Still Flyin'

So, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, just been busy scratching out a little niche for myself back in nyc and working hard to get everything settled and achieve a comfortable routine. There have been a lot of changes already. First, I'm living in a place that actually resembles an apartment: wood floors, bathroom, kitchen. After a good deal of furniture rearrangement, it's livable and rather handsome. Second, I'm trying to get a job doing IT on campus, and it's required me for the first time to compile a resume, which I sent off today in the hopes of attaining employment. Skills will be learned, pay will be 1.5x what I made at the library. Fingers crossed on that one. Third, my classes this semester all appear to be excellent, especially the international politics class I got into through some divine providence. It looks to be one of the best classes I've ever taken, and may lead to some greater ambition for me down the road. Who knows? Aside from that, I'll be spending all of my free time reading. About China. They are coming.

Gah, what else is there to say? I found a green crayon the other night. It struck me as portentious, but then again it could just be a crayon. Like so many things in our life, I could assign abstract meaning to it, make it more than just a crayon. Someone asked me once in regard to my argument that my beliefs and emotions can be rationally explained, "Is there any rational explanation for feeling bad about kicking a puppy?". I had to think about it. I probably wouldn't have to worry about retribution at all, and it's not as if the action has greater rammifications. But why would I inflict pain on another creature? Is inflicting pain arbitrarily an absolutely negative act? Does my repulsion at someone kicking a puppy stem from the recognition of that fact? Another hypothesis I heard was that I could feel some sort of empathy with the puppy, that I only felt bad for the puppy because I know what that kind of pain feels like. There are a great deal of other tangents from this discussion that got thrown around over beer last night, and I'll probably return to them later. For now, I'm tired.

Hope everyone is well.