• Stats
Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.
There is a Chapter II.
Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA
Lineage: Guatemala
Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.
Skills: Everything I can learn. Primary focus: Writing. Trumpet (since age 8), Parliamentary Procedure, classical guitar (since age 20), juggling, stage/coin magic, road cycling, hypertext, computer programming, electronic document processing, system administration, GNU/Linux, photography, graphics design, historical research, balsa aircraft building. Public speaking etc.
Interests: I am a polymath, therefore: anything I can learn. Current primary focus: writing, and thus everything else. Recycling, road cycling, nonfiction reading, classic movies, hypertext, computers, Software Freedom, language, art, photography, cartography, biography, ecology, science, psychology, law, government, politics (but not mindless insanity), philosophy, history, pedagogy, music, culture, sculpture. If it's learnable, I'm so there.
When possible, I like to integrate these things.
Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I go up to St. John's College, Cambridge University to read English in Oct 2006.
Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.
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Matriculation Service
Thursday, 5 Oct 2006 :-:
The matriculation service, held in the chapel on Tuesday night, was amazing. The president spoke, we sang hymns, heard the choir perform Britten's "Te Deum," and even were treated to a quote by Douglas Adams,
If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably sizee up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favor of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too. (at this point, the chaplain Clive, noted, "Mind the size of a planet, indeed". I think only one other person got the reference, but we were both trying very hard not to laugh.)
What a way to begin the term! The scripture passages were from I Corinthians 13 and Luke 12.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
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He said to his disciplies, 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. We also heard choral music of Brahms ("How lovely are thy dwellings") and the hymn "Now Thank We All Our God," which I had previously used as the theme song for my graduation from high school.
To live in this place, study in this place, develop in this place must be among the most awe-inspiring yet strengthening experiences possible.
for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen.
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