The times and the seasons go on

[melannen]

Why is it that after a lovely, wonderful, relaxing few days at home where I get things *done* and feel like I can *do* this and I'm actually *competent* at things, as soon as I get back to school I'm completely incapable of accomplishing *anything* besides impersonating a lump of particularly unambitious yams?

Why is it that every time I'm inspired to post a comment to xfiles it ends up being about ten times as long as the OP?

So anyway, stellar_dust is mad that we put the tree up without waiting for her. I told this to Mom, and Mom said if you're going to leave it that late, why bother? And I goggled at her for a second and said "But, but, *real* people don't put it up till Christmas Eve!"

And Mom looked at me, and said, lo, who are these real people of which you speak?

And I said "You know, like in 'A Christmas Story' and 'The Nutcracker' and half of every Christmas book I've ever read or movie I've ever watched. *Real* people. *Fictional* people."

And thus was I smacked in the face with the realization that my conception of reality is severely messed up.

And to tie the three disparate threads of the beginning of this entry together, (3) another conversation I had with Mom at church today about (2) the nature of religion which I (1) actually *got up off my beanbag* to find so I could transcribe for you:

Mom: I'm going to show a video to Josh for Sunday School today. You going to watch it with us?
Me (non-commitally, as I was planning to sleep through Sunday School): A video? What sort?
Mom: It's about a prairie dog town.
Me: Um. Okay. Does it have anything to do with an actual bible story?
Mom: Well, it's about lying.
Me: ... oh.
Mom: Well, it's animated, so they're actually just people. The bible story is Joseph and his brothers, and how they lied about what they did to him, and how that was bad.
Mom (just as I'm about to make the same comment): Of course, considering how well all that turned out in the end, this may not be the best way to teach little kids that lying is bad.
Me: Not to mention all the lying Joseph himself did.
Mom: Huh?
Me: When he framed his brothers and pretended not to know Benjamin--
Mom (sheepishly): Aw, he was just playing a little trick.
Me: Humph. Yeah, the kind of trick that nearly killed his old father with worry and could have gotten his brothers *executed* if it had gone wrong. Not to mention the lies Pharaoh's wife told about him--
Mom: Pharaoh wife? When was that?
Me: Oh, oops, I meant Potiphar's wife. I was getting confused about the story with Abraham when he lied and said Sarah was actually his sister so he could make her sleep with the king.
(Pause.)
Me: Man, the old testament *really* is not a good vehicle for teaching moral values, is it?

I keep thinking I should take after Pastor and drop out of my science degree and go to Seminary. Harper's Ferry is really pretty this time of year.

And then Josh didn't even show, so I got to spend Sunday School transcribing that conversation for boredom posterity, and then helping Mr. Clarence and Pastor's kids drag out the GIANT PLYWOOD NATIVITY SCENE to put out front of the church. And Mr. Clarence noted that their garments were getting faded and stained and the wool was dirty and matted and falling apart and they all smelled of mildew and mouse droppings, and I said, oh, they're starting to become somewhat realistic then! but I don't think anyone else got my point. So instead I started mentally rewriting the Old Testament as a chain-letter (Eve broke the chain, and the next day she contracted a painful and incurable venereal disease! Noah kept the chain, and he got a 50-cubit luxury yacht! Abraham kept the chain, and he got in on a lucrative real estate deal and became one of the richest men in the country! Jacob broke the chain, and he ended up homeless and couldn't find a job and had to sleep in the mud and eat garbage, but then he fished his old letter out of the trash and sent off his copies and everything turned around! Joseph kept the chain and he went from a convict to a high position in government! Jezebel broke the chain and she fell out of her window and was eaten by dogs! . . okay, I'll stop.) But then I started pondering how my conception of Judaism, especially modern Judaism, really *is* based around a central idea of keeping the chain unbroken at all costs . . .

and yeah, this is why I like church. Plus, it's Advent, so we got to sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."

And in the random woes department, I need to figure out how to run KDE when my default is gnome and they're both installed, because the powerpoint clone I have is for KDE, and I have a presentation which may or may not be due *very soon* as this is the class which doesn't have a syllabus. Plus, courtesy of this song (see current music) I finally tried to rip a cassette tape and I need to get a .wav recorder working.

Also, I did something to my ankle while crawling around the attic in search of Christmas decorations and comic books, and it is whining at me again, and I had to pull out the much-abused ace bandage. Or possibly it was the new shoes. Mom bought me my first-ever pair of high heels over break, does this make me a grown-up now? I really hope not.

Comments

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

Speaking of keeping the chain unbroken, if you ever need to teach a child about the human will to survive, just break out the story of Lot and his daughters. ...

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Gotta love ol' Lot. Somehow I've always visualized Lot as some kind of postmodern superhero, lurking around Gotham Sodom in a cape and spandex, trying to save the people of his city despite themselves and being all *conflicted* and *broody* and superfluous *angst* and driving his family beyond all expectations because despite everything he *loves* his city. And somehow (pre-dating my current superhero obsession) when I visualize him bargaining with God over the city I always visualize him in the Batcave.

. . . and I am not in the least tempted to try drawing that. Nope.

Actually, when teaching unsuspecting kids about the old testament, I usually start with Tamar and Judah, which has slightly less visceral eww factor while still being seriously *wrong* by any modern conception...

And then I can bring up the other Tamar, who *does* get to sleep with her brother in the end.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

Mm, particularly unambitious yams. I spent all weekend playing a stupid vampire game instead of anything useful.

You don't need to actually run KDE to run KDE programs, so you should just be able to say "kpresenter" or whichever at the command prompt. I wouldn't count on any actual compatibility with powerpoint, though - you're probably better off just going to a lab and using powerpoint.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Nope, running it at the gnome command line freezes the system in exactly the same way running it from the gnome start menu does. I thought one of the Things about KDE was that KDE programs do often only work in KDE . . . or do you think my kpresenter is just generally screwed?

I realize the compatibility is limited, but considering my Powerpoint strategy is simplicity=clarity=yay, and I consider it a major concession to style over substance to even make the background anything but halftone gray, minimal compatibility will probably be acceptable.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

I've never heard that or had any such problem. More likely your kpresenter is just generally screwed.

If you're using the graphical login screen you should just be able to choose "KDE" from "session type" or something like that. If you log in from the console and then type "startx," you probably have to fiddle with .Xclients in your home directory.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

See, this is what has consistently annoyed me about trying to figure things out on this system. Neither .Xclients nor any of the other files mentioned in the man file for startx actually show up in my home directory. It's really annoying.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. basically you'd have to trace through the startx script ("which startx" should at least tell you where it is) .. I don't even have RedHat 7.3 anymore, they upgraded me to some RedHat Enterprise nonsense, or I'd take a look and see if I remembered how it works.

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

*cracks up*

.. I had a Powerpoint clone for gnome. It was part of a MSOffice-clone package, called, um ... OpenOffice? Yeah, I think that's it. It might have been sort-of-almost-semi-compatible with PPT. Or if you can make a pdf or ps file from it, that should work anywhere.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

hmm. If powerpointness doesn't make with the happy fairly quick, I'm probably just going to do html pages. He isn't requiring powerpoint, just preferring it. And I already told him it might not be exactly powerpoint. (It's really fun to announce to a class of fairly arrogant science geeks, of which you are the token girl, that you're running Linux on your home computer, and watch the expressions on their faces.)

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Why yes, it is.

... but not fun enough to convince me to switch back. d-;

[melannen.livejournal.com]

You're quite right. I just hadn't exercised that particular power for a while and forgot how fun it was.

I've been tempted to switch too. Especially since discovering that Red Hat has gone pay-only and I've mostly dropped out of the geek subculture anyway. If it wasn't that it seems like more trouble than it'd be worth at this point.

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

Meh, I only switched back when I switched computers. So. That could be awhile for you.

[thirteenmirrors.livejournal.com]

Priceless convo.