Web Wal Journal # 9

Song of the Month: "When I Fall" by the Barenaked Ladies
Song of the Day: "Love Like Winter" by AFI (Note that this song will be despised come January, because I'll be sick of winter by then.)

In all honesty, this week has been the most unfun yet, despite a plethora of highlights. This is due to the fact that I have been staying up much later, eating much less, more sporadically, and fighting a sinus thing which I haven't been winning because of my inadequate self-care. So, with that being said, my Monday sucked, my Wednesday night sucked, and Thursday during the day sucked to. I was thanking God all week for the three day weekend.

Despite feeling physically miserable, I have had much to be pleased about. Last weekend, as you may know, I spent with my Dad. We went to see a production of Man of La Mancha, which was fantastic. Ironically, I wore my Gatsby shirt to the show and it occurred to me that both James Gatsby and Don Quixote have significant parallels as characters. Both being delusional idealists, I naturally find myself inclined toward both characters. Eventually, I need to read Don Quixote, but preferably after I read I Once Was Lost and The Wind in the Willows. (Also need to read Frankenstein, Dracula, and a novel Haley recommended. Ah! Too many books!)

My weekend was fantastic, as Grandma made me a splendid dinner Saturday night and Aint Kathy took Dad, myself, James, and David to a Turkish restaurant with amazing food. The restaurant is owned by a man named Ibrahim Parlak, a man who was granted political asylum by the United States after being imprisoned and tortured by the Turkish government for 17 years because of alleged connections to a dissenting group in Turkey. However, as the United States has tried to get more on Turkey's good side, they have declared said group as a terrorist organization, despite the fact that this group poses no threat to the United States whatsoever. Now, the immigration courts are planning to deport him, but there is a petition online (which, as a legal citizen, I was happy to sign and comment in paragraph form on page 39) to keep him here with his family and his restaurant. I tried to find a good, non-biased article online about the situation, but I'm not sure what article Aint Kathy found that we read last weekend. The petition itself, though, does a good job of outlining the situation, and I do have the link to the petition. Please check out the situation, and if you feel the same way I do, please sign the petition. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freeibrahim/index.html.

Okay, now that I've gotten my social justice out of the way for the week, I can celebrate two other events that occurred last weekend. The first is the stash of rosemary and olive oil bread now sitting in the freezer here waiting to be baked for me. ^_^ The second is ALL OF THE BEATLES ALBUMS REMASTERED! I love just looking at them, but they sound fantastic too. Especially White Album Disc 2. If anyone wants old copies of my Beatles CD's, now I don't have anything to do with them. Email or comment letting me know if you want any of the following:

Rubber Soul
Revolver
Please Please MeHelp!
Beatles for Sale
Abbey Road
White Album Disc 1Past Masters Vol. 1 & 2

The White album and Past Masters have labels, because 1 is the original CD and the others my Dad just made to look like the original CD's. Can't pass up that deal, can you?

In addition to being sick on Monday, it especially sucked because it was the last Salsa class. I have definitely learned my share and look forward to teaching Emily (and whoever else asks) what I know. It's sad, my Monday night motivation has vanished. But no worries about my physical activity: capoeira will definitely keep me busy. Thursday night we had a guest come with musicians and he led us all in some basic moves and we even got to participate in a roda, which was so exciting. I was very honored to get my ass kicked by this guy, as he was amazing. Though I doubt I can ever get that good, I look forward to improving to the point where I can spar slightly less newbishly with a guy like him. If it hadn't been for capoeira on Thursday, my entire day would have just been miserable, but it was so much fun and we did it for two hours, during which time I forgot that life existed outside of that room.

A very spiritually inclined week. At girl's bible study we were challenged to actively apply 3 fruits of the spirit to our daily lives this week. I decided to pick the ones I felt I was struggling with most at the time, since anyone could potentially fulfill any three fairly easily, or so I think. What's sad is I know the seven deadly sins better than I know the fruits of the spirit. Goes to show that we view sin as more fun.

At chapel hour, Rev. Luckie decided to talk about the Sabbath, and how it was actually created for us. God knew we needed rest at the end of the week, as he did at the end of his, and therefore he gave us the Sabbath to recreate ourselves. She then made the connection between the words "re-creation" and "recreation," and so chapel hour was spend playing Wii sports, molding play dough, and blowing bubbles. Thanks to Wii sports, we have discovered that Barrack Obama is better than Jesus at tennis, but Jesus is pretty good at bowling. (I challenge all of you with a Wii at home now to create other historical figures with WiiMii's.)

Wednesday too, was active. Intervarsity cohosted with the Atheist, Agnostic, and Nonreligious group a discussion between atheists and Christians. The two co-presidents of the latter group were the panelists for the atheists and representing Christians was one of the bible-study leaders and a professor from University of Illinois. The discussion went alright. Unfortunately, the more interesting topics never really came up. What was interesting about it, though, wasn't so much the discussion, (though the professor was amazing and made me wish I had his class) but some of the observations I found myself making. Atheists, I've noticed, who tend to be heavily involved in atheistic organizations or dedicate much of their time to being atheist, tend to be reactionary. Two clarifications on that last statement: 1) I am not saying that atheists themselves are reactionary, there are plenty of atheists out there who simply don't believe in God. The ones who tend to be outspoken and active about it, though, are generally reacting directly to a religious experience or experiences. My logic here is that when Christians form groups, the idea is to advance in their faith. Atheism's only real advancement can be in their argument, since there isn't much advancement in what isn't there. By forming groups, the point is more to advance knowledge in the argument against God and, therefore, the more active atheists are reactionary. 2) I am not using the word "reactionary" as synonymous with "aggressive," because that simply is not the case. The atheists on the panel were hardly aggressive, and most aren't. Reactionary simply means they are responding to the existence of religion. Being reactionary is not necessarily a bad thing either, debate is healthy for the mind and challenging conventions is important in a society. Therefore, on both of these premises, I am not making a criticism of atheists active or not, I am simply stating an observation. The reason I'm spending so much time on a disclaimer is because I know just how many atheists read this, and I truly don't want to offend anyone. The easiest way to do this would be not to mention it, but the integrity of the Web Wall Journal would be damaged if I didn't share my thoughts, now, would it? Therefore, a disclaimer is in order for me to express these thoughts to those I love both atheist and Christian alike.

Anyhow, my other thoughts revolved around how easy it is for a discussion to develop into a debate. Some people really are incapable of discussion, because they cannot resist giving the last word to somebody else. Other people are willing to ask questions and absorb answers. I am a discussion person, though as I said before, there's nothing wrong with a debate. However, there is a time and place for a debate and it is not when other people are waiting to ask questions. I love debaters, they make life so much more interesting, (hence why so many of you reading this fall into that category) but it is so important to acknowledge when you are that type of person and either learn to taper it for the correct occasion or just avoid occasions when it is inappropriate.

Now, this Wednesday was the highlight of my week, and not because of this discussion, but because Randel visited! I am getting quite good at my tour-guide skills here for IWU (they should be paying me for all of my shameless promotion) and I gave Randel, Sanders, and the respective parental units a tour before they took me out to eat (yeah! No Saga!) and then to ISU. I was actually very impressed, they have a beautiful campus. Too big for me, though. I'm glad I am where I am. Oi, seeing Randel was nice and I can tell I miss everyone back home. Looking forward to Thanksgiving break when I can bother everyone and nobody can stop me from sentimentally hugging everyone! What's funny is I send out these updates once a week stuffed with information about what I've been doing, and they still don't feel competent to explain everything I've been doing. I feel like I have so many stories. Randel, hope I didn't talk your ears off too much! I'll try to taper my excitement down a bit over Thanksgiving. `Twas awesome seeing you!

Now, if this update has not touched controversial soil just yet, I have one more thing. Thursday, believe it or not, was actually a good philosophy class discussion. (Only took two months...) The more I'm reading out of Legalize This!, the more I find myself frustrated indignant with the current legal policies relating to drugs. I had a facebook status earlier in the week about how my 70 lb sister takes prescribed drugs that could kill me, yet marijuana has never killed anyone on its own, and it isn't legal for even doctors to prescribe. Those of you who know me can attest to the fact that I'm not really that into drugs: they haven't really interested me for recreational use that much. However, even I can think it's wrong to punish drug users who have not hurt anyone except maybe (debatably) themselves. I got a handful of responses to this status, but the most interesting one was definitely from Trevor (whom I hope won't sue me for reproducing the comment here in this update) below:

"What's interesting is that the federal government has apparently forgotten why it pretty much banned the cannabis plant in the first place: to protect tobacco. Now that everyone is out on a witch hunt against tobacco smokers I get the feeling that the notion of protecting that particular cash crop is done for. So in theory cannabis should have been legalized again, but the reasons were so twisted to justify the ban that now even Congress has forgotten why it's predecessors actually banned it in the first place."

Again, I'm all for abstaining from drugs, but that doesn't make everything our government rules just.
(I stated earlier that I'm a discussion person, but on this topic, I think I'd be perfectly willing to debate.)

Backing off the controversy here for a bit, my weekend, thankfully, started Thursday night. After capoeira I spent from 8:30 to 2 with Michael and his friends, whom I was very pleased to discover were very enjoyable people. It's hard not to love people who will converse with you about qualities Hitler's generals and William T. Sherman shared. It was a great start to a relaxing weekend, which I spend writing an essay, completing German homework, and, on Saturday, eating lunch with my mom and Papou before giving them a tour of my campus. Because Sarah (and 70% of the campus) went home for the three-day-weekend, I was privileged to enjoy a very quiet weekend of peaceable solitude. Last night I watched A Prairie Home Companion (the movie) with Dane from Intervarsity. (The one thing I didn't expect to find here was someone who has listened to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio, but life is full of pleasant surprises.)

And, here is the important part of what I did this weekend, I finally typed up the modern-day Christ story and it is attached to this email. The last week (or two?) I have conveniently forgotten to attach a story. Even if I had remembered, I probably wouldn't have attached the only story that seemed relevant to my life at the time because "Intimate Friendships" has a very, very select audience. (The very few of you who know the story should also have at least a vague idea of why that one has been on my mind.) I also won't be attaching a story next week, as a favor to you all. You'll understand when you open the attachment for this week. Please keep in mind it is unedited and feedback is always appreciated.

Now, until my quiet weekend comes to a close, I will go and write letters. In the meantime, everyone take care and I look forward to hearing what you all have to say!

Janna