Okay okay, I know that lately, I've only been posting links to things and not really posting anything original at all. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, I've been in Conway sitting around watching SportsCenter again and again and again all morning and YouTube videos all afternoon because there's just not that much to do here, and that leaves me with very few interesting stories to tell the 12 of you who read my blog. Second, I've promised that I would write about some of the things that I've been thinking about for the last few months, but as of yet, I don't think I've finished thinking through those things enough to be able to offer you a summary. It's been good for me lately to just write down as many of my thoughts as I can in rough form and start to mull over those. As of this very moment I'm renewing my vow to you (isn't that romantic?) to actually write something serious on this blog and try my best (for your sake and mine) to summarize what I learned at and through L'Abri.
Until then, I want to point you to an article that I just read. Literally, I just finished reading it, and I don't think I've read something that's summed up my views on an issue this well and coming at such a perfect time as this. The article is called "No Voices in my Head" and it's by Bill MacKinnon who writes some at the blog The Internet Monk which has quickly become one of my favorites. The article concerns the idea of God's leading or personal revelation to individuals and how obsessed the evangelical church in America has become with "feeling led" by God or "hearing" from God in a private way. Here are two excerpts, one from the beginning of the article and one from the end:
I’m a lousy Christian.
There. I’ve said it. People say that admitting it is the first step. What makes me a lousy Christian you ask? Hidden sin? Lukewarm commitment? Worldliness?
I wish.
At least if it were one of those, I could do something about it. No, what makes me a lousy Christian is something I don’t seem to be able to do anything about. You see, God isn’t speaking to me. He won’t give me assignments. He didn’t tell me who to marry. He was obstinately silent when I had to decide whether to take my current job. He doesn’t give me secret knowledge about other people or situations. In short, He isn’t doing for me what seemingly the rest of the evangelical church claims He is doing for them.
and
It is curious to me that if someone in a typical evangelical church stood up and said an angel spoke to him and told him that God wanted him to be a missionary to Africa , we would be very skeptical at best. Yet if that same person stood up and said that he “just really feel led to go to Africa to be a missionary”, the "amens" and applause would be deafening. Yet the former is biblical and the latter is not.
Read the article. It's not that long. Don't be turned off by what seems to be cynicism about the idea that God could speak to people privately. He says in the article that he's not talking about what God can do but about what we can teach (read: tell people to expect).
I imagine that when I summarize my thoughts over the last few months, this issue will play prominently into the discussion. Read the article and if you have the time and energy I'd love to hear what you think about it, positive or negative. Any of your thoughts will help me work out my own.
In other news, I leave in about seven hours to go to Atlanta with my family to hang out with my dad's side of the family for the weekend. There's about 30 of us so it should be loud. It's always a good time. If anything awesome happens I'll be sure to let you know.
Since there's not a whole lot to do around Conway right now I have been watching almost every video on YouTube. It's a little bit dorky, but I don't care because if I wasn't watching every video on YouTube then I wouldn't be able to show all of you these great clips that I find.
Here's four videos by the same people. I'm sure you've seen the first one, but I just found the other three and they are just as funny if not funnier. I hope you enjoy.
Merry Christmas everyone. I'll post something with more words in it tomorrow, but until then, here's my Christmas gift to you: a dance video I edited last night while waiting on Santa. It's made up of a bunch of clips from different times while I was at L'Abri. Enjoy
PS If you're reading this post on Facebook, you'll have to actually come to my blog to see the video.
This was the most exciting show of my childhood. American Gladiators was, is, and will always be the best fighting/wrestling-related action/drama ever made in the 80s and resurrected in the 00s. Here's a great clip that, I think, truly shows the high quality wrestletainers that they had on this show. We can only hope that in the new version there will be gladiators as amazing.
This might creep you out, but I don't even give a care.
After I started my blog up, I registered with Google Analytics so I could see how many people were coming to my blog, where they were coming from, how long they were staying, etc. Don't worry, I can't find any information about you specifically unless I know you're in some random place like Croatia on December 12 and I see that I had three hits from Croatia that day. I would know that it was probably you, but it doesn't tell me your name or anything like that so don't be so paranoid and vain, as if I would try to track you.
Aaaaaaaanyways. One of the things I can check on is what things people search for on Google that leads them to my blog. The following are a few of my favorite keywords that people have searched for and ended up at my blog:
--"that bird is not my doppelganger" --"beard growth fill in" - this person actually spent 9 minutes on my blog --"fisherman beard" - there were numerous beard searches which leads me to believe that I'm not the only one self-conscious about my lack of manly facial hair --my favorite beard-related query: "how to shave so that it grows more and tough" --"bicep is twitching" --I would like to meet the person who searched for this, I'm sure he's . . . awesome: "pictures of awesome jet planes doing awesome things" - he only spent 30 seconds on the site so I guess the Swiss jets weren't awesome enough or doing awesome enough things --"where do most jamaicans live in brooklyn?" --"it's my last chance to say something to save my marriage" - fortunately this guy/girl didn't stay on my site for very long
And finally:
--"dirty swiss lady gallery" - proof that there are lots of pervos on the internet; this guy searched my site for dirty Swiss ladies for 8 minutes before moving on
Yes, classy people read my blog. People who are interested in an eclectic mix of topics ranging from SNL skits to how to be a more manly man to where to find weird niche pornography. Thanks for reading y'all.
Here's a good and interesting article comparing the journaling habits and styles of early American Christians to those of the modern American. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:
In this essay, which briefly compares the recent phenomenon of “journaling” to early American devotional writing, I’ll try to answer several questions: Why did so many early American Christians feel compelled to keep diaries, and why has there been such a surge of interest in “journaling” in our own time? How do today’s “spiritual” journals either resemble or differ from early American diaries? In the first part of this essay, I show that early American Protestants kept diaries in order to “crucify” themselves and worship a transcendent God. In the second part, I argue that today, Americans write spiritual journals for a very different set of reasons: to create an authentic sense of selfhood, to come to a deeper appreciation of their own worth, and to find God within them.
And here's a link to the article. "'A place to go to connect with yourself': A Historical Perspective on Journaling". Interestingly enough (and the author mentions this as well), many of the critiques that we could level against the modern practice of journaling find no criticism or counter-examples within current Christian writing, thought, and theology. Also interesting is, in my opinion, how the theology of several of the most widely-read preachers and writers coming out of the theological traditions of the early American Christians (Puritans) can, if read without care to discern these themes specifically, leave the reader or listener with the same sense of self-loathing and lack of self-worth that the author rightly criticizes in the theology of their predecessors.
So, I might post again later on today, but as of right now (7:37 am) I think the most important thing for all of you to see is these two videos from L'Abri. They're made by a girl named Valerie (not the one in my 'Day at L'Abri' videos) who was at L'Abri for about ten days. The first one is mainly a bunch of the girls dancing on a day trip to France, but at the end is some footage of us playing volleyball. The second one is a group of four or five people walking up to Villars to go to a bar one night. They made the mistake of taking the trail through the woods instead of just going up the road. Rookies.
Bought it today. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. I'll let you know how to save yourself after I'm finished reading it, which will probably be by the end of this weekend in Asheville.
In other news, if you didn't already know, I'll be going to Asheville this weekend with my family to stay at the Sourwood Inn.
Okay, this blog post, however short, has been too much about my boring life for my comfort. I want to stay away from the type of blogging where I just tell you what is going on in my life unless I'm going to make it into some half-fictional story that will entertain you.
I made it back to America! Yeah, I landed in Charlotte, NC at about 5 pm on Friday night, and I was picked up by Pat and Alan and brought back to beautiful Columbia, SC. That night I had an amazing burger and a dark beer at Rockaways and then had some more good beer with Dando, Nate, Pat, and Alan. Couldn't ask for a better first night back. Friends, food, and beer that, unlike all the beer you could get in Villars, is darker than my pee.
Since I've been back I haven't done much. It's been at least 80 degrees here in Columbia every day and I don't have a car so I've been trying to find stuff to do in Alan's . . . wait a second. I'm watching TV right now and a show just came on where they're documenting the Ohio State Grade School Wrestling Championships. I don't even know what to say. Little kids throwing each other around on a mat acting like hardcore big dogs--like they're already men--until they start to lose the match and start to cry. There's nothing wrong with crying. It's just that if you didn't see the little kids wrestling in the background, you'd think all the adults were coaching and screaming at grown men and the kids are acting like grown men until the match is over and the loser is sobbing hysterically and everyone has to switch gears back to the reality that the kid that they just told (and I'm quoting) "This is the most important match of your life" and "If he hurts you, you hurt him worse" is just that: a kid who is at most 11 years old. That was a long long run-on sentence. Anyway.
I've been trying to stay inside and not sweat to death. Today I'm going to hang out with James Basler and get some lunch somewhere downtown.
I'm not sure what all I should write in this post. I think I want to give you all a rundown of some of the things I was thinking about while I was at L'Abri, but I need to think about it a little bit more and take some more time to process everything a little bit more. Until then, here's a quote from the blog of a girl, Emily, that I think is a good beginning to my thoughts about my time at L'Abri:
"It was a time to stop 'doing' and think about what it was that I was doing. I was allowed the freedom and time to explore thoughts that I have never before allowed myself and then to actually attempt living out some of those things with the space to fail. I can’t quite describe in words how valuable this has been in my life and how badly I needed such a thing."
That's from Emily's blog. I linked to it on the right, but here's another direct link. Check it out.
Before I go, here's a video I've been watching about five times a day for the last three days. It's a music video for Kanye West's song "Can't Tell Me Nothing" and it's starring Zach Galifianakis and Bonnie Prince Billy. It's amazing. I think it's hilarious. Maybe you will too. Here's a link to the website of the director: The Claw Productions. Check him out.
I still have to upload part 6, but here's the majority of the video of a day at L'Abri. The reason they're so short is that I didn't want to compress them at all so to fit them within the size requirements for YouTube, they had to be short. The size means it takes forever to upload them, so at some point--maybe tomorrow--I'll upload the last vid.
Yeah, I haven't posted in a really long time, but it's for a good reason. I made a video showing what a day at L'Abri is like and it's taken me awhile to upload it to YouTube because the six parts are so big. Hopefully I'll have at least four of them up later on tonight for you to watch. Until then, here's a book cover I've been working on for my tutor Greg.
***Update: For some reason, at least on my computer, the colors of the picture are coming out weird. Just imagine that the sky above the grass is blue like a normal sky and the mud at the bottom is brown like normal mud. I don't know what Blogger's up to with these weird colors.***
Val says that a vampire attack would be preferable to a zombie attack. I say that Val is naive and is disconnected from reality. And yet she continues to argue her side.
The survivability of a zombie/vampire attack, in fact, has been the most talked about subject at L'Abri as of late. Let me tell you why.
Things that led to the zombie and subsequent vampire discussion at L'Abri:
1) I love zombie stuff. I love the movies, the books, the games, whatever. I don't know why. I just do. 2) Over the break I re-listened to an audiobook version of 'World War Z: The Oral History of the Zombie Wars' by Max Brooks. This book is an account of the Zombie Wars that nearly wiped out the human race in the early 21st century. 3) My tutorials each week with Greg get done at about 6:30 pm which means that I have to make the 15 minute walk back to Bellevue in the dark. This gives me ample time to contemplate how we at L'Abri would survive the inevitable zombie holocaust. 4) Also over the break, Jon listened to 'World War Z', and so became qualified and well-versed enough in zombie combat to offer educated insights into surviving the aforementioned zombie apocalypse.
So, one night when I got back to Bellevue from my tutorial with Greg I told Jon, Renea, and Val that I thought we had a pretty good chance of surviving a zombie attack if we were at L'Abri. I told them my plans and they were all impressed with my intimate knowledge of the habits of zombies. My plan hinged on the fact that by late January most of the zombies around Huemoz would be frozen solid. This would mean that we could go outside, kill the frozen zombies, handle any of the ones that were halfway frozen and at least slowed down by the cold, and then hunt for food and get fire wood. The winter would also allow us a chance to refortify Bellevue and build walled walkways to a couple of the chalets nearby. Of course, the residents would have already been evacuated to Bellevue, but we would go back there for clothes, books, anything we might be able to use.
Anyways, I don't have the time or energy to go into all the details of the plan, plus you don't really know the layout of Bellevue so none of it would make sense to you. Suffice it to say that if we stuck by my plan, we would have a good chance of survival here.
As I was explaining all of this to Val, Renea, and Jon, however, Val said that she would much rather be attacked by vampires than zombies, and that she thought that vampires would be way easier to survive than zombies. Obviously she's dead (or undead, ba dum pshh) wrong, but just for the heck of it, let's think about this.
Zombie attack: A zombie's main goal in death is to eat people. Not all the way usually, but at least a few chunks. Zombies don't move quickly because their brains aren't fully functioning. You kill a zombie by destroying the brain matter. This can be by shooting them in the head or by beating their head in. Unless you destroy their brain they can come back. Zombies don't think; they just go towards food and moan. This last part is important for our discussion. Zombies do not think. They may swarm towards food in groups of thousands or even millions, but they do not think.
Vampire attack: A vampire's main goal in death is to drink blood, turn other people into vampires, and live a lavish life. Some vampires may not want to fight a war against humans, but some do, and those are the ones that we worry about. Vampires can move very quickly and have superhuman strength. Some may be able to turn into bats, but that may just be superstition. Also, they may or may not be able to seduce you in your dreams into doing what they want you to do. Vampires can kill people, make them into human blood banks by enslaving them and just taking a little bit of blood at a time, or turn you into a vampire by taking all of your blood. Vampires can be warded off, some say, by garlic (this may just be superstition), crosses, and holy water, but the only things that kill them are sunlight or a wooden stake in the heart. Some people say that vampires can only come into your house if you invite them in. This may be true, but it is unimportant if they can seduce you in your dreams into letting them in your house. Unlike zombies, vampires can think and have tactics when they fight people. Not only do they have tactics, their tactics are sophisticated and have been forged over many centuries of undeadness.
So, which would you rather fight?
Zombies of course. Yes, an army of the undead would be frightening, but when you start to fight back all you have to do is move methodically. There will never be a 'boss-level' zombie. They will never adjust their tactics. They come to you and you kill them. All you need is enough ammo. Vampires on the other hand are cunning and fast and strong. They can take a break and make you think you've won the war and then come back and launch a surprise attack. There's just no telling what they'll do.
In conlusion, I give you two pictures. Which one would you rather fight? If you say vampire, you are wrong.
In other news, things are moving along here at L'Abri. We've got less than a month left. I've finally finished reading 'Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self', and I must say that even though it took me a month-and-a-half to read it was well worth it. I hate writing book reviews/summaries so even though I should qualify that last statement, I won't. I also just finished reading a book called 'Still Life with Woodpecker' by Tom Robbins which was okay. It's a novel. Fiction. Tom Robbins did a lot of drugs I think and this story was the result of that. Let me write for you the book description from the back cover so I don't have to describe the book myself:
"'Still Life with Woodpecker' is sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activisim and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads."
After reading it, I can say that the book successfully fulfilled that description.
What else, what else? Oh yeah, there's a girl here from Columbia. Her name is Sarah Goddard and she grew up in Chapin and went to College of Charleston but now she lives in Columbia. Her dad is Hule Goddard and he teaches at CIU. She works at Yo Burrito and she's cool. Maybe some of you know her.
I've made a video. A video that could ruin my chances of ever becoming an elected official.
I guess I should at least explain what's on the video so you won't be blindsided.
On Sunday night we watched the movie Zoolander at L'Abri. Afterwards we had a "Ridiculously Good-Looking Party/Walk-Off". Of course, I won the walk-off. I would say, in fact, that I dominated it.
This video is a record and commemoration of my victory.
Disclaimer: I was wearing makeup, but only a little bit, and no more, I think, than Hansel himself would wear.
I updated the vacation post and put all the pictures on it. You don't have to reread the post, but at least look at some of the pictures. And for all of you old people don't forget, you can click on the pictures to see a bigger version.
This is it. The second most amazing thing that I saw/did on my vacation to Italy. Andrea and I were walking around Florence when we found this party and went in for the music and free wine. Little did we know that we would see something this amazing. Watch this video. Send it to your friends. Spread the love that is this man's dance.
There once was a young man named Chris Who went on a trip just like this: First to Florence and next To Livorno, but vexed He and Jon realized that Livorno is retarded and so are all the people that live there who have no idea when or from whence the ferry to Capraia leaves their unbearably hot and smelly town.
Yes, my dear friends and family, Livorno is hella-dumb. Online, the ferry ticket office told me that there were five ferries leaving for Capraia on Sunday. When Jon and I arrived there, however, there was no ferry in port, the ticket office was closed, and no one around the port seemed to know or even believe that ferries would actually go to Capraia. After some deciphering of the signs on the ticket office door, we discovered that a ferry would be leaving the next morning at 8:30. Unfortunately for Capraia, Jon and I really didn't feel like staying in Livorno for the night so we hopped a train (and by "hopped", I mean we paid for tickets and boarded legally) to Cinque Terre and figured we'd just bum around there until the girls (Amelia, Erin, and Emily; all from L'Abri) got there on Wednesday.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning of our trip. Interspersed throughout the post will be pictures from our trip. I'm going to make them small in the post, but just click on them and you can see a bigger version.
Jon and I walked out of Chalet Bellevue on Thursday morning at 10 with our backpacks strapped tightly to our backs, ready to hitchhike to Turin, Italy. We had a sign that Greg Laughery made for us in French that said "We are going to Turin, Italy. How far can you take us?" Hitching down to Turin turned out to be pretty easy. We made it in just about five hours. Our hitches were as follows: 1) A former missionary nurse from Albania took us down the mountain and wished us luck. 2) A British lady from Villars drove us to the next town, Monthey, and told us she knew a bunch of people from L'Abri and that anytime she picked up hitchhikers she knew they'd be from L'Abri. She was nice and had on three pounds of makeup. 3) These two old Swiss ladies who spoke absolutely no English picked us up and drove us about 40 minutes to the far side of Martigny. I told them that I didn't speak any French, but I guess I look like I can understand what anyone is saying because they talked and talked and talked to us all in French. I just smiled and nodded and Jon played Sudoku. 4) A middle-aged Swiss lady picked us up and drove us to the beginning of the highway that leads into Italy. She was very nice and told us that when she was little she memorized all 50 states of America. She also taught us how to count to 20 in French. 5) A Kosovar couple (if you'll notice, this is the first man that has picked us up; middle-aged women loved us) picked us up and drove us about 10 minutes up the road towards Italy. 6) Best hitch of the day. A French-turned-Swiss lady (middle-aged) picked us up and drove us all the way to within 50 km of Turin. We were in the car with her for about two hours during which she told us all about her travels around Europe and how she came to be a Zen Buddhist. She was incredibly nice and was a huge help for us. 7) We got dropped off by the Buddhist lady at a toll booth to get onto the main highway into Turin. Jon started making the sign for Turin (Torino). If you'll notice, he started out a little overambitious with the size of the letters and had to squeeze the 'I' 'N' and 'O' in at the very end. After he got the sign done, however, we quickly got picked up by a guy who was half Italian and half Scottish. He was an older guy who hitchhiked around Europe in the 70s and he took us straight into downtown Turin and dropped us off near a bus stop that we took to the train station.
We just barely made our train to Florence, but we did make it, and we saved about 40 euros by hitchhiking to Turin instead of taking a train straight from Huemoz.
Anyway, we made it to Florence and after waiting for a little while for the girls (Carla, Grace, Faith, and Andrea) we were on our way to their hotel. The plan was for all of us to sleep in the one room that Carla's dad had booked for two people. Of course, we had to be sure that the management didn't charge us extra for the extra people, so stealth was key. Unfortunately, they locked the doors to the hotel at 10 and we had to be buzzed in and the lady asked for Jon's and my ID (the girls had run upstairs as soon as we got through the door). So, since Jon and I couldn't stay at the hotel that night, we had to leave the room at about 12 am and search for another hotel to stay at. I've never tried to book a hotel room at 12 am, but I really didn't think it would be all that difficult. It was. It took us two hours and over twenty hotels to find one that had a double that was vacant. When we finally found a hotel, we went in and crashed hardcore.
The next day (I promise my descriptions are going to get much shorter; this post won't be book-length) we all met up at the Accademia Gallery and saw the David by Michaelangelo. I've seen it before, but it's such an amazing sculpture that I'd love to see it again and again. We saw the David (You aren't supposed to get pictures with the David, but I'm a rebel so booyah) and then went out to lunch near the Uffizi. Although we were supposed to go to the Uffizi at two that afternoon, all of us except for Carla and Grace were too worn out to go to another gallery so Andrea, Jon, and I walked up a hill on the other side of the river just to see what we could find. What we found was a free art exhibition that was jam-packed with people. They were only letting in about 20 people at a time so there was a mad rush every time they would open the doors to let people in. The picture of us in the crowd is the three of us waiting to get inside and an Italian man who was very frustrated to be stuck next to the Americans. The exhibit wasn't actually that good. Just some lame impressionist paintings. Andrea and I went up the hill further and found a big church with a view over the city so we sat up there for awhile and then met up with everyone else back down in the city. We bought dinner from a grocery store and ate in the hotel room (we got into Carla's room) that night.
On Saturday, Grace, Carla, Jon and I went back up that hill and sat up at the church and chilled for a couple of hours and then we all split up and had some alone time. I ended up sitting on a bench next to an old old old Italian couple who were flirting the entire time. It was kind of cute. Kind of uncomfortable. I just listened to my iPod and pretended that, in addition to not being able to understand their language, I also could not understand any of their actions or body language. They eventually left and Andrea found me and told me that she had found a garden party that we should go to because there was a disco band and free wine. We went and we witnessed the greatest dancing that I've ever seen by an Italian man over the age of 60. I videoed it, and it's on YouTube. I'll embed the video in a post after this one. It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.
Anyways, that night we ate out and then chilled in the hotel room again. Here's a picture of the sleeping arrangement in the room. Three people on the beds. Three people on the floor. It was tight.
Sunday came, and Jon and I headed to Livorno where, if you'll remember the limerick above, we found out that no ferries exist on Sundays. So we went to Cinque Terre early.
I'm glad that we made that decision. Cinque Terre is maybe one of the most relaxing and beautiful places I've ever been. If you don't know what it is, let me explain. Cinque Terre is a series of five little fishing and wine villages on the coast of Italy that are set in a national park and are connected by a little train. Jon and I stayed in Monterosso which is the most touristy of the towns but also the only one with sand beaches. Since it's October, though, there were hardly any tourists there and the beaches were pretty empty every day we were there. The picture of the village is Vernazza which is the next town over from Monterosso, but all the villages look pretty much like that one.
So, Monday Jon and I went on a hike up and around all five of the villages and then went back to Monerosso and chilled for the night. Tuesday = beach all day long. It was about 75 degrees Farenheit and sunny every day we were there. Wednesday we hit the beaches again and then met the girls at the train station. It turned out that Grace, Carla, and Carla's friend Spencer came to Cinque Terre that day as well as Erin, Amelia, and Emily so it turned into a little bit of a people overload. No sweat, though. Thursday we hiked another trail with the girls and then went swimming. And Friday we all went out to breakfast before Jon and I took a train to Locarno, Switzerland to meet Faith and do the bungee jump of a lifetime on Saturday.
Locarno. What to say about Locarno? It would be a great city if you took out all the jerk faces that live and work there. I guess it's usually a resort town for the rich Europeans so they really didn't like three dirty poor (North) Americans coming into their restaurants. Whatever. We came. We saw. We conquered in the name of (North) America.
Our hotel was nice. I didn't really care about anything in Locarno except for the bungee jump, and it more than met all of my expectations. I'm getting tired of typing things so I'll just refer you to the pictures and video below to see how the jump went.
Okay, so that was my break. I don't feel like typing anymore. I'll post again next Tuesday or maybe earlier. I hope your lives are great.
Hey everyone. Just a quick update for you. But first, let me clear something up that hopefully no one was actually confused about. That last post's introductory dialogue had nothing to do with any reality except that of my own rambling imagination. I just decided when I started to type that entry that I would just say whatever came to my mind. And that was it. Kind of scary.
Anyway. I'm in Florence (Firenze en Italiano) and it's pretty nice. Jon and I got here without a . . . I almost typed 'without a hitch', meaning with no problems, but we did get a hitch, and no, I'm not trying to be funny, I almost did write 'without a hitch'. We got about 5 or 6 hitches from Huemoz to Turin where we caught a train to Florence. It was a long day yesterday, not just because of the hitchhiking and travelling (it took us from 10 am til 8:30 pm to get to Florence from Huemoz), but also because when Jon and I went to go upstairs to sleep in the hotel room with our friends from L'Abri, the lady at the desk told us if we stayed the night that we would be charged for a room. Sooooooo, at about 12:30 am, Jon and I set out to find a hotel/hostel/bench. We checked with literally 20+ hotels and they were all booked up. Finally, at a little after 2 am, we found a double room for 109 euros for the night. I'll expand on this story later, but suffice it to say that tonight we were much sneakier about getting into our friends' hotel and now we are very very very thankful to have a place to sleep for the evening.
I'll post again as I have time and energy. Tomorrow we're exploring more of Florence and then on Sunday, Jon and I leave for Capraia.
Hey everyone. Yes, I know, I didn't post yesterday. See what had happened was, I was going to write it up and post last night, but since a bunch of people were leaving this morning to start their break trips and some to leave for home, we all decided to go up to a place called the targets (it's just a scenic lookout spot) and hang out for a few hours. So, it was you or them. And, I chose them. But only for last night.
Today, as I write this post during my study time here at L'Abri, I am choosing you, my faithful readers. I am choosing all of you, that is, except for 'Anonymous' who commented that I'm "shit at updating this blog." You are not chosen, Anonymous. You are rejected.
I guess I should take this time to let you all know what I'll be doing on my 11-day break from L'Abri. I'm sure it is of great interest to you. I can picture you now, huddled around your dinner tables at night, speaking in hushed but excited whispers. "When is Chris going to tell us what he's doing over his break?" "I don't know, but if he doesn't I'm just going to kill myself, I swear I will, and don't you dare try to stop me Bill." "Just calm down, Darla, I'm sure . . ." "NO! I will not calm down! Do you know how hard it's been for me lately? You have no idea! You go off to work everyday, and I just sit here, hoping that Chris gets some spare moment to post an update when I'm not expecting it. Damn you and your career! You have no idea! . . . . I think I want a divorce."
Just hold on a second guys. Fear not. I'm here to save your marriage. Now grab a nice glass of vino, gather round the family PC, put your arms around each other, and live vicariously through me.
That last sentence kind of rhymes. Maybe I'll make it the new slogan of my blog.
Tomorrow morning Jon and I will leave L'Abri right after breakfast, probably sometime around 10 am. Before I go any further, I need to decide which is the best format for describing my plans to you. I think I'll go for an itinerary format with comments on different days. So, here we go:
Day 1 (Thurs Oct 11)- Jon and I wake up, eat breakfast at L'Abri and then head to the hitch spot outside of Huemoz to try to hitchhike to Turin, Italy where we'll get a train to Florence. By hitching to Turin (about 3 hours drive from here) we'll save around 40 euros on train tickets. That night we'll meet four girls from L'Abri at the train station in Florence and hopefully stay in their hotel with them until Sunday morning.
Day 2 (Fri Oct 12)- Today the six of us (me, Jon, Andrea, Carla, Faith, and Grace) will go to the Accademia Gallery (where Michaelangelo's David is) in the morning and then the Uffizi Gallery (where Raphael's David in bronze is, I think) in the afternoon. I've already been to both of these museums before (when I went to Italy for three weeks after my junior year in high school), but they are awesome enough to warrant another visit.
Day 3 (Sat Oct 13)- Still in Florence. No plans except maybe go check out the Pontevecchio which is the big famous bridge in Florence, and maybe go see the Duomo and the Baptistery in the city center as well.
Day 4 (Sun Oct 14)- Jon and I leave early from Florence to hitchhike to a little port city called Livorno. It's on the west coast of Italy, just west of Pisa. From Livorno we'll get a ferry to a tiny island near Corsica called Capraia. We don't know much about the island except that it's there and has some good hikes and beaches.
Day 5 (Mon Oct 15)- Capraia exploration. The island isn't very big at all, so I'm not sure what all there is to explore, but we're going to find out. Maybe we'll even try to get a boat ride to Corsica. Who knows.
Day 6 (Tues Oct 16)- Depending on how interesting Capraia is, we'll either spend the whole day here and leave the next morning, or we'll spend half the day here and catch the ferry back to Livorno that afternoon and hitchhike up to Cinque Terre (about an hour drive away).
Day 7 (Wed Oct 17)- See above. Either explore or get to Cinque Terre, Italy today. Cinque Terre is a series of five small villages on the coast that are apparently some of the most beautiful places in Italy. Classic Italy is what everyone says. So, we'll get there and find a place to stay (I have a list of hostels or cheap hotels for the places we're going but we don't have any reservations) and then we're going to meet three other girls (Erin, Amelia, Emily) from L'Abri in a town called Monterosso (one of the five towns in Cinque Terre). Hopefully we'll be able to stay in the same hostel so we can hang out while the five of us are all there at the same time.
Day 8 (Thurs Oct 18)- Hike around Cinque Terre. The surrounding area is a protected park so there are some good trails from village to village. I'm not quite sure what to expect in Cinque Terre either, but that's what's nice about not really having too much of a schedule; we can basically do whatever we want.
Day 9 (Fri Oct 19)- Spend the first half of the day in Cinque Terre, maybe go to the beach and read some. I don't know. Then, towards early afternoon Jon and I will get a train (7 hours, suck) to Locarno, Switzerland where we'll meet Faith (one of the girls who was in Florence with us) and get a hotel room somewhere so that we can wake up early the next morning and . . .
Day 10 (Sat Oct 20)- BUNGEE JUMP! At 2:30 in the afternoon, the three of us have a reservation to jump from the second highest bungee jump in the world (the first highest is in China and is less than 20 meters higher than this one) at 220 meters. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with us. We've heard stories from one of the workers at L'Abri of other students who went to do the jump but were thwarted by the weather. Keep your fingers crossed.
Day 11 (Sun Oct 21)- Maybe catch a train, maybe try to hitchhike, back to Huemoz where we will be reunited with the rest of the people who are here for the whole term.
So, there you go. I'm going to take as many pictures and videos as I can so that I can show you all of the people and places. The only thing I'm really worried about with the trip is, well, two things. One, I don't have a very big backpack (besides my huge one) to take my stuff in, so packing is going to be tight. And two, weather during the week and a half that we'll be on break. Really, it could rain every single day but be sunny on our bungee day and I'd be happy.
In other news, the weather here has been pretty great lately. They actually have a fall here, which is nice. It's around 65 or 70 during the day and chilly at night. About of the trees around here have leaves that change color so it makes the mountains around us look beautiful.
I really can't think of anything else to tell you. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to know that I haven't written about yet? Just let me know.
In conclusion, here's a picture of the white-out type of fog that we get around here. The picture below was taken on Sunday morning before chapel. The crazy thing is that only four hours later it was perfectly sunny and clear all around. I guess this is just something that happens when you live 3300 feet above sea level in the Swiss Alps.
Lata.
Oh yeah. I won't be posting for about a week probably. I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have while we're on the trip, but if I do get a chance I'll post a little update.
Well, it looks like Blogger isn't going to let me upload photos tonight. Just imagine a foggy scene with a tree and another tree and a bench and some grass and no mountains. If you can see mountains then your mental picture is a lie from the devil, so . . . . .
Yes, it got very pretty here. It was rainy for about four days. Grey (or gray?). Gray. Cold. Miserable. I really just don't do well with no sunlight. I can handle coldness. It's just when everything is completely fogged over (which is what happens here; I'll take a picture next time it happens) and you can't see anything at all outside that I get cabin fever and start to go crazy. Luckily for us, Saturday and Sunday were beautiful days, as was Monday. Today seems to be keeping the streak alive.
Since it was so nice outside on Sunday, a few of us decided to go on a hike. Actually, I didn't want to go at first, but I was talked into it. I'm glad I went. It was a nice one. We hiked up to Roc D'Orsay from Huemoz, about a three hour hike. It wasn't very strenuous but a couple of the people that went with us got worn out by the time we made it to the top. The problem was that we were at the top at 4:30 that afternoon, we spent half an hour looking around, and then we had to be back at L'Abri for dinner at seven o'clock. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal if half of our group wasn't completely and utterly exhausted and thus taking forever to walk down the mountain. After about thirty minutes of me and another girl, Erin, going at our own pace running and jogging down the trail and then waiting for ten minutes for the rest to catch up, we decided to split up. By "we", I mean me and Erin. Uli, one of the new guys here (he's from Gemany), also thought we should split up, but he agreed to stay back with the slowpokes. The problem was that the slowpokes thought we should stick together, that it was a bad idea safety-wise for us to be separated. Well, I disagreed and we argued about it for awhile and never came to an agreement. So, Erin and I told them that we would see them at the bottom, and we ran off down the mountain. It was actually a much more tense situation than I can describe on a blog, but it doesn't really matter. I don't think you care very much about it.
In other news, I finished reading The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and I highly recommend it for everyone who thinks about anything at all. It's a great look at how evangelical thought got to be where it is today, which is, in the author's opinion, slowly recovering from a century of anti-intellectualism characterized by tendencies towards activism (as prioritized above the life of the mind), intuitiveness (relying on your gut feeling as opposed to seeking out the truth), populism (as opposed to scholarly research and publication), and biblicism (relating absolutely everything that's going on in the world to some prophecy or something else in Scripture). It was a helpful book for me because it brought to the fore some of those proclivities in myself. It's an interesting, albeit brief and sometimes overly general, history of evangelical thought in America. You should read it.
Now, I've picked up a book called An Emergent Manifesto of Hope which is a book written by numerous authors, thinkers, and participants within the Emergent movement, a 'postmodern' response of some Christians to the thoroughly modern evangelical church. After finishing the first two sections, I'm not very impressed. I'm going to keep reading it because I feel like it's an interesting movement, but the writers of the book aren't very good at saying anything solid and don't seem to realize that the ideas that they're throwing around (ie the breakdown of knowledge) are huge ideas with serious implications, and they aren't being appropriated by the Emergent church very scrupulously. I know, I know, that's a very general statement made after reading only two sections of the book. I'll post more later.
Anyway, here's some pictures from the hike. Well, the first one isn't from the hike this week. It's from the L'Abri looking across the valley at the Dents du Morcles, the mountain I hiked a few weeks ago.
Enjoy!
The Dents du Morcles are those two points jutting up on the right.
Stopping for some pictures. From the left: Peter (Australia), Hugh (BC, Canada), Uli (Germany), Amelia (behind Uli; Tennessee), Erin (Florida).
Leading the way.
The Swiss army has all of these doors put up on the mountain. We couldn't kick them open.
Okay, well, I don't have the time or energy to post today, and I think that this posting on Sunday thing just isn't working out for me. It's not you, Sunday, it's me. I just don't think I'm ready for this kind of commitment when there are so many other things I could be doing today besides spending time on a blog.
Anyway, I'll be posting on Tuesdays from now on. Expect a great one on Tuesday.
Woohoo. For the first time ever in the history of humankind more than 20 different people visited my blog in one day! Twenty-three to be exact. I know, it's awesome.
To celebrate, here's a video done by a magazine I enjoy. Watch the video and if you have some time, watch the other videos by these guys.
First of all, I'm sorry. I told all of you that I would post every Sunday, and I didn't post this Sunday. For those of you who thought I was dead or worse, I'm alive. For those of you who thought I just stopped caring about you, my heart is overflowing with emotions for you. For those of you who thought I had lost all of my money and was therefore unable to afford internet time, rest easy. I am not yet bankrupt. I was simply irresponsible. I was irresponsible with my offline time, with my online time, and most importantly, I was irresponsible with your hearts. Forgive me.
Well, now that that's out of the way, I think I've got a lot to tell you about.
I think I'll start with last Thursday. Nothing too too exciting happened, but I did go to a city in Switzerland that I had never been to before. That city is Montreux (pronounced "Maun-true" not "Maun-tro" as people at L'Abri are apt to say; in French 'eux' is 'ue' like at the end of 'true' and 'eaux' is 'oh' like at the middle of 'Geaux Tigers' [for LSU]). Whether you know it or not, you have a relationship, albeit an unknowing one, with Montreux. "How is that?" I hear you say. Let me show you. Here is the first verse from a well-known song by a band that we all love, Deep Purple:
We all came out to Montreux On the Lake Geneva shoreline To make records with a mobile We didn't have much time Frank Zappa and the Mothers Were at the best place around But some stupid with a flare gun Burned the place to the ground Smoke on the water, fire in the sky
So, that's where I was. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article about the song. Anyway, I went with Jon, Kate, and Chloe, all of whom are at least four years younger than me, which means that they're younger than my awesome little sister, Whitney. The thought in the back of my mind for the first 30 minutes was "These people are younger than Whitney", but I got over it. The reason the three of them wanted to go to Montreux was to get holes poked into their bodies. Kate wanted one (besides the original two) in her nose. Chloe wanted two on each ear. Jon wanted one in his eyebrow. I tagged along because I wanted to see what I thought then--and only believe more firmly now--is the most spectacular and awe-inspiring sight in all of the Land of the Switzers. Here are some pictures:
If you can't tell by the sweet mustache and firm buttocks, that's the late Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the band Queen. Apparently, there are a lot of Freddy fans in Montreux and they actually have a Freddy Mercury Montreux Memorial Weekend the first weekend of every September. The statue is right on Lake Geneva and across the street from the piercing boutique that the three young'uns so since the boutique wasn't open when we first arrived, we walked down and admired the statue for a long while. After they got their various body parts peirced, Chloe went back up to Huemoz, and Jon, Kate, and I got a hitch to Vevey (pronounced "Vuh-vay") and ate lunch and hung out down by the lake. It was nice.
On Friday, the whole group of us had a field trip! We drove to a little town about half-an-hour away called Martigny and went to a Marc Chagall exhibit. I don't really feel like describing him or his paintings, so here's a link to his Wikipedia page. It was a good exhibit. Very enjoyable.
What else? Ah yes. Sunday nights are high tea nights here. We don't really have high tea (that ended when Edith Schaeffer left L'Abri), but we have dinner and a group activity afterwards. This Sunday night was the classic bonfire.
I need to be honest with you right now. I'm getting tired of writing this blog post. I've got about an hour's worth of good, motivated writing in me anytime I write anything, be it a paper, a poem, a song, or a blog post. I've been working on this post for about an hour and I'm almost out of motivation. I will struggle on, for your sake, and for the sake of my children, and my children's children.
So we had a bonfire. Jon and I created it, and it was good. We all sat around it and told a communal story (everyone got a minute or two to talk) involving children, their parents, ogres, beanstalks, flying squirrels, and laser guns. The laser guns were my idea. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is an excerpt from the story. Actually, it's just the two times that I got to tell part of the story. I think you'll agree (without even hearing the rest of the story) that it's the only exciting and imaginative part.
Well, that's all I can think of to write right now. There are other things, I guess that I could tell you about, but I think I'll wait until Sunday. Here's one final picture for you to enjoy before you go.
So here are the pictures from the car race that took place on Saturday and Sunday. I hope you guys enjoy them. Also, I realize that the image quality of the pics in the hiking slideshow isn't spectacular, but I had to shrink the files down to upload them. I apologize.
America power!
More America power!!!
This guy is typical of the type of people in the race. Old, bearded, probably French.
I don't know what kind of car this is, but it probably talks to you.
Again, no idea what kind of car this is. Maybe a custom?
Where we were standing was the beginning of the longest straightaway in the race, so people were trying to pass each other coming out of that last turn.
Here's a couple cars from the Formula 1/Indy Car category. Some were old school, some were pretty modern.
And lastly, here's the line of motorcycles making their way back down the mountain after the race. Those motorcycles with the sidecars were hauling some major buttocks.
Alrighty, here is the slideshow of 50 pictures from the hike. Here's a copied and pasted version of how to use the slideshow (from the other post that I used a slideshow on):
Here's how to work the slideshow: first, put your mouse over the slideshow and a little menu will come up from the bottom, click on the little comment bubble to be able to see my captions for the pictures; second, you can either press the play button to play the slideshow or, if the pace of the slideshow is too fast (I can't slow it down) then you can just click through the pictures using the arrows; third, if you'd rather see the pictures without the slideshow, just click on one of the pictures and you'll be taken to the album itself on Picasa's website.
Well hello there everyone. Thank you for stopping by today. Today I have a harrowing tale of adventure on the high seas. High seas in Switzerland? you say. Yes, high seas. The high seas of the Swiss Alps.
So . . . no, not the high seas, per se. A harrowing tale, nonetheless, of an epic journey to the top of an epic mount reminiscent of that sacred mount upon which Moses was handed down the laws for a nation of outcasts by a man named "I am." This, my friends, was no ordinary hike. It was a covenant entered into by four willing and yet unable persons.
I feel like if I try to keep using that metaphor, the fact that I went on a hike on Wednesday and Thursday would be completely lost amidst my verbal self-indulgence. So on with the story!
Wednesday afternoon at 5 pm, Nichole, Jon, Greg (a new guy here who's staying with his wife and kids in a chalet just up the road), and I set out for a hike to the top of one of the mountains across the valley from Huemoz. Greg had mentioned it to me the first day he got here, and when we realized that the next Thursday would be bad because of weather we decided to make it happen this Thursday. Since the hike was such a long one, we had to leave on Wednesday afternoon to get a ride to the bottom of the mountain and hike up to a refuge (a little cabin type thing) to spend the night. Now, Greg is in pretty good shape and he told us before we started that it was going to be really strenuous, but I don't think any of us thought it would be as hard a hike as it turned out to be. The hike up to the refuge was an 800 meter climb over the course of about four kilometers laterally. It was steep. Almost all the time it was steep. By the halfway point of the hike up to the refuge, I was wiped out and wondering if I could keep going. Luckily, there was no turning back really, so I had to keep going. I say luckily because spending the night up at the refuge was one of the coolest things I've done since I've been here.
What is a refuge? Well, let me tell you. All throughout the mountains in Switzerland are these little (or not so little sometimes) cabins that are kept up by the districts in which they're located. Most of them are at a scenic point or strategic point for a through hike of some part of the mountains. The one we stayed at was one of the smallest and hardest to get to, but the views were outstanding and the place was just plain cool to stay at. It was basically just a little stone cabin with some tables and a kitchen downstairs and two rows of sleeping mats and comforters upstairs for people to sleep in. We took a bunch of food up with us that night and cooked tuna lemon pasta for dinner and had a nice bottle of wine and some beer that they had there. There were about four other people there besides the four of us, and they all spoke French exclusively. Fortunately for us, both Greg and Nichole are fluent in French and were able to translate for Jon and I.
So, we spent the night at the refuge and woke up the next morning slightly sore, but ready to set out for a day of hiking. The map we had said that our route would take us 14 hours, but we were pretty sure we could cut that by a third at least. We set out down the mountain (yes, we had to go all the way back down to where we started the day before so that we could pick up the other trail) at about 8:30 that morning. Going down was nice. Very nice.
The new trail at the bottom wasn't too bad at first. I actually started to think that maybe it wouldn't be hard at all and that Greg had just been exaggerating about the difficulty of the hike. Well, after about the first mile or two, things took a sharp turn vertically and we started up the first of two 500 meter ascents. It wouldn't have been so bad except that the ascents were 500 meters up over the course of only about 1000 meters laterally. This meant that most of the time, I could bend at the waist slightly and put both of my hands on the ground. It was steep. At points, I started to think that maybe it would be better just to "slip" and tumble down the mountain to the bottom instead of continuing up. After about an hour or so of climbing, we reached the top of the first ascent and had some cheese sandwiches and chocolate for lunch. It was the best tasting food and water I've ever had in my entire life. Alas, we only rested for about twenty minutes before setting out on the second ascent of 540 meters.
This ascent was ever harder than the first because it was mostly over a bunch of scree, just loose rocks and rubble, which forced you to concentrate on every single step you took so that you wouldn't just slide off somewhere down the mountain. About halfway up the second ascent we came across a little glacier area and stopped to chill out (pun only slightly intended) there for a little bit before heading up to the top which was about 45 minutes away. The last stretch was by far the hardest. Just like being in hell. It seemed like it would never end. Jon and Greg were about 10 minutes ahead of me most of the time and Nichole was about 10 minutes behind me so I used waiting for her as an excuse to stop a few times.
Finally, after five hours of hiking, I made it to the top, and let me assure you, it was totally worth it. The top was at 2520 meters elevation so the views were spectacular of the entire valley. We stopped and took a little break to enjoy the view and take a bunch of pictures and videos of the top before setting off down the mountain.
The hike down was almost as tough as the hike up just because we had been going and going for sooooooo long that everyone's knees and feet started to hurt. After another three hours of hiking down, however, we made it to a little village where we got a few cold beers and called a cab. Mission complete. Greg told us afterwards that this hike is the second hardest hike he's ever done. So, yeah. We were all proud of ourselves and each other and we all had great stories to tell when we got back to L'Abri that night. It was a great time with great people and it made me really glad I decided to come back for a second time.
I'm typing this post on my laptop so I don't know how much I'll be able to get done today, but hopefully I will have posted some pictures or a video or both. If I post pictures then I'll put some comments on each picture to give it some context (to see how to work the slideshow, check out this post) and if I post the video (more likely since pictures take longer to upload) then here's the context: the first clip was taken when we had hiked into the middle of the mountains and were in a little bowl sort of place with a bunch of cows; it's right before we started climbing. The second clip is of us at the top of the mountain. Enjoy!
In other news, if you watched the video I posted yesterday then you'll know that they've been having a big vintage car race from Ollon to Villars. It was neat to see the old school cars the first couple times, but now it's just really really loud and obnoxious. Today is the last day of the race. I think I'll post some pictures of the cars coming by at the bottom of this post. That means that I'll for sure be posting the video and not the pictures of the hike. So, I'll post the pictures on Tuesday when I've got some time (for free) on the internet.
Also, the weather here has been awesome for the last week or so. Every day is sunny and 70 and at night it drops to about 50. I'm hoping this keeps up for the rest of the month.
What else? Jon and I have decided to hitchhike east for the break. We haven't quite decided where to go yet. We're thinking southern Italy or Greece. I think if we can make it down to southern Italy, we might be able to get a boat ride to Greece somehow. The big thing, at least at this point, is just making it back to Switzerland to do the bungee jumping on the last day of the break. If you want to see what the jump is like, go here, and be impressed. We're also thinking about compiling a list of "challenges" for us to try to complete while we're out. So far we don't have much, just to get to an island at some point, bungee jump, and get free rides on scooters somewhere. If you have any ideas, please chime in. We're not trying to make the challenges unreachable, but so far I think we only have things that can be pretty easily accomplished, so give us something actually challenging.
I need to stop typing now. This has been my longest post yet, I think. Thanks for sticking around.
Later.
PS I am now on the computer, and I forgot to put pictures on my USB drive so all we have for right now is the video of the top of the mountain. I'll put lots of pictures up on Tuesday.
In keeping with the trend towards awesome vehicularity in and around Huemoz, I present to you a video of the Ollon-Villars Car Race. It's held once every four years and it goes from Ollon (the big town beneath us) to Villars (the big town above us). It's mostly old cars from Europe, but I've got some pictures of a couple of Mustangs and even a Corvette. I'll post some pictures tomorrow, but for now, here's a little video I took of some of the cars going by. I hope you enjoy.
Hey everybody. Thanks for tuning in again. Let's see . . . what can I tell you about this week?
Well, for starters I went on the best hike so far this past Thurday. Thomas, one of the workers here, got the car for the day and he drove us (me, him, Nichole, Valerie, and Jon) to a place called Solalex (pronounced 'Soul-ah-lay') from whence we hiked to a place called Azendaz (pronounced 'Ah-zen-dahz'). Now, dispensing with the parentheticals, I will tell you about the hike.
We started up at about 10:15 am and the air was chilly. The sun was out, however, and they day looked promising. I can already tell that I'm not going to be able to keep up this style of writing for much longer. In fact, I think two sentences is enough. Details are overrated and a picture says a thousand words so there are some pictures down at the bottom. Just in case you didn't venture to drag your cursor over the pictures on this blog--at which point you would be rewarded for your effort by seeing the little pointy hand which would have tipped you off to exactly what I'm about to tell you--you can click on any of the pictures here to see a bigger version. Anyway, I'll tell you a little bit more about the hike. The hike was cool because on the way up it was very rocky and craggy (think of the Aggro-Crag from Global Guts) and on the way down there were tons of boulders to jump around on, and let's face it, the most fun thing for any person to do in this world is climb up a rock, stand triumphantly on top, shout at the people beneath you, and then jump off and do a roll for good measure.
It wasn't a long hike, maybe four hours round trip. Afterwards we went back to L'Abri for a few minutes to change into our bathing suits and then we went to the Turkish baths down at the bottom of the mountain. The baths are pretty cool as well. Not as cool (not even close really) as jumping up and down on rocks but nice. There's a big pool with a bunch of fountains in it. There's also a sauna, Turkish baths (which is like a sauna but with thick fog inside), an aroma therapy room, and a weird room that just has black lights in it and slow chill techno music playing. We stayed at the baths and destressed for about three hours and then headed back up to L'Abri for a nice dinner of the week's leftovers. It was a day well spent. Possibly, no, definitely my favorite Thursday so far.
In other news, my tutor Greg assigned me two new books this week. The titles are "Seeing Through Cynicism" and "Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self" and if you care to investigate them further, you'll notice the updated "What I'm Reading" list over there on the right. "Seeing Through Cynicism" is easy enough, but "Interpreting God" is as obtuse as the title suggests. Let me give you a little quote, just one sentence, from the introduction to give you an idea of what it's like: "An adequate account of the self and of personhood cannot stop with its situatedness in some instantaneous moment within processes of shifting flux." If that's not enough for you, try this baby on for size: "This is an approach which combines the Buddhist negation of a stable differentiation between levels or between opposites with a postmodernist theory of signs as semiotic system." So, yeah. If I decipher what in the world he's talking about I'll let you all know.
I think it has something to do with post-self-fluxitudinal semiotic Buddhism.
PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here we are about to cross over the river. In the spring, all of the rocks are where the water is.
King of the hill....stump.
We are walking.
King of the hill....crag. "Let's check out the leaderboard, Moe!"
And finally, here I am getting back into the car to go to the baths.
