how do you like them apples? (Good Will Hunting)

I made the switch to the dark side. I now own a Mac. I just couldn't deal with my laptop any longer -- it took too long to boot. However, I am blogging from my PC. Umm...I'm a little scared to really use the Mac. Woes. And most of my activities will still be from my PC until I master the Mac. I'm also a little stingy about investing time and energy learning a whole new platform. Just not in the mood right now.

I actually had a lot of deep stuff to talk about but I'm feeling a little lazy after having listened to the Mac store employee yap for an hour to me about the beauty that is the Mac. Even though I said yap...I actually appreciated how much he tried to deliver great customer service. While I can be cheap about certain things like free lunches and current & free textbooks (refer to previous entry), when someone really tries to deliver good service, I pay ... as in, I nod my head to those additional things they are trying to sell me. I have what Koreans call "thin ears." It might be the professional student side of me...where I tolerate people taking (wasting) my time if they're really trying to teach me something. I am a professional listener. I also think my one year at PwC taught me more about the importance of client service than anything else (i.e., how to be a good auditor).

Daylight savings suck. However, I woke up early enough to make it to church (this sounds like a bad thing...huh?). As in, I woke up 10 minutes before service. I had a cosmic debate with myself about the legitimacy of skipping church today since I had only woken up ten minutes prior to the start of the service and I would be not presentable for church. However, I remembered the thought I had last week. Last week, my mom and I went to church to attend the 11:11 service -- however, because U-Mich was still on break, there was apparently only one service...the 9:30 service. The relief I felt after having 1) tried to go to church; 2) stepped into the building of the church; 3) finding that there was no service to attend (out of my control) ... was definitely illegitimate but so clearly present. I confessed to my mother the state of my heart and she agreed about the feeling of relief except she added that this kind of heart was exactly what God doesn't want from me. He wants a heart of worship not mere sacrifices. I get that. On the other hand, I also believe that sometimes doing the motion/drill is very important. Even when my heart isn't quite there...sometimes forcing my body to be there is a signal I am sending to my heart to speed up-- and sync with my physical body!

In The Screwtape Letters the eponymous devil tells his nephew Wormwood that “One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray ‘with moving lips and bended knees’ but merely ‘composed his spirit to love’ and indulged a ‘sense of supplication.’” He continues: “That is EXACTLY the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence, as practiced by those who are far advanced in the Enemy's service, clever and lazy ‘patients’ can be taken in by it for quite a long time.” Coleridge should have realised that the kneeling is one of the prayer’s formal, structural concerns. His act is judged unfitting by that physical standard. The combination of the physical and the verbal by which communion occurs (that becoming part of God) functions in such a way that it reminds the worshipper that the physicality itself is part of the word.

Now, I must go to an APALSA eboard meeting, learn Partnership Tax, and learn how to use an apple (computer).