C.S. Lewis stuff

I don't normally get us this early in the morning (was up at working at 6am), but the cats were pestering me so I thought I'd finish my bolt (yuck!) calculation for work and send it off so I wouldn't have to do it later.

Well, after I finished I pulled out Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis to procrastinate the remainder of my work day and started looking at the list of quotes that was slowly accumulating on my makeshift bookmark. I don't normally keep quotes from books on my bookmarks, but I always hate when I read a great line and can never remember what it was -- so I thought this time I'd write them down.

Here's what I've got this far:

(pg 29) The statement that there is any such thing, and the statement that there is no such thing, are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them.

(pg 71) God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers.

(pg 112) If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.

Now if only I could convince the rest of the world of the accuracy of these statements.... Another day perhaps.

Trying not to think about it...

...and it seems to be a lot lately.

First, my car has been a huge issue these past few months. It all started last June when my ignition cylinder started locking up. For awhile, I could just jiggle the key for a bit and it would eventually unlock. Since it appeared to be getting steady worse I finally took it into the dealership to have them fix the problem. After I got it back it seemed to be ok for awhile, then in March it completely locked up stranding me at work. Luckily, we had just moved to the apartment closer to where I work and I walked home -- a punishing 2 mile walk in dress shoes. The next day a coworker picked me up at home and he helped me start the car to take it to the dealership. Since they were doing the same thing they'd done the previous June, I mistakenly thought they'd fix it free since they'd just worked on it less than a year previous. My mistake -- because the dealership only warranties their work for 1 year or 12,000 miles, and super lucky me was at 13,000 miles, so I was blessed to have to pay for the same work AGAIN.

Well, then when I got the car back, less than a week later the air conditioner went out. I didn't think too much of it, because I could rough it in the heat till I could afford to get it fixed. Then the following week when I was attempting to drive to Dallas to visit Bob, the car began to rapidly overheat in traffic in Houston -- so I turned around and went back home. Luckily, Bobby came to visit me and we took the car to another dealership to see what the problem was. This little trip ate my annual bonus and then some, leaving me wishing I could toss the car out the window!

Now, fast forward to today and since I'm so close to work I decided to come home for lunch. I'm glad I did because otherwise I would have found myself stranded at work for a second time -- at least today I was stranded at home. The bad thing was I didn't have anyone to get it started for me, so a coworker came over and spent 30 mintues fiddling with it until he got it started and we dropped it off at the dealership on the way back to the office. They called me when I got back to the office and told me that the casting was bent and that was not covered under the warranty - to which I replied, well maybe if you'd have discovered this the first time around I wouldn't have had to pay for the twice already. End story, they still have my car and another coworker dropped me off on her way home -- we'll find out tomorrow if I have to pay for round 3 or not.

This all wouldn't be too bad if my brother hadn't ditched me with his car payment. Yea, I was stupid enough to cosign for his car. It wouldn't have been too bad if he hadn't been sticking me and Bobby with a lot of the payments over the past 3 years, if he hadn't wrecked it, AND if he hadn't ditched the car so that our only option was just to leave it or pay the fee to get it out of the impound. So, after paying that fee and his payments we finally confiscated the car a couple weeks ago and donated it to the Ronald McDonald House in Ft. Worth. I know I could have been nice and just given it to him, but with the financial burden he's placed me under I just couldn't without being perpetually angry with him forever -- so I figured if I'm going to have to pay $14,000 for a busted up car that would have taken $6,000 to fix -- well the only thing I could do was to donate it.

So, this wouldn't be a problem if Bob and I were actually living in the same place -- but we're not. Which means I have 2 rent payments, 2 electric bills, etc... and now thanks to my brother 2 car payments.

Which still would be fine if I weren't still paying for MY engineering degree, or if I didn't cringe at the thought of being an engineer and crunching numbers in a cubby for the rest of my life.

So, money is my primary issue. Next comes my age -- I'm getting far too close to 30 and the thought of starting over professionally at 30 is super frightening. And the thought of prolonging a family even further just makes it all worse. And there's always Bobby and wishing we were together.

And finally, there's my grandmother who passed away 4 years ago May 26th. I think about her occassionally and dreamt about her the other night. It was a super odd dream, but just the thought of her kind of struck me. Her and I were never super close --- I was always the odd kid out in my family, but I seem to dream about her this time of year. Our relationship was always kind of odd I guess, but even with that weirdness, she was the only person in my family to visit me while I was in Seattle -- other than when I sent my brother a plane ticket and some extra money to help Bob and me move. Of course, she didn't make the trip for me, but because she had a friend in Seattle she was visiting and she popped in on me and Bob while she was visiting him. Anyway, even though we had an ackward relationship, I really miss her -- she was always our resident party planner and I miss how our family used to revolve around her; she was the glue that held us together, and sometimes I feel that her absense is most felt in the missed family gatherings.

My problem with Buddhism

I don't really have a problem with Buddhism, or my experience at the Buddhist temple -- but after having a little black rain cloud over my head for the past 2 days, it finally occurred to me why my actual problem was --- ok, so I didn't figure it out, but when one of Bob's classmates pointed out how similar my reaction was to my reaction to the atheist discussion group I went to in Austin, well it was a moment of clarity.

Just a little background -- after Bob left Austin for grad school, I was super lonely and in desperate need to make some friends and/or join a group so I wasn't so lonely all the time. So, in my brillance, I decided to go to this Atheist meetup to talk about religion and philosophy -- two of my favorite things. Btw, I'm not an atheist, I just *thought* with my grand intelligence that this group would have just the most awesome discussions known to man. And, if I were to seek a challenge to my argument ability this group would be the place -- surely no one would choose to be an atheist without a complete and full understanding of what they were rejecting.

Obviously, I'm mocking how naive I was, because the one (and only) discussion I went to left me fuming with anger at their lack of *general* knowledge about anything religious, other than perhaps some of the unsavory bits of religious history. It was horrible. After listening to a husband/wife groan about how awful religious people were, I (and another woman) took over the conversation. Then after I couldn't take their lack of knowledge anymore, I left --- called Bob, and fussed the ENTIRE way home about how uneducated these people were. It's one thing to have a rational argument about what you believe or don't believe and another to just whine about the color blue even though you've never seen it and only heard of it.

So, what Jeff pointed out was that my problem is really when I go somewhere expecting that the people would know what they're talking about only to discover my nothingness of religious knowledge eclipses theirs. Unfortunately, this seems to be a common problem for me when I expect someone is an authority and I find out they don't know anything more than I do, or worse -- they know less. It's not that I mind people not knowing things, but if you're going to tell me you're the resident expert (or you choose to talk heavily about a particular topic), know what you're talking about or at the very least be brave enough to tell me you don't really know.

What happened to the first quater of the year?

I'm really not sure what's happened to the last several months, but this year seems to be flying by.

My Introduction to World Religions class ends next week. I currently have a 98 in the class and could sleep through the final and still pass. I need to finish my write-up for my alternative religious experience. I've been procrastinating writing it, because I was super disappointed with the Buddhist Temple I went to. It's supposed to be the scholarly research Buddhist center of Houston, but they segregated the Americans into this small meditation room near the kitchen and gave us the lone American monk. Bob and I went for the hour meditation -- we only participated in the sitting meditation (40 minutes) -- and the dharma study afterwards.

I've gotta give a brief description of what went on in my head during the meditation because it was a near impossible thing for me to do. So, we go sit down on this padded bench (all the benches were padded) and the monk begins to say that we should clear all the thoughts from out head and focus on our breathing. So, I attempt to do this by focusing, "breathe in, breathe out." And as I'm doing this, I begin to become very aware of the noise and chatter outside the temple. Since the Americans and Chinese were segragated, the Americans were in a room near the kitchen and throughout the meditation I could here the chatter from the kitchen. And while I'm trying to think, "breathe in, breathe out" I begin to start thinking, "well how am I supposed to do this with all the chatter next door, maybe if it were just the birds tweeting and stuff, but not with this chatter." Then I remember I'm supposed to be focused on my breathing, "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in. Wow, this bench is really comfortable -- I don't think I've ever sat on a bench as comfortable as this, and yet it has no back support and my butt isn't aching -- dangit, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, how am I supposed to concentrate with people coming in and out of the room. Can't they read, the sign clearly says not to enter the room during the sitting meditation. Ugh, breathe in, breathe out. I wonder what everyone else is doing. Wow, their posture is so good. I wonder how long they've been doing this. Breathe in, how can anyone possibly do this? Sit still for 40 minutes. I wonder what time it is. I bet these people are just sleeping sitting up like Bobby does. Yup, that guy is breathing really deeply -- there's no way he's not sleeping. Haha, there goes Bobby, he's going to sleep -- better nudge him so he doesn't fall over. Yea know, I bet the Buddha just taught himself to sleep sitting up and that's all they're really doing- sleep sitting. Breathe in, breathe out. I wonder how they know it's time to finish meditating. If they don't open their eyes to look at the clock, how do they know? How could you possibly tune out that chatter outside? I thought this was supposed to be a quiet time -- not outside chatter time. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Birds are so funny. Ah, I like the AC, it tunes out the noise outside. Breathe in, I wonder if he knows (the monk) that I can't concentrate on anything. He probably thinks I'm a fool. Nah, he's sleeping, not moving at all. Ding, Ding, Ding. I wonder what that bell is for. Ah, everyone outside stopped talking. Ding, Ding, Ding. Oh, now they're talking again. I wonder what Bob's doing? He's doing so much better than me. Breathe in, Breathe out."

Ok, so I know I thought about other things, but this is what I remember spending the most time on. Like I needed this all running through my head constantly for 40 minutes. :) I know, not the intent, but Bobby's experience was surprisingly similar.

So, both the meditation and dharma were cool and I was relatively happy with those experiences. My dissappointment was caused by talking to the resident expert that was supposed to explain everything to me. My line of questioning was primarily along the lines of, "What's that, what's it for, why's it in here, what are they doing that for?"

I was asking questions about everything, even things I knew from my studies just to get their point of view on it. Now, I can not say that someone has an incorrect point of view, but when we start spewing Nazi rhetoric for an Eastern symbol -- I'm going to lose my ability to talk to you; and, in general I'm going to be overwhelmed with your stupidity. Ok, so the only thing he said was that the swastika stands for perfection --- which is not true. Perhaps in some twisted way it could be, but no, that's never something I would say.

Anyhow, my entire experience culminated in that single instant and I've had a little black rain cloud over my head ever since. So, I've been trying to think about what to do with myself. I'm still planning on going back to school and getting my masters degree, but what I can't figure out is what to get my masters in.

Ugh, so my little black rain cloud encouraged me to skip karate tonight - which I've been participating in for almost 2 months now. I like it, but I just couldn't force myself to go tonight.

Hopefully, my rain cloud with start to clear tomorrow.

Texas Democratic Caucus

I went, I caucused and if I could I'd switch my vote. I don't think I've ever felt this way after voting, nor have I ever been so horrified by the democratic process than I do tonight.

My evening started off ok. I was cramming for my mid-term exam in my Religions course. Actually, I was freaking out because I feared I hadn't prepared enough and was anticipating a C -- praying for a C -- until I took the exam anyway. Of the 40 questions I knew 36 of them -- and I mean KNEW, no question, no guessing, I knew them. The other 4 I guessed (wrong). Then there's the essay and other than missing the official name of the yin/yang symbol, I'm confident I got all the points for explaining its meaning and significance. I know I missed the least number of questions -- the rest of the class glared at me :) -- and I did some of the extra credit, so I know I got an A.

Anyhow, after the exam and Zorastrinism I sped off to my local polling location to see if I could make it under the door for the caucus. I got there around 8:30 or so, quickly found my precinct and started talking to some other people in my group. There was this one elderly woman who took me aback a little, because had we not been at a Democratic caucus, I would have sworn she was a Republican. Well, come to find out she was, and she was only voting in the Democratic caucus to keep Obama from getting the nomination. She was the most foul woman I've ever meet and I had to "take a walk" otherwise my argument with her would have escalated to me punching a stupid, old woman. It wasn't until 9:30 or 10 that they actually opened the doors for the caucus to begin. Due to the large number of people participating, the precincts were broken up and my precinct was shuffled off to the cafeteria (we were at a local elementary). My precinct had the Obama people start signing in first, with the reason being that it was the courteous thing to do and I heard some mention of "A PLAN."

I really wasn't paying much attention to "THE PLAN" that was afoot because I didn't care and all I wanted to do was vote and see if I could be a delegate. So, I sign in and wait around for the delegate nominating process.

After everyone had signed, this one Hillary supporter started leading the group through the nominating process. I say leading because that's what should have happened. What really happened was the most absurd thing I'd even seen. I'll try to adequately portray what took place.

The Obama and Clinton people are divided up -- almost along race lines. The Clinton people, minus me and another guy, were sitting at one end of the table, and the Obama, plus me and this guy, were at the other. I recognized a couple of the Obama people from my apartment complex and was talking to one woman about how if Obama won, I'd happily support him in the election -- just if given the choice between the two I preferred Clinton because of her health care and stuff like that. Then this Clinton woman, stood up and started talking really fast, I didn't hear her very well and suddenly a bunch of the Clinton people start saying, I nominate ___, I 2nd, I 3rd, DONE, any nominations for Secretary, I nominate ___, I 2nd, I 3rd, DONE. The Obama people, this guy, and me have no clue what's going on -- the Obama people start yelling foul, and I mean YELLING. The Clinton and Obama people are yelling at each other, the Clinton people saying its done and we're not going back, and the Obama people yelling that they had no idea what was going on. Our whole precinct is now yelling and one of the Obama supporters goes off to get the Election Judge to resolve the situation.

Of course, the Election Judge makes the Clinton people resort to an ACTUAL democratic process and we renominate the Delegate Chair and Secretary (they fill out the paperwork for our precinct and submit our votes to the Democrats of Texas). Well, by now the group is strongly divided between Obama/Clinton groups and that's pretty much how the group votes -- except me and this guy who thought the whole previous situation was CRAP and wasn't going to give this power to Clinton group -- and our vote decided the Obama group was in charge. While I was voting for this Obama girl to lead us, this old woman (see above) kept grabbing my arm and yelling at me that I didn't understand who I was voting for. I firmly told her I did, but she kept yelling that she was Obama not Clinton. I didn't care - what's fair is fair, and if the Clinton group was prepared to run the group in a dictoral process, it wasn't something I was interested in participating in.

So, we get past this situation -- me voting for the Obama girl, we fill out our paperwork and begin to select our delegates. There's 8 for Obama and 4 for Clinton from our precinct. I mention to the Clinton group that I would like to be a delegate, and they tell me that Obama supporters are not allowed to be their delegates. I assured them that I wasn't - I voted for Clinton - and they countered that I hadn't supported the Clinton group with the whole Leader/Secretary fiasco. So, they go to the guy that also voted for the Obama girl and asked if he wanted to be a delegate -- all the while I keep saying I want to be a delegate. Well, he says yes -- but after he leaves they realize he also voted for Obama girl and decided he wasn't trustworthy enough and was taken off the delegate role. So, out of the 10 people remaining during this mess -- him and I are the only ones excluded from being either a delegate or a back-up delegate. And, this may not seem odd unless you realize the remaining people that said they would be delegates were like, "Well, if noone else wants to be, I guess I will..." with me in front of them saying, "I want to be a delegate, can I be a delegate, I'm free then please, can I?"

After this, I was just pissed off. Between the mix of stupid old woman who would never vote Democrat other than to keep a black man out of the running and kept badgering me with her idiotic nonsense about why she liked Clinton -- because she represents more status quo and no change in government so she can keep more of her money; oh, and so she can get more handouts from the government because at her age (retirement) she wants every handout she can get (but she's still voting McCain in the fall) -- to the usurping of power by the Clinton crowd in an obvious attempt to get a leg up on the Obama crowd; I was just dusgusted with my vote. If my vote meant standing in a crowd of anti-democrats (anti-democracy) and bigots --- it's not a crowd I want to be in.

And now, I'm just fuming. I like Hillary -- but this experience is making me worry about her as a candidate and her past indescrecians (I can't spell and I'm not going to look it up). If this is how her candidacy is running ... I wanna change my vote!