Bushido: the way of the warrior

Gi – Honesty and Justice: Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. believe in justice, not from others people but from yourself. to the true samurai, there are no shades of gray in the question of honesty and justice. There is only right and wrong.

Rei – Polite Courtesy: Samurai have no reason to be cruel. They do not need to prove their strength. A samurai is courteous even to his enemies. without this outward show of respect, we are nothing more than animals. A samurai is not only respected for his strength in battle, but also by his dealing with other men. The true strength of a samurai becomes apparent during difficult times.

Yu – Heroic Courage: Rise up above the masses of people who are afraid to act. Hiding like a turtle in a shell is not living at all. A samurai must have heroic courage. It is absolutely risky. It is dangerous. It is living life completely, fully, wonderfully. Heroic courage is not blind. It is intelligent and strong.

Meiyo – Honor: A true samurai has only one judge of honor, and this is himself. Decisions you make and how these decisions are carried out are a reflection of whom you truly are. You cannot hide from yourself.

Jin – Compassion: Through intense training the samurai becomes quick and strong. He is not as other men. He develops a power that must be used for the good of all. He has compassion. He helps his fellow man at every opportunity. If an opportunity does not arise, he goes out of his way to find one.

Makoto – Complete Sincerity: When a samurai has said he will perform an action, it is as good as done. Nothing will stop him from completing what he has said he will do. He does not have to “give his word.” He does not have to “promise.” Speaking ad doing are the same action.

Chu – Duty and Loyalty: For the samurai, having done some “thing” or said some “thing,” he knows he owns that “thing.” He is responsible for it, and all the consequences that follow. A samurai is immensely loyal to those in his care. To those he is responsible for, he remains fiercely true.

So, as if I haven't been working enough this week (Charles was on vacation), I spent all today (meaning, 5-just now) baking. cookies. I made butterscotch cornflakes squares (like rice crispie treats, but with the above mentioned ingredients, plus peanut butter. really easy). They came out fantabulously (I think). I then made white chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies. Thing is, recipe said 10-15 minutes in the oven. 10 1/2 was a little too much, and 9 was almost too much for the second tray. I was worried because the chocolate and nuts made the gobs of dough very chunky looking, but the dough expanded, while the chocolate and nuts did not, so they came out fine. I couldn't find any cooking white chocolate bars or whole macadamia nuts, so I had to use fancy white chocolate and oven roasted nuts. And I used wheat flour, because frankly, it's cooler. So they taste different, but still good. And, the mint chocolate chip meringue just went into the oven, with the instructions of preheating the oven, putting in the gobs of goo, turning off the oven and leaving them there overnight. Yes, 8-12 hours. yeesh! Anyway, I'm worried because it looks like toothpaste with chocolate chips. I hope it tastes better. I tried making a double batch, because the recipe had said it only made 24, but I definately made three trays worth of one-inch diameter cookies. and it took forever, I mean FOREVER to whip the egg/sugar melange to a cool-whip consistency. Whatever, I baked them all. I am now super cool. plus my girlfriend thinks cooking is hot. [grins] I win. Even if they don't taste as well as they could. You know why? because I made three types of cookies. So she is bound to actually love at least one kind, even though she'll compliment all three [laughs]. Yeesh, I need sleep. Oh, and I get to carve a ham at work for thanksgiving luncheons. weeeeee! (extra money) weeeeee!

So, my little brother is almost cool. I got off work early, so I got to hear him practice drums (timpani) for all-state audition tapes that he'll make later this week, but I also got to hear him play around on the regular drum set. He needs a band; he has a good sound but needs the fluency of more frequent use. He dresses almost as though he'd be a punk if mom would let him out of the house wearing it. I can't say I ever fit into a particular category except "prep", which is only cool to preps, and which we never felt was particularly cool, either.

Life is going. To quote a quote that I feel is fitting to my mood: "I can't say I'm very pleased with where my life is just now...but I can't help but look forward to where it's going."

"Man is mortal. That is his fate. Man pretends not to be mortal. That is his sin. Man is a creature of time and place, whose perspectives and insights are invariably conditioned by his immediate circumstances. But man is not merely the prisoner of time and place. He touches the fringes of the eternal. He is not content to be merely American man, or Chinese man, or bourgeois man, or man of the twentieth century. He wants to be man. He is not content with his truth. He seeks the truth. His memory spans the ages in order that he may transcend his age. His restless mind seeks to comprehend the meaning of all cultures so that he may not be caught within the limitations of his own.

"Thus man builds towers of the spirit from which he may survey larger horizons than those of his class, race and nation. This is a necessary human enterprise. Without it man could not come to his full estate. But it is also inevitable that these towers should be Towers of Babel, that they should pretend to reach higher than their real height; and should claim a finality which they cannot possess. The truth man finds and speaks is, for all of his efforts to transcend himself, still his truth. The 'good' which he discovers is, for all his efforts to disassociate it from his own interest and interests, still his 'good.' The higher the tower is built to escape unnecessary limitations of the human imagination, the more certain it will be to defy necessary and inevitable limitations. Thus sin corrupts the highest as well as the lowest achievements of human life. Human pride is greatest when it is based upon solid achievements; but the achievements are never great enough to justify its pretensions. This pride is at least one aspect of what Christian orthodoxy means by 'original sin.' It is not so much an inherited corruption as an inevitable taint upon the spirituality of a finite creature, always enslaved to time and place, never completely enslaved and always under the illusion that the measure of his emancipation is greater that it really is."
--Reinhold Niebuhr, Beyond Tragedy

I'm sorry, blogger. I've ignored you terribly. My accomplishments of the week have been: being trained for carving stations, since I'll be carving a ham at lunch on thanksgiving; writing another story; reading 1984 and The Three Muskateers (as well as buying a handful of other classics...some less well known); getting back to church to help out with youth-group stuff; putting a stapler back together (I almost fixed it with nothing but my fingers and a small piece of string and a pair of scissors used as tweezers, but I discovered that none of these were capable of the final feat, and had to come home and use pliars); I got to play Halo 2 at Charles', after I went with him to buy himself a new tv; I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time, by following an invitation home from Ian's new girlfriend when I picked him up from school this afternoon (he came too, of course) (we also had really good pasta dish with argentinian parmesan); and I bought burnable cds, so I can finally make space on my computer (I've been having trouble with pictures, for crying out loud!), and I've come to a fairly obvious but necessary realization: my priorities have been (and are) wrong. I am working on this last point, and I have put reading higher on my list (i.e. high enough that it actually happens). I need to put "paying full and utter attention to my girlfriend" in only one slot (meaning erase it from a few places that it currently fills) (not because it's a bad thing but because I spend more time doing it than I should...I even do it when she's not there sometimes, which is very problematic for me trying to fit things into my schedule). Charles was bugging me today. He was bugging me about my job hunt and my relationship, reminding me that "everything needs to be about 'me' and not 'us'". I often think that he fails to understand that I fully know and understand the difference, just have it balanced differently than he does. After all, he's the one coming out of a bad relationship and working on being an individual again. He probably sees me as foolishly codependent, and I see him as cynically independent, and neither of us is being very good at making the other see the perspective from his own point of view. [sighs and shrugs] c'est la vie. I need to work. talk to you laters, blogger.

Hope is a terrible thing. It makes us believe in things that are painful to believe in, strive for things that are painful to strive for, and do the unreasonable trying to achieve the improbable. It is hope, not reason, that defines mankind. Even when we lack it. It is why we are great. And, it is why we suffer.

So, I'm back from visiting my girlfriend up at school. I have lots to talk about so I'll actually use paragraphs ("wait, did he say he was using paragraph's? when did hell freeze over?").

So, in no particular order of importance, the flight back sucked. I mean, I love flying. On the way up last thursday, at one point we were between thick cumulus clouds below (you know, the clouds that you build castles on) and a solid layer of stratus clouds above (as if there were a sky above the sky, if you will). It was gorgeous and made imagining a fantasy world even easier. But on the way back, not only was it depressing because it was carrying me further and further from her, but the clouds were all boring. Then, I was stuck in SC for 2 1/2 hours in the middle, and I was sitting in Sbarro's pizzaria to read, and all the music was dansable. I don't mean pop. I mean foxtrot, foxtrot, rumba, salsa, chacha, swing, rumba, foxtrot, samba, etc. It was sooooo depressing. And then, on the second leg of my journey, I finished my book with a whole hour of flying ahead of me. It sucked. Plus I couldn't enjoy the view out the window because it was dark, and the night sky out the window of a plane just isn't that nice a view compared to the day sky. Assuming you can see it, which I couldn't. [sighs] But I'm home, safe and sound, and already going numb.

Video games: the history of my playstation is that I got it from Charles for free, because he had no more need of it, and I got Diablo, which my love and I played together (awwww! ah, shad-up!). I also got Legend of Dragoon, which my little brother played a little. However, I gave the playstation to my darling, leaving my little brother in a rut, if you will, because while he still has Legend of Dragoon, he has no playstation to play it on. (I gave it to him because the game was incredibly boring to me). Well, this year, she bought Chrono Cross because a) she wanted another game to play besides just diablo, since we play diablo 2 on our computers now instead, b) the game was recommended both because I have and like the soundtrack and it is supposedly a really fun game. However, she tried playing it and couldn't figure it out, which sounded dumb to me, but whatever. She left it for me to play when I got there, and I have played it, and it is kinda complicated (you have weak, medium, or strong attacks, with varying chances to hit, and stamina, and building power points when you hit with which to cast spells) and I'm addicted, but I had to leave it with her. And the reason I had to leave it with her is that they have another game (besides Tekken 3, which showed up from somewhere but isn't really played): Dance Dance Revolution. Technically, the playstation is my girlfriend's, the game is her roommate's, and the mats are a friend's, though he's going to give them to her roommate. I know, I know, it's a stupid game, right? Yes. But darn it! It's addicting. It's a good workout too, if you do it a particular way. You see, there are two ways of playing. The easy way (easy to get good fast) is to jump on the rhythm so that your feet land where they need to on each beat. This can get very crazy, but no more crazy than jive. The hard way (the way you have to learn if you want to get really advanced) is to walk around the mat. by walk around, I mean literally, step where you need to, look ahead to see phrases to the steps, so that instead of 10 steps, there are three moves that you just have to lead into each other. It's harder, but it's the only way to deal with lots of 8th notes in a row. I saw someone do a double on maniac difficulty, meaning lots of steps, using both mats side by side, and she survived. the only way is memorizing the mat positions and walking around it, quick stepping sometimes but still walking around. the bouncing method is too hectic and requires too many movements to keep up. anyway, so yah, I got addicted to two video games this weekend. and on sunday, when my girlfriend was working in the gameroom from 3-6 and 10-midnight, we hooked up DDR and played from 3-5, then I covered for her (I used to work there) while she went and did homework in the art barn, playing chrono cross from 5:30 to 10:30, when ballroom people came in and I hooked back up DDR. I ended up working from 9-12, letting the other person go home early, and working the closing ship for my girlfriend since she had more homework. No prob for me, right? [grins] earning my keep by making money for her.

Ok, halloween party. There was a power out saturday morning, not for us but in the building where the huge three-dj party was going to be held, but they got the power back on in the evening, so the party could happen. I went as the Sandman. I had black jeans, black boots, white t-shirt, black wig with hair sticking out in funny directions, and white face paint all over my face and neck, with black eyeliner, eye shadow, and exaggerated eyebrows. It was really good, even though only one person recognized me ("Dream!" he cried, pointing. I was happy) but that's as I expected it to be. Grace went as her own angel of death, black leotard with black pants, crazy elaborate choker, a drawn on face mask white with black borders that made her look bird-like, and wings that she made herself. The wings were, to describe them poorly, made with a wire shaped sort of like a giant M (a part that tucked into her bra strap, went up then over straight, then bent and went down a little ways), and it was entirely covered with pieces of off-white cloth strips tied on, which were all thin and some lacy. They looked really really awesome, especially on her. I can't do the wings justice with words. Anyway, her roommate went as a pinup, curled blond hair pulled back on one side, black lacy bra, white t-shirt open in front and tied up beneath the bra, short jean shorts, a leggings seam drawn up the back of her legs, and pumps. Very good looking. Costumes of note were a Frodo look-alike. No, seriously, this kid could have been a real hobbit. It was awesome. And another guy that we were obsessing about was Aragorn. Well, he stood out at first simply because he had the gauntlets of gondor (leather bracers with the white tree at the wrist), which could be Boromir from the first movie or Aragorn from the second or third. ([laughs] yah, we're big dorks). But when we asked, he said Aragorn, of course. He even has the ring of kings, which I remembered shortly afterwards is called the Ring of Barahir. [laughs] (yes, very very big dorks). He even has the sword, not Narsil but the original sword that Aragorn uses, though he had lent it to someone dressed as William Wallace from Braveheart. Anyway, we pre-partied at Meg's apartment, which was far too full of people, and then decided to get drinks at the Cove rather than head home while waiting for the power to come back or the parties to move elsewhere. But it did, so we went, and had a good time. The virgin pina coladas were really good. [grins] Anyway, I'm not that good at getting eye makeup off, and I still have a little bit of eyeliner left over. my girlfriend says it looks good, so I haven't made any special efforts to get it off. But it survived the makeup remover and facewashing that night, and the showers on sunday and this morning, so I'm just going to stop caring about it.

thefacebook.com is something I have just been introduced to. It is, in general, associated with Colleges, but you can search for people from your highschool too. It has some messaging functions, but it is mostly to collect a list of people that you know (or knew) and are (were) friends with. It also allows you to browse the friends of your friends. [shrugs] pretty cool. Anyway, it has pictures of people (or what they post, anyway) so sometimes you can say "hey, that's what that guy's name was!" or something to that effect, and add them to your friends list, or you can use it to search for your old crushes or whatever you want. It's not complete, since you have to join to be in the database, but it's fairly widespread. somewhere between a third and half of the current students at my college are in the database, which is impressive. And you can always email people who aren't in it and tell them to, so you can add them. [laughs] Yah, just another thing for us to waste time with on the computer. shad-up! unfortunately, sometimes you'll get emails from people who want to add you to their friends list, and you have no idea who they are. One guy wants to add me, and he's from a school that I only associated with via ballroom dance, and it's a name and face I'm unfamiliar with. We have no friends in common, so I can only assume it's a case of mistaken identity. I have no idea. Anyway, if YOU want to sign up, be my guest, and if you know me, you can add me. I listed enough info to be found by most people, though I'm not so trusting to publish it all.

Books: First of all, I got book three of the Hunter's Blades trilogy by R.A. Salvatore, so Raph, you can read it next time you visit. Second, for my birthday, Grace got me Watchmen by Allen Moore. Excellent comic book. It's like a gothic mystery novel. Setting: alternate America during cold war, Russia is invading Afganistan, and WW3 and mutually assured nuclear destruction seems imminent (as in sometime this year, and they have electric cars. A group of masked crime-fighters with no extraordinary powers first appeared in 1939. They worked individually for a while, and then teamed up briefly as the Watchmen, but then a law was passed banning masked vigilantes. Most of them revealed their identities and retired. a few continued to work for the military, one kept on illegally. Suddenly, an ex-watchmen is murdered, thrown out the window of his office to his death on the street below. the illegal ex-watchmen is investigating, paranoid, contacting the other ex-watchmen and trying to solve a mystery that grows greater as more and more mysterious things happen that seems unrelated. If there is a conspiracy, it is greater than any one man, and what it serves to accomplish is the greatest mystery of all. This comic book is one of the genre-defining works, along with Swamp Thing and The Dark Knight Returns (both also by Alan Moore), The Sandman (by Neil Gaiman, who was greatly influenced by Alan Moore and, in fact, learned how to write comic books from Alan Moore), and a comic called Maus, which I know nothing about other than its name. However, I am lending Watchmen to a friend at school (via my girlfriend), and the friend is, in turn, lending me Maus, which is at present at home but which she will pick up over thanksgiving break and give to my girlfriend, who will undoubtedly see me sooner. Ah, I love comic books. Maus is a single book, as is Watchmen, but The Sandman is 10 graphic novels, as is Swamp Thing (so I understand), and at $20 a piece, it's a little steep to buy all at once. I'm still working on The Sandman (I only have 1-5, 8, and an after-the-series comic 12 or 13 (the dream hunter, painted by yoshitaka amano), and the Sandman Guide, a full book with summaries, pointed out references and elaborations, and a walk-through interview with Mr. Gaiman himself). I actually highly highly recommend Sandman and think it should be part of every library's collection. In fact, for one of the comic books in the series in which Shakespeare and troupe actually performs "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for Oberon, Titania, and the host of faeries, Neil Gaiman won a very prestigious annual award for best short story, which greatly incensed the rest of the writers, such that the rules were changed so that a comic book can never again win the award. [grins] ah, literature, how you change how we see the world, even if that view is contrary to the popular, or once helped define what is now popular.

I miss all my friends. I miss spending quality time with them, which is sort of ironic, since I rarely spent quality time with them when I was there. But still. People that I never even saw really said hello, good to see you back. I had pleasant conversations with people, even someone that we didn't like each other freshman year and then never spent time together since to correct that impression. I want that back. I want an environment like school, but where we're not always stressed about stuff 24/7. Friends nearby. The ability to procrastinate a little without making a day of it, have fun without going somewhere. I took it for granted. I really did. I wish I hadn't. I don't mean to say that I regret anything I did. I just wish I could have done more, appreciated it more. But, c'est fini. But, speaking of which, I'm going to finish this blog entry, which is far far long enough, and email people. See you later, alligator.
(p.s. wow, this is 3 1/2 pages long)