Journal Entries
Lonely
Posted Oct 20, 2002
*sigh*
She's leaving for Seattle, driving out early in the morning... 
Won't see her at school, can't call her on the phone...
No more kisses, no more hugs...
Though she's coming back in less than a week; I guess I shouldn't sink *too* far into depression...
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Latest reply: Oct 20, 2002
My religious experience
Posted Oct 5, 2002
Guess what? About an hour ago I had a profound religious experience. Yes, profound. Let me tell you about it.
I woke up at 9:10 or so. I lied around for a few minutes, not wanting to get up. Then I looked at the clock again and saw that it was about 10:40. Apparently I'd fallen asleep. I was lying in bed (again) not wanting to get up, when I heard a woman's voice outside the door. "Oh, look, there's a kitty!"
Knowing the woman and her child companion would knock soon, I got up and headed for the door. I was greeted by a blond woman, with another woman and a small child in the background. They were each holding binders and a small, thick-looking book. The Holy Bible.
It's time for the Attack of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Oh, I'm sorry, looks like we woke you up. We'll just leave this behind and come back later." Now, much as I don't want the Jehovah's Witnesses coming to my door, I want even less to be left with only a pamphlet for company, awaiting their return at some unknown time. "No, no, it's fine."
I've always thought of how fun it would be to tease the Witnesses if they ever came to my door--act really interested and then turn them down, pretend to be a Satanist, practice my melodramatic acting skills. But doing those things would be rude, and I don't like to be impolite to someone who doesn't deserve it. So, I thought, I'll give them a few minutes to convince me. Then maybe I'll bring out the drama.
We talked for maybe twenty minutes, the blonde and I. The other two seemed to be there only for moral support--safety in numbers, I suppose. She and I went back and forth, her telling me what the Bible really means, me trying to find a way to counter her arguments. The most memorable of these is the first one: prophecy.
"One of the reasons I feel so confident in the Bible is because of all the prophecies that were made and came true." She flipped through her Holy Book and showed me a few. (Like, "Nations will fight and people will hate each other.")
(Now, keep in mind I can't remember everything. This conversation didn't happen exactly this way; I've left out some less relevant statements. The quotes are as accurate as I can remember, but they're certainly not perfect. This goes for Scripture as well.)
"But what about Nostradamus or the Eqyptian prophecies? Can't I believe those?"
She told me a Bible story about Jesus and his Apostles casting a demon out of a girl who was under its influence. "While she was possessed, the girl made all these prophecies. Because the demon was so powerful, it could make things happen and make it look like the girl was a prophet."
"But the Bible's prophecies were true because it was the word of God, not a powerful demon?"
"Right."
"Wait, that's a cirle. The Bible is the word of God, so its prophecies are true. Because some of the prophecies the Bible made came true, we can see that the Bible is the word of God. Your final proof is your first assumption. You can't do that."
She didn't seem to understand me. Perhaps I didn't explain it very well.
After fifteen mintues, she repeatedly tried to start what I'm guessing was her 'I'm getting cold and it's time to leave' sequence. "Well, if you'd like to talk about this more, we offer home Bible studies, or..." I didn't want her to leave just yet, so each time I brought the conversation back to Bible discussion. But finally she did manage to end it. She gave me a few pamphlets and her home phone number in case I ever want to set up some Bible studies.
What does all this mean to me? Well, I certainly don't intend to convert. But there is one thing I'll have to do--I suppose it's time to get rid of my button that proudly claims, "Even the Jehovah's Witnesses gave up on me."
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Latest reply: Oct 5, 2002
Kicking self in head
Posted Sep 8, 2002
Well, I feel stupid now...
Let me explain. Last night, as the sun was going down, I was driving alone in my car down a gravelly, twisty mountain road. I've driven countless times on that road before, no problem. But last night I got a little weird, a little uncautious. "Hey," I thought. "Wouldn't it be fun just to coast down the hill for a while? And not hug the right side of the road on tight turns?"
Wheeeeeeeee!!
As I was zooming (far too fast) around a turn, I found myself in the left lane--facing a car. Well, from what I can reconstruct from my memories and from the tire tracks on the road, I swerved hard right to get back in my own lane. I was headed for the ditch, though, so to stay on the road I needed to turn slightly left. That I did, with a bit of overcorrection. Just a bit.
Two seconds later I was letting loose an unoriginal string of curses and staring out at a tree on the other side of my windshield. I was off the road on a steep embankment, a tree to my right the only thing between me and a few rollovers.
No one was hurt in the accident; the woman driving the other car managed to stop before narrowly missing my vehicle as it flew off the road. I got a ride down the hill and back home, and my family decided to deal with the matter in the morning, as it was already dark.
The towing was the hard part--they never come out as easily as they go in, or so says the tow truck driver. My front wheels were lodged in front of a stump on the ground, which made the extraction a bit difficult. It was wedged in there so tightly that Newton's Third Law of Motion took over and the cable started pulling the TRUCK towards the ditch. Though that was before the hook snapped off my car and nearly took out somebody's eye as it flew towards the operator.
But eventually we did get it out, and now it's sitting in my driveway at home while we think of what to do. The damage (at least to my severely untrained eye) seems to be not as bad as could be expected: the bumper, grille and right side are a bit smashed up, the rear axle is broken, and the stump on the ground took out an oil tube or something. ("Or something" to me covers just about anything in the car I can't see from the driver's seat.) It looks like I'll be able to keep on driving it with a few repairs--that is, if I'm ALLOWED to drive after this.
Though the important thing is that I'm unharmed, I suppose. I'll certainly be more cautious while driving now...certainly!
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Latest reply: Sep 8, 2002
Boredom
Posted Aug 31, 2002
Well, high school is starting again. I have good things to say about all my classes...except one. Computer applications.
I can stand the bored, ultra-sophisticated students in history. I can put up with the intimidating seniors in chemistry. But I find it difficult in the extreme to keep myself from screaming in frustration when I enter the fifth period computer lab.
What is my problem? you might ask. Just why are you so filled with emotion? Well, guess what I learned yesterday. Using a helpful book as a guide, I learned to perform the following functions with Microsoft Word: change font size/color/type, several different methods of highlighting text, save/open files, rename files, and print a document.
There are people in the world for whom this is new material. (I know, they're in my class.) But for me, these functions have become nearly automatic, on a level just above breathing. I appreciate the teacher's attempts to allow each student to work at his own pace, but they fall short: every few steps ("step" being a certain task to perform with the program) a student must raise his hand and wait to be okayed to move on to the next level. Since the teacher is constantly circulating the class to assist those who DON'T know how to open/save files and change text, it makes for a very long, boring wait.
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Latest reply: Aug 31, 2002
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