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Welcome to mistersite.net, home of... well, something unique, I hope. Be sure to check out all those lovely links to the left to see who I am, what I do, and what I like. Read my blog too... it's right under this paragraph. And leave a comment, so I know you've visited.
I think I may have fixed some lingering layout issues with regards to the weblog move... tell me if this template looks any better. I'm considering another overhaul of the whole site, but may not get around to it until August or so. Look for a poll in the next few weeks... I found what I think is a very good script for polling and may actually get around to putting one up. So that's all for site news.
In other news, I still don't know where I'm going to live come September and that's mildly troubling for me, to say the least. I'm halfway considering looking at non-Fuller housing, since I'm not so sure I'm getting into Fuller housing, but the problem is that my potential roommate still doesn't know if he's even going to Fuller yet... if he decides to go, we're going to need to both resubmit housing applications, and that's going to put us further back on the waiting list. Maybe we can find something nice, affordable, and close to campus through someone else (i.e. non-Fuller)... and that would mean a cable hookup too, so I could have Internet still.
I'm having a productive day. I got some headway made on my portfolio (so I can get my degree) and should be finished cutting through red tape by Thursday or so. I'm really terrible at all this administrative forms and due dates and such stuff... it's always been a weakness of mine. Why, I wonder, can't we just do things, get them done, and not have to fill out our names in little blanks? But that's just me wondering.
On my mind a lot recently has been this idea of mission. I went to the Creek (CedarCreek Church, local megachurch and worship performance experience) this week and the pastor was talking about Paul's mission, a mission he was so convicted towards that he endured countless hardships and pains in order to complete it, a mission which overrode his entire terrible past. And I was thinking that despite the fact that I'm fairly certain God's calling me out to Pasadena to go to Sem there (as He is blazing paths for me in that direction) I really don't have a "mission" as such, an overriding life purpose.
It's really caused me to reflect on the ways God moves us from place to place. Paul had the benefit of a fixed direction... God said "spread the Gospel among the Gentiles" and by golly Paul did just that. But I don't seem to have that, at least not yet... I just keep getting nudged from place to place, not exactly sure why I'm going where I'm going. I look back and see how God put people in my life wherever I was and see why God did what God did, but I don't seem to have the benefit of knowing why things are going to happen in advance, of knowing "this is what I put you on this planet for." And maybe I'm not meant to know... maybe I just have to keep doing the best I can wherever I am to do what God wants me to do. But I can't shake this feeling that there's something more, that there's going to come a time in life when I receive an actual Calling(tm) - and I want that day to come soon so's I know what to do.
So that's my reflection for the day. Leave a comment of some kind or I'll have to say something inflammatory again, and nobody wants that.
posted by jimmy at 12:33 -
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That thing you're feeling right now is probably disorientation. I've moved the log to the front page, since that's all many people seem to be interested in anyway and I want to make all your lives easier, because I'm just that nice a guy. The things that were formerly found on the front page can be found nowhere. I've deleted them. I didn't like them.
So that's all for now. No soup for you.
posted by jimmy at 10:04 -
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Well, I'm on an upswing again, and that means I'm getting ambitious. My one week is up, so I've started working out again, and boooooy did I need it. I'm getting a tad overweight - not too noticeable under normal conditions, but as (a) it's summer and I'm wearing tighter clothing (i.e. t-shirts and such rather than the bulky sweaters I wear during the wintry months), and (b) it's going to be at least a 27-month long summer for me, what with moving to SoCal and all, I figured I need to make the habitual changes in my lifestyle now that will make me more fit - or at least, more fit-looking - for the years to come. So I'm eating more salad and veggies and less McDonald's and Skyline, and I'm lifting, and I'm playing Ultimate twice a week, and I'm going to start biking a few miles on sunny days... hopefully, that'll build the necessary momentum I need to get healthier without me having to resort to something so pedestrian as running. (Hehehe... pedestrian... running... I crack me up.)
Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm pretending you care.
(Am I pretending you exist?)
I've figured something out: I'm afraid of writing right now. I know it seems weird to some that a person would be afraid to write, but I am. I guess a lot of it is that I have very little human contact these days, and I feel as if I don't have the requisite amount of empathy to truly understand where any character outside of myself is coming from. Since I believe that to effectively write a character one has to get inside said character's head, that makes the act of writing fiction at least very troublesome to me, since the most I could effectively write about in my current conditions are characters who think very much like me, and I don't want to write autobiographical pieces yet. There's still far too much of the world - far too much of life - I haven't seen, haven't experienced. So my inability to write a full character makes it very difficult for me to write fiction, and my brain is still a bit too wiped out from this semester to write nonfiction, particularly to do the kind of research that would be required to write good nonfiction. That basically leaves abstraction, and like it or not, abstraction doesn't sell. I can write all the crap I want about what I'm thinking and how I think, but at the end of the day I have to admit that it's mighty egotistical of me to think anyone else cares about what I'm thinking, and even more so to think anyone else would actually pay real cash money to know what I'm thinking. So I'm giving it all to you here, for free, because if you've already gone this far it proves you're some kind of masochist, and I'm not so high-and-mighty that I consider myself too good to prevail upon the attentions of the mentally-imbalanced.
I'm also reading more, which isn't very surprising to most. These are the books I'm currently reading:
The Essential Kierkegaard, edited by Hong and Hong;
The Brothers K, by David James Duncan;
Tuxedo Park, by Jennet Conant; and
Russia and the Russians: A History, by Geoffrey Hoskins.
As with all other things, I'm incredibly ADD about books, and need to have them bouncing around in my head, at times intersecting with one another, in order to get the most value out of them. Four seems to be the most effective number as of late for me; any less and I get bored, any more and I'm overwhelmed. So four it is. And these four are all very interesting. (Want to join Jim's "Reading four books at the same time" book club? Email me. I don't have such a book club yet, but I will.)
posted by jimmy at 13:11 -
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Just in case anyone here cares about my golf game, which I sincerely doubt, it has dramatically improved over the last few days. I made some changes to my swing and it has made a world of difference. Just in case anyone cares.
In other news, I've been thinking that I need to learn languages. I'm pretty much monolingual (though I know German grammar and spotty Romance) and that bothers me for some reason. Perhaps over the summer I can pick up another language, maybe get some Latin down so I have a language that'll never change on me. Good old languages.
Lessee... other things happening... nope. Not really. Still a little frustrated with the lack of romantic choices available to me at the moment, but for some reason I must need that, what with the new eyes and me needing to lose weight and all. That's right, I'm going to lose some weight. I'm getting a little on the heavy side (for me, anyway) and I need to work some of that poundage off. Next week, when I'm allowed to work out again (surgery recovery makes that verboten right now) I'm going to start lifting weights and doing exercises again... the BGSU Rec Center should be a little more empty now that it's summer, so my insecure self will feel better about working out and lifting what puny little girly-man weight I'm sure I'll be able to lift.
For some freaky reason, I've got Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur saying "He really is the Son of God" replaying in my head again and again. I think Jim Carrey may have done a Heston impersonation on Leno the other night; maybe that's what did it. But that's looping in my head, and it's really rather zany when I think about it. Good ol' Charlton Heston.
posted by jimmy at 09:59 -
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Coolest. 404. Page. Ever.
posted by jimmy at 13:45 -
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I had a review of The Matrix: Reloaded up here earlier, but I moved it to the Words section. So if you want to read it, click here.
Moving swiftly forward, things are nice even if they're a little boring and lonely. First, the eyes: they're great. There's still a little residual dryness, and I still have to be a little careful around them for a while, but my vision is almost perfect and that is a most pleasant thing. For some reason, though, my mind still thinks I'm wearing contacts... maybe that's the dryness. It'll sink in soon.
I'm still trying to figure out something to do with my days. I can't really get a job, because I leave for the Huron Playhouse in less than a month. I could work on my portfolio, but that'll take me all of one applied day, so the well is dry there as well. If I was at all inspired I'd paint, but for some reason it just isn't coming to me. Plus, that's all solitary stuff, and I'd really like to have some kind of human contact during the day rather than waiting until all my friends get off work. It's quite lonely here. But them's the breaks, I s'pose, and I'll weather them as best I can.
Otherwise, things are going. I've been reading more of Kierkegaard. I'll leave you with an interesting quote from his Ad Se Ipsum - "How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought - the demand freedom of speech."
posted by jimmy at 19:53 -
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It's a miracle! I can see!
Yup, the surgery went well (though the procedure itself is hardly what one can call a pleasant experience) and my eyesight is now mostly restored, though some residual dryness means that it'll feel like my contacts have been in too long for the next few days. The dryness is probably why it hasn't quite sunk in yet that these are now my eyes, and this is the way I'm going to be seeing for a long while.
The doctor who performed the surgery reminded me vaguely of Tim Robbins. I don't know why I'm telling you this, but it seemed interesting to me at the time.
So, my days of wearing glasses are done, at least until I get older and need reading glasses. Weird.
posted by jimmy at 15:12 -
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Well, I'm done with the semester. Got the last project in today... I'll be posting a picture of it on the images page real soon, so check it out. It's rather political in nature... but then again, so am I.
But it really does feel nice to be done for a while... to be able to sit back and relax and enjoy things. I'm worried that I'm going to get bored in the month I have off between now and going off to Huron Playhouse. I have a portfolio to do for my degree, but that's really just about it. I need to find similarly-bored (and perhaps similarly-unemployed?) people to spend time and perhaps discuss literature with. (Yup, tha's right, I'm on another book-buying kick... 3 in the last 5 days.)
But the next few days are by no means going to be boring. Tomorrow I get to see my Cubbies... me and a couple friends are going to Chicago to watch a game at Wrigley. I haven't seen a game there in seven years... I'm really looking forward to being back there. Boy, I love that park. Sunday my family and I are going to Columbus to have a Mothers' Day lunch with my grandmother, which will be nice, because it's always a pleasant thing to visit that side of the family when there are no cousins to trip over, as there so often are. (Not that my cousins aren't cool, it's just that if there's a lot of noise, cacophany, and insanity in a room I want to be the cause of it, not the victim.)
And then there's Monday, the day when I make a very significant change in my life. For the past 15 years, my eyes have required the mediation of plastic lenses to see the world clearly, and those lenses have defined a lot about who I am and my self-image. On Monday, I'm getting surgery that will make those lenses unnecessary for good. For the first time since the late 1980's, I will be able to see clearly with my own eyes again. I don't know to what extent that will change my life - maybe it'll be huge, maybe it'll be almost nothing - but it's still very significant to me, mostly because I'm always conscious of these things resting on my nose and ears. What will the world be like when I can just see - no glasses or contacts to put in or take out? This will be a very interesting journey... I'll be keeping you posted on the things I observe.
Finally, to explain the statement from my last entry a little further... there is a young woman in my life to whom I am rather attracted but who I'm rather sure couldn't be attracted to me. Since we don't really travel in the same social circles, I have found it beneficial to keep my interactions with her to a bare minimum, which usually translates to none at all, because, knowing myself, it probably wouldn't be good for my mental health if I allowed myself to get my hopes up yet again about something that I know in my head could never be. (Try saying that sentence five times fast.) However, the problem is that she has this uncanny knack for showing up in the most unexpected places and times, and glancing at me. Since I'm relatively certain that it's a bad idea for me to get my hopes up, and these odd glances would have just such an effect regardless of their actual meaning, the fact that she just happens to appear places is rather troubling to me.
So that's that.
posted by jimmy at 20:53 -
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Good news... I got a call from Fuller today, and I'm accepted into the program! I'm going to California this fall! Huzzah!
And I think I may have found a roommate, too... good news all around.
Now if only I could find a way to avoid a certain someone in my life who isn't good for my mental health, then I'd be all set.....
(I may explain that last one more a little later. Or, I may not.)
Also, I've been feeling the urge for some reason to post on here that my AIM name is marius4344. I don't know why that is, but I have. So there it is. IM me if you get bored. Leave a message if I'm away. Chat if I'm not.
posted by jimmy at 16:39 -
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A girl said hello to me today.
I was crossing the street at an intersection, on my way to get my hair cut, and as I crossed there was a car that was waiting to turn right. I have this nasty habit of looking at people in cars, simply because I'm interested in people (I'm one of those that looks at you as I pass you on the freeway) and so I looked at her companion and at her. The car was a dark gray, kinda-boxy standard four-door, maybe a Plymouth Acclaim from the late 80's. I don't remember much about the driver - it was hard to determine anything but that she was female and dark-haired through the windshield as it reflected the sky. The passenger, however, I could see through the open window; she was fairly good-looking, wearing a light grey spaghetti-strap tank top that wasn't at all revealing, thin, kinda blondeish. And as her car turned right, she looked at me and said "hello."
I was stunned, a little off guard. People don't usually say "hello" to me from passing cars, particularly not people I don't know, and especially not good-looking women I don't know. I said "hi" in this kind of Woody Harrelson, aw-shucks sort of way. She said this in mid-turn; the car drove on. End of interaction.
In most other circumstances, someone saying "hello" to me woudn't be a big deal. People say "hello" all the time. But for some reason - maybe it was because I was in a particularly good mood today, maybe it was the nice weather, maybe it was because I could mislead myself into believing that she thought me attractive - this particular episode jumped out at me. It made my day just that much more pleasant.
I doubt I'll ever see her again - this isn't a new interest or anything - but she and her random "hello" certainly brightened my day.
Say hello to someone random tomorrow. You may make their day.
posted by jimmy at 15:36 -
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I just went for a 30-minute bike ride in the dark through the city of Bowling Green, and it was a most pleasant experience.
posted by jimmy at 19:14 -
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I think I've figured something out: Neither science nor religion can fully explain how we got here.
One of the major problems in the intellectual world today is that both science and religion have gotten it into their heads that the other side is the enemy, and quite frankly there's enough antagonistic behavior on both sides to fuel the flames of enmity. The religious fundamentalists have been calling anything that conflicts with a literalistic reading of the Genesis account heretical, and have in essence linked the decline of widespread belief in Biblical creationism to the moral downfall of society. Meanwhile, science has done its best to not only discount God but to deny Him altogether, to seek to prove via science that there is no God.
But although scientists and religious leaders may be opposed to one another, science and religion as disciplines in and of themselves are not. Science and religion need not be opposed, simply because they don't even touch the same material. At the cores of the two disciplines are two totally different questions: science's job is to ask how things occur, and religion's is to ask why they occur.
To put it in more semiotic terms, the questions of science are fundamentally dyadic: they are concerned with simple relationships between two parties, with causality. There may be seemingly-infinite numbers of these relationships, but they are still clearly defined. 2H+1O will always make water under the same conditions; there is no higher meaning than that.
Religion, on the other hand, must concern itself with triadic relationships: with the consciousness of the universe. Not new-age stuff about the whole universe being God, but rather about there being a mind behind the universe, some kind of meaning behind all the observable phenomena. That is essentially what a triadic relationship is, where not only is there a relationship between two parties but there is also a relationship between each of the parties and this somewhat-independent thing called "meaning." That is what enables human communication beyond "need food" and "oooo, fire" and enables us to give ourselves names, to recognize the past and the future, to invent fiction, to do all the things civilized persons do.
An example: Let's start at the very beginning, the beginning of the universe. Hawking tells us that the universe began with a singularity, and that because all space and time are bent around that singularity, to be able to predict or understand anything happening before that singularity would be impossible, because time essentially has no meaning before said singularity.
Yet that cannot answer any real questions about us. Why are we here? The best thing science can come up with is the anthropic principle: we're here because if we weren't, there wouldn't be anyone to ask "why are we here?" But that isn't so much an explanation as it is more evidence that we do indeed exist. Science's task must end there, and religion's task must begin.
I hope this makes sense. I hope I'm not misreading Kierkegaard and others. I hope this doesn't look like the rantings of some insane fool who's putting off writing a huge paper for Thursday. Please keep in mind that these are nowhere near complete thoughts: I'm going to have to refine them some more and work them into some kind of clearly-definable essay. For what, I don't know. But this is my blog, and that means that I have the chance to experiment with philosophy - not at all my field - with near-impunity, save several flames in the comments field.
Questions? Comments? Talk back to me. Please.
posted by jimmy at 18:36 -
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Looks like comments work again. Now is your opportunity to actually say all those mean things you've been thinking about me in the last week.
I went back to Grand Rapids again this weekend to do 24-hour theatre. (In case you've never heard me rave about the utter kewlness of it before, 24-hour theatre is when a series of one-act plays are taken from germinating idea to production in 24 hours - written, directed, acted, teched, everything. It's quite a trip.) I designed the lighting for it again... I love designing lighting for 24-hour theatre, mostly because the structure allows for a lot of experimentation, and because I exercise such a great deal of creative control over my process (which is something my more rigid and bureaucratic state school job won't let me do.) The one thing I wish is that I could write and design lighting, because I've always wanted to write for 24-hour, but if I did both I'd probably be stone-dead by the end of the evening, and that wouldn't be healthy for me.
It's always great to hang out with the old college friends. I found myself missing them yet again as I drove back from GR today... I guess leaving is part of life, though, especially for me. I've been reflecting a lot lately on the fact that I'm always on the go, and wishing life didn't have to be like that for me. I lived in GR for four years, but it wasn't really until my last year or so that I started forming these significant lasting relationships, that I started really getting serious about life there. I've lived here in BG for only eight months and I'm leaving in four; while one year isn't soon enough to get out of this place sometimes (I miss the city) I really feel like I'm just starting to get my roots in here and I'm leaving again. And I'm worried that it's going to happen again in Pasadena, since I'm only going to be there for two years.
I guess I'm feeling rootless again, like I don't have anyplace to call home. I've moved around all my life, never staying anywhere for more than four years, and thus the only people I've known my whole life are my family. I feel like I've never really had a home in the sense of place, that my psyche for some reason has become, through years of disrupted attachments, unable to form long-term bonds. And that worries me, because I want some long-term bonds, friendships or otherwise. I'm worried that I'm not able to get close to people, and that scares me.
Or maybe this whole concern is just a nexus of my two-week depression, reentry issues from my trip to GR, four weird and disturbing plays I read for TH earlier this evening, and a stressful school week this week. These things happen.
I did, however, have a remarkable morning at church this morning. I went back to CentrePointe (my old church in GR) and was reminded all over again of why it was so tough to leave, and why I wish I could go back there and work in some capacity. The worship was dead-on what I needed, and I missed the style; the message, while not quite as groovy as Andre's messages used to be, was better than a lot of the messages I've heard this year. The people I haven't seen in forever and a day stopped and chatted; apparently, Charles has been telling them all about me and Fuller, and they're all really excited for me, which is awesome. It's good to have all this support behind me. But it was probably the high point of my weekend.
I also bought several books, because that's a bad habit of mine. (Well, I suppose it's a better habit than cigarettes or Danielle Steel novels.) I bought CS Lewis' The Weight of Glory (a collection of his essays and addresses I haven't read yet) and Hong and Hong's The Essential Kierkegaard for some light reading next week.
Oh well. That's my life. Off to do more school. ("Done on Friday." Just keep telling yourself that, Jim.)
posted by jimmy at 16:05 -
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Just wanted to post the first X2 review you'll read. It's 2:30am, and I have to be at work tomorrow at 9, so I'll make it quick.
X2 is a very good movie.
More tomorrow?
posted by jimmy at 23:30 -
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