Moving preparations and long range future plans

Lamer me.

Yesterday I cleaned the apartment, with a little help from my lovely assistant/roommate, . It is looking much better. I also ripped up all but three credit card offers. Given how many I’ve collected, I nearly have a blister on my thumb solely from the ripping process. This is way more advance prep than I’ve made more than 24 hours in advance for any move.

Then I skipped out on pre-arranged gaming time with Andrew and Trevor to show the apartment to a dude who never showed, and a last minute add-on who hasn’t called back (this was the lamer part) and I didn’t keep them informed, doh. I suspect I’ll be paying the $1,200 over the course of the summer, which blows, but so it goes.

I had another grappling with anxiety this morning, and confusion about where I want to be in life. Chatting with on monday, I started thinking seriously about teaching again. This may also be because I ran across my CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test) results while cleaning. The most appealing work I’ve envisioned for myself after I’m done here has been teaching at a community college. And if that seems inspirational, then something is definitely wrong. Though, I suppose if I want to go where the need is greatest, my talents are well matched, I have some experience, and I would enjoy my work, I could certainly do worse. I think I may be a bit [a lot] too caught up in the romance of the ‘save the world’ idea. And not attending enough to my personal needs.

WoW community created

Primarily intended for me, , , and . I called it . WoW = world of warcraft. STAB = the first letter of the first name of the 4 of us, in order of signing on to the idea. Sometimes, life provides amusing little treats like that. I’m primarily planning on using it to set up future gaming times and to talk about playing times past. Others are welcome to join us, if so inclined. =)

Last night’s culinary endeavors

So I made a big ‘ol pot of split pea soup and a tofutti cheesecake, hopefully I’ll finish them before I go. Any parties wishing to sample the cooking (help me get rid of the excessive quantity I produced) have only to ask. =)

One (16 oz?) bag of split peas
12 cups of water
8 oz sliced baby bella mushrooms
3 carrots, sliced
2 large potatoes coarsely cubed and not peeled
Bunch of collard greens, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1/2 medium yellow onion
olive oil
generous squirt of braggs liquid amines
oregano

put water & split peas in huge pot. Start to boil
Sautee garlic, onions, and oregano in olive oil until onions start to become translucent then dump into pot
add potatoes
Wait 10 minutes add carrots.
After 20 minutes add mushrooms and greens. Turn heat down to minimal.
Leave and watch animation shorts with , , and friend of the latter at nearby theater.
Return to find that stove has guttered out.
Begin cooking again.
Heat until peas are an unidentifiable green mush.
Salt to taste.

The carrots are way overcooked, otherwise it came out pretty well. It even came out as a soup, rather than a paste. Way more water than I usually use. Next time I’ll probably use a little less, but closer to this quantity than to what I was using before.

The tofutti cheesecake, the recipe for which I found via google on the humane society website is tasty. And, keeping in mind I haven’t eaten cheesecake in literally years, it tasted pretty right to me. I suspect it was significantly more expensive, marginally lower in fat, and marginally higher in carbs. Also, comparing it to other internet recipes, it seems pretty close to traditional cheesecake recipes, with a cream cheese substitute, and no egg. I’ll check the cream cheese price and nutritional information the next time I go shopping.

Not broke anymore!

As I was eating my brown rice & beans for lunch today, I checked my account balance. Yay the feds have given me the flow. Now I can pay my bills, and rent on my sublet, and my roommates for the utils…

After that, though, there won’t be much left. *shrug* I gots to learn to manage my money better. Hopefully that maternal check will be here any day now….

It’ll be so nice to have a decent income again.

Religion and Science

I was having an im conversation with earlier today. After much discussion of WoW, both last night’s session with him, , and in which we determined that a seperate lj group to arrange things might not be a bad idea, we got on the subject of politics, specifically his, and how they might have changed since last we spoke. He still identifies with the label of “a conservative conservative” and libertarian, but not Libertarian. He says his belief in universal health care, gay rights, and his extreme distaste for religion flow logically from this.

And I, the unabashed liberal, proceeded to defend religion as an attempt to make sense of the world that predates science, and provides answers (of unverifiable quality) that science is incapable of providing, for instance, where the world comes from. Both are sensemaking social constructs. Both have their own, usually separate, institutions and communities. And, for that matter, both types of community and institution have done bad things (the inquisition and skinner boxes/molgrim experiments) and both have done good things (public service including education, health care, and housing, granted all with a religious slant, and say, penicilin and the internal combustion engine).

I’ll summarize andrew’s side with a few quotes that I’m taking the liberty of reposting (and will edit if you want me to, Andrew). Here is his view when he’s had the time to carefully compose his thoughts, I’ll be more careful about reposting im conversations in the future, mi amigo.

Religion had its purpose, gave society the initial well being, be good to your neighbor laws, but it is time for us to find a new way to be moral and ethical, without relying upon religion to justify it.

Reason/science should supply what we need in this regard.

In response to the question if science can answer the origins of the universe and if there is an all powerful being:

Not currently, but those questions aren’t worth asking if youve thought about them enough (when compared to more relevant, pragmatic questions such as social issues and foreign policy in which religion plays a large role, and in my view most often negative) religion can’t explain them either, not the way youre asking science to explain it, with the burden of proof.

And, so, gentle readers, I ask you to share your take on religion, science, and their interrelations.