Fall semester

In honor of the first day of class, here is a list of the courses in which I am enrolled. What you won’t see on here is my senior paper, which I’m not sure if I am going to do this semester since my paper adviser accepted a position in Scotland during the summer.

• PCAP 450: Journalism, Law & Ethics: Using a case study approach, students will be exposed to specific areas of communication law and ethics. This course will acquaint students with aspects of the American legal system related to journalism and the mass media, and will instill in students an appreciation for the underpinnings of American democracy as expressed in the law. Further, ethical questions journalists must face at the edges of the law will be explored.
• GRK 201: Intermediate Greek: A review of ancient Greek grammar, vocabulary, and syntax, followed by readings in both the New Testament and classical authors.
• REL 364: Buddhism: This course introduces the historical, textual, and doctrinal foundations of Buddhism as well as contemporary issues raised by Engaged (socially active) Buddhism and by the feminist study of Buddhism. The course will focus on the analysis of excerpts from the Pali canon and selected Mahayana Sutras. Time will be devoted to the historical development of Buddhism as well as contemporary forms of Buddhism in South and East Asia. Particular emphasis will be given to the basic Buddhist ideas and their implications for rituals, ethics, and the life of the communities. In addition, the course will explore the expression of these ideas in self-cultivation practices, popular piety, ethicalsystems, and the social agenda of selected Buddhist schools today.
• REL 239: Prophets and Prophecy: This course will examine prophetic literature in the Bible, in particular Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Amos, Exekiel and Hosea. Through group discussion students will practice reading and understanding biblical texts with an emphasis on their historical and literary contexts. Textual material from extra-biblical sources will also be studied. The main focus will be on understanding the prophets in their own time. There will, however, also be discussion about the contemporary relevance of these texts.

• You can now preview John Mayer’s new album, Continuum, in its entirety. I’ve already listened several times and might just go ahead and say it is his best album yet. 08/24/2006

Five quotes

I came across this meme over at kottke.org.

You go to this website and look through random quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe. Here are mine:

“The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.” (Mark Twain)

“When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.” (Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999)

“Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.” (Albert Schweitzer)

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” (Samuel Johnson)

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” (e e cummings)

• In an email home, my older brother used a word I haven’t seen before: nonplussed. “At a loss, puzzled, filled with bewilderment.” I’ll add it to my vocabulary. 08/23/2006
• I think this addicting flash game could actually make someone a faster typer. 08/23/2006
• Weird Al has a new song available for download on his MySpace called Don’t Download This Song. It’s really quite funny: “‘Cause you start out stealing songs, and then you’re robbing liquor stores,” and “Don’t take away money from artists just like me/ How else can I afford another solid gold Humvee?/ And diamond-studded swimming pools, these things don’t grow on trees.” 08/22/2006

R.I.P. Little Red, 1989-2006

A little over a week ago I said goodbye to my second car, Little Red. She is named so because my grandpa used to own a candy red 1962 Buick LeSabre that was lovingly called Big Red. My mom traded Lil’ Red in order to purchase a new Kia Sportage.

I have many memories with Little Red, including watching the odometer change from 149,999 to 150,000, breaking the power antenna, stalling 1.7 miles away from my house, changing a flat on the way home from camp, stalling in the middle of Ames, etc.

Shawn, a frequent passenger in Little Red, reminisces about the late vehicle:

(Shawn’s Eulogy from inside Little Red…)

Wow, what a sad day. I spent many a car ride to Wal-Mart and Bookends & Beans in that car. 2 favorite experiences are:

#2 – Trying to drive to the Jason Mraz concert in Madison, WI through a RIDICULOUS blizzard, when we played the game “hit the big chunks of snow” and almost died so we stopped.
#1 – Driving through the torrential downpour in Rochester’s forever road construction, but we don’t have windshield whippers that work so we’re using our hands and a small towel to try and see whats going on.

RIP Little Red… (Shawn opens the door and rolls up the driverside window)¹

*Fade to black

Even though she got a little sketchy and unreliable in her last days, Little Red was a good car. I am now the “proud” driver of a 1996 Dodge Neon.

1. In order to roll up the driver’s side window, it was necessary to have the door open slightly. ↩

• If you haven’t heard of Rob Blackledge, now would be a good time because his new album is available for pre-order (releases August 29). He has four full-length tracks available for preview on his MySpace. 08/17/2006
• Everything In Between, the new album from Matt Wertz, is available now for pre-order, and the first 2,000 orders receive a free copy of the Orange EP. You can preview two new tracks, “Heartbreaker” and “Carolina” on Matt’s MySpace. 08/16/2006

Mad Hot Ballroom

For the past couple months I have been experimenting with a new movie rating system. Located beneath the first full post, it displays ratings and short reviews of the five most recent movies I have watched. At the time of this post the most recent movie is a little-known documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom (trailer), with a rating of 4.5 stars.

The documentary follows fifth grade students from three elementary schools in the heart of New York City as they learn how to ballroom dance in preparation for a city-wide dance competition. While the plot summary may sound entirely corny, the movie is fun, engrossing, and even inspirational.

About a year ago, I took a class called “U.S. Schools” in which we read a book by Jonathan Kozol called The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. In the book, Kozol disusses what he calls the “national horror hidden in plain view;” the resegregation of American schools. The NYC Public School system provides many of the case studies Kozol uses, and his conclusions are sickening. While watching Mad Hot Ballroom, I immediately thought of this book and the movie gave me hope that students from some of the worst schools in the nation will indeed survive unscathed. Part of the film is even dedicated to one young boy who his teacher says would have been in a gang, but the discipline of dancing and the mentorship of the instructor visibly changed him. It all makes the movie’s tagline (”Anyone can make it if they know how to shake it”) that much more poignant.

I highly recommend this documentary. On my to-do list, right after “Watching Mad Hot Ballroom again”, is learning how to foxtrot, merengue, rumba, tango, and swing dance.

Regarding the fall from the trailer and the subsequent two day stay in an out-of-state hospital

Some of you have heard, some of you have not.

Let us rewind three nights ago. Every summer, the church for which I work takes a bunch of junior high students to the Lake of the Ozarks. We do our own week long camp where we are the counselors and event planners, etc. The first night, Tuesday, we played a night game called “Staff Search”, where – obviously – the staff hides and the students have to find us. My first hiding spot wasn’t very good, so after I was caught I decided to hide again. After some searching, I saw a canoe trailer hiding in the dark by the woods much like this one. I climbed to the top, thinking that I would be protected by the dark and also the height, which is above the sight line of a typical junior high student. I was sitting with my butt on the top rear rung facing the front of the trailer.

After several minutes a pack of junior highers pointed their flashlights at me. Now, in order to get the points for catching a staff member, they have to “tag” you, so the leader of the pack ran to the trailer and started climbing the back to get to me. Almost immediately, the whole trailer began to tip backwards and I found myself falling to the ground, yelling, “Get off! Get off!”
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