Thanksgiving and stuff

Alright, thanks to Jill's comment on my previous post, I realized it had been a while. I've been busy, what can I say. I don't really have much to say here, either...

Anyway, Thanksgiving was nice. I always hate Thanksgiving break though, because you get all in vacation-mode, only to come back and have final reports and finals and stuff to finish. Unfortunate. Oh well. Over the break, I saw a Stars game with Kyle and my dad. I also saw "Deja Vu" with Rachel, which was excellent. Saturday, I ran a 5K basically cold turkey, meaning I ran a total of about 10 miles in the preceeding month. Amazingly, Brandon Williamson and I finished 1-2 in our age group (20-23). He beat me by like 2 seconds (we finished in right at 21 minutes). I would have tripped him or something had I known, in order to steal the glory of the Jingle Bell Run all for myself.

Okay, school is crazy for a little bit, so my posting will be scarce until finals are over. That is all for now.

Good Monsters

I have been thinking a lot lately about entropy, brokenness, deterioration, and mortality, etc. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're studying the OT and looking at sort of a humanity-on-a-large-scale picture. Also, we studied Ecclesiastes, which is heavily related to this subject. We should talk about depression more. Everybody feels it to some degree -- when you're sitting all alone at night in your room, when you're studying, or even walking to class or something. I think everyone thinks it is weird to be depressed since no one ever talks about it. We go around trying to put on happy faces so nobody thinks we're weird or something. Stuff is broken. "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, / Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Go read Ecclesiastes. Look at Romans 8:18-30. The way we are going about things now (i.e. life on Earth) is vanity, futility, or whatever word you want to use there. The things we do are meaningless. Should it be so surprising that we get depressed? Maybe we just realize the futility that we're currently immersed in. However, don't stop there. There is hope for believers, as the second half of the Romans passage spells out.

Anyway, the newest Jars of Clay album ("Good Monsters") seems to have a lot of lyrics on this subject. Lyrically, it is some of their best work. The music is a bit of a departure from some of their earlier work, but it is still really good. Here are a couple of my favorite chunks:

I don't have a lot of prospects
That can give some kind of peace
There is nothing left to cling to
That can bring me sweet release

I have no fear of drowning
It's the breathing
That's taking all this work

Do you know
What I mean
When I say
"I don't wanna be alone"

-From "Work"

Sometimes I can not forgive and these days mercy cuts so deep,
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep.
While I lay, I'd dream we're better, scales were gone and faces lighter,
When we wake we hate our brother, we still move to hurt each other,
Sometimes I can close my eyes and all the fear the keeps me silent,
Falls below my heavy breathing, what makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder, we all have the need for wonder.
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the plunder.

Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven,
All the times I thought to reach up, all the times I had to give up.
Babies underneath their beds, in hospitals that cannot treat them.
All the wounds that money causes, all the comforts of cathedrals,
All the cries of thirsty children, this is our inheritance,
All the rage of watching mothers, this is our greatest offense
Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.

-From "Oh My God"

Anyway, there are several really good songs on it. I would highly recommend it.

Of the sacred desert sand

I went to Ben Folds last weekend. Jill posted about it. However, she failed to describe the opening act: Corn Mo. He was a large man with long, stringy, 70's-rocker hair. He played an accordion and sang in a rather crazy 70's-hair-band-meets-Freddie-Mercury type way. See for yourself. That link doesn't quite do what we saw justice, since he was all alone on stage. To really get a feel for it, you should watch a couple of the videos that are on the page. Anyway, Ben was awesome, as always. On a related note, if you're extremely tall, extremely fat, extremely poorly groomed and bathed, and you have extremely large hair, please do other concert goers a favor and stand in the back or only go to shows with seats or something.

I think the mannequins are getting too life-like. I was walking by Victoria's Secret, and for a split second, I was like, "What is that girl wearing??!", but it turned out it was only a mannequin in the middle of the store. I mean, how anatomically correct do these things need to be? I think we can imagine more than the mannequin-makers give us credit for. However, I would imagine that it's a rough industry -- where do you make huge advances in the mannequin-producing industry? "Way to go Joe, way to make realistic nipples." They probably would get bored if they couldn't keep trying to improve their models. Pretty soon, they're going to advance far enough that the industries of mannequin-production and robotics will merge. We're going to have robots wearing Vicky's underwear roaming the store and helping females (who probably will be extremely self-conscious due to the super-hot robot models) try on underwear.

In other news, I got a spam email today with the title, "Of the sacred desert sand". In the body of the email was simply this (and only this -- no picture ads for Cialis or Viagra or anything like that, incredibly enough). The body didn't contain the title again, and it wasn't in italics or anything, but I took some poetic license in my rendition of this beautiful email.

"Of the sacred desert sand"

Hello!

The principal cannot skip school!

Now there are roaches eating crumbs-
Which makes my parents glad.
I did a lousy job.
I did a lousy job.
When I come home from school.
I didn't shut the light.
You guessed it-on my rear.
My grades are so much better now,
School is closed now, what's it to ya?
If I don't get it off my chest
I felt it on my ear.
and a full-blown case of rabies.
He greets me at the door each day
I have a brief confession
eight spider bites and hair loss,
There won't be school no more.
I didn't clean the mess.
and a broken leg with scabies,
There was mischief in their eyes.
School is closed now, what's it to ya?
I hope my students don't find out
I had asthma and was wheezing.
that I am such a slob.

I found it quite touching.