This photo of me was taken at a swim meet here at the U of L a couple years ago, but this weekend the Pronghorns are once again hosting their annual swim meet at the Max Bell Pool. I’ve been asked to do the announcing for the finals on Saturday and Sunday. Go Horns!
Moving to Quebec
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and so today I filled out the application for the Explore program, which means that (assuming I’m accepted) I’ll be moving travelling to Quebec sometime in either the spring or summer for a five week course in beginner’s level French and I’ll be living either in a residence or with a home-stay family. This is the most excited I’ve been about the French I’ve been slowly learning for the past six months.
Four Things Meme Reaches A-List Bloggers
The other day, my friend Kim Siever hit me with the four things meme. Apparently it started on LiveJournal and has spread across the blogosphere. Some of the bigger sites that I follow on my RSS reader have been participating too.
There is something particularly intriguing about the simplicity of the meme and yet it seems to derive answers that you might never expect. For instance, who would have ever thought that I had experience burying mines? (They weren’t live and they were for de-mining research purposes).
There are many more examples of the meme via google search four things meme.
Lasers
For my 19th birthday [a long time ago] my mom gave me a laser pointer which I enjoyed until the batteries died, and I haven’t thought much more about it since.
One of my favourite stories involving that laser is from when I was living in Salt Lake. We were visiting some other teens in their home and playing with the laser and the cat. For some reason cats seem to just love chasing the little red dot from a laser pointer.
The room was open between the living room and dinning room with about two or three stairs dividing them. A large corner couch sat in the living room and with a flick of the laser we had the cat running back and forth from the couch up into the kitchen and back down the stairs.
This particular cat seemed a little on the chubby side, but boy when it came to slapping his paws on the red dot, he could really move. He was incredibly fast even by speedy cat standards. He used his claws for extra traction and would chase it all over the room instantly appearing wherever the light shone. We were all cracking up.
One of the kids decided to take it to the next level. They wanted to see how far their cat would go. To get things started, the cat was attracted up into the kitchen where we were all standing. Next they briskly shot the light across the floor with the cat firing itself after it like Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner. They shone the dot up on the wall in the very corner just above where the corner-couch sat. In one smooth motion the cat jumped up onto the cushion and then off the back of the couch and up as high as he could reach right onto the red dot on the wall. Then as if time stood still he made a couple of mid air-strides and quickly discovered his lack of flying ability. I’m certain at this point he wondered to himself why in the world he was finding himself six feet off the ground with no where to go but straight down. He dropped silently into the triangular shaped hole between the couch and the corner.
We were rolling on the floor laughing our heads off. Oh and he was mad at us. He jumped out from behind the couch, and looked extremely embarrassed and irritated. His fur was dishevelled and his eyes were red. Nothing was injured but his pride, however, no amount of persuasion could convince him to chase the little red dot.
I was reminded of this story when I came across these interesting videos of some newer lasers. The site claims they are all legal in the United States. They seem a touch too powerful for safe public use, so pets of the world, beware. (Luckily balloons and matches appear to be the main targets of the lasers in the videos).
Air Conditioning in January?
I think some people fail to understand that if you’re having a meeting in a room where someone else is working and you think it’s too hot then setting the thermostat down to 15° will make the air conditioning kick in right about the time you head for lunch and consequently freeze the room.
It’s SO cold in here.
The Story of a Free Electronic Organ
A little over a week ago my roommate knocked on my bedroom door to ask me for a favour. He wanted to know if I would help him move an electric organ from the Salvation Army Thrift store into the basement. Please note that it was a fairly large and non-functioning electric organ. My mind said, “no” but my mouth said, “sure” and with a smile we walked out the door.
As we headed across town in my fairly large capacity (but not huge) Jeep Grand Cherokee he explained that the organ had worked when it was originally brought into the shop but that somehow in its first week there it had stopped doing the one thing electric organs are supposed to do—that is to say it no longer made music. But he was confident that he could fix it and the guy running the store told him he’d let him have it for free if he would just come and take it away.
We muscled that boat anchor into the street but no matter how we turned it, it just wouldn’t fit into my jeep. Please trust me when I emphasize that we turned it plenty.
“I don’t really want to unscrew the spare tire”, I stammered, “because I don’t think it will be easy to get back together.” A moment later I pushed the now free spare up against the front seats.
I don’t know why it took so long for me to process what was obvoiusly about to happen. Either he wouldn’t be able to get it working and I was going to be stuck hauling a rather heavy and awkward non-operational organ out of my basement or he would get it working and I’d have the opportunity to enjoy a constant stream of vibrations from the basement until the end of his stay in my house at which time I would still be stuck hauling out a rather heavy and awkward operational organ from my basement.
He assured me that I’d have nothing to worry about and insisted that whatever happened he would take care of it in the end.
And what do you know? He actually got it working. I’m not sure how long it took him, but I returned home from my holidays in Medicine Hat to see a collection of electronic tools, a soldering iron and plenty of parts, peices, and wires scattered around the room. I could hardly believe it but my roommate—whom has absolutely no training in electronics—figured out how to solder wires together in the proper places thereby restoring the organ. He even cleaned up the mess and it turns out that the electronic vibrations are more like music than just a noisy racket afterall.
To him I have to say, good work my friend—I’m really impressed. Now maybe I should ask him if he can figure out how to get the spare tire back in place.
I’m Finished Classes
I finished my last class a couple weeks ago and today the marks are in. It feels so good to be finished school. Now I’m on the prowl for an internship—the only thing between me and my degree.
I’m hoping I’ll be able to work for a video game company in Vancouver, though, I’m also considering a couple of other opportunities here in Alberta, and in the States. Since I’ve been learning French (on my own) lately, I might also like to go to Montreal, but I don’t really have any specific leads there.
Working at the International Centre has awoken in me a strong desire to go out and see the world. I’ve begun to think about what I’d like to do after I’m truly done school. Of course plans might change depending on where I’m working and who I’m with, but I’m thinking for my next big trip I’d like to go all over Europe and perhaps make a stop in Iran. (Is it too taboo to say that?) I have an ex-roommate from there and I’d love to visit him.
I can’t say for sure when any of that would happen since I still have a long way to go paying off student debts, but it’s exciting to dream anyway.
My Beliefs
It’s a little over a week until Christmas. I haven’t been feeling any wonderful tingly feelings about it. It probably has a little to do with my religion-less life coupled with my failed engagement last Christmas. Being alone during the holidays really sucks.
I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on myself by calling it a “failed engagement” because, as she tried to convince me anyway, it was destined for failure. I think she only did it in the first place to please her mother. She claimed afterwards that she just doesn’t want to get married ever—to anyone; or date me anymore; or talk to me ever again for that matter! C’est la vie—I guess. It still feels like a dirty trick.
But despite my lack of belief and probably because of my failure to make any new meaningful relationships lately, I went to church today. Not the boring Mormon church that those who know me might expect. This was a local non-denominational church where the singing packed a heavy emotional punch and the sermon was given by an experienced pastor. I enjoyed singing the familiar Christmas tunes (to a guitar accompaniment I might add), but just the same, I don’t think religion and I are ever going to reconcile in any meaningful manner or on any kind of permanent basis. It was, however, nice to get out.
I have been asked by a couple of friends if I now consider myself not just an agnostic but a full blown atheist. To which I must honestly answer yes.
As far as explaining why I am going the whole hog and not just stopping at agnosticism (in an attempt to hedge my bets) I will point you to something Douglas Adams had to say on the subject. This is from an interview he did with American Atheist for their 1998/1999 Winter publication. He had grown up in a religious background and as a teenager was a committed Christian. One day while walking down the street he heard a street evangelist and, dutifully, stopped to listen:
“What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favour of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the robust arguments of something as interpretative and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock in trade of any other area of intellectual endeavour whatsoever. Why not? Because they wouldn’t stand up to it. So I became an Agnostic. And I thought and thought and thought. But I just did not have enough to go on, so I didn’t really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn’t know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe and everything to put in its place.”
Being brought up in a home that emphasized the importance of intelligence and education in combination with religion and integrity I spent a considerable amount of time trying to sort through the pain of intellectual dissonance. How could I reconcile the inconsistencies and outright mistakes of religion with what I felt was obviously right, just, and logical. I decided religion and I were breaking up and at the age of 21 I finally quit cold turkey. I’m glad it didn’t take me any longer.
I’ve since been fascinated with evolutionary biology and one of my many regrets about high school was that I never took any biology classes. I was fortunate, though, to date someone who had a first year university biology text-book and in reading it I discovered that there is a fascinating and perfectly reasonable alternative to belief in supernatural creation ex nihilo. It’s called evolution and it’s not just a hypothetical best guess. It’s an actual provable attribute of nature. Sure there may be a few gaps in the exact history of every single evolutionary adaptation, but advancements are coming in all the time and there are already enough documented and repeatable scientific experiments to convince anyone who cares enough to learn the cold hard facts.
Douglas Adams reports a similar experience as he continues:
But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins’s books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I’d take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
I can hear the more intelligent group of my religious friends and relatives thinking, “but isn’t it possible to believe in God while still understanding that evolution exists?”
Certainly it may be possible to believe in God but why should I? What reason (and I do mean this in the most logical sense of the word) is there to go back to believing? And even if I did choose to return to my blissfully ignorant state, why specifically should I choose to follow the tenants of Mormonism or even Christianity over some other group’s indoctrinating beliefs? Better service projects? (Actually that’s one of the best reasons I’ve come up with.)
But I digress. I’m still very much fascinated by the idea of religion and at times I even take part in religious discussions within the bloggernacle (wikipedia link). I find myself occasionally playing the devil’s advocate for belief in Mormon doctrine but on the whole I’m a non-believing fakester. (For those of you that I might have happened to teach and baptise during my year long stint as a missionary in Salt Lake City, you’re probably expecting some kind of explanation. In my defense, I can only say, I really believed it at the time and I’m sorry to have tricked you. I hope you have found happiness in a way that I never really could and I also hope that overall it has been a positive experience for you.)
Have I found any positive experiences in religion? It has made me who I am and I’m grateful for that but I certainly wouldn’t do it again. It has also depressed me tragically. I have, for the most part, been happier since I quit going to Church than anytime I can recall throughout my life, albeit I occasionally miss the social aspects.
What has surprised me about living this so-called godless life has been the fact that nothing really changed. All of the good things in my life that I used to attribute to god blessing me have continued. I am still a very fortunate person. I now look at good and bad fortune as being merely chance—I don’t credit any outside force acting upon my life. It has inspired me to realize I can’t sit around and wait for a miracle, if I want to be successful I don’t need to pray for help, I can do it on my own.
I remember when I started swimming for the University, at times I thought about praying for help to keep going (perhaps my coach will say I should have prayed) but I learned that I could do it if I just persevered.
New Roommate
My new roommate moved in today. Everything seems to be working out nicely for me. I think I’m just inherently lucky.
U of L Intramurals Water Polo
My team won the University of Lethbridge’s intramurals water polo championships for this semester tonight!
Shaun Eden, one of the guys on the team, is trying to organize a club team next semester that will play against the University of Calgary’s and University of Alberta’s teams. Too bad I most likely won’t be around.