Loyalties

Just before I left for work this morning, I found out that a very dear and beloved friend of mine (my closest friend, after Jen) tried to kill himself either last week or over the weekend. Details are sketchy right now, because the only source of information I have is my friend, himself, writing on a laptop, apparently from his hospital bed and apparently heavily medicated. There are 2000 miles between us, so I can't even go visit him. I can't talk to him face-to-face, I can't hug him; I have no way at all of letting him know he matters to me, except by sending him a stupid e-mail.

This past week, Jenny called me out to the second-floor railing outside our apartment to show this interesting critter. Now, we get a LOT of bugs out here, but this was the first time either of us had ever seen one like this. It looked EXACTLY like a leaf! As always, click the picture once to enlarge it. Enjoy!

Improving My Memory

So. We meet again. How long's it been? Too long, I guess.

Since our apartment is so stinking hot (the swamp cooler was down overnight for maintenance), Jen and I are going to enjoy some McDonald's for dinner tonight, followed by a short quest for a flash drive. I have to save a pretty substantial number of files for my Creative Writing class, and a flash drive will enable me to work on my writing exercises on any computer on campus. Since the world has largely lost faith in the lovable little floppy disk, a flash drive seems like the way to go.

My classes are going okay. The content of my Western Civ class remains vexing (so far, I've been told that aliens planted Atlantis so the Atlantians could teach Neolithic man how to build pyramids, that the Eyptians of the Middle Kingdom had space-age technology like x-ray machines, and that Pharoah had all the Hebrew firstborn put to death because he feared the birth of their Messiah). To be fair, though, the guy who teaches the class is a basketball coach, versus an Egyptologist or PhD or anyone who would actually be qualified to teach such a class. The last time I took a Western Civ class, it was taught by a brilliant Egyptologist named Dr. Scott Carroll, so I guess I was naive to expect anything from this class other than disappointment. And, as I've said, the only function this class must serve is to provide me with the credits I need in order to receive full financial aid.

In my Creative Writing class, one of our two required texts is a book called Writing Down the Bones. It's a book of writing tips written by a Buddhist, who regularly quotes Buddhist holy men and describes writing as a spiritual exercise. In one of my assignments, I mentioned that I felt very strongly the book was a guide to worshipping the creative self, and I felt spiritually demeaned and disrespected by being forced to read it. The teacher's reply was that, as a college student, I should be open-minded and that she's never had a complaint like that for this book, so my accusation is essentially baseless. However, she did tell me I could do my readings out of the ENG219 (Advanced Creative Writing) book if it would make me more comfortable. I'm already halfway through Bones, though; jumping into another book would only mean more work while I try to catch up. Still, it's something I may end up doing. If I really feel strongly about this, then extra work is a small price to pay, right? Or is she right, that I'm not being open-minded about this? What do you think?

My Human Geography class is going well. I'm actually enjoying it. The content is very interesting, and there hasn't been a single mention of aliens or Atlantis or worshipping anything. I imagine that last will change once we get into the unit on religions, but I don't expect that the text will attempt to coerce me into choosing a new god or belief system.

Flying is also going well, more or less. Erin and I flew to Sierra Vista yesterday morning, so I could practice some instrument approaches over there. I flew my first real-life (I'd already done them in the simulator) ILS approaches, and they went really well. I also flew a Localizer approach that went well. I see my mid-stage check on the horizon, and it makes me think I might really make it through this rating, after all.

Jen's friend Carmen took some pictures of us last Friday. She's in a digital photography class, so she needed to take some pictures, and we needed some pictures taken because a Sunday school class at our AZ church is focusing on missions and missionaries, and they asked for our picture. So the three of us went over to the ramp and took some pictures with the airplanes. Many of them turned out really well. I expect Jenny will probably post some of them, sooner or later.