Throwing the First Stone

Why as a society do we not allow people to make up for their mistakes? Why is it that when someone messes up, we automatically label them as a "bad person" and assume that they should not be a part of "normal society" any longer? Why do we never give anyone the benefit of the doubt? I don't think that term even applies anymore, because no one ever uses it. We automatically assume the worst, and the person has no chance to explain themselves, or to try and pay recompense for what they've done. People simply pass judgment and condemn the person for the rest of their lives. I don't buy into that. As terrible as humanity seems to be most of the time, we are all a part of it, whether we like it or not. It could easily be you or me that makes the mistake next time, and wouldn't we like to be given a second chance by everyone else? I believe that everyone, no matter who you are, is capable of making choices that turn out to be bad decisions. However I also believe that everyone, again, no matter who you are, is capable of turning around and making changes in their lives to make it so that they don't make that same mistake again. People are capable of change, and most importantly, we are all capable of making changes for the better. I think that's what gives me hope about humanity. I believe that everyone has that choice, everyone is capable of bettering themselves. Some choose not to take this route, and that is the decision of each individual. But I think that we can all make the world a better place by making a conscious decision to see the best in ourselves, as well as in others. Let's hold off on passing judgment until we have given the person a fair chance. If our assumptions are proven correct and the person was in the wrong, then what have we lost? But if we pass judgment on an innocent person, haven't we thrown the first stone, essentially? What gives us that right? Everyone deserves a chance, and if we do that ourselves, we will most certainly get it in return.

Late-Night Ponderings

So here I am at 3:30 in the AM sitting at my computer not wanting to go to bed. I've been here at school for about a week now, for RA training. I really really like the people that I'm going to be on staff with. I know everyone on staff really well, because out of the 7 other people, 5 of them went to Harlaxton with me a year ago, 1 was on staff with me as an RA last year, and the last person I got to know a little bit at the end of last semester. I think that we are going to be a very close-knit and fun group. As an example of just those qualities, me and 4 of the other RAs got back from McDonald's a little while ago after going on a whim. It's nice to have people to do that sort of thing with. And I think that we will all do a good job with the residents, which is our job. I'm looking forward to the school-year starting. I know most people don't look at it that way. I really look forward to starting classes, mainly because I pick all of my classes so they are ones that I want to take. I'm excited about taking my fourth language, adding German to the mix of Spanish, Latin, and ancient Greek. You might think that makes me an language guru, but really I just know a little bit from all of them. Also going with the language theme I'm taking a linguistic anthropology class. Languages are very interesting to me. The thing I'm not looking forward to is I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do after college. And with this being my senior year, everyone is going to be asking me just that question. I'm sure that I will figure it out in time, but it's frustrating to me personally when someone asks me a question that I either don't know the answer or am unsure of it. Speaking of being unsure, how about that religion. Have you heard about that? Ok, so that was a bad stand-up comedy intro, but I just did it. I've been in a questioning stage about faith and religion for about 2 years now. I still consider myself a Christian, because I believe in the Jesus of the gospels. But it's hard for me to see exactly how faith should be. I think too many people have turned what Jesus started into an institution where you go to feel good about yourself because you worship the right God and you do what you think that you're supposed to do. In other words, I think Christianity has become simply a social club that people use to boost their self-esteem. If you go to enough services and pray enough and shove your idea of religion down other people's throats without regard to how they feel, you are a "strong Christian". It's hard to see much good about it when the central agency that's supposed to stand for good and morality doesn't seem to care about people anymore. I feel like all that churches are interested in today is condemning people for being different and then guilting these "bad people" into seeing things the church's way. I don't want to be a part of any such club. I believe in the commandments that Jesus himself said were most important: to love God and love your neighbor. And I think that a case can be made for those statements being equal actions; I think that you can love God by loving your neighbor. I feel like one honors God when they help someone who needs help. I could be wrong on that, but it's what I feel is right. No one cares about their fellow human-being anymore. They just care about the spiritual "high" they get at a worship-service. I don't buy into that, and if that's all Christianity is going to be, something people participate in to feel good about themselves and they only do it for themselves, I don't want to be part of that. I think that something has gone wrong, and I often wonder if Jesus would be disappointed at the way things have become. Anyway, I've been jumping from topic to topic and what I really need to do is go to bed. I have to be up in 4.5 hours, and I'm probably gonna be pretty grumpy. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

What Is My Place In The World?

So here I am, the summer before my Senior year of college, and I have no idea what I'm going to do after this. I've been preoccupied with this for some time now. I keep thinking, why is this so hard? I knew exactly what I wanted to do after high school. I knew the major that I wanted and the college that I wanted to attend. I was so sure that I wanted to go to Evansville that I didn't even apply anywhere else. And while my major has changed slightly with the addition of Classics, I'm still pretty much doing what I came to college for. But then what? What happens after I get the diploma in May of 2008? Well sure there's grad school, but is that what I really want to do? I've contemplated graduate work in Classics and then becoming a professor and teaching, but maybe I'm not cut out for that. Of course, maybe I am and I'm just short-changing myself, but I really don't know. I've never done anything like that before. But the thing is, what if school is just a security blanket? What if I've been in school practically my whole life, and I don't know what I would do outside of it? Take for instance the movie Shawshank Redemption. There is a character in that movie who has been in prison for such a long time that when he gets out he doesn't know what to do with himself, and so he kills himself. Now nobody out there needs to get worried and think that I'm on the same path, I'm just making the comparison that sometimes we get so used to a routine that when it's not there we don't know what to do with ourselves. So maybe I would go to grad school and become a professor simply to keep up the same routine that I've always had. Is that what I really want? I haven't really thought about any other possibilities. I mean, I've had some variations on the same theme, like working for a year or two and then going to grad school, or maybe doing Teach for America where I would be placed in an underprivileged school to teach younger students the basics for two years. I mean, I want to do something with my life. I want to make a difference. And maybe it's selfish of me to not want to join the real world, but to keep things at my own pace. I don't know what I should do. I'm sure that I'm not alone in these thoughts, as I'm sure that many of my classmates are thinking these same exact things. Anyway, I'm sure this is cliche to say, but I want to make the world a better place. I'm just trying to figure out how to do that with the abilities that I've been given. In the movie Unbreakable, one of the characters says something to the effect that the scariest thing in life is to not know your place in the world, to not know why you're here. I second that. I guess we'll see what happens.

Individual Justice

There are times in our lives when we must choose between following our morals and leaving things to justice, or acting out of anger and taking matters into our own hands. Sometimes it's just so hard to sit back and let "the system" take care of things (or not), when you yourself feel that the system isn't enough. Socrates said that you should follow your moral convictions above those of the land when they conflict. I don't think that Socrates was advocating martial law; I think that he felt that sometimes one individual can have a clearer understanding than the masses. There are times when I envy a concept like Batman. A normal human being, who took it upon himself to bring to justice criminals who could escape the notice of the authorities. Cast as a vigilante by the authorities, yet he got the job done. One man made a difference in a city of very many. Granted, Batman is a fictional character in a fictional Gotham City, but it's something that could really happen; it's the principle of it. It's so tempting to take the law into your own hands, and enact justice on those who think they can get away with things that harm other people emotionally, if not physically. The law can't really do much in the realm of emotions. But the people that are close to the people affected, we feel their pain, and cry for justice. We long to right wrongs, and see the people on the wrong side get what they deserve. It's hard to leave that in someone else's hands, when we feel that we can get things done so much more quickly and more effectively ourselves. Someone should NEVER have to feel like they need to be constantly looking over their shoulder. No one should live in fear of someone else. People prey on other people because of their own insecurities. It makes them feel powerful, and it makes them feel better about themselves. Power and manipulation are things that go hand-in-hand, power being something that is easy to abuse. People who manipulate and prey on those they feel are weaker than themselves should be held accountable. But what happens when the law does nothing for what goes on in a person's head? Emotions aren't exactly empirical. But the people close-by can see these things. And that's what moves us to anger. It isn't wise to act out of anger. But sometimes you just can't help it. Those who make other people afraid should be made afraid themselves. They should reap what they sow. Morality and justice are such a tangled-web. If only evil was always punished and good was always rewarded. What a simple world this would be. Sadly, this is a broken and corrupt world. One where not everyone gets what they deserves. Sometimes it takes all that we have to hold ourselves back, and hope and pray for the outcome that is deserved. All we can do, is hope that somewhere, sometime, justice will prevail. 

Well, class-scheduling and registration is upon us, so I did what any good student would do, and figured out what classes I needed to take. Turns out that I'm not able to take some of the classes that I want (namely Astronomy and Greek Philosophy, though I've done some study into both of those fields independently) because of scheduling conflicts. I like the schedule that I should come up with (I don't register until Friday, so nothing is set in stone yet), so I suppose that I have no complaints. The only problem that I have right now is that two classes that I have to take this semester are at the same time, so that has to get resolved sometime soon. Otherwise I like my schedule for next semester, mainly because I got to choose what I wanted to take, and even the classes that I have to take are interesting. So far my schedule looks like this: Linguistic Anthropology, which I'm really excited about, because I'm very interested in languages, hence the fact that I've had 3 so far, and have one more on the way; Archaeology Senior Seminar which I'm not sure how this class will go, just that I have to take it and supposedly they are opening up the subject matter because 3 different majors can take this as a senior seminar (the obvious archaeology, classical studies, and history, I believe), so that it's not so focused on just archaeology; Archaeology Field Methods, which is where we dug up trenches right here in our own UE backyard, studying the remains of dormitories built to house the massive influx of soldier-students after the GI Bill was passed after World War II; Engineering for Archaeology Majors, which I'm not too excited about, but it shouldn't be too bad; the 4th language that I'm adding to my repertoire is German, as I'm taking 2 semesters of it in preparation for Grad school; and lst but not least I am continuing to take Greek, and this class will be Greek Poetry. Now that might sound boring to some, but in this class we will read the works of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey, in their original language; sounds pretty good to me. Well, that is all for now. I will write more at another time if I can think of anything.

Oh, What to do; and TV Woes

I am very bored. See, in all of my classes I don't have all that much work. I was just figuring today that I only have 3 papers left to write in all of my classes. This means that I have a lot of time on my hands. I get all of the work that is current done, and then I have nothing to do. So then I sit around and am bored. Of course you ask why don't I just do something with my friends? Well, the problem is that everyone else seems to have a lot of work to do. Thus everyone is busy, and I am not. So I end up sitting around wasting time on the computer or what not. I suppose that I could get more involved on campus, but there isn't much to do with that either. I'm not sure what the solution may be. Also, right now I do not have a TV, so I can't even watch movies or the Comedy Central that I so crave. I got my TV for Christmas, but rather than checking out different models and investigating what problems they may have (as I usually would with anything else), I looked in a Circuity City ad a little before Christmas and saw what looked like a good deal. We then bought the TV, and everything seemed fine. My first mistake was to not test it while I was at home. I watched a few minutes of some DVDs on it, but I didn't actually hook it up to get a signal. If I would've done that then, I wouldn't have had all of these problems. When I did get to Evansville, I noticed that the TV would make loud popping noises when bright flashes of light were on the screen, especially during commercials. I didn't think much of it, perhaps it was a faulty cable or something. However I tried a different cable and still the same thing. I got on Circuit City's website and looked at the customer reviews on the product, and it seems that I wasn't the only one that was having these problems. I got a crappy TV. I waited for longer than I should've, and finally took it in to see about fixing the problem. They told me that the TV was now discontinued (go figure) and that they only had the display model. But they looked around and found that a store in Indy had a boxed one that they could get shipped down to Evansville. So we did that, and a few days later when I got this other TV, I brought it home with the help of my friend Nathan (who graciously helped me get the first TV to Circuit City), and when I tried this TV the same thing happened again: more pops. So just a few days ago I took this second TV back (again, thanks to Nathan), and they said that they would have to send it to "the technicians" (they make make it sound so ominous), and that if the technicians couldn't fix it, that I could put the money I paid for towards another TV. So really what this long drawn-out story amounts to is this: research a product before you buy it if it is a piece of technology! You can find reviews on countless websites (lots of reputable ones even), and then you can also see what other people are saying, average consumers like you and me. Only you can prevent crappy technology purchases; don't be the victim. And knowing is half the battle. GI Joe!    

Blogger.com Blows Right Now

So here's the deal. Every time that I try to write a post that is longer than about 2 paragraphs, Blogger can't connect anymore, and I lose my post. It's very frustrating! I even tried doing the same thing in both Internet Explorer and Firefox (I always use Firefox, but sometimes when something doesn't work on one, you try the other), but the same thing happens both ways. So now it's come to this: I figured out that I can post to my blog by writing it in an e-mail and sending it that way. Pretty convenient, but we'll see if it works. After spring break I'm having a hard time being motivated to do anything back here at school. I have homework and reading to do, and I just don't feel like doing it. The thing is, I have to do it, so I sit down and do a little, and then I waste a lot of time messing around on my computer. I actually look for ways to waste time, and so then something that should only take a few hours gets strung out over a whole day. Oh, college, how I loathe thee. So yeah, this is short, but we'll see how the post-by-e-mail goes. I'm hoping it'll work, because then I can post my long, ponderous, thought-provoking philosophical works once again on Blogger.com. I know that you're waiting for it, but you won't have to hold your breath much longer.