impleri

My girlfriend left Monday, rather unfortunately… We did go to the French Quarter and walked around from Jackson Square, around the French Market, down to Bourbon, up Bourbon to Canal, then back over to Jackson Square. We even stopped at one of the many daquiri shops on Bourbon and bought one. She was surprised that it is legal to walk down the street with open alcohol. So, we did We also ate po' boys over at Mother's (their Ferdi Special is the best: roast beef, turkey, ham, gravy, dressed…mmmmm!) Oh, by the way, in New Orleans, “dressed” means lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, pickles, onion.
On Saturday, we went uptown to the Garden District and played around Audubon Park. We brought food (from Whole Foods) and had ourselves a little picnic…just the two of us. Afterwards, we went home and dressed up for dinner at Tony Angelo's. They have this “Feed Me” special for $25…it's 6 courses and very filling. Their Eggplants Maria (iirc) was excellent. So was their Lobster Cup.
On Sunday, we went to church, then over to my aunt's for a litle get-together. Mandie met my oldest aunt (who is very nice) and her daughter. She also met my “crazy” aunt (the one that believes in all those “X-Files” government conspiracies…on steroids). My uncle (and his family) showed up towards the end of the day. We then ran over (around the corner…literally) to my grandmother's house where Mandie discovered that my grandmother is a “typical grandmother.” When we returned home that evening, her dad's friend came by, picked us up, and took us over to Rivertown. We stared at the Mississippi River for a long while, then walked around the block (to see all the closed shops). We then went out for beignets and cafe au lait over at Cafe du Monde.
Our night was really nice and relaxing. On Monday, we went out to eat with my mother and had some sushi over at Sake Cafe. Pretty nice, except for the two kids started getting fussy at the end. Eventually on Monday, i had to bring her to the airport and see her leave Aside from missing each other, we have “adjusted” back to our regular lives. i've returned to working on my thesis (hopefully will finish it this weekend) and my website. Also, my dad has decided to give me a car that has been sitting around in his yard for the last three months as mine will cost too much to fix it. And, that's it for now…Till next time!

It's been really busy the last two weeks. i have the rough draft of my thesis due this week (Friday)…it needs to be 20 pages long. If you want to know what a Philosophy major does for a paper, let me tell you. Since August, i have read about 20 books from really long-winded authors (ranging from Duns Scotus to Kant to Kierkegaard to Nietzsche), each around 300-400 pages long (with the exception of Kierkegaard's Either/Or which was 650 pages long). Out of those 20 books, i found five books that were of use to my paper. Last night, i would up printing eight papers from journals that totalled about 150 pages. i read all of those today. Of them, i found five that were useful. All of these useful books and papers have been put to the side as i begin writing about the history of this particular field (Ethics, Free Will, Omniscience, and Determinism), starting with Augustine's original ideas and ending with the contemporary works of Plantinga, Marilyn Adams, Hick, Pike, and a few others. Then, i work out the progression of my argument which begins with the assumption that the Judeo-Christian idea of God (Yahweh) exists and has some set of “rights” and “wrongs”. This leads to the necessity of human ethics, which then requires a free will (or at least non-fatalism). This leads to the problem of Omniscience and Free will (where i will dive into all of those different theories: Molinism, Presentism, Atemporal Eternalism, Self-determinism, Self-limited Omniscience (and a few other -isms).
Then, this leads to the notion of foretelling prophecies found in the Bible (which will be assumed as true) and its relation to Omnipotence. Finally, somewhere in there, i will discuss De Re knowledge (e.g.: Smith knows Jones well, therefore Smith knows what Jones will do in the future) and De Dicto knowledge (e.g.: Smith knows everything, but he does not know Jones personally, therefore Smith knows what Jones will do in the future).
So, that's my 20 page thesis. Along with that, i have six two-page essays due Thursday for my midterm in Aesthetics. Popular questions:”According to Hume, what is beauty? In relation to subject tastes and objective aesthetic judgements, what is the main problem Hume addresses? What is his solution to the problem? Make sure you explain what he means by 'delicacy of imaginiation.' Do you agree with his solution? Explain why or why not,” and similar questions about Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Nietzsche, Bell, and Collingwood (yes, that's 9 choices for the 6 i have to write).
And, this week is midterms. i have my Religions of the East on Wednesday, Biology on Monday, and German on Thursday (i think).
But none of that compares to the great thing happening just 48 hours from now: My girlfriend comes in! Yay! We've got a week of New Orleans-style adventure (minus most of the alcohol) and a party or two here and there. It'll be the best part of my week.
Can't wait to have my car back. My stepdad just informed me that he “has” to leave at the buttcrack of dawn to go to work tomorrow (he teaches only on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and because i am out of a car, i have no other way of getting to school. Of course, because i skip classes sometimes, it'd be no problem for me to skip classes the days after Fall Break (like the professors won't be doing anything “special” for that day).