tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5023871180505516562012-02-03T05:18:18.072-06:00Philliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17742845283703348582noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-502387118050551656.post-45095871256681897712008-09-07T20:49:00.002-05:002008-09-07T21:01:34.232-05:002008-09-07T21:01:34.232-05:00

Peter and I went canoeing down the Bosque River yesterday. When I think of Waco, the empty downtown and beggars at gas stations and the rundown neighborhoods between our grandiose campus and our football stadium. But only a few minutes away are some really beautiful places in Waco, like the lake and Cameron Park and the suspension bridge.

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Training was busy. Over the course of 24 hours, I had a final, closed down one building while working on opening another one, and met my new 14 best friends. The next day we had a "retreat" at another residence hall on campus, and I showed my tired crankiness to all.My residents arrived a week later. I have twice as many as last year, but this bunch is much more open to community. A lot of them

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I was at my hall director's apartment tonight, and he was relating to his wife what I did in training in the same way my dad would retell my high school basketball games to my mom. My chest puffed up just a little bit.The cool thing about friends is not only do you get to share each other's burdens, but each other's joys.

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"I couldn't put it down" is something said about good books, and a feeling I've experienced myself.Earlier this year, I was watching tv, and a man and woman were discussing the books they had read. The man was asked how his favorite book ended. He didn't know. He stopped reading the book, because he didn't want the story to end.I've never felt that way about a book before, but now I'm on the last

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My good friend, John, has recently blogged about the Sopranos, and I've decided to join him.The Sopranos is a show about an Italian family wrestling with issues of fidelity, intergenerational mingling, mental illness, and drug usage. The Mafia just happens to be story-telling frame that incorporates all these things.Anoter thing the show benefits from using the Mafia as a frame as it exaggerates

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In the middle of book of Stephen King's 7 part Dark Tower series (which he describes as his magnum opus), I finally understood what the protagonist was hoping to find at the Dark Tower.It wasn't until the end of the Sixth Sense when I realized Bruce Willis' character was not the one helping, but being helped that I understood the movie.It's interesting how one little piece of information can put

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I've found myself desiring advice when none is needed. I hope to find an out or, at least, procrastinate by asking someone else about my problems.But sometimes asking other people won't help. Sometimes I already know what to do. It's just hard.Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

Philliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17742845283703348582noreply@blogger.com1http://ichabod-shiloh.blogspot.com/2008/07/when-other-people-dont-help.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-502387118050551656.post-55232375039729948162008-07-23T00:57:00.004-05:002008-07-23T02:37:36.329-05:002008-07-23T02:37:36.329-05:00

Our story begins with a dashing, young knight in shining armor on the quest for true love. After a long journey with some surprising twists and the occasional deranged wizard encounter, our hero slays an infamous dragon and rescues a damsel in distress. A member of the clergy emerges from a nearby monastery and swiftly weds them. He then pronounces that they shall live happily ever after.But five

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The virtues of conciseness and modesty closely relate in my mind. Both are based on understatement.This makes verbosity and lewdness equivalent vices. Both err in exhibiting too much.I like to leave room for development.

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Yesterday I had a bad day for no good reason.It's both frustrating and encouraging knowing that my sanctification won't be complete in this life. Frustrating to think my sins and my longings for heaven and perfection and everything else will never be resolved in this lifetime. But it's encouraging to know that while it may look dismal today and there isn't much visible progress and I've done

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Over the last week, I registered for summer school the day before classes started, changed my major my senior year, received 30 new residents with five weeks to change their lives, traded tvs, and had my brother propose.My spontaneity with some decisions and careful deliberation over others might not make sense to others, but it has worked for me so far. Though sometimes, I wonder if my

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This Newsweek article reports couples without children are happier than those who are parents.In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home.But is happiness our top priority?

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If you ask a Christian in America what a foreign mission field needs most, they would hopefully say Jesus.If you ask them what America needs most, it would be unsurprising to hear a political solution. "We need a President who will nominate Supreme Court justices to overrule Roe v. Wade and stop the killing of unborn children." "We want senators who will aid the widows and orphans." "Our leaders

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Optimism is setting your alarm clock for the same time every day even though you always turn it off.

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Astronomers have developed the technology to find planets similar to earth. Yahoo New Article. This will hopefully lead to discoveries of extraterrestrial life.But what if it doesn't? What does that mean for the the competing theories of cosmology? A planet, which could support life but doesn't, doesn't look good for evolution. The alternative, an intelligently designed planet without

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I've been told that I smile with my eyes... I'm not sure what that means.

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There were many things I thought would be great when I was younger that I now think are not-so-great.The latest example is having no work to do. I feel so worthless with nothing to do. There's nothing to wake up for in the morning. Before, if I had an exceptionally unproductive day, my moods hovered in the doldrums, but now that's everyday... unless/until I find another job.Being a Summer CL

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Today is Father's Day. I'm grateful to my father and also to the coaches, professors, pastors, and hall directors in my life who have played part of that role too."You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common

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College students stay up late. I think in Penland there was always someone awake. What would the world have been like without the invention of electricity? or the light bulb? or the alarm clock? Work being restricted to the daylight hours, and humans relegated to their natural circadian rhythms. Hours after midnight are no more productive than the ones before, yet the young adult seems obsessed

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This summer I'm working at Alexander (a male residence hall) and Memorial (a female residence hall), because our staffs are combined. After a year working in Penland with a staff of 18 men, it's been quite a change working with a staff of 6 and only two of us carrying the Y chromosome.It's hard to tell what's different between the staff being smaller, coeducational, and it being only the first

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I wrote this two years ago, reposted it on my xanga last year, and I'm posting it again onI’ve heard this phrase many times before, and it’s not quite to the level of a pet peeve, but it is annoying. Sometimes it’s “oh, you’ll know when you’re older” or maybe “you’ll know it when you see it” or a married person telling you "oh, you'll know love when it happens" or some inside joke or an awards

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I quit my sales job today after a week. This is important because they were providing my housing, so I started today not knowing where I was going to sleep, which is an interesting proposition. It makes me think of what home is for me.Home is no longer my parents' house in Houston, because they've moved and what was once familiar, no longer is.I suppose Penland is home. My hall director at

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It's been a recent notion of mine that I'm an excellent communicator because of my nonverbal skills and being able to convey the meaning I want the receiver to get without necessarily using the most obvious phrases. By thinking through connotations and consciously using body language, I believed I was communicating more effectively.Yesterday as I was leaving the office, I told Tom, my roommate

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One of my pet peeves in this world is the aversion to personal interaction. ATMs, self-checkout registers, online shopping have all evolved so we can minimize our face-to-face time with people. On occasion, I'm tired of people and use these conveniences too, but the aversion to personal interaction and communication seems to be growing.So here's my list of ways to communicate in order of

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These last three days at home have been relaxing. Staying up until there's nothing on tv, sleeping in until the dog wakes me, then eat and wonder what this life is for. Without something specific to do, I don't do anything, but this is a problem because there is stuff that needs doing.I need a little structure in my life. This is why I like instructions so much. Before I play a new board game,

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