i'll let you know when i get there

this is my life. on a saturday. regarding the French Revolution. apparently. wanting to know, isolate and study the part of me at War and Peace

On the day that Salinger died I wore slippers to work and snapped at a girl for her incessant audible sigh of annoyance. I do not think she even hears herself. But I do. Every time. I told her that if she made one more negative remark she would be welcome to leave class and take a seat outside by the fountain. That is what happened on the day Salinger died. *Also, I felt the thrill of being loved and could barely wake up from a necessary nap.

Tonight in class I thought about/learned: 1. PETA once pushed for calling fish "sea kittens." What makes us different from animals? 2. It has something to do with the realm of ethics and ethical responsibility. 3. Also, our cognitive ability to project ideas of our virtual selves into the distant future. Essentially, our ability to hope as well as our ability to contemplate our own death. Perhaps i am not so morbid afterall- just very, very human. In a prior winter break journal rambling, I wrote "What is it like to be dead and how do people continue to live so comfortably in their unknowing?" I remember a porch conversation in Steubenville that centered on the saying, "Remember your death, brother, remember your death." I think some group of religious took that as their mantra. The idea that it is important to grapple with and ultimately accept our own mortality always resonated with me. I am grappling. If I remember correctly, the memory o...

and i can smile... i can smile and gazzelle gait through the hours and boxes of the day... but.... but... thursdays make me nervous about how fragile i feel and today is only wednesday there is nothing new to say better in essence than in articulation. and by better i mean clearer not really much better at all A rearview look at thoughts regarding fear/gradual resignation to PhD school rejection. There is not time enough And it has been too long already I should have begun this long ago And who can be blamed? No one cares what books you've read or about the thoughts you think late at night What you see when you look at a view is not nearly the weight of a paper. The time it takes is more than you can afford.

Today I feel small. Sat in the library reading about how perceptions of nature have changed. How humans have resisted or embraced the fact that we are made up of stuff just like antelopes and turds. School reading. Thinking about the progression of thought makes me acutely aware that I am in the middle of another progression which will one day blur until it is something else or something similar with a new name. I feel like a cog in some wheel that always was and will keep spinning forever. But I won't. Someday I will stop. And I wish I knew that the wheel were spinning toward something. Or something.

As a kid, I remember sitting in the back of the bus and overhearing a little friendly elementary school discussion on whether it would be better to go to heaven or hell. It was a general consensus that hell was much more preferable. In hell you'd get to play Nintendo all day and have fun, whereas in heaven you had to sing church songs all day. No one disputed these claims. The subject of death and what happens thereafter is one of my larger sand traps in this whole existential crisis debacle. I don't know if it'd be more comforting, but I think it'd be a lot more simple (and honest?) if everyone just shrugged their shoulders and gave it a good ol' "I don't know" when asked what happens after death. At least there'd be some sort of recognized starting place. Commiseration or something. Rather, though, there are a million different versions of heaven and hell... choose your own adventure. If you're Mormon you can claim your own planet. H...

Some day I hope to own a plot of dirt. -Fact: Most people that live to be over 100 report horticulture as a hobby. -I remain convinced that at some point it will become necessary for people to know how to grow their own gardens for food and to ride horses for transportation. However, I didn't come across any horses on my walk today. I do not think that 3 legged dog was fit to ride. Or photograph.

Engaging minds, one rad teacher move at a time.

..."Is it really so difficult simply to accept everything that one has been brought up on and that has gradually struck deep roots- what is considered truth in the circle of one's relatives and of many good men, and what, moreover, really comforts and elevates man? Is that more difficult than to strike new paths, fighting the habitual, experiencing the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of one's feelings and even one's conscience, proceeding often without any consolation, but ever with the eternal goal of the true, the beautiful, and the good? Is it decisive after all that we arrive at THAT view of God, world, and reconciliation which makes us feel most comfortable? Rather, is not the result of his inquiries something wholly indifferent to the true inquirer? Do we after all seek rest, peace, and pleasure in our inquiries? No, only truth- even if it be the most abhorrent and ugly.... Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul an...