Plato wasn't right, of course, but one can only half-blame the chap because it surely feels that way much of the time.

It's odd, missing someone keenly and yet not knowing them very well. It's as if the memory of them is very sharp in your mind, but you know it's not the full picture of them that you got because you weren't around them long enough to get that full picture (and in a way a lot of the hurt comes from thinking about people who did have a more complete picture)--and yet that doesn't diminish in any way the vastness of the gulf that now hangs between you. You're missing something or someone, maybe because the person was such a constant that there's this hole, or because the person never got the chance to be a constant, but whatever the case... they're not there, and they never will be (again?), not in the way that you can comprehend at the time, and so you sit there and look at what seems to be infinity apart from them--and in a way it is infinity, because they've entered eternity and you, still not quite understanding or maybe even quite believing in the existence of the eternal, are left behind.

Thank God Plato didn't get it right--and I don't mean that lightly; really thank Him, because there actually is something--or rather, Someone--that swallows Death and its sting up.

I just can't comprehend Him right now. It seems the nearer death is, the nearer Christ comes, and the less I comprehend anything.

Then again, He never promised comprehension.

(I suppose the threat of that was removed long ago when He started being eternal. Yes, I'm being oxymoronic. Intentionally.)

I can't seem to end this satisfactorily, but I can't make myself delete it either. I have no nice-and-tidy summing up, no clever last line designed to make you chuckle throughout the day. My words seem unresolved and unnatural and insufficient.

It strikes me, then, that this post is a lot like death.

(And how much do I wish I had some Lewis with me, to absorb all my pathetic, philosophical eschewing.)

(Speaking of bated breath (below): the other day I was looking at amusing word-ish things just for the fun of it, and came across an article in which someone was correcting someone else's saying "baited breath" in favor of "bated breath," but then again remarking on how much more amusing the following is--if you consider the proper spelling "bated." Yes, this is an instance where my punstership comes to full front. The poem is called The Cruel Clever Cat, and it escapes my mind as to the author's particular name. Thomas, or something.)

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

Actual usage of term "bated breath" found in post below, which was published roughly 30 seconds ago, but it didn't seem to work well with the randomness of this thing. Incongruous randomships, ya might say.

Today I declared my major. It was an event that struck me as being singularly anticlimactic. I sat down at my advisor's desk, and he told me kindly that I was in the wrong place but I could make it the right place shortly so I could stay and talk to him about these things anyway (I was very relieved. I really didn't want to visit the mean people who talk to undeclared undergraduates). Ah--that brings us to the point. See, freshmen--science majors, at least--can't declare a major until they have at least one semester's worth of credits. I gave my major in several of the silly forms they give you, but the computer didn't pick up on it and I didn't realize this was going on, so of course I went to the wrong advisor, but he was very reasonable and suggested that we talk first and then declare my major later.

I went into spasms of excitement. Okay, not spasms--it wasn't quite exciting-sounding enough for that--but still. It seemed like a momentous occasion enough, especially since they used such a wonderfully final and tremendous verb as declare.

We finished talking about next semester and bad chemistry professors (and I actually dropped that class...which I could talk on and on about why I did and how weird and relieved it's making me feel and how the only thing that keeps me from thinking I'm a lazy quitter is the fact that I wouldn't have done it if my dad hadn't said emphatically that I should...but I don't really want to talk about it much) and then he wrote all the stuff down and said he would tell me how to declare my major.

Bated breath...

I anticipated something along the lines of standing on the pinnacle of the Union or the Library or at least in front of the fountain and declaring on a loudspeaker, "BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES WITH A PRE-MED OPTIONS!"

Alas. Such high-set glories were not to be mine.

"You basically go up to the desk out there and say, 'Hi, I'd like to declare my major.'

Oh. So...basically I'm declaring something for only one person to hear?

Breath de-bating...

• Write a chemistry paper
• Finish Greek homework
• Work through Calculus problems
• Be thankful for a history exam gone well
• Set up an eye exam so I can replace my non-fitting glasses
  
• Glory in the goodness and greatness of my God instead of worrying away my life
  

I skipped Greek class today because I was freaked out over the history exam which would take place ten minutes after Greek class (did I not skip it), I was hungry, and my ear was being weird. Turned out Mr. E didn't hold class after all, so I was not hailed as a genius and I still have a chance to do those exercises in class.

Then, I went to chem class--very tired and sure I was going to snooze through it after my four hours of sleep last night--and sat around for fifteen minutes, at which point it became apparent that the substitute teacher had forgotten about the class and we were off scot-free. I came home, cleaned my room, watched a movie, put away some laundry that had been sitting around for forever and a day, took care of a few work-related things, and then sat back and wrote a to-do list. I couldn't think of anything else to blog about, so I posted it as an entry because there's nothing better to say...

Now I am sitting and being quiet, enjoying this nearly-exhausted state which I seem to be in perpetually but rarely have time to slow down and actually feel. It's rather nice knowing you shall sleep well tonight.

God bless...

Tacking this onto the end, here's a joke that was told during a Robotics brainstorming meeting.

A farmer and his hands were having trouble telling two cows apart. In an attempt to prevent this, they tagged them with different numbers. The method worked, and when one of their tags tore off it didn't matter much--they could still tell them apart. Then the other cow's tag tore off, and that idea didn't work anymore. They lopped off one of their tails to try and tell them apart, but the other one's tail got caught in a fence shortly thereafter and the problem resurfaced. Finally, the farmer had a bright idea: he could measure the cows and tell them apart by the size difference! With great satisfaction, that night the farmer announced to his hands: "Good news, boys--it worked! The red one's three inches taller than the white one!"

Unfortunately, while Frank Churchill could not be dictated to by a watch, I can. It is ten 'till eleven; I am resolved to type for ten more minutes and then hit 'Publish' and work on my Greek for seventeen minutes after that. I shall absorb three minutes walking to the library, stapling my Chemistry homework, and then arrive at Greek a few minutes past 11:20 am. I shall sit around for seven or eight minutes and revel in all the intellectual goofiness that naturally occurs in a Greek classroom before having to commit blackboard with my dubious exercises that all seem to involve armies and the sea and letters and smell strongly of grade school Latin (didn't I come to college...? Oh, yeah. When you start a subject it's the same no matter what. Silly me.)

The infamous Calculus exam went rather well. I was surprised by the relative simplicity of the problems involved, and thankfully was able to remember fairly accurately the way he wants us to present the problems. Now I am praying that this was not all a matter of self-deception. I am always overcome throughout the thirty minutes or so following any mathematics exam that I have been engaged for the past several weeks in playing a miserable joke on myself, one that involves convincing myself (mistakenly) that I can do the work and understand the concepts when I really can't. It passes once the next concern comes along, of course, and is nothing terribly deep--but still. It hasn't quite gone yet.

RAS just called. She's going to be here in a few minutes, so I shall probably get off a little before eleven after all... I really do need to finish that Greek assignment anyway, and it's by sheer "nice" Providence that I finished my Chemistry assignment before Calculus today.

I say "nice" Providence because I don't want to say "luck" and I don't want to say "good" Providence because that implies that I am interpreting the inherent nature of what God does, which I--being mortal, fallible, and dreadfully stupid--cannot do. So I say "nice" Providence because that is an on-the-surface, shallow term that conveys just how I perceive it. I do hope it doesn't strike anyone as heretical.

10:58 am. I shall leave you two--no, now it's one--minute early.

Adieu.

-Real Gone, Sheryl Crow

(Depressing, disgusting, and decidedly dumb post--that being the one from June SomethingthOrOther--is now the depressing, disgusting, decidedly dumb, and definitely deleted post. All applaud alliteration! ...'All applaud' as in 'all hail'...only...alliteratively.)_

Here I am, reveling in the insanity that is my life. No, that's not redundant with the blog title: while my personal insanity may come naturally, that does not necessarily mean that my life is insane--which it is--right now.

So I'm looking at what is potentially a very good year. I say "potentially" because I have the potential to make the most of a whole lot or to mess that "whole lot" up majorly. I've got some great classes with great people, only one teacher who I approach with a total state of dubiousness, and I have three of the best jobs in the entire world. I get to teach dance to a class of adults, who are the most fun students a person can ever ask for... that's honestly the high point of my week, perhaps only second to Sabbath and the college group meetings. Then there are lesser-high points (not low; just less high): Greek class is just slightly below dance, and that happens thrice a week. Going to the gym is always a high point. I always am much more ready to get into things after the gym.

I don't know if there are any low points. There are difficult points--mounds of Calculus homework; the exam (Calculus), quiz (Greek), and a homework assignment (Chemistry) due on Monday being just one example...not to mention the history assignment due tomorrow, the Greek exercises with which I must commit blackboard tomorrow, and a presentation I have for Tuesday... Oh, yeah, and the four-and-a-half hour chunk that I take out of my Fridays for dance doesn't help much. :P

I am thinking I will have to teach myself to study at night. I'm not very good at that; I get more done going to bed early and waking up in the wee hours of the morning, but I don't know if that will work out well with my job. I feel bad about waking up at 4 and turning on lights and possibly waking up my employer, whereas at home it was just my sisters and they could deal with it because they got too much sleep anyways (okay, so I'm not always that hard-hearted. At work, though, the rooms are pretty open, so if you turn on a light anywhere it affects just about anywhere else...) So my solution is to figure out how to study late into the night and deprive myself of sleep that way without consuming copious amounts of caffeine. (I wonder if that isn't impossible. We shall find out.)

Whoever you are, you must somehow watch the speech that Sarah Palin (As in, McCain-Palin '08) gave last night at the RNC. She's brilliant. I actually want McCain to win now. I mean, I always did, but mostly because I really don't want Obama to win. But I watch Ms. Palin and my feminist/Conservative side wants to pur with catlike contentment...and I want her in the White House as much or more as I didn't want Hillary there. Speaking of Hillary, I feel myself obliged to applaud her stellar performance and all her valiant and effective efforts towards paving the way for Alaska's Governor. I think the Dem's trump card (Obama being black) might have just been canceled out with the power of woman. Boo yah. The media won't see it that way, but whatev. Brilliant move on McCain's part in selecting a brilliant person. Enough of the politics. It was an awesome speech.

I shouldst go. I have work to do--calls to make, problems to scratch my head over, history terms to analyse, nouns to decline, chemistry to worry over... good stuff like that.

School's started.

Oh yeah.

I'll be keeping you posted.

(...hums innocently...)