Resources and Something Else

Hey, I PROMISED. Just so you may know for yourself how Machaira is a delusional man:

"Enjo Kosai: Compensated Dating"

Japan for the Uninvited: Enjo Kosai (Do not hang around for too long in this page, mind you...)

Asia for Visitors - The Myth of Enjo Kosai

Enjo Kosai (Details, Meaning, Articles and Explanation Guide)

Lolita Complex and Enjo Kosai (This one hits it on the mark rather hard)

Asahi-Shinbun: Survey Disputes 'Enjo-Kosai' Hype (I don't know if I should be relieved or ashamed ;-)

TIMEasia.com Sex in Asia Enjo

hackwriters.com - "Enjo Kosai - Adventures in a Love Hotel" by J. T. Brown (Also kinda hits it on the mark. I just wish he didn't bring up that little detail about the box of tissue...)

And of course, the articles referenced in my long ramble. So there you have it. Can you stop being paranoid now, me?

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Daniel in the Fine Arts Den

I wrote most of this earlier in class. Now you can catch a glimpse of what happens during Machaira's school hours.

"What did I get my sorry butt into???" I thought as I listened to the professor's rather disjointed lecture on metaphysics regarding "being". Hearing him talk about heathen mumbo-jumbo...and attempting to connect it all to the Bible, to boot...was a real eye-opener about the state of the institute I was currently enrolled in. No, wait, scratch that. It wasn't just ANY eye-opener. It was like having my eyelids forced open by steel clothespins while a sadistic 15th century Inquisitionist positioned himself over me, menacingly brandishing a pair of bloodstained forceps and yelling "IS THE EUCHARIST THE TRUE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST!?"

For a professedly Catholic school (though it is claimed to be non-sectarian), I was surprised to hear humanist and even pagan philosophies spouted from classroom pulpits (my much more sophisicated substitute for "teacher's desk"). I wonder: is this the "progress" the so-called "Age of Enlightenment" (more like endarkenment if you ask me) was claimed to have brought to the world as so many Discovery Channel and National Geographic-esque programs would have us to believe? If you were to ask me, I feel like an exiled Jew in Babylon right now. At least Daniel had the faith and courage to stand up to people who worshipped pagan deities.

Oh, great. He's talking about family planning and being liberal-minded about ideas or something. Now what? Modernism: Glory to Man in the highest, for Man is the measure of all things? Or POST-Modernism: "pwn3d by 3xp3r13nc3" (as wonky would put it)? Oh wait, that's existentialism. Postmodernism is like "There seems to be no absolute truth out there and if there was any to begin with, we probably couldn't attain it". To make matters worse, he speaks at around 100MPH and makes it VERY difficult for me to understand what he's actually saying (at least it's good practice for when I get to talk to a native Japanese person ;-) Ah, wait. Now he's pushing pluralism. "Doesn't matter what religion you're in, we all worship the same God." So, sir, could you tell me how Allah, whose Prophet denies the deity of Christ, is the same as the God of the Bible whose apostle of love wrote "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not (John 1:10)" of the very same Jesus? Could you tell me how the lecherous Zeus of Greek mythology is similar to the faithful Lord Almighty who said "Thou shalt not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14)"? When did the once-human deity of the Mormons become categorically similar to the Lord GOD whose servant Moses declared "From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God (Psalm 90:2)"?

To make matters worse, here are my classmates. If they meet a professor they don't like, well, to Beelzebub with the subject (I admit I was chatting with my seatmate, a professing Evangelical, about the prof and his really odd teachings, so I'm guilty of this too). Sure enough, in time they were making a lot of noise. The guy next to me was even reading a portfolio by a Vegan classmate (NOW you #prosians know why I'm so hung up on PETA). The boys behind us were insulting the professor by imitating his manner of speaking. Worse, one of the students asked him a question regarding God as a being. I'm guessing the teacher shot out an inconsistency or something, but then again that particular classmate may not be aware of the principles of causality either (i.e. Everything has a cause--in the theists' case, God is the Prime Cause of all things--the uncaused cause in the Christian case).

I'm honestly tempted to tune out everything going on around me, but I feel I must listen. Many of my classmates are pagans, and even though they may not really care about what the teacher is saying, 1 Peter 3:15 still incites me to some action. I only hope I get to use all this knowledge in God's timing.