Overslept and missed my first class (it doesn't help that my school is 30 minutes away). Lost my semi-new rain jacket on the way there (fell off my scooter in traffic). Missed breakfast. Felt sick and sluggish. Discovered, as the day went on, a number of small errors -- and one huge one -- on some of my tests (finals tomorrow morning).
Ah, but I can't say it was all bad. It being a Friday, I and the students were generally very cheerful. We had a good time reviewing for tests and eating Christmas candy. I did a little exercise in my room during a break.
When I got home I packed up for the big weekend: a hike with Taiwanese friends! Snow Mtn is the destination. New Year's Eve on the second highest mountain in Taiwan, not too shabby! There's already snow on He Huan Mtn. so we can definitely expect some powder on Snow Mtn. I am so happy to have new boots, too (info also here)!
Well, I've got class tomorrow morning at 9 (teaching my Taichung Ichung senior high guys to play poker in English), and then I catch the 11 AM train to Taipei. Arriving at Snow Mtn. Saturday night, we plan to hike a couple hours to the hostel. Then it's 7-10 hours up to the peak on Sunday.
God be with us till we meet again.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
The Ritalin Fan Club?
You know I like to (try to) coin new words. So why not try for a new phrase? I googled it and found nothing matching "ritalin fan club". I'm callin it!
The thought came to mind today because I recalled how in college I became very anxious about the possibility I had (have) ADHD, or something like it. I have always been curious to try the stuff, to see what effect it had. Imagining myself loving the ritalin high -- a methylphenidate euphoria -- I envisioned founding the Ritalin Fan Club, Intl. It would consist of people united in their panegyrical anecdotes for ritalin. The screenplay would be a musical, bursting with hymns to "livin on ritalin". My favorite piece is the "Ritalin Blues".
Such is I.
Do you see now why I wonder about me and ADHD? :emoticon:
The thought came to mind today because I recalled how in college I became very anxious about the possibility I had (have) ADHD, or something like it. I have always been curious to try the stuff, to see what effect it had. Imagining myself loving the ritalin high -- a methylphenidate euphoria -- I envisioned founding the Ritalin Fan Club, Intl. It would consist of people united in their panegyrical anecdotes for ritalin. The screenplay would be a musical, bursting with hymns to "livin on ritalin". My favorite piece is the "Ritalin Blues".
Such is I.
Do you see now why I wonder about me and ADHD? :emoticon:
Labels:
Memoirs and Friends
Storming the weather
What silly Althusserian Marxist chicanery. The weather, a crucial tool in shaping the all-decisive means of production! This just goes to show the harder Commies work to reduce the personal dimensions of history at the altar of absolute materialist determinism, the more they must assert personal whimsy to do so.
Apparently, the Reds also want to initiate a real name blogging system, too. So much for noms de plume!
In all fairness, my American jingoism is pierced and saddened to see Bush and the neocon contingency have vied for the same. The problem is that while knowing a cyber-stalker's real name might help the authorities catch him, it would cut just as easily the other way: a cyber-stalker could by some means find out the real name of someone he interacts with (say, threateningly) online and then extend his malice offline to that real person. To my knowledge, there's a simple way to trace cyber-IDs back to their author: identify his IP address. It's a bssic feature of hosting comments on a blog,
so it's not at all unfeasible. Even though knowing an IP address doesn't help locate the baddie offline (because he uses a mobile compy or changes compies, etc.), it would still, if need be, allow authorities (or, yes, hackers) not only to go to work on that IP (e-embargoes at eBay or Paypal, blocking the IP from registering for websites, posting an online "WANTED" poster, etc.), but also to trace his behavior online and then perhaps catch him offline. If a villainous IP posted on some innocuous board, "I'll see you at the Linkin Park show Friday", authorities could at least have that lead in the real world.
Anyway, what do you think?
UPDATE: Just read this piece about online pseudoynym generators. Man, in all his wily freedom, is why communism will never succeed in perfecting Man, in all his materialist subjection, and why Marxism will never reign. Only that which takes man seriously in his radical freedom -- freedom for both good AND EVIL -- will earn man's free submission. And that is the Gospel: to allow man to see himself as he really and freely is, but then still to find an infinitely superior love waiting to transform him.
Apparently, the Reds also want to initiate a real name blogging system, too. So much for noms de plume!
In all fairness, my American jingoism is pierced and saddened to see Bush and the neocon contingency have vied for the same. The problem is that while knowing a cyber-stalker's real name might help the authorities catch him, it would cut just as easily the other way: a cyber-stalker could by some means find out the real name of someone he interacts with (say, threateningly) online and then extend his malice offline to that real person. To my knowledge, there's a simple way to trace cyber-IDs back to their author: identify his IP address. It's a bssic feature of hosting comments on a blog,
so it's not at all unfeasible. Even though knowing an IP address doesn't help locate the baddie offline (because he uses a mobile compy or changes compies, etc.), it would still, if need be, allow authorities (or, yes, hackers) not only to go to work on that IP (e-embargoes at eBay or Paypal, blocking the IP from registering for websites, posting an online "WANTED" poster, etc.), but also to trace his behavior online and then perhaps catch him offline. If a villainous IP posted on some innocuous board, "I'll see you at the Linkin Park show Friday", authorities could at least have that lead in the real world.Anyway, what do you think?
UPDATE: Just read this piece about online pseudoynym generators. Man, in all his wily freedom, is why communism will never succeed in perfecting Man, in all his materialist subjection, and why Marxism will never reign. Only that which takes man seriously in his radical freedom -- freedom for both good AND EVIL -- will earn man's free submission. And that is the Gospel: to allow man to see himself as he really and freely is, but then still to find an infinitely superior love waiting to transform him.
Labels:
Culture and News
Well, well, well
Last night I was on a Santa run. I dropped by a friend's place to give him the perfect Christmas gift: pop rocks and can of Coke. As I was walking to his stairwell, I heard windows around me rattle, then a bicycle fell over. The complex is circular and sometimes winds howl around inside the courtyard. I didn't feel a wind, but what explained the windows and the bike?
Well, just as I mounted the first step, one of the roommates was scurrying down the stairs, his eyes bugged. "Did you feel that?" he asked. "Feel what? Was that a wind?" I said.
"That was my first earthquake!" he continued. Then he hurried down the stairs to inspect the courtyard, his eyes still bugging.
"Oh, an earthquake, huh?" I said. I hadn't felt a thing from it. And I didn't feel anything much about it either.
Since I'm from Florida, and now live in a place that only 6 years ago was rocked by a 7.0 quake, you might expect my tolerance for quakes is pretty low. This roommate with bugged eyes is from NYC, so he was flabbergasted. I guess having lived in Taiwan over three years and feeling things shake every few months has quickly gotten me adjusted to quakes and tremors. Unless it's a big one, in which case panicking is the worst thing to do, I can't seem to generate alarm for any lesser tremor.
Apparently this latest quake was a biggie, a 7.1 just off the southwest coast of Taiwan. It made for three shakes over 5-10 minutes, but I tell you, I felt not a thing. Dumb me, I guess.
It saddens me because, while I felt nothing, apparently two dozen people felt great turmoil (China Post). Surely there is a deep truth about life in this. The worst tragedy of some people's month (or perhaps life), is but a curiosity for someone miles away. I pray the one casualty had prepared his soul to meet God. Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy. His grace is given to deliver us eternally from such natural woes, even as they destroy us in time.
I cannot help but see something providentially "stirring" in all this: the quake struck on the two-year anniversary (12/26) of the massive Sumanda-Atraman tsunami. Further, something that might have stirred awareness, of not solidarity, in the West, Great Britain experienced its biggest quake of the year that same day. Certainly, facile connections could be made between any number of events. But for the moment, I wonder: How is my soul doing? And yours?
NOTE: The China Post provides different info than I first heard. Apparently, measured by (or in) Taiwan, the Richter value was 6.7.
Well, just as I mounted the first step, one of the roommates was scurrying down the stairs, his eyes bugged. "Did you feel that?" he asked. "Feel what? Was that a wind?" I said.
"That was my first earthquake!" he continued. Then he hurried down the stairs to inspect the courtyard, his eyes still bugging.
"Oh, an earthquake, huh?" I said. I hadn't felt a thing from it. And I didn't feel anything much about it either.
Since I'm from Florida, and now live in a place that only 6 years ago was rocked by a 7.0 quake, you might expect my tolerance for quakes is pretty low. This roommate with bugged eyes is from NYC, so he was flabbergasted. I guess having lived in Taiwan over three years and feeling things shake every few months has quickly gotten me adjusted to quakes and tremors. Unless it's a big one, in which case panicking is the worst thing to do, I can't seem to generate alarm for any lesser tremor.
Apparently this latest quake was a biggie, a 7.1 just off the southwest coast of Taiwan. It made for three shakes over 5-10 minutes, but I tell you, I felt not a thing. Dumb me, I guess.
It saddens me because, while I felt nothing, apparently two dozen people felt great turmoil (China Post). Surely there is a deep truth about life in this. The worst tragedy of some people's month (or perhaps life), is but a curiosity for someone miles away. I pray the one casualty had prepared his soul to meet God. Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy. His grace is given to deliver us eternally from such natural woes, even as they destroy us in time.
I cannot help but see something providentially "stirring" in all this: the quake struck on the two-year anniversary (12/26) of the massive Sumanda-Atraman tsunami. Further, something that might have stirred awareness, of not solidarity, in the West, Great Britain experienced its biggest quake of the year that same day. Certainly, facile connections could be made between any number of events. But for the moment, I wonder: How is my soul doing? And yours?
NOTE: The China Post provides different info than I first heard. Apparently, measured by (or in) Taiwan, the Richter value was 6.7.
Labels:
Memoirs and Friends
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Newbie newbie new...
Two new posts up at ScIn，Follow Falv and Ｔaiwan Ａlive:
The theology of sisters?
and
Etiam linguam latinam bene calleant
and
好久不見
Enjoy!
The theology of sisters?
and
Etiam linguam latinam bene calleant
and
好久不見
Enjoy!
Labels:
Memoirs and Friends
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