Life Post: Portfolio and More Snow

Today has mostly been a typical Monday with the reluctance to get up and go to class. However, I did turn in my portfolio today and sign up for an interview, so I'm feeling pretty good. I have so much less stress now, even though I know I have the interview to worry about. It's as if my workload as halved, even though that's actually not the case at all. I'd had the portfolio done for a while, but just having it sitting around to be put together was adding to my stress.

It's started to get colder again, and there were large patches of ice on the sidewalk when I was walking around campus. We're apparently supposed to get a good deal of snow Tuesday night and Wednesday. My professor's worried about it enough that she's already decided we're not having class Wednesday. I'm hoping we don't actually get as much as they're saying. I'm completely over snow. We haven't even seen the grass here on campus since this semester started. As soon as the stuff we have starts to melt, more comes. Plus, I already fell once. I don't need it to get slippery again.

I still have a good deal of homework to do today, so I really need to go do that. I've spent all my time since I got out of class writing, which is great and all but not homework. It shouldn't take me that long to get everything done though. At least, I hope not.

Life Post: My Sunday Spent Not Watching the Super Bowl

Well, it's Super Bowl Sunday, and I think the game just started. I don't really know since I'm not watching it, but that's what I gather from Twitter. Sometimes I feel like the only person who's never really done anything during the Super Bowl. Other people all have parties and stuff, but my family never really did. Plus, I don't care about football at all, so I've never been interested. I don't even care about the commercials, and I really have no idea why other people do.

Anyway, I've been writing and doing homework for most of the day, and I still have to work on a paper as well as write more on a non-school related thing. I'm pretty tired since I didn't sleep well this weekend at all. Hopefully that won't transfer over into the school week.

We're apparently supposed to get some pretty bad weather again this week, so maybe classes will get canceled. I'm not really betting on it, but it seems like it's a possibility. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Book Review: Why Catholicism Matters by William Donahue

ISBN: 0307885356
Published: May 29th, 2012
Publisher: Image
Read from January 9th to 30th, 2014
Synopsis from publisher:

The most visible representative of the Catholic Church in the United States shows how the Church is far from being an ossified carry-over tradition from antiquity. Why Catholicism Matters celebrates the significant contribution the Church makes in many aspects of today's world and applies its wisdom to issues on a personal, national, and global scale.
In recent years the Catholic Church has gone through turbulent times with the uncovering of horrible abuse that persisted and could have been prevented by certain bishops for so many years. Yet the many positive aspects of what the Catholic Church teaches and practices are not being overlooked. William Donohue, the outspoken and highly visible president of the Catholic League, shows Church teachings remain the best guide to good living ever adopted. He reminds readers of the great wealth of charity and wisdom that exists in the Catholic tradition and explains hows its best attributes can be applies to solve many of the biggest problems society must confront today and in the future.

Review:

This book is an attempt to explain why the Catholic Church is significant and what it has done to affect the world positively over the years. This is a small part at the beginning that is focused on the Catholic Church's contributions in the past, and then the rest of the book is entirely focused on how the Church's values could affect today if more people followed them.

I wasn't entirely thrilled with this book. My biggest problem was that it was covering such a wide range of topics that each one could only be focused on for a couple of pages or so. There were countless times over the course of the book where I didn't think the author was making a good argument at all. If there had been more space to flesh out his arguments better, then that wouldn't have been so bad. I know that this book is supposed to be more of a quick overview then anything, but it's also written as if it's trying to convince people to believe in Catholic values. I don't think it'll be convincing anyone of anything because the arguments aren't convincing enough. If someone who is already Catholic reads this, then they'll probably already agree with the author of course, so that's not a problem. However, I don't think the book is really useful in this way. It seems to want to convince people of something, and it's just not successful at doing that.

One good thing about the book is that it quote a lot of sources, so if someone really wanted, they could go to those books for more extensive looks at each topic. I just don't think someone's going to do that if they weren't convinced at least a little by the argument in the book.

I was also a bit put off by the beginning of the book, as it seemed a little arrogant. The author seems to want to attribute every single advancement in modern times on the Catholic Church. Now, believe me, I know how influential the Church was, and I'm not denying that it did contribute to a lot of the things the author mentions. However, the author gives off a very arrogant attitude about it in my mind, and I was just a bit put off by it. It most definitely gives off the impression that western culture (not just Christianity as a religion, but the entire western culture) is better than other cultures, and that goes so far as implying that western art is superior to art from other cultures.

Overall, I probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. It's not a horrible book. It's easy to read and it introduces arguments to a variety of topics. The problem is that I don't see it convincing anyone of anything, and those who are already Catholic really don't need this book. I just don't know of anyone who would be a good audience for this book.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Life Post: Lots of Writing

It's been a somewhat long day between the homework and the writing I've been doing. Since I don't get to write much at all during the week, I've begun spending the majority of my weekend doing it instead. I love writing, but it does kind of make it feel like I'm not getting any breaks at all. I've been at it pretty much all day except a few breaks. I still have a bit of homework as well, but it should be too hard to get through that.

Mostly I'm just enjoying having my portfolio done. It's so nice not to be stressing over that anymore. I can't wait to turn it in on Monday and be officially finished with it.

The weather was so nice today, even though it was wet and rainy. It was the first time in days that it was above freezing, and if it hadn't been raining, I would have wanted to stay outside all day. I don't think it's supposed to be like this for long, so I want to enjoy it while it lasts.

Hopefully tomorrow's relaxing, even with the writing I plan to do. I think it'll be a pretty good day over all.

HIMYM Review: Season 9 Episode 16: "How Your Mother Met Me"

This episode was absolutely incredible. It was definitely a great reminder of some of the things I love about this show. It was such a sweet episode, and I loved getting to see more of the mother. I think it was fitting that they did all of this for the 200th episode.

We've gotten a few pieces of information about the mother over the years, but it was nice to see all of that brought back. We got more information to fill out her story, and I think that's really nice. They could have gotten away without telling what she'd been up to, but they did it anyway (granted it was squeezed into just one episode). I loved seeing all the points where her and Ted's stories have met over the years, even though they didn't meet. It really helped flesh out a lot of things, and it was nice to have a reminder of all these hints we've had through the seasons.

I think this episode really helped show even more that Ted and the mother are meant for each other, which was more or less the point of the episode. If you didn't want them together before, then I'm sure you do now. There's not a doubt in my mind that they would be an absolutely adorable couple.

The end of the episode with the mother singing and Ted overhearing was the sweetest thing. I absolutely loved that. It was so cute, and I may or may not have had tears in my eyes. I'm really looking forward to finally seeing them meet. We're getting closer to the wedding now, and I'm extremely excited to see what happens!