Merry-Christmas-and-Happy-Feast-of-St-Steven-the-Protomartyr!

There, now I'm not behind! Hurrah!
So what can I write about that hasn't been written about regarding Christmas? Pretty much nothing. So, in the absence of new subject material, I will go after some older material, after I air one grievance-
The lyrics of 'In Dulci Jubilo' are FAR superior to 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice'. It is NOT 'hard Latin' and it has substance, where 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice' is a fuzzy bit of marshmallow fluff. Only not even that because marshmallow fluff is kind of tasty (while being simultaneously disgusting- think of how much sugar that is!!). I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that lame hymns are a contributing factor to people leaving the church. Why? Because I've found people remember bits of songs far more easily than say, the Eucharistic prayers. I've found myself randomly humming bits of the Divine Liturgy and I've quoted parts of it (sometimes while singing it) to people who ask me about 'my faith and what it means to me'. If you have good solid doctrine in your hymns and not just fluff, people may find it easier to understand aspects of their faith. What a thought, right?
Okay, rant over. Promise.
So Christmas in the vicinity of Ft. SINYF. It's SNOWING! What the heck? Not complaining, just shocked! I thought it wasn't supposed to snow here! The locals seem for the most part to have taken the smart course of action for them which is to stay indoors and cower. This strange precipitation from the sky might be a harbinger of nuclear winter or something. I mean, it's sooo weird... It's like rain but not!
Seriously people? It's not even accumulating. You don't get to complain about snow unless there's two feet of it outside, you are completely snowed in with intermittent power, and your mom decides to make 'colonial herb bread' with the last of the food in the pantry. Then and only then may you complain that said bread tastes like sand and was probably the sole reason for a high mortality rate in the colonies.
Yesterday and Christmas Eve, I had people over for food/games/socializing. The food was good if I do say so myself as the person who bought and prepared almost all of it. The exception was a strange sort of salmon quiche made by one of my guests with the salmon I bought but didn't have time to prepare. The rest of said salmon will probably be my dinner tonight. Yum!
So what else... we played a rather outdated game of Outburst which was still fun, even though we had to remove from play cards like "Famous Baseball Pitchers 1960-1990", and "College Football Team Nicknames". This second was more due to the guests than the age of the game. On the whole, we are not sports fans. That would be far, far too normal. What is normal anyway? Why should I care about sports? I don't know any of the athletes personally. I feel a sort of... not quite patriotism, but I guess a sort of back-yard nationalism... ooh that sound bad too. Um... micronation-sentimentality... No, that won't do either. Regional pride sounds daft. Er...
You know, that feeling about a geographic region that you either currently inhabit or have inhabited or have relatives from, that you feel a sort of fondness for. You'd like to go back and vacation there, maybe even live there, but you can't say truthfully that you're FROM there. Whatever.
Anyway. When did this get to be about sports? Sorry... back to party stuff. I think everyone had a good time. I'm not much for hosting parties. I mean, there was a housewarming party ages ago, and then this. And I forgot so many things that I meant to do or get before it started. Planning a party is complicated. I think it requires more free time and energy than I actually had. But all things considered, it was not bad. I think people enjoyed themselves and that's really the main thing.
All right, now I'll turn to a more serious thing. Today is the feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, and according to the New Rite, also the feast of the Holy Family, more on that later.
St. Stephen was the first martyr, hence the title protomartyr. It struck me today that this is pretty interesting. I mean, there were twelve apostles and St. Stephen was 'just' a deacon. You'd think that one of the apostles would be the protomartyr- maybe St. Peter because he had a history of doing rash things (hacking off an ear?) and saying rash things ("I'll never deny you!"). You could just picture St. Peter saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the right time and getting martyred for it. But it was this other guy, St. Stephen instead. So what do we know about him? Not a whole lot, I don't think. He understood that Jesus was the son of God, he was a deacon, he was tried by the Jewish religious court and sentenced to death for blasphemy ("God forbid that God should have a son..."). St. Paul acted as a coat-stand at his martyrdom, not actually getting his hands dirty in this instance but complicit. Did the memories of that stoning come back to haunt him during his conversion experience? Did St. Paul's temporarily sightless eyes see a young man dying a terrible death for the truth?
Looking a little further ahead on the calendar, we can see the feast of Holy Innocents. I love to think of them as Jesus's honor guard, his _comitatus_ (the Old English sense of the word, nothing to do with Hungarian counties or Bulgarian administrative units).

People want to celebrate the joy of Christmas and Christ's birth, but if you leaf ahead a little, as it were, you can see that it's not going to be all eggnog and presents. It's going to get very, very bad. Innocent people will die for the crimes of existing and telling the truth. But when it's bad, think about Christmas and Christ's birth. He was the only one who was ever born to die, to set us free, to open the gates of Heaven for us. With Him, our suffering and even our deaths will not be in vain.

NB: Yes, I know, some people move St. Stephen's feast to the 27th. I still say it's the 26th, because I think Boxing Day is lame. All right?

Additional NB: Perhaps this should have been several posts instead of one large post? Thoughts?

DADT Repeal: Rant

So much to say, so little inclination to actually write....argh. Okay, here goes...

Regarding DADT, its recent repeal and the implications of aforementioned repeal

I wish I could give some people at the highest levels of my chain of command a small piece of my mind. I wish I could give them a deck-plate view (I used deck-plate therefore I am steeped in Navy traditions..), but they clearly aren't interested in getting it. Not once in all the media hype and coverage surrounding this 'historic' event that I have seen, has anyone interviewed a literate, currently-serving member of the armed forces who is opposed to the repeal of DADT.
On the whole, the armed forces have been portrayed as anywhere from apathetic to whole-heartedly enthusiastic about an instant repeal of DADT...
To my fellow servicemembers who approve of the repeal: think of the GMTs, people. If NOTHING else, think of the hours of your life that you will never get back doing GMTs (sensitivity training/annual training/'awareness' training for you civilian readers). Don't we already have enough GMTs to do?
If that doesn't motivate you, little will.

Here's a thought, Washington and Assorted Brass- the reason why you didn't get most of those surveys you sent out back is because the vast majority of us are too damn busy doing our jobs to fill out anything that won't directly affect our pay, housing or access to food. You think I'm joking but I'm not. If you REALLY wanted to know what everyone thought, you'd send that damn survey to every single servicemember out there and make it MANDATORY to return it. 100% contact. We do that with NMCRS donation forms every year. It can be done. You won't do it though, because the news will be depressing. I heard somewhere that about forty percent of Marines surveyed said they won't re-up. I'd say probably half that number are not in a financial position to decide that- but that their numbers will be made up for by people who haven't yet realized the full impact that the repeal of DADT will have.

Here's what I want and what I won't get- I want to get out and keep my bonus money and my GI bill because I signed up for a different Navy. People who disagree with my point of view may say "Get out, we can't get rid of your bigoted kind fast enough."
My answer? I have some very specialized skills that I'm taking with me as I leave. To train up my replacement will take you two years, minimum. My departure will impact mission readiness. But if it was free pass to get out, I know I wouldn't be the only one to take it.

But that won't happen. I'll grind my teeth and fulfill my contractual obligation. I'll be damned if I re-up though.

Now I'm done shooting my mouth off.
Bring it on.

What class today felt like

Sweaty palms, clenched toes (of all things), sloshy stomach, aching head, ringing ears, knotted chest- no deep breaths, hyper-awareness of every sound, smell of fear, stiff back and neck.
Worse than thesis semester? Yup. Worse than previous school? Yup. 4-5 weeks left to go, three tests next week? Yup.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Happy feast of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, Defender of Orthodoxy, Wonder-worker, and Holy Hierarch! He is the patron saint of children, Russia, sailors, the Navy, archers, thieves, students, and the cities of Aberdeen, Amsterdam, Barranquilla, Bari, Beit Jala, Fribourg, Huguenots, Liverpool, Siggiewi, and Lorraine.
He also punched Arius and we've got the icons to prove it!

St. Nicholas is a truly awesome saint. According to something I read, in life he was only about five foot tall and may have had a broken nose (I wonder if Arius punched him back...) yet his generosity has been remembered for a very long time now. In his memory and in honor of his name-day, I brought lots of chocolate for my class. We're having a tough week. We have a big scary test tomorrow and another one tomorrow. I'll be hitting up the Wonderworker of Myra with my prayers for the octave after his feast!

In other news, class has been extended into next week. Argh. etc.

Are we there yet?

Okay, I was going to post a rant about lunchtime on base but I decided to save that for another day. I'm too tired for that now. I have a test tomorrow and then two more next week. Big, scary, important tests before I finally get to take a well-deserved break. Oh crap... I just remembered I didn't get my leave chit in yet. I have to do that tomorrow. Argh. One more thing. There's always something else. I cannot wait for this break. It cannot come fast enough. Just three tests left. Just have to keep the brain in gear a little bit longer... argh.