omar eduardo’s blog

“If a man has failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist… if he goes farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist - an agnostic-atheist - an atheist because an agnostic… while, then, it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous so to separate them as if the one were exclusive of the other…”

-Robert Flint

After a conversation last night I kept thinking about religion, faith, believes. I’ve been thinking about my points of view in these topics, which I have expressed before. The above quote by Robert Flint pretty much summarizes where I stand in terms of religion. To claim any knowledge of the existence of a god and what he/she/it would expect from me and humanity is simply something I won’t do. Some may call me foolish for not embracing god, others dumb for not rejecting the notion of his existence altogether, but why should I bother doing either if the truth is… I will never know for sure?

I’m open to hear opinions.

-Omar

There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.

J.R.R. Tolkien

As logical as it might sound, Tolkien’s quote pretty much describes the state in which I currently am, and I don’t only mean literally as in lab work. Getting through the day doing one thing after the other, being ‘productive’, I always stop at some point and wonder about my future. What am I to become in the next five years? ten years?

I’m in a constant state of wonder, questioning every aspect of my life and every action I take. And I do this just because I’m sure that if I keep thinking about things, if I keep looking for more, I’ll find something. Something that will make every step I’ve taken meaningful and will make the future much more clear.

I should join some sort of religion, that’s what people do. But there’s no need, I’ve got bacon.

-Omar

I went home for three weeks after finals week, gained 10 pounds and got completely sunburned up to the point in which I spent a week recovering at home. That’s how you know I had a good time. My sunburn was so great that I had to put cold gel with aloe and several other ingredients on my back and shoulders and I still felt like an oven. Now I know what it’s like to go to hell, thank you Jesus.

After that fantastic experience I got back to MIT, but on the way here I had to go upstairs with my suitcase and backpack (over my sunburned back) for what seemed an eternity, simply because a train station was closed and the station at which I had to get off had no elevator… (it was broken).

I finally made it to the MIT Saturday night (that’s last week’s Saturday) and was settled in my room by midnight. I am yet to unpack and completely settle in, but that’s something you don’t care about. Sunday was a relaxing day, I had an exquisite dinner at Suzanne’s place and went to bed by 1am.

This week I spent doing the following:

1. Training for my job as an Interphase TA
2. Finishing up training for my summer research
3. Practicing taekwondo
4. Lifting weights with René
5. Eat, sleep, socialize, have a life.
6. Working on the taekwondo club’s websites.

I got a bike from René, so I have been able to go back and forth from places without wasting too much time. One exciting thing was that my celphone fell off my pocket while I was biking on Massachusetts Avenue, and thanks to some sort of miracle I could recover it without it dying or a car killing me. I had a fantastic week indeed. Now, however… I feel like a piece of disposable human.

Thanks to the amount of exercise I did combining taekwondo practice and lifting weights this past week, when I woke up this morning my body was in pain. Severe pain. God forgave all my sins since my last confession (several years ago) because he thought I was in enough pain now. Even now when I walk to the door I have to do it as if I were an 80 years old man, arching my back and moving slowly.

I hope this pain goes away soon because the Interphase students (my students for the summer) started arriving today and I’ll be working 6:30am-5:30pm tomorrow receiving the rest. Shall be fun. I guess it would be great if I receive them sitting on a chair and not being able to move.

Okay well, I’m going now to make things worst because I’m a masochist. I just got a call from people who just convinced me to play Ultimate Frisbee with them… because apparently that’s all that taekwondo folks in the club do during the summer. I can barely move, but they don’t care, so we’ll see if I survive. I’m also very hungry… I could eat a cow.

-omar

Even with a full time job… or 50 hours a week of work… I can still train at Taekwondo constantly, lift weights, and, more importantly, write. I socialize too, of course.

Blog entry about my life coming up soon, but for now, here’s a good youtube video to watch.

Consent

For the few of you who have been following this blog for the past few days/weeks/months/years?, I have to apologize. As you may have noticed I’m a bit neurotic and I’m a geek wanna be. This is the reason why this blog has been moved from service to service over and over, and you keep getting messed up versions of the blog every other week. Well, now that I’m a grown up and an absolute savvy of how to mess things up with this website, I’ve finally decided to settle down just a bit.

This blog will NOT be moved from one URL to another ever again (unless I can’t pay) and it will be running on WordPress so you guys can easily follow it. There will be no ads as long as I can afford it, and there will definitely be space for you all to comment in each blog entry. All of your patience is greatly appreciated, and I’m just glad I’m not someone like Heather or else I would probably have my inbox full of hate comments right now.

Although, actually, hate me if you want. Send me an e-mail, I’d be grateful. I don’t get any personal e-mails from blog readers anyways. Well… there was that one back then… but the kid only wanted me to teach him how to do something in Ubuntu. Geek.

This blog entry is just to apologize and to let you know that this new blog will be more stable than I am, and it should be easier to follow.

Not that you care.

-Omar