Strange.

Has anyone seen the comcast workplace commercial - showing an office "coming to life" in the morning, presumably because of the efficiency and power of comcast services. File cabinets straighten out, lights turn on, the water cooler bubbles, and chairs move into position around the conference table. If you could walk into a world saturated in the exciting shades of toast, you'd have a decent idea of the look and feel. No shred of color, no drop of innovation. It's all the more frightening because it's such a generic office, representing probably 90% of work places in this country. Is it possible that I could ever work in such a place? Thinking along these lines and trying to place myself in the position of working there, I had a strange feeling, one that I've only had one other time in my life for something totally unrelated. I began to feel prison walls close in around me, and this huge feeling that it was not the life that was willed for me. My soul was practically screaming for escape from a life I didn't even have! And all that from a silly commercial? Melodramatic? Yes, I suppose it was. I wasn't expecting that much aversion. It's also strange because I'm not really facing down a decision to do what I'm being averted from. Am I? My current workplace is a far cry from such a beast. It is, in fact, such an ideal environment that I forget sometimes that people actually do work in such terrible places. So, is this a warning for future, or something else?

Quiet

It's quiet. Snow is falling. Looking out my bedroom windows I can see crystallized branches and millions of snow flakes floating in the air. There is something about this kind of weather that casts a spell, and suddenly you find yourself whispering and turning off music. If only this were a Friday night and I had no plans for the weekend. But it's not, and I do have plans for the weekend. They have potential to be exciting plans, though. I'm off to Washington DC with a group from Aquinas, for both site-seeing and to join our support to the pro-life march on Monday. I'm not the driver of the van, but still. We are talking an 11+ hour drive here people. It's probably best that I not to think about it too much.

As a random side note, I've decided to boycott TV. There is just something about it that I've come to distrust. How on earth can a box of moving pictures mesmerize people for hours at a time? And how much has it affected life and society in general? "Come on," you say, "now you are taking it too far". Am I? How much conversation, humor, and gossip in the general population are now centered around the phrase 'I saw it on tv. wait, you haven't seen that show??? what planet are you from?' A steady diet of television now seems necessary just in order to hold conversation with these poor people. Now, I don't think TVs are intentionally piping subliminal messages into our brains to keep us watching, I haven't gone that far, but I do know so many people that show all the signs of an addiction when it comes to tv. There just seems to be something about it that isn't... natural. Intentionally or not, it hooks into the human brain too strongly. So! Other than happily sitting to watch an occasional movie, I plan to be as tv-free as possible in '06.

-- I need to add a note here that this post does NOT apply to an episode of Project Runway or anything EWTN.