I just read Ben Stein's final article for a column he did on E!. Not knowing he was not only a Republican, but a Christian, I was rather pleasantly surprised as I read this. I have great respect for Stein in general, so I found this rather interesting. A nice read if you don't mind the Christian "propoganda" as some put it.

Stein's Reflections

Today was really....relaxing, a little boring. I didn't have school due to Peer Mediation (I'll explain in a moment). After school I journeyed with Amy, Gwen, Kerry, and Paul to the Library, where we attempted homework and lesser forms of slave labor. I was shown Ranma (....I think I'll stick to anime, manga isn't my thing...) and we parted from Amy and Gwen and had pizza, then Paul and I shuffled up to my house. The walk up was annoying, as everything was frozen. Speaking of which, our school is still iced, but they keep you from going on the ice. Rather frustrating.

Peer Mediation was generally boring, I don't completely agree with their ideals, but I severely doubt this will go anywhere. The concept of Mediation is rather simple. A Mediator gets two people who have some beef with eachother, and acts like a moderator. The Mediator makes sure certain rules are applied to the discussion (no interrupting, flaming, basic stuff), and will interject at points with reflections or observations to assist the argument. It's completely reliant on the two people being smart enough to solve the problem. The Mediator isn't allowed to have an "agenda" or try and push them towards a solution. Not my style, (I discussed this with Kerry during the boring parts) as I believe humans are naturally evil, and therefore not inclined to come to a proper solution. Anyways, the actual meeting was better than being in school, but not very fun. At first it was good, we were having interesting discussions, had some nice snacks, did a little ping-pong, but it eventually degraded into bad demonstrations (I mean BAD, like, not even good analogies) and concepts that were so boring and so easy to grasp, that I did fall asleep for a few minutes (hey, it was about the time I would have been having Chemistry). Ah well, it's worth missing two days of school for.

EDIT:

Your Element Is Earth

You excel at planning and strategizing. You could be a champ at chess or Survivor. Well grounded, you are able to be realistic and rationalize. On the inside, you have a hard core. It's tough to phase you. You are super productive, and you are able to think anything through. Focused and super charged, your instincts are a good guide for your next step.