"Religion messed up my childhood" written by Paul on estrip.org

01/28/08 09:51 - 30ºF - ID#43057

Religion messed up my childhood

In response to (e:enknot,43055) I know that religious folks will totally disagree with me for this but I don't think children should be introduced to religion until they are a bit older as they are so suggestible and imaginative and can get carried away with it in unhealthy ways.

My Two cents: This is really going to make me seem insane but read the whole thing before responding. First of all my parents were religious, but not overbearing about it or anything - so don't read that into this. They went to church on Sunday, we prayed before meals, etc but not like its all we talked about.

I know for many Christians this is impossible to even think about. I think sects with adult baptism make more sense.

As for the moral/ethics argument, here is no reason not to teach them the same moral values outside of the religious context.

It is just that I can see how imaginative, strong willed children could get totally carried away as I did myself. Now I am not saying all children, in all circumstances - just something to think about..

As a child I was really religious. Like I thought about it all the time and it really controlled my life. Mix that with a little imagination and OCD and I had a hard time checking myself before I wrecked myself.

I invented all these imaginary friends to accompany me and God on our adventure in life. I thought those imaginery friends gave me super powers - just ask any of my close childhood friends (e:iriesara) - which honestly, sounds insane now - but put it in a religious context and it isn't that weird. Even Jesus was one of my imaginary frinds. HE took the form of this water creature. In fact, I believed it so much that I could see him wiggling on the ross in church and then he would "drip off"into water creature and fly around. That creature mated with another one and became another friend with other powers, etc.

So I created this whole fantasy world around them and their existence based on what I thought was possible from reading the bible. Just like God, my imaginary friend all had requirements/commandments for loving me.

Some of them required simple things like me repeating chants, others required more complicate stuff like particular movements or blood dripping on rocks, etc. It sounds totally crazy but in a bible reading child world, these kind of stories seemed congruent with what I was reading. It was like my sacrifice to these minions that God and I knew about.

This sadly went on until my mid teens. Then I went on some bible camp scavenger hunt where their existence came out and the people made me get down on my knees and prey to let Jesus into my heart. That was definitely the most terrifying moment of my life because I felt like I definitely had jesus in my heart and they were trying to poison me with some fake jesus. I was confused and for sure scared. I had my imaginary friends create this mystical bubble around me to protect me from them. In fact I even had prayers I would use to command my imaginary friends to do stuff.

Basically, what I am saying is that opening up a child's mind to religion, can open it up to the possibility of insanity because accepting the idea that all this supernatural stuff exists, is a concept that is hard to put reigns on once it is fully accepted.

Luckily for me, this girl named Daniel Woodman,w ho also had imaginary friends came along and stole all my imaginary friends in some sort of imaginary friend battle and they went away, like all in one day. It was both tragedy and a relief.

As a side note and testement to my OCDness as a child, I remember this one chant I would use. The beginning chant came from some religious book about protecting yourself from witches and the end I made up.

"Black lugie and hammer head, rowan tree, and red threat - but the warlocks to their speed, everything, everywhere, disconnected and also extras."

After, a little search I found some info about its origin here

I love the ending. It completely describes my OCD as a child. It referred to the fact that I would give myself time limits to say the chant and previously I would have to include things like requesting that my family and friend don't die, we had food on the table etc. But he list became so long I created this macro that basically included, "everything I ever asked for, for everyone, everywhere and that if there were conflicted requests, their dependencies were disconnected and that I would also like an extra things I might think of in the future to be included in my current requests.

I used to also mix this up with the Lord's Prayer as I kind of ending to it that no one else knew.

Plus, I feel to a degree it stymied my creativity. I found a box poetry I wrote as a child and almost every freakin' poem has some overbearing religious context and god overwatching his children. I wish instead I could have thought about other stuff.

To see just how bad it can get check out Jesus Camp

I know (e:enknot) that you and meg are nothing like the woman in this movie but check out Jesus Camp if you hadn't, to see how crazy kids can get with religion.

Here is the wiki article

coldr3ality writes at 11:56:11 08/04/08 - Comment #37638: I was a devout Christian until age 17.5. I didn't have OCD or any mental problem that I know of. I took Christianity at face value, as a child: Here is something that is difficult to believe, yet your own flesh and blood are insisting that it is total balls-to-the-wall truth. Will I choose to do what feels right to me, or will I give them the benefit of the doubt, out of love? Looking at it that way, it becomes clear that one at least has to try.

Then you realize all were born in sin, which is why you even considered rejecting it based on how you felt personally about it. For a child, it becomes a dilemma of being mortally connected with flawed, subjective reasoning, and knowing you can never know, but being challenged not to reject it based on selfish desires. You look around and see 99% of the population indulging in their right to be wrong, and 99% of the church somehow comfortable with ignoring the absolute boldness of their own beliefs. To make things worse, you find yourself in the 1% of the 1%, and resolve that you are now so much different than the average person, what they think doesn't relate to you.

When I kicked the habit, it was because my girlfriend dumped me. I felt that I truly loved her, and besides, she was the only thing that made me feel good, especially with the ongoing dilemma. I became extremely emotional and changed instantly, in one night. I remember the exact minute.

jenks writes at 11:01:47 01/29/08 - Comment #31016: Hmm. I have nothing much to add here. I didn't go to church as a kid. I was baptised, well christened (is there a difference) as a baby- but according to my mom that was done 'so I can get married in a/the church'. Then in second grade I slept over at a (catholic) friend's house and went to church with her in the morning. I had no idea what it was about, but she went up for communion, so I did too. My mom was a little horrified, said I shouldn't have done it since I didn't understand it. As far as I was concerned it was a snack.
Then I went away to boarding school, which was "nominally epsicopalian", with mandatory daily chapel and sunday services. And I just sort of tuned it out. But I vividly remember one day I was just blindly going through the routine and reciting the apostles' creed or the nicene creed (some creed) and I heard myself saying "I believe in heaven and earth, one holy roman catholic and apostolic church [weird, i thought, to say that in a NON-catholic church], one father, maker of heaven and earth, etc etc" and suddenly thinking "wait a second- no i don't! I don't believe in any of that!" And from then on I just stood there silently during most of it.

mike writes at 10:52:50 01/28/08 - Comment #31007: haha reading about the OCDness at the end reminded me of myself. I used to pray for specific things and i kidna still do but i got so nervous about leaving things out that over time it has cemented into"and bless everyone and everything in the this world and eveyrone and everything out of this world, make the sick well adn the poor wealthy, make the lonely friended or whatever the word would be so there not lonely anymore, bless the dead relatives, , the rleatives dead realtives and the relatives themsleves and everyone's relatives , thank you , amen , goodnight" I have said that at least once a day for i don't know how many years at this point. But i look it as a good thing, not a bad thing like paul.

james writes at 07:37:53 01/28/08 - Comment #31000: Children are prone to fantastic belief. When I was a child I was convinced I was a robot who crashed onto earth from outer space and had no way to fix my broken communication parts which would have enabled me to contact my home planet.

Part of the problem is that religion is not well explained to kids and often by parents who have no idea what the hell they are talking about. Catholicism, for example, is as much folk religion as it is official, Papal espoused religion. Most people can't be bothered to care whether or not Mary was born of a retroactive virgin birth or not but Catholic and Orthodox priests will beat the shit out of each other over it. I wouldn't bother with it either and pretend I was a little robot boy.

jim writes at 07:22:35 01/28/08 - Comment #30999: imk2, I'm with you. None of it ever made sense to me -- even as a little kid.

imk2 writes at 07:04:16 01/28/08 - Comment #30998: i never, ever, ever believed in god. even when i was a tiny little underfed kid, who went to religious classes, and church in poland, even when i saw the pope, even when my father told me about adam and eve (i think i was about 4 years old), i always, ALWAYS thought it was complete bullshit. i never understood why people believed that fairy tale stuff and never questioned this overly simplistic explanation of EVERYTHING. morality can be taught in numerous other ways, without ever having to rely on religion. besides, what good are good deeds performed by a child when they are driven by fear of punishment by some unworldly force. shouldn't we teach children to be good through empathy and compassion that does not originate from fear of being punished if they are not?

on a side note: i always wished i could be a believer. it was like some secret club everyone belonged to and i didn't know the password to get in. but it wasn't that i didn't know it, it was as if i was unable to speak the secret password. like i didn't have the ability actually have the sound come out of my mouth. asking me to believe is like asking me to fly. um...I CANNOT! it is not physically possible for me to do that. it never has been and it probably never will be. but i always thought it would have been nice. it would have given me some kind of structure, something to hold on to.

metalpeter writes at 06:00:33 01/28/08 - Comment #30993: I agree with paul that kids shouldn't be exposed to going to church at an early age. Think about how you have "extremists" when I use that term I include people who blow up abortion clinics. I'm not anti religion but I do think what makes people think this way is being indoctranated at an early age. Most kids get most of their beliefs on what is right and wrong from there parents. Sometimes it is by how they mess up and do things that hurt other people so they sometimes do that or try not to. But in the end you wind up doing what you know. So if your father was a Jew you act like a "Jew", if your father hates Jews then you blow up a bus and die and see your 11 virgins or whatever. I'm not saying that believing what your parents do is bad per say, but sometimes it is. But it is better to form your own thoughts with just there guidance. I think that also makes for stronger faith myself. You don't need a church to teach right and wrong. All you really need to do is teach one thing treat people how you would like to be treated (idealy).

janelle writes at 05:24:12 01/28/08 - Comment #30990: Well, Drew and I's parents managed to raise us up in our faith without fucking us up too much, so hopefully we can duplicate that with our own children =)

I do feel for people who have been hurt by their parent's religion.

hodown writes at 04:34:40 01/28/08 - Comment #30987: I posted about Jesus Camp a while back. Being raised by born again christians I can say that this is actually the norm for a huge majority of fundamentalists christians. After escaping that I was sent off to Catholic school which was equally fucked up. I'm with Paul- religion fucks up kids who take adults at their word.

paul writes at 03:25:55 01/28/08 - Comment #30985: The big difference between this and all the other things that my so-called OCD could have latched onto is that I saw adults I trusted and thought were smart believing in it too. Everyone knew movies and dungeons and dragons, etc were fake. Yes, you could get carried away with your imagination but no one pretended that it was real or believed in them. On the otehr hand the bible was liek this magical book full of supernatural nonsense that adults seemed to really believe in.

Plus, I think the catholic church really makes it all seem more like magic. I really believed that somehow the priests were doing some sort of magic spells on the wine to turn it into Christ's blood. That plus the chilling jesus nailed to a cross images in the church. Its all rather freaky I think. I am not saying that I wasn't a crazy kid. But once I separated myself from that environment - I NEVER had this problem with any other sort of thing in my life. Okay, maybe I obsessively journal, lol.

jbeatty writes at 03:01:38 01/28/08 - Comment #30984: Ok being a non-christian or shall I say de-christian I see your point. Growing up I was forced to go to church until about the age of 10 I think. Something happened with between the church leaders and my mother. There were some accusations made and she ended up leaving never to go back. As a 10 year old I didn't know what to think about the situation, I was happy that I was no longer obligated to go but was scared to death about the consequences of not attending. My sister who was a few years older decided that she was going to continue attending services. I went with her for about a year or so on and off. I think this whole situation was really unfair for me, as somebody who really didn't have the capability at the time to make a "good" decision about what was the right thing to do. Ultimately my friends influenced me that church was stupid and I stopped going and became an agnostic over the years. I'm certain that people can have "moral" values and not be religious. I don't believe that they have a monopoly on that. But I don't really know if I see harm in making children attend. On the one hand it teaches children there is stuff that they have to do whether they like it or not. On the other hand it fucked me up for a long time afterward as I struggled to figure out if I really had faith in god or if I didn't believe at all.

janelle writes at 03:01:16 01/28/08 - Comment #30983: I need to soften up the statement below. It's my opinion, not some arrogant statement of fact, that based on the story you shared and based on my working with peope with MH you were driven primarily by the OCD and the religion just acted as a secondary issue. Only you can understand the situation fully and it might be more than what you just explained.

I don't want to come across as some arrogant, hey, i've diagnosed your problem kind of person

janelle writes at 02:55:56 01/28/08 - Comment #30982: I really think you were driven by the OCD primarily. Religion was just the secondary issue. The OCD just latched onto religion because it was something important to you. People of devout faith who experience mental illness often have religious hallucinations or delusions as part of the mental illness. It's just how mental illness works

If it wasn't religion, it could easily have been something else (Pokemon, Dungeons and Dragons, math, computers, your other imaginary friends, whatever) and it could have been just as damaging.

For me, your story isn't a cautionary tale on not teaching religion to children at an early age. I see it more as a caution to check in with my children as to what's going on in their head because mental health issues can be so deceptive and so hidden.

paul writes at 02:27:23 01/28/08 - Comment #30978: Oh man, I should have just left Jesus Camp out. Really, how do you address my experience as the Jesus Camp one is so extreme. I was definately not raised in a Jesus camp environment but I felt quite driven by supernatural powers after being exposed to religion as a child.

mrdeadlier writes at 12:22:25 01/28/08 - Comment #30968: Yeah, Jesus Camp is exposing a tiny fringe of "Christians" which I assure you are NOT the norm. And those kids appear to have been inundated every waking moment since they were born with that funkamentalist mantra, which is a lot different than just taking your kids to Sunday School and praying before meals and bedtime.

I was a youth leader in our church's youth group for nearly seven years and in my experience, most if not all of the kids that were raised in the church eventually reached a point where they had to decide for themselves whether they truly believed what their parents did. Some decided they did and stayed on, continuing to attend. Others didn't and moved on to pursue life outside the church's walls. That's the beauty of Christianity (or at least my "sect") -- it's something you have to sign up for personally (hence why my church practices adult baptism).

Sure Christianity has its share of wackos, but any interest group experiences the same thing. Look at PETA or Greenpeace. The majority of the folks involved are pretty even-keeled but then you have those that behave outside the bounds of society's norm -- and THEY'RE the ones that get the attention.

The Left Behind multimedia monster is also pretty off the wall. Sadly, many Christians don't seem to see it for what it is: a money grab by Tim LaHaye and friends. I mean come on.. Board games? Video games?

It's all pretty embarrassing, to be honest. Since I became a believer 12 years ago, I feel like I've spent more time apologizing for my faith than anything else concerning it.

jason writes at 10:56:38 01/28/08 - Comment #30963: The uber nutjobs, and the people who totally reject science/medicine are (fortunately) extremely rare. I don't really worry too much about kids being raised with religion because growing up zero out of hundreds of kids I knew ever turned out that way.

I don't know too many people who say "religion damaged me" because they were never allowed to go off the deep end. If anything, they became MORE moderate, not less over time. That's sort of the way I turned out. Anyway, I've been damaged a heck of a lot more by people than by God.

drew writes at 10:53:34 01/28/08 - Comment #30961: And for the record. Even though they would say otherwise, what we see in Jesus Camp, left behind, or anything that has to do with the rapture as it is seen in popular culture, has little to do with the Christianity of the Bible.

janelle writes at 10:49:54 01/28/08 - Comment #30959: I might have a more thorough response to the main point of the post later...but right now I want to address the Jesus Camp movie. It's one of the few movies where I wanted to demand my money back and ask for those two hours of my life back.

I wouldn't advise anyone not well familiar with the different types of Christians and Christian practices to watch this movie. This documentary is flawed in so many ways that it can only contribute misunderstanding of the Christian faith.

My favorite is that it interexchangeably uses the terms fundamentalism; orthodoxy; evangelical; evangelism; and charismatic as though they are all the same. It thus creates this allusion that anyone who is fundamentalist; orthodox; evangelical or charismatic (which covers pretty much close to the entire faith) practices their faith as demonstrated in this video.

leetee writes at 10:10:12 01/28/08 - Comment #30955: Being exposed to somewhat fanatical religion as a child fucked me up for a while. I still cannot fathom showing 6, 7, 8 and 9 year old children horrific and violent films about the rapture and what would happen to the people left behind if they did not go to heaven. Sure did change my viewpoint, though...

Permalink: Religion_messed_up_my_childhood.html
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Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

01/27/08 05:31 - 33ºF - ID#43051

Replacing Honey

Don't ever go shopping when you are angry that someone was stealing your honey, you have lots of money in your pocket, and there are rare and exotic honies to be had.

Sadly, this is not a metaphor for anything other than honey. Seeing as I did nothing this weekend, I spent all my fun time money on exotic foods suvh as imported proscuito, honies, olives, seafood.

This exotic, rare, white, organic hawaiian honey

is the best I ever tasted. zthe consitency is like butter.

I felt so guilty in the end so donated $5 to the food shelter. I know that not but no one else in line donated, so at least maybe I will gain some karma back.

I also bought organic sugar coated, fruit gummi bears at Feel Rite. They taste so freakin' good. It would be way cheaper to get the in bulk online

but I think I would die if I had 10 lbs of them. When I was chatting with (e:jim) about this I accidently type organic commie beers, weird.

Permalink: Replacing_Honey.html
Words: 190
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: photos

01/27/08 01:30 - 28ºF - ID#43047

Ivory Soap

The best kind of clean.

Permalink: Ivory_Soap.html
Words: 9
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: computers

01/27/08 01:03 - 28ºF - ID#43046

Computers Suck Sometimes

I spent the entire evening working on the server. There is so much stuff that is barely documented in any easy to find place - argh but it seems to be working and it is way faster than the old one - so good for that.

(e:terry) went to some party with cats and then dancing for the last night of dancing at Off The Wall and (e:matthew) worked and then went to bed.

I hope winter will just end soon because right now I am on the verge of going crazy. Yesterday, a hard drive with lots of important backup stuff crashed. I was so annoyed considering I could have easily had a backup of he backup - but I didn't. Sometimes, even I hate computers.

I have a recovery program that could grab the data off of the drive but its a really time consuming file by file process and I don't have the time. So what is going to happen is the drive is going to go in the attic with the other 20 miscellaneous hard drives and someday if I need the data I will try again then.

Permalink: Computers_Suck_Sometimes.html
Words: 193
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: words

01/26/08 11:19 - 22ºF - ID#43040

Words that annoy me

Unbleached
What is it with words like unbleached. I was reading the ingredients on some bread that said it contained unbleached flour. To me, it seems like it should really be non-bleached flour as unbleached implies that it was bleached and then the bleaching was removed or something.

Like, how untying your shoelace kind of requires that it be tied in the first place.

Wireless Thermostats
Does anyone have a wireless thermostat. I want one but I never saw one before. I ams ure they exist.

Permalink: Words_that_annoy_me.html
Words: 86
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: buffalo

01/26/08 10:17 - 22ºF - ID#43039

Friday

YAPL - Yet Another Parking Lot
On the way to work in the morning I was walking past this building and what appeared to be a Realtor outside was telling a couple that the building I circled in red was slotted to become a parking lot. They were just working with the city to get the permits or something. Maybe, I heard them wrong. I really don't care either way as that part of the street is so dead from Medina Deli to the Dare Care but I wonder just how many parking lots will be on Main Street in the end.

For some reason, that was the only picture I took yesterday. It's weird.

Work
It was a great day for programming. I got so much done but I still feel like 10 feet underground because of the crazy amount of stuff I have lined up. There are seriously like 17 million things I have to program. Maybe I need a 30 inch monitor like (e:jim).

I got this security system deployed for the IP cameras at work. I was really happy with the result and apparently so was the VP of secuirty.

Uh, can I RAVE about this Paul Visco guy just a little bit right now.

Smokin hot.

So, seriously, I am a hard worker and I love doing what I do - and it is so great getting positive feedback from work. During my five years at Canisius I did some amazing stuff which I thought really helped the program and I never felt appreciated. What a difference it makes to feel like you are making a difference at your job and that you are important.

Night Time
(e:terry) and I went out with (e:jim) and (e:james). It was fun as usual and the first time I had some drinks since the Crohn's thing started. I felt fine. In fact I didn't feel sick at all today. Asacol is seriously a miracle drug. I just wish I didn't have to take 9 pills a day.

metalpeter writes at 01:46:54 01/26/08 - Comment #30920: First of all glad you are feeling good paul.

Here is the thing with the train. Allot of people use it. If you live in the burbs and work downtown my understanding is that at the park and ride it is free to park then you can catch the train downtown and I'm sure that is cheaper then driving all the way down there and then paying at a lot. allot of people do use the train. I here the excuse the train killed downtown Buffalo you can't drive down main.
1) first of all what killed Main St. is the Galleria mall. The few Big time stores that brought people to the Main Place mall area all left and went to the Galleria mall or some other mall and then a store at the mall moved to the galleria.

2) There are two street you can drive down on the other side of main st that will get you to everyplace you need to get to on main. Some buildings like sheas and the building next to it and T.G.I. Fridays/hotel have entrances on two entrances one of wich is on Main. One of those takes you to the movies and the arena. The other goes behind sheas and can take you down past the pearl st. grill. Oh yeah and they both along with Elmwood & Delaware take you to the chip strip and isn't that really all we need.

Yeah it would be great if our Downtown was the center of town but I think those days may be over forever. Lets say some one gets there stuff together and builds a great waterfront where you can drive up on your boat park it and shop then go back out and fish and the fish are safe to eat. Then that Casino becomes a fire star casino that people from Asia come to visit and there is a strip club and high priced Asian Hookers. Then they build I state of the Art Football stadium that is a more modern skydome (now rogers center) and the Bills are a playoff team and so are the sabres, bisons and Bandits. That is all well and good but you will still have the two downtowns. The people who work there will go home after work. You will have the chip strip people and then there will be the waterfront Area and downtown I think will allways be that kinda middle unused area. It will never be like Torontos young st. Where people are out at 2am and you can't figure out what is really still open.

All that being said I would love for Buffalo to be Like TO where you have the rail down the center of the road and then you have traffic on both sides of it and people also walk down the street. I don't know as that would really work here though. I used to use the train allot when I went to Canisius and haven't used it in a long time. But It may get used on friday not sure yet.

fellyconnelly writes at 01:12:25 01/26/08 - Comment #30918: thats so awesome that you are feeling better with the aid of Asacol.

jbeatty writes at 11:25:03 01/26/08 - Comment #30908: I'll admit I don't find the train all that useful to me currently. But once I start classes on south campus I will probably use it everyday instead of driving.

paul writes at 11:03:25 01/26/08 - Comment #30907: Really, where would you go on main street that you have been avoiding becaus eof that lack of car access. The freakin' main street mail, lol?

I don't think the street trolley/subway being on main street is what makes it not work. I guess they could do like they do in toronto and mix the trolley plus cars but seriously, that subway is really used a lot.

Having worked right downtown at HSBC one for several years and seeing if first hand - I think peple don't realize how much that subway is actually used. It is often very packed. Its not lkie this empty unused system that just needs to go.

mrdeadlier writes at 10:34:18 01/26/08 - Comment #30906: "I wonder just how many parking lots will be on Main Street in the end."

There can never be enough. Like it or not, we suburbanites are spoiled with having a parking lot in front of every establishment. Honestly, this is good... Make it easier for us to get downtown and spend our money and we will!

The next step should be to get that stupid "subway" off of Main.

Permalink: Friday.html
Words: 343
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: school

01/25/08 12:52 - 16ºF - ID#43026

At School WIth Terry

I am so glad I was never in a major that involved classrooms with lots of people.

::Download Flash Video::

(e:terry)'s classes are in a room that could hold like 300 people. It has the ambiance of a bingo hall. It actually sounds almost just like one. People were disgusting and they left food everywhere.

Liek in every direction people just left food and drinks. I don't think I was ever in a class with more than like 30 people. Oh, once this biology class in germany but it was very intense and the people were really into it as you had to respond.

UB had this whole display about planning and talked about parking. Wow, there is sure a lot of it there on North Campus.

I got home a decided to take apart one of the old PDAs to see if I could canabalize the gsm modem for the not phone. I think it is totally possible but now I want a HSPDA one.

Watching the way over GPS

They had these crazy new pillar statues that look like they are being blown over, over by capen.

We ate dinner at Fuji Grill again.

Fuji Grill tastes pretty good but my surf clam was nothing liek the one I got the other day although it was very cute

(e:terry) got stir fry

jbeatty writes at 02:09:00 01/25/08 - Comment #30874: That looks like Knox 20. I fucking hate that room.

james writes at 01:47:36 01/25/08 - Comment #30872: you must have been lucky with the surf clam that one night. I have had it several times and it is always so meh..

fellyconnelly writes at 12:57:47 01/25/08 - Comment #30868: that stir fry looks really really tasty....

lilho writes at 12:55:04 01/25/08 - Comment #30867: can't wait to see you!

mrdeadlier writes at 11:22:29 01/25/08 - Comment #30866: Where is this Fuji Grill? I've never been there and it has GOT to be better than Shogun.

leetee writes at 09:52:54 01/25/08 - Comment #30862: You and Terry are so cute...

jason writes at 09:33:24 01/25/08 - Comment #30857: Oh, and I think I miss academic settings. I used to love just wandering around campus.

jason writes at 09:32:22 01/25/08 - Comment #30856: Man, I don't really remember people being so nasty with food and whatnot in the lecture halls. Freaking animals.

joshua writes at 09:13:31 01/25/08 - Comment #30850: Ahh yes... this reminds me of the statistics class I took in the School of Management. I showed up three times - the first day, the mid-term and the final. My friends signed me in the rest of the time... lawl.

I really liked the upper level classes though - 25 students or so and I only took stuff that interested me anyway... and I have to say that although I graduated with a degree in financial analysis I appreciated my English courses a lot more.

scott writes at 08:50:29 01/25/08 - Comment #30849: Oh how a miss large-scale lectures at UB!

I preferred the anonymity of large lectures. Here's why: I had felt more free to learn at my own pace. I could really dial-in and participate in material I needed to focus on, as well as "zone out" when the class went into material I already knew.

I always felt guilty when I ignored the instructor in smaller classrooms. (It just felt rude to be ahead on the reading when someone's lecturing to a small group.) In the massive munch-fest lecture halls, my complete disregard for the fluff material just felt less offensive.

jenks writes at 08:12:55 01/25/08 - Comment #30847: paul you're so cute. Did you go to class just for the hell of it?

gotta love those giant science classes. I would skip them all and read the lecture notes/handouts later. or not.

Permalink: At_School_WIth_Terry.html
Words: 247
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

01/24/08 11:40 - 16ºF - ID#43024

8,000,000 views later

I seriously cannot believe the journals have been loaded over 8 freakin' million 8,000,000 times. It seems like only yesterday it was 8,000. It amazes me more when I think about how much the old server has been though over the last couple years. I already am reconditioning it as a second server. Someday maybe we will need it.

I know code on a much more tightly timed loop could run a quadrillion times but it is exciting to see something you made work 8,000,000 without that many problems.

Permalink: 8_000_000_views_later.html
Words: 86
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: mobile

01/24/08 07:48 - 18ºF - ID#43019

I freakin love the not phone

I know everyone is probably sick of hearing about it but this new Nokia n810 and the xjournal

program that lets you handwrite full size pdfs and draw on them as journaled diary pages is like everything I ever dreamed of.

Hopefully now my handwriting just gets better.

Permalink: I_freakin_love_the_not_phone.html
Words: 57
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: crohns

01/24/08 05:48 - 19ºF - ID#43017

New Doctor and Allergies

Dr. Bartolone believes it is crohns too. Says it doesn't matter either way as the meds are the same. I guess I really am on asacol for the rest of my freakin life. I am going to do a time lapse of my 270 pills in a bottle going away to 0.

At least it doesn't have any real side effects for me. He said if I am not experiencing them now, I won't probably later.

So seriously, no one knows what causes this and I am at least lucky that mine is manageable. I think I will just east healthy from now on and hope for the best.

I hope medical science figures out some more details, someday.

And I got a copy of my allergy tests. I am way less allergic to dogs than cats. It wasn't just in my head. I am as allergic to maple and birch trees as I am to dogs. Cats I am way allergic to but even more than that I am alergic to mold that grows on plants and ragweed. In fact I am almost 5 times s allergic to ragweed as I am to trees.

They are sending me for a celliac disease test too s the other allergy test only confirmed an allergy to wheat and not that I am gluten intolerant.

Dr Bartolones office is so the future of doctors offices. It was beyond clean and formal. Everything was digitized and all the nurses carried portable tablet PCs. Even the screen had privacy screens. Morever, all the signatures were digital.