Stuff in General

I feel like I now have several things to say that may all be interesting to read about. The first is that my interest, rather negligible up until now, in Gutenberg College has been considerably piqued. It is a very small (48 students) liberal arts college in Eugene, Oregon (2 hours south of us). It features a unique liberal arts education--the same for all students--including in-depth study and discussion of the Great Books from the Bible and Homer to Tolstoy and Joyce, mandatory 2 years of classical Greek and 2 years of German, art classes, music classes, science and mathematics, and other things. What's different about the science and math classes is that they do not focus on lab work and problem-solving so much as on learning how discoveries and theories in these fields, such as the Theory of Relativity, have influenced thought. For someone like me, who doesn't have aspirations for a technical scientific or mathematical field, this would be close to ideal.

I was initially leery of the college because it offers only one major. I was suspicious of this mainly because it was different and unusual, not because I had really considered it. On further inspection, I think it is a rigorous and broad program that would, by God's grace and provided I worked hard, make a quantum leap in my ability to write, reason, and speak. Since that is exactly what I want to do, the curriculum is attractive. :-)

I also get the benefits of being able to come home on any holiday and even weekends if I want, and the University of Oregon's 2.3 million volume library. That could make any book-lover salivate. :D

I will also be visiting my other two primary schools under consideration, Hillsdale and Grove City, in two weeks or so, and at Hillsdale I will meet David (the two "David's...blog"s over on the links bar), and Ashton, both good friends whom I have never met in person. :-)

And, last but not least, I've begun another historical tome on the fall of Berlin, by modern historian Antony Beevor. It staggers my mind, every time I read about it, what monumental agony and mayhem Europe went through considerably less than an average lifetime before now. 7 million German civilians were displaced. The Red Army, over the course of the whole war, lost 9 million men--more than double the population of Oregon, or more than triple the amount of the entire active and reserve forces of the current U.S. military.

King Kong goes green...

But not quite in the environmentalist sort of way. Alert level...7, I'll say. Points for Edward Norton, because he seems to do well and is cool (as far as acting goes, at least). Major detraction for heavy reliance on CG monsters over plot development and the Neo/Agent Smith street showdown. At least they didn't have a narrator.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/theincrediblehulk/

Correction

Actually it turns out I am not doing the PHC drama camp. Flights to the right airport at the right time are simply prohibitively expensive. I would have looked forward to it had it been practical, I think, but fortunately I haven't a huge stake in the venture. :-)

SAT Scores

Well, my scores came in today, and they were pleasant to my senses. :-) They are definitely above the cut-off point for the scholarship at Hillsdale that I am hoping for, so praise God for that!

I was also confirmed today as registered in Patrick Henry College's summer drama camp, which means seven days in Virginia and (one hopes) slightly better acting and a better grasp of drama on my part. That should be fun! I'll also be 18 when it happens. Gadzooks! I should start checking my temples for gray hairs now. ;-)

Carry On, My Wayward Short Story

I just sent Mad Mariah in to Relief (a Christian literary publication) this evening. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated! Relief's response time is moderately large--not terribly unusual, but for anxious writers a month or more is a long time--but I'll be sure to update ya'll on what happens. I should be submitting some more stuff in a little while, too, of which I shall inform you as it happens. :-) 

I wish I could write as well as Flannery O'Connor.

I have had her collected short stories for some months now, but I only got around to seriously reading them yesterday, I believe. I've already read the first five (out of 31), and so far they are amazing, especially considering that the first six are actually her Master's thesis. She published her first short story when she was 21, so I guess there's hope for me!

Here's an awesome beginning:

"Miss Willerton always crumbed the table. It was her particular household accomplishment and she did it with great thoroughness. Lucia and Bertha did the dishes and Garner went into the parlor and did the Morning Press crossword puzzle. That left Miss Willerton in the dining room by herself and that was all right with Miss Willerton. Whew! Breakfast in the house was always an ordeal." 

~The Crop

And some cool dialogue:

      "What you got there, Joe?" one of the men in the back called, "one of them goodgovermint boys?" 

     "Yeah, the barber said. "He's gonna make a speech." 

     "I've heard too many of that kind already," the man said. 

     "You ain't heard one by Rayber," the barber said. "Rayber's all right. He don't know how to vote, but he's all right." 

     Rayber reddened. Two of the men strolled up. "This is no speech," Rayber said. "I only want to discuss it with you--sanely." 

     "Come on over here, Roy," the barber yelled. 

     "What are you trying to make of this?" Rayber muttered; then he said suddenly, "If you're calling everybody else, why don't you call your boy, George. You afraid to have him listen?" 

~The Barber

I hope it inspires me to write better short stories, something I may have some time to do this week, as I am on limited spring break, which means that school is done much earlier than normal. :-) 

~Connor

So I'm Convinced. Thoroughly.

I am most happy to relate that I have converted from a long-time PC user to an enthusiastic fan of Macbooks. The reason? I have one.  :-)

It may seem a rather abrupt purchase--and it was--but the reasoning behind it is sound. My computers to date have all been hand-me-downs. They were valuable and good while they lasted, but one got to be over ten years old, and ran on Windows 95, and had no internet access, while the other two got the rheumatic and the fever n' ague after a while. My latest one crashed a couple days ago and started giving me blue screens of death. 

So I now have a new one, what is (we hope) to be my computer for college and likely beyond. It's my first brand new computer, and so far I've found little not to love. It has about 93 gigabytes more space than my previous computer, runs smoothly and quietly, and does everything I want it to and more. I'm happy! 

The Original Carpe Diem Poem

Ode 1.11

Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas), quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios

temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati!
Seu pluris hiemes, seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,

quae nunc opposites debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sabias, vina liques et spatio brevi

spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

~Horace

More or less:

Do not seek (it is a crime to know) what limit the gods have

given to me, to you, Leuconoe, and do not try the Babylonian

numbers. Whatever it will be, how much better to endure it!

Whether Juppiter has allotted you many winters or this is your last

one, which now weakens the Tyrrhenian sea with opposing pumice

stones: be wise, drink wine, and because of our brief space,

cut away your long hope. While we speak, the jealous age

will have fled: seize the day, trusting the next as little as possible.

--------------

It was pretty cool to run across the very first one!

SAT Aftermath

Well, it's done, and I hope this will be the last time I have to do it. It was surprisingly less stressful and overwhelming than I had expected, although it was certainly long (5 hours of testing, including three breaks that totalled 11 minutes altogether). It was actually a close-run thing, arriving on time, though through no fault of our own. My admission ticket gave Sunset High School as the testing center. We duly trotted over there on the fateful morning, only to find the place nearly deserted, except for band practice and "Saturday School." No signs advertising the SAT. No queues of students. Not even very many lights on. We and four or five other befuddled kids walked round the place looking for something hopeful, until a person evidently connected to the Saturday School informed us that the testing center had been moved to Westview High School.

Well, think we, many thanks to the College Board for informing us of the change. And so we hussle off to Westview, scooting in near the end of the line, and there turned out to be no trouble getting in.

500 students were taking the test at the high school that day, but fortunately we were siphoned off into classrooms, giving me only 29 fellow testers. With my tan slacks and wine-red turtleneck, I didn't consider myself dressed to the nines, but it rather looked like that by comparison. One young man was wearing what were obviously plaid pajama pants, several girls had slippers on, and another was wearing something like athletic tights or long underwear, ripped at the knee. Not a particularly unexpected wardrobe, but still rather sad.

After being informed of all the various SAT misdemeanors and felonies that could result in immediate expulsion and cancellation of scores, we slogged on through the test. The essay prompt was fairly easy, fortunately, as I was able to include an example from The Remains of the Day, which I recently finished reading, and bring up the RUF from the Sierra Leone Civil War, as I had just watched half of Blood Diamond the evening before. I was also able to slip in the word "evitable," which I had just learned about in Thoreau's Walden a day or so earlier. So lots of things worked out well there. :-) It's possible I focused more on the negative side of my point than on the positive side, but that is, of course, impossible to edit.

The verbal and writing sections were generally quite easy, and though some math problems certainly posed a difficulty, I was able to do all of them, which is more than I can say for some of my practice tests. All in all, I felt quite positive about the whole thing. So praise God for that, and many thanks for all your prayers!

Now I just have to wait until the 20th to see if my impressions are confirmed. :-)