Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Readings From The Symposium

Socrates: Let’s sum up our conclusions then: Love is first the love of things, and then of things he now lacks. Isn’t that so?

Agathon: Yes.

Socrates: …can Love be anything except the love of beauty.

Agathon: No.

Socrates: Didn’t we agree that he lacks what he loves and doesn’t have it?

Agatho: Yes.

Socrates: So Love must lack beauty and not have it.

Agathon: That follows.

Socartes: Then do you still say that Love is beautiful.

Agathon: I’m afraid I didn’t know what I was talking about when I said it.

Socrates: Do you think that whatever is beautiful is also good?

Agathon: Yes, I do.

Socrates: Therefore if Love lacks beautiful things, and if beautiful things are good, then Love must also lack good things.

Agathon: Have it your way Socrates, I can’t contradict you.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Religious Discussion about the Afterlife

Student: What do you think of people of other faiths attaining heaven?
Priest: Well, salvation is through Jesus Christ, however there are exceptions. When it all comes down to it, we. Do. Not. Tell God what to do.
Rabbi: ...We do.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

I've Been Busy

I apologize to the few people who do read this blog for taking such a long time to write another post. I've been busy: busy with homework, busy with class work, busy with preparing for exams, busy failing exams (just kidding…). By Friday night I was completely exhausted and glad that I was finally able to do the things that I wanted to do like go to the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art (which is not part of the Smithsonian).

So I woke up on Saturday fully energized to start my day of relaxation. Something went terribly wrong with the Metro earlier that day so everyone had to use the same track to go to their destination. Waiting for extremely long periods of time added more to the frustration. I reevaluated my decision to go to the Smithsonian, being that they were going to close by the time I got there (thank you Metro), and I decided to go to my default choice of DuPont Circle. I was eager to go to find a consignment shop that I looked up online that, I soon realized that it was further than I expected. Walking for almost an hour around I realized that I was running in circles around the embassy residence's of Mozambique, Argentina, and Columbia. To make matters worse, the weather was drastically declining and I had to stop at local Starbucks's every five minutes to keep myself warm. In the end I decided to forget the consignment shop and go back to my dorm and sleep.

I don't know exactly now many miles I walked yesterday, but by the time I came back to my dorm that my legs were as tired as they were on Friday. I realized that I completely wasted my day and had little to no time to relax. I didn't have the energy to write this blog yesterday. My "day of relaxation" was not really as relaxing as I hoped it would be. Even if my day went as smoothly as I wanted it to I would most likely be as tired as I am anyways. With those activities I was not taking the break that I wanted, I was filling my Saturday with more unnecessary energy-guzzling activities.

The best way to relax is to not do anything that you know would take large amounts of your time or energy. Looking back now I wish I just laid in my bed all day and reflected on how stressful last week was and how to make the coming week less stressful. My energy would have been put into better use if I were to do that. But the truth is that I did not, and know I have to prepare for the stressfulness of the coming week. Alas, I hope that I won't be too busy to write my next blog entry...