Archive for November, 2004

The True Meaning of Christmas

Posted by on Tuesday, 23 November, 2004

Last weekend I worked at a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at a mall in Temecula. (Yeah, I know, it’s November.) As we were tearing down, many folks felt no particular need to avoid walking through an area where people were tearing stuff down, and frequently asked what had the event had been. I was never actually questioned by one, by I became filled with what I can only describe as the sick and twisted desire to explain to a poor child exactly what was going on here.

You see, this mall put on quite an elaborate production climaxing with the arrival of Santa Claus, so that parents would come to the mall and spend money in all the lovely businesses that were good enough to host this event. Someone even told me once that Santa Claus himself is an invention of the Coca-Cola company (a claim which I personally think is nonsense, but I never looked into it.) Regardless, the children do get the opportunity to tell Santa whatever they want for Christmas with the expectation that they will magically receive it, promoting consumerism as early as kids are old enough to understand it.

Why do we do this? As it turns out, this is all in celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Ah, but there’s more. Back in Roman times, Christianity was not the only game in town offering a savior god. When a certain Roman Emperor (Constantine?) converted to Christianity, it is my understanding that entrepreneuring Christians simply decided that December 25th, the birthday of his favorite savior-god Mithras, was actually the birthday of Jesus.

So, when was Jesus born? Well, I would be suspicious of any answer to this question other than “The Bible doesn’t say.” Is this important? I don’t know, do you think it would bother Martin Luther King that we always celebrate his birthday on a Monday, regardless of when it actually occurs? Or would he be honored that we celebrate it at all?

Don’t Look Back

Posted by on Thursday, 18 November, 2004

A few nights ago I had a dream. It was at my uncle’s house, or at least, some dream-house that supposedly belonged to my (maternal) uncle. All of my cousins were there, including my cousin with her baby (small child?) that I have never seen, and another cousin who (in the dream) had just been released from prison. My parents were there, with my mother cancer-free. Then my grandparents arrived. I don’t know if my grandfather leaves the nursing home much in real life, but in my dream he never did, so this was a momentous occasion. He did not actually know who I was without some prompting, but that is not unusual. He did however, recognize my sister as his “#1 Granddaughter,” and he was so delighted to see everyone gathered together, I was moved to tears, which I naturally tried to hide, while the ending of “If You Leave” by OMD kept playing through my head.

Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Oh oh oh …If you leave…

Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Oh oh oh …If you leave…

Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Ho oh oh, Oh oh oh …Don’t look back!

A note regarding the longevity of relative suckitude

Posted by on Thursday, 11 November, 2004

This week kinda sucked. But it was short.

Out of this World

Posted by on Monday, 8 November, 2004

So, I haven’t posted for awhile and I owe emails to several people. Either nothing interesting is going on or so much interesting stuff is happening that I don’t have the time to talk about it. Which do you think?

A student died of an “apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound” in the engineering building last week. That’s not the most significant bit news I could be sharing right now. In fact, it hardly affects me at all. I mean he was a mechanical engineering major, I’m in electrical engineering. Never even met the guy. Don’t even go to that wing of the building. Doesn’t effect my schedule any. Wouldn’t even have known about if I hadn’t just happened to check my school email account, which I rarely do anyway. La merde se produit, n’est pas?

Does something seem a little off here?