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I’m in an odd place. I found out today that rather than leaving for Bangkok at the end of August, I’ll be leaving on August 1st. This discovery has been unsettling and, to a lesser or greater extent, unpleasant. I had planned on having a full summer in the States before I left. A full summer in Cheyenne before I left. My greatest concern is simply being able to earn enough money this summer to bail myself out of the financial straights I’ve put myself in, but I had also intended to spending some extra time with those people I won’t be seeing for the following nine months. It’s certainly not the end of the world; I just need to adjust and shuffle my summer plans.

I’m in an odd place. As I look out my window, the rain outside is gradually turning to snow. *insert something clever about believing that “my winter” was over* According to the forcast, the rest of the week will be bleak and cold. Right now, I’m having great difficulty writing the essays that I need to for my international film history class, and I’m afraid that I won’t get to sleep tonight.

I’m in an odd place. I realize that I’ve lost my love of film– sure, I still enjoy it, but I have no passion for it. I’m sure this is partially due to being outside a community of film-buffs for so long, but I think it’s more to do with me being unable to find a place or purpose for film in my future. I guess it’s like gaming– something I love and enjoy, but ultimately have no place or time for.

I’m tired, and in more than just a physical sense. I just want to go to bed and sleep until I’ve slept my fill, and then to wake up without obligations. I know that this is the “last leg of the marathon,” and I recognize that it’s imperative that I “finish out strong,” but none of that helps me feel any less physically, mentally or emotionally exhausted.

I’m in an odd place. “Home” seems like an abstract and foreign concept. I know I’m not the only one. I struggle to think of a relationship I have that seems more than a tenuous and loose connection. I struggle to think of why that matters.

I’m in an odd place. I realize that I’ve lost my belief in a deity. Were you to ask me three years ago if there was a god, I would have resoundingly answered that “yes, there is, and I can help you to get to know him if you’d like.” If you were to ask me one year ago if there was a god, I would have easily replied that “I’m very much convinced that the Christian god does not exist, but I’m equally convinced that there’s some higher power.” But now? Tonight I’ve come to the realization that I’m no longer convinced of the existence of a “higher power”. I find that we’re ultimately alone in the universe– left to our own devices– and that there is nothing greater than humanity. We’re the byproduct of the random process of evolution, placed here without purpose or direction. We’ve invented god and given him human traits to try to console ourselves– but some, like me, are now utterly unable to take consolation. It’s despairing and it’s inspiring. But right now it’s just raining outside.

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

10% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

5% Midwestern

0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Aight, Meekyung, let’s see how much Yankee is in your speech. =P (post your results in the comments)

A man was passing by a small courtyard when he heard voices and murmuring. He went in and saw an altar with a large zero in the middle and a banner that said ‘NIL.’ White-robed people were kneeling before the altar chanting hymns to The Great Nullity and The Blessed Emptiness.

The man turned to a white-robed observer beside him and asked, “Is Nothing Sacred?”

So. At the time I went to bed this morning, my laptop was under a motherboard-replacement work order, my desktop was locking up every ten minutes, my Palm refused to turn on, and to heap insult on injury, my alarm clock had decided to take a plunge down a deep and dark crevasse behind my bed and, as William can probably attest to, it took me ten minutes of grabbing and dropping things and making noise at 4:00AM this morning to figure out how, without getting out of bed, to get my alarm clock up to the level of my bed so that I could set it–for 7:30AM, because my car needed to be moved off the street by 8:00AM. Good heavens. At least my coffee pot didn’t go on the brink last night. =)

Anyhow. This week is going to be crazy busy, but if I survive, then I only have a few tests left, and the semester is over.

Huh. How crazy.

Just as a heads up, I am currently working on a new layout for Eateggs.com, but it’s still a little ways off. In the mean time, things are going to get more ugly before they get pretty. Bear with me. If things don’t work, you’re welcome to let me know, but odds are I’ll figure it out myself sooner or later. Although ugly, hopefully things will continue to be quasi-functional, and we’ll all get out on the other side looking a little better. =)

Just in case you’re interested or somehow don’t know, this is what I have on tap for the summer:

I’ll be moving back to Cheyenne and living w/ the ‘rents. I’ll be doing landscaping for Heartland Home Builders during the day, and I’ll probably wait tables at night (I’m not sure about the latter).

I have two weekend trips planned: one to hike Long’s peak, and one to come up to Montana and hang out for a couple days with William and anyone else who’s willing to see me. =)

I will also be going backpacking in the Wind River Range (outside of Pinedale, WY) for a week with my dad and one of his friends sometime around the first week in August.

At the end of August I’ll pack my bags, hop on a plane, and head to Bangkok. That will be my summer.

And by party all night, I mean did homework all night, ‘cuz that’s always such a party– especially when that homework happens to be the history of ancient Rome. On the upside, of course, I was writing about persecuting a group of people considered to be morally depraved and undesirable– Christians, of course.

Ha ha. I’m just kidding. Well, not really– that’s what my paper actually is about: I explore one document that deals with the persecution of Christians in second-century Rome. Why were the persecuted? Well… just read the paper if you’re interested. Although it’s about fifteen pages shorter than it should be to do “justice” to even this single document, much less the subject of the persecution of Christians in Rome … but what ev.

http://www.eateggs.com/school/2005.04.20minucuisoctavius.pdf

Bleck. I need bed!

*sneeze*

I always feel obligated to preface any statements or posts about business majors with a qualification that not all who have selected “business” as their major are what I refer to as “business majors.” I know quite a few individuals studying business who are generous, kind and soft-spoken individuals who entirely defy my stereotype. If, therefore, you are a person studying business and so-happen to value people more than money, or are able to form a complete sentence without the use of a three-letter acronym, please don’t think that the following concerns you. It’s just my observation on a select group of students who spend an excessive amount of time in the computer labs, loudly talking about their “profit margins per shoe.”

I just happened to overhear a conversation between two senior business majors (involving a dislike for the Salt Lake City airport and something to the effect of “yeah, actually I have to take this one group out for dinner, but there’s no way I’m taking my other group out for anything“), that so perfectly exemplified everything I despite about business majors that I felt compelled to post it immediately:

Dramatis Personae

Random Business Major #1, called Matt

Random Business Major #2, called John

Scene 1

Matt: “Yeah, I gotta pick up some odd jobs over the next few weeks.”

John: “Heh, no kidding. I was hoping for a little graduation bankroll, but I’m not sure if that’s going to come in.”

Matt: “Well, I was thinking that maybe I should just send out some graduation announcements, ‘cuz you know people always send money.”

John: “Funny you should say that, because I just sent out a bunch for that expressed purpose.”

Matt: “And you’re hoping to get a good return on investment?”

John: (laughing) “Yeah, I’m expecting to get some good R. O. I.! It’s good business, you know?”

—

At this point I left to compile this incredible conversation (and have done so, more or less, verbatim). It’s conversations like these that leads me to believe that these so-called “business majors” are somehow sub-human. It’s as though they were all born as human beings but either have lost or have never had any humanity. This conversation illustrates two key signs of a business major.

The first is an unabated greed, especially for material possessions. In this case, are two specimens are both happy to write graduation announcements so that relatives they barely know and certainly don’t care about feel compelled to send them money.

How despicable.

The second is their particular affinity for the use of economics-related acronyms, such as ROI or GPD, and economic terms, such as “production capacity” and “profit margins,” in every day conversation. It seems like, since these worthless acronyms are all that business majors have been given for “education” over the last four years, they somehow affirm themselves by their repeated use.

How pretentious.

And it snowed and it snowed and it snowed. For twenty-four unrelenting hours it snowed. Were it just a bit colder outside, there would be eight to ten inches of standing snow outside– but dreams of eight to ten inches have been melted away to patches here and there by the pertinacity of 40 degree weather.

But perhaps I’m wrong to see the snow from above and the ground below in confrontation. Perhaps I’m missing the grander scheme– the picture in which the sky and the ground are complementary forces. Could it not be that the ground, bringing up new life, had exhausted itself of moisture, and it put in a plea to the skies to replenish it? Could it not be that the skies, in response, came and bountifully bestowed their moisture to sate the parching ground and allow for new life? Why shouldn’t this be by design– why shouldn’t it have a purpose beyond the endless cycle of frozen ground, mud and parched earth?

Maybe I’m just reaching too far– trying too much to project my mental state on the enviroment around me.