the last wedding i’d been to, before this weekend, was my freshman year in high school (and before that when i was 11), and i didn’t even know the people getting married. so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when i almost cried 5 or 6 times during the ceremony. my beautiful aunt, young and radiant, was a living symbol of how christ sees the church: pure, dressed in white, and simply lovely. in that way the wedding was a deeply spiritual encouragement to me. ...
paper finished, laundry in the washing machine, girl at late night getting me chicken tenders, leaving in 2.85 hours for dallas. i’ll be gone until sunday night late – take care.
i’ve been more aware recently of my self-centredness. it’s in all my actions…my thoughts… at least being aware of it i’m able to laugh at it to its face, and so suffer only irritation instead of falling into major error. not that i don’t fall into major error, and sometimes intentionally so, but i find that being cynical about myself a little more acceptable than being ignorantly self-centred. now for the next step.. ...
wow…it’s been 6 days since i’ve touched my blog, or read anyone else’s. haven’t had a spare minute. let’s make a list of some things i’ve done in the last week: i ran a lot i did schoolwork occasionally i worked at my job i went climbing some dan and i had a great night of conversation with our friend shannon i did no work this last weekend i went to santa cruz with dan and marie to watch our ultimate teams kick butt…such a sweet game. i watched romeo must die on friday and vanilla sky yesterday at flicks. i’ve been doing my devotions in spanish, to change things up a little i made a resume so i can apply for jobs here this summer i wrote a song i played lots of computer games and helped dan play computer games i decided to form an underground rebellion against the dining hall. we’re going to bomb the place. ...
i’ve done a lot of stuff in the last 5 days. i don’t remember exactly what now, but it’s cool. here are some highlights: this last weekend was admit weekend, and oddly enough, i got an e-mail from my second cousin (my grandma’s sister’s daughter), who was at stanford with her husband and daughter, who’s been accepted here. i met them and ate dinner and told them my thoughts on stanford. they seem like a nice family, and i hope she goes here–it’d be cool to have a relative on campus, even a distant relative. ...
the last few days have seen a few changes in my life. tuesday dan and i decided that our room sucked and that we needed a futon to sit on. to do homework on….to let other people sit on when they visit us, etc… so i fired up su.market and lo and behold, someone was selling a futon for $65. dan and i drove to roble, checked the thing out, offered the guy $55 for it, he met us halfway at $60 and it was a deal. ...
i spent yesterday and half of today losing focus, vision, and clarity. tonight i spent hours cleaning and rearranging my room, and i’ve regained my sight. yesterday i went to church, tried to think about god and not all the pretty girls (which was successful, in my opinion), then ate lunch. i lazed around thinking that i should do work for awhile, but didn’t have the heart. so i put on my running shoes and went out for a run around campus drive, to see if i could beat my previous record. at first i thought i wouldn’t be able to, because there was a very strong wind (we’re talking 20-30mph fairly sustained). but, i just ran faster…about 3.5 miles in, i started to flag. at that point i thought to myself, you know, you’re such a wuss, you always stop if it hurts to much. remember that 5k you did last year? you had to walk for a few seconds…and that’s weak. keep running…what’s the worst that could happen? it’s all mental…so i kept saying these things and i finished. not strong, i don’t think, but i finished, and i ended up beating my previous record by exactly a minute. which is 15 seconds per mile for 4 miles faster…not horrible. ...
the rest of the week went quite well, even considering all the work i had to do (on an EE or CS scale, this isn’t much, but for me it is) in greek, philosophy, spanish, etc… so let’s get the dumb obligatory i’m-in-college school news out of the way: i did my first modal logic problem set, and it was a much different experience than predicate logic…lots more little drawings and figures, which i tend to like better. class on thursday taxed me seriously, though–we’re talking about the complexity of a given task in the modal language, measured in P, NP, PSPACE, NPSPACE, EXP, etc… it’s all very weird and i think the next homework might kick my butt unless i do the whole take it by the horns and jump on it and hit its butt thing again. ...
sunday night, we’re all sitting around during the seder dinner. dan and justin are to my right, and 3 or 4 pretty girls to the left. we’re all having a great time, great conversation, and of course dan and justin and i are competing to be the coolest so that the girls will like us. during a lull in conversation, when nobody around is really talking, dan turns to me and says, loudly, “jon, how would you describe what we did last night?” ...
the trick is not to appear like you enjoy your own joke too much. even though you know it’s freakin hilarious. that’s just a little wisdom from on high via the oracle of anne lamott. it was a long week, but good. i’m going to end up taking all the classes i signed up for. on friday i played at stanford’s art affair. it was quite a big production this year: two big stages, one open-air and one in a tent. every artist only had 15 minutes to play, there were so many performers. i played in the tent stage at 4:25, after hanging around and listening to friends and other random people play their sets. ...