The handshake-or-hug dilemma

I find it funny when I meet someone new and pause when I have to decide between a handshake or hug. Old friends? Family of close friends? Close friends of your best friends? Acquaintances you've known for awhile? Family friends you see once a year?

I went to a Red Wings game Saturday night with Jason, Dusan, and Stephanie (not Gabe's Stephanie, a different one). Turns out, this Stephanie and I went to high school together and have seen each other dozens of times but never formally met. When I went to give her a handshake and a "nice to meet you", she ignored my handshake and gave me a hug, and I laughed.

Oh and, I realized I hit up almost everything sports-wise this year: Red Wings, Michigan football, Pistons games, and a Tigers game. Cool huh?

Our philosophy class was discussing morality and Immanuel Kant's Ethics of Duty, and how a moral action takes place in the human heart (according to the Ethics of Duty). My professor said something interesting the other day that really hit me. This is kind of how he explained it to us:

"A white priest was taken by the KKK years ago. They tied him to a pole and beat him up and told him to bow to them and admit he was wrong in what he believed. They tortured him for hours and eventually broke his jaw too. Finally, he submitted and bowed his head and they let him go. Fast forwarding, when I was still a student years ago, this man was my professor. He told our class the story of what happened. I asked him why he submitted, and he looked at me and said, 'Sometimes, you have to sacrifice your beliefs.' You see, humans are not strong. That is why Jesus Christ is above human. He did something we can not: he sacrificed himself for his beliefs."

It may be the same thing everyone from church has been telling me for years, but for some reason, it just made more sense when he said it this way. Maybe because we established the "how" and "why" of striving for morality before he even brought this up.

Oh yeah and a follow up on my last entry...
I felt bad for being impulsively mad at the one girl who had a problem with the paper I wrote, so I edited more to-be verbs and emailed it back as an "olive branch" gesture to show her it was reasonable for her to have these concerns (I knew my paper wasn't perfect). But then the other two group members called me to rant about the to-be verb/cliche frustration the other girl had emailed us about and I was back to being irritated with the whole situation.

She actually emailed the professor about to-be verbs, cliches, and not having enough transitions (she said she felt uncomfortable turning in a paper that didn't have enough transitions between paragraphs). Keep in mind this is a Management Information Systems class. I'm pretty sure the professor won't be more worried about to-be verbs than what we've actually written. At any rate, here's what he wrote back:

"These are good questions. The verb "to be" is a perfectly good verb, usable when action verbs do not suggest themselves. This verb often signals the use of the passive voice -- a voice to be used sparingly. Transitions should be used to the extent the reader needs them -- frequently, but not mechanically. Cliches should be used sparingly, since this writing is formal writing."

The whole ordeal was kind of unnecessary but I tried to be polite about it. At least it's all done and over with!