It can be a very intricate process, to attempt to really understand someone else's philosophy when it differs from one's own enough. Foreign definitions, different ideas accepted or rejected, different ideas of temptations, noble thoughts versus dangerous or harmful ones. It can, however, be very rewarding, both when you really care about the person and for the process of understanding and growth. These conversations can really change one's life.. one's inner life, anyhow.

To mention it again, I have spare gmail accounts. Seems like a lot of other people do too, and are mentioning it. They might as well make it public, unless they're actually studying how gmail accounthood spreads. Anyhow, email me, and I'll give you one of them. You don't even need to know me. In case you haven't been following, it's like Yahoo mail, except you get 1 gig of it, a slightly confusing interface, and nice searching capability.

Yesterday, there was another meeting going through the IRB process for the psych department, but not long after it started, they started having equipment failures. At first, the projector didn't work, and then not long afterwards, half the lights went out. After about 10 minutes of only having a single spotlight in the middle of the room (everyone else in the dark), that light went out as well. Imagine half of a psychology department sitting in the middle of a very large, dark room listening to someone who is struggling to read their slides by what little light comes through the doorway.. Eventually they called off the meeting, and will reschedule soon. It turns out that all of campus lost power at that time. Feh. At least it provided a good excuse to finish moving all my group's servers to the new machine room I cleared out.

I keep having strange dreams, of conversations that never happened, of politics and philosophy and daily life. I recently have felt that I have aged several months with each time I fall asleep, so much new information, new experiences, between the closing and opening of eyes.