Skip to main content

Not that bad, I guess.

I went to church today. It's never really been my thing. My family is supposed to be Catholic but we've never been too big on going to church on a regular basis. All of a sudden, though, it has become important for us to do this now. We've done it once now. I've bounced around a few church services before; Methodists, Baptists, Catholic, non-denominational. They're okay.

Organized religion just isn't really my thing, I guess. I can't get excited about the church attendance and routine prayer. About answering to a higher power. I'd rather answer to myself. I respect religion and the religious, though. Everything they try to teach is amazingly relevant. Morals. Trying to improve oneself. Helping others. Those are things I buy into.

When I was younger my parents put me into a Catholic pre-school. We had uniforms and everything. We had assigned seating at lunch and I sat at the end of the table, away from everyone. Nobody spoke and the cafeteria was always dark. One of the lessons that sticks out in my mind was about counting change. The teacher told us about the monetary values of dimes and nickels and quarters. This was somewhat useful. Then she explained that the reason we had these coins was because of our Lord and Savior. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first time I ever raised my eyebrow.

I went to a pre-kindergarten on the University of Houston campus. It was a wonderful time. Batman Returns and Jurassic Park were my two favorite movies and I would re-enact scenes from them regularly. There was a large garage filled with tricycles and plastic push cars that we would ride around on a track that weaved through the playground. It was excellent and we pretended that we were actually driving around Jurassic Park on a tour. There was also a table inside that I would put a stack of papers on top of and then run towards. When I got to the table I would slam my hand down on the papers and pull them off. This was a scene from Batman when Selina Kyle realizes that she has Max Shreck's speech notes and grabs them. I'm not really sure why I was pretending to be her instead of Batman. I also played 'house' a few time. One time my friend poured me a cup of coffee because I was the dad who came home. There was a dead bee in my cup and I swallowed it. I stopped playing house forever after that. Also I stole a toy racecar from the toybox. It was the first thing I ever stole. It was okay.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm a geologist, not an alcoholic.

I thought I had seen people drink before. Hell, I thought that I had drank before. But, clearly, I thought wrong on both of those counts. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reason to justify all of the drinking that transpired down there last week. There was no rhyme or reason to it, it just was. Field work just makes a man thirsty. Taking this class was easily one of the best things I've ever done. We worked hard every day out in the field. Wake up at 7, leave the beach house by 8, hit the water by 9. My first three field days were in service on the R/V Acadiana , a 58 foot vessel that towed the CHIRP fish , the air gun, and the streamer to measure all the seismic data--looking at the subsurface of the seafloor we drove over. My second ship was the R/V Itasca using the multibeam , sidescan , and grab sampler --getting seafloor surface bathymetry. They were long, exhausting days and we returned to the docks around 6 or 7 every evening. And then, drinking. So much ...
1 comment
Read more

Finger pointing good.

When I was on the boat doing science at Galveston, I saw a lot of dolphins. It was a significant experience for me because I have never actually seen a wild dolphin in real life before. It was sort of a dream come true. And in the middle of the shipping channel, no less. They really are amazing animals. It really kills me to realize I'll probably never see dolphins in Galveston again because of what happened to the Gulf. What is happening to the Gulf. It really is a tragedy. On a much lighter note, I started this Insanity workout program and it was so intense that I threw up before I finished the first workout. That is a good sign, I think. It is certainly an incentive to complete the entire thing. Anything that makes you feel that bad so quickly must be good for you.
3 comments
Read more

The goodest, even.

A couple of days ago, as I was leaving the research campus with my friend to go home, a woman approached me with her bike. "Excuse me," she said. "By any chance, are you headed that way?" She pointed off in the general direction that was the only way to leave campus. "Why yes." I said. "If it's not too much to ask," she started. "Because my bicycle has a flat tire--" "Sure." I said. "We can fit your bike in here, too." And with that, we drove a Belgian woman home. She told us about her family back in Belgium and how we have a better education system here and we're more bike friendly than Europe and how she misses her family and Skypes with them in the evenings. We dropped her off and continued on our original route. Later, as I entered the final stretch of my homeward journey, I saw a large something in the road. As I got closer, I realized it was a large turtle. I quickly pulled off into the should...
3 comments
Read more