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Results For "Month: January 2001"
Firings and a Letter
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I am now twenty-eight years old. Two years to thirty; twelve years to forty. I guess it’s not a big deal, but still — I’m not where I thought I’d be at this point in my life.
So last night was my birthday party — a lot of people came, but several were absent: Vidiya (sp?) and her friend weren’t here; Beth didn’t come; Charles and his date were no-shows, as were Kiki and Jason. But lots did come: Steve (the first to arrive), Marlon, Leesha, and (Uncle) Bob, Matt, Armando, Tiffany and Dave, Adam and Rob. I enjoyed myself, I must admit. And I got some cool presents — Marlon gave me a meerschaum cigar holder and an Arturo Fuente to smoke in it; Dave and Tiffany gave me a slinky; Matt brought me a coffee table book about — guess — coffee, and some chocolate-covered espresso beans. And Chhavi’s friend from school Sheena and her boyfriend Bill gave me a big box of about six rolls of film.
I also got some really cool cards. Tiffany and Dave’s reads, “A big expensive gift is what I wanted to get you for your birthday,” and then you open it to read, “But I work at the same place you do, remember?” Steve’s card had a nun on the front saying, “Celebrate your birthday however you like!” and it continues on the inside, “You’re going to burn in hell anyway,” to which Steve added, “Tell us something we don’t know, sister!” And in his card Armando wrote, “You’re still a long way from 40 . . . but it’s turning 30 that’s scary!”
It was, in general, a really good evening. A lot of people showed up later than I was expecting, but enough people did eventually show up that it wasn’t an uncomfortably small party. That was something of a concern for me at first, as it was at Chhav’s party.
The food was a big hit. Marlon of course ate a ton of the bigos — I’d fixed it for him once before when Chhav was out of town and we watched Natural Born Killers that evening, so I knew he’d like it. Uncle Bob, though, was all over that. He had about five helpings, I think. Armando said the bigos actually reminded him of certain kinds of French cuisine.
Job Changes
Yesterday I attended my first last editors’ meeting — at least my last one as an editor. Natalie is going to do the paperwork Monday to make my move to IT official.
So after a year of basically knowing what I was doing and how to do it, I’m more or less in the dark. I have to admit that Tuesday, before I left work, I was more than a little anxious about my lack of technical background. I was working on getting links to public Outlook folders and I was, for a moment, terribly afraid that I had to know XML to get the job done. I was looking at the Outlook Today page’s code and thinking, “I might as well be trying to translate German.” But yesterday Kevin showed me where in the Programming Outlook and Exchange book I could find how to do it. It’s simple — and somewhat impressive. All I have to do is this: <A HREF = Outlook:\Inbox>. Or something like that. I can’t remember the details about the slashes and such. (I never remember whether it’s / or \ until I do it a thousand times.) Anyway, I’m feeling much better about it now.
I’m finding, though, that as a supervisor Kevin will not be quite as laid back as Natalie would be. I’ve already received two emails (addressed to all IT folks) about issues such as hours.1 I’m not worried about it — but still, it was a little disconcerting to read an email that began, “I thought I made myself clear in last week’s meeting, but just to reiterate . . .”
I finally responded to Jasiu’s email of last week. I wrote a terse note in crappy Polish saying that I was terribly busy at the moment and didn’t have time to write a proper letter but that I would send him the pertinent information by the end of the month. I dread writing such a letter in Polish — trying to leave myself as much wiggle room as possible in a language I haven’t used much in eighteen months. Won’t that be fun.
Even more entertaining will be trying to decide whether or not I actually want to return. I’m surprised, though, that I’ve managed to keep my mouth shut with people at work. No one has the slightest clue (at least as far as I know) that I might not be working at DLI this time next year. I’ve managed successfully to keep it to myself.
1 We’re expected to be in the office by 8:30 and stay until at least 5:30.
More Changes
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Changes
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LW Thoughts
I did begin a new mini-project. I still haven’t finished transcribing my journal from 1996 (October through December) to Word format. I typed in the entry for 1 November today — over 2,300 words. It was my first All Saints’ Day and I waxed eloquent about it. I wrote some pretty lame things, truth be told. I think I was writing with a future audience in mind — my great Peace Corps journal, I guess.
It made me want to return, of course. I was thinking that if I went back now, there would be one grave that I would want to visit on All Saints’ Day: Marcela’s. I realized that such a thing would make me more at home than I’d been four years ago. And I further realized that as more and more time passed (if I lived there the rest of my life, in other words), eventually, that day would take on more and more significance. I’d have graves to visit, more candles to light. And who knows — by that time I might know Polish well enough that I could mumble along with the prayers. And I might have lived in a Catholic community (plausibility structures and all) for long enough that I’d want to mutter those prayers.
PCG Thoughts
I was skimming Malachi’s Message this morning and I came upon an interesting paradox in the Armstrongian worldview. It was when I read Flurry’s condemnation of the WCG’s contribution to flood victims:
Dr. Ward explained how the WCG is changing its views about giving to hurricane and other disaster funds. This goes deeper than just giving to disaster victims — who do need help. This is a changing of the Church’s commission established by Christ — through Mr. Armstrong. Instead of spending money to warn the people why disasters are happening, the WCG helps them financially. Soon the world is going to be literally flooded with disasters! God is going to bring it to pass as punishment. Tithes and offerings are going to be spent in vain if they continue this approach.1
Of course such an attitude is not a surprise when one creates such an alterative universe as the PCG as done — they “nihiliate” all concerns outside their own world. But this points to something a little more interesting: the “commission” of God’s church is such that humanitarian aid is less important than warning the world. Warning the world of what, though? It’s fairly simple. Unless the United States and Britain repent and basically start following Armstrong’s philosophy and twisted theology, God destroy them in a nuclear holocaust that only God’s elect (read, “PCG members”) will escape. However, if they do repent, then God will spare them. However, it’s “prophesied” that all this will take place: the white Anglo-Saxons will eventually get their asses kicked by the whiter German Aryans.
So what’s the point of “warning the world” if it’s doomed to failure? I suppose the PCG answer is that God wants to call out a few people for training so that they can help God enforce his petty dietary laws and make sure racial segregation is the global norm. All of this creates an interesting paradox: Armstrongites are “desperately crying out” — “a voice cried out!” reeks of this last-minute, frenzied anxiety — wanting anyone who’ll listen to do so, and then change their ways. Yet they almost revel in the coming delight they’ll have in showing everyone that they were right: Armstrong’s Gnosticism was bang-on and everyone else will be groveling for forgiveness. I think deep down inside, Flurry and his minions (and all the other Armstrongites) are just dying for all hell to break loose, literally.
This leads to another interesting point: it’s amazing the amount of help Armstrong’s God needs. He needed help finishing up the creation of Earth — “putting the icing on the cake,” to use a favorite, worn-out Armstrong metaphor — and so he created angels. He will need help ruling over all these resurrected peoples in the World Tomorrow, so he’s calling out a few people now for training.
Finally, I noticed how Flurry almost always refers to HWA as “Mr. Armstrong.” I think in other theological writings people simply follow the scholarly standard and refer to people by their last name: “Armstrong taught . . .” and so on. But this doesn’t show the respect that Flurry and others always want to show Armstrong. He was not just a minister but also an Apostle, and the capital “A” is important. To refer to him simply as Armstrong would be wrong because a) it follows the worldly standard, and b) it separates him from his divine role. “Armstrong” is just a man; “Mr. Armstrong” is God’s Apostle.
1 Flurry, Gerald. Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today. South Africa: Philadelphia Church of God, 1995. Page 95.