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Did you know that 'water vapor' is a greenhouse gas? .... So much for the steampunk version of 'hydropower'.

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I have been trying to find meaning in a petty problem that I have been having lately. For those of you who do not know, I have been having a little trouble with one of my professors lately. She was educated by a Buddhist monk. In fact, she freely admits to borrowing his projects and lesson plans. She also borrowed that cryptic sense of dispensing wisdom so common to Buddhist monks. That is, it does not make a whole lot of sense. This is not unique to Buddhist monks. In the Tao te ching they say, "When the wise hear the Way, they practice it diligently. When the mediocre hear of the Way, they doubt it. When the foolish hear of the Way, they laugh out loud. If it were not laughed at, it would not be the Way." (41 sentence 1 and 2, Beck translation)

I guess this is where my frustration comes in. With religion, I naturally accept that the descrepencies and confusing portions of such doctrine comes with hard opinions and soft opinions, but I can usually ignore most of it. Besides, most American theologians take the stance of Relient K, "I don't want to say I'm right, I just want you to know." And while Graphic Design seems like a strikingly similar doctrine, I find that people are far more certain that there is only one way of doing it and that theirs is that way. This is backwards.

The experiences that I have heard of are usually completely opposite to what I have just described. People and their religions are wars waiting to happen; people will believe what they believe until you pry out their still beating hearts and soak them in acid, but graphic design? It's really anything goes, right?

No. The truth is that both are of the violent variety and both are of the permissive variety. Also, neither has a clear cut set of rules. The conflict arises when one person decides that it is time to talk about these differences. We can 'agree to disagree' about religion, but my professor is grading me on how well I understand her doctrine of design. This is probably the way it is in a lot of programs and I would not mind if this was a recessive element in the program, but we have what my professor likes to call a 'concept centered' approach to learning to design, which, as far as I can tell is an 'indoctrination' approach to learning graphic design. I know that the term 'indoctrination' has an underlying bitterness to it, but I cannot think of a more fitting alternative. I am a little sour about the whole thing, but I thought I had come to some conclusion about it, so I will try to revive that in the final paragraph and hopefully recover my heart.

I was a reading a great book called 'The Year of Living Biblically'. It's in the humor section, but I found that it tackled far more of the tough issues that we skirt around in Christianity than any other book that I have read. Its thesis is that we cannot follow our doctrine to the letter, that in some way, each and every one of us is creating their own al a carte religion. I guess I find this to be a strange bastardization of the truth. While I admit that I fall short of most of what the bible has to offer and I am not particularly fond of Paul, I must admit that I hoped, someday, I would grow to understand the bible more fully and come around to its point of view, after all, it is supposed to be the inspired word God and it is hard to say otherwise when looking directly into the eyes of religion.

But take my graphics professor. She believes that the doctrine of Graphic Design is her doctrine. Naturally, if she did not, she would not believe in it. I am not smart enough, nor arrogant to honestly believe that I know what is better, but I am sure that Graphic Design does not work the way she says it does, otherwise I could probably create better much better art than I am creating. The thing is, if that is the primary resource that I have access to and that is what I am being evaluated by, then how do I decide? Particularly when following her literally gets me into more trouble that it�s worth. Do I try and assert my own sense of design or do I follow hers? And how can I truly follow her doctrine when it is so contradictory?

� I will tell you when I know.

In the meantime, however, I will continue to love God and struggle with my professor. I can only hope that it will give me that additional insight that I am hoping for.

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Zanzi sent me her noise canceling machine. (Thanks Zanzibar) I am very happy with it. Instead of listening to the soul clenching lurch of gossiping phrases spewing from underneath the door that connects (but is not opened to) the door next to me, I am listening to the soft whirr of this ingenious little machine: stable relentless, wonderful. The only thing it can't stop is the vibrations that the music makes on my floor. I went out of my room today and heard people rocking it out at full volume! Didn't hear a thing. It's truly a gift from God. Or God through my sister. Regardless, it's a blessing.

Not to jump religions, but I feel like the chi in my room is finally stabilizing. All the negativity that used to be coming into my room is now stopped and I can work in peace.

....

:)

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Well, I am about one day into each of my potential novels instead of being three days into one. I hope to remedy this in the odd pockets of time that I am supposed to have in my life, but I have to say that the wonderful combination of both computer, internet and time are hard to find for any purpose. This new addition of activities allows me to procrastinate on the following things:

1. my graphics homework
2. my query letters
3. anything else that may come up

However, this procrastination are superceded by another kind of procrastination which is reading either merely christianity (which I've finished), The Year of Living Biblically, History of Theology, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth, Eric (which I really just ought return) or David Copperfield. I rarely get to them all, but they are all available and looking particularily more interesting that graphics or query letter any time of day. The only reason why query letters are under my graphic homework is that the guilt which my conscience brings to it is considerably greater than the other because I can see the distrubuter of the guilt every other day, much to my chagrin.

So, as much as I hope to 'catch up' in nanowrimo, I really hope that I 'keep up' with everything else. It seems like even daylights saving cannot add enough hours to my day to both make me happy and efficient, so I will leave it at that and go do something productive.

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I know everyone is caught up in the Halloween revere, but you should also remember that NANOWRIMO starts tonight at midnight! I think I am going to write something, though I have no time to do it. We'll see how well I do.

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