Archive for the 'School' Category

Achoo!

Published on Wednesday, 19th November, 2008 in Blogging, General, Life, Love, Relationships and School. 8 Comments

So, I logged in, and began dusting off the surface around this place, and decided to let everyone know just what’s been going on that I’ve been neglecting this place for so long.

First of all, I’ve been spending lots of time with my girlfrie…err fiancee. That’s right, I got engaged back in mid-October. The real surprise is that we’re getting married soon. Like, in December! While we’re not doing the big traditional wedding thing (much to the chagrin of her family), we are going to be having a spiffy reception. If you want to come, or if you just want to buy us some pretty stuff, I’ve setup a small site with the basic info on it, so give it a visit and make sure to check out the registry page.

So, in keeping with the getting married theme, we had to find a house, and quickly, since her lease on her own place was up on the first of this month. Given that we got engaged only a couple weeks before that, we had to hurry. We both spent a lot of time making phone calls, talking with possible landlords, and the like. Ultimately, we found a place, and it’s perfect. It’s a small 1930s 2 bedroom, 1 bath, and it’s really pretty much just perfect for the two of us.

Then, of course, after we found a house in record time, I had to move her in. Her work schedule didn’t afford much time for her to do it, so I grabbed a buddy, and the two of us spent a Saturday moving what she’d packed over to the new place. The rest of that weekend was spent getting things settled in the house.

As it turned out, the fiance doesn’t so much like to stay at the house alone, so we got ourselves a welsh corgi, who we’ve named Thalia (Tall-ee-uh). She’s a little special, but she’s awesome. Pictures to come at some point in the future.

So, I’ve been busy just about every weekend for the last month and a half, but that still leaves the weekdays, you say. Well, it would, but since I’ve been gone every weekend, I’m having to spend more time during the week on homework. I’ve got to make sure I do well, because I’m graduating in December now, not in May. So, you know, if you want, you can get me a nice graduation present, too.

In any event, apart from homework, things have settled down a bit, and I think it’s time to just hit “Mark all as read” and jump back into blogs now, rather than catching up on the couple thousand posts that have amassed there. Sorry, but I’ll try to go through archives and catch what I missed later on, though.

Changed Forever

Published on Saturday, 24th May, 2008 in Geekiness, General, Life, Oxford 2009, School and personal philosophy. 11 Comments

Two events have recently transpired that have either changed me forever, or will change me forever in the near future.

We’ll start with what’s gone down that will be forever indelible.

I got a tattoo this past Wednesday night, after several years of consideration on the subject. I’ve had this design in mind for several years, with some minor modifications along the way. The central symbol is the Green Lantern’s. On the top and bottom are the first two lines from the Green Lantern Code (as done by Hal Jordan) with a small modification to avoid having to put punctuation in there, which would have looked silly.

The Green Lantern has long been my hero. He’s a super hero of a different sort, you see. Rather than garnering his power from radiation or being an alien, his power comes from a ring he was given. That ring allows him to bring his imagination to life. As a result, rather than being a super hero of strength or speed, he’s a super hero of intelligence, wit, and cunning. His only limitations are his intelligence and his imagination, and I’d like to see myself in that same light.

I’m a very mentally-based person. I take pride in my mental faculties (even if I sometimes don’t think they’re up to par), and whenever I come at a problem, I don’t go for trial and error so much as I reason through it, and I try to come up with creative solutions to problems. I would like to imagine myself as being able to do anything that I set my mind to, and the only thing that can stop me is if I stop thinking, imagining. Yeah, I know it might be geeky, but I’m geeky, and it means a lot to me. So there. Also, the story of getting the tattoo is pretty funny, but I’ll tell that in another entry.

The other major happening was hearing back from the people on my application to go to Oxford from January to April. After being entirely unproductive at work because I was pacing around waiting for them to contact me to say yea or nay. Around two that afternoon, I finally got an email.

Dear Tyler,

Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as a participant in the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities’ The Scholars’ Semester in Oxford (SSO) for the Spring 2009 semester (09 January – 18 April, 2009). You will be joining a talented and exciting group of fellow Christian university students on what I hope will be a life-changing journey.

So. There it is. I’ve been accepted! I’ll be going to Oxford! There’s a lot to do between now and then, but goodness me. It’s going to be a heck of a trip. I’m not looking forward to being away from my girlfriend for that long, but she’s being very supportive of my going, and we’ll work through it, hard as it’s going to be.

I don’t really have anything else to say about the trip as of now, because there’s so much information that I still have to receive from them regarding details, but rest assured that I’ll post more whenever I know more. I’ve created a new category, Oxford 2009, so you can easily keep track of anything Oxford related.

Future

Published on Tuesday, 20th May, 2008 in Geekiness, General, Life and School. 6 Comments

So, it’s getting really close to time where I have to be serious about the whole graduate school thing. I’ve applied to go to Oxford for Spring 2009, and I’ll find that out on Friday, but the next major thing I have hanging over my head is where to go to graduate school.

I’m really jonesing after Rice. One, because the program looks awesome. Two, because they’ll offer me lots of money to go there. Three, because it’s in Houston, and I wouldn’t be going out of state.

As I’ve been looking around, there are a few other programs I’ve been looking at, too. I think I’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities, and they’re all very different from what I had been thinking previously; however, I think I’d have a blast at any of the three places.

So, here are the places I’m really wanting to get into, but probably not the only places I’ll apply, just to cover my butt.

  1. Rice
  2. Emory
  3. Temple

Some other considerations are Florida State University or Purdue (West Lafayette).

Thoughts? Comments? Grad school suggestions? Horror stories? Success stories? Want to tell me how incredibly awesome I am? Have at it in the comments section. I’m really stressing out over this whole graduate school business because I’m constantly telling myself I’m not good enough, or I’m not ready for it, and any number of other things, but I’m really excited about being able to do some advanced research in a field I love, surrounded by people who love the same things. It’s going to be a hoot, I imagine. A tough time, but a hoot nevertheless.

Overwhelmed

Published on Tuesday, 25th March, 2008 in General, Life, Quickie and School. 3 Comments

Here’s the list of what needs to be done before the end of April with (approximate) due dates:

  1. Constitutional Law Paper (3/31)
  2. American Lit presentation (4/1)l
  3. Spanish Country Presentation (4/1)
  4. Brit Lit presentation (4/2)
  5. Hootenanny (4/4) (Including rehersals all next week)
  6. Brit Lit Paper (Early April)
  7. American Lit Paper (Early April)
  8. Constitutional Law Briefs (Mid April)
  9. American Lit Journals (Mid April)
  10. Brit Lit Journals (Late April)
  11. Lit Crit Journals (Late April)
  12. Lit Crit Paper (Late April)
  13. Inklings Final (Late April)
  14. Inklings Reading Reviews (Late April)

I’m pretty sure that’s everything. I hope it’s everything, anyways. So, basically, between now and the end of April, I shall be living in the library. Forgive me if I’m not around the internets too terribly much for the next little while. I shall try to keep on top of things as best I can, though.

In case I don’t see you all, have a fantastic April!

I’ll cross items off as they get finished. Hopefully, I can knock out several things this week and weekend.

Juxtaposition Two, Electric Boogaloo

Published on Wednesday, 5th March, 2008 in Blogging, General, Humanity, Life, Love, Memories, Relationships, School and personal philosophy. 8 Comments

Today, I will tell you two stories. One of these stories affirms my rapidly dwindling faith in humanity and one that rebuts it.

Story the first:
Today in my Marriage and the Family class (I am getting a minor in Psychology), we were talking about the roles of gender in the family. The questions were raised, as they always are, about what makes a person a man or a woman, apart from the obvious anatomical disparities. People began rattling off answers about how men are providers, stoic, leaders, etc. I’m sure you can name the stereotypes. For the women, answers such as home maker, mother, and the rest of those commonplaces were thrown around.

I sat quietly, listening. When the answers slowed down, I raised my hand to chip in my thoughts on gender (which you might remember). Basically, I think gender is overemphasized, and that in today’s increasingly androgynous world, gender lines are getting blurred, and I don’t see the big reason to worry about it. I pointed out that I am not particularly stereotypically masculine in a lot of ways, which has come up in previous discussions in the class.

Today, though, I guess the topic came up one too many times, and from behind me, I heard one of the guys say , “Fag.” Much muted sniggering followed. Typically, I’m not too phased by this sort of thing. I’m quite comfortable in both my masculinity and in my heterosexuality, so I don’t really have anything to hide, but being that I go to a Christian University, and given that this is an upper division course, I figured my thoughts and ideas would be met with a bit more decorum and respect. I would be lying if I told you that it didn’t sting a little.

Story the second:
Being that I go to a Christian school, we have mandatory chapels. Sometimes, these chapels are just onerous, but every now and then, we get a good speaker who really catches our attention. The speaker today was of the latter sort, and I was delighted when I heard he was speaking. He told us a modernized version of the Woman at the Well story. In the end, the woman in the modernized vesion was asked what she would want if she had three wishes. It ultimately came out that she wasn’t so much interested in money or being away from where she was so much as she was wanting forgiveness, a way to start over, and someone to love her.

The speaker concluded by challenging us to ask someone who looked down or alone what they’d want if they had three wishes, in an attempt to try to help them out a little bit. Later that day, as I was sitting on a bench outside, letting the sun wash over me, someone I had never seen before walks up to me, and with a half-smirk asks me what I’d want if I had three wishes. Apparently, I looked depressed.

I looked the person in the eye and said, “That’s not really a hard question for me. I’d like someone I love very much not to be sick. I’d like for the world to stop spiraling into war. And lastly, I’d like for every family who has lost someone in the war to get an answer for why they had to sacrifice a loved one.”

The person stammered for a minute, before I assured him (or her) that it was ok if no answer was coming. No one else seemed to have one. The person said thanks and walked off. A few minutes later, the person came back and sat down next to me. Apparently, this person had lost an uncle in Afghanistan a while back. I had no idea who I was talking to, but I just listened. I just sat there and absorbed every piece of information offered about her uncle, his unit, when he was supposed to come home. After a few minutes, the person looked up at me and said, “Thanks. I needed to get all of that out,” and left.

I don’t know who it was, and I don’t know if I will ever see him (or her) ever again, but that was a day that got better not because I was doing anything, but because I looked like I was in need of some cheering up.

Life’s funny that way. Sometimes you set out to help someone out, but you end up getting the help you need instead. Maybe we aren’t so screwed up after all.

I’ve got an idea that I’ll post about in a few days, after I let it roll around in my head, letting the gaps fill themselves in Katamari style. In the mean time, what are your stories of human kindness or of human cruelty that you’ve seen or experienced? Either post them in the comments, or leave a comment with a link to your own entry, and I’ll put them all together in a nice list and post it in a few days, after you’ve had some time to write your own stories.

Looking Backwards and Looking Forwards

Published on Sunday, 2nd March, 2008 in Blogging, Geekiness, General, Life, Literature, Poetry and School. 9 Comments

Ho-kay. I know I don’t have a whole bunch of readers, but the complete lack of comments on the last entry tells me 1)I really am as bad at poetry as I thought I was or 2)Poetry isn’t you guys’ shtick, so I think I’ll refrain from any poetry posting here. Maybe some day I’ll make a separate blog for that.

In other news, I’ve been working on my application to attend Oxford for the Spring semester of 2009. To be completely frank, the very idea creates in me a giddy anticipation of the adventures (quests?) the trip will hold for me. At the very same time, that idea creates in me a nearly debilitating fear and trepidation that I’m nearly unable to work on the application process at all.

The last time I was considering doing this was just last year. I was thinking about going to Oxford this past fall semester, and following that trip up with a semester in Russia during this semester. I wussed out. As it turned out, though, what with all the crazy stuff that went on with my head, it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t end up going then.

As far as what I’ll do if I get in, I already know because I had to pick classes and things as part of the application process. For those of you who don’t already know, the British do things a bit differently in their university system than we do here in the states. I had to pick a seminar track, and a primary and secondary tutorial. The seminars are like typical lectures, given by a number of different faculty members at Wycliffe Hall. The tutorials are just that: one-on-one meetings with faculty to discuss readings, go over papers, etc. The style is largely self-motivated, because you only meet with your tutor once a week, and you have to make sure to get your assignments done in the meantime.

Looking at all the many different tutorials they offer, I decided on these, under the English Language and Literature seminar track. Primary Tutorial: Linguistic Theory; Secondary Tutorial: Old Norse Literature (which will be entirely in Old Norse, which they’ll teach us how to read); Alternate Primary (in case I can’t get into it): The History and Use of the English Language; Alternate Secondary: Old English Literature (Again, it’ll be in Old English, which they’ll teach us).

Those may or may not sound at all interesting to you all in the vast internets, but I can’t wait. ‘Course I’ve got to get myself accepted first. Wish me luck, and please forgive me if my next post is some ramblings as I try to straighten out my application essay.