Mín Englisc Blog

Don't expect much posting anytime soon: the campus wireless system went out early yesterday afternoon, and I doubt that it will be fixed until Monday at the earliest. I'm typing this at the library now, but I'll not be able to be back here for a couple of days.

Finally time for bed: all I have left on my major POL352 paper due tomorrow is cleanup and summary of a page of notes, along with general formatting. I'm thankful that I already have it written in some format, making it necessary simply to organize them. I would finish tonight, but I'm now to the point that I'mn periodically falling asleep at the keyboard and typing little bits in my paper about things that I dreamed about! When it gets to that point, I know I'm useless for work, even with a pressing issue like this.

Taro Aso has just been elected Prime Minister of Japan. He is the first Catholic to hold that position.

What an interesting picture!

Tonight has been an interesting mix of high and low culture for me: after spending an hour watching the world-renowned Russian classic Battleship Potemkin, I spent a bit more than that racing go-karts with Mario characters! I think Mario needs no more comment, but more about the movie: I've heard so much about it, but never gotten a chance before to watch it. Despite the many instances of "gaps" in the filming (i.e. when bits were filmed separately, the people weren't in the same place at the end of one bit and the start of another), I can see why Joseph Goebbels said that "anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film." I'm glad that I have (1) firm anti-Bolshevik convictions, and (2) an awareness of the eventual result of Bolshevism in Russia.

Nothing impressive over the last few days to report, although I am perparing for the semester's first test tomorrow morning. I had a surprise late on Monday: receiving back a paper that I turned in early last week, I realised (thanks to the professor's confused comment) that I'd made a copy/paste error — although the paper was for History Senior Seminar, I'd failed to change the header from its original format — Argumentative Writing, English 191!

Just now I've been talking about churches with Bill, my roommate. As we compared different kinds of churches with each other, he made a most interesting characterisation of the mindset of seeker-friendly churches:

"Yay! Let's throw around balloons!"

In other words to explain last post: I attended the installation of Charles Brown at Rose Point RPC yesterday.

Reported of the Commission of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh, that Mr Charles Brown was inducted by them to the pastoral charge of the United Congregations of Slippery-rock, Camp-run, Portersville, Princeton, Harlansburgh, and Hautenbaugh, on the 12th of September last.

In Thee my soul has shelter found, And Thou hast been from foes around The tower to which I flee. Within Thy house I will abide, And underneath Thy wings will hide, Forever safe in Thee.

I've been busy today, with plenty of time spent on church history work and well over three hours working on the Macartney Collection at McCartney Library (I've not yet discovered why the library's name isn't spelled like the guy's name was!), working on the process of deacidification.

First draft typescript of the minutes of the Synod of 1834 is completed: the minutes of every RPCNA synod, in some form or another, are now digitized!

Well, the big new European collider has begun operation, and the world hasn't been blown up yet...

Went up to the G this afternoon, with a couple of other people from church...it was rather thorny (the bushes have quite overgrown the path), but we got up and got down in safety.

I had plans to get many productive things done today. Some of these I accomplished, but many are as yet undone — but only because more time was spent than I expected at the wedding of Dave Abt (my sophomore year RA) and Lauren Shaw, conducted this afternoon at College Hill RPC by Dr. Jonathan Watt. I've been looking forward to seeing this event for well over a year now, and it was indeed enjoyable, although I'm sure they've looked forward to it and enjoyed it far more :-) Aside from the significance of the event, one enjoyable factor was that almost all of the residents on my sophomore year floor were invited, and that most of those were able to come: rather more than half of that year's floor residents were in attendance. Still, I miss the absence of some, including one friend who is studying abroad (although I miss him less than his fiancée does!); but it's great to be with friends as we see two friends in great and blissful love.

This week, Geenva has been installing a new Internet security programme, which is rather confusing to the unexpecting network user: it requires certain files to be downloaded, and it wouldn't let me download the file(s) that I needed to download! Consequently, I had no Internet access last night (except for library computers) and thus couldn't post. Overall, the most ironic thing about this new security is our secure network's security certificate, which is outdated: we take all this effort to upgrade our security, but we have a two-year-old certificate! As a result, if I didn't have reason to trust it (i.e. I can speak facetoface with the people in charge) I wouldn't be able to use Geneva's new network without fear of my computer being compromised — in part because of the new security!
I've begun working at the library, helping to begin a process to digitise the Clarence Macartney Collection. It's rather odd, as virtually all new library workers are freshmen (they want people who will be able to work there for several years); I believe I've been hired because of this summer's experience at RPTS.

I just discovered by accident a website with cheats to the pinball game that comes with Windows: by typing a certain text, you can control the ball with the mouse, and thus easily rack up hundreds of millions of points in a few minutes :-)