(12:11 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

Friday Afternoon Confessional

I'm in a remarkably foul mood today. A friend of Dr. Grumish was supposed to be interviewed on Shine 89.7, Olivet's radio station (oriented toward "Generation NOW!"), so I had to listen to two continuous hours of contemporary Christian music. I had forgotten the degree to which CCM sucks the very life out of me. This is not to say that Shine 89 doesn't compare favorably to some "secular" stations -- there really is a lot of variety, and some of the music is better on a musical level than "secular" hits -- but the lyrics seem to have utterly no content, religious or otherwise. The South Park episode where Cartman is able to write Christian songs by taking normal love songs and strategically inserting the word "Jesus" is only a very slight exaggeration.

I showed up to work late, just like every day. I'm too demanding. I've used turns of phrase that evince a distinct lack of gender sensitivity. I've failed to make any progress on my Derrida paper. I never read Catholic theologians, nor any other theologians, despite being enrolled in a course of study that ostensibly includes theology. I also never read philosophers, novelists, or literary scholars, apparently --though if they had a degree program in Atlantic Monthly and Harper's and Crooked Timber, my qualifications would be intimidating.

I sometimes do my French homework too quickly and mess up my tenses. I sometimes translate the imparfait as the simple past without first considering the continuous past ("I went" instead of "I was going"). I only translated half of the critique of Rousseau we were assigned.

I am systematically destroying whatever 3% chance I had at an academic career. I'm already planning for when I'm an adjunct professor at Kankakee Community College.

I've been a lazy blogger -- still no post on fathers in rock music. Shit and garbage posts abound. I keep hoping for Robb and Monica to step up production, so that I won't have to write at all -- I'll just hog the glory.

Let us pray:

Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you. I detest my sins, because of your just punishments, but most of all because they offend you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions to sin.

Salve Regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulceda, et spes nostra salve. Ad te clamamus, exsules filae Evae. Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hoc lacrimarum valae. Eia ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes occulos ad nos converte, et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria!

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