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.