Ever have one of those days, weeks, or even months when all food seems to be absolutely and ridiculously disgusting?
Blegh.
That's been this week for me. Everything sounds gross.
Apr 18, 2009
Apr 13, 2009
Apr 7, 2009
"I am not young enough to know everything."
-Oscar Wilde
The other day I was thinking about a class last year and the ways in which I thought that I could've fixed the class and suddenly the though came to me "Of course I could've. I was in High School. I had the answers for everything."
Anyway, now that I've mocked myself twice, I just wanted to say how amazing Oscar Wilde is.
"Reading an Oscar Wilde play is sort of like life being perfect." - Tosh Berman
If you have not ever seen or read anything by Oscar Wilde I demand that you stop reading right now and go down to the library and check out the text to the play "The Importance of Being Ernest" or "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Don't check out the video - Hollywood's corrupted Wilde plays.
"I can resist everything - except temptation."
"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
You probably are wondering where this rambling came from. Well, I started another Oscar Wilde work today and was, of course, not disappointed. And I found a pleasant surprise the other day - a little book called "De Profundis" a love letter from Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas when he was in prison and doing hard labor for "gross indecency" (at least he didn't get the hemlock like Socrates).
Goodness. How does one properly express the literary genius that is Oscar Wilde? I am in awe.
Go read.
The other day I was thinking about a class last year and the ways in which I thought that I could've fixed the class and suddenly the though came to me "Of course I could've. I was in High School. I had the answers for everything."
Anyway, now that I've mocked myself twice, I just wanted to say how amazing Oscar Wilde is.
"Reading an Oscar Wilde play is sort of like life being perfect." - Tosh Berman
If you have not ever seen or read anything by Oscar Wilde I demand that you stop reading right now and go down to the library and check out the text to the play "The Importance of Being Ernest" or "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Don't check out the video - Hollywood's corrupted Wilde plays.
"I can resist everything - except temptation."
"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
"I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
You probably are wondering where this rambling came from. Well, I started another Oscar Wilde work today and was, of course, not disappointed. And I found a pleasant surprise the other day - a little book called "De Profundis" a love letter from Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas when he was in prison and doing hard labor for "gross indecency" (at least he didn't get the hemlock like Socrates).
Goodness. How does one properly express the literary genius that is Oscar Wilde? I am in awe.
Go read.
Mar 26, 2009
Take THAT communism!
I learned a secret tonight.
An ultra-important, historically significant secret.
Want to know?
I learned what the cosine button on your calculator actually does. No, I don't mean that I learned that I could press the button and it would give me the answer. I learned how to get the answer (approx.) without a calculator.
It's called a Taylor series:
cos(x) = 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! - x^6/6! + x^8/8! - . . . to infinity.
You have to use radians instead of degrees. That took me a while.
It's not possible to calculate any of the degree exactly according to this series, however, because it both uses pi (which has no apparent end or pattern) and the equation is infinite.
If you already knew this equation, don't tell me. I consider finally learning it to be a success against the calculator that was ruling my ruler life and would like to pretend I actually learned something tonight that isn't covered in classes often enough. (It wasn't in my trig. class. As it seems to always be the book simply said to press the button.)
Granted, I did read somewhere that the calculator uses a more effective method, but still!
Huzzah! I have won!
While I'm on this tangent (hahaha) I should probably include my recent love for Pascal's work.. the triangle, the wager, etc. Pascal rocks my socks.
An ultra-important, historically significant secret.
Want to know?
I learned what the cosine button on your calculator actually does. No, I don't mean that I learned that I could press the button and it would give me the answer. I learned how to get the answer (approx.) without a calculator.
It's called a Taylor series:
cos(x) = 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! - x^6/6! + x^8/8! - . . . to infinity.
You have to use radians instead of degrees. That took me a while.
It's not possible to calculate any of the degree exactly according to this series, however, because it both uses pi (which has no apparent end or pattern) and the equation is infinite.
If you already knew this equation, don't tell me. I consider finally learning it to be a success against the calculator that was ruling my ruler life and would like to pretend I actually learned something tonight that isn't covered in classes often enough. (It wasn't in my trig. class. As it seems to always be the book simply said to press the button.)
Granted, I did read somewhere that the calculator uses a more effective method, but still!
Huzzah! I have won!
While I'm on this tangent (hahaha) I should probably include my recent love for Pascal's work.. the triangle, the wager, etc. Pascal rocks my socks.
Mar 14, 2009
Do you believe in rock & roll?
I have yet to understand people who don't listen to music.
Really.
How can one not fall madly in love with the lyrics of a truly clever song?
And then listen to the song over and over again.
"I have a friend who is a born again. Found his saviour's grace.
And I was born before my father.
And my children before me.
And we are born. And born again. Like the waves of the sea."
"I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles.
Such are promises."
"There we all were in one place - the generation lost in space - but no time left to start again."
I tend to find lines in songs that I'd never thought about before and then realize just how incredible they are (or at least they are to me....)
Granted - I generally HATE love songs. They're nearly all the same song with slightly differing chords and words.
When people tell me they don't listen to music it's almost as painful as when people tell me they don't read.
And people who don't read or listen to music? Agh! What's the point of life?!
Really.
How can one not fall madly in love with the lyrics of a truly clever song?
And then listen to the song over and over again.
"I have a friend who is a born again. Found his saviour's grace.
And I was born before my father.
And my children before me.
And we are born. And born again. Like the waves of the sea."
"I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles.
Such are promises."
"There we all were in one place - the generation lost in space - but no time left to start again."
I tend to find lines in songs that I'd never thought about before and then realize just how incredible they are (or at least they are to me....)
Granted - I generally HATE love songs. They're nearly all the same song with slightly differing chords and words.
When people tell me they don't listen to music it's almost as painful as when people tell me they don't read.
And people who don't read or listen to music? Agh! What's the point of life?!
Mar 5, 2009
I just don't want to
Why is it that all I want to do in the morning is sleep and all I want to do at night is procrastinate doing actual work?Seems silly.
<- So does this.
But silly in a comprehensible way. Which, I suppose is likewise, incomprehensible. But then neither of those two. All at once.
Anywho, I just thought I'd randomly post this cover for "Waiting for Godot" here because it pretty much rocks my socks. As well as because I really want to see "Waiting for Godot" sometime. (Dang you conservative Utah. 'Twill never come here.)
Anyone want to watch the video with me? :D
Mar 2, 2009
Book Report
Do I dare?
Really, do I?
I told myself at a few points that it was blog worthy so despite the social whiplash I'm going to get for doing this, I'm doing this.
This past week I read a book titled "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion." The book was about a woman, Sara Miles, in California converting to Christianity. Not that radical right? Well..
Sara Miles was raised an atheist.
Sara Miles was living in San Francisco at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles was living with a man in third world country during a revolution and got pregnant and had a baby out of wedlock. She was taking care of this child without a man in her life at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles is homosexual and living with another woman.
The interesting thing about the book was that she was a real person and a real Christian. Two things don't mix as often as they should.
The impressive part of her writing was that she was able to get to the core of Christianity instead of simply following rules and then calling herself a Christian.
Sara Miles started a food pantry that would sell food for next to nothing to the poor. This food pantry allowed anyone to come and buy food. The process wasn't regulated. It didn't matter if the people were obviously on drugs, were schizophrenic, weren't legal, or if they appeared to be rich. All were welcome.
The food pantry serves over seven hundred people a week.
"These things need to be regulated! This is just promoting laziness!" is the reaction that I think this project would've gotten here in Utah.
But wait! Miles has a point.
The first thing that Miles points to is that Christ ate with sinners and prostitutes. He condemned those who put regulations on every last detail. Remember these weird scriptures:
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?"
Honestly, I've given this book no justice. It was quite the book. As far as recommending the book goes: I loved the parts that were about Miles' radically different life and her views on Jesus that were not mystical, but not the mystical stuff (which is the stuff that almost everyone who would read this blog would like more) I really didn't care for as usual.
It would seem as though throughout my life I've never really been exposed to this idea of "liberal Christianity" and now that I keep running into it I've got to say that it has quite a few very valid points. To say something extremely out-of-line in Utah: Jesus teaches mostly liberal ideas.
Overall, Miles makes one really consider Christianity in a different light.
Really, do I?
I told myself at a few points that it was blog worthy so despite the social whiplash I'm going to get for doing this, I'm doing this.
This past week I read a book titled "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion." The book was about a woman, Sara Miles, in California converting to Christianity. Not that radical right? Well..
Sara Miles was raised an atheist.
Sara Miles was living in San Francisco at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles was living with a man in third world country during a revolution and got pregnant and had a baby out of wedlock. She was taking care of this child without a man in her life at the time of her conversion.
Sara Miles is homosexual and living with another woman.
The interesting thing about the book was that she was a real person and a real Christian. Two things don't mix as often as they should.
The impressive part of her writing was that she was able to get to the core of Christianity instead of simply following rules and then calling herself a Christian.
Sara Miles started a food pantry that would sell food for next to nothing to the poor. This food pantry allowed anyone to come and buy food. The process wasn't regulated. It didn't matter if the people were obviously on drugs, were schizophrenic, weren't legal, or if they appeared to be rich. All were welcome.
The food pantry serves over seven hundred people a week.
"These things need to be regulated! This is just promoting laziness!" is the reaction that I think this project would've gotten here in Utah.
But wait! Miles has a point.
The first thing that Miles points to is that Christ ate with sinners and prostitutes. He condemned those who put regulations on every last detail. Remember these weird scriptures:
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?"
Honestly, I've given this book no justice. It was quite the book. As far as recommending the book goes: I loved the parts that were about Miles' radically different life and her views on Jesus that were not mystical, but not the mystical stuff (which is the stuff that almost everyone who would read this blog would like more) I really didn't care for as usual.
It would seem as though throughout my life I've never really been exposed to this idea of "liberal Christianity" and now that I keep running into it I've got to say that it has quite a few very valid points. To say something extremely out-of-line in Utah: Jesus teaches mostly liberal ideas.
Overall, Miles makes one really consider Christianity in a different light.
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