is gays are people too.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [6:06 PM]

Oh wow. In my last post I wrote "John" where I meant Jacob: too many biblical J's and too few hours of sleep.
I must highly recommend the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoeyvsky. It is joyful, dramatic, darkly comic and gets at what it is to be human. It is immensely funny and compulsively readable.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [8:36 AM]

I like John too, and think he's still cooler than I am.

Susan: pictures! Yay! If you end up with a lot of pictures (large files) you can't trust geocities with, I recommend photobucket, which I use. When the picture files are too large they downsize them for you automatically.

Jacob, and everyone else: to submit to the tagboard, enter your name (or make it up if you want to be anonymous) in the first entry field, skip the second field, and type your questionnaire item in the bigger box at the bottom, then press the 'TAG' button. This is my best substitute for the sheet of superlative suggestions posted on the Secret Headquarters door. (Jacob, congratulations - I recommend that you hibernate from now till July 3)

Alex B: Congratulations!!! The Rushdie I read was Midnight's Children indeed, but I've heard The Moor's Last Sigh was even better. One of my friends for whose taste in books I have the utmost respect (the one who read Michael K) regards it as the best book he's read this year.

Lastly, a music recommendation - if you haven't heard it enough already, the Caccini Ave Maria. Andrea Bocelli (who came to the Philippines last month!) popularized it relatively recently but I prefer it in a female voice. I'm listening to the Inessa Galante version as I type this and it's beautiful. Jo Su-mi, I heard, sang it in her amazing voice, but some people might have a problem with her pronounciation.

I just received my I-20 in the mail thirty minutes ago. Looks like I can be in America after all. :)

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [7:25 PM]

So a buncho of things that I've been meening to post, but havn't had time to because I'be been working 60 hours a week for John Kerry and donating my weekends to stephanie herseth.

1st. Eunice is the most amazing piano player ever. I wish everyone could have attended the mandatory tasper attendance piano recital in the wonderful state of Minisota.

2nd. Both Matthew, and earlier Alex, are extremely right that we are much more reasonably remarkable than any other people that I've ever met. Certainly at least 10x more reasonably remarkable than cornell tasp ever could have been.

3rd. I talked to some taspers from years prior to mine (97 and 96) who, after comparing notes, said our tasp was smarter, harder working, and much "cooler, socially you know, hipper" than there's were.

4th. Anyone who lives in the midwest, DC area, Chicago, Colorado, or California, or will be in any of these places on memorial day weekend, needs to come see me in South Dakota. There is a special election on June 1st to elect a really amzing woman named Stephanie Herseth to congress, and the Democratic party (specifically Kelcey's own Nacncy Pelosi) needs volunteers. Thousands of volunteers are being bussed in from most all of the country, with free food, travel, and accomidations. As well as an amazing free party on election night. Much more, it's a really really nice hotel we stay in, and a really great cause.
-MANDATORY tasper reunion attendence please. Besides Aimee, Tae-Yeun, and Brian S. who get travel waivers (no busses from Hawaii, Korea, or Clevland) and Matthew who I remember being the only "out" republican. Maybe Olga too, but I think olga would like stephanie herseth. www.speakerpelosi.com/sd if you want to go. If you do actually sign up for a bus (as a few of you better, like Eunice and others who I know are free, and who don't have that long a drive) use "richard ream" as the name that refered you so you end up in the same hotel as me.

5. Well this is too long alread, though I will say this. Expect a huge suprise that everyone will love and which some might even think would make me almost as cool as Tae Yeun. Actually not even close, but it rhymes with "shmaleeted bersion of dah rockblumentary

posted by john owens-ream   [11:11 PM]

Yeah Alex! Shock and awe; wer're gonna saddam Cornell's husseins. (that was not an invitation to an iraq debate, Sorry...)

I want to offer my sincerest congratulations to everyone on their acceptance to college. It sounds as if everyone has gotten (or in J.O.R.'s case, will get) into amazing schools. Aimee was intimidated but I'm humbled to know people who are going to attend Ivy League institutions. No one from my county has ever been admitted to an Ivy League or just-as-good-as-Ivy-league school. I guess my point is that your accomplishments are huge, unheard of and envied to most people in the country. Undeniably you all have earned your acceptances yet just as undeniably we have all been blessed with the opportunities that got you there -things like AP and IB classes and good teachers that most of our peers don't enjoy.

John, you have made an excellent, excellent choice. Allow me to send you lots of country music. Holstein, Angus, Charlois: what a life awaits you. Everyone will think your tractor's sexy.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [7:38 PM]

susan!!!! you're only 8 hours away from me, driving (six if you floor it)!!!!

posted by Kelsey   [5:51 PM]

where the hell does all this gossip about our tasp come from?

latoya is gone. long live fantasia barrino.

waaaah i need tasper love (and ghost writing) right now.

posted by Kelsey   [10:38 PM]

I love reality TV! Even if it has little to do with reality it's highly American because the common man gets a shot at fame and fortune and helps create the drama. I got through a winter of college and scholarship apps on the relaxation that came with watching the numbing masterpiece "America's Next Top Model" each Tuesday. Nothing could have been more irrelevant, absurd and amusing. Also, Boston "the Godfather" Rob is the man.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [5:36 PM]

I have just invaded enemy territory (alias, the cornell blog) and am intimididated by the intellectual discussion and witty repertoire. it is ok, they are strange- we are cooler than them.

As to the american idol craze, the whole thing has gotten altogether out of control. At home, my dad loves it, and i'm an in-the-closet viewer-my mother and sister hate it. They might be the only ones in the state. The coordinator at my last relay for life meeting had to apologize for making all of us miss it. Restaurants are experiencing business lulls during showtimes. Somewhere on Oahu they have all night voting parties to keep Jasmine Triaz (sp?) on the show. HI has way too much island pride. :)
My sister says that the all-night voting parties are cheating. Dad gets defensive and says that people in any state, New York, for example, can do the same thing. Mom says people in New York have better things to do.
probably.

posted by aimee   [4:06 PM]

You people already get to graduate?! ug. I have to wait until the 13th of June. I hate my school.

O, Eunice, I too wore the Tasp shirt for the English AP (ha).
Generally I feel the AP's are alright (though I didn't start studying for AP Econ until 1 am the day of) and really what's painful is having to go to classes for a month after finishing these tests. It's not even like we get to play kick ball and have parties, as all the AP teachers assured us... we have all these stupid projects to do, and four or five of them are due in the next few days. ave. Here's a funny story that our Stats teacher was telling us about; students taking one version of the Stats test out west would open their books to find multiple choice questions 11-21 completely absent from the test. They then would have to reschedule. Wouldn't that suck? ha.

Jacob, on your computer, mayhaps it's fate. "Ay my dharma, ay my fate."

Let me say, Bryan and Alex, that during the old Chinese civil service exams, the students were allowed to bring in a small hankercheifs and a portable toilet bowl for just such problems. The practice was common for centuries; let us look to the east and learn. (ha)

I think the main reason that we all post so much has to do with the motivational force of Tae-Yeoun's personality. Maybe she slept around or something. no? ok. To answer that Cornell question; Do you all remember those dirty drawings? Pretend they were real. ha.

Yesterday for Anthro we saw this speaker on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was painful. Not only did the guy underestimate the intelligence of the audience, but how liberal Oak Parkers are. It was all propaganda; for him Sharon was misunderstood, and the 6-day was the beginning of history (accept for when the Jews lived in Israel the first time). He was a journalist, and was exceedingly good at avoiding questions: Q) Do you believe in Preemptive war A) When it saves lives Q) What do you think of the missile strikes areas occupied principally by Palestinian civilians A) The Terrorists intentionally inhabit civilian areas, using the children as human shields ... and so on. It was infuriating because he would act as if the Palestinians were acting purely out of an intrinsic evil, that they wanted to blow up school children to go to heaven so live with virgins. right.

I have to get off of the computer because my mom needs it, so G'day all.

posted by Adrian   [1:38 PM]

I spent the past week or so laughing at people who had to take IB Chem and/or Econ this week, and after a while it lost meaning. Utter unproductivity feels really good except that these little chores manage to pop up all the time and although they're not very difficult to do (i.e. returning my library books) I don't do them and in the end I start feeling guilty about them.

One of these 'little chores' was the sequel to the yearbook I proposed in like November, thought about every now and then till now, but never did any work on. You'll get this in your emails and possibly in your actual non-virtual mails sometime between this week and whenever I leave for Korea, but, it would be really really nice if everyone can have a page (or more) to fill. It could be a photo collage, your latest masterpiece, doodles, or just a blurb - anything that reflects in any way what you've been up to this almost-year out of TASP. Olga, for example, (sorry to single you out) has done some "soul striptease" for a class, and might be willing to share some excerpts. :)

I'd prefer these to be in digital form, and if they are you can email them to my 6-mb-as-opposed-to-hotmail email, avellyne@yahoo.com. If it's easier for you to mail the hard copies, you can send them to the Philippines and risk having them arrive either forty years later or last Wednesday, or maybe I can work something out with my sister who's in the States right now but whom I'll eventually see this summer. I'll get back to you on that.

Besides the individual pages, I had some sketchy half-formed ideas of additional fillers, which I'll try to organize within the next few days. Suggestions are, of course, welcome if not expected. Anyway, one of these pages I half-thought of was a questionnaire page, sort of like those annoying email forwards that make you answer a handful of random questions before you forward it to your fifty billion acquaintances or risk a lifetime of misery. Now, I added a tagboard to this blog (to the right, under the list of our names) just so we could start suggesting questionnaire items before I mail them out to people to answer. I'm not sure how this would work, but I promise you now that if it gets too annoying / in the way of our actual blog posts, I'll take the thing off immediately.

Well, hopefully this is a start. Updates later when I'm more on top of things.


----------------

So while I wrote this massive post I found the
Cornell TASP blog, which I hadn't realized had moved last September despite everything Kelsey tells me - I kept checking the old site and assumed they all stopped blogging - and fished out whatever they've been saying about us behind our backs. My two favorites:

This is a question that's plagued me for months on end, one that I hope to see resolved shortly:

in due consideration of how damn good looking we were last summer -- was there any sex at TASP?

(hey, -someone- had to ask it.)

I've heard there was some, ah, sketchy business at the UT Austin TASP, and given that there were no fewer than thirty two of us at the House...

and

y'know, the Texas TASPers seem to post to their blog a heckuva lot more than we do. That's sorta peculiar and depressing.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [9:47 AM]

okay. i just saw the movie "dead man" by jim jarmusch. i am blown away. so incredibly fantastic that it's impossible to express without using curse words. johnny depp. crazy black and white cinematography. pounding neil young guitar. and gunfights. so so so good. beyond highly recommended. i'm only watching westerns from now on.

posted by Kelsey   [12:10 AM]

I thought she was Singaporean? I'm not sure but I think I vaguely remember that her last name started with H...

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [7:23 PM]

I'm choosing an introductory seminar for Plan II and one is taught by Prof. Wendy Domjan, a psychology professor who teaches on psychology and religion, "is a practicing Jew... and a devoted fan of Star Trek." Is this the woman who talked to us about the Arthurian legend in the Harry Ransom Center?

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [3:24 PM]

rofl rofl rofl - nice alex nice.
as for my paper three, i reached question 19 (my third essay on the one essay every 50 minute scedule) and realized... I really have to pee. So rather than simply raising my hand to go the restroom, I decided upon turning in my test a wee early and slightly incomplete. Ah the horror. ROFL.

posted by Bryan Lee   [9:36 PM]

now that we all have our destinations next year ironed out, i thought i'd help out the visual learners among us with a map of everyone's routes to college:

now, shall we discuss reunion plans? i think it's pretty clear where my preferences are for a location, but i might be open to suggestion...regardless of where or when, i miss you all terribly and must see each of you immediately, so let's get a-plannin.

posted by Kelsey   [12:48 PM]

When I was reviewing for my psychology AP I was looking over electrical impulses and action potentials/neural system stuff, and I glanced over at the book's margin (which the author usu. fills with representative examples or interesting little tidbits- anyone who has used that classic Myers textbook remembers) to find the jocund quotation, "I sing the body electric." -walt whitman.

Teehee. Psychology book humor.

posted by aimee   [11:48 AM]

Brian- we are comrades. Because of the ineptitude of the ap office here, I am taking my AP music theory exam at 8:00 on the 21st. The graduation ceremony starts at 10:00 (i take the exam in my white graduation dress, and rush down to the gym as soon as I finish to catch the end of the festivities.)

posted by aimee   [11:42 AM]

School's out...I'm where sorrow and joy meet.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [8:32 AM]

John came to my recital!!! Of course, he heard a toned down version of everything, since I injured my wrists doing God-knows-what. And afterward, we sallied forth to the corporate giant of America, (yes, the Mall of America) in the roar of tornado drills (a relatable experience to all of the Midwesterners out there). And, yes, John met my piano teacher.
--While I mention my piano teacher, I'd like to promote the international piano competition that he started two years ago. For more information, see
www.piano_e_competition.com (please correct me if I didn't remember correctly, John.) It runs for several weeks, and all rounds are open to the public. This basically translates to free, international-level piano recitals, quartet performances, and concertos day after day!!! I am excited, and I hope that some of you will be able to make it.--
After John left, I went home to cram for the Physics C test. Too late, too little, as I found out later. Monday was two hours of IB english, followed by 4 hours of AP physics C. I sat and fumed, chewed on my pencil and contemplated slitting my wrists with the pencil sharpener. And then chemistry this morning. (Once again, I really miss that cathartic scream.)
So, I am typing right now, giddy to be rid of all but one of my tests, left vulnerable to run-on sentences, parentheses, and...an inability to finish anything I write.
Since I have not "blogged" for so long, I feel it is justified to leave a constipated account of my life (in two days) for all of you to read. But the new blog format provides the frightening idea that people may opt not to read anything written by "Eunice," for fear of even longer, rambling blogs. My apologies.

posted by Eunice   [5:14 PM]

people are sneaky.

John's DEFCOM photos are up, even though half of them are stretched to fit the grid because I couldn't make a seperate page just for the vertical shots. (sorry) Thank you John!!!

Also, the poetry of Mr. Borinsky can be found here - they are:
- Under the El in Chicago
- for John Dos Passos
- Card Players

Enjoy!

Philippine elections yesterday, and no one will know the results till the end of the week or something. :) Either way, though, it'll be pretty bad for the country... *sigh*

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [3:40 AM]

"Telluride's name came from the call 'To hell you ride,' shouted by those familiar with the town's wild reputation."

posted by Bryan Lee   [9:36 PM]

Dear Jacob,
I'm writing this in a formal letter, becuase I find it apt after my IB cording ceremony today and the last day of school - sigh, so many yearbooks to sign. Anyhow, I am utterly, completely devestated that we won't be "chillin'" together at Harvard. Yet, there's a part of me that believes you made the right choice, that somewhere in the sands of California, you will find what every American during the Great Depression sought: menial labor. No, seriously, I remember thinking when I was walking back up with you to Harvard Square (it's really a triangle... damn pompous Hahvahd thinks they can change a triangle into a square?!) that if I were faced with that decision to go to Harvard or Deep Springs and I chose Harvard, I would have always wondered not what academic opportunities I missed, but what opportunities to define my existence as a human being I would have missed. In that respect, I'm incredibly envious. I think you made the right decision, Jacob - even if that means that I won't see you for a long time, I am extremely happy for you.
bryan

PS... just out of curiousity, how are you going to survive in a place where they don't take bathes when you freaked out over a hair on the soap at tasp and went out and bought your own? heh...you need to keep us posted on your adventures at deep springs.

posted by Bryan Lee   [9:36 PM]

wtf? tae-yeoun how did you finish? wtf?! omg... i have like..ahhhhhhhhhhh psych tomorrow, 2-day history, 1 day russian, 2 day chem left
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
if you want anything from me... now's the time to say... im thinking about writing a will.

posted by Bryan Lee   [9:36 PM]

for this school year anyway.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [8:01 PM]

TAE-YEOUN IS POSTING TO GLOAT that she's the first one in her school and thus one of the first ones in the world (faulty logic) to be completely done with IB. Yayyyy!!!

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [7:24 PM]

John, it's in both your earthlink and lycos emails. I hope you get it in time.

Eunice: I think it's unbelievable that you're taking / have taken the AP Physics C exam - I distinctly remember my freshmen year science teacher, who 'inspired' me to take physics then promptly ditched me for IT, commenting that IB Physics was "too easy" and that people ought to take the AP Physics C, but no one would because the exam is impossible. And to think, you've had three recitals in the last two months! How do you do it? Best of luck tonight (tomorrow night, whatever) - I'll be watching in spirit, like the rest of us who can't drive to St. Paul overnight.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [6:15 PM]

Eunice has a piano recital sunday. Secretely, I have conspired to drive up and suprise her prior to her show, and then drive back to omaha. I'll post the latest on the midwest mini reunion when i get back. But shhh, it's a secret. Don't tell Eunice.

posted by john owens-ream   [9:19 PM]

To answer Alex Y's question on when there has ever been a college in Pasedena: Pasadena is home to Caltech, land of math and science buffs, where they have a shooting club, fill their professors room with green jello on their birthdays, and measure their steets in mackerel. I took the Calc BC last year, but I still have a good share of whining to do. We aren't supposed to whine on the blog, I know, but the Physics C test (AP) goes until 6:45 p.m. at my school!!! arg!!! Nearly five hours of calculus based physics! And then chemistry in the morning, no less. Sigh. Better get back to cramming.

posted by Eunice   [7:31 PM]

We've been watching these videos in my math class on calculus from some "Great Lectures" series and when my math teacher first put them in I pointed at the TV and yelled, "Hey, I know him!" and scared the entire class. It was Dr. Michael Starbird, the guy with the math games at TASP. Here's the highlight of the lecture: A policeman pulls you over for driving through a stop sign. You claim you weren't really moving because at any one moment you're in only one given space, unfortunately the two officers are Newton and Liebnitz and they throw the book at you, the calculus book. That sounds worthy of the Phllipines' driving test.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [12:14 PM]

oh... so that's where i heard the name from.... sigh... dana gioia....

posted by Bryan Lee   [5:48 PM]

Argh! Dana Gioia on the IB exam! (I was wearing my TASP shirt too!) Oh, the irony.

posted by Eunice   [2:11 PM]

Dana Gioia was on my English exam! How freaky!
What's more, the poem was one of THE poems Jacob and co. tore apart in seminar (the orchard one, not the money one).

Anyway. I have a story to share with you that's somewhat amusing in a listen-to-Tae-Yeoun-complain-about-what-she-went-through kind of way: After the exam I took down my art show (no more art!!!) and I was ready to go home, and it turned out that I needed a pass authorizing me to leave school. So I went all the way back to the high school office to get my pass, and when I got back to the gate they found my paintings in the car trunk and said, I'm authorized to leave but my paintings aren't. So I had to go back to the high school office only to be bounced off to the art department in the other side of the school building to get a pass for each of my paintings.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [9:36 PM]

I failed to differentiate Dispensationalism from other things, such as Zionism. Dispensationalism is a system for interpreting Bible prophecies. It supports zionism but is not zionism. Non-dispensationalists when they read a reference to Israel in bible prophecies tend to think of the "new Israel" or Christian church, which would include ethnic Jews and Gentiles and is not associated with any particular piece of land. Dispensationalist think of the Jewish state and therefore tend to support its policies.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [12:33 PM]

Susan,
Your comments on Jesus as the temple I agree with entirely. However John is right when he says that many evangelicals believe the temple will be literally rebuilt. This is called Dispensationalism (God interacts with the world through "dispensations" of truth). The best example is that of a cattle rancher who lives ten miles north of town named Straka who was convinced by the Pentecostal minister at his country church that Jesus could not return until several thousand head of purebred red angus cattle were sent to Israel to be sacrificed. Straka's Red Angus Ranch went bankrupt about four years ago, poor guy. Not a single cow made it to Israel. A more mainstream example of dispensationalism is the theologian Tim LaHaye, co-Author of the Left Behind series. This series details the temples rebuilding and all kinds of other literally interpreted bible prophecies. Dispensationalists take a more literal view of Biblical prophecy than the one common in Calvinist traditions like Korean Presbyterianism (and my own Reformed Baptism). In fact, my church here in O'Neill is Dispensationalist.

posted by Matthew Schmitz   [12:18 PM]

p.s. Yesterday I wanted to buy cigarettes and flaunt my legal adult status, but concluded that spending 3.50 wasn't worth it. Does it still count if I return them? : 0)

posted by aimee   [12:45 AM]

yayy!!! thanks guys!

Happy birthday Jared!!! (sorry its a day late- I just got back from Kaho'olawe, but I promise that yesterday I was telepathically sending my good intent)

p.s. good luck with the upcoming APs!!

posted by aimee   [12:42 AM]

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