I've been waking up with headaches fairly often this past week. I've been attacked with continual waves of zits. Must be stress. I still have 5 papers waiting to get done for my classes in England, though I've been home for a week and a half. I'm going to go to Camp Gideon today for a day or two to write my next short story, though I have a feeling this one will be longer. It will encompass everything.
I've been building its structure in my mind for about four months, though I've only been really focusing on it for about three weeks. I think it will be my best work yet. No, I know so. I just need to get away from society to write it. I was so isolated in England for so long that being thrust back into American culture and everything that used to be familiar has changed my perspective on those very things.
This story will be a testament to change, change forced upon us.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Last few hours in England
Well its midnight, and our taxi will hopefully pick us up at around 1:45am to take us to the coach station. Then to Heathrow and then home.
Its really odd having only a little time left before I leave. At one point, going home felt like it was years away. Now its only a few hours away.
Coming home will be accompanied by changes. Lots and lots of them, and I've never really been big on change. So it should be interesting, to say the least.
Anyways, I'll gladly take all the change that's coming just so I can have home-cooked meals. Beats cereal, apples, and hummus every day.
Its really odd having only a little time left before I leave. At one point, going home felt like it was years away. Now its only a few hours away.
Coming home will be accompanied by changes. Lots and lots of them, and I've never really been big on change. So it should be interesting, to say the least.
Anyways, I'll gladly take all the change that's coming just so I can have home-cooked meals. Beats cereal, apples, and hummus every day.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
E+87
If you haven't caught the number thing, this is my 87th day in England. A week from now, I'll be on a plane across the Atlantic, if everything works out. I did a lot of packing yesterday, about an hour and a half's worth. I figure the more packing I get done this weekend, the more I can concentrate on finishing up papers this coming week, so I don't have to do them in Ohio, as they aren't due until January.
Its very strange to be packing. But as I remember, it took me well over a week to pack for the way over, so I may as well take my time for packing for coming home.
So I haven't done much else, other than write papers and read. Read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse last week, and I'm about halfway through A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. I'm really interested to see where Lewis takes his argument, because in this book there is not the structures rationalist thought, but a broken man yelling at God, entertaining views of God as the Comic Sadist, questioning not his belief in God, but his view of God as a loving and essential good being. In both of these fantastic works, or at least in the former and what I've read in the latter, they struggle with the nature of the divine being, but are forced to recognize that there is no way to know. However, just because there is no way to know why God lets certain terrible things happen to humanity, and because God can never be understood, that does not mean that (or from what I personally believe and am drawing from the mentioned books) the only way to God is a leap of faith: I think too many Christians are too emphatic on faith, faith, faith- I know faith is important, but I don't think God would have given us these brains if we couldn't use them and explore the nature of being and of God. I think a leap of faith is part of it, but try to imagine this image: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he has to take his leap of faith to find the Holy Grail, over a bottomless chasm. Then, when he does, a bridge appears. Now imagine that instead of taking that step, Dr. Jones had put a little more thought and effort into his decision- he had read through the Bible, talked with people much more wise than he, read the works of holy people- he would have been able to build stones across to form part of his bridge. Keep the physics out of it. He builds a bridge across. Each stone is a different thing he has learned about God, such as trusting God, believing in God, the nature of prayer, faith, salvation, unchanging divine beneficence, until he gets to the keystone, the one that holds it all together. That could be his leap of faith.
Anyways, I'm excited to go home. I miss it. Readjusting should be interesting. But at least I won't have jokers pounding their rap music at 2am like last night. I hope.
Its very strange to be packing. But as I remember, it took me well over a week to pack for the way over, so I may as well take my time for packing for coming home.
So I haven't done much else, other than write papers and read. Read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse last week, and I'm about halfway through A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. I'm really interested to see where Lewis takes his argument, because in this book there is not the structures rationalist thought, but a broken man yelling at God, entertaining views of God as the Comic Sadist, questioning not his belief in God, but his view of God as a loving and essential good being. In both of these fantastic works, or at least in the former and what I've read in the latter, they struggle with the nature of the divine being, but are forced to recognize that there is no way to know. However, just because there is no way to know why God lets certain terrible things happen to humanity, and because God can never be understood, that does not mean that (or from what I personally believe and am drawing from the mentioned books) the only way to God is a leap of faith: I think too many Christians are too emphatic on faith, faith, faith- I know faith is important, but I don't think God would have given us these brains if we couldn't use them and explore the nature of being and of God. I think a leap of faith is part of it, but try to imagine this image: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he has to take his leap of faith to find the Holy Grail, over a bottomless chasm. Then, when he does, a bridge appears. Now imagine that instead of taking that step, Dr. Jones had put a little more thought and effort into his decision- he had read through the Bible, talked with people much more wise than he, read the works of holy people- he would have been able to build stones across to form part of his bridge. Keep the physics out of it. He builds a bridge across. Each stone is a different thing he has learned about God, such as trusting God, believing in God, the nature of prayer, faith, salvation, unchanging divine beneficence, until he gets to the keystone, the one that holds it all together. That could be his leap of faith.
Anyways, I'm excited to go home. I miss it. Readjusting should be interesting. But at least I won't have jokers pounding their rap music at 2am like last night. I hope.
Monday, December 6, 2010
E+82
Finished my two large papers of the end of the semester last night. Only have a handful of really small papers left. Doing some reading. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Planning some Henry James after that. Short works. Haven't done much creative writing of my own for the past week or two, other than a really dumb story wrote last monday. I feel like I've exhausted all my ideas, but I know that's never possible.
Anyways, less than two weeks left in England. Coming home the 18th. Wow, that's only 12 days. At one point it felt like home was a year away. I am ready to come home. I think when I get home I'll stay in my room for a week and sleep all day in my bed that doesn't have awful springs poking into my back like the one here. I've gotten used to the springs. Listening to Bon Iver.
It's an exceptionally foggy day in Cheltenham. Maybe I'll just sleep all day.
Anyways, less than two weeks left in England. Coming home the 18th. Wow, that's only 12 days. At one point it felt like home was a year away. I am ready to come home. I think when I get home I'll stay in my room for a week and sleep all day in my bed that doesn't have awful springs poking into my back like the one here. I've gotten used to the springs. Listening to Bon Iver.
It's an exceptionally foggy day in Cheltenham. Maybe I'll just sleep all day.
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