Broken Wings

No, the title is not referring to some sappy, solipsistic, melodramatic misconception of my psyche. It is the title of an Israeli movie I just watched. Note that I said Israeli and not Jewish. Because this movie was about barrenness and nihilism--it had angst, man. It was intensely post-modern (I wish we had a more meaningful term for our current global culture) with a heart-breaking vacuum in place of God. The dysfunctional family is just like an American dysfunctional family except poorer and even more bleakly aware of their emptiness.

Perhaps the practicing Jewish families in Israel are truly "reclaiming the Promised Land," but the inhabitants in this movie, at least, seemed to only to be a Mediterranian transplant of the failing western values.

Advice for Bloggers from Strunk and White

9. Do not affect a breezy manner

The volume of writing is enormous, these days, and much of it has a sort of windiness about it, almost as though the author were in a state of euphoria. "Spontaneous me," sang Whitman, and, in his innocence, let loose the hordes of uninspired scribblers who would one day confuse spontaneity with genius.

The breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day....

Point taken, Mr. White. I am duly chastened and tempted to never blog another breezy, uninspired word.

An Interesting Post...

Emily told me to post something interesting to amuse her. If I weren't busy watching "Ministry of Fear" I would post a study (yet to be conducted) about the meaning of "believe" in the New Testament. Instead I will post a random picture of the gardens at Versailles.

The Colosseum

Actually a huge tourist trap that we almost skipped (tour guides and squat gladiators assaulted one at the entrance), but in the end we decided we couldn't leave Rome without going in, especially since the ticket was also good for the Palatine Hill.

The Power of the Tongue

"Women can resist a man's love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money, but they cannot resist a man's tongue when he knows how to talk to them."
----Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

Why Hiking in Swizterland Is My Favorite Thing

This is the small, peaceful village we hiked to from Interlaken. No, the waterfall isn't photoshoped.

Rolling Out the Barrel at the Hoffbrauhaus in Munich

I've finally got my Europe pictures on my computer. I'm sure they're not as good as Ann's--if she ever has them digitalized.

Travis wanted to see this one. The mugs weren't as big as they look--they were only a liter.

I generally don't like beer, but in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, each town has their own beer of which they are very proud--I felt that I was supporting localism.

Various and Sundry

My blog looks a bit boring...I have every intention of putting up some pictures; I'm just too lazy to load them onto my computer.
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Brianna and I have a theory: Power tools, lawn mowers, motorcycles, etc. are not actually loud of necessity. Rather, as men grow up it looks dumb for them to make as much superfluous noise as they did when they were boys. Therefore, they made necessary tools unnecessarily noisy in order to vent their inner child.
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Despite everyone's wonderful advice about FSU, I have decided that $14,000 of debt is not enough to keep me from choosing the better school.
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My mom asked my brother and I if we had been throwing rotten tomatoes at each other in the basement. Evidently my grandpa brought some with him last week and left them there, along with a package of instant yeast. Not an unreasonable hypothesis, though......

Indecision Crisis!

Ah! I don't know what to do. I have been accepted to the Information Studies programs at Florida State and University of Michigan. I had settled on Florida because Michigan had outrageous tuition, but now Michigan is offering me a partial scholarship! What do I do???? There are pros and cons on both sides

Michigan Advantages:
Top-rated program.
On-campus so I would be in a real-classroom setting with real people (like, people who understand computer things).
Possibility I might get some cool assistantship/internship starting next semester.

Flordia Advantages:
Still $6,000 per annum cheaper than UM.
Distance-learning so there would not be the stress or cost of commuting and more flexibility for my job.
I just bought a computer compatible with their tech requirements.
They offer the flexibility to get an MA instead of an MLS.

Sic or non? I hate big decisions!

I Miss My Roommates...

My parents are much more helpful than my roommates. They do lots for me without my asking...sometimes too much. You see, I like the majority of household tasks. I like doing dishes, sweeping floors, hanging laundry, dusting, even cleaning the bathroom and taking the trash out. But I do not like mopping, vacuuming or cleaning the shower. Emily and Ann were always lazy enough that I could do the chores I liked and then put them on a guilt trip until they did the ones I didn't. I felt diligent, wiley and responsible. Now, my mom does most of the housework and I can't refuse if she asks me to do something--even if I don't like it. Ah the trials of living at home.

Lucas County Fair

I have a weakness for County Fairs. They didn't have them in Puerto Rico. Instead they had Patronales, or Patron Saint Festivals, where hanging lights and a few sorry rides would excuse the men sitting in the town square getting drunk. I am learning through absence to appreciate my place of origin, but local festivities were not strong points.

So the two or three times I got to go to a real American County Fair were exciting. I loved the smell of the animal barns and I would look at every single goat, horse and chicken. The food exhibits always puzzled me--the stale, petrified, prize-winning cookies and cakes always looked less appetizing than the fresh ones at home. I always had an elephant ear.

Wednesday my brother and I went to the Lucas County Fair here in Maumee, OH. It's pretty dinky. The rides come with the admission, so we went on all the circle rides. I NEVER get sick on roller-coasters--even the big ones at Cedar Point--but all the dinky, circular rides at the fair create a whirlpool out of my digestive juices. Especially when you throw an elephant ear and a deep fried Snickers into the equation. It takes powerful faith to believe that the sticky dough dunked in the rancid oil will create something good to eat, but it always does--so much so that it justifies the year's worth of trans fat that comes with it (pace, Dr. Gruenke). To top it off, I won a very ugly goldfish from a huckster with a ping-pong toss game. His name is Feo and he is supposed to replace my beloved Leviathan, but so far there is still a fantailed-goldfish-shaped vacuum in my soul.

My Unusual Job...

Unusual for me, that is. I'm a Comfort Keeper, or companion to elderly people. Yes, Michaela the Narcissistic, the Caustic, the Impatient. But I haven't been fired yet. And I'm mostly enjoying it, at least as a break from my customary self-absorbed, stressful, cerebral activities. It's theraputic to be professionally calm, friendly and helpful all day. And old people are interesting. At first they seem like a different species altogether from people in the prime of life. Most of them sleep, sit, and eat. They like to talk about when they were young, and they crave attention and respect from younger people. They're set in their habits and cling strongly to their beliefs. But on better acquaintance I realized that age is not the fundamental difference. Personality still prevails. One man I take care of likes to eat and watch television-he dreads having to get dressed and go out. Another has dementia, but has been energetic all his life, so he needs a new activity every 15 min (at least you can return to an activity you did earlier and he won't remember)! If you took mobility, sharpness of mind, and the expectation of a future away from a twenty-two-year-old, he would probably live with less dignity and fortitude than a ninety-two-year-old.

Quotes from Foucault's Pendulum

If the problem is this absence of being and if what is is what is said, then the more we talk, the more being there is.

The dream of science is that there be little being, that it be conentrated and sayable, E=mc2. Wrong. To be saved at the very beginning, for all eternity, it is necessary for that being to be tangled. Like a serpent tied in knots by a drunken sailor: impossible to untie.

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Invent, invent wildly, paying no attention to connections till it becomes impossible to summarize. A simple relay race among symbols, one says the name of the next, without rest. To dismantle the world into a saraband of anagrams, endlessly. And then believe in what cannot be expressed. Is this not the true reading of the Torah? Truth is the anagram of an anagram.

Anagrams = Ars Magna

I have a new computer!

It has a network card, a working battery, and no PHC-loaded gobbly-gook on it. It's another laptop--a desktop replacement. Desktops scare me--too much commitment to one location. Somehow computers don't seem as much fun as the old Tandys and IBMs we had when I was a kid. Maybe it's because I have to do my own installing and upkeep. The Sims don't seem as fun as Sim City and the X-Box-esque games aren't as addictive as Tetris and Chip's Challenge. For every Window I open, there seem to be five security warnings/update offers. XP is incredulously challenging the most basic changes I try to make like I am some sort of lunatic. Maybe manufacturers have tried to make computers idiot-safe to the extent that they frustrate ordinary users.