pink

ok yeah rachael isn't the only one having a weird day...ok i walk into the cafateria and here's this guy from my history class knitting with bright pink yarn...that was a shocker, he didn't look like the type...i also stood in the finan aid line for 45 minutes just to find out that i need to talk to the cashier people about my gm voucher. Then they ( the cashier people) tell me that i can't use the voucher, i have to pay for my classes first and then gm will refund me. I'm like what if i don't have any money? so yeah that was a waste...my complete inabilty to explain myself in writ 121 caused my prof to try to make me change my topic, just because he couldn't get what i was talking about. ( i really hate that class, it's like lets make everyone look like an idiot class) It sucks, my grandpa had the same problem, he wasn't good with words when he spoke, unfortunately for me i'm not smart like he was so i can't get a way with it. I feel like yelling in class at my profs just to see their reaction, although all of my profs seem to like me, except the before mentioned writ 121 prof, who i think just hates everyone.

Who spiked my coffee?

I am so weird today and I don't know why. Maybe it's the coffee that I got. (thank you tom, I have your $20 now). I've been laughing at random stupid things all day. Philosophy, I got up and left halfway through class because I was bored. In writing, I laughed at the teacher a couple of times (ok, he says steven like steeeven and handed out worksheets that were all wet on the top, is that weird?), until he got annoyed at me and made me read a page out of the book outloud to the class. After that, I wrote a story in my planner about the agony of writing 121 and got in a conversation with the guy behind me about eating chicken quesadillas in class and going on vacation overseas. In sociology, I got really clausterphobic for a little while (we have about 35 people in a little little room), and again, laughed at random things. My prof called pants trousers, and it was unusually funny to me. Hehe, I'm in the computer lab straight across from Kenric and he hasn't noticed me yet. Eventually, he's going to look up and freak out. Maybe. He's really engrossed in whatever he's doing. Well, I hope everyone is having as hilarious a day as I am.

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property

I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys about this site sooner. Its a pretty neat Catholic site. If you sign up for their email service, they send you emails once in a while that let you send an email to protest various things. That have the email already filled out with the protest info. All you have to do is put in your own email address and name. Its pretty easy. Here is the link to the student site.
Also, I just read this article. Here is the link.

Crisp Air

Will our woods look like this soon? What do you think. I think this looks nice. Cold though.

Cool

North Wind
Originally uploaded by notraces.

Hey, so it's Friday night and I have some time to post about what's going on. A few of you either e-mailed me or I told you that I would call you or something but I haven't. Well, I can explain. The past 3 weeks (ending this Sunday) we've been having initiations for us new men. We were matched up with "big brothers" (older seminarians) who were supposed to look after us, keep an eye on us, and help in our formation. Speaking of formation, I hope to talk about this sometime with each of you, cause it's really cool. Here at the seminary we each have a formation director who is in charge of our Human Formation (stuff like keeping our rooms cleaning, watching our tongue, waking up on time, etc.), then we have a spiritual director who is in charge of our spiritual formation. The spiritual director works more with our "internal forum" matters, and our formation director is in charge of our "external forum" matters. It's an amazing system. So anyway, our big brother helps us with whatever human formation stuff he thinks we need to work on during these weeks. So yeah, on Tuesday night at our all-seminary dinner the rector Fr. Baer announced that we were going to have 2 days of discipleship. In other words, each of us new men would have to follow our big brother everywhere. To class, to morning/evening prayer, mass, holy hour, all that stuff. That just got over last night and I can tell you that the people in charge here know what they are doing. It was very beneficial to all of us. I mean, think about it, how often are you around people who know you. It forces you to think about each word that comes out of your mouth, and to really consider all your habits. Anyway, so that's what went on this week.

Classes are going pretty well. I have Latin, basic Philosophy, basic Theology, and English. Latin is by far the most difficult class, but I'm enjoying, Theology is growing more and more on me. I don't have the greatest teacher in terms of orthodoxy, but we're pretty much using the bible as a textbook so it's good. Oh, and there are quite of a few other freshmen in the class, and they ask a lot of questions and the teacher kind of beats around the bush instead of giving them the truth! It's frustrating, but if anyone ever approaches you with questions about the Catholic Church, religion, God, or anything partaining to, please, don't for a moment be reluctant to answer. It's very sad sometimes being on this campus and see some teachers feeding genuinely curious students with lies. I haven't really experienced it yet, but I know those professors (and, of course, some students) are out there. Now, most of the time you can't bring anything up during class because that would not be very respectful to the student. Plus, if the student asking the question is genuinely curious, they may be more likely to believe the prof, so it's a losing battle. The best thing would be to pray for them, and if you feel compelled to, talk to them outside of class. Ok, I'm not preaching, this is coming straight from the rector here at the seminary. So I'm just passing on the good truth.

Anyway, I gotta get going now, feel free to give me a call. I probably won't answer it, but I will be sure to call you back.

Update

Hey guys,
I got another update for ya.

First, I have taken up weightlifting. I'm only benching 55, but I was told to start slow 'till I got used to it. I can squat 95, though.

Second, I've seen a few more movies. I've seen Braveheart, Lost in Translation, and Maximum Overdrive. Braveheart is a great movie, but I think most of you have seen it and know that. Lost in Translation was also a great movie, but it was pretty different. And last, and least, was Maximum Overdrive. It was a terrible movie, but it was so bad it was funny. It was based on a Stephen King book and it was directed by him. It was supposed to be a horror movie, but any suspense was killed by the AC/DC soundtrack. It was also pretty much plotless and the acing was terrible. But all of this made for a hilarious movie, even though it was supposed to be serious. If you can take a fair amount of violence and some swear words, watch it.

Finaly, I guess the only thing left to tell is my rather odd experience of this afternoon. Trystan was talking to his girlfriend like he always does. Tim was dozing on his top bunk. When Trystan got off the phone he just started yelling. Then, he lifted Tim right off of his bed and put him on the floor. Then he picked me up and, yelling, carred me down a hallway to a couch and threw me down, breaking part of the couch. All off this happend in the span of less than two minutes. Needless to say, at the end of this everyone who lives on that hall was looking out at us. It was one of the oddest experiences I've had here yet.

I guess that's all for now.

Be in tuch,

John W.

Rain

coming together
Originally uploaded by conditioned.

Guys, it's raining out and i'm soaked just from walking from OC to TLC. and sarah, my flip-flops are now sticky. gross. i wish i had an umbrella and tennis shoes.

Death of Trig

Big news guys, someone has abolished Trig.

My roommate Miguel found this article about Trigonometry. It says that some professor in Austrialia has rewriten the rules of Trig, and gotten rid of Sine, Cosine, and Tangent. Very interesting, hmm...

I would have posted the entire article, but it would have been a pretty big post. Read the article and tell me what you think.

Update From Florida

Hey guys,
It's me again. I'm posting a brief up date of my current status. This post may be in a rather random order, but hey, it's been a long week.

First off, the food is as good as ever here. I had breaded shrimp on Friday. That was pretty good. For the most part, though, I eat a lot of meat and potatoes an other generaly unhealthy food.

I have also seen three movies and one season of a TV series. The movies were: Amadeus, which was a great movie and I recomend it to all of you, Super Mario Brothers, which was a bad movie and that made it hilarious, and On the Waterfront, which was a very good movie and it stared Marlon Brando, who "Coulda been a contenda." That was only this week, last week I watched the first two Austin Powers movies. The week before that I saw Edward Scissorhands and Arsinic and Old Lace. Incedentaly, I highly recomend both of those movies. So, as I commented to Tim last night, in my first year here I will probably watch more and better movies than I did in the last year and a half.

Now, as for the rest of my life (ha, ha). I usualy get to bed somewhere between 12 and 1 o'clock, and on school days I get up around 7:30. Most other days I get up after 10. As you can probably tell I get less sleep than I should, but I'm working on that.

Moving on to the most important part of my life, schoolwoork. I'm behind in my reading for most of my classes. I finished the Iliad this week, however, so I'm thankful for that victory, anyway. I also have a paper due for the Iliad on the 30th, so as usual I'm having a hard time getting started. Oh well, I guess school is a neverending process.

Finaly, rest of my life. There is not a whole lot to report. My roommates and I still get into a lot of discussions, which is the main reason I'm behind in my homework. I also went swing dancing the Friday before last, and I plan to go again next Friday. I'm not too bad at it, and it is lots of fun. You guys need to get Marnee to teach you how. Other than that there is not a whole lot going on for me that I can think of.

Feel free to post any questions you my have for me about my life here and I will check the blog every day and try to respond to them.

Talk to you guys soon,

John

P.S. I was reading Catholic Exchange as I wrote this, and I came across this article that mentions Lansing. I think you guys might find this interesting. Enjoy.

Due to Popular Demand...

(Hence the title being the same as Jennifer's first blog post)

HOUSE IS BACK!!! Tomorrow is the new season premiere, and I guess what. Kenric likes it so much, yet he has to stay at LCC until 10 and he can't watch it. If you didn't catch sarcasm there, I don't know what I will do with you. Some other people can't watch it either.

this is ben

If you didn't read the intro to "john's post' do so now.

Well Sarah, I just got done responding to your e-mail. I've been on retreat since Tuesday so I haven't really been here long anyway. Things are going well though. I have a great roommate who is in to St. Therese, so that pumped me up. Also, Fr. Baer is currently teaching us new guys the art of a productive holy hour. It's awesome. He's currently working on our meditation skills which includes reading, for example, a verse in the bible, connecting it to similar verses, and gathering Christ's full teaching on, say, chastity. It's quite amazing. Let's say you are studying the beatitudes. Well, you take the first one, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for their's is the kingdom of heaven." You break down the sentence and note what stands out. For example, this beatitude must, in some way, carry a higher significance because Christ chose to mention it first. Also, Christ used the posessive, "their's", which, as you can probably gather is quite a statement when speaking about heaven. Anyway, I'm kind of rambling on so I will stop.

this is john

Since Ben and John seem unable to master the art of posting, i will do it for them:

Well, this is my second post since I got here (Florida), so I'll try to recap my current situation.

I got here safely(duh) and I've been in classes for about a week. There is a ton of reading to do for each class. For instance, I have 9 books of the Iliad to read every week, for the next three weeks or so. That translates to more than 100 pages a week. Than I have to study Latin, which is not too bad right now, but there is a decent amount of memorazation (spelling error). Than History is a lot of reading, about 50 pages or so. Than there is Math. My easiest class so far, about all of the homework we have for that class is to read a intranet(not internet, Kenric you should understand this) site our teacher made. That about covers the basics of schoolwork.

On to my social life(ha, ha, ha, I kill me!, social life). My roommates are very cool, and as I spend most of my life in my room I see them the most. Their names are, Meguiel (I hope i came close), Trystan, and Tim. Meguiel is by far the oldest of us all. He is 23 and this is his first year here. He wants to become a Theologian, and me and have had many long argumentsover a broad range of topics. Trystan is a homeschooler and is very bright. He is often involved in arguments in our room as well, though, lately he has not been isn the room very much. Mostly because he talks to his girlfriend over the internet alot. Tim rounds out our band. He is a Lit major. He tends to be quieter than the rest of us, when we get into discussions, but he still jumps in often. And we have had many discussion of our own, because we are the ones who go to sleep the earliest. As you can see we talk a lot in our room, and I'm learning a lot from all of them.

Finaly, on the rest of the college. The food here is very good. Whoever says that cafeteria food sucks has not eaten at Ave Maria. At noon and six everyone says the Angelus. Everyone in the cafeteria will stop eating, and pray. The campus is very small, maybe three blocks from one end to the other, and perhaps a block wide. Those three blocks can seem like mile when you have to walk from one side of campus to the other in the heat of the midday sun, and when the humidity makes you feel as though you are breathing sand.

Well, that is my experience at Ave Maria so far. I will try to keep up on the blog as much as posible, with my homework and the play I'm helping with. Sorry this post is so long, but that is as brief as I could be and explain things.

The World According to Jennifer

Check out my blog.
www.philaphobic.blogspot.com

Looking for Chapel Angels

I know, that term is cliche but I think I will be using it from now on. It suits the project.

FOR EVERYONE INTERESTED IN HELPING DESIGN THE CHAPEL, we will be going to Most Holy Trinity Church this Saturday (10th) and taking the pews we want out of the basement, bringing them to my house, and deciding (a.) what we will need to do to them (i.e. strip, stain, finsh) (b.) how to design the rest of the chapel using those wood tones, and (c.) how we want the over all chapel to be designed (write up a plan). As you probably know, my dad is in charge of all the wood, so we will also be going over to his store (and I will have to arrange these details with him) to look at trim and crown samples. The reason it is important that we decide on all this in the next few days is because my dad would like to get started on this large project, and he still needs to talk to John Lehman about it. John Lehmen needs to know soon so the GM workers can get started.
Kapeesh? Okay, lets meet at the church at 11:00 Saturday morning. I just tossed out the time, partly beacuse of my dad's business hours (8-noon) so let me know if that is too early. (that is, CALL ME)
Thank you for flying with United we hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

Message Board

Ok, here is the message board post for use for messages you want to leave to people. An example would be me. I am currently in the library, and i will be here when Tom is done with class. We said we would meet in the computer lab. I had to make a new post to tell him that. I wont have to anymore. All i will have to do is comment. Tell me if this is a dumb idea and i will delete the link you see to your right.

URGENT MESSAGE/REQUEST

I just heard today from Haley that Amber is very sick. She had to go to the emergency room on Monday or something. They think she has hepatitis, and she has cramps (not the corect term, but I forgot what I actually heard) in her neck and shoulders. So I urge you guys to pray for her. Thank you.

the unpostliness of far away people...

I feel as though there is an effort in the part of all you long-gone people spread about the country, in places such as minnesota and florida, not to mention central, to forget the place that you left behind. ( a.k.a. Michigan) I put forth as evidence the lack of posting by such people as you. Although i have talked to Jennifer, the mysteries of seminary and ave maria are still um enigmas. So on behalf of all of us bored LCC people , please post before i go crazy. I have nothing to do but sit in the dimly lit and slightly funny smelling ( according to Rachael) computer lab and make stupid posts about nothing...
Speaking of nothing i think that i will make you all read g k chesterton's essay on chalk...