Good Deed!

Little PSA here... Our troops are in desperate need for e-mail storage space. Many of our men and women overseas use either hotmail or yahoo accounts to keep in touch with friends and family back home, and as we all know neither of those services offers much storage for pictures etc.... Well google has started an e-mail service called Gmail, which offers 1 gig of storage space! Currently it is by invitation only. So please, if you get an invitation sign up! After signing up you will be offered invitations to pass on, at which time you can visit http://www.gmail4troops.com/ This website allows you to donate your gmail invites to the troops stationed over seas. It's a great site, and a great thing to do for the troops risking their lives. Thanks!

A Day for Humour (or humor or whatever....)

First, I had the second U/S, and A looks great! They were able to get a good shot of his spine and it looks normal. See I'm not just fat, there is a baby in there :D In other news, the need for laughter (because I've given up spelling humour) is because my darling son is in his full contrary 3 year old glory :/ His room is now carpeted in kleenex. He stole my brand new box (of course brand new, it wouldn't be any fun if there wasn't a magnitude of destruction!!) and proceeded to pull every last one out and throw em all over his room. Now he won't pick them up because they are 'pretty' sigh.... And soon there will be two....Boys are fun :D

Now I've debated posting this, but it's bothering me, it's my blog and if you don't like it don't read it... I have never seen a bunch of grown people act like immature 12 year olds than I have today. Good lord. Oh no, someone said they didn't like someone! Let's lynch her!! I'm sure everyone out there likes everybody all the time. (hint that was sarcasm) I'm also sure that if anyone had the bad taste to disagree with or dislike someone they would *never* say so (yet again sarcasm) Grow the frig up people.

**Edited to Add** I think I'm going to track down the guy who invented ice cream trucks and that annoying repeated music and hurt him. Severely....

Woo Hoo!!! (Philosophy)

I love Descartes!!! Or maybe it's just after the sheer incomprehensible wordiness of Aristotle I'm relieved I actually understand something I've been reading =) Anyway I just read Descarts 1st meditation, and here are some thought that popped up:

1. pg. 461 second column 1st paragraph: "For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three make five, and a square does not have more than four sides. It does not seem possible that such obvious truths should be subject to the suspicion of being false." Yet, the best lies are based on the truth, and are also very simple. Is this assumption logically sound?

2. pg. 461 second column, 1st full paragraph (this entire paragraph is applicable, but for the sake of brevity I'll quote only a small part): "But perhaps God has not willed that I be deceived in this way, for he is said to be supremely good. Nonetheless, if it were repugnant to his goodness to have created me such that I be deceived all the time, it would also seem foreign to that same goodness to permit me to be deceived even occasionally." Yet how is there proof of the existence of a God? Futhermore, how can you prove that is there is a God he is benevolent? The records of God are provided by man (the bible, while supposedly handed down by God, was transcribed by man), and according to these very same records man is inherently flawed! (Descartes later shows that to make this assumption was false, so far anyway =) )

3. It is like the writers of the Matrix series stole Descartes' meditation!! I also find it kind of funny to look back at my first 'philosophical musings' in light of this reading. (See entries titled Random thoughts and Random Thoughts Part II dated 6/15) Apparently, I had an affinitly with Descartes and didn't know it =)

A-HA!!! (Philosophy)

Before I get started, for those of you interested I have added my Philosophy teachers blog to the links on the right (Subject to Change) If you check it out, look for the post on Comic Books, good stuff there.

Now on to my a-ha moment :) While in class tonight, I had a true a-ha! Philosophy is the religon (sp?) of the athiest. Stick with me here... The ancient Greeks invented the 'myths' as a way to explain the world around them. Their religon provided explainations for why the seasons changed (Persephone), why there was thunder (Zues), for wars, for love, for hate etc etc etc. As human beings, we feel a need to have an explaination for the world around us. For some, religon does not fill that void. It doesn't make sense to some people that things happen because the God's willed it, or a tree is there because God put the tree there. Thusly, in order to compartmentalize the world into understandable sections, Philosophy is born. Take the four causes of Aristotle...While very very general, they offer a convenient way to neatly package the world around us. A tree's material cause is wood (or earth if you prefer), it's formal cause is to reproduce itself (or again to take another view to synthesize carbon dioxide into oxygen for the purpose of providing things with air), its efficient cause is from a seed falling on the ground or someone planting a seed, and it's final cause could be shade or reproduction or providing lumber. Because of the four causes you are able to package the world of why. In my opinion, as humans we need to know why. It almost seems built in. For example my son, who just turned three has hit the why phase (oh please let it be a phase!) For everything I tell him, his reply is why. From what I understand every child does this. So it seems that it is built into us to have a need to understand the world around us, to have compartments that let us seperate information into to help make the world a more understandable place to be in. So in a way, Philosophy can be viewed as an evolution of religon. If I don't like the way religon (the most common form of explaining why) then I can turn to Philosophy to answer my why. This would also explain why my great books professor often used philosophy to explain literature. He said that in the classical world view, God was the reason for everything. When we turned to the modern view, and 'killed' the God figure, we had to find some other way to explain things. A-Ha!!

Why I *hate* the 4th of July

Ok, so I really don't hate the holiday in and of itself. As of now, it is 11:26PM. The city fireworks were over an hour ago. Yet the people in our neighborhood are *still* setting off fireworks. And not the little itty bitty ones either. Nooooooo that would be to easy. I have explosions going off that are so loud they are literally shaking the house. I don't live in a tiny house. I'd call the cops but they are so useless in this city. Last year we tried calling when people were still setting off the big ones at 1 am. We were told it was the 4th and there was nothing they could do. What a load of crap. Besides the fact that M-80's are extremely illegal, does this city not have noise ordinance laws? I miss living in a real city. Then again this is the same police force that said that we should just leave our car doors unlocked to the theives wouldn't have to break our windows, because it's probably just kids doing it. Lovely. I feel so safe. They'd probably tell me if I'm being raped to lay there, because it would be over quicker. The biggest reason it pisses me off is it's scaring the hell out of my son!! Now do I expect the city to ban all fireworks? No, of course not. I think the city shows are beautiful, and I enjoy them. They also end at a reasonable time. Bah. I swear, as soon as we can afford it we are so moving out of the city. Build our dream house on nice secluded acerage. With no fireworks!!! End my fussy mean spoil sport rant.

general news.

Well I'm now feeling the baby move more regularly, so I'm guessing the placenta is moving (it was smack dab in the front, and I wasn't feeling anything!) It's kind of funny to notice the differences in the boys so early. A seems very reticent. Very timid kicking, if you poke my belly he runs. B was very very...prominent. Every time someone dared to poke his 'home' he was very clear he didn't like it :) When I had to go in for non stress tests with him we would have to stay twice as long because he would kick the fetal monitors so hard they couldn't get a reading! Believe me, his personality has only gotten stonger since he's been born :) Lets hope A is my quiet little peaceful boy! DH is in the hospital again, luckily this time it seems minor. They tried diagnosing him with a stroke (again, you know I'd really like to know why they keep trying to say my 29 year old husband is having strokes...) but it turns out he has a ripped tendon in his leg. Yea stroke, ripped tendon, I can see the similarities. Granted I don't have a medical degree, but one would think that common sense does not dissapear when one is bestowed. Maybe I shouldn't get my doctorate after all. I kind of like having a semi functional brain. Good news, he should be home tonight. I think that's pretty much everything for now. Hope y'all have a great holiday.

What did I get out of the Meno (Philosophy)

Hmmmnn. What did I get out of the Meno? I realized I'm not a Philosophical genius :) All kidding aside, the point that jumps immediately to the forefront of my addled brain is that it is not knowledge that makes one wise. Wisdom is a product of your willingness to keep your mind open. For example, in the Meno Socrates leads Meno in various mind bending adventures on the subject of virtue. The selection is quite long (compared to most we have read) because while Meno doesn't immediately jump to the 'correct' conclusion (if there even is one) his mind is open to the different arguements that Socrates presents. On the other hand, when Anytus enters the picture, and refuses to acknowlede any view other than his own, Socrates shuts him down rather quickly. Another example of this can be drawn from the Euthypro. Euthypro has fixed in his head that he is doing the pious act. Nothing anyone (from Socrates to his family) says can shake him of this notion. I think his abrupt departure from the dialog also shows that he is uncomfortable and unwilling to explore a different thought pattern than that which is familiar and uncomfortable. As was brought up in the lecture on Euthypro, this makes this dialog a form of a tragedy. Nothing was learned, no knowledge was gained. In a way, the Euthypro dialog was nothing but a large circle, in which they ended up right where they started. In the Meno, while they didn't define virtue, they did make progress in the thought processes, and ruled out several things that virtue *was not*. As my stats professor pointed out in regards to hypothesis testing...You only need one difference to *disprove* something, hence our psychological tests are geared towards the disproving of the null hypothesis, instead of proving our research hypothesis. So in a way I guess the Meno has helped me realize that I am not dumb because I don't know the answers, but I have promise because I'm willing to think about the different arguements presented to me. Then again, if a wise man knows how much he does not know, I could be the next Einstien :)

Plato and Aristotle (Philosophy)

As I have been lax in my journaling duties (bad Bonnie bad!!) I'm going to cover several points in this entry.

Can Virtue Be Taught?

As a parent, I think so. I like to think that teaching virtue is a main component of my job. If you take the Socratic view of having to define virtue first, I might just be a failure at that job. I honestly have no earth shattering ideas about what virtue is. The off the cuff response would be virtue is the act of being a good person. Being kind, caring, honest. The obvious flaw in this definition is that these are all aspects of virtue, yet none of them define virtue as a whole. This leads into the next topic:

What is Piety?

Again, no earth shattering ideas here. I run into the same problem as with virtue. I can explain aspects of piety (or at least what *my* conceptualization of piety, which may be entirely different from the Greeks) I think the true tragedy of the Euthypro (the source of the piety discussion) is that it is my belief that Socrates couldn't use the discussion of piety to save himself. Even if he had come up with an answer, as we read in the Apology the combination of Socrates' own arrogance and the various levels of prosecution made it a foregone conclusion that he would be convicted. The main thing that I got out of Plato was that there are true forms of every concept surronding us. Love, hate, justice, piety etc all have a 'form' we percieve and a true form. The pursuit of knowledge, is the pursuit of the true form. It seemed that our discussions in class got caught up in the 'earthly' forms (our limited perception of the true forms) The question that I came up with is, is it possible to assertain the true nature of something by using pure logic? As a human being, is it possible to completely disregard our sensory input to gain the knowledge of the true form. I think as human beings, we are sensory creatures. Therefore to try and figure something out using pure logic, seems to be highly unlikely.

Is Philosophy Dangerous

In a word, yes. In Socrates' case, it was fatal. From my understanding, Philosophy is the art of learning to think in different ways. In and of itself this doesn't sound threatening. If you look at it from a purely practical standpoint, the study of Philosophy could get you so caught up in the what and whys behind everything that you cease to function as a productive member of society. In a class I took last semester (Great Books II) our teacher said the problem with introspection is that too much could lead to madness. Now in this case he was referring to self examination. For example, if you spend all your time focusing on yourself, and the different aspects of your personality, you can drive yourself mad. Humans as a whole are contradictory creatures. We love and we hate, we are nice and mean, we are tender and we hurt. Whether one admits it or not, we are all multiple personalities. The personality we show depends on who we are surrounded by. And if thinking about the contradictions inherent in being a human being can drive one mad, imagine contemplating the contradictions inherent in the universe!! Nature can be beautiful and ugly, peaceful and terrifying. Another reason that Philosophy strikes me as dangerous, is that it makes you question the status quo. Again I don't neccesarily think this is bad in and of itself. Yet as I pointed out in class, enough people think differently than the norm, the norm changes. This is very threatening to the people in 'power', and ultimately I believe this is why Socrates was put to death. The charge of corrupting the young was more the Athenian government's way of protecting the status quo of their society. (Kind of ironic when you realize that Aristotle's 'student' Alexander the Great was the one to destroy the Athenian democracy)

Aristotle

Honestly, I didn't understand one bit of the dialog until after class tonight. After the discussion, it made sense (mostly). The only thing that has 'popped' for me so far (hopefully the next readings wont be so hard to get through) is that it's interesting to see the beginnings of hypothesis testing. The fact that I'm currently taking a Quantitative Methods course, and just last night we went over how we set up our testing procedures, then tonight while discussing Aristotle's typical procedure for his treaties, the similarities are striking. To know that the beginnings of the scientific method were from Aristotle just amazes me!

Bored....

I am so bored. No particular reason, as I have plenty to do, I just don't wanna. (How's that for an example of maturity) I don't have anyting new to read for Philosophy, I'm avoiding my Quantitative Methods homework (even though the teacher is awesome, I don't think anyone can make math exciting) My husband thinks math's exciting, but he's a geek :) In fact he was bored this morning so he made me my very own message board (even though I told him I'd be using this blog for my class) Geek is really a broad term though. I consider myself a geek, it's just with books and reading and the internet in general. DH is a math and computer geek. My quantitative methods teacher is a self professed stats geek. I never really thought of it before but there are subdivisions of geek :) I wonder if there's an ultimate geek somewhere? The supreme geek to whom all must bow down to...

My baby turns three on Monday :( It seems like just yesterday I brought him home from the hospital. I miss my little baby boy! He's turning into a 'big boy' now. Doesn't want cuddles, always playing with his trucks. This boy sleeps with a metal truck. He still has little boy moments, they are just getting fewer and fewer. <> It was bound to happen :)

Short note...

I've changed my template, this one seems to be a little easier to read. My Philosophy teacher o.k'd the use of this blog for my project, so what I will do is start seperating my posts in the title, by putting philosophy in parenthesis. Hopefully this will make it easier for both my teacher (who I doubt wants to wade through my facinating pregnancy tales) and anyone else who happens to pop by :) Thanks for your patience in this experiment 'o mine!

Socrates.

While searching on line I found this site: http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm (sorry it's not clickable) I was actually trying to see if Socrates was the one who died by drinking hemlock, but this site looks like it has tons of useful information on Philosophy in general...

Meno by Plato

What is virtue? Honestly, I don't know. Much like Meno, I can come up with *examples* of a virtue, but I am unable to define it as a whole. It pisses me off :) On my way home from class tonight, I was thinking (dangerous, I know) that I think one of the points that Socrates is trying to make in this dialog is that the answer is not as important as the journey to the answer. It was pointed out that this dialog illustrates the Socratic method of teaching. What I was thinking is that Socrates (or more technically, Plato as he is the one who wrote this) places immense value on the *process* with which one comes up with an answer. This may in part be due to the fact that he believed that we don't learn things, we remember them. If that's true then none of my past selves ever took a math class. Overall, I did come to like the story. Specifically, Anytus was an interesting character. I think what made it truely interesting was his interaction with Socrates, knowing that Anytus would be the one to prosecute him.

U/S

baby looks good :) we have to go back in three weeks because the baby would only show us one side, and they want a good look at both sides of the spine, but she said that was just a precaution. Babe was very stubborn, crossed legs, even tried using a hand to cover the goods. With the help of a very patient U/S technician we were able to see that it's a BOY!!!!! I'm so thrilled!!

One last post!

Ok, last you'll hear from me today, I promise!! My big ultrasound is tomorrow, hopefully we will find out if the bean is a little boy or girl!! I had my first phone conversation with a TWBBer :) Awesome girl, we seem to have tons in common and we're both babblers!!

I had my first night of stats class tonight. It got off to a kind of rocky start. It said it was in Kent Hall, so I go there and the building is closed for construction!! So I go to the building next door, find nothing. In a last ditch effort, I have Will drive me around to the other side and find out they finally opened a new part. So after being late (I hope it didn't piss the teacher off), I got in on the lecture, and it was all pretty comprehensible. Luckily this teacher also seemed excited about his subject. I'll take an excited animated teacher any day! I think that's about it, I'll post an update on the ultrasound tomorrow if we find out anything.

Princess Bride

Courtesy of Prinn's blog (perle moon see side bar as I seem to be inept at inserting links into the text) I love this movie!!!!!!



Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

adding some more time wasters courtesy of Prinn :D

B	Brilliant
O	Old
N	Nerdy
N	Nice
I	Insane
E	Emotional

Name / Username:

Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com
**excuse me, but old?!?! Insane maybe, but definitely not old...

Random thoughts part two...

OK....It's kind of sad when you can tie yourself into mental knots... Anyway I was continuing to thing about perception vs. reality (can you tell this is bugging me). On a completely hypothetical tangent, how do we know we are real? I think therefore I am. Is that enough of a qualifier? How do I know I'm not a dream of a God figure sitting on some mountain top (think Zues) who is having a great 'ole belly laugh at this dream of his pondering reality.

I started reading Meno by Plato last night. I'm not too far into it, but from what I've gotten they are looking to define virtue. Is virtue simply one thing that can be a blanket term applied to everything? Is there one virtue that is more virtuous then any of the others? We were told to focus on the characters first. Honestly I don't think Meno isn't intelligent, probably because I can identify with with all of his points. I also get frustrated with circular arguements, which is what they seem to be having up until this point. Socrates...Maybe he was operating on a different plane of understanding than the rest of us mere mortals. I can understand how his arguements when broken down into shape and color, but when he jumps back to virtue, I'm right there with Meno. Hopefully this will clear up as I finish the story.

Random Thoughts.

I have figured out the problem with taking night classes. I go to class, come home, and my mind is buzzing so hard I can't shut it off!! So forgive me if this is rambling and disjointed folks, I'm a little tired here.

I had my first Philosophy class last night. Surprisingly, I think I'm going to like it! The teacher is *very* animated. I'm so glad, because it is always much more fun to sit through a 2 1/2 hour class with a teacher who is excited about his material. Now if I can manage to wrap my pregnant, hormone ridden brain around what he is saying I should enjoy it. I almost wish I had waited until I came back in the spring to take this class. As I have told both my husband and mother many times, pregnancy makes me dumb. This blog also might be changing it's face relatively soon. We are able to choose one of two options for grading in this class. The first is more traditional. You have a couple of papers, midterm, final. The second is by journaling. We can choose to do this by various means, one of which is blogging. The only drawback I can see to the second option is that it would constitute 75% of my grade. It makes me nervous to put 'all my eggs in one basket.' On the other hand, I would have plenty opportunity for feedback (blog being submitted weekly, many more chances for the teacher to tell me I'm screwing up!) Both my DH and my mom think I should choose the second option. I think it's because they both think I'm this tremendous writer waiting to burst out. I think they both are predispositioned to unwarrented flattery seeing as how one gave birth to me, and the other married me. I think I'm going to try it, just because I like my thoughts to be more free flowing, and I think this option will provide that. (let's hope the teacher doesn't have a problem with babbling :) ) If you don't want to read my thoughts on Philosophy, the class ends at the beginning of August. We'll be back to my regularly scheduled whining then! Then again this all might be hypothetical seeing as how I don't know if he will let me use an existing blog, or if he would like me to start a new one :) In any case I think I will muse for a little bit on something he wrote in his blog...

"There is a difference between appearence and reality." This statement is deceptively simple. Unfortunately for me I have the suspicion that a majority of Philosophy is deceptively simple. The teacher brought up an interesting point in class. If you stick something in water (he used the example of a spear) it looks bent. Obviously, it is not. When you stick your arm in water it does not bend. So there, appearance and reality are two totally different things. That could also be said about the internet. Many of us have blogged or discussed how much of the internet is real. For all you know, I could be a 400 lb trucker named Bubba who gets kicks out of pretending to be a 25 year old pregnant woman. I guess the point that gets me is how do I know what is reality and what is just appearance? Is reality subjective? For instance, the September 11th attacks. I was living in Michigan at the time, no where near them. I have only seen what happened on T.V. I didn't lose anyone I knew personally. I had family in the military that I feared for, but they are both fine. So are the attacks less 'real' for me, than someone that experienced them directly? Or for that matter, how do I know that they ever happened? Television is as bad as the internet in that it is so easy to just fall into believing everything you see without actually having proof (Don't get your shorts in a knot people, I do believe they happened, I do believe they were horrible. This is hypothetical.) Think about the movie Wag The Dog info here It would be completely possible to do this in the television age! Not saying it would be easy, but possible. So where is the line between appearance and reality, and who is to say that your reality is any more valid than mine. I don't think I have any of the answers yet. Of course I've only had one night of class :)

Hot...

I'm so hot....and not in a 'woo hoo look at that hot momma' way, more like 'ick look at that sweaty frumpy mess' way :) I never understood referring to pregnancy as having a bun in the oven until I was pregnant during the summer. After that I swore, the next baby I had, I would be pregnant in the winter. See how well that worked out? =) So my next 'absolute vow' is the next home we live in will have central air, it will also be kept at 65. If the others don't like it, they can wear sweaters!!! Not that I'm being overly dramatic or anything (no not me!!!)

Books

I meant to add yesterday (got sidetracked :) ) that my online book club started again!! Technically, not mine, but I belong to it. It got sidetracked for a while, lots of new babies being born. Guess that's a hazard of belonging to a bookclub centered on Mommies. We're reading Bouidica: Drawing Down The Eagle by Manda Scott. So far, I love it. Of course I love the history of that particular region, as well of stories of strong women. From what I've been able to find out, this is the first in a quartet of books. Only two have been released so far. Now if I can get DH to move the couch out so I can get to reading again, I'll find out if I want to read the others :) I have a bad habit of setting whatever I'm reading on the back of the couch, especially bad now as I'm not allowed to *move* the couch :P

In other book news, I'm sooooo excited. I found a book that I vaguely remembered reading when I was young (7 or 8) I loved the book then, and have no clue where it had gone to . I wasn't sure of the title or anything and I found it again!! It's called The Ordinary Princess. Very cute story, and I figure something that has managed to stick in my addled brain for this long, is something I should have around :)

Life or something like it....

DH is home! He's been home since last week, I just haven't been in a blogging mood. He was in a lot of pain for the first few days. Now he seems to be doing great! I haven't seen him take one of the mega pain pills he was perscribed and he's finally been able to eat something besides bread and broth! In baby news, 1 week 6 days till the big U/S. The appointment is at 7 in the morning, so I have to get up by five so I can drink a gallon of liquid of my choice and have it finished by an hour before the appointment. I think they do this as some kind of pregnant woman torture :) In super good news the AFP test came back 'completely negative' in the words of my nurse!! For those who aren't familiar with the test, it is the Alpha Fetal Protien test, used to find the odds of your baby having either downs syndrom or spina bifida (and possibly other things). With DS, the test came back with a high rate for Spina Bifida (where basically a section of the spine is not enclosed). It led to tons of stress, genetic counseling and an in depth U/S. And it was wrong :) DS is now a perfectly healthy (albeit honrey) almost three year old. My mom had her 50th birthday yesterday :) A part of me is kind of sad. The older she gets, the closer I am to loosing her. I know 50 isn't *old*, but she's not exactly healthy either... Smoking, drinking etc. I've tried to talk to her, but I'm in a somewhat akward position in that she is my mom. I've made it very clear I want my babies to know her, a chance I didn't get with my grandma. I for once am going to try and think positive!