Author: Jonathan Lipps

i love it when we have nice days here. i am such a wuss that the cold and rain really gets to me, makes me depressed, not wanting to go to class or do anything else. now, i like my rainy days for sure, but when i’m inside reading, with no obligations to the outside world. and you might think it odd that i feel that way when i’m here. “you’re in california! there’s no where better to be!” this is quite possibly true. however, it still gets a little too cold for my liking in winter quarter. the past few days have been great, though–i’m no judge of temperature but i’d say highs in the 60s or maybe even low 70s.

one thing i wish though, is that my room was on the other side of the dorm. well, not really–you don’t have a view of anything from that side. so instead i wish that out of my window i looked east. i love sunrises. and i love to see the light change throughout the day. but since my room is in a fairly shaded area, in a little corner of the dorm, the room is never bright and filled with light. maybe in the summer when the sun moves back to its normal track we will have some more sun. and i suppose i’m inconsistent because i like the fact too that i can sleep late with no intrusive glare.

well now i am going to read the word a little and then eat, before running off to work.

one of my favorite things is an unexpected holiday. and, i sometimes have quite a few of these, because i almost always forget when we have a monday off. there’s nothing that feels better than to realize on sunday, after you have been stressing out over whatever work and reading you have to do, that your worries and fears are unfounded because you actually don’t have class on monday!

now, tomorrow is not a monday, but it is sort of an unexpected holiday, because i just remembered that my knowledge class (phil 184) is cancelled for tomorrow. it’s even in the syllabus. so that makes me happy.

i had bible study tonight at bv’s apartment. it brought up a lot of good questions which hopefully i’ll have time to ponder about over the next week. the focus of the study was the early life of jacob. the stories are simple, and maybe a little quirky, unless you look deeper. if you look deeper, you find yourself in a whole mess of questions. at the very least you’ll notice some definitely personal traits of god. for instance (and this is all in Genesis 27 or thereabouts) i wonder about rebekah and jacob. rebekah heard from god that jacob would rule over esau (=get the birthright/blessing). so why did rebekah and jacob resort to deception to actually get jacob the blessing? if you say that this was the method god chose to give jacob the blessing, you have to ask yourself: is god the cause of deception? i’m not sure i want to say that. and jacob comes off as such a jerk–demanding esau’s birthright for a simple bowl of stew. some possible words of jesus come to mind about feeding the hungry out of love. so–jacob is downright mean (and sure esau takes the bait and is diminished in spirit, displaying his true character, but this does not necessarily excuse jacob), isaac is downright disobedient of god’s supposed wish (that jacob receive the blessing) in desiring to give the blessing to esau, rebekah is deceptively crafty, and esau is whiny and ‘godless’ (hebrews 12). first of all, it amazes me that god would pick such a nice group of people to establish his invasion into the world. but, i guess the new testament puts this into a better perspective: (my paraphrase) ‘do you think that esau and jacob had done anything good or bad in the womb? but before they were born god chose jacob, to demonstrate his election, not by works, but by grace’. so, of course jacob didn’t deserve to be put over esau any more than he was a good person (smart and crafty, but certainly with an eye only for himself). ah, but grace (understood retroactively here) changes everything, and makes clear why god would seem to bless jacob for deception–he’s not blessing jacob for the deception, and the blessings are not the result of jacob’s deception or craftiness–but instead they are simply the result of god’s undeserved favor. and now i suppose the point should be obvious as should be the reason the author of hebrews chose this old testament passage to talk about.

this blog business is taking up too much time, certainly. but perhaps it will be useful to myself and/or others.

oh, and if you’re wondering what the funny characters are at the top, they read va suran tela — ‘almost there’ (lit. i’m almost there — it’s illegal not to have a verb in a sentence in enaselvai).

and with that i am out for the night, possibly to play guitar or read or watch a movie to celebrate my freedom tomorrow morning.

countdown to london trip: T-8 days.

virtual disc on spin: kid a, radiohead

well i just had lunch with nick bott at ‘el toro’. el toro is an eating club for toyon residents here at stanford. it was actually pretty cool–it had the ambience of a semi-run-down mexican food restaurant, with some lively mexican polka beats emanating from the kitchen. in any case, it made me realize once again how screwed over i am by wilbur dining, with their points and their overpriced entrees. here’s just a brief outline of my complaint:

1. we are required to buy one of three meal plans–Lite, Regular, or Premium, which are all about $80 in price difference
2. depending on the meal plan, we get a certain number of points for the quarter. i have the Lite plan, so i have 894 points for the quarter
3. some data: 1 point = $1.33. and 894 points equates to about 6 points per meal, if i eat twice a day.
4. entrees range from 3.50 points to 7 points. this, in dollars, is $4.66 to $9.31. a 16oz fountain drink adds $1.26.
5. i definitely should not have to pay $10 to get a medium sized meal and a drink. but this is very easily possible.
6. the dining hall also sells commercial items, like snapple, yoplait yogurt, whole fruit, etc…
7. a larger-than-12-oz-bottled-drink, i.e. Snapple, Nantucket Nectars, IBC, etc… is 2.45 points. this is $3.26. $3.26!!! at Safeway, a local, expensive grocery store, one bottle of the exact same snapple costs $1.39. the dining hall price is 2.3 times the market price! and why could this be? OPERATING COSTS?? all they have to do is take the bottles off the truck and put them on the shelf. 0 hardship.
8. this is completely unacceptable.

so, i find it horribly unjust that we are forced by the university to be uneconomical. furthermore, the university is not even consistent: not everyone suffers under the extortion of dining services. it is only because i am in Soto, a wilbur dorm, that i am subject to this treatment. what compounds things is that i did not even CHOOSE wilbur–a bad draw number limited my choices to the extent that i was virtually forced in here. and, even if it is argued that i did choose wilbur, at the time the choice was made wilbur was not on a points system, and they changed over to this system without my, or any student’s, input. apparently it is not enough for the university to charge us obscene amounts of money for tuition; they must also want to squeeze us dry of money that, if left to us, could feed a whole family for a quarter.

this is my complaint, and i’m going to the top with it. dining services, you’re out there, and i will get you.

disc on spin: raw materials, mars ill

the last thing i want to do right now is study greek. but i do like this one sentence i just read: “epibouleuomen toi basilei”–“we are plotting against the king”. if there was a king around i think i’d plot against him, just for kicks.

talked to emily for a while today. things are getting better, i think. i just wish my feelings would get themselves in order–it’s not like them to be opposed to me as they have been recently. feelings don’t control the mind right? the mind controls the feelings. or so it’s always been. so with this conflict i don’t know how much weight i should lend feelings, when they have no basis in anything but themselves. and yet they are what you most closely and immediately perceive, because you are FEELING them. but unless they validate themselves sometime soon i sure as heck am not going to listen to them when they say absurd things.

well. i’m praying that that situation will work itself out in the next week and a half before the trip to london. i get excited thinking about that–the trip. i need to travel; it’s in my blood.

if i’m not going to get any work done i might as well play computer games. out.

now playing:
the well
pedro the lion

almost there* atleast in my dreams when i’m sleeping
it seems that the needle is full endlessly but you
keep on waking me i’m almost there it’s on the tip
of my tongue and it never goes away it never comes
to stay the chances are slight that i won’t shoot up
tonight but the sensation that’s waiting beneath is
a kick in the teeth

–david bazan