I am sick

The cold is a cruel sickness. We downplay it as so common but all I have done today is watch TV, listen to jazz, go to one class and have a bath. The cold is so creul because it is able to make all these pleasurable experiences be vile and loathsome in my sickness.

bleeps

I am procrastinating... I have ridiculous little maintenance things to like apply for a birth certificate and mail something but I really don't want to.... My room-mate just downloaded an old version of Sim City and I think I would much rather play that. Should I download it? What will become of my life if I do? Will I fail school? Oh, I got my pharmacology midterm back; 76%. Two questions I put an answer I knew was wrong but for some reason circled incorrect ones (multiple choice). Kicking self now.
I also feel cold and sore; I really hope the soreness is due to yoga and not to infection.
I wore a skirt today and put on new pantyhose that snagged immediately, DANG.

Me and church.... church and me

This is a reflective post on Sunday's message.....
Relative truth was the topic.
I appreciate that the issue of relativity was discussed and the concept of truth and truths.
These kinds of philosophical discussions get my blood pressure up in an excited, impassioned way. I have no idea why, really, I don't, but they just do.
So, church inspired thought but I have to say, that I disagreed with some of the main points discussed tonight.

We talked about how contemporary society sort of has adopted views that do not recognize truth as concrete and absolute but is rather something debatable and contextualized. This is something I agree with; I am one of the 65% that do not believe in absolute truth.

But let's look at why....

There are so many reasons why truth is less and less revered as big capital "T" truth.
Post-modernism and subsequent philosophical reasons are probably the main perpetrators: Following two grim wars, philosophical thought out of Europe reflected ideas that rejected government, the state, and frankly became critical of any fundamental ideology that claimed sovereignty and accurateness. I mean, who could blame them, millions murdered, several totalitarian governments later... Who wouldn't be disillusioned?

Another main reason is globalization; the movement of people and places across borders and time (ie: via internet) thus making the world seem smaller. This state of communication and existence means that we are constantly exposed to more ideas, more cultures, world views, and are more aware of both good and bad things that go on in the world.

My point is to put into context some of the historical reasons why there is a general shift to relativism (although it always seems to shift back and forth). Essentially, it is important to me that relativism not appear to be an exit strategy from the hard work of sticking to a faith. It is not. It is taking into account our world, our fellow humans, our histories, our stories and mapping them out to make sense of everything. It is harder to be a relativist because it is an acceptance of how little we know and this inspires me to want to learn and discover and become a more active participant in my faith. My faith as I knew it when a young-girl when I identified myself as "born-again" no longer seems like Truth but rather, I am trying to extrapolate truth from those experiences, from those teachings. I believe that there is truth that is equally valid in the world views of others vis a vis Muslims, Buddhist, Confucius, AGNOSTICS (yea baby!...) Because, just as there is truth in all those things including Christianity, there is also a lot of bullshit because the history of faith whether or not the Bible is the word of God is shaped and defined by human experiences and thus has both moments of truth and moments of error.
Thus in my opinion, being a relativist is about being a critical thinker, about seeing the world as more complicated because truly it is. We always need to be learning, seeking understanding, tolerance and acceptance; that is not at the expense of faith or even/especially Christian faith, but I think it becomes it.

I like the icecream flavour illustration for my faith because no matter what flavour we have, it is still icecream and it is good stuff.

Quick update

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I want to change my blog template and I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Things are great. Adrian and I decided to buy tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to celebrate our half-year anniversary (yes we are cheesy, but it is an excuse to do something as extravagant as going to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra). It is at the end of November.

Right now.... Taking a study break. I have two midterms next week back to back: Reproductive physiology on Wednesday which covers everything from cell development and synthesis of DNA to embryology, to how menstruation works and all the hormones in between. On Thursday, Pharmacotherapy which is where we learn how drugs work, how they bind to cells, what environments they bind in (acid or a base = one will absorb well in the stomach vs one in the intestine). It is fun, we also get to calculate doses. All of this makes me very excited for clinical in Febuary. We get to choose our top three choices of where we would like to be placed; I am putting: 1: Hamilton region, 2: Durham-Scugog West Northumberland region (where my parents live) and 3: Waterloo region. I really don't mind going anywhere although, Kenora is an option and I am not to keen on moving that far away.

Besides that, I found two Burt's Bees lip stuff in my jacket pocket and I thought I had lost mine (apparently they reproduce....)

Oh yes, Thanksgiving..... That was great.....
Let us see...
Oh Saturday was hilarious. I went with Adrian to his Uncle Mike's suprise birthday party in Richmond Hill. Adrian did not know the people who were hosting and we were there on time at 6pm. We were the first ones there... awkward much?.... We helped decorate; we were alone in a unfinished, dim basement putting up birthday decorations in a stranger's home, weird.....
Luckily, Lous (Adrian's dad), Auntie Betty and Kim (Adrian's sister) arrived shortly after. Aunty Betty gave me a huge hug which was nice. I was so nervous for some reason. At one point when sitting around with some of Adrian's more elderly relatives, one of his aunt's told me, "speak whenever you want, we don't want to exclude you."
Great.... now there is more pressure to speak. I hardly understood most of the existing conversations because of patwa. Adrian told his family that detail after I had left and they thought it was hilarious. Actually, after Adrian told me that I had a dream that I was at the party again but they were speaking with stiff lipped accents.

Party.... met so many people, nice fun people. Adrian's cousin Chris was hilarious. There was dancing to Calypso and Reggae, delicious food; I discovered festivals; deep fried dough sticks... who wouldn't love deep fried dough sticks?
I eased into the party as it went on, became less nervous and hopefully at the next one, I will speak.

Sunday.... Warning: Subtle drug reference to follow.
Went to mom's cousin's cottage up north near Haliburton with mom, dad, and brother Tyler, and oh yes, my labs Indie and Nellie. Basically, sat on deck, sat by lake, cuddled with three extra dogs that were visiting; little, cuddly fuzzy ones that a friend of the family had brought. For the first time ever, we burned grass together. It was so funny. I knew my parents did it once in a while, and I knew that I did it once in a while and for the first time, we passed a J around together. My mom's cousin who is an amazingly fun lady nearing her 60s brought out her wooden box and just started rolling. It was strangely hilarious. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the afternoon eating and I gazed up at the intensely blue sky overlaid with bright orange and amber leaves and sunbeams shining through them.
My family had steak, I had soy chicken nuggets and PUMPKIN PIE!!!! MMMMMMMMMMMM

Monday...
Went to K-W with fam. to visit the Oma and Opa and the German relatives from NJ (the Christian ones... tee hee....)
We went to Swiss Chalet and mostly talked about my cousin's upcoming wedding that is going to be swwwwankkkyyyyy!!!!

Anyways, that's enough for now. Once I get on it, I hope to have a template more reflective of me and some pictures of course.

Cheers!