It will have been a whole 9 days since my last visit to the gym if things go the way I have this week planned out. I also failed to get up and run this morning with my 6 o'clock alarm. I'll chalk that up to Jake keeping me up (all his fault of course) watching super smash brothers videos and him filling out his ballot after I picked him up from the bus stop. Speaking of the bus stop, when I arrived and walked up to the Greyhound lobby doors I saw him speaking to a guy who I later found out is a security guardish person for various publicly owned areas of Bellingham. When I met eyes with Jake through the glass his eyes lovingly told me to wait outside. So I did. My heart skipped a beat as I was thinking that I was already face to face with a come to Jesus moment so soon after having started the Share Jesus book. I waited outside for a few short minutes throwing up some prayers. When I finally (4 minutes later) was lock-step with Jake walking back to the car I found out Jake was simply ...paying him mind. Just listening to what he had to say. It wasn't exactly the foot of the cross moment I had (perhaps naively? nah.) first thought, but it was far from small talk. Jake has proposed he (we?) go down to the bus stop Sunday nights (or something...) and just listen to folks talk. Everyone has stuff to say and opinions on everything and they love to talk right? I think it's a great missional idea. I'd love to front-burner it.
I think I have read over all of my five previous posts, oh...8 times each or so. That can't be a good sign.
Do you remember, in the original Sims game, how you would build up your charisma attribute by talking to yourself in the mirror for long periods of time? I spent a few minutes doing that today (We've got a wonderful 3 paned cabinet/window contraption in the bathroom. Staring at myself from angles that are only normally visible for those not limited to my optical perspective is endlessly amusing.) If only that were the way things were in the real world. I tell you, I've got the expressions down. I can look concerned, happy, sad, upset, nervous, or loving with the best of them, and if I could have all my conversations in gibberish, I'd be set. Giving a verbal script (that is, my own spontaneously generated script) to those emotions doesn't come as easily. It's either words or emotion. Both at the same time? Not there yet. It's sort've...an emotional studder. So often times I come off as either...completely emotionless or, more often, completely insincere or off base. Odds are though, if you're listening, those are the times I'm being the most sincere. I'd say it's probably been ingrained in some people's heads as a Matt Wilsonism but. I myself am not particularly endeared to it. It's something I'd like to work to get rid of.
Today was one of those rare constructive days in my 202 class. Sort've. We did what's become the standard Socratic seminarish analysis of a couple of weird poems. I opened my mouth in this arena for the first time (voluntarily at least). So. That's progress. Since these two poems went pretty quick we got to talk about our next paper. Everyday characters. Tony went on to spout some incomprehensible (or maybe just way over my head) information about Aristotle's poetics and Henry James' something or other. It was very English professory.
I elected to take the bus home from north campus, as it had been...monsooning on and off all day. more on then off. Upon getting back to the apartment I get a text from Jake saying he forgot to mail his ballot. (we still haven't resolved whether or not "post-marked by election day" means in the mail day of or day before November 2nd). So I offered to put it in the mail box. Trouble is I don't really know where to do that at. But I figured I'd try and look around the community building. And then for the first, and probably not the last time, I walked out the door without my keys. I'm actually surprised I made it this long without locking myself out. At least I had my wallet, phone, and Jake's ballot though. I remembered Jake telling me how he had gotten in by essentially pulling a Spiderman and scaling the back wall and getting onto the balcony. I did not have quite the same faith in my acrobatic ability, so I decided I would go ahead and make the 25 trek to the VU, where Jake claimed there was a place for post. Very luckily for me Jake's later class had been canceled and he was on his way back. So the whole ordeal was not nearly has miserable as it could have been, and Jake was able to drop his good citizenship into the mail himself.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful up until my review session for the 261 midterm. Well. That was fairly uneventful too actually. Professor Jack Sparrow was more casual than usual but was not without his massive trademark armpit sweat stains. I mean...does he notice these? I dunno. I think the class as a whole is past being embarrassed for him but it's still painful to look at.
Talk of Adam Smith and his division of labor, people knowing what's best for themselves and making choices accordingly...I dunno. Sometimes I would like to be told by some bureaucrat what I should be doing as a part of society. I don't want to pick out where my comparative advantage is, because I don't feel like I know myself best. I'm sure (I think...) my mental/physical usefulness quotient would be good enough for me to not be among the what...9.5% at the bottom who would currently be without work. If the unemployed even existed in such a society. Which makes me wonder if I'd really be amongst Plato's passion class if all I'm driven by is an appetite for the means of survival. I dunno. It's an inflated sense of self. Pride. All of that's just a failure by me to see God as truly in charge.
The bulk of my responsibilities for this week passover me one way or another after class tomorrow. Hopefully that way is the...successful way. Measured in grade points at least.
Lodrick is talking about science on the phone. What a smart guy. "different gradients of synaptic potentials." oh goodness.
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