New Years Resolutions!! Now it's public, so I have to stick to it!

New Years Resolutions!!  So this blog can hold me to them.  Or something.

1. Read my Bible every day.  I'm aiming to try and read it through in a year, which means four chapters a day, I believe.  I really want to shift my focus outside of myself and pay attention to how God would want me to live, how he wants me to interact with the people around me.  I also want to be able to say with conviction that I am a Christian, so that people can see that there is more to Christianity than haters, homophobes, extremists, and those-who-commit-crime-in-the-name-of-God make it out to be.

2. Write something every day.  That's a large part of the purpose of this blog--to drive me to write more.  I am an English major after all, as well as an aspiring novelist.  My biggest roadblock, however, is my tendency to get caught up in busyness and life, never getting around to actually writing.  Ideally, writing every day will also help me to think more, to maybe develop a stronger focus in my lately ADHD life.

3. Narrow or eradicate the gap between who I am at home and who I am away at college.  There are things that are better about me at home, and things that are better about me at school.  During my freshman year, I found myself developing two distinct personalities for the two settings; I want to try and be the same person to all those around me.  I want to maintain my generally more optimistic outlook and attitude that I have at school, even when I visit home and deal with family.  I also want to make sure that the morals and standards I have been raised with are not eradicated in a college environment.  I want to be consistent and honest about who I am, and to work in both settings towards improving myself.

4. Manage my time better.  Figure out what really matters to me, what I really want to focus on.  If I want to get a part-time job or do more volunteer work, I'm going to need to cut back on gaming, social networking, etc. If I want to spend a lot of time roleplaying (considering going up to 3 tabletop roleplay games this semester), I'm going to need to make sure I get homework done early so I'll have time to devote chunks of my evenings to such things.  I need to make sure I make time to fulfill my first two resolutions.  And so on.

5. Lose about 5 pounds.  My target weight is 110-115, and I've been stuck at 115-120 for at least a year.  This is sort of the face of my general resolution to live a healthier lifestyle--maintaining a regular sleep schedule, eating properly, exercising, generally taking care of myself.  I used to think my health is just my business, but I've lately begun to discover that it affects others around me as well, so I want to take that responsibility seriously.

Those are sort of all-year changes.  I also have a few goals...

1. Figure out my plans for the summer.  Will I be staying in Tulsa or going home to California?  Will I do summer school, get a job, or travel?  This is largely tied to...

2. Actively search for summer work opportunities.  I would like to try and get some teaching experience over the summers, if possible, especially if it is not possible to complete an education major in my shortened time for it.

3. Find out exactly how many credits I need for a double major in English and education, exactly what classes will be required, and whether it will be possible to complete the double major if I take summer classes or an extra semester-year. 

4. Catch up on APO officer duties.  I'm a bit behind.

Stagnant Cogitation

Philosophy, after a certain point, is a waste of time or at least overrated.

I say this not as a cop-out, or as a rebellion against Kant (which is not to say I am not rebelling against Kant in other ways).  While it is a fascinating field of study that touches essentially every discipline in some respect, its practical application is almost nil.  This "love of wisdom" encompassed in philosophy encourages an individual to put some thought into ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, etc; however, it operates on such a theoretical plane of thought that any attempt to connect it to real life and real problems--politics, science, psychology, etc.--meets with a sort of disconnect.

Take Marx's Communist Manifesto, for example.  For all our (fully justified) condemnation of communism, anyone who has read its origins must admit that it sounded wonderful and made sense, within the confines of theoretical inquiry.  Marx did not intend, of course, to create countries where people are so discouraged by the futility of their efforts that they become apathetic.  He tried to create a perfect system, like many others before him, and it was only when it was put into practice that it all fell apart.  The problem was not so much with Marx's theories as with humanity itself. 

Human nature defies a box, defies a label.  We as individuals hate to be reduced to a word or phrase, to be belittled.  We demand to be recognized in our significance and to have our rights acknowledged, and in our struggle for that recognition, we tear and tangle the systems that attempt to organize and contain us.  The ambition fundamental to humanity prevents us from falling easily into a system, even if it is beneficial to us as a whole.

As a result, I tend to think that cogitating over, pondering, and deeply considering the questions of the universe are only useful so far as they prompt the individual to act as a result.  Does philosophical inquiry guide you to realize problems in your immediate community or in the way you relate to others, and does it drive you to make changes accordingly or does it cause you to run around mad and shoot people out of sheer frustration?  Does it grant you some greater understanding of history or human nature that helps you figure out how to relate to others, or does it isolate you in a brooding hole of analysis and theory?  Is it, on the simplest level, the cause of positive insights on your fellow man, or does it drive you to despair about the hopeless depravity of the entire population? 

In other words, does it make you a better or a worse person? 

I see philosophy as a potentially strong supplement to other disciplines, in that it often offers a greater understanding of just what you are doing and how you are contributing to the world around you.  Philosophy alone, however, is just a lot of stagnant cogitation.  Philosophy used wrongly is an excuse to wreak havoc (take Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment) or exacerbate situations that are already bad enough.  It is of paramount importance, then, to see what philosophy does for you, and act accordingly.

A particular strain of writer's block

I like to think there's a particular psychological explanation for the fact that I love creating, detailing, and developing characters, but absolutely fail at writing stories about said characters.  Maybe it's sheer laziness, maybe it's a particular keenness for a particular area of writing or a lack of keenness in the rest of writing, but in any case, there it stands.  I can talk and think and write notes about characters for hours on end, but when I sit down to try and write a story, come up with a plot, make something happen, it all falls apart and the blank page begins to snicker.

Oh, well. I have no idea what the point of this paragraph was.  I guess it just wanted to be said.  Profundity schmundity, how you escape me and tease me so.  I'll try and post something longer and worth writing when I have a bit more time and am further along on my paper on Kant, Diderot, and the Enlightenment era.

Maybe this babble is my way of detoxing from Kant's heavy stuff.  Maybe.

Shutting up now.  I swear.
♥ Bex

Oh yeah

Oh yeah, I'm huge on scattering random avatars I've been saving to my computer over the years all over my blog.  Credits belong to all sorts of people I have long since lost track of, so if you think it's yours and you'd like acknowledgement, slap me and let me know!  Thanks!

Smile!

Bex

TITLE DUMP!!

This is the part where I indiscriminately name off titles I love, in whatever order they pop into my head.  For absolutely no reason.

The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and all related material
Star Wars by George Lucas and the (totally canon!) accompanying works of Jude Watson
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron 
How To Train Your Dragon 
Tron: Legacy 
Tangled 
The Chronicles of Narnia, Surprised by Joy, and the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfe
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Ender's Game and sequels by Orson Scott Card
Shrek and the only sequel that really exists 
Homestuck by Andrew Hussie
Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell
Firefly and Serenity by Joss Whedon
Avatar: The Last Airbender NOT by M. Night Spongeforbrains
The Song of the Lioness, The Circle of Magic, and all sequels/related books by Tamora Pierce
The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
American Gods, Neverwhere, and M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman
The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare
The Faerie Chronicles by O.R. Melling.

Let's get this show on the road!

I haven't blogged in an awfully long time...

Welp, I just wrote about the worst About Me tab I've ever enjoyed writing.  We'll see how long it lasts.

In the meantime, I'll just get this started!  Papilio bexae is my second earnest attempt at weblogging, with a somewhat new focus and view from Inkstained.  I started Inkstained last year in an attempt to prod myself into writing something relatively thoughtful and profound every day.  Clearly that went nowhere, and this time around, my goal is simply to write.  The past year has been a year of clean breaks, less-than-clean breaks, and changes changes changes, so I've decided to reflect that with a fresh new home for my ramblings.  Also, Inkstained was tied to my yahoomail account, and that's just trouble.

I regret to admit that I've become considerably less profound than I once was in my writings, but on the bright side, I am also considerably less emo.  With luck, this blog will actually update with relative regularity, and if all goes as planned, I'll learn something from it.

That's it for now.
Bex