Life and Stuff
Haven't posted since July. Wow. Well I don't really post all that often to Twitter or FaceBook, so it's not that I'm ignoring LiveJournal, I just haven't had a lot of time for social media in general.
Things are going well with Matt, even though we see less of each other now. I've been working 50-60 hours a week all summer (which has sucked, let me tell you and apologies to my friends reading this who are unemployed, I don't mean to be insensitive) and he is taking three classes for his masters in teaching. He's also now working as a paraprofessional in Anoka-Hennepin School District 11 -- yes the same district I graduated from, the same district dubbed a "suicide hot zone" and (not) coincidentally Michele Bachmann's district. Kind of fascinating and scary that he's working in that sort of environment. He's also working every other weekend at an apartment complex. So we haven't seen as much of each other as we would like, even though we are living together. But when we do get to see each other, it's great.
I've been spending a lot of time w/Matt's (fraternal) twin brother Mark too - he lives really close and is over a lot to watch TV, play games, and just hang out in general. That's a lot of fun. The three of us went out to Durango, CO (where Matt's parents now live) for his sister's wedding. It was a blast and my first time being in the Southwestern US (and at such a high altitude) excluding changing plans in Denver or Phoenix on occasion. The wedding was great, the scenery was incredible, and I might go back out there for Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas, I finally shed all pretenses of religion in February. I was raised Catholic, confirmed, and after coming out as gay, left the church and had been a middling agnostic throughout my 20's. I did a lot of introspection and "soul searching" over the winter months last year and have finally decided to give up religion and faith all-together. Since then, I've discovered the whole new atheist movement, saw Greta Christina in person, became a huge fan of the Atheist Experience on YouTube (search "Matt Destroys a Christian" to see the two-part call/debate that really sealed the deal for me.) Also never realized how big of a deal PZ Myers is in that community - I would have interactions with him back when I was co-head of Programming at CONvergence and I remember getting mildly annoyed that he would occasionally miss programming deadlines. Didn’t realize he had so much going on and a lot of email to wade through!
Completely switching topics but I wanted to get this in - Summer 2011 will probably go down as the "summer of tubing" for me - I went river tubing six times over three months down the Cannon River with various groups of friends and family. It was a lot of fun, yeah a little bit trashy, and - even though I was tired of it by trip 6, I'm already looking forward to going again next year.
Things are going well with Matt, even though we see less of each other now. I've been working 50-60 hours a week all summer (which has sucked, let me tell you and apologies to my friends reading this who are unemployed, I don't mean to be insensitive) and he is taking three classes for his masters in teaching. He's also now working as a paraprofessional in Anoka-Hennepin School District 11 -- yes the same district I graduated from, the same district dubbed a "suicide hot zone" and (not) coincidentally Michele Bachmann's district. Kind of fascinating and scary that he's working in that sort of environment. He's also working every other weekend at an apartment complex. So we haven't seen as much of each other as we would like, even though we are living together. But when we do get to see each other, it's great.
I've been spending a lot of time w/Matt's (fraternal) twin brother Mark too - he lives really close and is over a lot to watch TV, play games, and just hang out in general. That's a lot of fun. The three of us went out to Durango, CO (where Matt's parents now live) for his sister's wedding. It was a blast and my first time being in the Southwestern US (and at such a high altitude) excluding changing plans in Denver or Phoenix on occasion. The wedding was great, the scenery was incredible, and I might go back out there for Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas, I finally shed all pretenses of religion in February. I was raised Catholic, confirmed, and after coming out as gay, left the church and had been a middling agnostic throughout my 20's. I did a lot of introspection and "soul searching" over the winter months last year and have finally decided to give up religion and faith all-together. Since then, I've discovered the whole new atheist movement, saw Greta Christina in person, became a huge fan of the Atheist Experience on YouTube (search "Matt Destroys a Christian" to see the two-part call/debate that really sealed the deal for me.) Also never realized how big of a deal PZ Myers is in that community - I would have interactions with him back when I was co-head of Programming at CONvergence and I remember getting mildly annoyed that he would occasionally miss programming deadlines. Didn’t realize he had so much going on and a lot of email to wade through!
Completely switching topics but I wanted to get this in - Summer 2011 will probably go down as the "summer of tubing" for me - I went river tubing six times over three months down the Cannon River with various groups of friends and family. It was a lot of fun, yeah a little bit trashy, and - even though I was tired of it by trip 6, I'm already looking forward to going again next year.