about last night

After my roomate got back from band practice we had a "through the bedroom door" conversation (I'd already gone to bed.) First we argued a bit. But then he gave an apology and admited he's gone over the top. Interesting, the effect that had on me. It was just what I needed to hear and I told him so. So everything fine between us for now.

Warning: Bitching post

I don't usually bitch on my blog, but I have something on my mind and I hate calling people just to bitch at them. Especially since I hate when people call me for that reason.

Anyway, I am pissed. It's about my roommate. We have an interesting situation, one that I was well aware that I was getting into when I got into this apartment with him. After all, we've been best friends for a bit over eight years now. For one thing, he's blind, and never learned to do laundry, dishes, or cook beyond putting something in the microwave or toaster. I don't mind doing these things, though I wonder what he will do when I'm not living here anymore and when his mother isn't available to do the laundry. He can't get around anywhere by himself at all because he also has a disoriented problem and tends to veer off course if he doesn't have something to follow like a sidewalk. So if he wants to go anywhere he has to arrange a ride with the busing service or get me or some member of his family to take him.

Note that I'm only mentioning this as background information. I'm not mad about any of this stuff--I only mention it because it does put a little strain on our friendship. Like how he wants advance notice whenever I'm going to be doing something out at night. So he can plan dinner, and because he gets lonely in the appartment. It's a strain becuase I feel like I'm doing everything for him. It's an imbalance.

What pisses me off is his how he handles conflict. The other day he misplaced his watch. Fucking $16 dollar talking watch from Radio Shack. He starts ranting and raving and bitching about how he can't afford another $16 for a watch, and how someone at Denny's must have stole it (the theory was that it fell out of his pocket at Denny's Restaurant) and on and on. I even called Denny's but no one could find it there. Turns out that he had just placed it in an odd spot and forgot it. Then all was fine and good.

The most current thing, which riled me up today, was concerning a microphone. He really went off on this one. He's in a band, and the mic was supposed to be in the keyboard pouch. But I looked for it, and it wasn't. Therefore someone on the band was careless with his equipment. Or stole it. And he's quitting the band if they mistreat his equipment again. And he can't afford a $200 microphone. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Right in front of one of the band members that came to pick him up for band practice. You know where the microphone was? Right with the other band microphones at the house where they have their practices.

The really bad thing about all this? I can not stand to be around someone who is yelling and screaming and bitching and jumping to horrible conclusions whenever something of theirs is not where it's supposed to be. On top of me needing to take care of stuff for him that a roomate would normally take care of himself--even if he is blind--this is driving me crazy!

I'm the lady :) I wouldn't own a gas guzzler if someone gave it to me.

career update

A couple of posts back I mentioned the job interview I went to a couple of fridays ago. Well, yesterday they called me with a job offer, and today I called them back with my acceptance. I've agreed to a start date of May 15.

Pharyngula: Easter mourning

Cool blog post I found today:

Pharyngula: Easter mourning

Easter morning

When I was a Christian, Easter meant a lot to me. I guess that's why I'm in the mood to write something today--the lack of having something to celebrate today is making me a little bit down.
Well, besides the weather getting really warm and the trees budding out and getting really beautiful. That is always something to celebrate this time of the year!

But that's not really what was on my mind when I started this post. I always remember my Christian days around Easter time, and I thought I'd write about an insight I've had. You other women out there may be able to relate.

Everyone thinks they know about women's mood swings--how that monthly cycle affects her emotions. I know I have them, though now that I understand better what is happening when I get emotional around the middle of the month (usually) I can deal with it rationally and say "Yes I know feel moody but since there is nothing in my circumstances to feel moody about it's probably just my hormones. I'll just wait a few days and it'll go away." And it does, inevitably. Reason is my lifeline here.
When I was younger I didn't understand as well what was going on. I didn't understand the chemical nature of emotions, and I still believed in a supernatural, eternal soul. So when I had those down times, they were almost always mixed with another emotion--guilt. I never felt like a very good Christian--I didn't know how to witness since the things I had to say to others wouldn't have convinced me. lol This lead to doubt, mostly doubt over my own salvation. This would lead me to be very susceptible to altar calls--to where I would jump and confess all my supposed sins (and I was a goody-two-shoes back then! ) and make sure I was saved and then feel light and free from the while cathartic nature of it all. Then next time around (or maybe even the next day) I'd be down again and doubt my forgiveness and feel guilty about doubting and the whole process would start all over again.

So what is the point? I dunno it was just on my mind--maybe the point is that there is an advantage to having a rational, materialistic view of emotion over having a supernatural view. God is not convicting me of anything. There is no God to convict me of anything. If I've done something wrong I can figure it out myself (or have someone point it out) and feel real guilt and do what needs to be done. Not have false guilt over imaginary sins that I must have commited.

Couple of interesting sites I found today

One site is http://www.theadvocates.org/
They have a cool quiz for determining where you fall on the political scale. It's a very short quiz and is, far as I can tell, pretty accurate. And (this is rare) it doesn't denegrate any of the political leanings, only describes them as favoring different types of freedom--different priorities.

BTW, I came out of the quiz as Liberal. I knew I was, but I wasn't sure just how much I was. lol

The other cool site is http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/
A religion that believes in whatever is real. Now there's a breath of fresh air!

Job Interviews, etc.

Here is the lastest update in what is going on in my life. Just a few minor blurbs since I don't feel like detailed writing tonight.

The biggest thing is my job interview at Service Net. I currently have a job but I'm still casting out to see what is out there. Since I'm in a project currently, I want to stay until at least the first roll-out.

My boyfriend in now in Maine for a few weeks. Since I've been going to his place every weekend for the last couple months, it's going to feel odd without him around here.

Someone planted the thought in my head a couple weekends ago. So I've been playing with the idea of changing my name. It is an interesting conversation starter, but I'm getting a bit tired of people looking at me wierd when I tell them my name. "Did your parents want a boy?" Though it is kinda fun watching them get the look on my face like "OMG, I really just put my foot in my mouth didn't I?" LOL I'd never had a good idea what to change my name to, but someone suggested changing to Mikayla. I like that one--and I'm giving it some thought. I'd be a hassle though, trying to get people to call me something different though. But it's close, I like the sound of it, and it actually sounds feminine. And it's still unique.

That is all for now. There is a bit more I could write but I don't feel like it right now.

finally, an update

A few things have been going on since I last wrote on New Year's. I'll start with the most interesting thing to me, namely, that guy I met at the New Year's singles dance.

Honestly, I wasn't really expecting to strike up a new relationship at that dance. My plan was just to go, dance with a few people, have fun and go home. What ends up happening is that at first I'm not getting any invitations to dance so I decided to just go out on the dance floor and dance by myself. I was not up there long, probably not more than one song, when this pretty well built guy with brown eyes and dark curly hair asked if I minded if he joined me. I didn't mind, so we danced together for a few songs. He was a good dancer too, and taught me a few moves. I had a blast! He also liked to talk and was asking me stuff like what kind of drinks do I like and what kind of vices I had. When I first saw him the first thing I thought was that he didn't look too old (most of the crowd was around 50 or something) and that he looked Hispanic. Next thing I noticed was his accent, which I couldn't place, but which definately did not sound Hispanic. This was cool for me--I seem to have a thing for dark guys with odd accents. LOL Anyway, it turned out that he was from Maine. After a while we parted and I went to sit back down, but it wasn't long before I was looking around to see where he was--and he noticed and asked me later if I was looking for him. We were dancing together when the New Year started, and at his request I gave him my number before I left.

A few days later he called me, and on Tuesday we went to see King Kong at the theater near my apartment. The movie was good too, and I got into it. What really got me is that when we were talking after the movie ended, he was watching my face during the movie to see how I was reacting to the more intimate scenes of the movie--like the scene at the top of the tower (if you've seen the movie you should know what I'm talking about). He said that he could tell that I was really into the movie at those points. I couldn't help melting a bit when he started talking about that--I think there is something irresistible about a guy that in tune with how I'm feeling, even about a movie. Even back when we were dancing on New Year's I just felt like this was a guy who could understand me.

Since then I've been to a couple more dances with him, and I've spent a few weekends at his place over the past month. I've learned a lot more about him than I knew on New Year's. I think I've found something really special here, but I'm trying my darnest not to rush ahead. He told me that when he tries too hard to make a relationship work it has usually caused it not to work, and this has been my experience as well. Just got to take this one day at a time. But right now I feel like I could keep this up one day at a time for quite a long time.

Happy New Years!

One again it is time to review the previous year and make plans for the new one.

Here is some of what happened this year. These are in the order they come to my mind, no chronological:

• I moved into an apartment in November, with my best friend.
• I have finished all of my college classes, and have started my final co-op. I'll graduate in the Spring.
• I've got my first real programming job, full time and with health insurance.
• For the first time I actually have my own heath insurance instead of relying on my mother's.
• I started meditating and then started looking into Buddhism--and found a lot that really rings true with me. Also started to attend the meeting of the Louisville Community of Mindfulness on Sunday mornings (playing hookey today though lol).

Last year at about New Years I said:

• I'm working on exercising more and drinking more water.

  I want to work on keeping a positive attitude when I'm stressed out. (It's
  not a problem when I'm not stressed.)

  I intend to graduate at the end of 2005. This involved also finding a co-op
  for next year.

  I'd like to be moved out on my own by the end of this year, or shortly after
  graduation.

I actually accomplished most of these. The exercising fizzled around the end of February, cause I got tired of Dad's elliptical machine. Ok, I got a bit lazy lol. But it lasted a whole two months--not bad I guess. But I did keep drinking more water.
My meditation practice has helped me not to get stressed out so much--it helps me to keep a clear head and be able to see when what I'm worried about will just not be helped by me giving myself an headache over it.
I'm close on the graduation bit. I finished my classes in 2005, but my official graduation will be in the Spring of '06.
I am moved out into an apartment now. Woo hoo!

On to next year:

Here are my intentions for this coming year:

• I plan to continue my meditation practice and find out more about Buddhism.
• I plan to start taking classes at Gold's Gym, which is just a couple of minutes from my apartment. In fact, I just signed up for a monthly membership yesterday.
• I would like to get my Microsoft Certified Application Developer certificate, though I've not made serious plans toward that end just yet.
• I'd like to go to more dances, like the the one I went to last night. Found a new friend who was teaching me how to dance. I'm expecting maybe to get a call from him today . . .

We'll see how it goes :)

My Christmas

My Christmas was a bit different this year. We've always had our family Christmas Eve party at Grandma's house, but this year we had it up at my folks house. It is even the first time we've had any parties up at my folk's house--they have been working really hard on getting the place rearranged and even putting in a insert wood stove and building a hearth around it. I wish I had before and after pictures to post--it's a bit like Changing Spaces or something 'cept they did it themselves. :-p

The Christmas Eve party went off great--we ate, Grampa shared some of his Christmas memories, the Christmas myth was read, we sang some carols. I'll see if I can get some digital photo's from Dad so I can post them.

I spent the night up at Mom and Dad's house after the party. It was weird sleeping on the couch, and I didn't get to sleep until about 3 in the morning. As Christmas morning is also Sunday morning, Mom invited me to go to church, as expected. I pretty much planned on going with them anyway, so I accepted.

We missed half of the service since it went from 10am-11am. I'm not sure of the reason for the shift in schedule; I think it was something to do with the pastor's traveling plans. Anyway, what it meant to me was that I only had to sit there for 30 minutes as opposed to an hour. LOL The service was alright--we walked in where the pastor was reading Isaiah 53 and then switched to the birth of Jesus and then to the bit in Revelation about the Lamb and the seven seals. A team with a soprano sax and a singer who I know from when I was in the youth group did "O Holy Night." They did quite a good job on it too, the singer even did it in sign language.

Then, to my dismay, I found out that they were going to do Communion. This was the first time I'd been to a Communion service since I decided that I definitely was not a believer. It was also the first time that I sat still during the entire thing--just breathing in and out and trying not to look too conspicuous. I used to love Communion when I was a Christian, and the combination of that and that of going against the peer pressure made it all an unpleasant experience. What else could I do--to take it is no less than a public proclamation of faith. Far as I know, most in the church are totally unaware that I have rejected Christianity--they only know that I've not been going to church. I wonder how many noticed that I didn't even take Communion when it is open to anyone who has "accepted Christ as their lord and savior"? Not that anyone mentioned it afterward, of course.

The rest of the day went alright--but as this post is already pretty long I'm going to make the rest of it very short. We ate Christmas dinner at Grampa's and then I went to my roomate's family party. And that was my Christmas this year.

Judge rules against �intelligent design� - Science - MSNBC.com

Heartening news :)

Judge rules against "intelligent design" - Science - MSNBC.com

And along the same lines, this has got to be my favorite Doonesbury ever:

http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sfile=db051218&vts=121820051719

events of the day

Today I went to a memorial service. Also known as a funeral. It was for my little neice who, as it turned out, died before ever seeing the light of day. Her name was Rebecca Grace. I've never seen such a tiny casket.
I've also observed in the last few year that funerals are much harder for me than they used to be. This being because most of the "comforting words" are about mythical stuff that most of the people there happen to believe. While the pastor was going on at the memorial service about how "God knows how to lose a child" and "the baby is in the arms of Jesus" and all that I just stared at the tree behind him and concentrated on breathing in and out and waited for him to get done. I suppose it doesn't really matter if those words were any comfort to me or not, as they meant something to the parents and the others there. I'm not going to sit and wallow in self-pity over it--just thought I'd share my thoughts here for all the others out there who have similar experiences. At least no one tried to witness to me, or talked much at all about it after the sermon, far as I could tell. It was good to be around family, and it was heartening to see how many people showed up. I do know my brother and sis-in-law are going to need support this Christmas.

On a brighter note, I have finished with my classes. No more tests (of the written and graded type, anyway). Woo hoo.

A false dichotomy

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I have discovered the thing that I've heard as the sort of reason that people renounce atheism in order to embrace some religion or another. That is, that science and reason in themselves are unable to give meaning to life.

Most of my life I have held this assumption that to be spiritual and to find warmth and meaning in life was somehow tied to believing things that defy what my eyes see and what my science teacher tried to teach me. Salvation was found in believing things and trusting that if your eyes and reason said otherwise, then your eyes and reason were deceiving you. The alternative was simply disbelieving anything that couldn't be proven for certain--after all I've always hated being uncertain in these matters. (Especially when I thought my eternal destiny was tied to my degree of certainty, but I digress). This is the false dichotomy that I'm talking about.

I came to the point of recognizing that reason is not everything on my own. My explorations into Buddhism revealed the rest. I'd hardly considered the possibility of a religion that is not based on faith, but rather experience. There may be faith involved in varying degrees for different people, but it's not essential. Well, anyway, Buddhism as I know it is primarily about our experience of the present moment--no so much about the origins of life or what, if anything, happens after we die. Not much reason to get into debates about evolution versus creationism here.

Also, today I read chapter one in a book called The End of Faith by Sam Harris. He expressed very clearly the idea that has been rattling around in my head for the past couple of months, and it was this reading that moved me to write this entry. It seems so damn simple--like it was right on the edge of my thoughts before but I've never been quite able to bring it to the surface of my thoughts before. Too many of my old assumptions were in the way.

We cannot live by reason alone. This is why no quantity of reason, applied as antiseptic, can compete with the balm of faith, once the terrors of the world begin to intrude upon our lives. Your child has died, or your wife has acquired a horrible illness that no doctor can cure, or your own body has suddenly begun striding toward the grave--and reason, no matter how broad it's compass, will begin to smell distinctly of formaldehyde. This has lead many of us to conclude, wrongly, that human beings have needs that only beliefs in certain fantastical beliefs can fulfill. It is nowhere written, however, that human beings must be irrational, or live in a perpetual state of seige, to enjoy an abidng sense of the sacred. On the contrary, I hope to show that spirituality can be--indeed, must be--deeply rational, even as it elucidates the limits of reason.

So you don't have to either hold absurd beliefs or refuse to consider any ideas that your reason cannot understand. There is a whole lot of middle ground here. And it's a wonderful sense of freedom when you realize that you need not fear reality causing your beliefs to crash down around you! If a belief is shattered by reality, then that is just one more obstacle on the road to a clear view of the world out of the way--and this is a good thing.

NPR : There Is No God

NPR : There Is No God

Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

I like this article, thought I'd share it. It's all about who Darwin was and what the controversy over evolution is all about.

Charles Darwin: Evolution of a Scientist - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

my new home

I'm now out in an apartment. I moved out of my folk's house at the end of October. I'm pretty much just now getting both the time and the motivation to write on this blog. SO now I'm on my own, sort of. I got this apartment with my best friend, and it had really worked out better than I expected.
Josh and I'd been considering the possiblility of getting an apartment for almost the whole last year. He was sitting in an apartment he hated and wanted a way out of there, and I was looking at finally moving out of my parent's house. I just felt I'd outgrown living at home and was ready to move on. The conditions for moving out were ideal. After we figured up the expenses and decided we could afford it, there was just one psychological barrier to overcome: what are people going to think about a guy and a girl who are not married and not related moving in together? We're not even boyfriend/girlfriend, and we have discussed the idea that either of us could invite dates to the apartment. We ended up just pretty much just deciding that it's no one's freaking business if we are sharing an apartment. LOL
I've been pretty busy lately since now I have to shop for groceries and do laundry for two and take care of utility billys and think of stuff like what to eat for dinner. Yea yea I do his laundry, which will just have to be a fact of life until we get the washer and dryer labeled in braille. I don't mind it at all actually, which is almost a bit of a surprise to myself. I think I could go on living this way for a long time without any trouble.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I now have DSL and a wireless. Woo Hoo! I'm writing this blog entry over the wireless using my company laptop.

bits of starstuff: Coincidence? Who cares!

bits of starstuff: Coincidence? Who cares!

I said I'd write more about the writing of Thich Nhat Hanh that inspired me to go to the Unitarian Church when I wrote that post a few months ago. Well, today I found the poem on the internet, and thought I'd provide a link to it: Call Me By My True Names

Changes made by the new Pope

Got this from a forwarded e-mail. I think it's pretty funny :)

personality test

You are both logical and creative. You are full of ideas.
You are so rational that you analyze everything. This drives people a little crazy!

Intelligence is important to you. You always like to be around smart people.
In fact, you're often a little short with people who don't impress you mentally.

You seem distant to some - but it's usually because you're deep in thought.
Those who understand you best are fellow Rationals.

In love, you tend to approach things with logic. You seek a compatible mate - who is also very intelligent.

At work, you tend to gravitate toward idea building careers - like programming, medicine, or academia.

With others, you are very honest and direct. People often can't take your criticism well.

As far as your looks go, you're coasting on what you were born with. You think fashion is silly.

On weekends, you spend most of your time thinking, experimenting with new ideas, or learning new things.

The Three Question Personality Test