Euthyphro's Dilemma

My friend Andy (not my brother Andy) wrote in his blog about Euthyphro's dilemma ("Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"). I think it is an interesting question, but I also think that, at least in his explanation of it, it is a bit oversimplified. I encourage you to go take a look at the post and at the comments and add your own input, either in my blog or in his. It's not in my nature to take anything at face value or to believe that there could be a question such as that with only two possible answers... so let's explore the gray area together!

Continued?

I am going to try to continue writing in this blog, when I am doing interesting things. Interesting to me, anyway. We'll see how it goes.

So on Monday I went to Connecticut to visit Jim, who I spent a lot of time with in Paris. He got home on Saturday, and I drove to Connecticut on Monday morning. I have never actually stopped in Connecticut before, except maybe to stop for gas on my way to Philadelphia. I am not sure what I was expecting, but Connecticut certainly exceeded my expectations.

I got to Jim's house around 11:30, and he showed me around his house. I saw his mom and his brother, who I met once before in Paris when we went down to the Catacombs. Jim had to vacuum their pool (yes, they have a pool) so I got to lounge around in the yard in my swimsuit and then go swimming in the newly clean pool! Afterwards we played Guitar Hero, which was a new experience for me. I have to admit, it was pretty fun. We had some lunch and we went to the place where Jim was trying to get his job back, but they were closed, so we went back. We hung out a bit and then had dinner - Cajun style catfish on the grill!! Mmm. After dinner we had sherbet and sat out on the porch in the sun - Jim, his parents, his brother Danny, and me. While we were sitting out there, his older brother Steve came home with his girlfriend Sam, who was really fun. They threw around a rugby ball and I sat with Jeanne and Danny. Steve wanted to play Rock Band so we all went downstairs and took turns playing the guitar, the drums, and singing the vocals. I was horrible at it, but I take pride in not having a lot of experience with video games!

I got a little bored of it so Jim and I went for a walk. He showed me his town, South Windsor. We walked around and saw his high school and stuff. It was quite buggy so we headed back, and chilled out with the family and just lazed around. It was quite summery and nice. I don't usually do those quintessentially summery things, like swimming in pools and sitting on the porch eating sherbet. I enjoyed it.

Later that night Jim and I watched "The Others." It wasn't as scary as I had feared, and I slept just fine. I got Jim's room while Jim slept on the top bunk in his brother's room. He has a big bed. It was nice, and comfy, but I am not used to big beds so I just squished myself over to one side the whole night.

Around 6:30AM was when the trouble started. I have this problem where I can't sleep once it gets light out. I didn't have as much of a problem in France because I had heavy, dark-colored curtains. In my room at home, I have blinds that nearly black out my room. But the shades in Jim's room don't do much, so I woke up around 6:30 AM. But I laid around until about 9 and then showered and then we had breakfast. Jim and I drove back over to his place of employment to pick up his uniform, and when we got back we picked up his brother Danny and went over to their cousins' house to swim in THEIR pool. Everyone has a pool!

Now Danny just had an appendectomy, so he couldn't swim. He had to sit by the side of the pool and throw the beach ball back in at us. But he was a good sport. It was Jim's aunt Christine's new house, and they have an in ground pool with a diving board. I wasn't sure I remembered the proper form for diving off a diving board and not seriously injuring yourself, but apparently muscle memory is a spectacular thing. As soon as I got on the diving board my legs and arms knew what to do. It was really fun. I love the feeling of diving. It's so amusing to me that it came back to me so easily, considering how hard it was (and terrifying) for me to learn to dive in the first place. I remember, I was about thirteen, and I had to start by diving in from the side of the pool, and then once I got the hang of that I had to do it from the low board, and then I had to learn how to run and do it, and finally I was able to do it off the really high board. And then of course there was the time I dove so hard I lost my bathing suit top and had to swim around in the town pool trying to find it. Oops.

So anyway, we had a good time. I met Jim's aunt Christine and her children Kenny, Christopher, and Isabelle. Christopher (age 11) was pretty crazy and just generally out there and excited to meet a new person. It was fun. We heard thunder so we all ran inside and played Wii Bowling and ate snacks. The sun came out again so we went back into the pool, until we heard more thunder. Then Christine wanted us to see her new rocking chairs in her breezeway, so we sat out there and rocked and eventually everyone came out and joined us. At this point we had also been joined by another aunt and two more cousins. The highlight of the day was MOST CERTAINLY an article we read in the local paper about a chimpanzee. Christine read it out loud to us. You can find the article here. You really have to read the whole thing.

After a while we headed home to Jim's house, where we had Shepherd's Pie for dinner. After dinner Jim took me to the mall (ooooh) and then one of his friend's from UConn called so we drove to UConn and saw Jim's future apartment, where his friend is currently living, and we hung out with them and listened to music and watched some guys light off Roman candles.

On the way back I was starving so we stopped at Subway and I got a meatball sub and burned my mouth. Very exciting, I know. But seriously. I haven't had a meatball sub in over a year. It was late when we got home, so we crashed.

Wednesday we went to the beach. We had been invited by Christine. We met a different cousin, Bob, at his house around 10:30, armed with sandwiches, soda, potato chips, CheezIts, Swedish Fish, towels, beach toys, sunglasses, a blanket and a million other beach necessities. We packed it into Bob's car and drove the hour and a half to Westerly, RI, to Misquamicut State Beach. I didn't know there were things in Rhode Island besides Providence... and a beach?? What a surprise! It was pouring rain when we left South Windsor, and by the time we got to the beach, it was covered in fog. It was very strange, and you couldn't see more than about twenty feet in front of you. And yet the beach was packed. Christine predicted the fog would burn off by about one, and she was exactly right. After that it was a perfect beach day. We swam, we boogie boarded, we walked along the beach, we got ice cream, we ate out sandwiches, we wore our sunglasses, we got covered in sand, and I got burned. We were at the beach until at least five. Then it was a sandy drive home. I was supposed to drive home that night, but Jim's mom suggested I stay the extra night because I was most likely exhausted. She was right, especially because I had woken up at six-thirty again. We ordered a super yummy pizza, and then pretty much just crashed. We were all exhausted and we all had to get up in the morning

This morning I woke up at 6:30 again. What a shocker! Jim was getting ready for work so I joined him for breakfast. After he left I showered and packed up my stuff and got in the car, after saying goodbye to Jeanne. About halfway home I got a call from Jim saying he'd gotten called off work, but at that point it was a bit late to turn around. Oh well. The best part of the trip home was that I knew that gas was much cheaper in MA than in CT (they got rid of all the tolls in CT, but upped gas taxes, apparently) so my goal was not to stop for gas until I crossed into Massachusetts. I barely made it, but it was worth it. I saw gas for up to 4.39 in CT (for regular unleaded) and the stuff I got was 4.05. From Mobil, no less.

So I got home around 10:30, and ran some errands, after which I kind of vegged out for the rest of the day. I need a vacation from my vacation! Hanging out with someone else's energetic, large family for three days was exhausting! But tomorrow I start actually working (more on that later, perhaps) and then tomorrow night my friend Monique and I are going camping at Harold Parker State Forest for the 4th of July. I'll keep you updated!

The one picture from the weekend: Bobbie wakes up to a friendly cat.

Re-entry

Tuesday morning (June 4th) I woke up at six, showered, and made sure I had all my bags together. Jim graciously agreed to drag himself out of bed at seven to help me get to the airport, for which I am eternally grateful, as I would never had made it on my own. Plus, paying for my train ticket to the airport and Jim’s train ticket there and back, at 24€, was still cheaper than paying for a cab. It turned out to be a good decision, financially at least, because my bags were so overweight that I had to pay an arm and a leg to check them (it was because of all my vacuum-packed clothes). But I eventually got that worked out and made it through security with no problem, although the guy letting people into the boarding area hassled me about the size of my carry-on , and the guy at the security check was flirting with me, which always baffles me and makes me shut down, so I was pretty flustered when I got through. Also they went through both my carry-on and my backpack. My Epi-pens, jars of spices and massive frying pan mixed in with clothes and makeup probably looked pretty menacing on the x-ray screen. The thing is, with my carry-ons, it’s usually almost all last-minute stuff that I almost forgot and then just squeezed in somewhere.

Wistful to be leaving Paris.


Thinking about when I can come back


Bye Jimmy :-(


My 10:25 flight to Dublin had apparently been changed to 10:40 sometime between when my Dad made the reservations and when I got to the airport, and then all the screens said it was on-time but at 10:50 it still hadn’t boarded. We finally took off around 11:15. I still had a pretty long layover in Dublin so I wasn’t really worried, but I should have been, as I hadn’t taken into account the fact that in Dublin I would have to in fact exit the terminal, go through passport control, get a new boarding pass, go through security again (with my bags opened up again), and go through US Customs and Border Protection before actually boarding my flight.

I did do all that, and ended up cutting it pretty close. The craziest thing in this whole day, though, was what happened in the Customs and Border Protection line.

I don’t know if anyone who reads this blog watches American Idol. I would like to pretend that I myself do not. However, I cannot tell a lie - I got hooked on it. I had a few favorite contestants, my two top picks being Carly Smithson and David Cook. David Cook ended up winning. Carly Smithson ended up being in the Customs and Border Protection line at Dublin airport.

I noticed her husband first - he’s pretty hard to miss. They featured him a few times on the show, and his whole face is covered in very distinct tribal tattoos. Carly has a lot of tattoos, too, and I always thought both of their tattoos were very cool, so the first thing I recognized was the tattooed face of Carly Smithson’s husband. First I thought, “Wow, that guy has a lot of tattoos on his face.” Then, “He looks like Carly Smithson’s husband.” Then, “Who’s that pretty woman next to him?” Then, “Carly Smithson is from Ireland, and I’m in Ireland.” Then, “Oh my God that’s Carly Smithson.”

I have met several famous people in my lifetime. Some I knew I was going to meet - Art Garfunkel, Davey Jones, Sam Waterston. Some, I didn’t know I was going to meet - James Taylor, Amanda Palmer, John Malkovitch (okay, okay, I didn’t really meet him, he just stared me down in a piercing parlor in Harvard Square). And most of that second list, I didn’t really get the impact of it at the time. I was seven when I met James Taylor, and I didn’t know who he was. Amanda Palmer went to LHS. and that’s where I met her, with Sam Kafrissen trying to set us up. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. This was super different. Carly Smithson may not be as famous as those people, and none of you may care who she is, but I admit that I watched American Idol every week up until about a month and a half ago. I loved her voice and her personality and he whole story. Seeing her there, it was the first time I had seen and recognized a famous person, and in such a banal setting, it seemed so unreal. So I was completely starstruck, probably for the first time in my life.

So I walked over to them. Because I am a creep. I literally was just like, “Excuse me, are you Carly Smithson?” half-expecting her to say, “No, but I get that a lot.” I was actually pretty surprised when she said yes, and then I didn’t know what to do. I was really at a loss for words. I felt ridiculous. It’s just so hard to explain how weird it was. You see someone on TV. You see them every week. You know a lot about them. Their face is very familiar to you. But it’s all static, it’s all one-way. They are on a screen. It’s a barrier. Even with live TV, it’s fixed in place, because nothing in my life would ever impact anything in her life, even though she’s impacted the lives of millions of people. So when that barrier is taken away, and I am standing next to her in the Dublin airport, and the things that she says are a direct result of the things that I say to her, it becomes very very weird, and even a little sad. She seemed a little wary, but her husband told me they were going home to the US and asked me where I was headed and was flattered and amused when I told them I liked their tattoos. I think they were pretty amused at my tongue-tiedness. Finally I told them to have a good flight and kind of ran away, embarrassed. I wish I’d said something witty or intelligent, or told her how talented I think she is (or asked her for David Cook’s phone number). I also wished I’d had an accessible camera, or asked for her autograph or something, just something that a normal fan would do, instead of standing there spluttering about tattoos. But I was just completely taken by surprise by her being there.



So yeah, I felt kind of idiotic afterwards, but it was still really freaking cool. I eventually got on my plane to Boston from Dublin with no difficulty, and that’s where I am writing this post from. I should be in Boston in a couple of hours. Home sweet home! But I miss Paris already. I have a feeling there will be posts in the future about re-adjusting to life stateside, but I’m not sure how long the Paris blog should continue now that I am no longer in Paris.

And here it is, AT LONG LAST, photos (finally) courtesy of Jimmy - My Last Days in Paris!

Au revoir, Paris.

Monday (June 3rd) was my last full day in Paris. Sunday night I went back to my favorite little Chinese restaurant, Nénuphar on Avenue de Choisy. I highly recommend it. The food is amazing, the prices are moderate, the service is great, and the best thing is that nobody knows about it, so it’s never crowded. It’s usually nearly empty. If you’re in Paris, you should definitely go, because with that kind of business who knows how long before they have to close down.

Monday morning I was pretty sad, and in a funk from events of the night before, and not sure of what I wanted to do. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to do something I’d never done, or go do something again that I loved. I decided on sleeping in. Oops.

Anyway, in the afternoon I did eventually decide to go visit Shakespeare & Co., because it is kind of a Mecca for English speakers in Paris and I had never been. So I went there and perused the used books on the shelves outside, sitting down to read some of The Turn of the Screw and re-read the first story from In the Land of Dreamy Dreams.





Finally I went inside and looked through their new stock. I thought about buying a book about Paris, for when I miss it, but nothing struck my fancy. Jim showed me the second floor, too, with the reference books that you can’t buy, and the little carrel where people have left hundreds of notes, both scrawled on scraps of paper and typed on the tiny typewriter.

Afterwards Jim remembered that at one point I had said that I wanted to go see the Pont Mirabeau, because of the famous poem:

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

I’m so glad he remembered: I would never have thought of it. We took the 10 straight from Saint-Michel and went over to the bridge. It was nothing much to speak of, but it had a pretty nice view of the smaller French Statue of Liberty with the Eiffel Tower looming in the background.









Of course, now, writing this, I am sad that I didn't go back to the Lapin Agile a fourth time (one of the guys there sings that poem set to music). I know I will go back one day but I am sure the same people won't be there, and it was the people and the fact that they recognized Erin and me that I loved so much.

Earlier in the day I had said that I was interested in trying to cook something that I had never cooked before for my last night. Jim wanted to send me off in style, and he suggested we make a French dinner since I refused to have any sort of actual party. So we went on Allrecipes.com and searched through their recipes for French cuisine. Soupe à l’oignon was pretty much a given - we just had to pick a recipe. For the main dish we decided to make pork chops stuffed with bleu cheese, chives and bacon. It looked amazing. So I had written down the grocery list and after I had had my fill of the Pont Mirabeau I took my last trip to the mall in the Village d’Asie (Chinatown) which is where I like to do some of my grocery shopping because they have a massive supermarket.

Waiting for the tram for my last trip to Géant


We got all the ingredients, including gorgonzola as our bleu cheese, which was a nice touch because I have been trying to find gorgonzola in France without much success for most of the year. If I’d known I could have gotten it at Géant, I would have done so a long time ago.

On the way back with the goods


We headed home and chilled out for a bit before starting dinner. We were both pretty tired. We decided that Jim would make the soup and I would make the pork chops, mostly because I was pretty excited about learning how to make stuffed anything. Never done that before. I did have to have Jim butterfly the pork chops though, as I am not even handy enough with a knife to slice a bagel.

Taking over the kitchen!


Jim enjoying dinner


Delicious stuffed pork chops!


And next to it, Jim's French Onion Soup, which he was worried about but I thought was delicious


To make a long story short, the meal was delicious. If anyone wants the recipe for the chops, drop me an e-mail. As we were finishing up, Amy showed up with perfect timing. She couldn’t bear for me to leave without seeing me one more time (who could, really?) so she cut short a night out and brought her date over for pancakes and s’mores. We didn’t actually end up making the s’mores, but Amy did make pancakes even though Audrey had to leave before they were ready. So Amy and Jim and I had pancakes and Amy and I said our tearful goodbyes.

Amy


I have been known to sneak up very quietly
\

Jim, and Amy's date, who Amy and I left alone together for a bit because we're kind of mean


I got to say goodbye to Mike...


...and Tim


Attempting to make pancakes from crepe mix


A little spaced out?


Pancrepecakes!


Bye Amy :-(


All in all, it was a good last day.

Just something to amuse

I still don't have those pictures from my last days in Paris, but just to keep you busy I managed to dig up this photo of my trip to the Guinness storehouse in Dublin. To recap, I met Rita, a flight attendant, in the line at the storehouse, and we did our self-guided tour together. When we got to the bar up top we met Rob (Canadian) and Mikael (Swede). Then we all accidentally (in all seriousness) stole our pint glasses. And drank from them out on the street in front of the factory. You can read the whole story here.



Maybe I will have more of these later. I am still waiting on all the ones from Rita, the flight attendant, although Rob the Canadian took a bunch, too, and this one is his so maybe I'll get more from him.

Still alive...

So I just thought I would let everyone know that I am still alive, and home. I have not updated about the end of my time in Paris for two reasons:

1. I cannot get onto my computer right now as the keyboard doesn't work. I have ordered a keyboard which should arrive today or tomorrow, and I already have a new mouse. I will use them with my laptop during the summer and hopefully buy a new MacBook at the end of the summer! If I can get a job...

2. I am waiting for my friend to upload all the pictures from my last days in Paris.

Soon!

Cannes: The aftermath!

These are some things I have done since Cannes:

1. Marijka visited Paris.



2. Had a picnic in the park.



Ducks ate our cheese.



3. Went to a carnival.



There was Italian ice at the carnival.



4. Sarah and Carolyn came to visit.

We got fallafel.





5. Went to a Polish restaurant in the crypt of a Catholic church.