Ah, crap.

So I get a message from CSUS' financial aid office. They tell me I need to log on to SacLink to see which forms I still need to submit for financial aid. I try to do so.

I can't remember my damned password. It's none of my usual passwords, due to their password rules. I somehow don't have the email the system sent me for backup. And to get a temp password set, I have to go down and show my Student ID card to the help desk. Only one problem: I don't have one, and I won't get it until Thursday at the earliest.

I'm on the phone to them to try and convince them it's ok, but that's a dodgy hope at best.

Update: Remembered it, finally.

Grrr. Mahdi RANT!

What is wrong with people that they equate "I am not Christian" with "I have no morals and live my life by no code of decency"? I mean, excuse me? How myopic a worldview does that require? (And note that I realize not all Christians think like this; the rant is for those who do).

Roughly 70% of the world is non-christian, and a great many of those -- the vast majority, in fact -- are decent, moral people by any measure, and probably a lot more modest and conservative in their morals than the people who spout this crap.

Buddhists are not Christian. They have morals and codes of decency. So do Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews, and every other faith. So, in fact, do Atheists and Agnostics.

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: Religion is one way to learn and formulate morality; it is not the only way.

Example: I believe it is wrong to murder a person. But I do not hold this belief simply because God says it's bad.

I believe that life is here for one lifetime, and then it is gone. To take that life away is a heinous crime beyond reason, for that person will never be back. Their soul might, if reincarnation is true, and sure, if the Christians are right, that person will have a chance at heaven -- but that particular person will never again live on Earth. If you kill him, you remove his one chance at this life. Even if you accept that he gets another incarnation later, you've destroyed this particular manifestation of that soul. And that is an unforgivable crime. The only time killing can be excused is in the protection of another.

In an episode of Babylon 5, a priest berates Sheridan for having "no clear pattern of belief", because Sheridan, like me, finds truth wherever it lies, and incorporates it into his belief system. Sheridan replies "I'm eclectic -- open-minded."

Truth lies in all places, in all people, in all things. Everything has a piece of the truth. I take it where I get it, whether that be the Catholic church I was born into, the Pentecostals I knew in jr. high, or the Buddhist texts I read now. Hell, I'll take truth from Fiction, if it feels right -- or else Dune would never have become such a part of me.

(no subject)

Ok. The ONE thing I hate about working on the iBook is that I often reach for the 10-key numberpad. Only I don't have one. And the Number lock thing isn't as useful.