Take me to your New York

Okay, so I suppose I should finish up my chronicles on my adventures in New York, especially now that I’m situated at the beginning of orientation.

Not too much happened on Sunday, just hung around Columbia and went to church (NOW I’M GOING TO TALK ABOUT RELIGION, SKIP DOWN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH IT). It’s still awkward to hang around Christians (in church, where they expect mainly other Christians to be), especially when family is around (which makes me Christian by proxy unless I say something; I usually don’t). It feels like I should blurt out the fact that I’m an atheist as the second thing out of my mouth, just to make sure that there aren’t any misunderstandings: I mean, I think that religious memes in general need to die. We’re working from different axioms, and the people I talk to should know that.

It doesn’t have to be awkward: I could announce I’m an atheist, see how people respond, and church hop if I outstay my welcome. Maybe be kind of a reverse-evangelist. That particular course of action, though, is only possible if I develop my social acumen (orientation has shown that my social acumen has fallen a bit, and I’ll need to see if I can change that).

So going to church doesn’t have to be awkward. It doesn’t have to be boring (ex. could write responses to sermons as they are being preached, which is way more interaction than a passive intake of knowledge), and as a ‘fallen child’ of the faith, I know the culture and society of the church (evangelical) and can handle it. I won’t talk about how my parents insist that I attend church, though, because I smell a 3-hour long essay and no sleep for me. I’ll spill everything in a mega-post someday.

OKAY, I’M DONE TALKING ABOUT RELIGION. YOU CAN COME BACK NOW.

Orientation was okay: got moved in, cleared up some things, and started to meet people. Really, routine orientation stuff. Thankfully, not quite as insane as the last orientation I attended…

However, I did notice that my social skills have deteriorated a bit. My response times are noticeably lagging, and I’ve forgotten what normal people talk about. Please don’t tell me I have to immerse myself in pop culture to make friends: I was hoping for a mecca of geek-dom, but none is yet forthcoming. Ah well, should have known better: the geek-dom doesn’t reside in the place, it resides in you (is this pattern-matching wisdom, aka, filling in something that sounds wise?).

Random thought: I had been thinking that lying to my children about Santa Claus wouldn’t be something I would do, but it might put a good amount of weight towards anti-authoritarianism, which should balance some of the implicit trust in the child’s main authority figure. In other words, lying about Santa might be an important part of growing up.

Have I mentioned how much I’m going to miss Washington weather?