Oh, Holey Night!

This morning I was up relatively early preparing for our Minority Religions Project presentation. After refreshing my brain with the core beliefs and practices of Scientology, I met up with Aiyana and headed down to the Commons for a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs.

After displaying our poster and discussing the UFO religion with the class, we hurriedly moved on to a lecture about Buddhism, the last of the five major world religions we are studying.

I learned a handful of interesting aspects about this religion: the Eightfold Path, which is essentially the eight ethical principles one must follow in order to become enlightened, and the Middle Way, which is the Eightfold Path (the “direction” that requires man to neither torture himself nor overindulge—it is the balance between the two). I also learned an interesting Buddhist concept that “everything in the world is emptiness”, therefore, nothing exists; we are simply reflections of the people around us. It is a mind-boggling concept, but something very interesting to look into as well.

Another outing—a baseball game—was scheduled for our evening activity today. Unfortunately, the game was moved to a different venue that was not walking distance from our location (in another city), therefore we were given a couple of hours of free time instead to suffice for the cancellation.

A group of friends and I decided to take up knitting, so we spent those plentiful minutes learning how to master the art. We could not have made it through the tedious (only at the beginning) process without our friend Kristen. She is such a kind and patient person; she was more than happy to aid us through our frustration with unruly knots and confusing loops. Although my to-be scarf is a bit “holy” (props to Kristen, once again, for this pun!), I really enjoy knitting and now have something to occupy myself with on the long plane ride home in a few days.

I must rise bright and early tomorrow morning—we have a field trip scheduled to the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, and we must arrive early to sit in on some morning prayers.