On All Hallows’ Eve
Freaks come out of the woodwork
Scouring the town
Dressed for a party
Dressed for havoc and mischief
Dressed to trick and treat
Goblins and sprits
Are they real or just costumes
Who can really tell
Careful with candy
Get home before the full moon
Happy Halloween!
I let myself go
Not paying close attention
Hope it's not too late
I haven’t blogged in a long, long time (it seems to me, at any rate). I’ve had some personal issues to deal with that occupied my attention. At work, I’m on a deadline with a particular project to get it down before November begins. At school, I’ve got two term papers to write (and a large annotated bibliography to hand it to my professor – again at the beginning of November.
One of my term papers is on St. Elizabeth of Schonau – the choice was entirely mine to make. I could have picked a more accessible medieval writer like Chaucer or Marie de France or somebody but I chose St. Elizabeth (well, she’s never been formally canonized but they still call her that anyway). My main problems deal with the paucity of secondary sources on her – despite the revival of interest in female medieval mysticism she just hasn’t been a major topic of scholarly study.
Then there is the health issues I’ve been dealing with. Now don’t get me wrong I feel fine (mostly) but it seems years and years of putting things off is coming back to bite me. First, I’ve finally decided to get my teeth fixed – they’ve been crooked for as long as I can remember and I probably should have gotten braces when I was a teenager like everybody else does but...I put it off. Now I have finally made the decision to get them straightened there is no turning back from what’s ahead – which included the extraction of 8 teeth (four of which are impacted wisdom teeth that will require oral surgery), then the wearing of braces for 2 ½ years, then a retainer at night for the rest of my life.....nice, huh? Not to mention the nearly $6,000 its going cost me ($2,000 of that as a down payment) since my insurance doesn’t cover orthodontics. I’m on a student budget as it is, this is going to wipe out what’s left of my savings account.
Then there was the news I got yesterday during what I assumed would be a regular yearly check-up. Turns out I have hypertension (i.e. high blood pressure) and while I have been on the borderline for many years, now I have gone over it. So I have to take blood pressure pills (one a day), my gosh I feel like my mother now (her doctors keep prescribing her all kinds of pill – most of which she is dubious about needing). Hypertension is known as a “silent killer” because there are really no warning symptoms to let you know you have it other than getting your blood pressure (and blood) tested regularly. My doctor says I’m lucky because I’m young enough to halt it before I get a stroke, or heart attack or blood clot or something (trust me, the alternatives have been all I can think of since). It all depends, of course, on me changing my own behavior.
He sent me to a dietician – it seems if I want to lower my blood pressure, stop taking pills and save my life, I have to start eating healthier, cutting down on sugar and salt and carbs. Apparently eating junk food and Coca-Cola as your breakfast, lunch and dinner is NOT healthy (who knew?), in addition to the half-dozen cups of coffee/tea with at least 2 packets of sugar apiece I treat myself to at work. My lack of any exercise (I sit behind a computer all day at work, a desk all day in class, and then I just flop into bed) doesn’t help either. Of course the fact that I have gained 20 pounds in less than two years after an entire adult life of having my weight at a stable (and much, much slimmer) 143 lbs. should have been my first clue to change my habits. But that is easier said than done, isn’t it? It just takes discipline – something I’m not really experienced at. Let’s see how it goes.
Oh and did I mention I also seem to have dry eye? Looks like I’m going to have get some of those artificial tears.
I know it seems silly. Lots and lots of people are going through horrible, sad, heart-breaking times in their lives right now and I’m complaining about this (which in comparison doesn’t seem so bad). It just seems to me that all my sins are catching up to me. Sloth and Gluttony, they are more deadly than even Lust or Pride.
So once again the NY Yankees get fabulously destroyed in the playoffs by a team that was considered the underdog – in this case the Detroit Tigers who just a few years ago lost more than 100 games. After a good opening Game 1 it seemed this series would be easy, after the Yankees had collected one of the greatest hitting line-ups in baseball history, right? Think again, The Tigers pitching just silenced the Yankees bats (even, to add insult to injury, by former Yankee and Yankee fan target, Kenny Rogers). At the same time the Yankee starting pitching couldn’t give away runs fast enough.
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Tagged by Carmel (of course!)
1. A Place You've Visited and Your Favorite Thing there.
Hershey, Pennsylvania - I loved the the chocolate factory (duh!)
2. A Country You'd Like to Visit and Why
Italy, centuries of history just waiting to be discovered there (by me)
3. A Place From History You'd Like to Visit and Why
If we're talking the future I'd love to see NYC 200 years from now, in the past it would have to be Rome when Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, in present day I'd love to see the Scottish Highlands.
4. A Place You Know A Lot About
New York, New York. The city so nice, they named it twice. :)
5. A Place You'd Like to Learn More About
Greenland (which ain't all that green)
6. A Fictional Place You'd Like to Visit
L. Frank Baum's Oz (book version, not movie), I'd love to live in the Emerald City with Dorothy, Ozma, the Wizard, the Scarecrow and the Patchwork Girl.
| You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy) |
 You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer. |
| You Belong in Amsterdam |
 A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city). |
Others used as tools
To expend pain, destruction
The face of evil
The baseball playoffs start today. Even though the Yankees basically waltzed into the post-season playing mediocre ball, they are facing a Detroit Tiger team that is inexperienced and blew a double digit lead and the Central Division title at the end of the season despite being in first place for almost the entire year. Still, Jim Leyland is a great manager and the Tigers have good young pitching. On the other side we have Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter (‘nuff said). Here’s hoping PayRod finally comes through with the season on the line. I’m crossing my finger on this one. Here’s also hoping the A’s get rid of the Twins. I know I don’t want the Yanks to face the Twin pitching in a 7 game series.
As for the Mets, with Pedro Martinez gone, its going to be a bit harder. Glavine’s going to have to step up. I have no doubts about the Met line-up versus the Dodgers. Any team from the National League West doesn’t exactly inspire fear in a New York fan. The Padres and the Cardinals should make an interesting series. Initially the Cards should be the odd-on favorite but they stumbled into the playoffs, letting Houston back into the race, while the Padres pretty much controlled their own destiny in winning the West.
Simply horrifying. If even Amish children aren't safe, then no one is (as if we have to be reminded of that fact).
I think Rod Dreher put it best: "It's an old, old question, and there is no good answer for it, but it haunts me on a day like today: Why does God allow this to happen? Those little girls, in an Amish schoolhouse. All those children, seeing their classmates slaughtered like animals. Why? I know there's no answer for this. But that doesn't make the question go away."
You think you can get used to it when these sort of things happen. But I never do...and thank God for that because it lets me know I'm still capable of feeling.
Updated: Five Young Girls Dead
Sweet Jesus.
Since sundown has passed here in NYC, the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur has passed. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar and is the one I take the most seriously (not that I come from a religious background or anything - but I at least make an effort). On this day, one prays and fasts for 24 hours, and asks forgiveness not only to God but to everyone we have harmed in the past year. The idea is that this is the day set apart in which God looks in the "Book of Life" and judges each person based on their deeds. In a sense it is a day of renewal as you clean the slate of sins from the past year and look forward to the next one. What a wonderful idea, huh?
Spreading the info
Passed my Italian test
One less thing to do
Haven't blogged much due to work & school commitments but also because I've been playing around with my template. I wanted to have 3 columns so I can have my blogroll all on one side and other links on the other. It was a bit difficult at first to get something that worked but I've tested this one with both Firefox and Internet Explorer and it hasn't gone screwy yet.
Celibacy is a discipline, not a doctrine of the church. Since it's not a doctrine there is no need for a scriptual basis for it. Eastern-Rite Catholics (Ukrainians, Maronites, etc.) united to Rome have a married priesthood and the Vatican has allowed exceptions for Protestant pastors who convert to Catholicism and want to become priests to do so and remain married. However there are exceptions to both rules - if the wife dies, the husband cannot remarry, in the Eastern-rite you cannot marry AFTER being ordained a priest (only before) and married men cannot become bishops. Celibacy has a long and noble (and not so noble) history dating back to the early church but in the priesthood in the Latin Rite Church it became mandatory for clergy in the 11th Century or so in an attempot at reforn. The Pope could change it tomorrow - but he won't. Married priests are not a panacea - married men can become sexual predators as well as celibate ones and mainline Protestant clergy (Methodists, Anglicans) with married priests aren't exactly having a vocation boom.
Having said that Milingo deserves the heave-ho. These men he "ordained" are members of schismatic churches who don't recognize the Pope and have different doctrines. They are NOT Roman Catholic - and now neither is he.
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Ahoy, me matey
It’s “Talk Like a Pirate Day”
Get out your best “Aaargh!”
Please excuse this blog
Template experimenting
Gonna take awhile
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time waster
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Only day later
Yet memories start to fade
Mind protects itself
Like many, I remember where I was 5 years ago, I can recall almost all of my movements from that day. I remember getting ready for school, listening to the radio, when the announcer suddenly said a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I turned on the TV to see the news, and saw the second tower hit. “This was no accident”, the thought crossed my mind instantly, as it must have done to so many others. I still went to school, classes were cancelled (big surprise, huh?), but it’s amazing what one’s priorities are even in times of trauma. I don’t think it had all sunk in yet.
I went to my grandmother’s house and watched events unfold on TV with my cousins - watched as the towers collapsed, one right after the other, like a house of cards, into dust and debris. The two tallest structures in New York City, two of the tallest building in the world, more than 3,000 human lives and countless thousands other changed forever - and all at the hands of a literal handful of cold-blooded fanatics. Not to mention the hundreds of lives lost at the Pentagon and United 93 over Pennsylvania.
Maybe I’m naive but I don’t understand that kind of evil. I cannot fathom minds that can so cold-bloodily, so methodically kill other human beings. But such people do exist, such people continue to seek the end of civilization as we know it. For these people the event of September 11, 2001 were just the beginning but for rest of us it MUST be the end. It’s easy to forget , days, weeks can go by and I don’t think about it. Then something or another will bring me to downtown Manhattan and see the large gaping hole where Towers 1 & 2 once stood and the memories come back. Of my sisters picking up debris from the WTC miles away across the Hudson at her H.S. running track. At my father breaking down at his job because he thought my mother was in the area when it happened (she was but not that close), of the hours my family spent worrying about my uncle who worked in Tower 1 and waiting to see if he was OK (he was). Of watching the TV helplessly, knowing that just a few hours walk from where I was, thousands of my fellow New Yorkers were losing their lives.
At the time my greatest feelings were of loss, sadness and helplessness - and I wasn’t nearly as affected as others were. That’s why we can never forget 9/11, never stop commemorating its anniversary - so America never forgets. With our very lives and futures at stake, we don’t have that option.
Blogging is easy
But not when there is no time
My hours are full
Another Meme, Via Carmel
If you could meet and have a deep conversation with any five people on earth, living or dead, from any time period, who would they be? Explaining why is optional. Name five people from each of the following categories: saints, those in the process of being canonized, heroes from your native country, authors/writers, celebrities.
Saints:
1. St. Joan of Arc
2. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
3. St. Jerome
4. St. Catherine of Siena
5. St. Radegund
Those in the Process of Being Canonized:
1. Kateri Tekakwitha
2. Pierre Toussaint
3. Pope John Paul II
4. Pier Giorgio Frassati
5. Margaret of Castello
Heroes From Your Native Country:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Teddy Roosevelt
3. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
4. Nellie Bly
5. Jimmy Stewart (yes, the actor)
Authors/Writers:
1. Jane Austen
2. William Shakespeare
3. Lewis Carroll
4. G. K. Chesterton
5. Anne Frank
Celebrities:
1. Orson Welles
2. Pope Benedict XVI
3. Robert Bresson
4. Harry Houdini
5. Doc Holliday
And so it begins...
School classes started today
My brain's not ready
We age so quickly
Eighteen seems so far away
To be young again
Drilling all over
In my teeth and in the streets
Giving me headache
How sweet it is! Everything is forgiven when it comes to the Yankee's inconsistent play this season with the sweep of the Blosox or Redsux (depending on how you call them) 5 straight games, outscoring Boston, outpitching Boston, outplaying Boston (led by the truly Most Valuable Player in the majors, Derek Jeter - forget the numbers, is there a player as indespendsible as him?). The Sux are now 6 1/2 games back in the East and trailing in the Wild Card, this after leading the Division for most of the season. Even Big Papi Ortiz couldn't save them this time. What's more, the series revealed how truly horrible the Boston bullpen is (at times it seemed like the Yankees were using the Boston relievers for batting practice). Also if you think about the Red Sox blew their chances to run away with the Division when they could....the Yankees have been without their starting right fielder (Sheffield), their starting left fielder (Matsui), basically 3 steady starting pictchers (Mussina, Wang and Johnson) and 2 dependable relievers (Proctor and Mo Rivera). All of that and the Sux couldn't put the Yankees away (and believe me, despite their above .500 record, the Yankees have been topsy-turvy all season). Now the Yankees are facing mostly sub-.500 teams the rest of the way and the Red Sox have to worry about catching the White Sox and Twins. Honestly, the rest of the season from now on (if the Sux don't come back that is) is pure icing on the cake..
I guess you have to be a Yankee fan to understand how big a win this was, the biggest blow-out of the Sux since 1978 (when the Yankees overtook Boston and went on to win the World Series), the first 5 game sweep of them since 1950s and the first 5 game sweep of them AT Fenway since the 1940s. More importanly, at least in my eyes, it mostly redeems the Great Yankee Choke of 2004 which enabled Boston win the W.S. No more do the Yankees seemed hexed by David Ortiz, Curt Schilling and Red Sox Nation. But you know what they say....God is a Yankee fan!
| You Should Be a Film Writer |
 You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen! |
INTJ - "Mastermind". Introverted intellectual with a preference for finding certainty. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 2.1% of total population. |
