Goodbye, California

Malone College never screwed me over. I have many friends who hated how the school dealt with them, but I never experienced this firsthand--the closest it came was when I had to miss out on taking Playwriting because of a scheduling conflict. I was content with Malone College, and would always recommend it to people.

Malone University has screwed me over. Despite the fact that it had been used as a Cross-Cultural credit before, despite the fact that every administrator and professor claimed to support me in going, despite the fact that classes with no actual Cross-Cultural interaction are on the official Gen Ed menu, the Gen Ed committee refused my petition to count LA toward my Cross-Cultural Gen Ed. I will not graduate late. I now have lost. I will finish out my Senior year at Malone University. I wish I could blame someone, but I can't--it's just the way things have gone.

I love all of my Malone friends--the one benefit of all of this is that I won't have to leave them. The Lord is faithful, and all will be well. I am only saddened that things have not gone as I hoped they would. Prayer for my peace of mind with this turn of events would be appreciated.

Another post that just tells you what I've been up to.

My computer is broken. Okay, so not "broken." But it no longer acknowledges that I have a CD/DVD drive. This is quite irksome to me. I only noticed it today, but it's been a couple weeks since I used it so I can't say for sure. Got any advice of how to fix it?

In other news, I got back early from this weekend's Forensics tourney a day early (sadly, because none of us made finals) and got to catch some extra Zs. I am almost 100% over my recent bout of illness, and am only slightly behind schedule academically.

I battled with the Gladiator group today, and am now conflicted in choosing between Forensics and Camp this next weekend. Camp, it's my only chance, period, before I leave for LA. Forensics, it's a big deal tournament, and I only have two more before I leave. Plus there's the whole "I'm on a scholarship" thing.

I wish this would lead to some deep insights, but I just haven't written in a while, and my journal is almost full, so I don't want to run out of space before I can get a new one.

Promise of the Future--Pictures of the Past

My close friends and regular readers will know that I'm a huge fan of the past/future dichotomy, especially in the Heritage/Destiny sense. So today was quite an enjoyable day for me. I went through some old stuff and found a bunch of notes I'd saved from high school. Most of them were from my friend Amanda, but there were one or two others as well. I decided to type them into my word processor, since the papers they were on were getting somewhat worn after years in storage. Rereading them to do so, I couldn't believe I was so dense that I didn't realize she had liked me until she admitted to it a couple years ago. Not that we would have worked out - I'm just shocked by the fact that I didn't see it.

After a little while spent in the past, I decided to transfer some of my notes from this year to my computer - this time I mean class notes, not notes from people - and have at present managed to completely record two of my classes in this way. But while I was working on this project, I swapped over to Firefox and checked my email. Sitting in my inbox was a message from LAFSC: I've been accepted.

I'm not free of any more work now. I still have a lot of work to do, getting my finances together, convincing Malone to deal with my Gen Eds the way I want them to, signing and mailing a couple forms... all sorts of formalities. But all of this work is under the promise of results, the lack of which is the reason I hate application process. And of course it isn't as if I'm just tossing Ohio a quick goodbye and never looking back. My relationship with Caroline is scarcely a week old, and we'll have about two months until I leave. But we decided when we started going out that I wouldn't bemoan my leaving for our sake.

This is not among the more reflective of my blogs, but then, they can't all be.

Rules of Dancing

I have discovered that I have certain rules for dances. I discovered that I had them some time ago, actually, but I have been refining them ever since. The rules are different depending on whether or not you have a date. If you have no date, the typical rule I have is just "Unless you have a valid reason not to dance (poor equilibrium, in pain, religious beliefs), you ought to dance with anyone who asks at least once." When you have a date, however, dancing is limited differently. My personal rules look something like this:

RULE 1: I will only dance...
1) with my date.
2) in a group.
3) by myself.

Therefore, I do not dance with anyone else, friend or otherwise, while on a date. I toyed with the idea of allowing "anyone my date tells me to dance with" on the list as well, but that has some unpleasant potential implications.

RULE 2: On any slow dance, I will make eye contact with my date, and I will never look over her shoulder at other dancers.

This is just plain rude. You're there with your date. Not the other dancers. She should have your complete focus. All the time.

RULE 3: I will not hold my date to the first two rules.

This took a lot of personal growth on my part to allow this, but I realize that other people do like to dance with friends, and it would be rather inflexible of me to insist on all of her attention for the entire night.

RULE 4: My date sets the level of intimacy for the dancing.

I never pull a date close if I don't know how comfortable she is with me. If she wants to dance close, we dance close. If she wants space, we dance with a reasonable distance between us.

These are what come to mind. It just seems like common courtesy to me. What about you, oh faithful readers?

Discipline

Tonight, I had to be a hard-ass. I did not intend this at the beginning of the night, but I knew nearly an hour before it happened that it might be necessary. I have held the title of leader for over a year in one capacity or another, but this is the first time that I've had to truly rebuke someone from that position. (I did once throw someone out of my room for disrespecting my friends and guests, but that was without any real authority.) This was my first case of using authority to discipline someone. What's more, it was for attempting to circumvent or undermine my authority.

I did not like what I had to do. I have suffered such chastisements before (thankfully, no more than words were needed tonight). But I did not feel guilty. I cannot claim that it was the office I held that spoke in my stead, nor would I want to. I was speaking. The effect on me was very real. But such behavior without the authority, and I would feel the need to seek forgiveness. I feel no such need. I was in the right. Even before others confirmed to me that I was in the right, I knew.

For the longest time, I have held the view that the government has the right to do things that citizens do not. Capital punishment is, clearly, not the same thing as murder. Neither is war. But now I can understand in a way of which I had previously been ignorant the way in which these things affect the agents of government. More thoughts on this topic fill my mind, but I do not presume to write these half-formed musings into writing. In fact, I may have already said too much.

Virtues

Some time ago, I came across the Maltese Cross:

This was of no great significance to me, except for the symbolism. The eight external points represent the eight chivalric virtues of Loyalty, Piety, Frankness, Bravery, Glory and Honor, Contempt of Death, Helpfulness to the Poor and Sick, and Respect for the Church. I began thinking of what each of these may mean:

Loyalty: Always remain true and faithful to those who love you and those whom you love.
Piety: Always give first praise and glory to the Lord your God, and worship Him with all your heart.
Frankness: Always speak the truth without balking, even when it is unpleasant to either yourself or the hearer. Neither lie nor hold back, especially in matters of conviction.
Bravery: Never let fear turn you from what you know to be a right course of action.
Glory and Honor: Always give respect and tribute to those who have earned it with right action, justice, and mercy, and ever strive to be worthy of such high compliments yourself
Contempt of Death: Never fear death as a monster, but view it as your enemy with whom you must one day join in battle. Death is brought about by sin, and so must be hated, but is powerless in the face of God, and so must never be feared.
Helpfulness to the Poor and Sick: Always help those whom it is within your power to help, even if this is comprised of no more than pointing them to someone who can better aid them.
Respect for the Church: Always give due respect to the body of believers that constitute the Church. This is not summed up in politeness but by seeking to protect the honor of Christ's bride with openness, integrity, and honesty.

Two things you may notice: these are inherently Christian and Spiritual, and there is no mention of politeness or courtesy. First of all, this is because Chivalry was invented within an inherently Christian system—other honor codes suit well other religions or atheistic traditions. Secondly, being polite—especially to the degree of Political Correctness prevalent in today's society—is not a virtue. To unnecessarily insult someone is not Chivalrous because it denies the virtue of Glory and Honor, but to hold off telling the truth for fear of offense is just as bad.
I am not living by these standards. I'd love it if I were, but I'm not this good yet. Nonetheless, these are my goals for behavior. What are your views on the matter?

Essay Writing

So, my expository writing class will probably be the source of a lot of the things I write here in the near future. On the plus side, the ideas I've been generating for future blogs will be very helpful in choosing essay topics, which I will in turn post here (though not without revision).

I'm beginning to wonder about my motivations for many of the things I do. I won't explore this fully now, but I felt like putting the generic idea out there in the world.