A break... finally

So basically, it kind of seems like this blog had died. It went more than a month without anything of a substantial update. That's a huge no-no. But even though I let this aspect of my digital life slip, I'm glad that my good old flesh and blood life has been picking up quite nicely.

The pro-life club I'm in is now planning a pro-life conference, which will hopefully turn into a statewide thing. If anyone knows any people in Pennsylvania that are interested in hearing quite a few pro-life speakers and showing their support, tell them to drop me a line. It'll be on Friday, April 4, at Penn State and the next day, Peter Kreeft will also be speaking at Penn State courtesy of another group on campus I'm involved with.

Speaking of that other group, I was recently voted in as the secretary for the Newman club on campus. Newman is a Catholic student organization I've been a part of since my freshman year, and apparently the members think well enough of me that they'd like me to be the secretary this next semester while the previous secretary goes to study abroad.

Onto another club on campus, Penn State's Paranormal Research Society's TV show just started, Paranormal State, and I'm proud to say I know some of the people on the show. So far the show has been good, it's a lot of helping people, not so much running around with cameras a la Blair Witch, like you might expect of a show dealing with college kids and the paranormal. All of the episodes so far are good, but for my more religious readers, the 2nd and 3rd episodes, The Name and The Devil in Syracuse are both fairly religious-y, having to do with demonology and such. There's even a deliverance (a lesser form of exorcism) in one of the episodes. It's usually on Mondays at 10 pm on A&E, but this week there is no show, new episodes are starting back up on the 31st. So, if it's New Year's Eve and you want something fun to do at 10:00, turn on A&E.

Classes and final exams finished for me as of Friday, and I found out that this is the first semester I got all As! Four As and one A- (I probably should have showed up to more mythology lectures.) All in all, a great semester, but even greater for this next reason.

And now, for the biggest announcement, I have a girlfriend. Shannon and I have been going out for almost three weeks now, but unfortunately for me, we live 2.5 hours apart when not at college, so I don't know if we'll get a chance to see each other over the break. Also, our one month anniversary is the day I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out. Now how's that for a present?

What I'm sorry for

So I am sorry that I haven't been posting here as often as I should, and I kind of gave up on Nanowrimo because I've been having to write all sorts of nonfiction and poetry for my creative writing class. What I'm really sorry for is this:

I'm sorry that I don't live closer to my friends, so that I could give them hugs when they're feeling crappy.

Day 2

As of Day 2: 1,453

Yeah, I know I'm a bit behind, but I do at least have some sort of help, come Thanksgiving, I can get one of my journals from home and put in a big old chunk of it in as an introduction to set up one of the plot devices.

Oh, and because I forgot in the last entry, here's the link to the official Nanowrimo website: http://www.nanowrimo.org

Nanowrimo

This month I will probably be even less available than usual, partly due to many exams and final projects happening, but also due in large part to Nanowrimo.

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The objective is to write a 50,000 word nanonovel over the course of November. It's fun, but this being my third time attempting this challenge, I'm hoping that I'll actually finish this year, for the first time.

As of Day 1: 605 words

Seven Random Facts About Me.

1. I have slept outside in sub-zero weather.
2. I have a sugar packet collection. Currently, it numbers in at least the 100s.
3. My favorite book is "Choke" by Chuck Pahlaniuk, the same guy that wrote "Fight Club." It's a story about a recovering (sort-of) sexaholic who has problems with his mother (who is in a nursing home on his expense), and spends a fair part of the book thinking "What would Jesus not do?" And then he does that.
4. I used to wear glasses for an astigmatism, but then my eyes got better (I'm not sure how either). Now I've actually got better than 20/20 in my left eye, and 20/20 in my right, which is cool, but it kind of messes with
my depth perception a bit.
5. The first full song I learned to play on the guitar was "Eleanor Rigby," by The Beatles.
6. I have a roommate who is currently sick with a fever of 103. He has shivers, and every once in a while he'll have a coughing fit in his sleep.
7. This past Saturday, I went out drinking with one of the stars of a show on Court TV going into its second season. The stereotypical "stars are stuck up" thing definitely did not apply to this guy, as he was ridiculously cool and easy to chill with.
8. (number six was kind of a cop-out) Right now I have no backspace key, just a little funny rubber thing where the center of my backspace key should have been.

In response to Ariel's post.

Me, in the news!

I've been on the TV and in the newspaper several times, and the most recent was this Friday, after I had given a speech about why I was pro-life at a candle-light vigil for Penn State Students for Life. You can check out the full (front page) article here (but you might want to read my speech below here first): Students For Life Shed Light On Issue.

And here is the transcript of my full speech, because the Daily Collegian (understandably) cuts it down quite a bit.

Hello everyone. I'm John Montgomery, and I'm going to tell you why I'm pro-life. Sometimes I don't really know why I'm here doing all of this, being pro-life and trying to make the world more like that. I've never gotten a girl pregnant. I've never gotten pregnant either. None of my friends have ever had to think about dealing with an abortion, or ever really worry about getting pregnant.

No one close to me has ever had to choose whether or not they'd end an infant's life. So why am I here?

I have a friend, and she is awesome. Literally, it is amazing what she does. She's probably one of the most beautiful people I've ever met, and that's more than skin deep beauty, even though she's won state beauty pageants. She's got brains too, because she was the valedictorian of her high school class. If she was up here instead of me, she could talk circles around me. She competed in forensics, giving speeches, on a national level. She's kind and funny and she's the kind of person you'd want to have as a friend, and be a friend to.

She's never gotten pregnant. Like me, she also has not had people close to her who have dealt with all of the hardships and difficulties of abortion and pregnancy. However, despite all of that, she is the reason why I am pro-life. She is the reason why I am up here today talking to you all.

A few years ago, this friend of mine went on a retreat, and while there, she got a letter from her mom. Her mom told my friend that she loved her, but she also told her a secret. She had planned on aborting my friend when she had gotten pregnant with her. One choice, and my friend could have never been born.

Because of her, every time I think to myself, "What am I doing here? Why am I putting in my time to something that seems to make so little of a difference in the world? I'm only one person." But then I remember my friend. I think about her smile and the way she laughs and how she inspires people, including me. And I think about how I never would have known any of that if her mother had changed her mind on just one decision. One little choice, and my friend would have been gone. The world would have been that much darker if her mother had decided to abort her.

She's only one person too, but I care about her, and that makes all of this, every second, worthwhile.

Oh, and yes, the article isn't lying, I really was close to crying, both during my speech, and afterwards for quite some time. Real men aren't afraid to cry.

The Lighter Dark Side of Reconciliation

So this weekend, I spent all of my time exhausting myself, and most of that time was spent working at Univ-Con, the USA's largest paranormal conference. It was ridiculously fun, but ridiculously tiring, considering pretty much all of my free time from last Wednesday to Friday night was spent helping get this conference working, and I still haven't fully rested back up from how fatigued it made me.

Excluding all of that, we had an interesting pair of keynote speakers Friday night at Univ-Con, Lorraine Warren, wife and partner to the only Vatican-recognized lay demonologist (the late Ed Warren), and Father James LeBar, a former exorcist. I had heard Lorraine Warren speak at Univ-Con last year, and had read a few books about some of her and her husbands more publicized cases, and I was not disappointed in any of it. There is a real existence of demons in this world, and anyone who doubts should talk to one of these people.

That being said, demons are smart, and they know things they shouldn't be able to know (preternatural knowledge, as they call it, I believe). These spirits know the dark things you have done in your life, and may mock, ridicule, and harass you with their knowledge of your sins and the times you have failed God. However, as an interesting note, they don't seem to have any knowledge of sins that have been confessed.

I guess when you go to reconciliation, that old Bible verse really is true.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed his transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)

It's kind of nice to know that when we say "forgive and forget," that God takes it kind of literally, at least in terms of applying it to his angels (both fallen and otherwise).