Long time, no post

I haven't blogged in a really long time. I feel a little bad about that, because this is one of my primary organs for staying in touch with the people back home. I can say that I've been busy, which is true: one week left to go in the semester; two long writing projects on the docket with the possibility for two shorter ones to be added on; still adjusting to a new culture; preparing for classes next semester, all of which are again new preps and one of which is an outside-the-specialization new prep; and various other things.

But the fact of the matter is that I've just been lazy.

I've been more likely in the down time I have to watch old episodes of The twilight zone on YouTube or play online chess. On the latter, I'm about to give up, because I'm getting frustrated at how pathetically bad I am at it. I cannot seem to improve my play there, so I'm going to quit for a while.

The unfortunate thing about my inattention to the blog as of late is that I missed the opportunity to post about the centennial of the Church of the Nazarene on the date it was being celebrated. I even had in mind the proper title for the post: "Happy birthday, church" or something similiarly corny. Perhaps it's better that I didn't do that because I wouldn't have been happy with the bad line.

In any event, I intend to do better in the coming months about staying up with the blog, and also to spend less time wasting time. I recognize in all of this that there are some philosophical assumptions under which I am operating about time and responsibilities, but I don't have time (haha) to explore those right now. In a little less than an hour, I'm headed off to the US Embassy in Manila to cast my vote in the presidential election. And, as Forrest Gump put it so eloquently, "That's all I have to say about that." I generally detest talking about politics, so I'm glad it's somewhat expected that I don't talk about politics during this assignment. Normally, professors would be very interested and involved making political statements. But this professor bucks that trend, and even if it weren't in my contract to avoid discussing political matters, I would, because I just hate talking about it.

I'd much rather lose at online chess.