100

A momentous occasion: my most-played song hit 100 this week. Ecce.

1.25.09

Chalcedon, week 1

Calvin's Institutes, III.6.5

No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength to press on with due eagerness, and weakness so weighs down the greater number that, with wavering and limping and even creeping along the ground, they move at a feeble rate. Let each one of us, then, proceed according to the measure of his puny capacity and set out upon the journey we have begun. No one shall set it out so inauspiciously as not daily to make some headway, though it be slight. Therefore, let us not cease to so act that we may make some unceasing progress in the way of the Lord. And let us not despair at the slightness of our success; for even though attainment may not correspond to desire, when today outstrips yesterday the effort is not lost. Only let us look toward our mark with sincere simplicity and aspire to our goal; not fondly flattering ourselves, nor excusing our own evil deeds, but with continuous effort striving toward this end: that we may surpass ourselves in goodness until we attain to goodness itself. It is this, indeed, which through the whole course of life we seek and follow. But we shall attain it only when we have cast off the weakness of the body, and are received into full fellowship with him.

Ubi est sciurus? In arbore.

Back in Moscow

Currently listening: U2 - Vertigo (Jackknife Lee Remix)

Some things, money can't buy.

For everything else, including your daily dose of awkward turtle, there's Mastercard.

Currently reading: The Catcher in the Rye, and wondering how it got famous when Of Human Bondage is the same but way better, so read it instead.
Currently eating: Shrimp tom yum ramen. I don't care if you are the biggest food snob ever to crawl the planet, this stuff is divine.

ooh, my soul is taken...

This morning, I had a highly unpleasant trip to the dentist. I am now four teeth the lesser for it, not to mention extremely hungry. For all you American types, the trend among dentists up here is not to knock people out before absconding with their molars, but to simply freeze the area, which translated in my case to eleven injections.

Ow.

Tempus Revenit

...to make my preferred form of new year's resolution, the reading list. These are all books I own, but haven't gotten around to yet.

Roald Dahl - Boy, Matilda, Going Solo
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Victor Hugo - Les Travaillers de la Mer
Henry James - Washington Square
P.D. James - A Taste for Death
Stephen King - Four Past Midnight
Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine
A Treasury of Stephen Leacock
Peter Leithart - Solomon Among the Postmoderns
C.S. Lewis - Collected Letters, Miracles, Reflections on the Psalms
Yann Martel - The Life of Pi
J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Silmarillion
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace
N.T. Wright - Surprised by Hope

And a few more:
G.K. Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday
Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
Donald Miller - Blue Like Jazz
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray, De Profundis

Any additional recommendations are exceedingly welcome.

Happy 2009!