Tuesday 9 October 2007

Slimy, yet satisfying

I'm feeling chipper today, despite having half an assignment to finish tonight and only archiving to occupy me at work. Chipper's got a big smile on his face as well. Lovely obliging fella, he is.

There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, I'm enjoying uni again! If I could give the backstory of my state of mind when by the time I finished engineering a few years ago, you'd see how big a step that is. I'm enjoying learning, it's all staying in my head again, and I'm finally making meaningful additions to the structure of knowledge I spent so long building. And I'm studying statistics! I figure that if I can feel this way with stats I can with anything.


Also, I may have had a small revelation last night. An epiphany, even. I've always wanted one of those. A big clump of stagnant thought has cleared from the drainhole of my mind, and the interweb was my plunger. Or my Drano. One or the other. Anyway, we've both been doing a lot of thinking lately, ever since our local church offered for us to get married there.

Neither I nor my Beyonce are particularly religious. We don't go to church, not even at Easter or Christmas. And after thinking and talking for a couple of weeks, I came to the decision that it's really not for me. It's a pity in a lot of ways, cos my values seem to line up fairly well with the church's, but my beliefs really don't. I'm a scientist at heart, and have been as long as I can remember. Evidence is important. At the least I want an internally rigourous system. The Bible has a lot of very worthwhile messages, but consistent it ain't. And the administration of the Church(es) is even worse.

Having said that, there are a lot of things in the Christian service that I feel are the right way to do things. There's a gravity and a solemnity about the ceremony that's often missing from civil services. The Christian ceremony is about the promise, not the celebration - that's what the reception is for. Of course, if my Beyonce decides she wants a Christian service, I have no problem doing it for her.

This acceptance that I'm not a Christian in spirit was a fairly big realisation for me - it was something I'd contemplated only a small amount previously. For the most part my metaphysical musings had leaned towards morals and values rather than deities.

So, in an effort to see what other wedding ceremonies are like, I looked up Buddhism, a point of view I'd always felt a bit of an affinity with. I read the basic premises, and said "yes". I read a bit more, and said "yes" (a bit louder this time). I read how Buddhism states that life should be lived, and said "Bloody oath!" Or words to that effect. I'm going to find out a bit more, anyway. At the very least it'll while away a few lunch breaks that I'd otherwise only spend surfing the almighty tangle of gossamer outside my laptop.


Finally, I'm feeling happy because I had the best weekend I've had in years - we had our engagement drinks at the Gunn Island Hotel in Middle Park on Sunday afternoon - lovely high ceilings, big windows, plenty of couches, a good 14 different beers on tap, sunshine, and about fifty of our friends. It was fantastic - we'd set aside my footy tipping winnings to buy the first round, and it's amazing how happy people are when you greet them with "So what can I get you to drink?" Lovely, lovely day - we all need to do that more often. This is the atmosphere we want for our reception.

Oh, and I found out that I've got family coming out from England for the wedding. And because I've been doing a lot of riding lately, my formerly twig-like legs have been developing calves, so I might wear a kilt for the wedding.

It's all happening, really. If the report I finished for work is positively received, I really don't see how things could get much better today. To infinity and beyond!

6 comments:

ChickyBabe said...

You reminded me of first year uni and studying stats. I used to doze off in the back of the class!

tim said...

yep - just finished a stats test (online, while I'm at work). 80% without studying - not too shabby!

Steph said...

Oh not a kilt. Please not a kilt!

tim said...

Funny - that's what my Beyonce said as well...

Cazzie!!! said...

Hated stats when I did my degree...I always found something else to do, scrub the floors even just to get out of studying for it. LOL

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