Geeking Out

So, I can hardly convey to the reader through the cold hard words of this internet post the depth of my excitement right now. Here's random picture that I found to express my feelings.

I just found out today that my FREAKING HERO is coming to work at the university that I attend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!1!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN"T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nancy Pearcey, the woman whose writing got me through some incredibly rough patches in both my childhood and my life is coming to work at my school and I'LL FINALLY GET TO MEET HER!!!!!!!!!!! It was her book, Total Truth that first got me interested in Philosophy and Worldview Apologetics and I can never repay her for that. I have no idea what I would be right now if I had never read that book! It answered so many important questions that I had about my faith, and taught me that God does not want us to keep our faith and reason separate. I literally started crying when I found out :D

Her works are excellent. If you haven't heard of her I highly encourage you to look her up. No, seriously. Her coming here is about the equivalent to C.S. Lewis or Tolkien coming. MOMENTOUS! I CAN"T EVEN WRITE COHERENTLY ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Come children and celebrate with me!!!!!

Beautiful People - Joulrai

I saw this on a friend's blog, and I though I'd take a break from studying to try it out. I figure that it's a fun way to flesh out some characters that I have floating around in my head. I'd like to introduce everyone to my character Joulrai of Legendary Fame (because obviously if a person becomes legendary a lot of people will name their children after him, and a few more famous people will inevitably share his name). Joulrai becomes the second king of a united Kelmair (the mythical world that I have created. I'll probably post some on that at a later date) and is famous for the adventures that he went on with the first great king - Alekshua - during his five year exile. I don't really have a picture of him, because he's mostly not human. I could draw one I suppose, but not right now. To the questions then!

1. What is their favorite type of shoe?
Joul is incredibly vain. He, of course, being a man, wants his shoes to be practical, but they also better look better than everyone else's. He likes gold filigree designs and boots that go higher on the leg. They protect his legs from harm and they look fantastic.
2. Do they journal?
He doesn't need to, he has other people writing down everything he's ever done. It's one of the perks of being a king. He's not big in to feelings, though. He would certainly never write down his feelings. That's not manly at all!
3. What's their favorite animal?
I haven't really created animals yet. I'm sure that Joul has some kind of red panda/lemur looking thing that sits on his shoulder and does funny things.
4. What does their average day look like?
There is no average day in the life of a king, but mostly they involve paperwork, meetings, and traveling to different parts of the kingdom. Also no adventure. Thrilling :<
5. Night owl, or morning person? (Optional: What time do they normally wake up, and go to bed?)
Night Owl. If he had his way he would wake up in the late afternoon and go to sleep in the early morning. Since he does not have his way he is forced to wake up at abominable hours and is not allowed to sleep until late.
6. Do they have a sweet tooth?
Not really, at all.
7. What colors are their bedroom?
The walls don't really have any color (paint doesn't really exist to be put on people's walls), but it is filled with incredibly ornate tapestries and bed hangings. Blue is everywhere and silver and gold.
8. Can they cook?
Surprisingly, yes. Spending fives years on the road in exile will teach one an incredible range of skills. He cannot cook very well, however, and is mostly limited to skinning and roasting small game on a spit, unseasoned. Whatever works.
9. What is their favorite household chore?
Chores? What are those? We have people for those. (It may be said that he does groom his own horse, but that's not a chore. his horse is his friend).
10. Favorite kind of tea?
Tea doesn't exist here, but booze still does. He enjoys hard liquor when he can get it. People in court care way too much about their monarch's image, but he happens to believe that he in incredibly charming when intoxicated.

Hard Times Review

Summary: The small, industrial town of Coketown revolves around facts. School children are taught nothing but facts. The Hands who work in the factories are faced only with reality. Those who live in the town are not allowed to care for anything imaginative, fanciful, or wonderful (they aren't even allowed to wonder at all!). Day after day the residents of Coketown are faced with nothing but, hard cold, brute fact. Thomas Gradgrind, the schoolmaster of the town is especially fond of facts and, in his good natured way, applied his fact centered philosophy to the children of Coketown and to his own children. Hard Times follows the lives of the Gradgrinds as they live their lives in a world without any notion of fantasy, wonder, love, or hope.

Spiritual Content: 9/10

As you might expect from a town concerned only with facts, spiritual matters are sorely neglected. This, however, is not praised as one might expect with a lot of Victorian literature, but the residents of Coketown are presented as being tragically deficient in one of the most important areas of life. In other news, a character is referred to as an angel and there are several churches mentioned. Christianity, however, plays no overt role, but it's clear that Dickens is playing with Christian ideas and philosophy in the work. 

Sexual Content: 9/10

There's really nothing to terrible here. There is one character who attempts to convince another to engage in an extra-marital affair with him, but the woman refuses. Another man, though married, is in love with another woman, but cannot afford a divorce. he does not act upon his feelings, but maintains a close friendship with the woman whom he loves (it may also be noted that the woman he is married to is a drunken prostitueish type person)

Plot: 8/10

This was a good story. The beginning was hard to get in to (which I think may have been the point), but it picked up near the middle, and by the end was hard to put down (I finished in one day). It also had an immensely satisfying ending.

Style: 7/10

Overall the style was good, but some important parts were difficult to understand. A few characters has poor country accents which were hard to read at first, but got easier as the book went on. Another important character has a lisp and a cockney accent. Those parts were nearly impossible to read. I had to do it out loud and substitute th's for s's. Even then, I'm not sure I got everything that he was trying to say. Also, the last several paragraphs of the book were written in a strange rhetorical style that made it difficult to understand what was going on. Most of the book was just fine, though.

Character: 9/10

The characters were excellent. They were thoroughly unlikable at the beginning (with several exceptions) and by the end the main subjects of the book - Louisa and Mr. Gradgrind - had grown and matured wonderfully. The bad characters remained unlikable, of course. I really enjoyed watching the characters grow and discover what was making their lives miserable and have to mature and face the problems that they had created for themselves.

Theme: 10/10

Hard Times explored one of my favorite themes in literature - the necessity of a balanced existence. You can't just feed the mind and starve the soul and you can't just feed the soul and starve the mind. In order to be a whole person you have to feed both. This is one of the most important lessons for Christians. Our God made us physical and spiritual beings. He calls us both the reason with Him, and to fill ourselves with living water. The message of this book can be paralleled with the Christian faith quite nicely. The Gradgrinds were in a fallen spiritual state. They chose to feed their minds and rationality, but to starve their souls and imaginations. This destroyed them completely. It was only through a recognition of their desperate need for spiritual things that they began to heal and become whole persons! Loves it.

Overall Conclusion: 8.5/10

This was a really good book. Sometimes Dickens can get a little tedious, and there were some parts of this book that made me want to set myself on fire, but overall it was excellent. Well worth the hard parts. I also liked that it wasn't really a social issues book (like I thought it would be), as it was a picture of what humanity ought to look like. I would definitely read this book again, and I encourage others to read it as well.      

College Prom

You didn't think that High Schoolers got to have all the fun, right? Last night was HBU's Honors College Banquet (ok, a BIT more fancy than prom), and was my first experience of it as a freshman. It was an amazing event where all the classes got to show off their skills (we made a musical), the Sophomores honored the seniors, the Juniors put on a play, and the Seniors (our first graduating class!!!) smiled and accepted gifts and awards :). (Our movie was the bast part). The food was actually great! Everyone looked really fancy in their attire. I can't wait until next year. Here are some pictures from the night:

My 'Big' and I at banquet :)

Most of our Freshman Class. We clean up good!

The Side of my head. Hair credit goes to Veronica for the lovely French Knot.

What fun is having a camera if you can't take pictures of yourself in your room?

'nuf said

I think that, ultimately, the best part about banquet was the fact that it cost zero dollars to attend, my dress I already had, makeup took two seconds, and I had a friend do my hair in about ten minutes. So much better than prom :) Oh, and here's the link to our Freshman class video. It's probably just funny to us, but I thought I'd share it anyways :p  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytoFZfffoPA&feature=related

Ramble

I don't really have anything to say right now, I just need to not do school right now. I shall talk about Velociraptors then:

Velociraptors were very small scavengerish dinosaurs. Having seen Jurassic Park many times this was very disappointing to discover. It's a ridiculous looking animal:

Not that this is what it actually looked like. This is a picture that someone drew with colored pencils. What a stupid looking animal. It turns out that what most people call Velociraptors are actually called Deinonychus... It is no great wonder why Micheal Crichton chose to call the monsters Velociraptors instead. Velociraptor sounds much more manly and vicious than Deinonychus. Think about it. All scientists should think hard about what they name their dinosaurs. Awesome dinosaurs should have awesome names, it's not fair for them to have to borrow names from lamer dinosaurs.  Because really. Is there any comparison? 

   

This is ten times more terrifying than the real Velociraptor. Of course, paleontologists are even taking this creatures awesomeness from it as well. They have now decided that they had feathers (even though they have never found any feather imprints near any of the fossils...). It is the goal of every scientist to make these creatures less and less sensationalist. 

You can't tell me that that doesn't look ridiculous. It's not terrifying, it's comical. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that it looks like this:

(It may be noted that no ducks were permanently harmed in the game of duck tossing)  Ok, I'm just kidding. This bird is terrifying.

And that, children is why a Velociraptor (the sensationalized Jurassic Park version) looks like a Shoebill Stork.

  

Random rant completed. 

Disney Intelligentsia

It has been brought to my attention by a very dear friend that I should do a post (or series thereof) defending the thesis that Disney movies are not children's movies, but are actually designed for intelligent people to watch. I fully agree with this, and, in order to prove it, I shall do a series analyzing Disney's classics and bringing out their deeper philosophical themes. The first subject of discussion: 

Now, most of you know the basic story of Beauty and the Beast: Beautiful girl meets hideous monster, beautiful girl is repulsed by said hideous monster, beautiful girl finally realizes that hideous monster is a good person on the inside and learns not to judge a book by its cover. upon discovering this the outside magically changes to reflect the inside and the beast becomes a handsome prince, which the girl marries and they live happily ever after. Everyone knows this, BUT what everyone doesn't know is that the story is so much more than a cliche 'don't judge a book by its cover tale'. Beauty and the Beast represents a beautiful platonic allegory shadowing deep and poignant themes from Plato's masterwork: the Republic. 

The story of Beauty and the Beast works as an allegory on two levels. On the one hand the story acts as a socio-political tale. Belle, the Beauty, is from a poor provincial French town that is in a state of deep political crisis. The town is ruled over by a young prince who is separated from the masses both literally and figuratively. Literally the prince lives several miles away in a foreboding castle, symbolizing the rift between the French aristocracy and the masses. 

 

Figuratively, The prince is separated from his people through the fall of his character. As the leader of the villagers the prince ought to have acted as the Platonic 'Philosopher-King'. Instead, it is obvious that he has neglected his duties and has become something of a tyrant. Belle herself realizes this and is unable to see him as a human being when she first meets him, but projects her inward image of him as a beast on the man himself.

 

Belle, herself, is caught up in the raging class warfare and is unable to see human beings past their occupations, reducing the servants of the prince's castle to the objects that represent the duties that they perform.

Belle is ultimately able to overcome her prejudices and see everyone as the ensouled beings that they are. The Village, however, without the Philosopher-king beging to favor the rule of a Timocracy, represented by the character of Gaston. Gaston is not a bad person, as some might be inclined to think, but is ruled by his love of honor rather than his love of wisdom, making him an inferior ruler, yet preferable to the tyrant that the Prince has become.

In the end, it is Gaston who is the hero, as it is he who galvanizes the Prince to take up his neglected responsibilities. Gaston nobly sacrifices himself in order that the villagers won't contest the Prince's power, both inspiring the noble qualities in the Prince to take over once more, and leaving the way uncontested for his rule. In all, the Story of Beauty and the Beast presents a striking picture of Plato's ideal Republic, beginning as a tyrant ruled form passion and ending with the Prince, now reformed as a philosopher- king, ruling his people in dignity and wisdom.

Beauty and the Beast works as a Platonic allegory on another level as well. In addition to being a social picture, Beauty and the Beast acts as an allegory for the platonic parts of the soul. Belle, the main character, embodies this, symbolizing the confused struggle of every man. The movie can be divided into three main section. The first one can be understood as a move from a kind of unfeeling nothingness, to the soul being controlled by the apetitve part. Belle, and most of the villagers around her (with the notable exception of Gaston) are all ruled by the apetitve parts of their soul. The Villagers, being what they are, have no choice but to accept this as their lot in life, but it is suggested early on that Belle is greater than they are. Still, she is overwhelmed by fleshly desires, and even bored by the ones that her village has to offer, wanting to travel to other places and indulge in new experiences.

The end of the first part comes after Belle is imprisoned in the castle, leaving her still stuck in her apetitve and fleshly nature.

The second part begins as she and the Beast begin to get to know one another. Both are ruled by their flesh and are unable to get along. This section continues to narrate Belle's struggles with appetite, illustrating this figuratively through an imaginary feast that Belle constructs, filled with every kind of delicacy - a symbol of fleshly temptation.

Yet, as the arc progresses both Bell and the Beast move out of their apetitve natures toward a more spirited nature. Belle makes the full transition when, frightened by the Beast, she gains the courage to try and leave the castle and strike out on her own. The Beast soon follows in this transition as he pursues her and overcomes his cowardly and selfish nature to save her from being eaten by wolves.

Part Two ends in this spot, swiftly transitioning to the third part where the final shift for both Belle and the Beast occurs. Now that the Beast and Belle have shifted from their self-centered, apetitve natures and moved to being ruled by the Spirited part of their soul, they can begin to form a genuine relationship. Belle and the Beast begin to establish a friendship with one another and things move rather quickly. It is not long before the Beast moves from being ruled by his spirit to being ruled by his rational part. When he discovers that Belle longs to return home he does not try to stop and possess her, like the spirited, passionate part of his soul is wont to do, but reasonably lets her return to her home. This highlights the Beast's successful return to a right state internally, leaving him ready to resume his position once more as a philosopher-king, yet Belle, is still ruled by her lesser passions and cannot see the complete change that has taken place within her friend. 

Belle's change comes at the very end of the movie. After the selfless Gaston falls to his death, self-sacrificially giving up both the love of his life (Belle) and his claim to political power, Belle is able to overcome her baser emotions and move into a higher plane of consciousness. This is symbolized by the Beast's transformation, and the transformation of all of the castle's servants. She no longer imposes her own stereotypes on the people around her, but is able to see them as they are. The Beast's transformation is purely symbolic (he was never really a Beast), showing her shift in consciousness. Now ruled by reason Belle is suited to be a proper companion for the Beast, helping him rule the village with integrity

Now, this has been a very brief introduction to the deep and rich tale that Disney weaves in Beauty and the Beast. It is far more complicated and complex than it has been presented here. This, however, goes to show that Disney is, indeed, not a children's franchise, but is meant for a more intelligent audience. Many Americans do not realize this, and it is my mission to bring it to the attention of the public at large. Intelligent people should watch Disney, and I'll continue to show you why. Tune in Next week for a brief exposition on Disney's Snow White: The Detrimental Effects of Schizophrenia and Food Poisoning.

Tagged

I'm choosing not to bother with much of an introduction to this right now.

Eleven Things about myself:

1. I have trouble typing the world self. I always mix up the 1 and the e.
2. I hate most foods on the food chain, I'm an extremely picky eater.
3. When I have time I love to paint.
4. I hold very strictly to the philosophy that commas and paragraph breaks are for the weak.
5. Disney is my obsession.
6. I've been known to extort people for things that I want.
7. I'm not a huge fan of romance novels.
8. Secretly I'm a huge fan of romance novels, if they're cute.... and well written... and remind me of Disney Things...
9. I want to get married at Disney Land
10. I can write pretty quickly and have written an entire book in a month. (NaNoWriMo ftw)
11. I've started a business with my roommates. You should buy things from me.

Questions:
1. What is your middle name? (If you don’t feel comfortable posting that online, what is a name that you especially like?)


My middle name is my grandmother's middle name: Jane. 


2. What is your least favorite book?




My least favorite book is, without a doubt, Invisible Man. Not to be confused with THE Invisible Man.
    That was the  mistake that I made. *shudders*


3. If you could be in charge of directing one movie based on a novel, what would that book be?


I would love to direct a film/television version of Virgil's Aenied. It's such an awesome story and I think, if it was done right, could make a spectacular movie.


4. How many siblings do you have?


I have two siblings. One brother, Tyler; and one sister, Sierra.

5. If you are not home schooled, do you wish you were? If you are, what’s your favorite thing about home schooling?


I am college-schooled now. But, when I could be, I was not home-schooled. I do wish that I had been. I think the system, done correctly, has fantastic results, and most of my best friends were at one point in their lives home-schooled. When I have children I intend to educate them in this manner.


6. Who is your favorite Bible character (besides Jesus!)


I really like Paul. He was such a great person. He was incredibly Godly, and could still call people out for their sin in an epic way. Also he had a temper, and when he would get angry he would say hilarious things (Acts 23:3).

7. If you had to pick a music CD Track that you think described you as a person, what would it be?


Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The question has been changed for the purposes of my sanity. The other one was WAY too hard to choose. The song I think that best describes my life is "running just to catch myself" by Mark Schultz. 

8. What is your favorite musical?


Probably either Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat or Cats

9. Would you rather visit Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, or Ancient Babylon?


Ancient Babylon, just because I don't know that much about it, and the picture I have in my mind is kind of pretty.

10. Quick! Pick one! Rock, paper, or scissors? 


SPOCK!!!!!    

no wait! LIZARD!!!!!   


11. You’ve been nominated for an Academy award! Describe the dress you’d wear on the red carpet.

This one. Because bending down.... Is for the weak. 

Part the Next:

If we're being completely honest, I am doing this right now to avoid writing a paper. I'm too lazy to come up with new questions, so I'm going to be rebellious and stop the cycle HERE!!!