And death i think is no parenthesis

Today was the first official day of finals, but they were all postponed, due to a massive ice storm that swept through all last night and most of today. We knew it was getting bad last night when we started hearing limbs being torn off of trees due to the ice accumulation. Weather reports said we had about an inch of ice accumulate. The power was out for most of the day, and limbs are still falling from trees. Some students had limbs crash into their cars; luckily, nobody on campus was hurt (at least not to my knowledge). The entire town looks like a war zone. All I could think of all day was that this place looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland - straight from the movies. It's eerie. I walk along the streets and see limbs, limbs, everywhere. I hear limbs falling around me. I am afraid to walk under trees, because they are all sagging dangerously low to the ground, ready to snap. I took some pictures around campus. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the best one yet. At the ...

I have just finished two remarkable books. The first is by a neat philosopher named Mortimer Adler, called How to Think About the Great Ideas . He uses the Great Books of Western Civilization to introduce and develop topics like love, peace, justice, punishment, human nature, democracy, progress, and much, much more. I could not speed read through this book; it was simply too dense. It was a mental workout, and it did a splendid job of whetting my appetite for more. How to Think about the Great Ideas: A Around the same time, I finished a poetry anthology, Americans' Favorite Poems , edited by laureate Robert Pinsky. This is the first book of poetry that I've read all the way through, and, like Adler, Pinsky has definitely whetted my appetite for more. Americans' Favorite Poems: A

The school's annual Halloween dance took place in (COLD!) barn last night. I wasn't so impressed with the dance, but there were some really funny costumes. My sister and her fiancé, David, dressed up as a cookie and the Cookie Monster, respectively. I went to the dance as the Fire Lord, along with my friend Ashlen, the Ice Queen. My roommate dressed up as Kain, a vampire character from a video game series. Last night was also the last night of shaving for the next month. Campbell Hall takes No-shave November seriously. So, I got in one last clean shave and a haircut (after washing out all of the spiking glue). Before After

Well, I haven't been very faithful in updating my blog, so I have a lot of time to make up for. I suppose I'll talk about my classes. World Lit is still my favorite. So far we've read The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, Symposium by Plato, The Odyssey by Homer, Medea by Euripides, Phaedrus by Plato, and The Metamorphoses by Ovid. Now we are done with the Ancient Greek and Roman ideas of love, and we are moving on to the Hebrew ideas of love. Thus, we are reading Hosea , Song of Songs , Ezekiel 16 , and eventually The Epic of Gilgamesh also. I love reading this kind of stuff! It's so much better than reading through a textbook, or surviving only on lecture notes. In Basic Philosophical Concepts, we had to read two books: Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult by DeWeese and Moreland, and Love Your God With All Your Mind by Moreland. I really wish we could have covered these concepts with a book that wasn't loaded with typical Evangelical trite answers to all of ...

This last weekend, some of the honors students took a trip up to Kansas City under the guise of educational advancement or something like that. Really, we just wanted to get away from school and go to the Renaissance Festival. You can view my pictures of the trip on facebook if you like. Below are some others' pictures. We first went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and then traveled to the WWI museum (missing church - it was a Sunday). We spent the next day at the Renaissance Festival having fun (and missing school - it was a Monday). It was a blast! Outside Buca di Beppos At the Renaissance Festival with Lady Calhoun I don't think I make a very convincing pirate.... This stupid art museum guy wouldn't tell me where the lavatories were.

Since I stopped working out at the Valencia YMCA (due to my movement away from the Valencia/California/Whole West Coastal area), I've felt guilty about not having a regular exercise routine. Well, it looks like I've gotten back in the groove. I've been utilizing the indoor pool here at Sterling College. Every other morning, my roommate and I get up a little early and head over to the pool for some heavy-duty swimming. I'm still trying to get some of the strokes down, but that doesn't matter so much; I'm just happy that I'm back on my track to health. As some of you may know, I used to be quite heavier. Here is a picture of me in December of 2003 (my Sophomore year in HS): I remained about this weight throughout the rest of my Sophomore year, and my entire Junior year. I'd half-tried different types of diets, but never stuck with them for long. After my Junior year, I decided that it was about time for me to lose weight. That summer, I lost a full 30 poun...