football

not sure if I should say anything about football this week or not. Maybe I'll just repost this previous comment.

CAITLIN ALANE said...
I love that Michigan isn't doing well...

sorry.

money

For the first time since 1975 the Loony is worth as much as the Greenback. So much for cheap shopping.

Produce

Here's what I don't get.

I'm in Michigan, in the heart of one of the most fertile areas in the world. And it's the middle of the harvest season.

I just moved from Arizona, one of the least fertile areas on earth. There isn't a harvest season

So why does produce cost more here? It's not just the store either. Across the board, fruits and vegetables cost more here.

study harder

Today we disarticulated the atlantooccipital joint and bisected the head. In other words, we pulled the skull off the vertebral column and cut it in half. It was a little weird, because we used a hand saw and just cut down the middle of the face. It was cool though to see the middle of the head.

In other news school is going well. Nobody has brought an AK-47 to school yet, so that's good. Also we have another test next week so the next round of feeling rotten about not studying enough has begun.

Crazy

This man:

http://www.zorkot.org/Houssein2.html

a third year medical student at WSU was arrested Saturday running through a public park in camoflouge with a loaded AK-47. That's right...he was carrying a loaded Russian assault rifle openly on the streets of the United States in the name of Islam.

It's a crazy world.

More things I learned on NPR

According to a recent study, friendships formed on MySpace and Facebook are not as close as friendships formed face to face. I never would have guessed.

Palestinian Rocket Attacks

Palestinians have been firing rockets at Israel for 20 years or so. Yesterday they managed to injure 12 people with one...their highest casualty total yet. The interesting thing is that a terrorist group claimed responsibility for it. If I was firing rockets every day at a nation of 6 million plus people less than a stones throw away, I'd have standards a little higher than 12 injured. I mean if you're going to take the time and trouble to launder and squander European aid money on rockets the least you could do is actually kill some Jews and make Allah happy. I mean come on.

It also makes you wonder though why Israel bothers responding seriously. I think a little laughter would go a long way to shaming these people.

Also, Hillary Clinton's top campaign fundraisers are known as the Hellraisers. One of them was recently arrested so she had to give the money he raised back.

Also Oprah endorsed Barack Obama for president and managed to raise 3 million dollars for him at one event. Hmmm I wonder why she did that. It might be for the same reason she said last week that it was ok for Michael Vick to torture and brutally kill dogs.

The things you learn on NPR. You can't make this stuff up.

Ping Pong

There's a ping pong table in the student lounge at school. We go down there pretty much every day at lunch and take turns playing while we eat. It's pretty much the only place where first anf second year students actually mix at all. It's a lot of fun. The second year students think they're really good at ping pong. And in general they are. But anytime they're losing they talk about how badly they're playing and how suprised they are to be losing to a first year. Usually we play doubles which means I'm not any good. My strength is consistency--hitting every shot back. So if I'm playing with a partner I'm only half as consistent. Today we played singles, there weren't many people there. Anyway I played this guy that puts a lot of spin on the ball and is always slamming it on the table and stuff. ANyway I absolutely pasted him two games in a row, 21-9/21-11. He kept staring at his paddle like there was something wrong with it (he brings his own special paddle to school, I always play with the broken one that only has half a handle). It was hilarious. I probably shouldn't gloat though, I'll probably lose again tomorrow.

Then I went and studied--don't worry, I do study, just not every second of the day. Games are good for the soul--especially when you win. (but I'm not competitive or anything)

A picture

Just because I can put anything I want in my blog

Television

So I watched a little TV yesterday. I don't generally watch much, but Adrienne was working so I turned on the football game while I studied. I didn't watch much more than a quarter though because Michigan stinks. I've never seen a game as bad as that. Oregon completely creamed them in every way. It was like watching Arizona play.

I think commercials are better now than they were ten years ago. I think advertisers may have finally figured out that you have to give people a reason to keep watching through a commercial break. There were some really funny commercials. I think they pull out all the stops for football season. Hey look at that, I just used a figure of speech from church to describe something that causes people to skip church.

One more thing about commercials. Apparently they're turning Geico's cavemen into an actual television show. Talk about clever advertising.

Dates

I've got to get a post in today. It's 9/8/7, how could you not post today.

for good measure...check out the time of the post

brains

Yesterday we cut out the brain. It was cool. We were the stars again. We got it out in one piece and managed to cut all twelve of the cranial nerves and leave pieces of each of them sticking out of both the brain and the skull.

So the test went well. I honored both histology and anatomy practical. I was one question short on the written anatomy. If you add them all together I got over 95%.

adios

We're going to the cottage. So have a great weekend

A response

CAITLIN ALANE said...
David- i saw someone talk about that book on tv and i was intrigued too. i wanted your opinion on the following. i could never imagine what it would be like to see the horrific suffering of the poor and serve them day in and day out like she did. that environment alone would cause me to question the goodness of God, like all of us are inclined to do. but i couldn't help but wonder...what if mother teressa did not really know the personal love of Christ in her life? (i know this might sound crazy). sure she obediently lived out God's call, but what if she never grasped the fullness of the Gospel? do you think that could be an explanation for her doubts?

Apparently my readership has risen by one to climb to an all time high.

I think this merits a full response. I'll go backwards.

1. I'm not sure that we need an explanation for doubt. It seems to be a normal, though perhaps not universal, part of the human experience. I think it is probably a function of our brokenness. Just a few examples: many Psalms, Peter, Martin Luther, Phillip Yancey. Even Jesus felt far from God, "My God My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?" And these are just people who have been willing to acknowledge their doubt. I feel far from God much of the time. Sometimes it seems like I'm a drowning man, I sink down into sin and doubt and i struggle and struggle and just as I am about to expire God grabs me and pulls me to the surface, then I swim and sink and begin the process again.

2. I am not in charge of writing names in the book of life, and I am not privy to its contents. So i don't know what kind of relationship with God she had. One thing that does seem to be clear in the Bible is that the followers of Christ will be known by what they do. The only test we have at our disposal is the fruit that she produced. And judging by that I'd say, "If not her...who?"

3. Mother Teresa's writings are intriguing to me precisely because she continued to act out her faith in such an uncomprimising manner. Her life is fascinating to me. She saw human existence at its worst and followed God into it.

On rudeness

I've had some people do some pretty rude things to me. But this has to rank up there. I stopped at the grocery store and I was in the twelve items or less aisle. The lady in front of me just had two things. She was standing in front of her cart, and she put them up, paid for them, then walked out...and she left the cart there in the middle of the aisle, blocking the way. She even looked back as though trying to decide whether to bother or not.

The thing that shocked me the most though was her normal appearance. Normally when someone is rude to you, they are young, or rebellious, or whatever...you know what I mean. Or they are in a protected place like on the telephone or in their car. But she was just a normal looking woman. It was amazing.

Maybe she's as spacey as me and when she looked back the shopping cart didn't even enter her field of vision.

It is finished

I am done. I don't know why, but for some reason, they put all of the tests on the same day. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless it is an attempt to reward those who have spent time to actually reward those who learned it all along, and punish tose who try to cram it all in at the last minute.

Anyway, I' pretty confident I passed. Beyond that I have no idea. You have to score more than one standard deviation from the mean to honor. And more than one below it to fail. So I may or may not honor these tests.

I felt fairly confident in the morning and grew increasingly less confident as the day wore on. By the end of the third (three hour) test I was pretty worn out.

Tests

My first test is tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'm ready for it or not. I studied a little today. Matt came down from Detroit to study with me. We got a little bit done. We'll see how prepared I am tomorrow. If I fail I'll have only myself to blame.

That said, I think that I'm going to do alright. Over the last few weeks I've really felt like I shouldn't devote all of my time to study. So I have made a conscious effort to do other things. To spend time with friens and family, and with my wife.

Tonight Luke and Ben are over for dinner. Adrienne asked them to come help us out so that we can get our new dishwasher installed tomorrow. The home warrenty people finally came through. But it turns out the new dishwasher is two inches too tall. So Ben and Luke helped us prop up the countertop and they're going to come back to finish it tomorrow after the new dishwasher is in.

Anyway. I have a test tomorrow and the chicken is done on the grill and it is time to eat. So I'm going to have a good time with friends and go to bed.

If I regret this next week remind me that I wrote this

Happy Anneversary

It's only a week late. And I didn't call. I'm an awful son I know, but here it is now.

29 years, wow!!!

On doubt and sainthood

I was driving yesterday listening to NPR and heard a story about a new book that came out recently. It is a collection of the correspondence of Mother Teresa with her confessors. They read a passage and I was intrigued. The letters often dealt with her recurring doubts about God's existence, presence, love etc. She struggled all of her life.

I would really like to read the book. She had tremendous faith, and she put it into action. She responded to the call of Christ to care for the sick and went far beyond what most of us would even think of. And she struggled to find God. It seems to me that often we ignore pain and frustration in our relationship with God. We want to always follow and believe with the faith of a child. But life isn't like that. Faith is difficult, it is trying, and I would love to read the thoughts and prayers of Mother Teresa as she moved through this.


Incedently, Christopher Hitchens, famous for his recent book on the nonexistence of God, is making a big deal about this and trumpeting it as new proof that God doesn't exist. If a woman so closely identified with Christian faith didn't believe, who does? I don't think he gets it.

On theft

The last couple of times I've gotten gas, I've stopped at this place on the way to school in Detroit. It's a pretty ramshackle place. Most things seem to be falling apart. But the pumps work.

Inside everything that can be concealed easily is behind the counter , which is protected by several thick layers of whatever. You have to slide your card to the guy under the glass.

It's kind of a little grocery store. You know, the essentials, toilet paper, toothpaste, bread, etc. I've heard that the city of Detroit only has one grocery store within the city limits. That may not be true, but I do know I've never seen one.

Anyway, back to the story. Everything is behind glass. But you don't have to prepay for gas. I'm not sure if the people of Detroit just haven't figured out yet that you can steal gas by pumping it and driving off, or if the theives generally don't drive or what. It's strange though. You have to prepay for gas in the nicest gas stations in Tucson.

At least I thought it was strange the first couple times, then this last time I noticed that everyone else does have to prepay. Everybody else has to take their money inside, I just stand there for a second and the guy turns on the pump then I go in and pay when I'm done.

I'm not completely sure, but I think this might be a sad testament to the state of the city and its racial fault lines.