13-01-2009

This past Sunday I went to a church service with three others at 12:30. The church was one of those contemporary cult-like arena style churches. It was called city harvest and the first half hour was basically a christian rock concert. I would guess there were about two thousand people in attendance and they were all clapping in time, singing along, raising their hands to the heavens and freaking me out. There were three giant screens at the front to show random images that went along with the lyrics and to show the religious zealots in action. Towards the end they were all mumbling this chant-like prayer that was in god knows what language. The sermon was what you would expect from an American who travels all over the world "spreading the word" and praising his life-changing book (which he didn't write; it was dictated to him by God.) It was a novel experience. Note the lyrics on the screen say "Shout it out loud, shout it out Jesus."

Saturday afternoon was spent at the zoo. I haven't been to a zoo in a while so I can't accurately compare but I would say this zoo had an immense quantity of animals. They didn't have a platypus but other than that I can't think of anything they didn't have. In general I don't have many pictures of myself because I don't generally take pictures of myself and I feel uncomfortable asking other people to take my picture. I give this as an explanation of why the quantity of photos featuring myself is small. All but two of these people are RPI students. Anna in the middle is from Spain and Poroshat towards the right is a full-blooded Persian who lives in Canada. To the right is my roommate Sam (far right). Last night I played ultimate frisbee for over two hours and I pulled my hamstring. I also developed a neck/throat/head ache but it feels mostly better now. I had fun despite these things.