The fruits of this summer are beginning to appear!

I did most of the captions for Techno Theater - can’t tell from the cover, of course…but it’s a cool cover! Come on, it’s Yoda!!

Remember my glee and chortling in this entry? The Civil War books are coming out in November and December. You can even look them up on half.com and amazon.com, though of course there’s nothing in stock.

Still pending: Real News.

Categories: internships
17 Comments »

That sounds like a rant. But it isn’t.

Let’s start here: the BeliefNet Quiz that’s going around again. If anyone had any doubts…

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (92%)
3. Liberal Quakers (88%)
4. Secular Humanism (80%)
5. Neo-Pagan (72%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (70%)
7. New Age (66%)
8. New Thought (61%)
9. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (61%)
10. Reform Judaism (61%)
11. Baha’i Faith (60%)
12. Nontheist (59%)
13. Mahayana Buddhism (56%)
14. Taoism (49%)
15. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (46%)
16. Scientology (46%)
17. Orthodox Quaker (44%)
18. Sikhism (41%)
19. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (41%)
20. Jainism (40%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (30%)
22. Jehovah’s Witness (29%)
23. Hinduism (27%)
24. Islam (26%)
25. Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (15%)
27. Roman Catholic (15%)

Wasn’t that fun? I enjoyed telling one question that I don’t believe in an afterlife, then telling another one that we might get reincarnated, or perhaps we are all rewarded in the end. I felt it accurately reflected my usual state of confusion.

More seriously (getting back to the Baptists), if anything, I feel much more comfortable and confident in who I am and what I may or may not believe after spending three plus years in the buckle of the Bible Belt. At times it has seemed that one of the lovely little ironies of my life has been that I have chosen to be part of a very conservative student body, even though I have grown up a Unitarian (a minority in a minority - far more people come to Unitarianism later in life after becoming disillusioned with more conventional forms of religion). But apart from any feel-good notions of confidence, living and learning among the Baptists has been an eye-opener in some unexpected ways. One that never ceases to amuse and amaze me is that I have actually started to pick up on Biblical imagery and symbolism in literature. For certain poets, a garden will always have the idea of Eden lurking in the background. Apples should be regarded suspiciously for possible overtones. Etcetera. I notice things now that would never have occurred to me five years ago. (I always think of a scene in Kafka’s Metamorphosis that involved apples - Mrs. Hesse connected the apples to the tree of knowledge and I was floored.) It sounds petty, but it has to do with learning a little bit about the lenses with which other people view the world - not for a moment do I regret my choice to spend my college years in an ex-bastion of the Southern Baptists.
And that’s not even mentioning the people I wouldn’t have met, the places I might not have gone, that I might be doing some other major!!

Coming this weekend: So what the hell has she actually been up to for three weeks???

Categories: college
3 Comments »

I’m here. Settled in - same apartment, same room. Starting to think that summer was just a dream. Classes start tomorrow. Went to the post office this morning to claim all the books I ordered online, then bought the last one at the bookstore, so I’ve got everything. This is my, “Why yes, I AM an English major” term - I’m taking Contemporary American Writers, Writing Poetry, and Modern English Grammar. More on THOSE later in the week.

Categories: college
1 Comment »

Now that my brothers have been back in school for over a month, it’s finally time for me to hit the books again. I’m looking forward to being settled for a bit - I have re-located more times in the last year than a leopard has spots! Or at least it seems that way.

Categories: college
3 Comments »