Salve(again)!

Okay, I lied in my previous post. I am going to say some stuff about what I've been doing and what is going on.

A couple days ago while I was home sick I finished a long final paper for my Creative Writing and Speaking on Contemporary Issues class. Our assignment was to write a long persuasive research paper and 10 minute persuasive speech on some controversial issue. I chose to write on why intelligent design provable than the idea of macro evolution and why because of this either both should be taught in schools or neither. It ended up being 8 pages long. It was hard, but I had fun doing the research and writing the paper.

Last night my two brothers went to a cabin campout with our Boy Scout troop. I went to it last year and had a lot of fun, but last year we had the snow and frigid weather that's part of the experience. This year it's almost warm.

Today, I discovered that I had strep. After a couple days of medicine I should feel better.

Well, that about all I have to say. Valate!

Okay, I don't have much of anything to say about what I've been up to, so I'm going to do this thing so all of you can get to know me better. Anyways, what give you the right to know everthing I do?!? Oh, right, I'm the one who decided to post it all on my blog. :P

My five favorite TV shows:
Holiday movie specials
The 6 o'clock news

My five favorite movies:
Narnia
LotR: The Fellowship of the Ring
Star Wars Episode III
Star Wars Episode VI
(I have a couple dozen movies tied for 5th so I won't name any of them)

My five favorite music artists or groups:
Martin Luther
J. S. Bach
Rascal Flatts
Montgomery Gentry
(I seem to have trouble making decisions by fives)

Five of my hobbies:
Drawing
Reading
Writing
Biking
Acting nearly as crazy as I really am.

The five places I most want to visit:
Italy (next year with my Latin IV class)
Colorado Springs, Colorado (this summer for the Higher THings conference)
Germany
Scotland or Ireland
Canada (again)

Hello again.

I'm just going to leave a quickish post, so you know I'm alive. Sunday we had bible study and serivice of course. I served as acolyte again.

Monday I went to school early in the morning after a week out sick. That week was the week of review before midterms, so that was bad. I found out my first semester english elective doesn't have a midterm. I could have come to school at 9:45 instead of getting on the bus at 6:55. I found out that my second midterm that day was Chem. not Precalc, so I didn't have the right stuff to study while I sat around for a hour and a half. I decided that I was ready for Chem when my teacher asked, took the exam, and I'd guess I got about a 95% on it. Pretty easy. I then had an afternoon to work on make up homework and study.

Tuesday I had a full school day, but only made it to a couple classes because I was making up my Math and Social Studies midterms. The classes I was in I felt pretty lost having missed just over a week. I probably got about a 90% or 95% on the Precalc midterm exam. I just know I'm close to flunking on my History exam. It was horribly hard. Horrible.

I have a lot of work to keep working on, so I'll leave it at that. Heidi M., you're going to be sorry when you get back from your computer strike. I've left a bunch of stuff in your inbox, emails on the MH list, and posts on the Higher Things forums.

Until I see you all again, goodbye.

I just had an unusual experience. I saw a little boy come up to the door and stand there looking in for about a minute, then I went over and opened the door. He said, "Here's a menu for Al's Pizza. Bye" and just walked away. What's up with that?

Sickening. I am sick. Tuesday I got sent home by the school nurse and I’ve been sick since. I went to the doctor today and he said I had a virus, a sinus infection, and a fever of 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe that’s why I’m delusional. ;) I’m supposed to stay home to recuperate tomorrow, which means that I’ll have to make up my first day of midterm exams. I must have picked it up over last weekend when I went to the Higher Things conference. Oh well, not much I can do but go to bed now and get sleep. Tomorrow I’ll try to figure out why the really LONG blog entry I posted about the conference never showed up. Ugh. I hate being sick. Good night.

Greetings Friends! I have a lot to tell about since I last posted. I won't waste too much time with formalities but will go straight to the telling. This is going to be my longest post yet, so if you read all of it then leave a comment saying so. I’ll be very proud of you.

Most of last week was rather uneventful. Tuesday and Thursday, I had detentions for tardies to school, but I'm working on that. I just need to make sure I don't hit the snooze button quite so many times in the morning.

Thursday as soon as I got home things really got jumping. The instant I got home I ran down to my room to pack. Unable to find the suitcase I usually use, I had to settle for a significantly smaller one. Within 10 minutes, I had stuffed my suitcase and backpack and was ready to go. I discovered later that I had forgotten my Bible and catechism, two things very useful for a weekend youth retreat, but only leaving those was pretty good for me. My mother, one brother, and I drove four hours from our mid-PA home to our English friends now living in Pittsburgh. We handled the basic formalities and then went to bed (or so I thought). Later I discovered that the others had stayed up to watch some of Napoleon Dynamite, but I had needed my sleep.

Friday morning was self-serve. Dorothy, the daughter a little younger than me, got up early to go to school for a half day. There was also a half day at my school, but I skipped legally. Rev. and Mrs. Naumann got up a little later to go to their jobs at the nearest LCMS church. My family, David, and Nigel got up and had breakfast at various times through the morning. My mom picked Dorothy up from school at 11:00 while I made soup for lunch. After lunch, we loaded everything into our car and went to the church to join the rest of the group going to the Higher Things conference. We left the church at about 2:00. The group went in two vehicles. Two leaders, my brother Nathan, and I were in Mr. Toft’s car. The other two adults and the four girls went in the gas SUV, which I later found out had a built in TV and DVD player. The seven hour trip actually went by fairly quickly even without a TV. We had substantial conversations about politics, evolution, movies, etc. We stopped at Panera Bread restaurant for supper.

At 9:00, we finally arrived in Indianapolis. After sight-seeing in a few local parking lots, we found the entrance to our hotel and unloaded our bags. We knew we would miss many of the events Friday evening, and we had. We missed dinner, the conference opening, evening service, and the first catechesis session; but we made in time for the movie, the last event of the evening. Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a very good movie. After the movie, a couple friends I made at Dare to be Lutheran spotted me and we talked for a little. We stuck together for most of the rest of the weekend. My brother and I roomed with Dan, a guy from one of the Indiana youth groups.

Saturday, the main day of conference events, started with a nice breakfast in Advent Lutheran’s fellowship hall. Thank you to Advent Lutheran for all the stuff you contributed to the conference . We then had a service following the order of Matins in the LCMS hymnal that will be coming out soon. I love those pure liturgical worship services! We had the second of Rev. Klemet Preus’ catechesis sessions on arguing (the whole weekend conference was based on arguing for Jesus), a presentation on arguing in spite of race and religious differences by Rev. Bullard, and wonderful lecture on the validity of the bible by a pastor whose name I don’t remember. I took a whole bunch of notes on all of it. We then had lunch, another bit of catechizing, and some free time during which I went to the local high school gym with a group going over to play dodge ball. The final “break away session” was on arguing with teachers and in classes. It focused more on college than high school, but was still good. Vespers followed this session. Dinner was wonderful fare of salad, lasagna, green beans, and cake served in a nice dimmed setting with candles on all the tables. The fourth catechesis was “Arguing about Jesus among Ourselves”. It was a panel presenting unified worship (standardized liturgy, traditional hymns, and such) versus diversified worship (more varied and contemporary Gr.. ;0) ). After timed-limited opening positions and responses there was time for people to ask questions of the two pastors. We then had a social mixer hosted by Advent’s youth group. There were tables set up all over with different games on them, a couple video game system set ups, a table with blank T-shirts and fabric markers, and people walking around trying to find people to play game they themselves had brought. I managed to find three other people to play Euchre, my favorite card game. In the last couple of minutes before we went to Evening Prayer, I scrawled “Higher Things: 2006 Winter Retreat” on a T-shirt, and had a couple of my friends write messages on it and sign it. By 11 o’clock, we were all scheduled to be in our rooms with the lights off, but in actuality there were parties held in several rooms until just after midnight.

Sunday morning we had time to eat the nice bagged breakfast we had picked up the night before. I didn’t though. The alarm I’d set for 7:00 never went off. I woke up at 7:35, woke Nathan, showered, got dressed, and ran down to meet up with the rest of our group. I wore my mostly purple with pink, maroon, indigo, and teal organically patterned custom tailored Thai silk shirt from Thailand, silk black slacks, and nice stiff dress shoes (I had to mention the shoes in case Jay is reading this). We had a liturgical high-church type service following the second setting for Divine Service in Lutheran Worship. We then had the last Catechesis session, packed a bag lunch from provisions provided for all by Advent, and hit the road for the long trip back to Pittsburgh. We got back and were picked up from the church by Mrs. Naumann and my mom. We had chili supper and soon thereafter went to bed like the good children we aren’t.

My mother had told Mrs. Naumann about the unspeakable outcome of my Nicol family pancake challenge, so I was drafted to make pancakes Monday morning. I got up early and made the pancakes (from a mix this time). Everyone seemed to like them, but I thought the mix was a bit flavorless. I think I’ve made just as many meal at the Naumanns as I’ve eaten meals made by them. After breakfast we gathered up our stuff and drove the four hours back home accompanied by a bag of snacks we’d been given because their family didn’t like them. I don’t mind though. I eat just about anything. We got home, I played a game of basketball and a few round of knockout my a big group of teens in my neighborhood, and wrote this.

I’ll finish this here. I think I have a bit of a cold, but hopefully it won’t become any worse.

valete amici! manete bene!

Salvete! Spero vos estis bene.
Greetings! I hope you all are well.

Yesterday I received this in a forwarded piece of email. I am very skeptical of information I find on the internet. Usually I wouldn't post this kind of stuff on my blog, but I found this funny even though it probably did not occur.

One day, a six-year-old girl was sitting in a classroom. The teacher was explaining evolution to the children. The teacher asked a little boy:
TEACHER: Tommy, do you see the tree outside?
TOMMY: Yes
TEACHER: Tommy, do you see the grass outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
TEACHER: Go outside and look up and see if you can see the sky.
TOMMY: Okay. [He returned after a couple minutes] Yes, I saw the sky.
TEACHER: Did you see GOD?
TOMMY: No.
TEACHER: That's my point. We can't see GOD because HE isn't there. HE just doesn't exist.
[A little girl spoke up wanting to ask the boy some questions. The teacher agreed.]
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the tree outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy do you see the grass outside?
TOMMY: Yesss!
LITTLE GIRL: Did you see the sky?
TOMMY: Yesss!
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the Teacher?
TOMMY:Yes
LITTLE GIRL: Do you see her brain?
TOMMY: No.
LITTLE GIRL: Then according to what we were taught today, she doesn't have one.

I find it unlikely that a first or second grade teacher would send a student outside for a few minutes by himself, and just as unlikely the six year-old girl would be able to think through the concept that deeply. Still, though, it's funny and a good illustration of Second Corinthians 5:7 "For we walk by faith, not by sight".

No doubt about it, for a weekend these past couple days have felt busy enough to be school days.

Saturday night everybody I know seemed to be out of character. I made this discovery while IMing a whole bunch of people at once. Chatty people being quiet, unconversational and quiet people turned glib, happy people who were really depressed, and people acting overly sad and philosophical. I girl I knew back when we lived in Ohio but who I hadn't talked to for monthes suddenly was talking to me a ton as well as asking me some pretty awkward questions. You all know you what was up with yourselves, but could somebody please tell me what was going on???

"Glory to God in the highest..." Sunday everything was back to normal. We had another wonderful liturgical worship service at our liturgical church with almost all of it being chanted or sung from LW's Divine Service II. I served up by the altar as acolyte and as one of the torch bearers in the procession we had today. It being the first Sunday of Epiphany, my father preached a sermon dealing jointly with the Epiphany and with baptism. I thought it was one of his best sermons even before he told me that he had accidentally left his copy of it in his office. Today was also one of the Sundays we had a coffee social (delectable homemade snacks, punch, and coffee) after the service.

After most of the people had left church and my dad was done talking, I drove with my dad (Actually, I got to drive) to the hospital to visit a member who was there after having pneumonia and some heart trouble. It was kind of nice to see what my dad does in between Sundays and to talk to Mr. Brown and his wife a bit.

Finally, I came home where I've been the rest of the day. We put away most of the Christmas ornaments, and I worked a lot more on the big semester projects that are going to be due this week.

Valete amici!

PS. Does anyone but Heidi read my blog? I've told a lot of you you should, but I haven't been getting enough comments to believe that you all are.

Goodnight!

Good afternoon, or morning if you live out West. And three cheers for the weekend!

You may be asking, what has Aaron been up to? He hasn't posted in four days.

Well, the main answer is school work. :( As I said in my last post, I was sick. After a missed day of school, a long Christmas break, and two more days of missed school I was way behind. I spent the rest of the week catching up on mountains of homework. I still need to do some reading to figure out some of the concepts I missed in my Trig and Latin classes.

Friday night we borrowed The Sound of Music from our library for the pizza/movie/family night that we have weekly on either Friday or Saturday. We've seen it before, but I like the classic movies.

Know what else I love? Classical literature! I'm almost always reading 3 or 4 books at a time, and one of them is alway one of the classics. Right now I'm reading 5 boooks: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Pearls of Lutra by Brian Jaques, a recent translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, and probably my favorite of the bunch Why I am a Lutheran by Rev. Daniel Preus. Reading is so much fun!

Heid, I know there are a lot of famous writers of American and English literature, and there are at least a few French and Russian such. Are there any Canadians though? I've never heard of any Canadian writers at all.

I think my anti-virus software (AVG) is paranoid. Recently it's been automatically going online several times a day to update it's virus defenitions. Maybe it caught a virus.

My knee is hurting a little again, but at least I am most ceratinly not ill any more. That's about all a can think of to say.

Valete omnes!

Okay, it's late. I can't get to sleep, so I'm quickly going to do this blog entry for yesterday (January 3rd).

It was supposed to be the day I returned to school from Christmas vacation. I was entirely ready to return, but there's a catch. I'm sick. I hope it's only a couple day cold, but that's what I thought last year. Last year I ended up missing about 6 or 7 weeks of school instead of the couple days I first thought I'd be missing. The doctors never did figure out just what I had. Anyway, instead of going to school I spent all day alternating sleeping and working on the big semester projects who's due dates are coming up. As one friend put it, it was a "God provided research day". Hopefully, I'll feel better in the morning.

I've started actively posting in the Higher Things forums. I've had an account there for several months, but hadn't used it.

Oh. One more thing before I go. I am working my way through the Seth provided red tape to join the Anti-Olive Brigade. We even talked about possibly forming an alliance of the Anti-Olive Brigade and the Peep Killing Forces. Seth seems like an okay kid, but he wants to take over the world or be supreme dictator or something like that, which is obviously a mislead goal since I'm destined to either control the world or destroy. On the light note, Goodnight!

It is time. I will now proceed to go on and on about last year. I will make no promises about length because I've already broken all my previous promises about blog entry lengths. Don't be surprised if I start getting philosophical, poetical, or even break into song and dance while reflecting on my 2005. If you read the Christmas letter this may be a bit repetitive, but I tried to mention some different things. Friends, Romans, citizens, and random passersby lend me your ears.

Nothing much happened last year until May. Mother’s Day marked two years since my dad was installed as pastor at Calvary in Mechanicsburg. It is painful to think of best friends I had and hardly or never hear from. In Chicago I had the closest friends and loved the scorching summers and crisp winters with deep snows. In Medina I could bike anywhere in under 15 minutes, and everyone in town was a caring neighbor. Maybe retrospect isn’t 20/20; instead it seems to magnify both vice and virtue. On the 28th of May, my dad turned 53. It’s sad to see my parents getting older and weaker already. On a lighter note, my brother Nathan had his confirmation and is now a communing member of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

Summer was very busy to say the least. It began with Joel reaching his teen years on the first of July. Four of my cousins, my brother, and I went to St. Louis for the 2005 Higher Things’ conference, Dare to be Lutheran. The sectionals on various teen issues, magnificent liturgical worship services several times a day, and the time with family all made for a wonderful experience. [breaks into song and dance (I warned you that might happen)] On the July 28, I turned 17. I am now to the point of begging my parents on hands and knees to let me get my driver’s license and a cell phone. As of now, I have been driving with only a permit for 18 months and had to go back and renew my permit.

Following the conference, we hooked up with my mom’s sister and her sister’s family. We traveled together on a 2000-mile plus loop out further to the west. We spent a week in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains where our dad flew in to meet us for the rest of the trip. Here we celebrated mom’s 51st Birthday. We also got to visit some of dad’s family whom we rarely get to see. We then spent a couple weeks traveling through much of the United States’ Midwest. We returned to Aunt Bonnie’s for the extended family’s camp out.

After nearly a month gone, we returned home for a week before spending another week in Ohio for a LCMS homeschoolers gathering and saw many of our friends from when we lived in Medina. After this exhausting vacation, we were glad to return to our home in PA for the few days of summer remaining.

Far too early the school year began again. I am still pressing on thru classes at our little local high school of 2,500. I do have some fun classes as well as clubs that make school fairly enjoyable, particularly Latin III, Art II, and the Teenage Republicans club. Beginning of this fall, we stopped taking piano lessons. The man we were going to was more concert pianist than he was teacher, so I personally think I can learn to play more complicated music on my own as fast as I was learning with him. I know I know my musical theory. Additionally, with my parents’ permission and money, I want to begin taking guitar and maybe even voice lessons. In the BSA I have moved up to Venture Crew. This is the next level up in the BSA in terms of activities. October 28 Nathan turned 15 completing our odd year and prompting his decision to join mom and me in our church’s small choir where I sing Bass.

In November I became more active again with MouthHouse. I revived the Peep War, and reorganized the P.K.F. (Peep Killing Forces). I also have helped out a bit in the somewhat dormant Llama Crusade and am interested in joining the Anti-Olive group I just found out about.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons I have already written about in great detail, so I will not tire you by repeating it. Please comment. I appreciate hearing what people have to say about my life.

P.S. By the ninth day of Christmas everyone with a true love has nine dancing ladies, sixteen milking maids, twenty-one wet swans, twenty-four geese, twenty-five gold rings, twenty-four song birds, twenty-one hens, sixteen turtle doves, and nine partridges each in it's own fruit bearing pear tree.

Seven wet swans, six laying geese, five gold plated rings, and four obnoxious birds. Yes, I am frugal, if not cheap, in giving my true love her presents. Sorry true love. I hope all of you are having a Merry 7th Day of Christ's Mass!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We just returned from my aunt and uncle's house in Napoleon, Ohio where my uncle is pastor at the LCMS church. Here we are having my mom's family's annual Christmas gathering. We spent all of the 28th traveling. About halfway through the trip we dropped off my dad's mom and stop for a little to visit familiar places and people in Medina, Ohio. We lived in Medina from late 2000 to early 2003. It was a nice little town where I could bike to anywhere in or around town within 15 minutes. After our stop there, we finished the trip from mid-PA to here by 7:00 pm.

Wednesday night, two of the older cousins and I watched War of the Worlds and played video games all night. Thursday morning I drove into town with my cousin Chris to run some errands and drop off a gift at a Christmas party his favorite teacher was hosting. When we returned to the house, we had my mom's wonderful taco stew for lunch and opened most of the gifts. In the cousin's gift exchange, I got a reading light that automatically shuts off after the amount of time for which you set it. I'm sure that it will get a lot of use. My Aunt Patty gave me a $10 gift card for Wal-Mart and my grandparents gave all their grandkids $10, a little devotion, and a nice new wallet. Chris and I then dropped Kyle of at basketball practice and spent a little more time in town.

Most of the day Friday was just spent relaxing. We played video games and rented Kingdom of Heaven, a really good movie about the Crusades, and played video games. In the evening, we went to the Napoleon High basketball games against Patrick-Henry High School. The Napoleon Wildcats freshman and JV teams won, but the 'Cats Varsity team lost by three points due to stupid substitutions by the Napoleon coaches. I had fun yelling the occasional "Go C.V. Eagles!!!" since my team wasn't playing.

Saturday after lunch, we left Napoleon, OH for Pittsburgh, PA. We reached Pittsburgh at about 7pm. We checked into a hotel, unloaded the van, ate dinner, and went to the Naumanns’ house. The Naumanns are old friends of my mom's who moved here from England a few years ago. They have six children, five boys and one girl. The older boys were just visiting from England, and the one who is my mother's godson was preaching (he's in his fourth year at seminary). At their house, we played more video games and some card games. I won the first game of Phase 10 I've ever played.

Sunday we went to bible study and services, heard Gordon preach, and left immediately afterwards for the five hour trip home. And that’s about all I can say. I could add more description, but I need to go soon. Have fun y’all!