September 8, 2014 - Philosophy on Tap

Last night Clare and I went on a walk with Ariana Kim, a girl who lives just down the hall from us.  It was interesting how she latched onto our group somehow - I'm not even sure, but I think Clare met her first and I know her secondhand through Maria Silva, so she just grabbed onto us at one point and we decided we were all going to go exploring in the big field behind the Kartause.

It took some trying, but we found the access road which we think leads up to some houses behind the Kartause and overlooks the city as well.  The sun was just setting and it was gorgeous.  I didn't get any pictures with people because Clare decided her phone is superior and I'm usually really awkward about asking people to take pictures, so you just get the fantastic scenery.

The Kartause grounds are actually pretty big.  They also encompass the small houses on the right side of the picture. It only recently struck me that Kartause is German for "Charterhouse" - I hadn't realized that before.

Our walk was really interesting - Ariana's more outgoing than I thought she was, and whenever we'd take a picture, she'd say, "We're such babes!" or "Oh yeah, girls!"  Man, every time I saw her around campus I thought she was seriously way serious and wouldn't ever dare say things like that.  Guess we were wrong.

Today was an interesting day - it was a Monday, so I ended up going to breakfast with my pants inside out somehow.  I hit up the gym and then went for a run, then came back and spent a nice quiet holy half-hour in the chapel adjoining the Kartause church.

The chapel is freaking gorgeous, and very small - it has a large stained glass window that sends yellow and red light in and turns everything a sort of gold; it's a little bit like the last scene in most Disney movies, very oil pastel style.  It's very beautiful and has a vaulted roof so any sounds you make in there are hugely amplified.  As a result, everyone is very quiet.

Being in there was a good way to start my day.  I think I'll go back Wednesday morning after I finish up with the gym and just try to make that a habit.

My debit card is still on the fritz so I have been holding onto my last 45 euro tooth and nail.  I'm not sure how we're going to end up planning our weekend.  It seems like everyone has already gotten groups together and are off to various destinations by method of telepathy - Clare and I never heard anyone assembling trips. So it looks like we might end up on our own for this first weekend, but I have no debit card to pay for a Vorteilskart (discount card) or for a hostel or for train tickets.

We are thinking about trying to find a hostel in Germany close to Bechtesgaden, where there is a large national park with gorgeous mountain and lake scenes.  However, we couldn't find any hostels in the area, so Maria (Kostyalova) suggested that we try getting one in Berlin and then travelling out there on one day just to see the park.  I'm so bad at planning things and we have so much school that I feel like if anything happens, it'll be very seat-of-the-pants.

So far I have received one invitation though.  David wants to show me the churches in Budapest where he actually lives, so he asked me if I'd come with him in October when he goes up there a second time (apparently it's all full up for this weekend when he's going with some other people).  I think that'll be fun, and I'm really relieved that I'll have solid plans and just focus on accomplishing that instead of worrying about other things.

Today was interesting - all of a sudden I felt like I actually had friends out of the blue, and it was so unexpected that I just don't know what to do with them.  I talked to this one random guy who waved at me yesterday, and in the laundry room he thanked me for doing a bunch of the guys' laundry.  I like to wash my clothes and towels pretty regularly so I've been going down there, and if I need to use a washing machine or a dryer whose cycle is done,I have to pull out the laundry of whoever just used it.

I feel bad about leaving clothes wet if they were in the washer, so I put them in the dryer.  And I feel bad if I take clothes out of the dryer and just dump them in a heap, so I've ended up folding more men's shirts and pants and pinching boxers by two fingers than I really wanted to be doing this semester.  This guy saw me doing it and told me that the dudes appreciate whoever's been processing and folding their laundry for them.  So that was cool.

In Metaphysics today I sat next to the twins, and they were really friendly - they laughed at a couple jokes I made to myself under my breath way more than the jokes warranted, and they offered me a drink of their grape energy drink.  (I'm glad I refused, because Christian got super hyper during class and started twitching weirdly and he told his brother he didn't feel so good.  I told them it wasn't a good idea....)

After that, Maria invited me to go to dinner with her, and Clare and I sat down at a table and people just started sitting down with us.  They weren't necessarily talking to us all the time, but it just felt so...  normal. It scared me.  After that we invited people to play cards, but we ended up getting our linens exchanged so there wasn't any time.  I think I'm so freaked out by how normal it was and how social I've been lately that I've started wondering if everyone secretly hates me and it's just a big joke to make me feel good for a little while.

Tonight everyone ended up going to a Philosophy on Tap session with the professors.  Tonight's topic of choice was "Can you photograph the sacred?"  It was really a fascinating discussion and I guess I don't feel like I had any real strong doubt on my opinion in the beginning, nor were my original thoughts on the subject really changed due to the presentation, but it was really interesting to explore the reasons behind why I thought what I thought, and to hear some other perspectives on it.  The presentation went so long that we didn't really have time for a large questions and answers sessions, though.

The presentation was really fun - there were a lot of people packed into a small basement dining room in the Keller.  I didn't get a drink, mainly just because I would have had to pay for it.  Everyone paid pretty deep attention to the talk, which I thought was impressive.

After the presentation I went and talked to Professor McNamara a little more on it - they never seem to mind if you have questions after the fact, if you didn't get them answered earlier.  He seemed to think my insights were good.  I really like Pf. McNamara - he's got this fascinating Irish accent, wears the nicest clothes, square hipster glasses, and seems quiet and a little bit shy and absent-minded, like you would expect a philosopher to be.  He walks around like he's a bit unaware of his physical surroundings but can see keenly into people and likes what he sees, and then he sees beyond people into the immaterial realms he likes to talk about.