Life of Pride
I typed my last footnote. I closed the file and uploaded it onto my personal website via FTP for safekeeping. I emailed it to Dr. Snyder. Then I sat here in a sort of passive excitement and began, of all things, to cry. It is so strange being female. It's just - I guess I never really let myself think of my project being
finished. Every little bit, everything altogether... God has taken care of me. I see His hand on every page, in every day of struggle over the last four months. I have been absolutely dependent on Him, and He has given me exactly, precisely the sources I needed, just when I needed them. Therefore, I have written something
true and
useful.
I feel a quiet joy, but meanwhile I need to go pack for my weekend at college.
I have edited this dinosaur of a project so that it at least flows in a respectable fashion. I still must write the conclusion, because I wanted to read everything else I'd written first. I find myself with an utter revulsion of composing more sentences, so I am posting to my blog.
Sleepy... But the end is in sight. Footnotes won't be so very hard, I hope.
I am on the 95th page, and I have only the conclusion left. It must be pithy and memorable. In other words, I must leave it for "tomorrow" (later today?), because I sincerely doubt my ability to compose original thought right now. It was hard enough following my outline point by point for the last several hours, despite the fact that I drank
two bottles of Diet Mountain Dew.
My tasks for "tomorrow": (1) Write conclusion in less than five pages; (2) Edit entire paper; (3) Add in the proper first references all through, where right now I only have second reference format (because I don't know what I will do to my quotations when I edit); (4) Do my laundry; (5) Pack for my weekend at college, so I can head off to the airport at 6am on Thursday.
At some point between now and 7pm on Thursday, I also need to shuffle my lengthy project into a 10-minute presentation for the student Research Symposium at college.
Ah, life...
I've been pacing myself all along. Now I'm in sprint mode. We have no groceries again, because nobody else wants to go food shopping. Therefore, I have a double cheesburger from McDonald's and two Krispy Kreme donuts. A bottle of Diet Mountain Dew sits at my right elbow. I am on my 88th page, commencing on my post-2000 section. I suspect I shall be a doddering wreck when I am done writing. So long as I
am done writing, it won't matter.
I find myself faced with the startling, slightly terrifying fact that I am running out of days to write. I have today and tomorrow to finish writing, to edit, and to fix footnotes. Goodness me. I've written 82 pages so far, and I probably have at least another 15 pages' worth to go.
*stress levels rising*In good news, my knee has been behaving much more sensibly over the past week. All it needed was to have its nasty little imbalances corrected. This means that I should be able to dance at the L-Ball! I am so looking forward to it.
What a joy this weekend has been!
I improved one friendship that I will be able to cultivate more over the summer, because my friend lives about 20 minutes away from me. I made a new friend who goes to college in the DC area, and who knows PHC people. I talked to a professor who is running a crossbreed between homeschool and a private school for the homeschoolers in his area - 2-3 days in school, 2-3 days at home. I re-met Lieutenant General Bunting, who was the president of VMI when I applied there five years ago. I learned about Milton Friedman. But best of all... I shared at least four good, solid conversations about God, and I found that everything I've been learning this semester for my history project is directly applicable to real life. I am seriously uplifted...
Though I only wrote 2.5 pages of my project this weekend. I have difficult times ahead, with at least 20 pages of material still to cover. Right now, I am at peace about it. In fact, I am eager to get back to it, because I see all over again just how useful my project will be as an eBook. I also have new book ideas.
Although this ends my year as an ISI Honors Fellow, I fully intend to stay involved with this organization. These conferences have been some of the best, integrated, compact learning experiences of my life. I drink every drop of learning they have to offer, and I want more. :)
The trip to IN proved uneventful, though I've decided that my soul rebels against air travel. By necessity, it is so impersonal. Airports need to process a number of people quickly. Question: Is it worth it? I have decided that I would much rather travel quickly than not, and that my psyche has suffered no lasting damage over the years from airports, so far as I can discern. So I guess it is all right...
The first evening of the conference has been quite pleasant. The atmosphere is more relaxed than the week in the summer. I have enjoyed both meeting the people who went to the Cambridge week and saying hi to the other Princeton folks. I held at least three solidly good conversations already -
real ones, not polite ones. I feel so free; I'm just me, talking from my heart. I love it.
I skipped "hospitality," because I had to do a bit of writing, if I could. I managed 2.5 pages, which is at least something. It about finishes off the 1980s... I need another paragraph or two, but they will be simple. Meanwhile, it is time to go to sleep.
Need I say it? God is wonderful! It uplifts my heart to talk about what He means to me!
Tomorrow morning I'm off to Indiana! I am taking my laptop with me, on the theory that I will find time to do some more writing. The ISI conference is all about economics, one topic with which I am not overwhelmingly familiar. This will give me a good opportunity to keep my mouth
shut!
I wish I knew how the play was going at PHC. I suspect it is progressing splendidly.
*sigh* I wrote six pages today. They squeaked out with extreme difficulty. I'm still working on the 1980s, but the rest of the decade should go OK. I hope to be into the 1990s by page 70. The good news is that Dr. Snyder has allowed me until the 26th to finish, instead of the 24th. This should give me enough time, God willing. That is a week from today. Surely I can finish in a week!
I feel like I'm obsessing. Maybe, a little. Maybe not. Trust me, I have plenty of other things on my mind as well. And in general, I'm pretty happy. God is good.
I have a new favorite song - "Weave Me the Sunshine," by Peter, Paul and Mary. Last week I liked "Draw Me Nearer," by Caedmon's Call, but I listened to it 25 times. I know, because iTunes records the number of times you play a song. I still like it now, but it doesn't mean as much any more. Perhaps I should have listened to it less.
I have today to write on my project. This is good. I need it. I leave early Friday morning for my last Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference in Indianapolis. I return Sunday afternoon. My project is due Monday. Right now I have 62 pages written. For some reason, also, the words don't want to come. I suspect that my brain is just plain weary.
So if you read this, drop me a prayer, 'k?
I'm just holding out for Liberty Ball. If I can last, I can relax at last that weekend. If I'm tired, I can't think about it. If I'm lonesome, I can't think about it. Emails and bills fall by the wayside. What day of the week is it, anyway?
I'm praying for everyone involved in the play at PHC this weekend.
A series of random observations about life:
- Sometimes I think I'm so smart, but really, I know nothing. Absolutely nothing.
- When one is eating oranges and a can of sardines for lunch, it is time that someone went food shopping.
- Warm sunshine is beautiful and raises my spirits, even when I can't go out in it.
- It's extremely hard to convince myself that need to write six pages in an evening when the weather is gorgeous.
- One does not need to be physically active to be happy. (I'm still working on this one.)
I made the following comment on
someone's blog, and it took me so long that I decided to post it here as well. It was about reason and emotions, and the relative logic of both. I wonder if it will make sense out of context? We shall see...
Well, I am primarily a writer, but math comes far more easily to me than I deserve. So I tend to think with both my gut and my mind at once. My gut tells me that a "logical" argument is one that "makes sense." That is what most people mean when they use the word. My mind then gets involved by analyzing why
anything makes sense - because God put meaning into the world, the same way we communicate meaning through spoken words. The whole world's order is God's language. The same word, LOGOS, stands for all the world's meaning - Jesus, who holds all things together at all points in time - and for the words we use. We image God that way. So when we are being "logical," we are communicating order and truth.
That was complicated. The others are easier.
Reason = the power of thinking, especially in an orderly way. Good enough.
Logic = the science of thinking. Good enough, especially when you understand that the Latin word
scientia just means "knowledge." Logic is the knowledge of how to think well. It is not something we have created, but something we have discovered existing in the universe. It is part of the LOGOS, the truth, the connecting power that holds everything in order.
Emotions - now those are more complicated yet. What are they? I think we err when we categorize them apart from thinking. God gave us every part of ourselves for a reason. It is an Enlightenment thought that says the only useful part of thinking is the rational part. Especially in human situations, it is neither necessary nor possible to divorce emotions and reason. I think emotions are an essential part of the individual soul. If you render a thought down into its most basic elements, I can reproduce it rationally for myself. However, I can never reproduce the associated emotions. You cannot even communicate them. Only God understands that language and speaks it to each individual in return.
Conclusion: The LOGOS is the universe's truth and order. A logical statement is therefore truthful and orderly. We can use our rational faculties to illuminate the
order, the logic, inherent in the statement. We understand the
truth, however, on a gut level prior to reason. Why should we believe truth exists anywhere, at all? That is where "emotion," something other than reason, comes in. It is communication straight from God to every human being, "so that we have no excuse." You can give the most rational argument possible for God's existence, but you will not convince anyone until they
believe God exists.
You hear a lot about the "simple faith" of women throughout history. Perhaps the thing we call "emotion" is the answer.
God
did bless my writing on Saturday. Although I took a two-hour nap in the middle of the day and absolutely had to go to sleep at 11:00pm, I managed to finish another 9.5 pages, bringing my total to 56.5 pages. More importantly, I wrote the entire section for the 1970s, meaning that I only have two and a half decades left to complete. By Friday, when I leave for the last Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference of my year as an Honors Fellow. My project is due the Monday after I return, and right now I don't know how I will find the time to finish it. However, I am confident I will. 56 pages and a 16-page annotated bibliography ago, I was terrified even to start.
This day is the reason for my confidence. Easter. A man died for me, and then He rose from the dead, because He was also God. But He died as a man, with a man's thoughts. I will never know exactly what His thoughts were at that moment, even if He tells me in eternity, because I'm a different person, living in my own soul. I won't know how much He suffered. That scarcely matters, however, because He didn't die so that we could suffer. He died so that we could
live to our fullest capacity as humans. Jesus Christ fills all our needs, so that we are free to grow.
The thing is, a full human life involves suffering. How do I put this into words? My saved soul is clean and new, but it is living in a world impaired by sin. Soul and body are inseparable. Soulish peace may involve physical or mental pain. I accept it gladly, for the sake of the hope that is to come.
I am confident in the results of my project, because at this point in my life I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. My project needs to be written, and I am the one who can do it. Like Eric Liddell in
Chariots of Fire, I "feel God's pleasure."
Words have tremendous power. God created a universe with His. Every time I write a paper, a story, or an essay, I commit an act of incredible timerity. I ask God for some of His words. People have killed because of words, after all. Since I know their power, I need to believe deeply in the ones I use.
Had a lovely Good Friday service tonight at church, and got to sing in choir. The choir was down in front the whole time, which was tough, because I kept starting to cry, and then we had to sing, and then I started to cry again. It was really awkward, because Christ's death deserves tears of sorrow, and yet there were all those
people watching. I didn't want to distract them.
I've been exhausted these past few days, staying up somewhere between 11:30pm and 2am, because I had to research the last sections at the same time as I wrote them. I can't write tonight. I'm going to sleep. I pray that God blesses my writing tomorrow.
Current page count: 47.
I am finally learning U.S. history! :)
I was so tired this evening when I settled in at Borders to write. I didn't see how I could do it. Then my mom called. She needed me to come all the way back, pick up my brothers from their haircut, and take them to Civil Air Patrol. (My sister had gone AWOL.) Oh, goodness me! I hadn't written anything yet for the evening, and it was already 6:00. The entire trip, including waiting for them to get ready for CAP at home, took an hour. It was only by God's grace that tired, hungry, cranky me did not bite someone's head off. Afterwards, I felt so blessed that God had helped me stay gracious... I bought myself one of those little ice cream cones at McDonald's, and then I just dove into the writing! In the rest of the evening, I finally finished up the largest history spread of my paper. Tomorrow, I begin on the 1960s.
Written today: 7 pages. Total: 39.25
It's gettin' up there! And it is now 1am.
Ha! I was
so tired that I didn't even hit "Publish Post." I just left the blogger screen up and put my laptop to sleep.
Hooray! PHC Student Senate passed our new Honor Code proposal! Now if they can only get it through the student body...
Bad circulation? Try this next time you take a shower... Get all nice and warm and cozy, and then turn the water as cold as it can go. Leave it cold for 20 seconds, if you can take it. Then turn it warm again. Then turn it cold again. Then turn it warm again. Boy, you will feel like a million dollars when you're done!
I just turned in the final annotated bibliography with 86 sources on 16 pages.
Sometimes the human race makes me furious. How can we be so stupid as to think we can create utopia?
Occasional Papers No. 1 from Rockefeller’s General Education Board in 1913:In our dreams . . . people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple . . . we will organize children . . . and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.
President Woodrow Wilson:We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.
Dewey:I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life. I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.
I wrote another half-page today. I didn't intend to. I was personally fascinated with one of the books I was reading for research, so I continued reading it today. Before I knew it, I had grabbed my laptop and was busily typing. I had to forcibly restrain myself from doing more. I am so blessed not to have to study for multiple classes at the same time as keeping all this together in my mind! Sure, my writing time is limited, but it would be anyway. The lack of mental clutter from different school subjects saves me much time, as does the ability to sleep when I am tired.
I will be so glad when I have put this entire project into words. I am becoming more and more convinced how absolutely imperative it is that my project be written. Meanwhile, I am carrying it around like a weight in my mind.
I played tennis today. It was delightful, esp. considering I haven't hardly exercised for weeks. My knee hurts a wee bit, but not too badly.
Pages today: 5.5. Total: 32
Today was beautiful outside. After my doctor appointment, I visited the library to pick up some books I needed. Then I bought some ice cream at Coldstone's, because my insides felt like they wanted to fly for sheer joy.
Then I came back home. My mom gave me the day off from business work, because I'm behind on writing. This is my hardest section, since I am researching and writing at the same time, but I think I produced some good stuff today. I am tired but happy. Tomorrow I want to finish up this second major project category.
Pages today: 4. Total: 26.5.
After delving a little more deeply into the "other side" of PHC conflict, I have decided that the whole mess is, indeed, misunderstanding. Unfortunately, it is a strongly rooted misunderstanding, so it is harder to resolve.
Meanwhile, good news for me! My knee is not in serious trouble. It will need no operations, no cuttings and slicings! It just has a tight ITB, which is a band on the outside of the leg that goes from hip to knee and connects to muscles. When you stand up with this band tight, it rubs over the outside of the leg bones with a *snap* feel. It also pulls the patella in the front out of alignment, etc. No doubt it is because my quads are weak. But whatever! I am so happy to know this! All will be well! Hooray & yahoo!
If you have sent me an email or posted on my blog that I should read your blog (Wes) :), I fully intend to reply at some point in time very soon. For now, though, I am quite busy.
I have decided that writing a book-length project is like writing a whole crowd of smaller papers. The outline represents this. To create the outline, you first write in the major points, I-VII. These are the overall project, and so they have to flow thematically on this basic level. However, each Roman numeral is also its own paper, with its own flow, and so on, down into the organizational tree. Although the 17-page section I already sent to Dr. Snyder (of which he approved!) was the introduction to my project, it was also its own paper with its own introduction, which happened to be three pages long. Then each section inside of it also had its own introduction, usually only a paragraph or so. I noticed this phenomenon today, because I was having trouble "flowing" from the end of my introduction into the next part. At last, I discovered that my difficulty rose out of the fact that I really needed to start another paper under my next Roman numeral. This new paper needed its own introduction, which turned out to be a little less than a page. Then all was well.
Pages written today: 5.5. Total: 22.5.
I have now officially written my longest research project ever. Each day from now on, that will be true. Isn't that exciting?
So tired. My headache is back, and I have to keep blinking to keep my eyes from blurring. That can't be good. Also, I wrote no pages today, unless one counts pages in an annotated bibliography. I wrote two of those, raising my total number of sources to 72. I have at least four more I would like to add, but I don't have them from the library yet. I decided to work on the bibliography tonight because my next deadline is actually the finished annotated bibliography on the 10th. I would have to add the sources at some point. Why not now?
So tired.
Total pages: Still 17
Pragmatism. Realism. Idealism. These are words that spark debates at PHC. What over? Take this classic classroom activity in
situational ethics:
You and a group of your friends are in a lifeboat. It is overloaded and about to sink. Who do you throw off to drown?
Then you are forced to pick one of your friends to "vote off" the boat. Murder for the greater good.
Or what about the young female spy who is told to prostitute herself for the sake of finding out crucial information that may save millions of lives?
In short, these types of situations argue that the ends justify the means. This is pragmatism - realism! - argue some people. These are the sorts of tough decisions we all have to make sometimes.
Personally, I argue for "Batman," or "Harry Potter" ethics. The Joker has Batgirl tied up and dangling over one pot of acid, and Robin over another. "Choose!" he tells Batman. Then he drops them. Batman, of course, instantly devises some clever means to save both. He never even considers the possibility that he will have to pick. Similarly, Harry Potter does not risk human life for the sake of winning a competition. He saves the foreign girl's younger sister as well as Ron.
In my idealism, I refuse to countenance the puzzles of situational ethics, because they lack imagination. They present a two-dimensional choice, when there are
always other options. I firmly believe that God would never place us in a situation in which we were forced to do something blatantly wrong. It is better to cut off one's hand than to sin with it. If it comes down to it, it is better for our true lives - our eternal souls - that our bodily selves die, rather than that we murder anyone. But I believe God always comes through, even if it is at the absolutely last second. And I think this idealism is the most real thing of all, because God is real.
God is so good. I figured out my writer's block of last night. I had left the influences of Christianity out of the socialization section, and it didn't make sense without them. I was in spiritual turmoil and didn't know where to turn; it was dreadful.
I have concluded that both PHC and I are doing good things right now, because Satan has been trying to stop us. Most of the PHC mess is miscommunication, I am sure. On my end, I've been struck with a number of inexplicable, new troubles over the last month, especially since I started praying more:
- Consuming fear, and the repeated thought that I am incapable of writing my project.
- Knee troubles that seemed like the end of the world until I prayed over them, and then they receded to their true, minor level.
- Skull-splitting headaches out of nowhere.
Last night's writer's block, I think, was God trying to get my attention. It had an entirely different flavor than these other things.
New pages written today: .25. Old pages rewritten: 4.5, and footnotes formatted.
Total: 17 pages.
This introduction is due tomorrow, and I think it is ready. So far, though I've intended to finish every deadline early, unavoidable circumstances (i.e., God) have led to my finishing each exactly as scheduled. Isn't that the way God makes things - sufficient, but not easy?
"Strip Away the Lies: Demand Truth!" orders the webpage for
saveroot.com. I find this ironic, considering what I have found out today. I am still not at liberty to conclude anything, however. I know one side in significant detail, but that is still only one side. It is time for a set of follow-up emails in the other direction. For now, things are beginning to fall into place in my mind. It is a relief.
PHC students: Ask the resigning professors if they have explained their concerns to Dr. Farris. If they tell you, drop me an email.
An NEA lady called me back and told me to mail a letter with my questions. It wasn't very exciting. Since I already have their rationale from a few different sources, I probably won't bother. I just wanted to see what they would say over the phone.
Pages written today: 4.5, sort of. They were very hard, and they took me 6 hours, because they were all about the socialization question. Chances are I will scrap them in the end. I am not happy.
Total pages: 16.5. Sort of. It is now 2am. I am going to sleep.
I called the NEA today. I asked them, in my sweetest clueless college-student voice,
why they held the position that parents couldn't teach their kids. "It's for a research paper," I explained. The lady in the research department seemed a little taken aback. Then she forwarded me to someone's voicemail, where I left a message. We'll see if they call me back. ;)
hehehehe
Tomorrow I lose an hour of sleep to Daylight Savings Time. Oh dear. I'm glad I talked to Gabi tonight. I also wrote an open letter to the student newspaper on campus before I began my real work.
Pages today: 4.5. Total pages: 12.
In this time of ideological turmoil at PHC, I am curiously pressed to read as many different accounts of events as possible, and to call all my friends to talk matters over. Hypotheses are forming in my mind, but I don't want to put them together yet in writing. Hasty judgments are worse than none.
I love PHC. Or to be more precise, I love that PHC is trying to find truth. Up to this time, it hasn't yet found the one best way of doing things. I'm not sure that such a way exists, or, if it does, that we can achieve it on Earth. We can only do the best we can, ever reaching toward it. In the process, conflict occurs. We're sinful human beings. I never expected anything else.
