It started off like any other Friday. Out of the ordinary events always seems to be berthed out of average days don’t they.
Now if you know our apartment, you know that we basically have a video game museum which consists of: All 5 Nintendo systems, a Genesis, 2 original Xbox’s, a 360, and all 3 Playstations, all meticulously wired into a 42″ HDTV.
Two of my roommates were in our apartment waiting for class, and I was in the cafeteria eating. Average things on an average day Ceeja, one of my roommates, thought he heard the shower running and stepped out and to his surprise saw Josiah standing under a sprinkler getting drenched.
Apparently as Josiah was walking underneath the sprinkler burst to life. After trying to stem the flow he ran around the corner and began unplugging all of the systems and the TV, while Ceeja ran for help. This is when I got the call and ran up the hill.
By the time I got there the Fire Department was already there and everyone was out of the apartments, Josiah was standing outside drenched head to toe from the sprinklers devastating attack (mind you it was about 17 degrees outside). Luckily he was packed to go on a weekend trip so he had a bag of dry clothes with him. I talked to the head residents in the apartments, named Andy and Mandy Sharpe, and they let him into there apartment to shower and change. It was so cold outside that his shoes were frozen to his socks, and his socks were frozen to his feet.
As he showered and warmed up I walked up to assess the damage done. There was so much water that they were using a squeegy to push the water out of the door, and it was so cold that it turned all both stairwells all the way down to the first floor into solid ice in a matter of minutes. Since it was only about 10-15 minutes into the incident, the director of residential life was not in a very good mood, and they thought that one of us may have started it.
As I began to look around I noticed first that Josiah’s PS2 was in a puddle so I wiped it off and stuck it in the pantry. As I was doing this the Director of Residential Life was asking me “if it was an electrical fire (which it wasn’t) then why couldn’t Josiah smell it?” This is where I had to try to explain to him and the others that Josiah has Onosmia (sp?). I told him that Josiah could not smell, and the room got quiet… “What do you mean?” they asked, “I mean that Josiah only has four senses, and smell is not one of them.” After a few “are you serious” remarks later I began to explore again.
I went to the gaming area, also known as the Command Center to check for damage. Fortunately as I looked at my new TV I noticed that dust still covered the top where the openings to the electronics are located, and that it appeared that the only water that was on this item was on the base. The gaming systems on the floor (Sega, PS2, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Wii, and 2 Xbox’s) however were not so lucky.
Once we realized that we were going to have to pack up and move to separate residences while they fixed our apartment we started to gather and assess the game systems on the ground. When we picked up the SNES it was more of a pitcher than a game system. Water literally poured out of it. The Sega, though not quite as bad, was suffering the same fate. The Wii had water stains on its exterior and the 2 Xbox’s were dripping with water.
We were not the only ones affected by the sprinkler either. The water from the flood in our room needed an exit, and through our floor and their ceiling seemed like a viable option. In many was what happened to their apartment was even worse because they had to have both their ceiling and their floor replaced, we only had to have our floor replaced.
There were 8 of us, 8 refugees who needed a new temporary residence. Residential staff was hard at work locating empty rooms and once this was accomplished it was move out time. The girls all got rooms in the girl’s dorms, Josiah and Shayne are in the guy’s dorms, and Ceeja is across the hall. I was moved to the other apartment complex because I am an RA, and I had to stay in the apartments.
Before moving everything over I did a walkthrough, the first thing I noticed were the posters of scantily clad lady posters all over the room. Greeaaaat. I missed my roommates already.
I left for the weekend and came back Sunday night. When Paige and I arrived I started to set up my new room. Later Josiah came to Paige’s room so we could begin seeing if the games that were on the ground would power up or not, they had been drying out all weekend. Much to our surprise every one of the powered up instantly so that was a relief.
I guess after all the craziness of that day it still is not terrible. I miss my roommates though, we have a good thing going together and to be separated and given new roommates for a short period of time isn’t my idea of a good time. Luckily nothing of great material value was lost, and the move is just temporary. It did kind of make my weekend less relaxing though. Now all I have to do is wait out this next month and hope I don’t have to write up my temporary roomies for breaking rules, which would be awkward.
This concludes the Misadventures of Apt 403, I hope you can enjoy our misfortune.
As I was watching Star Wars: AOTC with Paige (for those of you who don’t know, that means Attack of the Clones) I saw something that struck a chord.
For those of you who have talked about Star Wars with me, you know that I think Jar-Jar Binks is one of the dumbest characters ever in the history of SW. And now I have something on him; a reason as to why I can dislike him.
No, it isn’t his irritating voice that grinds the nerves, or his clumsy demeanor, or even his uncanny ability to somehow not get killed throughout the prequels.
It is that through his actions that Palpatine was able to overthrow the Republic and establish a Galactic Empire and rule with an iron fist.
And while I was watching this a thought came to me.
Evil was birthed out of naivety.
If Jar-Jar had known what his actions would ultimately lead to he would not have put forth the motion. He is a stupid character, not an evil character.
I think there is a lesson in this. Evil doesn’t have to be on purpose to exist. It just is.
Is there some objective force of Evil? I have no idea to be honest. Could be. I do think that evil can largely come from human action or inaction though. And this is the case with our Gungan friend.
I think it is in The Screwtape Letters where one demon/ symbol for evil says that the best thing for them is for us to believe that evil is a man with a pitchfork, because it distracts from the true face of evil. It clouds are judgment.
Above all else Evil is shrouded in mystery, much like God. We can’t know much about. We can rationalize it all we want, but when it strikes it knocks down all of our rational walls and sends us into a flurry of irrationality.
All we can do is have faith that we are not alone.
May the Force be with you.
You know those nights where you just can’t sleep? You just lay there and think… about everything and about nothing. Sometimes you just daydream which makes no sense, because if you could just go to sleep you could real dream, we are talking Delta waves (brain activity in deep sleep).
You know before I started taking my Religion classes I don’t know what I would have told you my concept of God was. Of course I would say the standard stuff like Omnipotence, Omniprescence, and all of those things, but when you get down to it what is He really like? I believe a lot of people have the misconception of God as the “Old man in the sky” but is that what He is like?
How could He be?
He is omnipresent.
The implications of that word says that it is impossible for Him to be anthropomorphized, or put into human form. One of my professors really challenged me with this. He stated that there are two levels of anthropomorphism; the first is seeing God as like a Santa Claus type figure, this is usually when you are very young. The second happens when we get older, we get to mature to believe that God is an old man in the sky, but we still talk about Him as if He were in Human form.
If God is everywhere at once He would be more like a personal power, or presence that surrounds us not an Old man. My teacher quoted Acts 17:28 “In Him we live and move and have our being”. I didn’t really put much signifigance to that at first, but then we started talking about the implications that this had on prayer.
I think most of us, including me, used to see prayer as some kind of messaging system. We pray, and it feels like we are praying to a God who is way out there, like there is some distance are message would hve to traverse. But if we live and move and have being in Him, then we really just open ourselves up to this personal presence whom we are already in. And maybe through this we can somehow focus this power though prayer.
When he asked how to explain God in modern language, because religious language is pretty much irrelevant to people at this point, I switched to my nerdy side. I said something like “not to be really lame, but to me it sounds an awful like like the ‘Force’ and ironically he agreed with me.
Compare these two accounts
“In Him we live and move and have our being”
“The Force has always been with us. That is its nature. It surrounds us. And penetrates. It binds the universe together. Those who become sensitive to its presence can learn how to use it”
Although Obi-Wan Kenobi is a little more wordy than the writer of Acts, both quotes basically say the same thing.
It is a lot different thinking about God as some ultimate, benevolent, mind, or power that surrounds us and creates our being, than thinking of God as some old man in the sky who wears white robes and has a long white beard.
I have not had a blog in a while. Honestly the reason I got this one was because of Jamie. Her blog was just so real, you know? It was what she was feeling, and that got to me. I felt that I needed a place where I could be real publicly, yet privately… If that makes any sense, or maybe just a place to throw around ideas that won’t leave me alone. So thank you Jamie, I am going to give this a try again.
I finished up the last of my papers for this semester. It feels good not procrastinating till the last minute like usual.
I am really glad that I switched majors from church music to Religion and Philosophy. It has really helped me nail down some beliefs, but at the same time it has opened me up to other ideas as well. I feel like I am really being stretched out, my teachers challenge me to be able to know what I actually believe and why every day. But that isn’t bad, I like it. I feel like I am much more prepared to defend my faith, and discuss it with whomever.
Surprisingly I really like Philosophy too. I wanted to be a Religion only major, but Philosophy kind of got tacked on the end of it. But it has been very interesting, and I think it is worthwhile.
