descartes?

I hung out with Tiffini today. We went putt-putting, bumper-boating, pinballing, movie-watching, and board-game-playing.

The movie was crap. DON’T GO SEE STEPBROTHERS

and I’ll leave you with this”:

Your result for The which philosophy suits your personality? Test…

Cogito Ergo Sum, by Descartes

56% Nature, 67% Rationalism, 45% Religion, 43% Freedom, 48% Individuality, 33% Power and 44% Uncertainty!

You scored highest on the variable Rationalism.

Rationalism was an important part of Descartes’ philosophy.

René Descartes, 1596 – 1650, France.

The phrase he is most famous for is Cogito Ergo Sum which means “I think therefore I am”. Before Descartes, philosophy and theology were pretty much the same thing. But for the first time he didn’t start with God in his reasoning, he started with humans. This was quite revolutionary at the time and caused an “explosion” in philosophy and science. We became the center of reasoning instead of god. Which implied there is nothing we won’t be able to find out/understand in time.

hero they deserve

So I went to see Dark Knight with Ben last night. It was a great movie (like everyone else has blogged about). I usually don’t like superhero movies, but I have to make an exception for this one.

After the movie we went to Tim Horton’s to get something to drink and ended up talking in the parking lot until about 1:30. I think it was good for both of us to see that we really can do things as just friends, and I think that this may be an important step to rebuilding our friendship.

We talked about a lot of things last night, from music, to history, to past friends, to college life…

We’ll see what happens, but I hope to get him back as a good friend… He is someone that is not afraid to tell me that I’m being stupid, and will give me his honest opinion all the time… something a lot of people don’t do

With College quickly approaching, I find myself really excited for the year to come… except for saxophone lessons. I know Nichol is going to say that I didn’t practice enough this summer… but I don’t care. My goal at CMU is not to become a top-notch saxophonist.. it’s to become a top-notch band director.

The star spangled banner, (percussionist version)

Oh say can you BOOM CRASH

by the dawn’s early BOOM CRASH

what so proudly we BOOM CRASH

at the twilight’s last gleaming

Whose broad stripes and bright BOOM CRASH

through the perilous BOOM CRASH

over the ramparts we BOOM CRASH

were so gallantly streaming

and rocket’s red glare

the bombs bursting in air

gave proof through the night

that the flag was still there

oh CRASH CRASH CRASH

CRASH CRASH CRASH

CRASH CRASH CRASH

CRASH-ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Through the BOOM of the BOOM CRASH

and the BOOM of the BOOM

A whole new world

I met one incredible band director during my time at vassar band camp. She is a CMU grad and was a voice and piano major during her time there. She taught at Lakers for a few years, then taught in South Carolina and Kentucky, taking bands to STATE Finals.

I picked up quite a few tricks that I’m going to steal from her. Here is one:

The VMB was having trouble sounding like a prideful group on the field, so she went through this with them. (a call and response).

Feet. TOGETHER.

Stomach. IN.

Shoulders. BACK.

Elbows. FROZEN.

Chin. UP.

EEEEEYYYYYYYEEEES. WITH PRIDE. EEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEES. WITH PRIIIIIDE.

Gave me chills everytime we did it.

I also gained the respect of the brass section very quickly, and we accomplished much in the sectionals. I have to take a moment of honesty now though: I was starting to worry that music ed. wasn’t my passion… I’ve seen the way teachers are mistreated, and constantly have to deal with crappy kids….But this week with the Vassar Vulcan Marching Band reaffirmed my passion of teaching music.

Friends

Lately, I’ve come to a couple of important realizations.

(partially related but not the point of this entry): As much as we don’t like to admit it, a lot of us think we know just about all there is to know about the world (and we know it’s foolish to think this, but do anyway), and everytime we make some more realizations we’re kinda smacked in the face with all the lost oppurtunities we might have had.

One of these realizations has to do with friends. Allow me to categorize:

Friends of Convenience

• High School: We make a lot of friends in high school. Why is this? Mostly because we see these people everyday and need a way to entertain ourselves through the boredom that is a high school education. Sure we might hang out with these guys outside of school while we are still there, but 18 of 19 times these friends fade away from our lives after graduation

• Workplace: We might call some of our coworkers friends, but we should also know that that won’t last past the job.

• College: The unfortunate thing about making friends in college is that these will be our future colleagues. This is especially difficult in the education field. I have made some good friends at college such as Jordan, Cassie, Jon, Kelsey, Ali, Samm, Tracey, Monica, but some barrier inside of me tells me not to make “best friends” of any of these. It could be potentially awkward later in life… i guess. Also, of all these friends i have made… I’ve talked to a total of 3 of them, and just briefly.

Friends for the sake of friendship:

• Born of Convenience: Some of our friends born of convenience become inseperable from us. Some examples of these for me would be Carter, Tiffini, and Liz. We started in high school, and though we may not talk as much as we could… I know each of these friends and I share the comfort that we can call on each other at any time. The problem with these type of frienships is when convenience dissappears. At this point the true bonds of a friendship are tested and often broken.

• Born of shared interests: These friends perhaps are the best, though have their own risks associated with them, namely change of interest. These friends often are met outside of the normal ranging area and are kept in contact by email, phone, IM, and facebook.

• Other: there are some friends that fit all or none of these categories… and often are friendships that last… i don’t know why… it confuses me.

Ok so now that i’m done with my little anaylsis of that, I’d like to say that I’m eating rainbow sherbet right now and thinking about how much things can change in a short amount of time.

and the rest of the summer:

July 21st: Work 1:00-10:30

July22nd: My Birthday

July22nd-July29th: Vassar Band Camp

July30: Work (time not yet set)

July31st: Work (time not yet set)

Aug1st: Work (time not yet set)

Aug2nd: Work (time not yet set)

Aug3rd-8th: Port Huron Northern Band Camp

Aug9th-15th: Work 4 of these 7 days (not yet scheduled)

Aug16th: Pack for college

Aug17th: Back to CMU

Aug18th-22nd: CMB Camp

Aug25th: Fall semester starts

A reading update

Books left in the Dune Series:

Books  in the Prequel Series:

• Dune: House Atreides (1999)
• Dune: House Harkonnen (2000)
• Dune: House Corrino (2001)

Left in the Original Series

Dune (1965)

Dune Messiah (1969)

Children of Dune (1976)

God Emperor of Dune (1981)

Heretics of Dune (1984)

Chapterhouse Dune (1985)

Legends of Dune:

• Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (2002)
• Dune: The Machine Crusade (2003)
• Dune: The Battle of Corrin (2004)

Continuation of the Original Series:

• Hunters of Dune (2006)
• Sandworms of Dune (2007)

The Sword of Truth

5 books left:

• The Pillars of Creation
• Naked Empire
• Chainfire
• Phantom
• Confessor

and
Otherland

• City of Golden Shadow
• River of Blue Fire
• Mountain of Black Glass
• Sea of Silver Light

It’s a good start, but i’ve still got a lot of books left.. and not a whole lot of summer

and so it is…

On the nerdier side of me, my alliance in cybernations has merged (once again) to create Fly. I’m happier with this merge than any of the others we recently went through, mostly because no one wanted the Internal Affairs Position (the pos. i want the most).

So now when i post the newsletter (not yet named… possibly the FLYtrap) , I’m actually doing the work i’m supposed to be doing (instead of going above and beyond the Recruitment position’s responsibilities)

unfortunately, the new forums don’t support html (grr, and after taking all that time (like 3 hrs) to learn the ins and outs of it). On the plus side, as a forum admin, i can creat BB tags that have the same effect, so basically instead of

<br> it becomes [br][/br]

or instead of <valign=”top” > it is now [valign=top][/valign]

so it’s a few extra lines of code, but who really cares?

I feel reminicsent of wolfpack lately, mostly because our Defense Minister (for once someone actually doing his job) is running a war drill for 5000 and less NS nations at this very moment; something wolfpack was very good at doing.

but enough of my nerdiness
night all

Hello world!

I’ve moved to wordpress, at the suggestion of brett… mostly because you can import lj entires

I’ll post both in lj and here for a while, then go soley to this

an odd feeling

I recently met 2 really great (gay) guys through a friend from Frankenmuth and one online

One lives in California and one lives in Alberta, Canada

I’ve been talking to both of these guys every night for nearly a month, and in each case (right off the bat) we made it clear that, because of the distance, this was a friendship only type of thing. It’s a good thing that they both live so far away, because they are both perfect… and if they had lived closer… i would not be able to decide between them

tonight both of them are no longer single…  isn’t it odd that both of them became this way within such a short amount of time from each other?

While it saddens me that it really means that i won’t be with either of them, I feel something different… something i don’t think i’ve every truly felt before in any situation remotely similar to them: I am ecstatic for both of them!

I can’t exactly describe the feeling, but my heart flutters when i think of how happy each of them are now, and it’s a great feeling. Unfortunately… it reminds me of my own, single, state.

Congrats to Cam and BJ, may both of your separate relationships flourish and bring you all the happiness you each deserve, and may our friendships last for months and years to come!

Hopefully the right someone will pop up for me, it doesn’t even have to be soon… for someone that will truly bring me happiness it is worth the wait