Delinquent No More
Even though I brought my laptop with me (and have been using it nearly every day), I have neglected posting during my vacation in Texas. I've been crafting a few posts on various subjects; I always find that the longer I wait to complete one, the less likely I am to ever finish it. They seem to burgeon uncontrollably after a few weeks, attaining scope and gravity that make me realize that no one would bother reading past paragraph two.
In order to make this update a little less nonsensical, — pause! My rambling mind finds it humorous that sensical isn't a word, but nonsensical is. I really wanted to write the positive feeling: "[...] a little more sensical", but instead I'm stuck with the sentence as you see it. Play! — I've included general headings that will (hopefully) guide my rewriting of these previously crafted posts.
Christmas
Christmas was fun. I was given money, and so I immediately placed some orders for hiking equipment that I've been eyeing:
- A Eureka Spitfire UL, a single-person tent weighing in at 2 lbs 5 oz. It's double-walled (rain fly held away from interior netting), so no waking up wet with condensation!
- Swedish Firesteel for lighting a fire in any condition.
- A drinking tube for my Platypus.
- A Sugoi cycling jersey that will double as a fair-weather hiking layer.
- The Snow Peak Trek 700 Titanium Cookset — impressive product name, right? It can be translated as, "expensive pot with an expensive lid".
I'm really excited to get all of this stuff. I'll definitely need to go backpacking soon.
Reading
I'm still digging into the Harvard Classics. I've finished reading Plato's Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, and I've moved on to The Golden Sayings of Epictetus. Epictetus is a little dry, but I'll get through it.
I've also begun reading Through A Screen Darkly, an enlightening (thus far) book written by Jeffrey Overstreet.
There is an interesting (and strange) intersection between these two works. Those of you familiar with Plato may recognize that the metaphor "through a glass darkly" is recorded in writing for the first time in Phaedo, when Socrates is explaining how poor our present knowledge of the realm of ideas is. I found it very interesting that this predates Paul's use of the phrase in 1 Corinthians 13. I also found it very interesting that it's directly referenced in the title of Jeff's book, the second book that I took on my plane ride. Ah, coincidence!
There are a ton of Platonic phrases that I jotted down during my bus rides, so I'll likely expand on this subject in another post.
Work
I'm still loving iLike. It's really nice to have good news over the holiday break, as opposed to the holiday buzz surrounding work last year.
That's all I have energy for tonight. Perhaps more will come next week, when I'm dodging the "help out with your sister-in-law's wedding" draft. Just kidding: I've already enlisted!
