Be it known that I am retiring this blog. I was originally going to repurpose this one, but I decided instead to start up a different one. It is independent from this one, more focused in purpose, and will not be personally identifiable with me. It will also probably have more regular posts (at least over the summer). If the URL is necessary for your mental well-being I may be able to provide it.
God Bless!
Madeline
Friday, August 3, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Adventures in Totus Tuus
So, I got back from Rome safely. It was pretty life changing and awesome. All the good stuff rolled into one. That being said, I'm really looking forward to the coming semester at UD, it should be a good time. I'm finally going to have an apartment, and one with three very good friends of mine to be exact. Does the awesomeness behind and the awesomeness to come mean that I'm currently stuck in an awesome-free no-man's land though? Quite the contrary, actually, since I'm currently very much occupied with my summer job of teaching Totus Tuus.
What is Totus Tuus, you might ask? It's a Catholic catechetical program for students going into 1-12th grade. We get the little boogers (1-6) in the day time -- literal little boogers, acually, I wiped a snotty nose today. Then in the evening we get the junior high and high school students. And we talk, and meditate, and do strange things, and it's a good time.
Last week we only had 10 kids in the day program. The 5th and 6th graders became obsessed with a large fat candle and they named it as their class mascot, Otis. That turned amusing when I told them to all be a light to the world and not hide it under a bushel basket, and that became "Be Otis to the world!"
Two weeks ago we semi-scandalized some parents by having the kids sing the shark song at the potluck. It starts innocently enough with Baby, Mama, Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa shark, with appropriate handmotions, but once you start losing appendages and the CPR wasn't working the looks of "Oh this is cute?" turned into more of "In what other ways are you scarring my children?" The dance with Jesus at the end of the song is semi-redeeming though, right? Right?
I have lots of weird metaphors when I give highschool talks. God isn't a vending machine, Jesus isn't a build-a-bear stuffed with God fluff, and neither is he Thor, but he is a coupon.
I taught an entire third and fourth grade class with my glasses pushed down my nose in what was supposed to be a squeaky old teacher accent, but it turned into kind of an Indian accent by the end.
I die dramatically at least three times every Monday morning.
I got invited to a tea party today.
We're not allowed to give the little kids hugs but I'm super bad at avoiding them so I get awkward side hugs all the time.
I bowled over at least two children playing sharks and minnows at recess today.
Most small children are Arians. Some of them believe Jesus lived in the 1970's. I've also heard that the cause of death in crucifixion was either starvation or Jesus holding his breath.
I had some 5th and 6th graders who didn't believe there was actually a year 500.
A common question I get from little kids is "How do you know all this?"
After hearing about the Shroud of Turin or Juan Diego's Tilma a common response of kids has been "I have to go see that!"
One first and second grade boy imagined heaven as a room full of meat. He was shocked to hear that it was even better.
Keep me in your prayers, and you'll be in mine!
JMJ
What is Totus Tuus, you might ask? It's a Catholic catechetical program for students going into 1-12th grade. We get the little boogers (1-6) in the day time -- literal little boogers, acually, I wiped a snotty nose today. Then in the evening we get the junior high and high school students. And we talk, and meditate, and do strange things, and it's a good time.
Last week we only had 10 kids in the day program. The 5th and 6th graders became obsessed with a large fat candle and they named it as their class mascot, Otis. That turned amusing when I told them to all be a light to the world and not hide it under a bushel basket, and that became "Be Otis to the world!"
Two weeks ago we semi-scandalized some parents by having the kids sing the shark song at the potluck. It starts innocently enough with Baby, Mama, Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa shark, with appropriate handmotions, but once you start losing appendages and the CPR wasn't working the looks of "Oh this is cute?" turned into more of "In what other ways are you scarring my children?" The dance with Jesus at the end of the song is semi-redeeming though, right? Right?
I have lots of weird metaphors when I give highschool talks. God isn't a vending machine, Jesus isn't a build-a-bear stuffed with God fluff, and neither is he Thor, but he is a coupon.
I taught an entire third and fourth grade class with my glasses pushed down my nose in what was supposed to be a squeaky old teacher accent, but it turned into kind of an Indian accent by the end.
I die dramatically at least three times every Monday morning.
I got invited to a tea party today.
We're not allowed to give the little kids hugs but I'm super bad at avoiding them so I get awkward side hugs all the time.
I bowled over at least two children playing sharks and minnows at recess today.
Most small children are Arians. Some of them believe Jesus lived in the 1970's. I've also heard that the cause of death in crucifixion was either starvation or Jesus holding his breath.
I had some 5th and 6th graders who didn't believe there was actually a year 500.
A common question I get from little kids is "How do you know all this?"
After hearing about the Shroud of Turin or Juan Diego's Tilma a common response of kids has been "I have to go see that!"
One first and second grade boy imagined heaven as a room full of meat. He was shocked to hear that it was even better.
Keep me in your prayers, and you'll be in mine!
JMJ
Sunday, February 26, 2012
I've been tagged
I don't normally do these (these meaning quiz/survey thingies in general), but I figured I would make an exception in this case. Plus, when it comes to SWC, I kind of have to represent. (Thanks to Mandi for tagging me and being my enabler in procrastination :P ) However, I refuse to be another enabler to the cycle, and am kind of a rebel, so I won't be tagging anyone else. I also delete the chain mail which says I will break out in warts if I don't forward it, just to see if anything dreadful happens, and I haven't gotten any very bad cases yet, for the record.
First, 11 random things about myself:
1. I can very successfully imitate a guy's handwriting.
2. I've been told I perpetually look guilty.
3. When I laugh I often don't make any noise, my shoulders just shake.
4. I've never dated in my life, or even had a serious crush.
5. I dislike musicals as a general rule.
6. I've been told I have a special smile that's just for when I'm talking about my little brother.
7. I love being organized but my room is often a mess.
8. My mom had to force me to start shaving my legs even when they were abundantly hairy.
9. When I was 9 I was miraculously cured of a thyroid problem by our lady of Fatima.
10. As a child one of my favorite past-times was inventing ways to torture my plastic Playmobil people.
11. I have a love affair with pretty clouds.
Secondly, my answers to the questions:
First, 11 random things about myself:
1. I can very successfully imitate a guy's handwriting.
2. I've been told I perpetually look guilty.
3. When I laugh I often don't make any noise, my shoulders just shake.
4. I've never dated in my life, or even had a serious crush.
5. I dislike musicals as a general rule.
6. I've been told I have a special smile that's just for when I'm talking about my little brother.
7. I love being organized but my room is often a mess.
8. My mom had to force me to start shaving my legs even when they were abundantly hairy.
9. When I was 9 I was miraculously cured of a thyroid problem by our lady of Fatima.
10. As a child one of my favorite past-times was inventing ways to torture my plastic Playmobil people.
11. I have a love affair with pretty clouds.
Secondly, my answers to the questions:
1. Do you know another language? I know Spanish well enough to read with occasional help from a dictionary and to communicate well enough to get along. I went shoe-shopping with a friend in a local store here and we spoke no Italian and the store attendant spoke little English, but we both spoke Spanish and so I was able to have a conversation with her about where I was studying, which shoes my friend wanted to try on, the fact that the shoes would stretch with wear, how long I had been studying Spanish, where the store attendant was from, if Spanish was her first language, etc. It was quite exhilarating. My goal is to be able to write poetry in Spanish, and learn other languages too.
2. Hot Chocolate or Coffee? As a college student I have to say coffee, although Italian chocolate is basically molten chocolate in a cup and therefore AMAZING.
3. What is your favorite type of music? Probably Alternative/Folk. I really like things with a good beat and a variety of instruments. Mumford and Sons is a good band.
4. Do you like dogs? Yes but not enough to bother caring for one unless it was a canine genius who could write my philosophy papers for me.
5. Are you hungry right now? No, I just ate a Mars bar and had a cappuccino. Late night studying.
6. Are you going to answer this question?
7. Do you like school? Yes, most of the time. I love the idea of school, but often not the execution of it. Like when I have really boring philosophy papers to write.
8. What is the craziest activity you can think of? Bungee jumping off of a cliff into a pit of alligators with a thread as your rope. That or being mean to a baby.
9. What's you favorite color? I'm partial to blue as a wearing color, but I really love all bright colors as long as they aren't neon. My mom made me a quilt and my art major friend says it looks like someone with ADD designed it. It probably has about 12 different colors and just as many patterns.
10. Do you know what Popple is? Yeah, it's a Christian band, right? That had some paraphernalia about it at the NCYC when I went a few years ago.
11. How tall are you? 5'7"
I promise I'll put up a legit post about Rome soon. I have some stuff in my journal I have to transfer here, and a really amusing story involving a gypsy and a train which I have to type up.
Ciao!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Rome. Rome! Rome?
In 10 days I leave for Rome.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, it's crazy, crazy nuts. Honestly I don't think it'll fully sink in until I'm in the airport seeing all my friends again and going through customs. I might use this space to document my travels, I'm not really sure. I'll definitely have to do it somewhere though, and maybe the end result of that somewhere will end up on here.
Now that it's passed the "two weeks" mark and become "ten days" officially, it is a it more surreal though. 10 days is just a little over a week, and I think the fact that it doesn't seem real is because if it becomes real I will realize everything I still have to do and start stressing out.
Can one ever honestly be ready for something such as Rome? I think not.
...
I should probably explain, for the record, what I mean when I say I'm leaving for Rome. It's self-explanatory to me but I realized that it isn't an inherently self-explanatory expression.
I mean obviously the whole leaving part is, as well as the where the leaving is going, but the duration o the stay and the why are absent and that's most of the unbelievability.
See, if I was just going for a short jaunt across the Atlantic, that would be remarkable, but perhaps not enough to make you quake in your boots.
The fact is that UD has its own little campus over in Rome, nearby the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gondolfo. It has enough space for about half of my graduating class (which means a bit over a hundred in the Rome program). This means that practically every person I know at UD, and every close friend of mine there except for one, is crossing the Atlantic with me, and we will spend an entire semester there. There is never class on Friday. You get a 10 day break where the campus shuts down and you travel wherever you choose. (My plans are Spain and Fatima. Boom.)
It's such an integral part of what UD is that people are always talking about it, and giving you advice about it, and if you had about 50 people give you advice about what you HAVE to do and see in Rome, and some of them said to bring camping towels and some of them said to bring normal towels and some of them said to bring two camping towels and a regular towel (or else the world will certainly end) then you would probably pretend it didn't exist as well.
Or not.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, it's crazy, crazy nuts. Honestly I don't think it'll fully sink in until I'm in the airport seeing all my friends again and going through customs. I might use this space to document my travels, I'm not really sure. I'll definitely have to do it somewhere though, and maybe the end result of that somewhere will end up on here.
Now that it's passed the "two weeks" mark and become "ten days" officially, it is a it more surreal though. 10 days is just a little over a week, and I think the fact that it doesn't seem real is because if it becomes real I will realize everything I still have to do and start stressing out.
Can one ever honestly be ready for something such as Rome? I think not.
...
I should probably explain, for the record, what I mean when I say I'm leaving for Rome. It's self-explanatory to me but I realized that it isn't an inherently self-explanatory expression.
I mean obviously the whole leaving part is, as well as the where the leaving is going, but the duration o the stay and the why are absent and that's most of the unbelievability.
See, if I was just going for a short jaunt across the Atlantic, that would be remarkable, but perhaps not enough to make you quake in your boots.
The fact is that UD has its own little campus over in Rome, nearby the Pope's summer residence at Castel Gondolfo. It has enough space for about half of my graduating class (which means a bit over a hundred in the Rome program). This means that practically every person I know at UD, and every close friend of mine there except for one, is crossing the Atlantic with me, and we will spend an entire semester there. There is never class on Friday. You get a 10 day break where the campus shuts down and you travel wherever you choose. (My plans are Spain and Fatima. Boom.)
It's such an integral part of what UD is that people are always talking about it, and giving you advice about it, and if you had about 50 people give you advice about what you HAVE to do and see in Rome, and some of them said to bring camping towels and some of them said to bring normal towels and some of them said to bring two camping towels and a regular towel (or else the world will certainly end) then you would probably pretend it didn't exist as well.
Or not.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Learning to Trust
I've skirted around this issue a lot in my blog, but I don't think I've ever really directly addressed it to this degree. There are several elements in here requiring their own posts in themselves, but this is just sort of an overview of my current state, at least in this area.
In April of last year I began to think more seriously about the possibility of a religious vocation, and I've been grappling with that issue ever since, trying to make sense of it. Which is perhaps the problem, since you don't just "figure out" a vocation like a mathematical equation. Not being able to do that just completely turns on its head my typical way of solving problems, so I'm left feeling a bit pathless now in some ways, which is exactly the point. There is a pathfinder: God. One just has to humble themselves enough to trust Him, and I'm trying to work towards that stage. The sheer number of religious orders is rather over-whelming, and as I was looking through them, it struck me that I felt like I was in a college search all over again. Realizing that this was like a college search for me helped me realize that maybe I was going about this the wrong way. The problem then is that it begs the question, "What is the right way?"
I went on a retreat last weekend with Opus Dei, and since their charism/focus is serving God from wherever you are, they obviously had a lot of focus in the retreat on the laypeople and the value of their work and the sanctification through their lives. It kind of got me thinking that maybe my pull towards religious life is just a pull towards a closer relationship with God. I don't think I should become a religious sister or nun to make myself holier, it should be a natural outpouring of something already there. I think I also sort of have the mentality that religious life is the better way, for those really committed to God, and that other vocations were for the weaker souled. It wasn't consciously acknowledged, but I think it was there. It was certainly at least there in the sense that I was afraid that I was afraid to enter the religious life. But maybe I was asking the wrong questions. Maybe I'm just afraid to see where God takes me, and develop a deeper relationship with him, period, regardless of whether it leads me to the convent or wherever else. I'm not sure if this is me "copping out" of a religious vocation, or if the very fact that I'm thinking that proves my later point.
Anyway, everything is still moving, moving always moving, and God's call very well might manifest itself in a certain religious order. Just in the midst of being lost about which, I've come to realize I need some focusing of my priorities in my relationship towards God, and I can't put the steeple on my Church when I don't have the walls or foundation. The call to a specific order is the culmination of a long period of listening and abnegation of self to the will of God. Even beginning those is hard enough for me, so I feel like I'm still a long way off. We're always a long way off though, infinitely far off, beyond what we could ever reach on our own. So, with God's grace.
As a part of this trying to listen and trust and abnegate pridefulness I recently did two thinks. 1) I went to training to be a side-walk counselor outside the abortion clinic, which I really did not want to do. I got called into counsel once, and it was really hard on me because I was beating myself up about what I should have said, which my mom's told me before is a form of pride. Believing you can always say the perfect thing. 2) I finally officially stepped down from all administrator duties on the writing website I ran all throughout highschool. It was very hard for me to let go, because I was so invested for so long, but the final action of stepping down was something I thought, and prayed, a lot about during the retreat. Then after I got back and did it, I just felt so much peace from the decision. Score one for the fruits of trust in God.
In April of last year I began to think more seriously about the possibility of a religious vocation, and I've been grappling with that issue ever since, trying to make sense of it. Which is perhaps the problem, since you don't just "figure out" a vocation like a mathematical equation. Not being able to do that just completely turns on its head my typical way of solving problems, so I'm left feeling a bit pathless now in some ways, which is exactly the point. There is a pathfinder: God. One just has to humble themselves enough to trust Him, and I'm trying to work towards that stage. The sheer number of religious orders is rather over-whelming, and as I was looking through them, it struck me that I felt like I was in a college search all over again. Realizing that this was like a college search for me helped me realize that maybe I was going about this the wrong way. The problem then is that it begs the question, "What is the right way?"
I went on a retreat last weekend with Opus Dei, and since their charism/focus is serving God from wherever you are, they obviously had a lot of focus in the retreat on the laypeople and the value of their work and the sanctification through their lives. It kind of got me thinking that maybe my pull towards religious life is just a pull towards a closer relationship with God. I don't think I should become a religious sister or nun to make myself holier, it should be a natural outpouring of something already there. I think I also sort of have the mentality that religious life is the better way, for those really committed to God, and that other vocations were for the weaker souled. It wasn't consciously acknowledged, but I think it was there. It was certainly at least there in the sense that I was afraid that I was afraid to enter the religious life. But maybe I was asking the wrong questions. Maybe I'm just afraid to see where God takes me, and develop a deeper relationship with him, period, regardless of whether it leads me to the convent or wherever else. I'm not sure if this is me "copping out" of a religious vocation, or if the very fact that I'm thinking that proves my later point.
Anyway, everything is still moving, moving always moving, and God's call very well might manifest itself in a certain religious order. Just in the midst of being lost about which, I've come to realize I need some focusing of my priorities in my relationship towards God, and I can't put the steeple on my Church when I don't have the walls or foundation. The call to a specific order is the culmination of a long period of listening and abnegation of self to the will of God. Even beginning those is hard enough for me, so I feel like I'm still a long way off. We're always a long way off though, infinitely far off, beyond what we could ever reach on our own. So, with God's grace.
As a part of this trying to listen and trust and abnegate pridefulness I recently did two thinks. 1) I went to training to be a side-walk counselor outside the abortion clinic, which I really did not want to do. I got called into counsel once, and it was really hard on me because I was beating myself up about what I should have said, which my mom's told me before is a form of pride. Believing you can always say the perfect thing. 2) I finally officially stepped down from all administrator duties on the writing website I ran all throughout highschool. It was very hard for me to let go, because I was so invested for so long, but the final action of stepping down was something I thought, and prayed, a lot about during the retreat. Then after I got back and did it, I just felt so much peace from the decision. Score one for the fruits of trust in God.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Discerning the Question
In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy there's a famous scene where the answer to the Ultimate Question of the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything is revealed to be the number 42. The people seeking the question are confused, and the super-computer which they had created to answer the question tells them they didn't even know what question they were asking in the first place. It then tells them they must build a new, bigger computer in order to find the question for which 42 is the answer. Of course, the Ultimate Question ends up being just as nonsensical as the ultimate answer, but in this story there is a very important point about our spiritual lives.
A lot of times we come before God asking Him "Where am I going?" or "Why do bad things happen?" or "Who are you?" There's a song by The Fray called "You Found Me" in which the main singer tells God He was "just a little late." The singer's aching question in the song is "Where were you?" because he feels that God abandoned him at the point when he needed God the most. Sometimes we come with these questions, but we're as clueless about what we want an answer to as the people in The Hitchhikers Guide. We know that somewhere in our lives, there is an equation that doesn't quite balance out, so we come to God seeking answers. The problem is that if we don't really know what we are looking for, when the answer comes we won't be able to understand it, and might not even realize it has come.
My Literary Traditions teacher last semester was very focused on the idea of finding the right questions to ask yourself when analyzing literature. Dr. Moran said that if you had the right question for your paper, it would pretty much write itself, because by understanding so thoroughly what you are seeking, you can make sense of what you find. If a reader asks "Why did Dante write The Divine Comedy?" they will probably find they have bitten off more than they can chew since Dante himself probably could not have given a straight and easy answer to that. But when the question becomes "What did writing the Divine Comedy as a poem enable Dante to do that he could not do in prose?" the question becomes focused. It leaps at the reader, and gives them a specific mission and course to answer it. Even if the reader cannot answer the question alone, at least they have clarity in what they are seeking, and are not simply stabbing blindly for truth, like fishing with a spear in murky water.
Truly focused questions like these are hard to come by though since they do not result from pure ignorance like most questions do. To really encounter the questions we need to ask, we need to genuinely and deeply think about the issue. Asking God "What do you want me to do with my life?" is admirable for its abandon, but lacks a strong enough commitment to finding the answer to really quest for a deeper question. When we ask questions that are too vague we are appeasing the load on our consciences by asking them, but then running away from any true, soul-searching confrontation of the matter.
True discernment of God's will requires the courage to stare the situation full on in the face. By breaking things down to find God's will in all the little things we encounter, we can find that the answers are often provided. God rarely comes and speaks directly to a person, but if we take the time to find what we are truly looking for, we can guide ourselves, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to truly seek Him, rather than simply playing Bible roulette and hoping He will hit us with the truth, or that nothing will happen and we can say "I tried" without having to really change our hearts and lives for Him.
A lot of times we come before God asking Him "Where am I going?" or "Why do bad things happen?" or "Who are you?" There's a song by The Fray called "You Found Me" in which the main singer tells God He was "just a little late." The singer's aching question in the song is "Where were you?" because he feels that God abandoned him at the point when he needed God the most. Sometimes we come with these questions, but we're as clueless about what we want an answer to as the people in The Hitchhikers Guide. We know that somewhere in our lives, there is an equation that doesn't quite balance out, so we come to God seeking answers. The problem is that if we don't really know what we are looking for, when the answer comes we won't be able to understand it, and might not even realize it has come.
My Literary Traditions teacher last semester was very focused on the idea of finding the right questions to ask yourself when analyzing literature. Dr. Moran said that if you had the right question for your paper, it would pretty much write itself, because by understanding so thoroughly what you are seeking, you can make sense of what you find. If a reader asks "Why did Dante write The Divine Comedy?" they will probably find they have bitten off more than they can chew since Dante himself probably could not have given a straight and easy answer to that. But when the question becomes "What did writing the Divine Comedy as a poem enable Dante to do that he could not do in prose?" the question becomes focused. It leaps at the reader, and gives them a specific mission and course to answer it. Even if the reader cannot answer the question alone, at least they have clarity in what they are seeking, and are not simply stabbing blindly for truth, like fishing with a spear in murky water.
Truly focused questions like these are hard to come by though since they do not result from pure ignorance like most questions do. To really encounter the questions we need to ask, we need to genuinely and deeply think about the issue. Asking God "What do you want me to do with my life?" is admirable for its abandon, but lacks a strong enough commitment to finding the answer to really quest for a deeper question. When we ask questions that are too vague we are appeasing the load on our consciences by asking them, but then running away from any true, soul-searching confrontation of the matter.
True discernment of God's will requires the courage to stare the situation full on in the face. By breaking things down to find God's will in all the little things we encounter, we can find that the answers are often provided. God rarely comes and speaks directly to a person, but if we take the time to find what we are truly looking for, we can guide ourselves, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to truly seek Him, rather than simply playing Bible roulette and hoping He will hit us with the truth, or that nothing will happen and we can say "I tried" without having to really change our hearts and lives for Him.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Life, the Universe, and Everything.
[I typed this up while I was waiting for my flight to go to Chicago last month. It sat around on my hard-drive for awhile until I saw it today, remembered it, and decided to just stick it up since I'm too lazy to wrap it up in any way, and I think that would degrade the integrity of the piece as a psychological experiment and deep look into my essay-avoiding soul.]
First of all, the answer’s 42, and I don’t know the question, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you need to read The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. That’s an order.
I’m sitting at the airport, and there’s no wi-fi, and I am not at all feeling inclined to do the homework I brought with me, and it is awfully fun to type about nothing in particular, so I decided to just randomly ramble. Well, not entirely randomly, to be truthful (I do think honesty is very important in these situations.) The truth is that I saw the light. Well, multiple lights, actually, a whole string of them. Pink ones. Whoever puts Pink Christmas lights on a Halloween display? Southwest airlines does, apparently. I mean, I get that they’re all about the love, and I’m all about the love of them when it comes to cheap flights, but seriously, people. I get enough pink from Valentine’s day and my inherited shower caddy.
There’s a dog putting a bone in a safe in a commercial on TV. I guess the ground isn’t good enough for them anymore. They probably started a revolt for equal rights.
It’s incredibly inconvenient to try and use the airport bathroom when you’re carrying a big suitcase/backpack thing, and have a messenger bag to boot. There was a ledge behind the toilet, which I put my messenger back on, but the big honking backpack had to go on the floor, which was more than a little gross. But what else was I supposed to do, balance it on my nose? No hooks on the door. I mean, really?
I also came to a certain revelation in the bathroom. Toilets were flushing around me, and I realized that I don’t like it when I’m on an automatic toilet and toilets around me flush, because I think they might give my toilet ideas about early flushing, which wouldn’t be appreciated. It turns out the toilets weren’t automatic anyway.
There’s a big pile of almond kiss wrappers on the little table next to me. I think someone needs a hug. That or a decent meal. Either way, I think that many wrappers can only mean that the person eating them was trying to compensate for something else, which the kisses could not fulfill, no matter how many they ate. I hope there were other people eating them too, and not just one. Because the idea of someone just sitting there eating all those kisses by themselves in the airport seems very tragic. I think someone should make a movie about it.
Speaking of movies, The Iliad deserves to be made into a movie. Like, a really good movie. I’m not talking about Troy here, that movie was awfully. A disgrace. The Iliad deserves more than something like Troy. I dunno how big of a scale that movie was on, but it wasn’t nearly epic enough. It seemed somehow low-budget, and the camera was weird and wonky and disconnected, and the actors didn’t fit the characters at all. Plus they managed to ignore or pervert pretty much every major theme of The Iliad, which makes me wonder what the point of even making a movie about it is at all. See, I think that a good movie interpretation of it, ideally, would help other people appreciate what an amazing, complex story it is about life, war, purpose, reliance on others, and human nature. Instead it got turned into this weird macho rejection of the gods and authority. I think that Hektor was one of the few who was actually portrayed well in it. Achilles was completely wrong in all ways. He was too much of a pretty boy. I guess Paris was alright too, he was a pretty boy. The portrayal of his mother, Thetis, also bugged me. She seemed far too human. Which was the point of their interpretation, I suppose. I think part of the problem is that these people are pretty much larger than life. As my professor said, Achilles pushes the limits of what it means to be human.
[At this point we had to board. End Scene.]
First of all, the answer’s 42, and I don’t know the question, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you need to read The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. That’s an order.
I’m sitting at the airport, and there’s no wi-fi, and I am not at all feeling inclined to do the homework I brought with me, and it is awfully fun to type about nothing in particular, so I decided to just randomly ramble. Well, not entirely randomly, to be truthful (I do think honesty is very important in these situations.) The truth is that I saw the light. Well, multiple lights, actually, a whole string of them. Pink ones. Whoever puts Pink Christmas lights on a Halloween display? Southwest airlines does, apparently. I mean, I get that they’re all about the love, and I’m all about the love of them when it comes to cheap flights, but seriously, people. I get enough pink from Valentine’s day and my inherited shower caddy.
There’s a dog putting a bone in a safe in a commercial on TV. I guess the ground isn’t good enough for them anymore. They probably started a revolt for equal rights.
It’s incredibly inconvenient to try and use the airport bathroom when you’re carrying a big suitcase/backpack thing, and have a messenger bag to boot. There was a ledge behind the toilet, which I put my messenger back on, but the big honking backpack had to go on the floor, which was more than a little gross. But what else was I supposed to do, balance it on my nose? No hooks on the door. I mean, really?
I also came to a certain revelation in the bathroom. Toilets were flushing around me, and I realized that I don’t like it when I’m on an automatic toilet and toilets around me flush, because I think they might give my toilet ideas about early flushing, which wouldn’t be appreciated. It turns out the toilets weren’t automatic anyway.
There’s a big pile of almond kiss wrappers on the little table next to me. I think someone needs a hug. That or a decent meal. Either way, I think that many wrappers can only mean that the person eating them was trying to compensate for something else, which the kisses could not fulfill, no matter how many they ate. I hope there were other people eating them too, and not just one. Because the idea of someone just sitting there eating all those kisses by themselves in the airport seems very tragic. I think someone should make a movie about it.
Speaking of movies, The Iliad deserves to be made into a movie. Like, a really good movie. I’m not talking about Troy here, that movie was awfully. A disgrace. The Iliad deserves more than something like Troy. I dunno how big of a scale that movie was on, but it wasn’t nearly epic enough. It seemed somehow low-budget, and the camera was weird and wonky and disconnected, and the actors didn’t fit the characters at all. Plus they managed to ignore or pervert pretty much every major theme of The Iliad, which makes me wonder what the point of even making a movie about it is at all. See, I think that a good movie interpretation of it, ideally, would help other people appreciate what an amazing, complex story it is about life, war, purpose, reliance on others, and human nature. Instead it got turned into this weird macho rejection of the gods and authority. I think that Hektor was one of the few who was actually portrayed well in it. Achilles was completely wrong in all ways. He was too much of a pretty boy. I guess Paris was alright too, he was a pretty boy. The portrayal of his mother, Thetis, also bugged me. She seemed far too human. Which was the point of their interpretation, I suppose. I think part of the problem is that these people are pretty much larger than life. As my professor said, Achilles pushes the limits of what it means to be human.
[At this point we had to board. End Scene.]
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