the rose of kiev

Sorry about the delay, folks. Due to technical difficulties, it might be a while until this third Thanksgiving entry is posted. I would like to do it justice, because it's a good story, but I don't want to sit on my hands until the kinks get worked out. I will let you know when Part Three is perfected and posted. Until then, I'm going to plow ahead with other entries. Thanks for your patience, all. Cheers, --Heath

Our world's technology is rather amazing. If I really wanted to, I could never leave my house or see another human being ever again. I could even get a jump start on the ever-enviable Old Cat Lady syndrome. I could finish my degree online, get groceries and take-out delivered to my house, buy all my clothes from internet distributors, save money from not "going out", and talk on the phone with all my friends and family. No more sitting next to classmates who haven't showered since the beginning of the quarter. No more Bangladeshi cashiers who have such heavy accents you don't know what your total is. And no more spending the money on a dinner that didn't taste that great when all you really wanted to do was talk. This kind of lifestyle would be efficient and far more painless without such people hassles... But strangely...no it wouldn't. Relationships are utterly inconvenient and inefficient. You spend money eating meals with people, money on gifts for the...

My friend Sarah and I had lunch the other day and we spent the time catching up on the past two weeks apart. Roommates this and graduation that and how short on sleep we both are. How technology gives us the power and expectation of ceaseless communication and immediate results; that the world seems to turn faster than it ever used to. ---------------- Walking to class this afternoon a stroke of twitching red in the gnarled crab apple to my left caught my eye. A perfect red robin was standing on a branch just behind a shield of red berries stretching his small scaly legs and shaking his feathery body, his movements the equivalent of a yawn. With a small sharp dive, he alighted on the mulch under the shade of an OSU building's smokestacks, and I felt compelled to stop and watch. As multiple students passed me by, in groups and on cell phones with destinations and deadlines, I watched quietly as the robin's little wife cautiously hopped out into view from behind the bush at the f...