![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiedyedaveHere's the latest. As I am eternally a module whore, this entry is conveniently partitioned.
Christmas has come and gone. I am not one to make a laundry list of my acquisitions, but I do want to mention one in particular: Twilight Imperium. I now have my own copy, much to my surprise; I had mentioned it to my older brother in passing, and he managed to acquire both the game and the expansion despite the fact that the game is out of print. A lucky find at a local game store.
Some of you hae already played TI. For those unfamiliar, think of it as a board game version of Master of Orion :-). In any case, my brothers and sister and my brother's friends and I have played at least 5 games over the past week. Given the length of the average game, that comes to over a solid day's worth of gaming, and it has been devouring my time and my sleep schedule. But what a great game.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
buoren, bpr, indrani_prime, and all other veterans: I'm calling you out. We've got to play again. :-)
I have precisely two friends outside of CMU or my family: Steve and Pam.
I just recently got in touch with Steve again a few weeks ago, after a long hiatus. He's got a job, two businesses, and he's married with a son and a second kid on the way.
And Pam is now a mother.
Her son Devon was born on the morning of December 29, a week early. He's light as a feather (less than 6lbs) and the cutest thing ever (pictures are forthcoming when I reconnect my camera). He's a little bit bruised and slightly jaundiced (which the doctors say will clear in a few days), but otherwise quite healthy. I'm glad for them.
I must say though, it's odd talking to both of them (though less so with Pam than with Steve because we keep in touch more). I feel very divergent from them, since we're walking such different roads. Steve is a family man with only a high school diploma, Pam is a working mother with even less, and here I am off to the ivory tower of graduate school to get a PhD in artificial intelligence. Hum.
A few days ago, I finally worked up the nerve to break it to my parents that I'm not Catholic any more. I was honest with them: I don't know what I am. If I called myself anything, it would be a Taoist, and a poor one at that. I felt uncomfortable going to Mass with the family, almost like a liar. I think the way I explained it to my dad was the clearest analogy: Catholicism is a family, and I'm a friend of the family. I know the family well, but it's still not my house, and it would be false of me to claim to be a brother or a son. I am a stranger in the house of God.
I spoke to Mom first. We had a very nice conversation, late at night, no anger or sparring, just calm words. She explained why she believes what she believes, and I explained that I still believed in being good as an inherent truth, but my heart was not in the same place. She understood. To be frank, I think she's one of the best Taoists I've ever met, much better than me; she has simple faith and a buoyant heart.
I talked to Dad the next day. He was just as kind as Mom, and rational as ever. He said that he was sad to hear the news, but also that he and Mom just want what's best for me.
It's a great relief to finally be in the clear on that. I knew since at least this summer, perhaps even much earlier, that I had to step forth with it, and it had been weighing on me for some time.
And I've come to another conclusion: I don't think I can honestly be an atheist, or even an agnostic in the strict sense, because my intuition tells me that there's something going on here. God, Tao, Atman, I don't care, names are a formality, literally a formality, and it was never the form that mattered to me so much as the spirit, the principle. I have learned that I simply cannot live with the void that atheism presents; my mind can accept it, but it is anathema to my heart. If you see that as weakness, I understand, but it's just the way I am.
And thus begins 2004.
I briefly considered making new year's resolutions, but a resolution sounds more like a setting for my monitor than a goal for my future. I decided on new year's dreams instead.
New Year's Dreams
[00] Faith. I want to find its principles and follow its practices, whatever they may be.
[04] Happiness. I am often much more depressed than I am willing to show to the world or admit to myself. Much of it has to do with stress, my particular fears and psychoses, and the faith issues from earlier. I think that I am finally out of its shadow, and I would like to stay there.
[08] Connection. I've been out of touch with a lot of friends, old and new. I don't want that to be the case any more.
[0c] Research. To prove to myself that I've really got the guns for it, I would like to have magenta up and running by the end of the semester.
There are others, but they are not as definitive.
And because I'm a cheap bastard,etotheipi:
> (fn x => fn y => fn z => fn w => w * (x + fact y) + fact z) 2 0 0 4
val it = 13
And that, as they say, is that.
Christmas has come and gone. I am not one to make a laundry list of my acquisitions, but I do want to mention one in particular: Twilight Imperium. I now have my own copy, much to my surprise; I had mentioned it to my older brother in passing, and he managed to acquire both the game and the expansion despite the fact that the game is out of print. A lucky find at a local game store.
Some of you hae already played TI. For those unfamiliar, think of it as a board game version of Master of Orion :-). In any case, my brothers and sister and my brother's friends and I have played at least 5 games over the past week. Given the length of the average game, that comes to over a solid day's worth of gaming, and it has been devouring my time and my sleep schedule. But what a great game.
buoren, bpr, indrani_prime, and all other veterans: I'm calling you out. We've got to play again. :-)I have precisely two friends outside of CMU or my family: Steve and Pam.
I just recently got in touch with Steve again a few weeks ago, after a long hiatus. He's got a job, two businesses, and he's married with a son and a second kid on the way.
And Pam is now a mother.
Her son Devon was born on the morning of December 29, a week early. He's light as a feather (less than 6lbs) and the cutest thing ever (pictures are forthcoming when I reconnect my camera). He's a little bit bruised and slightly jaundiced (which the doctors say will clear in a few days), but otherwise quite healthy. I'm glad for them.
I must say though, it's odd talking to both of them (though less so with Pam than with Steve because we keep in touch more). I feel very divergent from them, since we're walking such different roads. Steve is a family man with only a high school diploma, Pam is a working mother with even less, and here I am off to the ivory tower of graduate school to get a PhD in artificial intelligence. Hum.
A few days ago, I finally worked up the nerve to break it to my parents that I'm not Catholic any more. I was honest with them: I don't know what I am. If I called myself anything, it would be a Taoist, and a poor one at that. I felt uncomfortable going to Mass with the family, almost like a liar. I think the way I explained it to my dad was the clearest analogy: Catholicism is a family, and I'm a friend of the family. I know the family well, but it's still not my house, and it would be false of me to claim to be a brother or a son. I am a stranger in the house of God.
I spoke to Mom first. We had a very nice conversation, late at night, no anger or sparring, just calm words. She explained why she believes what she believes, and I explained that I still believed in being good as an inherent truth, but my heart was not in the same place. She understood. To be frank, I think she's one of the best Taoists I've ever met, much better than me; she has simple faith and a buoyant heart.
I talked to Dad the next day. He was just as kind as Mom, and rational as ever. He said that he was sad to hear the news, but also that he and Mom just want what's best for me.
It's a great relief to finally be in the clear on that. I knew since at least this summer, perhaps even much earlier, that I had to step forth with it, and it had been weighing on me for some time.
And I've come to another conclusion: I don't think I can honestly be an atheist, or even an agnostic in the strict sense, because my intuition tells me that there's something going on here. God, Tao, Atman, I don't care, names are a formality, literally a formality, and it was never the form that mattered to me so much as the spirit, the principle. I have learned that I simply cannot live with the void that atheism presents; my mind can accept it, but it is anathema to my heart. If you see that as weakness, I understand, but it's just the way I am.
And thus begins 2004.
I briefly considered making new year's resolutions, but a resolution sounds more like a setting for my monitor than a goal for my future. I decided on new year's dreams instead.
New Year's Dreams
[00] Faith. I want to find its principles and follow its practices, whatever they may be.
[04] Happiness. I am often much more depressed than I am willing to show to the world or admit to myself. Much of it has to do with stress, my particular fears and psychoses, and the faith issues from earlier. I think that I am finally out of its shadow, and I would like to stay there.
[08] Connection. I've been out of touch with a lot of friends, old and new. I don't want that to be the case any more.
[0c] Research. To prove to myself that I've really got the guns for it, I would like to have magenta up and running by the end of the semester.
There are others, but they are not as definitive.
And because I'm a cheap bastard,
etotheipi:> (fn x => fn y => fn z => fn w => w * (x + fact y) + fact z) 2 0 0 4
val it = 13
And that, as they say, is that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-04 10:15 am (UTC)You name where and when and I'll be there.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-04 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-04 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-04 11:11 pm (UTC)Glad to hear your parents were accepting of your decisions and feelings. It's always good to have that family love.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-05 01:25 am (UTC)Josh has a copy, but the guys I play board games with are always like "Oh... Twilight Imperium... we don't have time to play that right now... come on... if we started at 8pm we'd be done around lunchtime tomorrow..."
sigh.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-05 10:14 pm (UTC)I told my parents that I was an atheist a few years ago, and they were aghast. Then they conveniently forgot that I didn't believe in their faith. I continued to participate in the rituals to avoid confrontation and allow my siblings to form their own conclusions, but they still seem to ignore the unpleasant fact.
I think one of my biggest boons is having a decent connection with high school friends. I didn't come from a magnet school, and so the friends from school have a totally different, grounded characteristic that many CMU students lack. It is refreshing to spend time with them because of how strongly they contrast with everyone else I see on campus.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-15 05:57 am (UTC)(And did you know there's a Yahoo group? ("arcondev") Right now it sucks with a capital 'X', but there is some good reading buried in the archives.)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-18 12:34 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-04 01:45 pm (UTC)I'm actually planning on going back for a PhD in a couple of years and of course I'm seriously considering CMU for CS or robotics, but I'm worried that it's such a practical results-driven research climate that my projects would be too spacey for them. Maybe there's a match, or maybe I'll have to look into philosophy at Pitt. What do you think of CMU CS in general?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-29 06:14 pm (UTC)