February 11th
So I have decided that I want to learn at least five languages before I die. I think it’s important to be at least proficient in this many languages to be a truly educated person. Granted, I should probably shouldn’t get too ahead of myself, because this second language sure is tough to get down. However, I feel I am finally starting to make progress in both MSA Arabic and Colloquial. The foundation of any language is vocabulary and I am finally starting to be able to pronounce the words correctly and be able to understand what is going on in my class and in the listening drills. As for the other languages, I am thinking Spanish, French, and possibly Italian. These last two are not as useful, but they should would be cool to know and I hear Italian is one of the easiest languages to learn.
This day was one of my intensive class days. This means I have all four of my classes and 4 and half hours of Arabic. Mondays and Wednesday’s are draining to say the least. So nothing much happened today other then classes. I did find free food at AUC for lunch and let me tell you I made the best of that.
Since this day was so uneventful, I think I will cover some things from the past. I have been going to Church here. I enjoyed mass at Notre Dame, but never really had the time to make it to the weekly mass. Unfortunately, the Priest in this mass isn’t as good as the ones at Notre Dame and they use different translations. I think the very fact that different translations in the same religion shows how just how short-sighted literal interpretations of the Bible are. The Bible was not written in Hebrew and Greek, whose vocabulary is a little bit more vague and can be translated into different words. This is why taking the word of the Bible without any rational thought seems absurd.
Since the Mass is given by a Priest who is kind of hard to understand, I find myself thinking about morals and theology and kind of zoning out the Priest. This last Sunday I was thinking about the idea of whether not killing is ever justifiable. I think this is a very tough question and I don’t think there is a black and white answer. It’s a quandary in my mind and I understand how the idea of pacifism provides some sort of relief from this dilemma by providing a blanket response to any circumstances of violence. However, I don’t believe that blanket statements ever are the right answer. I mean there are circumstances where the immediate threat of an individual who can not be stopped otherwise. This is a very tough call to make in my mind. I mean we are talking about a human being here, no matter how twisted or influenced they are still a son of God, and they should be treated as such. But regardless, in many cases the lives of thousands if not millions of other lives and be greatly harmed if not ended by the action of a few. Therefore, I feel that military service can be morally justifiable. I don’t know if this means I want to do it, but I am not morally opposed to it anymore. I also think that the Military needs people who understand the moral dilemma, people who will be able to see the necessity of restraint or the imperative of action
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