User Profile

This is my PUBLIC journal for my friends...a way to let those around me keep in touch.

I'm 19, a philosophy/history major at ND. I'm buried in work and the Equestrian team...I'll write more about myself once I dig my way out

*edited...I stole a profile from one of my old webpages. Long and a little lost, but here it is*

I'm intelligent, confident with the awareness of it...and bold in that I'm not afraid to use it. Yet I refuse to be ruled by intelligence, or to fall into the trap of believing that my talents alone are enough. I learned that the hard way, but that's a long story. I'm a philosophy/history major, with minors in religion+literature and cosmology (and an interest in ecology and art, though i'm far too overloaded to formally study those). In other words, almost everything fascinates me.

I cook when I'm stressed or bored. There's always a lot of happy people in my dorm around finals--since I leave out the products of my cooking experiments in a attempt to purge the stress-demons.

I take long walks with the dog. I mediate through repetitive, mindless action--I could never stand to be still for very long. I'm decent at sparring, though I never took formal lessons and would not disgrace any martial arts form by claiming to adhere to it. I used to run--I still would, if my shins cooperated. I bike at least one race every year.

I sketch well enough to be offered money for my drawings. I played the violin for 8 years, yet was never good enough to satisfy myself. I'm a natural on horseback. Once upon a time, I danced. I've lost the feel for it since, though I still attempt the occasional dance lesson. I wander through art museums, and occasional play critic. I read in parks and put in the headphones to drown out the traffic. Every type of music from classical to heavy metal, except for pop and country

I read everything that I can get my hands on. Cereal boxes at breakfast. When I have the choice--I lean towards fantasy, good scifi (rare enough), historical fiction...history, cosmology, cookbooks...and the occasional biased newspaper. I love artistic, edgy moves that leaves you with more questions than answers. I find myself engaged in the best conversations between the hours of midnight at 5 am--when I am least coherent. I wonder if there's a colloration.

Religions of all kinds fascinates me, though I've yet to choose one for myself. Catholicism is a close candidate, but I tend to be skeptical. I'm in love with faith itself...yet I consider myself a rationalist. I'm a walking contradiction in ways more than one.


****
If
Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!