Author: cheerfulchaotic

In June of ’01 the CGMC had a concert (I have it on video tape, but the sound quality just sucks.) with the Heartland Men’s Chorus. During the Heartland Men’s Chorus’s segment (which I liked much better than our own), they sang an absolutely beautiful song, which I was never able to find the lyrics for on the web. Turns out they modified a traditional prayer. Here’s the version I heard, as best I can reconstruct it (without listening to the tape)

Can you hear the prayer of the children on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room?
Empty eyes with no more tears to cry, turning heavenward toward the light.
Crying, “Who will help me to see the morning light of one more day?
But if I should die before I wake, I pray my soul to take?”
Can you feel the hearts of the children aching for home, for something of their very own?
Reaching hands with nothing to hold on to, but hope for a better day.
Crying, “Who will help me to feel the love again in my own land?
But if unknown roads lead away from home, give me loving arms, away from harm.”
Can you hear the voice of the children softly pleading for silence in their shattered world?

The original is much more Jesus-tastic. Everywhere you see “Who will” replace it with “Jesus”. Also, there’s a closing stanza

Angry guns preach a gospel full of hate, blood of the innocent on their hands.
Crying, “Jesus, help me to feel the sun again upon my face.
For when darkness clears I know you’re near, bringing peace again.”
Dali cuje te sve djecje molitve?
Can you hear the prayer of the children?

http://www.woodyulmer.com/prayer.html — has flash page with a musically much better version, but fully jesus-tastic, lots of crying and american flag waving, and a political slant you can expect based on that. I still like it.

On the composer’s website, he recommends substituting “crying softly” for “crying jesus” “enabling people to subconsciously substitute ‘Jesus’, ‘Allah’, ‘Yahweh’, etc. This way his universal message of love can be felt without any barriers or limitations”. I think I still prefer “who will”, but a) it’s better than ‘Jesus’ and b) I’m a questions kind of guy.

The word is ‘pectacular’. This one just came without any particular inspiration.

The phrase is “aggressively clueless”. This one, sadly, did have inspiration. We were discussing the effects of inflation on housing investment choices in class today (the overall topic was taxation of housing). But there was someone who clearly, desperately wanted to understand. And didn’t.

I tucked my shirt into my pants, put a belt on, looked in the mirror, and realized that I really am skinny. Go fig.

I’ve had this 6GB laptop harddrive hanging around for awhile. I got a 40GB laptop hard drive awhile ago, and swapped it in when I got the new laptop. The 6GB has been hanging out on my desk unused for quite some time now. Anyone want it? It’s an IBM travelstar, if that matters.

Oh, and my screen futzing seems to have taken better this time. Hopefully I won’t have to disassemble it again any time soon.

Met briefly with professor Quigley yesterday morning. Superficially, it went alright, but I just sat and listened for the most part, and I felt like the interaction was largely one of him going through the motions. Further I got a vague impression of him finding me somewhat frustrating. Assuming my impressions are correct, it probably won’t benefit my application to the Goldman School, but so it goes.

Okay, so I need to write up some recommendations for me, ‘from’ the clinic and Ro. I am terrible about writing things in praise of myself. Bleh. Fortunately, I have a recommendation written for another medic applying to med school. May be helpful in saying ‘this is what the clinic does’ and ‘this is what stephen has done as part of the clinic’. Still isn’t going to help me with the praise part, though. Bleh.

I was talking with Lily, one of Shannon’s friends, last night. She’s from the Phillippines. I asked her about breadfruit, ‘cuz I’m curious and hey, Phillippines closer to Polynesia than the Midwest is. She had no idea what I was talking about. I then realized I had even less of an idea, so I did some websearching and turned up a site on breadfruit. Looks pretty interesting to me, and I’d like to try it sometime.

Yay. Nausicaa is showing on the berkeley campus. On sunday. Sadly the screen is not huge, but it’ll be the biggest screen I’ve ever seen it on. Subbed, not dubbed. And not warriors of the wind. If only could make it. =)

Also, halloween party at our place, friday at 8. Not my idea, probably should have scheduled so as not to conflict with the dhp folks. Doh. Ah well.

Applying the blue cross “keep my parents from going bankrupt if I get seriously injured” insurance. Only like $55/month or so. Ugh.