"I lost my self-respect at Wes' rib house"

So, here's my splurge of updating.

Six weeks since my last update, and this is probably the most succint representation of my experience that I can come up with:



Hah, but anywho, I survived my first round of tests.

I was very, very pleased; and as soon as it was over, another round of studying began for the final, hah. I really had it easy in undergrad; studying was a rare event for me, and reserved only for a few classes. Long gone are those days.

The medical school experience has been great so far; we have this course component called PBL that I really enjoy due in part to the majority of my small groupmates being pretty cool, but also relating to the fact that it involves a lot of clinical application and problem solving.

It's just been great, great, great.

Outside of school, everything has been great, too. I've somehow managed a little time each day to keep up with my ethics/philosophy/Catholic theology interests, so that's been able to keep my mind at least partially occupied by things other than science.

And things with the girlfriend are wonderful. She's coming in this weekend to visit, so I'm definitely looking forward to spending a little quality time with her.

With that, I'm off. I feel like such an old man... I actually have a need for sleep now. It ain't right.

Just starting my first week of medical school. First classes today were awesome! I would update much more than this, but I can't. Off to studying.

I will be sure to update this weekend after all the festivities are done with, hah.

Sunday BBQ's are absolutely fantastic

Mr. Mark Shea most likely does not read my journal, but I stumbled upon this gem from his own blog, and figured it'd be a good excerpt to share:

Any one who likes, therefore, may call my belief in God merely mystical; the phrase is not worth fighting about. But my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all; I believe in them upon human evidences as I do in the discovery of America. Upon this point there is a simple logical fact that only requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism -- the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist.

It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence -- it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is -- that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

He may say that there has been in many miraculous stories a notion of spiritual preparation and acceptance: in short, that the miracle could only come to him who believed in it. It may be so, and if it is so how are we to test it? If we are inquiring whether certain results follow faith, it is useless to repeat wearily that (if they happen) they do follow faith. If faith is one of the conditions, those without faith have a most healthy right to laugh. But they have no right to judge. Being a believer may be, if you like, as bad as being drunk; still if we were extracting psychological facts from drunkards, it would be absurd to be always taunting them with having been drunk. Suppose we were investigating whether angry men really saw a red mist before their eyes. Suppose sixty excellent householders swore that when angry they had seen this crimson cloud: surely it would be absurd to answer "Oh, but you admit you were angry at the time." They might reasonably rejoin (in a stentorian chorus), "How the blazes could we discover, without being angry, whether angry people see red?" So the saints and ascetics might rationally reply, "Suppose that the question is whether believers can see visions -- even then, if you are interested in visions it is no point to object to believers." You are still arguing in a circle -- in that old mad circle with which this book began.

- An excerpt from Chapter IX: Authority and the Adventurer, from Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton

As it so happens, this book is next in line to be read from Chesterton's works.

Very good stuff.

Things are going fairly well as of late! Medical school is not far off, and I move in to my apartment within the next several weeks. More to come.

Solid food, O how I miss thee!

As promised, here is your dose of G.K. Chesterton for the week in "Science and the Savages", from Heretics.

Everything is going fairly well. I am currently incapable of speech due to my widsom teeth being extracted. Oh goodness, it smarts - but I'll be fine, thankfully. I'm looking forward to being able to workout on Monday.

Only a few more months till medical school begins; I'm excited. Already found an apartment, and I'm soon planning on going to Wal Mart to pick up Rubbermaid boxes to start packing stuff in to. It's a big change... but it's all for the best, I know it.

Chesterton on Logic

Logic and truth, as a matter of fact, have very little to do with each other. Logic is concerned merely with the fidelity and accuracy with which a certain process is performed, a process which can be performed with any materials, with any assumption.

You can be as logical about griffins and basilisks as about sheep and pigs. On the assumption that a man has two ears, it is good logic that three men have six ears, but on the assumption that a man has four ears, it is equally good logic that three men have twelve. And the power of seeing how many ears the average man, as a fact, possesses, the power of counting a gentleman's ears accurately and without mathematical confusion, is not a logical thing but a primary and direct experience, like a physical sense, like a religious vision.

The power of counting ears may be limited by a blow on the head; it may be disturbed and even augmented by two bottles of champagne; but it cannot be affected by argument. Logic has again and again been expended, and expended most brilliantly and effectively, on things that do not exist at all. There is far more logic, more sustained consistency of the mind, in the science of heraldry than in the science of biology. There is more logic in Alice in Wonderland than in the Statute Book or the Blue Books. The relations of logic to truth depend, then, not upon its perfection as logic, but upon certain pre-logical faculties and certain pre-logical discoveries, upon the possession of those faculties, upon the power of making those discoveries.

If a man starts with certain assumptions, he may be a good logician and a good citizen, a wise man, a successful figure. If he starts with certain other assumptions, he may be an equally good logician and a bankrupt, a criminal, a raving lunatic. Logic, then, is not necessarily an instrument for finding truth; on the contrary, truth is necessarily an instrument for using logic - for using it, that is, for the discovery of further truth and for the profit of humanity. Briefly, you can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

- Gilber Keith Chesterton, Daily News, Feb 25, 1905

It may be littler wonder that this man is my favorite author. You should read him going on about the mysterious nature of existence; very beautiful stuff, with a good dose of humor.

In fact, that's what I'm going to do from now on. I'm going to post an excerpt from G. K. Chesterton every once in a while - I know you'll enjoy it, haha.

Everything is just... great.

So, now that I have a little more time to actually write...

Life has been excellent. I've been going to the gym every week day (I have made a firm resolution to obtain a "six pack" before medical school starts in August, haha), hanging out with my buddies nearly every day, swimming, and all that good stuff.

I actually got to go to the beach this past weekend, which was really great. Little foam ice chest full of beer along with some good friends will get you a long way in a little time.

I'm starting to see things differently now in life. It really intensified after I was confirmed (I honestly consider it a milestone in my life), and it has been growing since then. As my parish priest likes to say, I feel as if though I'm becoming more "in tune with the Holy Spirit at work in the mystery of [my] life".

It's a good feeling. I feel more appreciative of the things I have and less wanting of the things I don't need; I feel like I'm growing in a good direction. I think I'm finally starting to see things as they are, and I can only pray that it continues in such a way. Of course, I've got a lot of work to do and am far from perfect... but I'll keep trying.

Changing gears a bit, I just finished reading How to Study in Medical School by Armin Kamyab, M.D. What an excellent book! Not even joking. For those who don't know me personally, I became ridiculously lazy after my acceptance letter came in. Now, determined to rock my courses and USMLE exams, I have decided to prepare myself mentally for the tribulation that lies ahead, haha, and this book has been very informative.

It'll all be fine. I know it. I just have to keep on keepin' on.

But alright, I'm off for now. God bless, and have a wonderful [insert period of time until I next update].

Summer time, baby.

I am now proudly confirmed in the Catholic Church and have received my Bachelors of Science in Chemistry and minor in Biology.

Drinks were had. Many of them.