Why didn’t I know sooner that the Québec government has a New England office?
Gonna brush up my French for the next few weeks, and go to the Association of Québecois in New England pre-party for the Fête Nationale on Georges Island – I think the ferry from Boston is $14 round-trip, or free if you RSVP.
Official announcement below the fold. (continue reading…)
I’m taking a course in genetics and evolution this semester — a good month to start, no? — to fill in my biology background as I work towards a future involving neuroscience. So I am likely to post more about science here, and also less frequently.
Especially since I had an epiphany about “focus” last month. For most of my life I’ve sympathized with Sylvia Plath’s fig tree predicament, too engrossed in possibilities to fully realize any of them. But perhaps some process of maturation has culminated, because it’s become easier to prune away activities and possessions (tangible and electronic) that aren’t contributing to my goals.
(If you’re looking for inspiration along those lines, try the chorus of Saul Williams’ “Break” — NSFW)
PS — For the record, I do think one can be too goal-focused. (continue reading…)
An epilogue to the aforementioned dance project is in order. Greg sent me these thoughts on his experience:
(continue reading…)
…is allegedly Century 21 (the department store), and I buy it. Last week I stopped by the downtown location, and it was so good I started looking around for 72 white raisins.
I didn’t have time to peruse the whole store, but I will say this – the tie section is to die for. If you need ties and are close to NYC, go to Century 21. Practially everything is under $20 (some under $10), and the selection is not just better than a TJ Maxx or Marshalls (the official analogues), but better IMHO than most department stores.
(What did I buy? A sixties-looking orange/pink striped Prochownick, a navy check by the same, a blue and a pink glen plaid, and some multicolored awesome London rubbish)
I just joined FriendFeed, which is like a Facebook News feed created by pulling your friends’ Flickr/Twitter/etc. feeds all into once place. I love it already.
I almost joined one of their competitors, Spokeo, but 30 minutes after the Spokeo email address verification, they sent a spam email titled, I kid you not, “Why don’t you want to see your friends?” WTF? And another today. They should change their name to Spookeo.
For many months I had on my to-do list, “Look into Getting Things Done,” a set of ideas about organizing yourself and generally kicking ass.
It’s already making a noticeable difference in my sense of control over my various projects, even though I haven’t gotten everything into the system yet (which is key to getting the full benefit). Man, I wish I knew about it in college. I recommend you look into it, starting at the Wikipedia article above, or this simplified version. Or better, get the book at your local library.
The interest group on nontheistic Quakerism I facilitated at the aforementioned young adult Quaker conference went rather well – a report may be coming on the Nontheist Friends website. (I posted one to the email list, but would want to edit it down a bit.)
Both the interest group and the conference generally changed something for me, and I find a new sense of commitment to the Quaker experiment.
I first started attending Quaker meetings back in 2002 at North Shore Friends Meeting in Beverly, Mass., and officially became a member a few years later. I’ve been living in the city for two years now, and in the past few weeks finally decided I really really felt right about transferring membership to Friends Meeting at Cambridge. I just sent North Shore a long letter of transfer, which is found under the cut.
Tomorrow I’m riding 16 hours in a van (and perhaps driving too?) to Indiana for the aforementioned conference. After that comes Kansas City – any hot tips on fun things to do in KC are welcome…
Here follows an abridged timeline of my life in music so far, followed by some goals for the futue — (continue reading…)
One of my favorite bloggers, John Remy of Mind on Fire, asked me to write a post for MoF’s series Leaving the Garden, which asks people to reflect on their journey away from religious conviction in a narrative fashion. I heartily support this, since talking about religion/irreligion solely in terms of intellectual arguments can be tiresome. My post just went up here. The opening:
The first garden I remember was by our country house in Ohio, near Steubenville, a little town nine miles from the Pennsylvania border. We were there because my father wanted to attend Franciscan University, as it was a hotbed of charismatic Catholicism at the time. But by the time I was six, we moved from Ohio for the same reason we had moved there from Phoenix: my father’s all-consuming passion for finding the truth about God. It always took us to unexpected places. (More…)
The first garden I remember was by our country house in Ohio, near Steubenville, a little town nine miles from the Pennsylvania border. We were there because my father wanted to attend Franciscan University, as it was a hotbed of charismatic Catholicism at the time. But by the time I was six, we moved from Ohio for the same reason we had moved there from Phoenix: my father’s all-consuming passion for finding the truth about God.
It always took us to unexpected places. (More…)
