Oh, sadness!

I don't WANNA throw away my senior research. Not the final paper, of course -- I am fully intending to keep that forever -- but I was sorting through my stuff from last semester today and came across all of the printed out journal articles, web articles, etc. that I had used for my paper. I have no idea how many pages there are, but it is about 5-6 inches worth of paper. I seriously almost feel an emotional attachment to it after all that work! And yet, there is no reason that I can think of to keep it. It will be out of date soon (in fact, some of it probably already is) due to the nature of the topic, and I'm not going to graduate school. Also, I have the whole bibliography, so with a little work I can access most or all of the works again should I for some strange reason need them again. Furthermore, even if something unexpected should cause me to change my mind about grad school, I won't need the research, just the paper, for a grad school interview, right? But still, I really don't want to throw it away. Can anyone think of a good excuse for me to keep it?

I am slowly progressing through Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. It is an interesting read, but it also takes lots of time to process just a small bit of it. I cannot understand, though, how so many pro-Democracy people quote and like this book. If I were a tabula rasa and I read this and only this book, I think I would come out more against than pro democracy after reading it. But then again, I am already biased against democracy, and I am by no means a tabula rasa, so I could of course be incorrect in this analysis. I am going to write a study guide for the book someday. But that will not be for a while.

I would like to share more thoughts on here, but I do not have sufficient time for coherence. I need to get back to organizing my stuff... and decide if I really want to throw away the research. : )

Life has been somewhat busier than I expected this summer. I suppose that can only be expected with wedding plans. I am also working about 20-25 hours per week, which is not a terribly large amount. But still, along with practicing and getting ready for the big day, I am keeping moderately well occupied.

I bought a new violin at the Baroque Violin Shop in Cincinnati a few weeks ago. It is quite lovely -- even though it was made in 2007, the maker applied the varnish in such a way as to "age" it a bit. Most importantly, it has a clear, clean, and even sound. I am still getting used to it and learning to be comfortable playing it, but I really think it was a good choice for me and it is already helping me to be a more confident player. The violin I played in college was a good violin, too, but I think that this one is more "me" in some ways, so I'm glad I had the opportunity to pick out my own instrument. I feel very blessed!

Some thoughts to ponder:

- I think that it is entirely possible that democracy is not the ideal form of government. Excluding theocracy (because it is really difficult to argue for it in a fallen world and it seems that human government is legitimate and God-ordained -- see Romans 13), I think that some form of aristocracy is probably better.

- I think that the modern American church is too focused on end-times theology.

- I also think that nearly every theological pitfall can be explained in terms of taking a good thing too far.

For the present, I will just leave those up there as unwarranted claims just to see what kind of reaction I can get. : ) But especially for the first two, I hope to post more later giving some reasons as to my opinions.

The end of my formal education for the foreseeable future

I graduated from Cedarville University today with high honor and degrees in music and political science. And I'm proud of it!

I think I shall sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

p.s. If I have anything worthwhile to say, I will try to update this more during the summer.

In the world outside of academia, being able to wield a brilliantly constructed argument is worthless. The real winners are those who can communicate with dumb people, not smart people.

Seriously, folks... why DO we spend so much time learning to communicate well when gimmicks and fakeness work so much better?