When My Brain Is A Jumble of Thoughts, I Make a List

1. Bender...
Is the name of my new laptop, which my parents kindly bought for me to take to Japan. It's shiny and silver and (most important, in my opinion) has a scroll bar underneath the touch pad. Sadly, the battery is terrible (only an hour and a half!), but other than that it's lovely. The wireless internet clearly works, since I'm on it now at the library, I spent the other day cleaning my room while listening to the music I'd just loaded on it, and it's filled with lovely goodies like a large hard drive and neat quick-launch buttons. I know it's like taking coals to Newcastle to buy a laptop before going to Japan, but I'd rather get something made in Japan here than try and translate "wireless internet capability" into Japanese.

2. Sleep...
Is what I didn't get enough of last night, due to some upsetting circumstances that I won't discuss here (don't worry, nothing's wrong with me, it's a friend who needs me). I'm constantly amazed at how a little think like only getting 5 hours of sleep can screw me up so much. Many people live on less than that for years at a time, and yet I'm operating through a thick fog just because I got three hours less shut-eye than normal. Clearly, I'll never be Napoleon (who only needed about four hours a night, allowing him to strategize and read at night while conquering Europe during the day). Although I think perhaps I don't have the "killer instinct" (not to mention dashing hat and white horse) needed to attack, subdue, and reshape all of European civilisation.

See what I mean? It's only 4:30 pm, and already I'm babbling on like it's past midnight.

3. Spiritual Energy...
Is something completely different from faith, as I realized the other day (thanks to an interesting conversation with Biku where, for once, we completely agreed on a matter concerning faith. I credit this amazing happenstance not to divine intervention, but to our visit to a bakery run by a cute monk).

You see, we all have different levels of things like Physical, Mental, and Emotional Energy. Some of us can run all day and not get tired, and others could think or engage in heart-rending situations all day without burning out. While those of us with a low physical (or emotional or mental) energy level can train ourselves upwards, we all have a different base level. This is why I will never win the Tour de France, no matter how much I try, and why I know that I think about the nuances of situations waaaay more than others. It's much the same with Spiritual Energy -- while everyone can have a firm faith if they want to (whether that faith be in Jesus, money, or Buddha), some people just have more aptitude for and interest in matters of belief. This is why some Christians will never do anything more than go to church most Sundays, while others can't imagine a faith that doesn't include three bible studies, a weekly stint at the volunteer shelter, and lots of good spiritual discussion.

What's interesting for me (since I'm basically an egotist) is figuring out where I fit on this scale. Saying that I have a high level of Spiritual Energy explains why I ended up believing in Christianity despite not having been brought up in it, why I got so involved in QCF at university, and why I can go a month and a half without going to church and not feel as if I've lost any of my faith. I've thought about these matters, and certainly, I'd like to have a public chance to express my faith (maybe this Sunday?), but my own predilictions towards Mental and Spiritual Energy mean that I do just fine reading, thinking, and writing about matters of faith on my own. This also means that I'll always be interested in the issues of faith, no matter what form that takes.

Now that I've gotten that worked out, I've got another question to wrestle with: Can someone have high Spiritual Energy without having any sort of a faith? (and I don't just mean organized faith, I also mean faith in the Government or Humanity or Hard Work or any of those other big Ideas). Hmmm

4. Kitties...
Are still cute, and much less worrisome now that Leela's gotten over her flu thingy (thanks to me and my newly found skill of getting a skirmy little kitten to swallow her pills!). She's not so thin, and she's back to beating Fry up whenever he tries to attack her. I will post more pictures of them eventually, but they keep breaking their pose whenever I rush off to get the camera.