Tag: research

A touch of research…

… has determined that, as I expected from the Rosary recordings, Mark Wahlberg was Catholic from childhood (perhaps from age 13). Why I believed this to be the case initially was due to how he says the prayers. Firstly, there is a comfort and ease about them that comes only from much time and practice spent with the prayers. Secondly, he has the cadence of them as they are actually said in Church, which is again something that comes with much time and exposure. And thirdly, he says a few words different from how they occur in the official version of the prayer. These are words that, I believe, would be easy mistakes when learning the prayers aurally, by listening, which is mostly how we learn them as children. For example, in the Our Father, instead of, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,” he says, “Give us this day our daily bread, but forgive us our trespasses…” Also, at the end of the O, My Jesus prayer, the line is, “…especially those in most need of thy mercy.” Mark Wahlberg says, “…especially those in most need of thine mercy.” If he had been reading the words, he would have noticed and corrected his errors, I believe. And the only reason he wouldn’t be reading them is because he is already so familiar with them, he can say them by heart.

Anyway, that’s where we are now with it all. He was Catholic already as a kid after all, it seems. However, the film is a great story filled with lots of opportunities to cry one’s eyes out. It ends with a happy feeling inside (just for those who need to know that before watching movies with sad stuff in them).

Here’s the trailer and a small message from Mr. Mark Wahlberg himself about how he wanted to share this story with the world: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DHREzAdyCPs&feature=emb_title

Post-a-day 2022

Is it true??

Did Marky Mark really convert to Catholicism after portraying Father Stu in the film by the same name?? I must look into this. My man already said we need to watch that film as soon as possible (and that he would watch it tonight, if I weren’t going to be ready to watch it very soon). This could be a very intriguing turn of events here…

Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnn!!!!!!

Post-a-day 2022

Plenary

I think we are finally starting to get involved in some of the really cool learning stuff for Roman Catholicism. We read each night from the YouCat, the youth Catechism of the Catholic Church. That’s been a good start. But it has been a lot of low-brain topics so far. This week, however, we have found ourselves truly talking about whatever is presented from the YouCat topic, actually looking up further information on lots of it. And it is awesome.

Tonight, in an almost-bizarre twist, we ended up on the topic of plenary indulgences (Just look it up – it’d take me too long to explain them here now!). We even called my mom for her input and read from multiple online articles and dictionaries! What a fascinating topic! And, in doing that research, we got into the topic of how to address clergy properly. So, I found a fun Wikipedia article on how to do all of that for the different clergy (Yes, that, too, is a bit complicated, by the way.)! It was a very good time tonight.

Thank you, God, for this oddly fun surprise. Keep it up, please, and keep us with you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

32,000 troops in New York Harbor

I just e-mailed a history expert in order to find a possible answer to two questions my mom and I had out of watching “Hamilton”.

1) How many men would have been aboard each ship?

2) How long was the journey from England to New York in 1776?

We wanted to know how many ships were in the harbor in order to produce 32,000 troops, as the line in the song says, and realized that we had no idea how big the ships even were and what their capacities were for men (and ammunition, etc.).

And that set of thoughts led us to wondering how long they had had to spend at sea.

And so, rather than put forth lots of effort in researching myself, I figured it smartest to reach out to an expert first, and doing further personal research second, if needed.

Why does this even matter?

Because we are total nerds in my family, and we care about things like this. 😛

I mean, what else would one be asking after watching “Hamilton”? Haha

Post-a-day 2020

Nerds

We research in my family.

When we are interested in something, we start learning about it, and we tend to do lots of research on it.

Presently, I am preparing to use a used Prius for a while.

Someone was very upset and expressed concerns of my sanity and logic in doing this.

So, to satisfy my initial belief that it was a reasonable idea, and not just plain crazy, I started looking up important things about Priuses, in order to learn more about them… whatever might be important to know, you know?

In sharing a small bit of what I’m learning with my cousin, she replies, “You will now be well versed on the Prius. I’m imagining you building a PowerPoint presentation”.

And, while I chucked inwardly at the intended joke, I also totally saw the seriousness of her statement, and had to agree: I could so see myself doing that.

In fact, I kind of did for physics class in high school at one point… we researched various hybrid cars and their overall effects on the planet…. let’s just say that, fortunately, things have improved in the hybrid world since then…

Anyway… I think I already have enough information to give a really good ten-minute presentation on using used Priuses…

Total nerd, right?

And I love being it. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Women’s Bodies

Periodicity.

Did you know that that’s how we got the use of the term “period” for menstruation?

I was researching for a paper that tied in social views of women at the time of the book The Awakening with the concept of insanity, and showed that women were seen as crazy back then when they did certain things and behaved certain ways that are rather normal today.

In that research, I found somewhat shocking information on fertility and on when science actually discovered how the timing of the female body’s reproductive cycle worked specifically (as opposed to having only the general idea that sexual intercourse is the way to pregnancy), as well as beliefs on the female reproductive system as a whole.

These were not my focus of the paper, so I, with disappointment, had to skim them and move on to other things, but they stuck with me nonetheless (and I was just thinking tonight that I might still have them somewhere, either on the computer or in a stack of papers in a box).

I always seem to remember discovering the doctor’s use of the phrase and term “a woman’s periodicity” in one of those papers.

It shocked me, but it also finally gave me the answer to my long-wondered question of the word origin for calling menstruation “a period”.

It was, simply, a period in time, yes, but also a specific period in time that came with consistency and a time-frame… it was a woman’s periodicity that gave her these emotional phases.

Anyway… this is somewhat depression thinking for me, because those were not happy times for women, back then… not women like myself, anyway… frankly, they sucked in many, many ways, far beyond our struggles today.

I am extremely grateful to be here now, to be the powerful woman I am now, in this time and place in existence and in this world.

One final note: hysteria.

It originated as a term used in a belief that a woman’s reproductive organs were causing her to lash out or be inappropriate with her emotions somehow… you know, like how hysterectomy is removing the uterus… hysteria was the irrational emotional state caused by the uterus.

(Roots of the word go to Greek, with the term for the womb being there hystera.)

Kind of makes you want to stop using the word, right?

Well, that’s how it makes me feel, anyway…

But I like the word hysterical… that one makes me smile even bigger, knowing the root is “uterus”. 😛

Haha

Okay, I feel better, now. 😀

Post-a-day 2020

Some Nights

Some nights, we are calm and at ease, for we know we have accomplished our expected tasks for the day.

And some nights, we are not, because we haven’t…

Tonight is one of the latter “some nights”… The thing is, though, I’m actually really interested in all of this research I’ve been doing for this paper… I just don’t want to hassle with putting it all together in a paper… you know what I mean?

I think I do, anyway…

Well, back to the paper organizing, so I can get to the actual writing… which is due to be turned in and then presented tomorrow… oops 😛

Hashtag I’mANutJob, right?*

*If you haven’t seen it, check out Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake’s skit on hashtags… that’s what was on my mind just now with that line. 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Will it ever end? I hope not

Well, well… lookie there: Malcolm Gladwell’s work is relevant yet again. 😛

Working on my second paper of three for finals, I discovered that the main character I’m following with the paper, the one who tackles a whole new way of living life despite societal standards and expectations, and aims at individualism and self-expression – by the way, this was a super huge deal at the time, if someone were to behave as she did – had lost her mother when she was just a small child…

Hmm… this suddenly called up all of Malcolm Gladwell’s reporting on social agreeableness in individuals and the commonality that around 30% (I believe it was) of top people in their field lost a parent during childhood…. this main character was suddenly yet another example of the amazing people Malcolm Gladwell analyzed in his book David and Goliath, which I just finished reading the other day.

(If you haven’t read it, read it, and what I’ve just said will make much more sense.)

Isn’t that awesome??

I keep telling people that Malcolm Gladwell’s books are genius-ly awesome and totally relevant in our lives today, so it only naturally follows that his work continue to be absurdly relevant in my own life. 😛

Post-a-day 2018