Doppelgangers

There are people at L'Abri that look like other people. Famous people. Here are two examples:












People say that in these pictures Jeff doesn't really look like Siler from Heroes, but in real life they are mirror images. Jeff is my new roommate. He's from San Luis Obispo, California, but get this: for the last year he has lived, worked, and studied at Camp Lurecrest on Lake Lure, NC. If you'll remember, Camp Lurecrest is where Campus Crusade for Christ at USC goes for their Fall Retreats and Jeff worked the Fall Retreat this last year. I don't think we met that weekend, but it would have been pretty hard for us to not see each other at some point. So, once again I am somehow connected to my roommate. He's a nice guy.

Here's another example of a doppelganger and I think that this time the resemblance is uncanny:


















On the left we have Matt Barton from Jacksonville, Florida. And on the right is Mr. Russell Crowe. Does anybody else see this? I'm sure if you're honest you'll say yes.

In other news, today was our free day and I, along with Josh and Thomas (a helper and worker here, respectively), went to this place called Les Bains. I think it means The Baths. It was a big bath/spa complex with a couple huge pools, saunas, Turkish baths, and aromatherapy rooms. It was great. Very relaxing.
Also, my birthday is in just four more days. Soooooo, celebrate. In the last five years I've celebrated my birthday in Conway, Branson (MO), Beirut (Leb), and now Huemoz (Switz). Booyah.

Taylor Mali

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Mr. Taylor Mali. He's a slam poet. Wikipedia (no, I don't use it to get important information) defines slam poetry as "a postmodern performance poetry, a form of spoken word performed at a competitive poetry event, called a 'slam', at which poets perform their own poems (or, in rare cases, those of others) that are 'judged' on a numeric scale by randomly picked members of the audience." Taylor Mali was the first person I was exposed to in the world of slam poetry and he remains my favorite poet. This is one of my favorite poems of his, and it is entitled "What Teachers Make." I dedicate this to Ms. (Kate) James.

In other news, it was freezing cold here again today. For work today I was on grounds duty which entailed raking all of the branches that fell during the freeze yesterday, weeding around a garden, and chopping up a small tree that fell down. After being outside for those three hours, I was cold for the rest of the day. I just took one of my two weekly showers and I'm finally starting to thaw. I don't really have anything new to post today, and I still don't have time to write about epistemology. I guess this is it.

It snowed again

Awhile ago I posted and said that it had snowed a little ways up the mountain. It was cold that day. Today it was colder. Today it snowed at our place. Here's a picture of the snow coming down. It snowed (mixed with a little bit of rain) for about four hours or so. My brain could barely comprehend what was happening outside. I think at one point my nose started to bleed because my brain was working overtime to create some sort of matrix that would allow me to process the fact that it was snowing at the end of May. The snow didn't stick so I didn't get to make snow angels or snow men or snow balls or snow anything else. All in all though, it was nice to experience some snow. It added a little bit of excitement to my day.

I'm sorry I haven't been posting here lately. The internet in Switzerland is ridiculously expensive and I've managed to work up a 50 franc ($45) internet bill in the two-and-a-half weeks I've been here. In light of that, I've had to cut back some. To make up for it, I brought some pictures with me today. Here we go:

Here's me and Pat in the kitchen in the hostel in Boenigen (it's a little town right outside of Interlaken). I left L'Abri and Huemoz at about 7 on Wednesday night and got to Interlaken at about 10. Pat met me at the trainstation and we just chilled at the hostel that night and spent some time catching up. I have a bad habit of not staying in touch with people (even my best friends) if they aren't directly in front of my face and disrupting my inner monologue on a daily basis so Pat and I haven't talked really since I visited him in December. Our hostel was nice. Not much character but like everything in Switzerland, it was clean.


Interlaken wasn't a very fun town in my opinion. Everything was super expensive and I think the mountains are more striking at L'Abri than they were there. However, Pat was in Interlaken so it was a lot of fun just to hike around. This is a picture we took on the riverside. The water is coming from a glacier somewhere and is as blue as PuttPutt water. Pat looks high in this picture, but that seems to be a common theme in most of my pictures of Pat. I have a farmer's tan. Also, my hair has gotten long enough that I have to part it sort of down the middle now. Some people like it better like that. I prefer it shorter.

In other news, I finished reading Sophie's World and He Is There and He Is Not Silent over the weekend. I highly recommend Sophie's World. The subtitle is "A novel about the history of philosophy" and that's exactly what it is. It's kind of like an idiot's guide to philosophy from Plato up to modern naturalistic materialism, but the philosophy lessons are within the context of a fiction story about a girl. The plot isn't much; it's mainly used as a vehicle for the philosophy lessons until you get about half-way through the book. Even so, it's definitely the most accessible intro to philosophy book that I've seen.
I didn't like He Is There... at all really. It was very general and too simplistic. It's Francis Schaeffer's book on a Christian epistemology and it just isn't written very well. In fact, because it was written so poorly, I decided to scratch True Spirituality by Schaeffer off of my reading list as well. My new reading list is there on the right. I'm reading all three of those books and once and I'm enjoying each of them immensely. Well, I just started A Primer on Postmodernism today, but I like it so far.

In conclusion, I'd like to give a big lame-o to whatever Chris Martin bought the domain name iamchrismartin.com. Oddly enough, he's a photographer. Still, I was going to buy that domain name when I got home and now I'll have to come up with something else altogether. In another odd coincidence, www.chrismartin.com is owned by a Christian photographer/media designer. In both instances, I think I'm vastly more talented than the other Chris Martin's.

I'll see you guys in two weeks!

I spy . . .

Pat McQuinn! I'm going to see Pat tomorrow in Interlaken. I don't know anything about Interlaken. I just asked a girl from Switzerland that's sitting in the computer room what Interlaken is like. She said it's a ritzy ski area. I'm dropping big bucks to go see him (156 francs) but I figure it's worth it. How many times will I get to hang out with Patrick McQuinn in a Swiss ski resort town?

I can't really say much tonight because I had to do a bunch of other stuff on the internet before I posted, but hopefully I'll have some pictures by Friday of my time with Pat in Interlaken.

Too tired for knowledge

I want you all to know that I had every intention of sharing what I've learned about epistemology with you on my blog today. However, right after chapel I was talked into going on a short three-hour hike with a bunch of people. What was supposed to be three hours turned into about five hours, and by the time I made it home I was completely worn out. Luckily, for dinner tonight we had sausage and there was plenty to go around so I got enough protein to keep my muscles from completely deteriorating. Unfortunately, I am just too worn out to write about epistemology tonight. Tomorrow or sometime soon, however, I promise I'll write as much as I can explain.

Tomorrow I'm going to start reading Francis Schaeffer's book entitled He Is There and He Is Not Silent. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Chris! You're not supposed to capitalize the not-so-important words in the titles of books." Believe me, I know. But, that's how Amazon.com has it and if it's good enough for Amazon it's good enough for me. My tutor, Greg Laughery, told me to read the book and think about a critique of Schaeffer's epistemology. I am also supposed to be thinking about how things become real to people. Not just true, but real. For instance, Christianity is at least True, but it is so much more than that. It is real and it is true for me.
Don't freak out. I don't mean true for me in the same way that apathetic thinkers say that whatever works for them is true for them. What I mean is that it's more than just factually true in your mind; it's how you see the world. It's emotionally true. It's spiritually true. But what I'm trying to figure out is whether or not being spiritually and emotionally true feels very different or should be thought of as very different than just being rationally true. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but as I figure it out a little bit more and think through a few more things I'll let you guys know what I'm thinking. Hopefully my thoughts won't bore you.

In other news, Lebanon's fighting again. Big surprise, right? The fighting is in Tripoli which is a city that we went to last summer. Nice place. Apparently home to some dodgy figures.

It's been a long time . . .

I shouldn't have left you, without a dope beat to step to. Step to. Step to. Wicky ah.

I thought I'd start out with a little bit of Aliyah to make up for my two day absence from my blog and your lives. Let's see . . . . what to say what to say . . . .

Vegan happened tonight. Super vegan. I had kitchen duty . . . hold that thought. First let me say that for the past two days it has been fantastically summer here. That means clear skies, sunny, and about 80 degrees. We played volleyball after dinner tonight for about two hours. My team won.

Anyway, I had kitchen duty tonight and we cooked roasted veggies (peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, zuccini, and corn) which took me about an hour to cut up. We also had mashed potatoes and mocha brownies. It was good but not very filling compared to the meat the other night. The dinner went over pretty well with everyone here.

Also, I have a new roommate for the next three days. His name is Ashnafi and he's from Ethiopia. From what I can tell he's a genius and also good at ping pong and awesome at volleyball. I would guess he's an amazing runner too. The one thing he doesn't have going for him is his nocturnal nasal habits. He snores. Loud. All night long. This morning he asked me if he kept me awake last night and I told him not to worry about it, I put my iPod headphones in last night and slept fine. That's only about three-quarters true. I did put my iPod headphones in and listen to Nickel Creek and Mikey Mew and the Lovely Few, but I only slept for about five hours last night. Oh well. He's a cool enough guy to make up for it; plus he was the main reason that our team dominated at volleyball today.

Today I finished listening to the tape series that I've been listening to for the last week or so. It was five tapes by Lee Hardy entitled, "Belief in God and the Problem of Knowledge in Modern Philosophy." They were about epistemology (the study of how we can know things and how we are justified in saying we can know them) and I took about 25 pages of notes on the tapes. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to hop online and explain a little bit of what I learned.

There are a lot of people in line for the internet so I'll be going now. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

America happened tonight

Yes, America. To give you the full force of what happened tonight at dinner, I need to tell you about our diet here at L'Abri. It's hard to cook great meals for 30 people on a budget. If there are any mothers of 30 that are reading this, then you know what I mean. We eat mostly potatoes, rice, granola, and other forms of pure carbohydrates. An average dinner will consist of some sort of soup or rice with beans and other assorted veggies accompanied by fresh-baked bread and perhaps a brownie or cookie. Rarely do we get meat. Very rarely. There are exceptions such as tiny pieces of beef that were in the borscht soup we had yesterday or tiny pieces of bacon on the bread with cheese and peppers we had at lunch today. On the whole, however, protein in the form of animal flesh is lacking in our diets. I sometimes feel like a pregnant lady. Not so much in the sense of having a human inside of my tummy area but definitely in the sense of being able to smell minerals or other things that my body is lacking (I've heard that some pregnant women in Mississippi have an irresistable urge to eat clay because it has iron in it).
All of that is what makes what happened tonight the most amazing show of America's cultural might since Japan after World War II. Tonight we had dinner at George and Eileen's house. George and Eileen are two of the workers here and their house just down the road from Chalet Bellevue which is where we live. I had been working hard all day long and was thinking about how many pieces of bread and glasses of water I would have to consume to mitigate my manly hunger. As I arrived at their home, I noticed the distinctive smell of grilling which made me think veggie kabobs. I walked up the stairs, removed my shoes, and walked into the kitchen. Immediately I was met with an exuberant double-five by Josh Farrar who told me that tonight for dinner we were having cheeseburgers and hotdogs. Cheeseburgers and hotdogs. Cheeseburgers and hotdogs. Dinner tonight was like having a Fourth of July meal. Cheeseburgers, hotdogs, and RiceKrispy Treats for dessert. I couldn't believe my taste buds. Who knew that the cooked flesh of our animal cousins tasted so great?

I did. But I had forgotten. Now I remember. And I will never forget again.

With vegetables you kind of have to add a bunch of other things like herbs and spices to make them savory. Meat, however, is good right off the bone. No spices necessary.

We dined and talked and talked and dined. George loves AC/DC so we talked about that and listened to the best of Dire Straits. Neither band is from America, but nonetheless, America happened tonight at Chalet Melezes.

In other news, we had our first lecture today. It was a little bit more of a discussion than just a lecture. We discussed postmodernism and its effects in the debate about truth, knowledge, God, and the church. Maybe tomorrow--my free day--I can expand on that.

It snowed today . . .

And let me remind you, it's summer here too. We aren't in the southern hemisphere. Today it was really really cold all day long, and at about noon a thick fog came over the mountains around us. When the fog cleared a couple of hours later, there was snow on the mountains across the valley. Okay okay. It didn't snow on our mountain, but it was freakin cold. I would say about 50-55 degrees.
Luckily today was one of the first days that I haven't had ground duty. Today I was working in the kitchen all morning making fresh butterzopf, which is a braided bread. So now I have the recipe and you can all have awesome fresh homemade bread when I get home.

In other news, my roommate leaves tomorrow morning. I've made a ton of friends here, but he's probably been the guy I've gotten along with the easiest. Sad day in Switzerland.

My roommate and pictures!

My roommate here is from Georgia, Augusta actually. I actually just met a guy who he's friends with the other day before I came over here. His friend's name is Gabe and he does YoungLife in Columbia. Also, get this: Jonathon (my roommate here) dated McKenna Jones when he was a junior in high school. Jonathon got here the same day I did so we've been able to spend some good time together. He went hiking and paragliding with me and two other guys (Matt from Florida and Ryan from Greenville, SC). Oh and just in case you were wondering, it's not all southern boys here. There are guys from Chicago, Texas, Missouri, California, Pennsylvania, and Canada (no, I don't know where in Canada. To me it's all just one frozen tundra).
Jonathon's a cool guy and we've gotten along really well, but he's leaving on Wednesday. I think I'll have a room to myself for about two weeks before another person get's here on the 30th of May. I'm looking forward to having a room to myself but it'll be sad to see Jonathon go. As close as we live to each other, though, I'm sure we'll hang out some back in the States. My plan is to make enough friends here to replace all my friends back in Cola and Conway.

I'm just kidding.

Good news guys!!! As you can probably see just below this text, I got some pictures up!!! They're being hosted on a friend's site unbeknownst to them but I'm pretty sure they won't mind and won't be bothered by it. Let's start with the pictures now . . . .


This is me on the plane ride over to Geneva. I'm not sure if I said it or not but Continental Airlines rocks my face--in particular, Darlene at the check-in counter in Newark. She got me an aisle seat with an empty window seat beside it. It was wonderful.








Here's me, Matt, Ryan, and Jonathon out for our hike last Thursday. This is about a 10 minute walk from our backdoor.


PS--I'm not intentionally doing a model pose.








Here we are after having eaten lunch on the side of a huge hill. You know how when you work out too hard you feel like you're going to puke? That's what I felt like by the time we made it up to the top of this hill.









This is paragliding. Jonathon and Ryan went first and me and Matt waited behind on the hill for about 45 minutes until they came back up and we floated down. Obviously, I couldn't get any pictures of myself taking off so this is Jonathon after he ran off the side of the mountain.








Here's me with my helmet on. Safety first of course. You wouldn't guess it by looking at me (or maybe you would and nobody's ever said anything to me about it), but I have a huge head. I mean huge. The helmet barely fit on my gigantic cranium.








Just so that I could prove that I actually did this, I lifted my feet way up and took a picture with my feet in it. So, if you didn't believe me before, then boom shaka laka.










Here's a shot of Matt I took while we were flying. I've been on the computer forever and I'm getting tired of writing so the rest of this will be kind of rushed.










Here's me where we landed. On a tiny strip of grass on the side of the road.











So there's some pictures and some info about my roommate. I hope you guys enjoy it. I'll talk to you soon!

PS-I'm going to see Pat in a couple of weeks!

Weather and maybe etc

It's Sunday here. My first Sunday at L'Abri. We had a chapel service this morning in a little chapel that's on the main floor of the chalet that houses the library. The service was pretty boring honestly. It was just pure exegesis of James chapter five, and if you haven't spent some time thinking about the chapter before you sit through an exegesis it can be pretty hard to engage with. One of the workers here spoke.
By the way, the way things are set up here as far as the hierarchy of people goes like this: students are people that come for a certain time to study and learn; helpers are people who were students once but decided to come back and take on more responsibilities and spend less time studying--there are five helpers this term and they're mostly 23-30 years old; workers are people who probably have some connection with L'Abri (ie came here as a student 20 years ago or something like that) and have come here to work full-time being lecturers, tutors, writers, artists, philosophers, etc. All of the workers except for the artist in residence have Ph.D.'s in their fields. Most of them taught at big universities for awhile and then decided to do something a little more personal. The various disciplines represented here are biology, philosophy, psychology, art and art history, and pretty much all of them are very well-versed in theology. They are, without a doubt, the smartest people I've ever met.

I've been asked to tell you guys about the weather here. Today is a very very nice day. It's probably about 75 degrees outside, maybe a little warmer. Visibility is near perfect which means you can see about 12 mountain peaks around the grounds of L'Abri. Most days since I've been here have been a pretty good mix of weather. Usually in the morning it's a little chilly (maybe 50 degrees) and by 10 or so it will drizzle off and on until a little after noon. After noon the sun usually comes out and it gets up to at least 70 degrees. Last Thursday when we went hiking and paragliding it was probably 85 degrees. The coolest weather-related thing that happens here is when a low-lying cloud will just kind of run into the side of our mountain. You can see it coming through the valley from a ways off and it will slowly creep up to the side of the mountain over the course of 15 minutes or so. When it hits the side of the mountain it looks really crazy because a perfectly clear day will all the sudden become fogged over by a massive cloud and the craziest thing is that as the cloud works its way past us, it moves upwards over the mountain. So, if you look out at the sky you just see fog seemingly going straight up into the air.

Since today is so perfect, a bunch of people are playing volleyball down the hill on our court. I'm going to go play with them. If I keep playing as much as I have so far, then by the time I get back home I'll be able to destroy almost anyone at volleyball and also ping pong--although, once I get a little bit better, I'll start calling it table tennis.

One last note, I think I've figured out a way to let you guys see some pictures. I'm going to try to host them on a friend's site so that you guys can just click a link and check it out. I just have to make sure that he doesn't mind if I use some of his bandwidth. So maybe stay tuned for the chance of some pictures possibly.

Amazing

This could potentially be a long post, but I'm going to try to keep it as short as I can. I need to tell you what I did yesterday. I went paragliding in the Swiss Alps. It was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Paragliding, in case you don't know, is where you strap yourself into a harness and hook up to a huge parachute (and in my case, an instructor as well) and run and jump off of a mountain and float around until you get to the ground.
Thursday was our free day and so me and three other guys took off from L'Abri and hiked up the mountain for about 3 hours until we got to a high spot where we rested and got some lunch. Then we hiked down to this town right above Huemoz called Villars. It's a fancy ski resort town. There we were met by the paragliding guys who took us to a field where we jumped off of a mountain and floated in the air. I can't describe how beautiful it was around us. It was like being in a fairy tale or something. This place really looks like something from a Hans Christian Anderson story. I'm going to try to post some pictures on this blog right now to show you what it was like. Let's see if I can get it to work (my pictures are big since I don't have Photoshop here to shrink them and it might take too long to upload) . . .

Okay........That was taking way too long. I waited about five minutes to try to upload the first picture, but it just wasn't happening. I'm going to work on a way to get pictures on this blog. Maybe we'll just have to wait. I'll have to figure out a way to shrink them down.

Anyway, I guess since I can't put up pictures, this post is pretty much over. I don't want to talk about too much in one post because then I'll run out of subjects when it comes time to post later. So, things to look forward to me talking about (I don't mean that to sound prideful if it does): epistemology, yardwork and protein.

My First Real Day

This is going to be a short post, but I kind of feel compelled to post all the time on this thing. I figure that if I post everyday for a little while then you guys will start checking it everyday and then even when I don't post everyday you'll still check everyday. . . I won't really gain anything material from that, but my pride will be fed.
Today was my first normal day here. It went something like this:
7:45 am--wake up
8:oo am--breakfast of homemade granola cereal
9:30-11 am--clean the chalet with a few other people
11 am--tea break
11:30-12:30--more cleaning
1 pm--lunch then some free time during which I took a nap on our balcony overlooking the Alps
3:30-6:15--study time during which I listened to two tapes and took a bunch of notes. I'll spend more time talking about stuyding at a later date when there aren't people waiting to use the computer
6:30 pm--a wonderful dinner of chili, cornbread, salad, and fruit salad
the rest of the night--free time. They are watching a movie right now. It's French and it didn't look too good so I just sat around with some guys talking.

I'll keep you posted as my time here develops, and later on tonight I'm checking out that girl's USB cable to see if I can show you guys some pictures.

I made it!

Hey everybody. I made it Huemoz (pronounced 'Way-mo'), Switzerland this morning (Tuesday) at about 11:15 am. The place is gorgeous. I wish I could upload pictures for you guys to see, but I didn't bring my camera's USB cable because I imagined the computer being some little old piece of junk. Actually, I'm sitting in front of a gigantic flat-panel monitor and a very nice computer. Oh well.

The flight over here was nice and easy. I got switched last-minute to a US Airways flight from Charlotte to Newark instead of the Continental flight I had booked, but it turned out okay. After flying US Airways overseas to Germany earlier this year, I swore never to support their business again, but the service this time wasn't toooooo bad. It still wasn't great though. Continental, on the other had, rocked my socks off. The main way that they rocked my socks off was by obliging my request for an aisle seat and then going the extra mile and giving me a seat with no one else sitting beside me. I put aside my dignity and curled up into a little ball on the seats the whole flight here. It was wonderful.

As far as L'Abri goes, it seems great so far. The people are nice and easy to get along with, and the scenery is out of control. It looks like something from a fairy tale up here in the mountains. A girl just came into the computer room and said that she had a USB cable so I'll try to upload pictures sometime soon. If you want to get a little glimpse of what it's like, you can check out the photo gallery on the L'Abri page. It's breath-taking.
There are about 25 people staying here tonight, but I think some are leaving tomorrow morning and some are leaving later in the week. The workers here said that we'll probably stay around 25 people through the summer. Everyone seems great. Mostly Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Aussies. I need to go now, though, because I think the internet is pretty expensive. So, I hope you enjoyed this amazing blog post.

Good bye for now

I'm officially running late for leaving, but here's a final parting picture for all of you to cry over while I'm gone. See you guys in five weeks!

Stupid Church Tricks

I'm about to start packing everything I think I'll need for this trip, but before I do, I thought that I'd add one more post.

I ran across this article called Stupid Church Tricks awhile back (like a couple of years ago), and I thought it was interesting. In light of the fact that I have at least two friends (one of whom promised me she would read this blog) that are becoming youth pastors in the next month or so, I thought that I'd introduce this article to the world. Here's an excerpt:

What do teenagers learn from these youth group activities? Christianity is stupid. Status-conscious teenagers know that those who are so desperate to be liked that they will do anything to curry favor are impossible to respect. Young people may come to off-the-wall youth group meetings, but when they grow up, they will likely associate the church with other immature, juvenile phases of their lives, and Christianity will be something they will grow out of.

I'll spare you my own personal commentary; as if I could add any points to the article anyway. But, I will tell you this short story that I think illustrates the point that this article is trying to make:

There is a cult retreat center in North Myrtle Beach. It's called the Meher Spiritual Center and it's situated on 500 acres of untouched land that is bordered by Hwy 17 and the Atlantic Ocean. One day some of my friends and I decided to go check it out and see what it was like there. We had heard that the land was beautiful and that they would let you hang out on their property if you would just take a tour of the facilities and listen to their spiel. So we went and listened and met a few people before we enjoyed the land (if you disregard the constant feeling of spiritual oppression, it really is a nice place). One of the people we met was a guy who had been in the cult for awhile. We asked him how he came to be with this group and he said something that was incredibly sad to me because it seemed to be a very true statement and his life seemed to be a very real testament to how screwed up people can get if we try to mix worldly philosophies and entertainment strategies with the gospel. He said, "I grew up in the church and I really liked it. I read the Bible and I loved what I read about Jesus and about God's whole story for the earth. But when I went to youth group as a kid, all anyone wanted to do was to play volleyball or go skiing or play some other crazy game. No one seemed to want to talk about Jesus or God and so I went to try to find somewhere where they took God seriously. And that's how I found Meher Baba."

Hi, I'm a Marvel. And I'm a DC.

Okay okay okay. I admit that I am a huge dork, but this video is hilarious to me. Whoever made this is a genius. And the best part is there are four other videos just like it. Here's a link to the YouTube page with all of the videos on it. I highly recommend watching every single one of them. Just embrace your inner dork.
***The video may take a little longer than normal to load. I'm not sure why, but it seems that when you embed video on here it lengthens the load time. If you don't feel like waiting just click on the link and go straight to YouTube.***

Also, Heroes final three episodes (of the first season) are starting this week. If you haven't seen it, it's the best show on TV (besides maybe The Office). Go to the Heroes page on nbc.com to watch old episodes or go to Fanpop and search for episodes there although it seems like NBC has been cracking down on people posting full episodes on that site.

In other news, I just realized that Blogger automatically cuts down the spaces after a period to one space even if you type in two.

Tomorrow's the big day

So, tomorrow is the big day. I leave for Switzerland for five weeks. I'll be at L'Abri for all five weeks, studying and doing whatever else you do there. I'm not really sure what to expect. Okay, I was trying to just do one space after each period, but when I learned to type, they told you to put two spaces after each period. Nowadays it's unnecessary because fonts have a little bit of extra space built into the space after a period, but I just can't break the habit. So from now on, or actually from about two sentences back on, I'll be putting two spaces after the periods. I hope you don't mind.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll actually ever write anything on this blog, but I figured I would give it a try just so if I did decide to do a blog, I would already have one made up. Yesterday I spent about four hours trying to get this thing to look different than every other blog out there. Now it just looks a lot like one blog out there: Between Two Worlds. It's a blog I read a lot and I copied a lot of the code from that site when I was arranging this one.
***BY THE WAY: If you're using Internet Explorer and this blog looks kind of mushed around, it's because Internet Explorer sucks at reading normal CSS code in HTML. The solution is easy: Look to the right of the screen; find the button that says "Download Firefox;" click on it and download the Firefox browser. It's waaaaay better than IE and it's free. It won't mess your computer up and it's not just a browser for people who know a lot about computers or the internet. Try it out and free your mind.***

I'll probably post another blog before I leave. Until then, here's a map of Switzerland for you to look at. The arrow is pointing to Huemoz (well, 'Humeoz' but that's a misspelling) and that's where I'll be for the next five weeks.

This is my first time

Here's another test post. Let's see if I can get the margins right on this thing so that it doesn't look so crowded in. I'll just keep writing a little bit and we'll see if it works. Keep writing and writing and writing. Maybe I'll go find some Latin text now to fill up the rest of this. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec mollis purus ac dolor. Sed interdum, augue sed egestas aliquet, purus odio vulputate augue, at semper lorem mi tincidunt mauris. Praesent ullamcorper tincidunt lacus. Aliquam sed dolor quis leo pulvinar congue. Quisque et libero. Nunc non ipsum sit amet diam ultrices rhoncus. Vivamus auctor dolor et ipsum. Nulla convallis, nisi et adipiscing viverra, orci neque scelerisque ante, porta dapibus pede sapien quis ligula. Praesent tortor neque, fringilla ac, tempus ut, pretium sit amet, justo. Integer rutrum risus sit amet nisl.