philosophy and footie

Man, it's been a while since I've done anything on there, sorry about that. I'm just generally lazy, but you all know me, so that's no surprise. Things have been going pretty well here, time is going really fast, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I can't wait to get home. I feel like I'm in a period of my life where I am just treading water and not really moving forward, but only in some respects. Even though I'm not working or moving to Chicago right now or anything like that, I am definitely making progress in other ways. The things I'm reading for class are all about the philosophy of history, which sounds like it would be boring, but I'm kinda into boring things, so it's cool for me. It really makes me rethink the way I think about history and how how I view the importance or lack thereof in it. Stuff like that. The casual reality of my life here (no job, no car, no cell phone, it's a very different world for me) allows me to do a lot more thinking about things like this than I would do at home, I think. So that's definitely a good thing, and I'm enjoying it a lot. Plus, my friends here are fantastic and we have a great time, so they tend to curtail my anxiety to get home. But at the same time, I miss all my friends back home, I miss being able to see my family almost any time I really want to, if I just make the effort. I want to be working, finishing school, moving on with what Western society touts as "real life," if you'll excuse the absurdity of the statement. It's weird to try to articulate what exactly it is that I want to move on with, because it is so clear that the things that I'm thinking about here are so great a part of what life really is. So there I am, and it's a strange place to be.

When I haven't been thinking/reading about the history of philosophy, I've been working on getting my computer back up and running so I don't have to keep hiking over to this freaking computer lab every time I want to check an email. It's coming along slowly, and hopefully in the next week or two will be taken care of. Cross your fingers. Also, me and the guys are getting a lot better with the frisbee. I'm told there's an outdoor basketball court nearby, so if we can find a ball I'll work on schooling England in yet another aspect of what makes America great. :) And if I lose, you'll never hear about it, heh heh. It's looking like a couple of us are going to try to get to Ireland around the second weekend of June. I'm excited about that, even if we'll probably only get to see Dublin and nothing else. It'll still be sweet, plus the Guiness brewery is there. Hooray!

Yeah, so that's about all that's going on here. The 'footie' (football) (soccer) is starting up around here, so it looks like that's going to consume most of our Saturday afternoons from now on. I'll see if I can't pick up some idea of what the heck is going on, and maybe I can try to explain the peoples' fascination with sports that involve neither throwing nor catching with the hands. Don't hold your breath, though. Aight, I'd better go so I can meet the guys before the match starts!