I'm really bad at this blogging stuff...

Well, it's been over 2 1/2 months since I last wrote. In that time I've:

• Successfully run a half-marathon
• Gotten a dissertation topic approved
• Presented a paper on Nicholas Wolterstorff's work in front of him
• Finished teaching at UMHB
• Starting lifting weights again after a shoulder problem prevented that for a couple months
  
• Had a paper accepted for the Evangelical Philosophical Society conference in November
• Received an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award for Baylor University

I think that's the bulk of it. I give my last final of the year at Baylor on Monday. Then I'll be fully devoted to getting my dissertation prospectus ready for defense, hopefully this summer. I'll also be working on my syllabus for the Existentialism class I'm teaching in the fall. Between those two things, I'm sure I'll have things to write about this summer.

Right now, my "fun" reading consists of:

• Satan and the Problem of Evil by Gregory A. Boyd
• The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark

I think the latter of the two has potential as a textbook for an Intro to Philosophy class. I've really enjoyed the books by David Dark, and especially enjoyed his wife's music (Sarah Masen).

The former is the second book in a "trilogy", and I had read the first one, God at War, at the beginning of this year. I've been listening to Boyd's podcasts for awhile, and realized that he treats spiritual warfare with a seriousness that I have not typically encountered. For awhile, I've believed in the reality of spiritual warfare but it didn't actually fit anywhere in my intellectual or practical scheme of life. These books have definitely helped change that, particularly in the intellectual realm. I'm still figuring out how this works out in my life, but think that these books are definitely worth looking at. (The third book in the "trilogy" is actually a forth-coming work that is presently projected to be two volumes, roughly a thousand pages in each.)

As far as music to check out, I've recently become aware of the band Obadiah Parker (fronted by Mat Weddle). They're most famous for an acoustic cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya" but I've enjoyed all of their stuff I've heard. I definitely recommend them. I also recommend the new Kelly Clarkson album, but that's another story.

Ok, that's enough writing for now. Hopefully I can do better with writing and actually get into some ideas worth discussing soon.

Running for....

This year I got ambitious.

I decided working on a dissertation wasn't enough.

I decided working on a dissertation while teaching two classes wasn't enough.

I decided that in addition to that, I was going to run the Bearathon at the end of March. For those of you who don't know, the Bearathon is a half-marathon (13.1 miles) that Baylor puts on each year that runs through Waco and Cameron Park. This has added a new element to my life to say the least. Before about a month ago, I had never run 5 miles at one time, let alone 13.1.

Today was a significant step on that journey. Today I ran 11 miles. I was only supposed to run 10, and Baylor has a trail that is 2.25 miles, so I had decided to do four laps and throw in a little extra loop on each lap, which came out to be 11 miles. I really should have mapped this out beforehand, I guess.

Regardless, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I mean, if I run at that speed in 5 weeks, they'll shut down the course before I finish, but still, I ran 11 freaking miles today. I'm not too worried about the race, as it's still 5 weeks away and I wasn't THAT far off pace and there'll be more frequent refreshment stops AND my dear brother Jared will be joining me for the race!

I've been keeping a running log on-line throughout this process and it's fun to see the miles add up. I'll keep you all (those are two separate words, not one) informed as I progress through this trek!