Currently Listening Garden State By Various Artists see related

What a jerk

I appologize a hundred times over for not responding to all of my freinds. I am a terrible person and I love you all. Please forgive me.

Any how, as to my life, I have been nose deep in essays for the last month mostly, and will continue to be for the next 3 weeks. The main one I hating right now is Kant. Kant's Citique of Pure Reason is the hardest book of philosophy I have ever had to read. It is absolutely exhausting. Unfortunately, I am finding it more interesting and more complicated the more I read. I hate it. I would rather be pushing a boulder up a mountain right now, I would probably be seeing more progress with the boulder at least.

I went to Bath, England for Chistmas last week. It was awesome. I spent the last 5-days hanging out with my flat-mate Sul and his family. Great people, even if each and every one of them are staunch athiests. They bought me gifts, they fed me the most delicious food and wine, and they spent alot of time showing me around beautiful Bath. I really am in debt to these people. Bath is the most beautiful city in England. I saw all of downtown, built mostly in Georgian times with brilliant yellow stone. It also contains the original baths built by the Romans in AD 65. Quite amazing. The house I stayed in was a old miner's cabin from around the 1730's. It was so awesome to be surrounded by so much history.

Sul's mother let me borrow her guitar as well, for the next 8 months. Pretty cool of her. Lately me and the guitar have been experiencing a kind of second honeymoon as it hase been about 3 months since I have played a guitar (the longest ever since I first began).

I hope you all know that I love you and I never planned on being such a terrible friend.

yours truly,

Jonathan R. Wood

Currently Reading Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Philosophical Series) By Emmanuel Levinas see related

The New Me

So ya,

I went dancing last night. Yep, I know it doesnt exactly sound like Jon Wood. I gotta tell you, it was a sight to behold.

My flatemates and I went to a club on campus called "Mondo" last night. I wasn't planning on staying for long, you know, just stay for a couple of drinks and some interesting conversation. However, this plan would soon change. When we entered the club the pounding beats saturated my body with the most primordial impulses and made any attempts at resisting its power futile. It wasnt the girls, it wasnt the drinks, it wasnt drugs; it was sensation of the oneness of life reverberating in a single rythem. The dionysian spirit awoke within me and I did something I havnt done for many years: I danced.

I know some of you die hard baptists out there (i.e. Jason Laffon, Peter Dockery) are shaking your heads at me right now, but I assure you, if you could have seen me out there on that floor it would redeem me from any prior condemnation.

I think I might just make a habit of this dancing.

Currently Reading Critique of Pure Reason By Immanuel Kant see related

back in the blog

Sorry for my prolonged silence. I have been a bit busy lately and I have yet to get my computer and my internet working.

Ayways, Britain is pretty awesome. University of Essex has the highest level of international students in Britain (40%) so being here is kinda like taking a trip around the world. I live on a flat with 4 indians, 1 Ugandan, 1 Italian, 1 Chilean, 1 Irish, 3 Chinese, and 2 British... o ya, and 2 toilets (that part sucks). Needless to say the food I am eating is pretty incredible. One of the indian guys is like a proffesional cheif so he feeds us all about four times a week and everyone else cooks for all the flate-mates about once a week. It kinda reminds me of explore the way the flat is so tight.

The work load here is pretty good so far. I was expecting something a bit more intense, at least in terms of quantity. The one kicker of a class I do have is a MA writing workshop class. For this we have to write a 2,000 word essay every week on a given reading and then take it to the class to have it torn to pieces. Basically the proffessor gives a copy of your paper to the class and then we spend the first half of the class talking about how much (and why) other peoples grammer and syntax sucks and then we spend the second half of the class talking about how much the philosophical arguments others have employed suck. Then we have a private (one-on-one) meeting with the proffessor to hear even more how much our writing sucks. It is a really really good class. The guy who teaches it is a proffesional editor for a philosophy journal here so he definately knows his philosophy, and even more so, knows how to use words so as one doesnt sound like an idiot (a skill I have yet harness).

Over all the atmosphere over here is pretty great. Its fun to be in an enviroment where there is so much expression of ideas all the time. Anyways, enough about me.

peace-

Currently Listening Chinatown By The Be Good Tanyas see related

Best Marinade you ever had

Here at iwishiwasablogger we are continually trying to make the content of this site more practical for our readers. With this in mind we decided to publish our favorite marinade. Use this marinade for Chicken, beef, or lamb and watch out it has a little kick. You can raise or lower the heat by adding or removing chipotle peppers*. Seriously copy this marinade and use it when you want to impress some guests or maybe just that special someone.

sincerely,

the staff at iwishiwasablogger

1 cup fresh orange juice

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

5 canned chipotle chiles, minced plus 1 tablespoon Adobo sauce (sauce that its packed in)

4 cloves garlic, minced (4 tsp)

1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 tablespoons wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine the orange juice and lime juice in a saucepan and boil until only 1/2 cup liquid remains. Place this and the remaining ingredients in a blender and purée to a smooth paste. Spread this paste on the food to be marinated. Marinate seafood for 2 hours, poultry for 4 hours, and meat overnight, turning once or twice. Marinated food may be sautéed on the stove top, broiled on a charcoal grille, or roasted or broiled in the oven. Makes 1 cup of marinade, enough for 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of seafood, poultry or meat.

*Chipotle peppers are basically just smoked jalepeno peppers. Get the kind that are packed in a can with Adobo sauce (another distinctive mexican spice). Dont settle for anything different. 

Recipe from http://www.recipezaar.com/64241

Will the Church be...hiding?

So since I have been back in Michigan I have resumed an age-old costume of mine, going to church. It has been everything I have expected it to be. Last sunday we had an interesting sermon entitled "Will the Church be ready" in which the pastor preached about the inevitable persecution that the Church will recieve during the end-times and the consequential sacrifice that will be required to be a Christian during such persecution. The sermon rubbed me completely the wrong way. It was not that I felt that the content of the sermon was off-track it was that the pastor used a passage that has been particularly sensitive to me lately and used it in such a way that, in my mind at least, deflated it of its urgency. The passage I am talking about is John 15:18-21:

¹⁸"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.'^[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. ²¹They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

Now there may be some room for expanding the use of "persecution" here as an analogy for the affliction that will be ensued during the apocolypse but isn't there a more immediate meaning to this passage? Isnt this passage explaining the "present-tense" situation that the disciples are in (and the situation we SHOULD be in) as followers of Christ. Isn't Christ telling the disciples "If you follow me then you will necessarily be treated like me, i.e persecuted." Here comes the kicker: Isnt the natural extension of this passage that you can tell how much of a follower of Christ you are by how much you are being persecuted and how much you are suffering for his name? I dont know, thats how I see it. What do you think?

p.s. I had an interesting thought during the sermon. I remembered all of the different people I have heard telling different stories like "when I first heard about being in the ministry I thought that meant being a missionary and living in a grass hut somewhere in Africa. It wasnt until later that I realized that God gifts different people for different things and he uses your passions to guide you; thats how I realized I am really just called to teach sunday school here in town." Then it hit me, "maybe all of these harsh immediate conceptions of the ministry were the correct ones"! Doesnt moving to live with the war-torn in Rawanda offend oneself to their very core in the same way that the rich man was offended when, asking Jesus how he could recieve eternal life, Jesus said "go and give all of your possesions to the poor and then come follow me?"  I dont know, sounds like it. Maybe the only real Christians in the World have all moved to Africa to suffer with the starving? Maybe all of us religious folk here are just "preparing" (insert: decieving) ourselves for those end-times when we will one day have to suffer? Maybe the 144,000 in "Revelations" is the literal number of all who will recieve eternal life? Just an interesting thought.