Felt like typing...

After a long evening of relaxing, chatting, and listening to music, it only felt right to cap the evening off with a small blog entry.

So I have really been stressing about this move to Nashville and starting at Vanderbilt. I am beginning to realize the dramatic changes this will mean not only in the long trajectory of my life, but also my day-to-day living. I mean, on my Friday nights, I will have to actively search out people to hang out with... no longer can I rely on going home and running into my roommate who is already full of ideas for our weekend. I'm sure that I will be completely engulfed in my studies, but I'm going to need some non-nerdy outlets! Maybe I'll just write on my blog more... Wouldn't that be lovely?

However, in spite of all of the crazy, life-changing things going on, I have been able to keep up with a few other things. I finished re-reading for the 3rd time Slaughterhouse 5. It truly is a joyful masterpiece. I am now currently getting into a book called IBM and the Holocaust, which details the extent to which IBM facilitated the optimization of the Third Reich's numerous political apparatuses that made the genocide so much more precise and efficient... It's an interesting book, and I think the author has a good point, but the prose gets too informal at times and its a wordy to say the least. But, I am enjoying it.

The project I am working on tomorrow is crafting a letter to submit to my church council in the hopes of gaining their approval for In-Care status (the track to ordination) with the UCC. I have to talk about my faith journey and my call to ministry among other things... It should not be difficult to write considering a lot of these things were required for my seminary entrance essay. However, I'm always afraid to start writing because if I sit down and have a terrible case of writer's block, it is so frustrating; therefore, my solution is to procrastinate... I'm not sure if that's the best way to handle it, but what are you gonna do?

Also, in a final thought, I would like to say I think it's completely ridiculous how much the public has been bombarded with the commercials paid for by the American Petroleum Institute about how raising energy taxes will hurt consumers... First of all, let's just be honest: the real objective of these commercials is not to tell people how raising taxes will hurt consumers, it's to making sure Americans continue to bend to the interests of Big Oil. Second, in an industry that is raking in record-profits (and clearly spending millions, if not billions, on a PR campaign), doesn't it seem reasonable that instead of passing on the cost of higher taxation onto consumers, they find ways to absorb the costs by being innovative and cost-effective? We demand that government be as lean and efficient as possible, why shouldn't expect the same kind of discipline from our private sector? Anyway, the whole media blitz has me worried that people will just continue to make blanket statements that all taxation is bad and all government regulation in dangerously restrictive... I just hope we all take the time to analyze and determine how to address energy issues with concern for both environmental sustainability and economic realities.