And death i think is no parenthesis

Tomorrow morning I leave for Colorado, where the SC choir will be touring over the period of one week. I expect to be skiing, shopping, singing a lot, and generally having lots and lots of fun. I'll also be going over my lines for the one act I'm in this semester: Hard Candy . I don't think I've mentioned my involvement in the last play either, but a senior here at SC directed Arsenic and Old Lace , to much acclaim. I played Lt. Rooney, the deus ex machina. It's nice to be the role of the guy who assumes absolute control at the end.

I finished Ishmael Beah's memoir earlier tonight. It's a very accessible book - very straightforward and written with much care and emotion. If you have even the least bit of humanitarian in you, I strongly encourage you to read this book. It certainly puts the condition of the African citizen in perspective. A Long Way Gone: A

The SC choir chaplain brought up a passage in 1 Peter at the beginning of this week regarding submission to authority. It led to interesting conversation, and I'd like to reiterate part of that conversation here. 1) It is important to remember that the early churches who passed around these letters had a very practical use for them. The early church could have easily been stomped out had the early Christians been too anti-government. True, the church was persecuted. True, the church did get into trouble with the government. However, remember that the persecution happened for short bursts of time (historically speaking) and only in isolated areas. It was by no means universal persecution. Additionally, when you look at other early Christian documents, you see more injunctions to work with the rulers. And why not? The early church needed all the support it could get, while not compromising, of course. If they were all outspoken government radicals, they would not have lasted long. 2)...

For those of you who are tech-savvy, I heartily recommend the following services, websites, and applications. Want to learn a new language? Busuu is an excellent social-based language learning site that connects you with native speakers (only if you want). I've started a regular work-out program at the Sterling Wellness Center. I've also been tinkering with my dietary habits, fitting in more whole grains, fibers, and protein. The web service Gyminee has helped out a lot. It tracks nutritional goals, workout patterns, and like Busuu, there is an optional social aspect to it, great if you need accountability. If you're into reading, you should check out BookMooch , a book trading website. Basically, you earn points by giving away your books (you pay shipping costs) and use those points to request books from other users. With Make Me Sustainable , you can track your personal carbon emissions and find out how to bring them down to zero. Finally, if you're into science, art,...

We watched An Inconvenient Truth in our Environmental Science lab this week, and took class today to discuss the documentary. This was the second time I had seen it, and I was expecting some people to scoff at the ideas presented. Still, I was disturbed in during the discussion, because some people simply did not want to believe him. Some said that they didn't believe the science because it traced earth's climate back to 600,000 years ago, and these students didn't believe the earth was that old. One student, as if thinking of the idea for the first time, said, "Well, we've had ice ages, so it only makes sense that we have warming periods as well. I wanted to shake him and say, "Did you even watch the fucking movie?!" And here's what I've been thinking since that class today: Groups with agendas (political, religious, etc.) tend to approach scientific findings with a buffet mindset. If a finding disagrees with their stomach, they simply pass it b...