Regarding the whole God/religion issue that has been discussed a lot here lately, here is an interesting piece on NPR that I heard a few months ago by Penn Jillette (the tall one in Penn and Teller) on his belief that there is no God. It is interesting not in that it has some deep philosophical insight, but in how this belief that there is no God informs his approach to life.

The world is a crazy place.

Saturday I got three packages from amazon.com that were addressed to my apartment, but I had never heard of the person.

Not knowing what to do, I was going to take them back to the post office on my way to class and have them return them to sender. After I got on the shuttle to campus, a guy sitting behind me asked if I had gotten some packages for "John Smith." I said I had, and he said that he was John Smith and use to live in my apartment and had acidentally sent them to his old address. I checked his ID to be sure and then gave him the packages.

Seriously, what are the odds that he would be riding the same shuttle as me when I was going to return his packages.

It reminds me of another crazy coincidence when I went to a Latter Day Saints Church. I thought I had posted about it but it looks like I hadn't, so maybe I will post about it some time soon.

Seriously, how can there not be someone/thing controlling this show

Jesse

P.S. so much for my regular posting. That lasted all of one day

I am back at Maxwell and have just completed a full week of school. This semester will be good in that I am taking three classes that I am actually interested in, State and Local Finance, Metropolitan Politics, and Urban Policy, and I don't have a single test. The bad part about this semester is that I am taking five courses and as none of them have tests, it means I get the pleasure of writing papers. Getting back into writing papers will be annoying as I didn't write anything over 4 pages all last semester (the joy of being in an MPA program is that they are preparing you for a job, so you just write lots of memos instead of long papers). Also, last semester I only had 4 courses, now I have 5, but I don't have an internship anymore.

As I do at the beginning of ever ysemester, I have to start getting organized, and this time I am trying to do it right off the bat rather than later because with the writing I will have to do, I won't have time to jerk off for the first few weeks (in previous semesters, I had done jack shit for the first month or so as evidenced by the fact that my last two internships started more than a month into the semester). I am trying to firm up a good routine, especially with my sleep cycle. Part of this routine will try and include a nightly posting of 15mins on (e:strip) to better keep track of my life. This semester, two days I have 8:00 classes and two days I have 12:45 classes. Hopefully I will wake up at the same time each day and exercise or something else that is good for myself. I am not there yet but I should be soon. OK, my 15 mins is almost up. I'll see you tomorrow.

P.S. My hair is all now gone courtesy of (e:maureen)'s beauty salon and I now have a beard courtesy of my mother's genes. I'll post the pics (e:maureen) took soon.

It has been a while since I've posted. The last few weeks of classes were a bit rough but I am done now and enjoying doing as little as possible in the B-lo

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the party on Saturday night. Thanks (e:PMT) for throwing the party. Happy bday (e:hodown), I hope you had a good night, and it was nice meeting and hanging out with all the (e:peeps).

Also, I found out that one of my friends from the year I went to Starpoint died. I was just flipping through the news and happened to be reading the obits and there was one for him there. He died the other day in a car crash cause of the weather. I haven't spoken to him since 9th grade. It is weird when I find things like that in the news because I rarely read the obits and just happened to be flipping through.

Well that is all.

-Jesse

Last night my friends here threw me a birthday party. It was really nice. I was kind of a surprise in that it was originally going to be an 80s teen movie night (it still was an 80s teen movie night too). So I didn't know until my friend picked me up and asked me to hold my birthday cake. I am really glad I came here. Though I cannot go on the racist tyrades I could at AU, I am feeling more comfortable with and really like the people here, even if some of them drive me up the wall sometimes. (thanks for talking me out of that one (e:maureen)).

At the party we watched Pretty in Pink and part of another movie (Say Anything?). This was the first time I have watch Pretty in Pink and I was pissed. I really related to duckie in the movie and felt he got fucked. He was the only one with real balls. Fuck the pretty boy. Plus the pretty boy broke the number 1 rule of friendship - bros over hos. I am very bitter in how the nerd gets screwed in these 80s teen movies. Like at the end of Breakfast Club when they all pair up except Anthony Michael Hall who has to write the paper. That's fucking BS. Fuck you John Hughes. At least we have revenge of the Nerds.