i was walking on the mound in the city centre of edinburgh a few months ago, must have been a nice day, cuz i was wearing my macalester rugby sweatshirt... a guy stopped me, with the question, "is that macalester in minnesota?" and the conversation led on to mentioning his friend who went to mac and now works for the mlb here in europe... he asked if i worked at starbucks, and after i denied that, he got on a bus and was off and away...
a while later, while sitting at my gramma's apartment, i remembered this conversation and googled this macalester alum's name and found his contact email and decided after zero rational thought to drop him a line, merely because of the UK/Mac connections... received an email a few days later and was told that a pint would be great and he'd be in town early february... he also told me his friend's name (who disappeared on the bus) and i facebooked him and found him too... i call it networking :)
early february it is, and last night i met up with tom and scott and miscellaneous friends of theirs at a pub after work for an extremely funny, comical, over the top, encouraging, and random night out... got to catch up on some chat about mac coaches and athletic staff, and the random conversations that occur between 7 men and one on-looking female.. :D
tom and i are planning on hosting a mac alumni event sometime in the spring for anyone in edinburgh or the general area i guess.. but it was a fantastic night (and i didn't buy a single drink!) and very good company...
i love random connections.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Friday, 1 February 2008
mead, thunder, and the curiosity of the octopus
i'm currently reading a book on the history of norse mythology and although its a spastic introdution to the norse gods and beliefs and it tries to make really vague corrolations to other cultures and modern issues and the like (which makes it difficult to follow and retain, even for my attention span), it is interesting and makes me think...
scandinavia was the area of europe that resisted christianity for the longest time, and held out until the 6th-7th century (keep in mind, i'm no historian so my dates will be broad)... even during the conversion period, there were a lot of compromises, it seems, to help ease this change along... the recognition of thor, odin, and other norse gods in coins, later-dated literature, prayers and rituals from sailors and leaders, as well as prayers, poetry, and worship of Jesus and the judeo-christian God... there was a mold found at an excavation site that had forms for both odin's hammer and Christ's cross, on the same plate... tradition is a difficult thing to smolder... i can see where thor and odin were retained due to their traditional direct integration of the harvest, the sea, and wisdom, whereas the christian God was now personal, although also creator and ruler over everything... but an interesting contrast... it annoys me when the author of this book continually makes parallels between norse legends and biblical accounts, such as people mourning over the death of their respective gods/Savior, that these coincidences are evidences of the merging of the beliefs... of course their is mourning in both: they were both sacrifices and resulted in death, most mourn when that happens to someone they love... but my lil' rant aside...
it also makes me wonder when religion becomes mythology... it seems that conversion to Christianity is often recorded, insinuating that there was a belief to convert from... it seems very natural for people to belief in something unseen, greater than themselves, controlling the uncontrollable... but there's something about Christianity, and a few other major religions, that have stood the test of time in the last ~2000 years and they haven't become mythology, as much as post-modern thinking would almost prefer... we have science and reason and logic to explain the world: we have microscopic signatures in our DNA that link us to monkeys and fungi, we have explored space beyond our moon, we have history to tell us that human rights should and do exist... but we still don't know what lives in the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, how maned sloths find one another and reproduce, and exactly what drives this thing called love...
tangents... i can't explain it all, i've always been one for questions and i have the tendency to forget the answers, if they are there... but if i've gathered anything from this reading on mythology, it serves as a testament to the human nature of soul-seeking and the exploitation of beliefs to justify inhumanity...
but more on that later...
scandinavia was the area of europe that resisted christianity for the longest time, and held out until the 6th-7th century (keep in mind, i'm no historian so my dates will be broad)... even during the conversion period, there were a lot of compromises, it seems, to help ease this change along... the recognition of thor, odin, and other norse gods in coins, later-dated literature, prayers and rituals from sailors and leaders, as well as prayers, poetry, and worship of Jesus and the judeo-christian God... there was a mold found at an excavation site that had forms for both odin's hammer and Christ's cross, on the same plate... tradition is a difficult thing to smolder... i can see where thor and odin were retained due to their traditional direct integration of the harvest, the sea, and wisdom, whereas the christian God was now personal, although also creator and ruler over everything... but an interesting contrast... it annoys me when the author of this book continually makes parallels between norse legends and biblical accounts, such as people mourning over the death of their respective gods/Savior, that these coincidences are evidences of the merging of the beliefs... of course their is mourning in both: they were both sacrifices and resulted in death, most mourn when that happens to someone they love... but my lil' rant aside...
it also makes me wonder when religion becomes mythology... it seems that conversion to Christianity is often recorded, insinuating that there was a belief to convert from... it seems very natural for people to belief in something unseen, greater than themselves, controlling the uncontrollable... but there's something about Christianity, and a few other major religions, that have stood the test of time in the last ~2000 years and they haven't become mythology, as much as post-modern thinking would almost prefer... we have science and reason and logic to explain the world: we have microscopic signatures in our DNA that link us to monkeys and fungi, we have explored space beyond our moon, we have history to tell us that human rights should and do exist... but we still don't know what lives in the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, how maned sloths find one another and reproduce, and exactly what drives this thing called love...
tangents... i can't explain it all, i've always been one for questions and i have the tendency to forget the answers, if they are there... but if i've gathered anything from this reading on mythology, it serves as a testament to the human nature of soul-seeking and the exploitation of beliefs to justify inhumanity...
but more on that later...
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