.:Omigosh! Classes!:.

GRACE:



Good fortune follows from firm but flexible action, to produce a happy time for you... Remember that adornment is beautiful but not essential, so ensure the reality of the future is not hidden by the 'rose-coloured' tinge of the present.

No, that's not a quiz. I'll explain that in a while...

In any case, as you all probably know, I was absent from my classes last Thursday, since silly old me was completely unaware that classes began that day. Ergo, since I discovered the fact only Friday noon, I also missed my daily three-hour class. It's sort of a blessing in disguise, anyway, as I got treated for my particular malady...

So there I was, then, beating the clock to get to Dr. Manny Dy's class. It's a mixed class of both people taking it as a free elective and M.A. students, so I was in good company. If you're still wondering what class it is, then let me tell you (Wow! This is a surprise, isn't it?): Chinese Philosophy. I now seriously have a new class that I would want to teach in the near future. And no, it's not because of the type of students I'd get, contrary to what Abby suspects. It's more because I love this subject, and I've had quite a bit of Chinese history already with Mr. Cheng-Chua...

Nonetheless, Dr. Manny Dy is really a good teacher, and fun as well. I particularly enjoy hearing his funny insights into Chinese culture, and his very eloquent way of explaining the way the Chinese Philosophical mind goes in contrast to the European Philosophical mind. It's a change of pace, and a virtual 180-degree turn from all my Philosophy with the likes of Kant and Descartes, who work from the categories of the mind and the self, whereas the Chinese sensibility works from a pressuposition of immersedness.

He even has a value-added goal for us: to learn how to pray the "Our Father" in Chinese. How cool can that be?

In any case, let me reiterate: don't worry much about my classmates. I only have three female Chinese classmates, and one of them is Vida, Earl's (Peppy's college blockmate.) girlfriend...

The discussion was fun. We were talking about the history of Chinese Philosophy, and we even tackled the book burning issue. And then, Dr. Dy mentioned that the book of Changes, or the I Ching, was spared from this.

The I Ching is a book of permutations of changes, with each change having a particular meaning. Moreover, the I Ching is the most widely read among the Five Books (Shu Ching, Shih Ching, I Ching, Likan 1, Likan 2, Ch'un Ch'iu). According to the Sacred Texts website:

The book was traditionally written by the legendary Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi (2953-2838 B.C.). It is possible that the the I Ching originated from a prehistoric divination technique which dates back as far as 5000 B.C. Futher commentaries were added by King Wen and the Duke of Chou in the eleventh century B.C.

An I Ching interpretation is performed by making six binary decisions (a hexagram). This is called 'casting the I Ching'. These are written down as a stack of six solid or broken lines. This was traditionally done either by tossing yarrow stalks or coins, although there is no reason why the hexagrams can't be generated by some other means (such as a computer program).

There are actually four possible values for each of the lines; the two on/off values, and a line which changes from on to off or vice versa. Thus one cast of the I Ching can generate two different hexagrams, which adds depth to the interpretation. The sophistication of this method has not escaped modern interpretation, and the four-valued logic has been compared to the biochemistry of DNA amino acids. How a Neolithic shamans' divination technique presaged the basic logic of the human genome is one of the ageless mysteries.

We used the coins method to attempt one permutation in order to divinate what the best course of action to take. A female student volunteered to do so...

The coins method works like this: you have three coins, and you flip them all at the same time. Record the number of heads and tails, then do it five more times. The six combinations will form a hexagram, and this hexagram is what will be referred to in the I Ching, of which Dr. Dy had several copies.

So the girl flipped the coins six times, and she got Hexagram # 22. What does Hexagram # 22 indicate? That's right: GRACE. That explains the picture at the start of the post, and the explanation below is lifted right from the online I Ching I Googled for.

I don't know with you, but given the fact that there are a total of sixty-four different hexagrams in the I Ching, I'm amazed that the girl came up with this. It was quite a throwback to me, realizing how every single thing we do is half chance, so we really can't be too hard or too proud on ourselves. At the same time, my getting to know Grace likewise hinged on chance. If you're wondering what that's about, ask me real nice and I'll tell you about it. :)

There's a more detailed explanation of Grace in the I Ching, but I'll just leave it in my LJ. Check it out, if you're interested. It's pretty long, though. :)

.:Random Tidbits:.

Apparently, Sacha is starting on Aikido. That'd be a sight, seeing her rolling around, and breaking people's arms. I suppose she won't need her pepper spray any longer...

Grace is currently headed home from Bulacan. I think her classmates had a post-graduation outing there, and it was overnight...

RAW Deal tournament last Saturday, and another one this coming Saturday. Really interesting stuff...

.:Another Visual Gag:.

An office worker got a pen stuck inside the printer. He started to try and remove the pen, but he didn't have enough time for that, so he just put a note on the printer telling folks not to use it and then report it to the Help Desk. So he grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it. About 20 minutes later, one of my techs comes in laughing and says he was just in the lobby, saw a piece of paper on a printer and went to investigate.

Here's what he found. Sometimes things don't always come out the way you want them to...