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Amhran
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Name: Bonnie
Birthday: 1/9/1987
Gender: Female
Interests: Languages, literature, history, astronomy, theology, philosophy, herbology, and discussing the above mentioned with people while sipping nice hot cups of tea.
Expertise: Still gathering.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/5/2003
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| A Note
Firstly, thank you all for your condolences. I miss my little piglet, especially when I've got salad scraps and no herbivore to feed them to - but life goes on, and the garbozal has been getting a workout. (garbozal = compound word, garbage + disposal. garbozal)
And now to the main attraction. In case you're wondering where I've got to, The Blog has largely moved to pencil and paper. Might occasionally throw one of the nonincriminating excerpts in here for your entertainment, but if you want updates of my life and times, it'll be easier for those of you who know me well enough to care to e-mail or phone.
Cheers,
The Staff | | |
| Bye Bye, Baby Billy
Some of you may remember my guinea pig, Sweet William. Billy, as we preferred to call him, was a tortoiseshell piggie with a brown-and-white underbelly, the colours divided evenly down the middle, and a black "pirate patch" over his right eye. He always knew when you were speaking to him, or even about him, and would squeak to let you know that he was listening. Sometimes I would sing "Can She Make a Cherry Pie, Billy Boy" to him. He loved to be petted and held, but if you took him outside he wanted to "explore". It wasn't unusual in days gone by to go out in the yard and see one of us kids halfway underneath a bush, fishing for the pig. The cat found him fascinating as long as he was in his cage - she would pat his head with her paw and roll over to play with him through the bars - but out of the cage she saw him as a terrifying menace. But he was just a happy, curious little boy who wanted to see what this strange orange creature was that kept popping him on the head with its paw.
But in the last few months he began to go into a horrible decline. He was still a happy critter who liked attention and knew when it was being paid to him. But his body wasn't able to process food very well, and he was starving. He had a cataract in one eye and probably rheumatism, as he couldn't bathe himself. It was truly painful to have to just watch, and not be able to do anything for him. Toward the end he couldn't even eat the carrots and parsley I tried to give him. And just last night, he passed away. As some last-ditch effort, as far as we can tell, he buried himself in his pine bedding before dying.
I'm glad he is out of his misery, and, I can only hope, he is somehow with the Lord. I am also grateful for the time that was given me with my little Billy-pig. But I'm sure going to miss him.
Happy Valentine's Day, all. | | |
| They're coming to take me away, haha...
You know it's going to be a Bad Day when your morning looks like this:
6 a.m. Wake up. Roll out of bed, head for bathroom to clean orthodontal retainer and all that. When sufficiently awake to be able to open eyes, realize...the floor is ALIVE. It's positively crawling with tiny sugar ants! Mum comes in later and finds the explanation: they are after a dead fly in the garbage can.
6:20 a.m. Oh my, Mum left the sugar water for the hummingbirds cooling on the counter all night. Did you know ants like sugar water? Now they're all over the kitchen.
6:30 a.m. They're in the bathtub, too.
7:00 a.m. Shake ants out of remaining piece of bread to make toast. Sigh.
7:30 a.m. Mum wants tea. Sorry, no can do, they've taken over that cabinet where a certain bag of brown sugar had a hole in it.
This kind of thing happens a lot. We know that they have a nest between the walls somewhere around the kitchen and bathroom, but we have no idea where they are coming out. No holes to be seen. Ergo, I am a convert to the doctrine of Spontaneous Generation! I belieeeeeeve!
Oh, and I hate ants.
______________________________________________
Yesterday wasn't so hot either. I had a dream that night. I dreamt that I was an agent of the CIA. My mission was in a natural history museum of the future. It was one of those dreams where you are running in fear from a nameless evil, but your legs won't move very fast. Anyway, after a hellish time in which I watched at least one of my fellow agents get eaten by a cloned allosaur, and gotten pretty well mauled myself, it turned out that I had been discovered by the enemy (whoever that was). My instructions, should such an event occur, would be to destroy the evidence - that is, commit suicide so that I wouldn't be caught and forced to tell all. With my single remaining fellow agent as witness I said a prayer, then downed the poison solution from a soda can.
I became sleepy. The room around me dimmed to black. Then, through the mist, came a vision of a beautiful garden, full of bright flowers, green grass, white trellises, birds singing, and - the presence of the Master. A wave of bliss such as I had never felt before washed over me. I nearly wept from joy.
But it only lasted a split second. Next thing I knew I wasn't dead, still in the museum room with my fellow agent standing over me. I found later that all I had done was drunk Dole pineapple juice too quickly and given myself hallucinations.
It was then that I woke up. I admit I was a little depressed; I had seen Heaven, felt the Presence, left this world. I was THERE. And I had the nerve to not be dead. Oh well; I console myself that it will be better when it is real, especially since I have no intention of going by suicide, but will do my utmost for His highest, and go when He calls me. I will pass away knowing that I spent my life for Him, not committing suicide by pineapple juice.
Pineapple juice...good grief.  | | |
| It's official...
Just in case you thought it was just another crappy Monday, to-day is the Worst Day of the Year. MSNBC says:
LONDON - Is the midwinter weather wearing you down? Are you sinking in debt after the holidays? Angry with yourself for already breaking your New Year's resolutions? Wish you could crawl back under the covers and not have to face another day of rain, sleet, snow and paperwork? Probably. After all, it's Jan. 24, the “most depressing day of the year,” according to a U.K. psychologist.
Dr. Cliff Arnall's calculations show that misery peaks Monday.
Arnall, who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff, Wales, created a formula that takes into account numerous feelings to devise peoples' lowest point.
The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ
M x NA
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.
‘Reality starts to kick in’
Arnall found that, while days technically get longer after Dec. 21, cyclonic weather systems take hold in January, bringing low, dark clouds to Britain. Meanwhile, the majority of people break their healthy resolutions six to seven days into the new year, and even the hangers-on have fallen off the wagon, torn off the nicotine patches and eaten the fridge empty by the third week. Any residual dregs of holiday cheer and family fun have kicked the bucket by Jan. 24.
“Following the initial thrill of New Year's celebrations and changing over a new leaf, reality starts to sink in,” Arnall said. “The realization coincides with the dark clouds rolling in and the obligation to pay off Christmas credit card bills.”
The formula was devised to help a travel company “analyze when people book holidays and holiday trends,” said Alex Kennedy, spokesperson for Porter Novelli, a London-based PR agency.
It seems that people are most likely to buy a ticket to paradise when they feel like hell.
“People feel bleak when they have nothing planned, but once they book a holiday they have a goal, they work toward having time off and a relaxing period,” Kennedy said.
“When you imagine yourself on the beach it makes you feel positive. You will save money, go to the gym and come back to the optimism you had at the end of 2004,” she said.
In U.K., up to a third get SAD
Research shows an escape to the sun can have real health benefits.
Up to a third of the population, in Britain at least, suffers from seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, also known as winter depression, according to MIND, a leading mental health charity in England and Wales. Furthermore, nine out of 10 people report sleeping and eating more during the darker months.
While most cases of the winter blues are not severe, 2 percent to 5 percent of those with SAD cannot function without continuous treatment.
However, it's extremely rare to find anyone with the disorder within 30 degrees of the equator, where days are long and the sky is bright year-round, according to MIND.
Actually, I've had much, much crumbier days than this by a long shot. But it does explain why this morning none of my family were terribly pleased about getting up this morning...so before teaching my first class, contrary to my usual no-food-til-luncheon rule I ate a piece of BANANA BREAD with my TEA which I drank out of a NICE TEACUP instead of the MUG because I WANTED TO and it made me FEEL HAPPY. So there.  | | |
| Professor R.D. Fletcher, Muse Regnant
Dear Bonnie,
Thank you for your letter. I'm glad you like the bow tie. But in answer to your question, I believe the quotation of Cicero you were looking for is from his De Amicitia - "I can think of nothing better than friendship". But what indeed do you do if a friendship turns sour? You put forth the example that you would rather be hated outright than merely tolerated; that condescension is more hurtful to you than hostility, so, you ask, is hatred always better than mere toleration in matters of decayed relationships? I would not necessarily put that down as a hard and fast proverb, but more a matter of opinion. I'm sure there are those to whom condescension is better than being hated, because at least they are getting some degree of attention and kindness, albeit insincere and somewhat insulting (my own opinion). But I imagine that to someone who has known true friendship, such attention seems unworthy of his effort, as he can find better companionship elsewhere. At least, that's what Cicero might say.
You probably get that opinion, by the way, from what Christ has to say to the Church at Laodicea in the book of Revelation: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth". (chapter 3, verses 15 and 16)
You also wanted to know how to answer to an evolutionist according to his evolution. You are right: because they do not believe in God and Creation, it is useless to argue from your own standpoint, as you will be discussing apples and oranges. But they must believe in something, or else they would have no theory. Do not bother with the particulars of the argument, as that is futile. Instead, work your way back to their most basic assumptions, and then you can use the same arguments to combat them as they use against you. Perhaps you've heard of the phrase Reductio ad Absurdum, reduce to an absurdity. One of their basic assumptions is Order out of Chaos. Their idea is that the universe began as a chaotic wreck, and then by chance managed to order and perfect itself. If they know their science, you may remind them of one of the laws of thermodynamics, which states very clearly that all matter begins with order and tends toward chaos - a fact in direct conflict with their theory. Reductio ad absurdum! They may say that you have the same order out of chaos theory, but unlike them, you believe in an intelligence that did the ordering - a primum mobile - not an ordering by chance, which by that law of thermodynamics is not possible.
Another excellent method of combatance is that many of them will mention the Big Bang. Simply ask them where they think the Big Bang came from - after all, the theory is that a ball of random mass exploded and became the universe. Reductio ad absurdum! If the ball of mass had no creator, it must have appeared out of nothingness. Is there any other instance in nature that displays this bizarre ex nihil theory? There isn't. The law is nihil ex nihil, nothing from nothing. Again, they will throw the same question back at you, and again, our belief is that the world was created from nothing by something. That is very different. In our belief, there is a primum mobile. That makes all the difference.
DO NOT, however, expect them to change their mind through your logic. The reason they believe the theory of evolution and ex nihil is not because it makes sense - many will even admit that it is a ridiculous theory - but because it is the only alternative to a belief that they do not want to swallow. Credo ut intelligam, non intelligam ut credo. Therefore, my reason for giving you this advice is to arm you not for conquest but for defense.
Regards,
R.D. Fletcher | | |
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