Back in Lincoln
Dear Constant Readers,
I wanted to write you a few days ago, but I never got around to it. I've had a lot going on these last few days. There was also stuff I wanted to touch upon in my last entry, but I felt like it was getting too long to delve into a new subject that also had potential to be a bit involved (although not nearly so as what I wrote about last time).
The thing I wanted to discuss last time that I never got around to was my personal views on religion. Actually, though, I'm not sure I have much to say, other than what I am feeling is likely to be rather similar to many other college students, or anyone in general my age perhaps, regardless of college or not.
My views on spirituality are the results of a long story (it would be with most people, of course) which I won't go into all here, but ever since I was 17, a couple of years before moving to college, I started to view religion in a more....observative way, a questioning way, I don't know what to call it. Throughout the years, the devotion I've had to the Roman Catholic Church has waxed and waned because I've come to see I'm not all that interested in the traditions and rules that to me seem rather artificial. I am open to the possibility that I have just flat out misunderstood it, but it seems to me, if one believes in God, whoever God is to them, that's what makes the most difference in the end. Organized religion per se doesn't quite do it for me. Even Christianity didn't start out as an organized religion.
I am not saying things against organized religion, or Catholicism, or Christianity, or whatever. I still identify with all three, however, some more strongly than others. I feel two things in Church at home: a comforting, almost nostalgic sense of belonging and home, and also a sense that I've moved on to something different now. I'm not sure what.
Maybe the fact that I want to be away from the conservative rule of the Vatican has something to do with it. Even though it is clicheed, and is perhaps kind of a trend, I suppose I'm part of it, although I'm not sure: I feel myself to both spiritual and religious, but more the former than the latter. I guess I explain that by saying that spirituality is the side of us that was given to us by God, the natural relationship, whereas religion is more a creation of man, man's interpretation of that relationship, and man's way of maintaining it.
Or maybe I'm way off base. I'm not a theologian at all, and maybe this is all just a phase. But it's something that's been on my mind, anyway.
So anyway, I'm back in Lincoln, to continue my schooling. I really wanted to get out of the house. I felt a little stuck there, but before I could leave, I fell ill with something, and it thwarted all of my attempts to take off. That wasn't all bad, though, because it forced me to take it easy at home, and plus I got to see my aunt and uncle and cousin, who came up to camp at the lake. I wasn't feeling my best, but one doesn't have to to stand in water and fish while basking in the hot sun. After a few Tylenol I felt pretty decent, as a matter of fact.
But I did get off to school finally, and am nerve-wracked to start this year. For the first time I have an apartment with two other guys, one who is a friend, and one whom I so far am getting along with fine. But I'm nervous about finances, as I have written about before. I'm becoming, if I am not already, a person who worries over money, which is not something I want to be. I want to be responsible, but not a worrier.
I haven't yet moved in to the degree I want to, because the person whose room I'm moving into has not moved out completely yet, so I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag in the front room. Had I known that it would take as long as it is, I would not have moved down when I did. I would have stayed sick longer.
But aside from playing Age of Empires, I've tried to use my time wisely. The bathroom, I thought, was in bad shape, so I bought a bunch of cleaning materials, and while everyone else was at their respective jobs, I set forth to clean it. It didn't bother me, I clean well enough to perhaps do it professionally if I wanted to, since the majority of my jobs have consisted of cleaning positions (working as house-keeping in a days in and a grounds crew for the summer on my college campus), and a bathroom that isn't scurvy and covered with soap scum so vile it crawls around and growls when the lights come on is a happy bathroom. I don't want to be a jerk to anyone at all here, I don't want to be a Nazi roommate, but it is important to me that the place looks half-way presentable at least. The clean environment also makes me feel better about myself; it's something I noticed when I got my little room in Germany in ordered, instead of coming home to a disaster area that just got its ass kicked by a category 5 hurricane.
I've been catching up with people: I had dinner with Amanda for the first time in about a year, which was nice, and I saw some of my professors, and I was reminded of the glorious news that I have 2 senior projects to do. What joy. This will be the most trying year for me I think, but I'm looking forward to tackling it head-on. There is something refreshing, and liberating about it all.
Anyway, I hope everything is going well. I'll leave you at this for the time being.
Iona, the best of luck my dear friend!
Sincerely,
Tristan
I wanted to write you a few days ago, but I never got around to it. I've had a lot going on these last few days. There was also stuff I wanted to touch upon in my last entry, but I felt like it was getting too long to delve into a new subject that also had potential to be a bit involved (although not nearly so as what I wrote about last time).
The thing I wanted to discuss last time that I never got around to was my personal views on religion. Actually, though, I'm not sure I have much to say, other than what I am feeling is likely to be rather similar to many other college students, or anyone in general my age perhaps, regardless of college or not.
My views on spirituality are the results of a long story (it would be with most people, of course) which I won't go into all here, but ever since I was 17, a couple of years before moving to college, I started to view religion in a more....observative way, a questioning way, I don't know what to call it. Throughout the years, the devotion I've had to the Roman Catholic Church has waxed and waned because I've come to see I'm not all that interested in the traditions and rules that to me seem rather artificial. I am open to the possibility that I have just flat out misunderstood it, but it seems to me, if one believes in God, whoever God is to them, that's what makes the most difference in the end. Organized religion per se doesn't quite do it for me. Even Christianity didn't start out as an organized religion.
I am not saying things against organized religion, or Catholicism, or Christianity, or whatever. I still identify with all three, however, some more strongly than others. I feel two things in Church at home: a comforting, almost nostalgic sense of belonging and home, and also a sense that I've moved on to something different now. I'm not sure what.
Maybe the fact that I want to be away from the conservative rule of the Vatican has something to do with it. Even though it is clicheed, and is perhaps kind of a trend, I suppose I'm part of it, although I'm not sure: I feel myself to both spiritual and religious, but more the former than the latter. I guess I explain that by saying that spirituality is the side of us that was given to us by God, the natural relationship, whereas religion is more a creation of man, man's interpretation of that relationship, and man's way of maintaining it.
Or maybe I'm way off base. I'm not a theologian at all, and maybe this is all just a phase. But it's something that's been on my mind, anyway.
So anyway, I'm back in Lincoln, to continue my schooling. I really wanted to get out of the house. I felt a little stuck there, but before I could leave, I fell ill with something, and it thwarted all of my attempts to take off. That wasn't all bad, though, because it forced me to take it easy at home, and plus I got to see my aunt and uncle and cousin, who came up to camp at the lake. I wasn't feeling my best, but one doesn't have to to stand in water and fish while basking in the hot sun. After a few Tylenol I felt pretty decent, as a matter of fact.
But I did get off to school finally, and am nerve-wracked to start this year. For the first time I have an apartment with two other guys, one who is a friend, and one whom I so far am getting along with fine. But I'm nervous about finances, as I have written about before. I'm becoming, if I am not already, a person who worries over money, which is not something I want to be. I want to be responsible, but not a worrier.
I haven't yet moved in to the degree I want to, because the person whose room I'm moving into has not moved out completely yet, so I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag in the front room. Had I known that it would take as long as it is, I would not have moved down when I did. I would have stayed sick longer.
But aside from playing Age of Empires, I've tried to use my time wisely. The bathroom, I thought, was in bad shape, so I bought a bunch of cleaning materials, and while everyone else was at their respective jobs, I set forth to clean it. It didn't bother me, I clean well enough to perhaps do it professionally if I wanted to, since the majority of my jobs have consisted of cleaning positions (working as house-keeping in a days in and a grounds crew for the summer on my college campus), and a bathroom that isn't scurvy and covered with soap scum so vile it crawls around and growls when the lights come on is a happy bathroom. I don't want to be a jerk to anyone at all here, I don't want to be a Nazi roommate, but it is important to me that the place looks half-way presentable at least. The clean environment also makes me feel better about myself; it's something I noticed when I got my little room in Germany in ordered, instead of coming home to a disaster area that just got its ass kicked by a category 5 hurricane.
I've been catching up with people: I had dinner with Amanda for the first time in about a year, which was nice, and I saw some of my professors, and I was reminded of the glorious news that I have 2 senior projects to do. What joy. This will be the most trying year for me I think, but I'm looking forward to tackling it head-on. There is something refreshing, and liberating about it all.
Anyway, I hope everything is going well. I'll leave you at this for the time being.
Iona, the best of luck my dear friend!
Sincerely,
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 11:08 PM
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