Time

Okay, this post is going to be pretty weird, but bear with me, it just might make sense by the end of the post...

What if there is only now? No future, no past, only present, and everything that is happening (which includes those things which we normally consider to have happened already and those things which have not yet happened) happens in the present tense. To understand this better, consider a sphere. On this sphere, all events happen (similar to the line time is usually described with). As the sphere expands to allow room for more events, the other events continue to happen. However, as the event of the sphere's expanding has already happened, the sphere is already infinitely large and all possible events have already happened.
This idea of time allows for certain apparent inconsistencies in the Bible, such as Christ having lived for eternity, but was also begotten (I have never before heard a good explanation for this). Using this system of time, Christ would have always have been living and would always have been begotten. Also, this provides a good explanation for God's knowledge of the future. As everything happens in the present, if you can see the entire present, you can see everything that is happening (once again, this includes things which we normally define as already having happened or things that are going to happen). Humans, however, are limited to only seeing a part of the present, and so cannot know what is going to happen later in the present (English really isn't a good language to try to define this sort of stuff in, perhaps I should invent an entirely new language to help people understand it...).
This is approximately my current idea on the nature of time. The whole thing is extremely counter-intuitive, and so is very difficult to think through and explain properly. This, added to the aforementioned nature of the English language, has caused my explanation to be completely inadequate...If only I could utilize some form of telepathy and transfer my ideas that way...Anyways, if you see any glaring impossibilities in it, show them to me and I will attempt to explain them away. I don't really expect anyone else to believe this, due to an early conditioning on the nature of time that is almost impossible to undo...Maybe someday in the future I'll be proved right and this idea will be taught in schools...

Ping-Pong

Yesterday, I had my first Ping-Pong lesson with a professional player (and, in all probability, my last). It was quite a lot of fun, though he only taugh us backhand, and what he taught us doesn't mesh with my style, and he didn't teach us enough for me to be able to do a huge amount with it. He is a perfectionist. He kept on wanting my posture and hand position to be exactly right (he wants my posture to be completely different than how it normally is-as I am quite tall he made me bend down really far) and I think I'll be able to implement those changes to improve my game.
After the class, our teacher showed us his favorite move (which was a forehand slam) and it was pretty sweet. Rather than just using his arm for the slam, he jumped up and slammed it with his entire body. I would really hate to have that done to me when I was playing a game. He did another very impressive thing when I was playing him one on one. He was playing quite slowly and pretty high (being kind to me) and I slammed it to his backhand. He appeared to be utterly unprepared for it (he was standing right next to the table not paying too much attention) and it went pretty high before he got it. To get it, he jumped up and backwards while reaching his right hand across his body and as far up as it could go. And, to top it off, he got it back to my side of the table going pretty slow and very easy to get.
I had one other surprise (though not from the coach). After the class all the students were playing each other. Peter and Luke played first. Not surprisingly, Peter beat Luke (came within one point of skunking him actually). I then played Peter, and, to my shock, he was almost as I good as I was. The last time I had played him, he was barely one tenth as good as he is now. I probably would've lost the game merely from the shock of it all, but, fortunately for my reputation, my reflexes came into action and took over almost completely. Unfortunately, my reflexes were confused by my new posture, so I only won 13/11 with Peter having actually forced me to serve on two game points previously. After beating Peter, I played David, who, as usual beat me=( This more understandable though, David has had quite a few lessons with the Ping-Pong Park, so he knows how to play quite well.
On a random note, I am now thinking seriously about getting my own paddle. Mr. Park has offered to put some professional plastic stuff on it (that normally costs $60) so i think it would be worthwhile, as a paddle only costs like 1000 riyals or so. If I did this I would have a chance to learn my paddle, which might make it worthwhile to try to learn a decent amount of spin. And I have written an awful lot aboout ping-pong so I think I should probably get back to work on my paper before I start to bore Jasmine any worse than I already have...

Attention Span

Recently, I have started to notice that i have a great deal of difficulty paying attention to anything for any length of time. For example, when my parents start talking to me, my mind just kind of fades out their voice, and then, when they desire a response, I have to look back in my memory for the last 15 seconds or so of the conversation (all my short-term memory will hold) and try to figure out a reasonable response for those 15 seconds. This actually works surprisingly well, as most people (including me) actually say most of what they are going to say in the last 30 seconds or so of the conversation. So I only miss roughly half the conversation, which, in my opinion, is not too bad. Sometimes though, they say something where the main gist of the conversation was in the beginning of it, and then I feel totally lost and quite embarassed. Another thing i get easily bored of is eating. Recently I have been getting bored in the middle of meals, and so have left the table quite hungry (by middle of meal I mean after only 1 or 2 helpings of everything). Fortunately, there is a simple remedy for this: late night snacking. Unfortunately, though, my mom does not approve of this practice, so I generally try to do this when she is distracted by something else. I'm weird.