ethics

I use my blog for all sorts of things, religious and political musings, expressing emotions, and to relate humorous stories and anecdotes. Sometimes, however, I just need to rant. For instance, my ethics class. I took Ethics this semester to fulfill my humanities requirement. I chose Ethics over Intro to Philosophy because I thought Ethics sounded more fun. Well I'm seriously beginning to doubt that assessment. The readings we do from the textbook are the only real meaningful content I get from the class. Everything else, the class discussion, the weekly papers, the online discussion, all a waste of time. At least that's my feeling so far.

This is a basic format of our bi-weekly classes. We come to class having read the assigned reading. The teacher starts at the beginning of the reading and starts to talk about it. Generally the chapters are analyzing philosophical and logical ways to look at things, and typically they used controversial topics to illustrate how these theories relate to important things. The discussion then goes in one of two directions: either the class keeps their focus on the ethical theory being presented in that section of the chapter, which leaves the room in crickets (my assumption is that most people haven't read it or don't get it, but sometimes there just isn't much to debate concerning the matter), OR the class ignores the ethical theory and focuses on the controversial topic being analyzed. It then turns into a debate not regarding anything having to do with ethics, but an all out argument over whether things like abortion and homosexuality is right or wrong.

Mostly I blame the teacher. I'm all about class discussion and debating class content with other classmates, but any discussion needs moderation, and if your teacher isn't moderating the discussion, things can get way off topic and out of hand fast. When I took my government classes, my teacher also used the same 'open discussion' method in teaching his class but he commanded the attention of the class, allowed only one person at a time to speak, disallowed people interrupting, and kept it on topic. He did a very good job overall in moderating the discussion. My Ethics teacher, however, does not. I don't care if she's hot, she's terrible at moderating discussion, and even if someone is just asking an open question, she doesn't do a very good job at addressing it concretely. Maybe that's just the nature of a subjective class such as Ethics, or maybe it has everything to do with the teacher. I don't really blame my classmates, even though I'm definitely annoyed by some of them. People are going to be loud and obnoxious and interrupt and try and dominate every topic, regardless of what class, the only thing that prevents that is a teacher keeping them in check.

Anyways, thats my rant regarding this dumb class, I'm not looking forward to the rest of the semester. I don't have high hopes for things ever improving. We'll see though I guess.

cleaning up the system

There's a flaw in the system. An outdated burden on this country that weighs each and every one of us down. I'm talking, of course, about pennies. Why, oh why, are these copper-plated zinc coins that weigh 2.5 grams each still plaguing our progressive society? I'll tell you why, taxes. Taxes and their darn percentages of percentages, taking completely reasonable prices such as $1 and turning it into $1.08, thus creating a need for currency between 0 and 5 cents.

Okay, I understand that back in the day, when pennies began to be minted, that 1 cent was quite significant, with basic needs like a loaf of bread costing 4 or 5 cents, a pound of flour, 8 cents. But I think we can all collectively agree that those times are dead and gone, but still the penny persists. Everywhere you go, every purchase you make, things are coming down to pennies. My opinion is that the penny, the smallest minted denomination of currency, is obsolete. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, there's been a lot of controversy over the years over the topic of removing pennies from circulation. I, for one, fully support this and am amazed we haven't done it already.

Imagine a world where all purchases were tax-included and made to constrain to the nearest tenth of a dollar. That's right, get rid of nickels too. Weighing in at 5 grams (only .6 grams less than a quarter and worth only one fifth the amount), they easily could use some doing away with. If all the coins I had to carry were quarters and dimes, I would be a happy sailor (or at least happy). Now enter a magical place, where all purchasable goods and services are tax-included and rounded to the nearest half dollar. That's right, I'm talking about the movie theater. Why this is the only establishment I can think of that includes tax on it's purchases, I'm not sure, but I like it. Don't get me wrong, I still think prices at movie theaters are simply ridiculous; through the roof; but it's nice not having to worry about menial amounts of money, like 8 cents. If all the currency I had to carry was bills and 50¢ coins, that would be even better!

All we need is a 'matyr' so to speak, someone to die to show the rest of the world how unnecessary and useless pennies and nickels are. Now where to find some poor sod to bury under a mound of useless metals.....lol

being straight forward

So I did something today that is somewhat out of my ordinary behavior. I told a girl that enough was enough, and pretty much to leave me alone.

There was this girl in my algebra class last fall that I would talk to all the time in class, we studied outside of class together frequently and talked on the phone several times about completely non-school related things. She was really cool and I probably would've really taken to her, except that I found out pretty early on that she had a bf so I never really let myself get involved. We were just friends the whole semester, and we had great fun in algebra class, my favorite class that semester.

We bumped into each other once the following semester, and texted back and forth a few times here and there to keep in touch. I enjoyed keeping in touch with her about how my other math classes were going, but mostly I was keeping up with the hopes that someday I would ask again about her boyfriend and she would be single, and that then I could be like "Hey, let's go grab dinner sometime, catch up." but no. A year later I get around to asking, hoping it'd been long enough, but no. She's still seeing the guy, and apparently they've been seeing each other for like 4 years so...yeah...that sounds pretty serious.

Well so that was the last time we sent text messages back and forth, like a couple weeks ago, and that's when I asked her about her boyfriend. Well, so she texts me again tonight, and she's just asking like, start questions. "Hey you, how are you doing?". And I'm all thinking, "why is this girl teasing me so?". Well I'm sitting next to my brother, and I'm all thinking out loud what I'd like to say about how she's totally taken and small talk is pointless and it's just confusing me, and he's like "well then tell her that". So I did. I pretty much told her straight up that I thought she was really cool and that if she wasn't seeing someone that I would be interested in taking her out, but aside from that, I wasn't really interested in trying to keep a meaningful friendship together when we aren't even going to the same school anymore, and that further conversation would really just be more or less a frustrating tease to me....which is true. Every time she would text me out of the blue wondering what I was up to and how I was, I would wonder.

But so anyways, I sent her those texts and she was kinda understanding. I could tell she was surprised at it, overall it was probably a slightly negative reaction, but I feel good about it in that I was totally straight forward with my intentions. I don't think there's anything wrong with only wanting to keep in touch with someone for the possibility of dating them. I have lots of friends, I don't need more friends, what I would LIKE is to meet a girl worth dating that isn't already taken and who doesn't play games.

I had lots of friends in high school that I was great friends with. But truth be told, most friends are situational. Situational in that you think they're awesome and you have great fun hanging out with them in the environment you met them at (school, work, church) but you just never really make the leap to an outside setting. Thus, once you split paths (change schools, quit your job, move) trying to keep up just seems forced. Some friends you stick with regardless of the distance, but most are come and go. It's not all bad, when you change settings, you make new situational friends. I have tons of friends at Chili's that I hang out with outside of work, quite frequently. I'd like to think that if I or they quit, that we'll keep hanging out, but I wouldn't be surprised either if we just slowly stopped talking. Life's just like that.

So when you have a girl that you really enjoyed hanging out with in algebra class, that's totally datable but taken, and she's texting you about how you're doing and what you're up to, do you try to maintain a forced friendship or to you be straight forward and let her know that unless there's a possibility of something more, that it's best to just leave things be and enjoy the memories? If you answered #1, you're a tool. lol

rollover topic

I'd like to extend the previous 'theory' or philosophy beyond family, because indeed it does extend beyond family. Those unreasonable feelings of personal accountability aren't just limited to parents. It can extend to anyone you really care about. And it sucks, because it almost always makes you look like an irrational jerk.

A few examples: last summer my best friend got married. The person he got married to and situation he married into, and the way in which he married, were all things I disagreed with, or to be more specific, weren't the way I would've done them...........but it's not about me. It took me a long time after he got married to come to terms with all that.

I've always held an image in my mind about how marriage should be, the way things are supposed to work. It was established by the way I'd seen it happen over and over in the world in which I was raised in. The 'world' I was raised in was almost entirely Mormon. My influences from inside the house were 100% Mormon, and the vast majority of all of my influences outside the house were Mormon too. It wasn't until I was 15-16 that I start going back to an outside school and was able to experience life outside of a completely Mormon influence, but by that point I'd had 15 years of Mormon influence that had already established and deeply rooted certain ideals in my brain. (Obviously that was the point). Anyways, very seldom in Mormon society do women have children outside of marriage, and very seldom do people get a divorce, both of which mean that very very seldom are there ever kids involved from a previous relationship or marriage. Also, Mormon weddings are really played up, very celebrated. Very seldom is there a marriage in which there wasn't an engagement, invitations, a reception, yada yada. So when this is what I expect for myself and from everyone else, and then my best friend marries a girl who has a kid from a previous relationship, and they don't have any kind of engagement or anything, it really threw me for a loop.

At first I was all "Wow, I can't believe you did that, you're crazy, this isn't right for you, you could do so much better" yada yada yada and so on. After awhile I started to realize that it's his choice and really none of my business, but I still didn't like it. Now I am realizing that I'm having those same feelings of accountability almost. I care for my best friend, and I want him to have the best opportunity in life possible, and I didn't think the choices he was making would lead to that opportunity. I felt like he was cutting himself short. I certainly must have felt responsible to some degree because I kept trying to talk him out of it the idea that his situation was 'okay'.

So in that case I was getting emotionally involved in someone else's choices that didn't really have anything to do with me. I was crusading my beliefs and morals on his behalf. It was selfish but me to fight him on the topic and to treat him any differently than I would have otherwise.

In any case, I've been doing the same thing with my brother, and it's unfair in this case too. He was really close to getting married to this girl a few years ago but things didn't work out. A few years later she comes back into his life but she's married to another guy and she has a daughter. She's on the brink of divorce and my brother is caught up in a whirlwind of emotion thinking back to times when he was in love with her. For a long time I've been fighting him on the topic saying he needs to stay far far away from her, that she's no good, that he needs to find a better girl, and so on. The same kind of thing with my best friend. I want only the best for him, or rather, what "I" think would be the best for him. But more and more I'm beginning to realize what I think is best for him and what's actually best for him may be entirely different. If she makes him happy, that's really all I should ask for. Having a kid from a previous marriage puts him at a disadvantage, yes, but if he recognizes that and is willing to deal with it, then good for him I guess, that's his choice. If he wants to start dating her again after her divorce, I won't completely fight him on it anymore.

And getting away from me, I've been victim to this kind of behavior before. I've explained what happened in a previous post. In my freshman year of college my room mate was giving me lots of grief for no apparent reason, and he later said it was because I was doing so poorly in my grades and being generally anti-social. He was holding his standard of living for me, and must have felt somehow accountable for my poor behavior.

In any case, this can really happen to anyone you really care about. You want the best for the people you love, but sometimes you just have to stop and consider that what you think is best isn't always necessarily what is best for them.

parenting

I came to some conclusions the other day that I'd thought about before, but hadn't given the time to reinforce. As always, I came to these realizations during a conversation with a friend, two friends actually (within a few days of each other).

The topic came up when I was describing to my friend how nervous I was to become a parent. When asked why I was nervous, I replied 'because there's no fail-safe method to parenting'. The other friend, after a lengthy analysis of how people raised their kids, asked me "How would you raise your kids?" "I don't know", I said. Both questions led to the same response. There's no fail-safe way to raise your kids such that they will do everything you want them to and avoid doing the things you don't want them to. There's no formula to follow to turn that impressionable and vulnerable little baby into a independent and successful member of society. There just isn't. No matter what method you choose for raising you kids, it's imperfect and flawed. You can do everything you thought was right, everything you thought a parent was supposed to do, and still not end up with the result you wanted. Realizing that, I think, is an important part of being a parent.

Knowing and accepting that your children will have huge trials in their life is one thing, but realizing that you are going to go through your own trials because of the decisions that your kids make, decisions that have no affect on you other than that it was a choice contradictory to what you taught them to make....realizing and accepting THAT...well, that's something entirely different.

That's what I'm nervous about. The struggles I'll inevitably go through because of the way my children choose to live their life. Not the "my 15 year old son stole and crashed my car and now I'm stuck with the loan" kind of struggles, I'm talking about the "I've taught him all his life what I thought was best and still he chooses not to listen" kind of struggles. The internal demons kind.

My friend was explaining to me how some things she chose to keep secret from her parents, substantial enough things that it affected the way in which she was able to interact with her parents and siblings. She explained that she avoided disclosing such things because of the social conflict it would cause, but that because she had to avoid those topics, it affected how she could interact, to a degree that she was unhappy with. Now, as a person who has always been very upfront with everyone about the type of person I am and what my ideas and beliefs are, including my family and parents, this behavior she was describing to me seemed entirely unnecessary. Yes, it's true, parents will suffer all kinds of grief and feelings of personal failure in light of certain actions their children may make, but I've decided that for parents to take that discontent and turn it against their child, whether it's blaming the child for making them feel that way, or trying to make the child feel bad for being the cause of such feelings, or by just acting towards the child in ways that are negative or detrimental to the family peace, is entirely and completely selfish as the parent.

I know for a fact that many of my decisions and beliefs have caused my parents sorrow, to varying degrees. But that's their problem. And when my friend said she didn't want to tell her parents about things she had done because she didn't want to hurt them, I told her the same thing, it's their problem, not hers. And by choosing not to tell them, she is taking their burden upon herself, causing her to be unable to be herself around her parents, for fear of disclosure.

Now, there's something admirable to be said about people who take the burdens of others upon themselves. According to the stories of various Christian religions, there was a follower of Christ who, when Christ was forced to carry his cross up the hill to Calvary, offered to carry the cross himself so that Christ wouldn't have to suffer the burden. It's an admirable thing, very selfless and giving, to do something like that. But it's important to understand who's burden it really is.

In the case of my friend, she is assuming the burden is hers. She assumes that because she made the decision, that the deceitful way in which she now has to behave among her parents us just another one of the consequences of making that choice. But I disagree. And this is the point I'm trying to make. Parents have many burdens when it comes to raising kids. The feelings of sorrow and failure will, almost undoubtedly, come in any parent's life as a result of the choices their children make. But the knowledge of those choices is their burden to carry, and to try and put that burden off on their kids through guilt, or on anyone else, is selfish. They're your kids, you're the one getting emotional because they are displaying behavior that is contradictory to ideals you hold for yourself, but not just for yourself, you hold those ideals for them as well, making you feel personally accountable for things that you might not necessarily be accountable for. Of course, there should be no logical accountability for your children after they turn 18. At some point you have to let go, and if you continue to hold on and feel accountable for them after that time, it's your own problem.

That's what I'm scared of when it comes to being a parent. It's all well and good to be debating the logical reasoning behind the actions people take, but the problem with being a parent is that the emotions are so overwhelming. When the time comes that I have to struggle with my own feelings of failure and sorrow because of the decisions my kids make, will I still be able to tell myself "this is your burden, don't put it on others"? Will I be able to own up to that burden and bear it? Will I even realize it for what it is? Or will emotions overwhelm everything and muck it all up, like emotions tend to do? Who knows. I have a lot of ideas about how I want to raise my kids, and still lots of questions, but at least this is one more thing I know to look out for.

hurricane ike was a disappointment...

It's been awhile since my last post, mostly because I haven't had any big epiphanies or any philosophical realizations recently, which of course has been the basis of most of my posts. Life does continue to go on though, and with it has come lots of stuff. To talk about life in general, it's hard to tell how happy I am with it right now. It's a new semester and my weaknesses are manifesting themselves as much as ever. It becomes my only source of discontent with the state of my life.

I'm talking, of course, about my disciplinary habits. Most easily notable in my sleeping schedule and study habits, as always. There's other areas of my life that my distraction and laziness causes problems, but school and sleep have always been the two biggest ones. At times I feel that if I can just get my sleep schedule under control, that if I can just muster enough discipline to regulate that one part of my life, that everything else would fall into place. I could be more focused at school, I would have more energy and drive to do the tasks I need to, and that most importantly, I would feel good about my life in every area. It's so tough for me though, when 11pm-12am rolls around, to make that call, and stop whatever I'm doing, and go to sleep. Ideally I would like to go to sleep at 11-11:30 every night and wake up at 7-7:30. But especially on the weekends its hard for me to go to sleep early, because I know I dont usually have anything going on the next day, and that it's alright if I sleep in. And then when I do sleep it, I usually end up REALLY sleeping in, because I DON'T have anything to do, or if there's things I HAD planned on doing, they quickly become extremely unimportant when it comes to getting out of bed.

I think back to earlier in the year, when I felt like I was in a really good place in my life. For about a month or two I really felt like I had things under control, and I think it all stemmed from me getting my sleeping schedule under control. There's something to be said that I'm sure aided to my success during that time, and as much as I hate to admit it because I love it so much, I had my account for my online game, World of Warcraft, deactivated during that time. It makes it seem like such a simple solution, deactivate World of Warcraft and life is good. But that's the problem, it's not that simple. Not playing World of Warcraft presents other problems.

By deactivating my account I end up with nothing to fill my free time with, forcing me to pursue alternate sources of entertainment, and whether that alternate entertainment is other games, going out with friends, or whatever else, it almost certainly proves to be a more costly avenue than World of Warcraft. I pay $15/mo for a subscription to that game, and it's about all the entertainment I could ask for, whereas during the time I had it deactivated, I was paying for a subscription to Blockbuster for unlimited video game rentals for my Xbox, which was $22/mo. It may seem strange that I would deactivate one subscription only to go to another, but it worked because so few other games are as entertaining as WoW. I would lose interest in them quickly, meaning I wasn't so eager during the days to rush home and play, effectively giving me more will power to do the things at school I needed to. But whereas that caused me to feel good about my disciplinary habits and scholastic and responsible adult life, I was often unhappy with my options of entertainment when I really did have free time.

In addition to cheap entertainment, WoW also provides an avenue for me to socialize with friends of mine that I don't normally see or get to hang out with because of 'geographical differences', so to speak. For several months last year I was able to play with my brother Spencer, several days a week. As it is now, we'll talk on the phone a few times a month, but it's nothing compared to tackling obstacles and sharing experiences together, albeit in an online video game. Recently I've been playing more often than usual because my good friend, James, currently has the luxury of giving some time to the game, but that won't last forever and he'll soon deactivate again and I'll be left to play by myself. I've been making the most of the time he has available, and it's been great fun. James is one of my great friends and since he lives in Idaho, I never see him, but I can 'see' him and 'hang out' with him online. Nerdy though it may seem, it's undeniable that online games provide a social avenue for friends to interact that they otherwise wouldn't have.

So there's that, my plug for online gaming. I think there's aspects of it that are important and fun and perfectly healthy. Cutting it out of my life entirely, though it may help in some ways, just doesn't seem like the cure-all option I'm looking for. For lack of a better analogy, you can take the drugs away from an addict but that doesn't stop him from being an addict. He'll find ways to get what he wants. You can take a miscreant teen who's mixing with the wrong sort of friends, and move him to a new town, and he'll just make new 'wrong friends' and continue in the same fashion. I can deactivate my WoW account, but I'll find other avenues of entertainment that may be equally unhealthy, albeit in different ways.

The problem then, isn't with WoW, it's with me. That much is obvious. Just because you cut out the visible tumor doesn't mean the cancer is gone. I need to just master myself, control my body and my emotions, all that zen stuff that like buddha monks preach and junk.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally camping on my computer every moment I'm not in class. I'm still much busier than I was Spring semester (when I only had 13 credits and 1 part-time job), and much much busier than I was last fall semester (when I had 15 credits and no jobs), so I spend an ample amount of my time during the week doing constructive things. Between class, completing assignments with deadlines, and my two jobs, I'm tied up for about 55 hours a week, give or take. So it's really not like I have tons of time to play, and because I so seldom have large quantities of free time, I try to spend that time with friends. It's just those few hours preceding my 'desired' bed time that I struggle with, and that struggle is going to be there regardless of my options in entertainment.

However, things have been looking a little up in that regard over the last week or so. Saturday morning I was up at 9:30, possibly the earliest I've been up on a Saturday in months, and Sunday I was up at 10, making it to church. Yesterday I was up at 7:10, twenty minutes before I normally get up for 8am class, easily the earliest I've been up since the semester started. But I know that while forcing myself to get up early will definitely make me more eager to go to sleep early, it isn't enough. I have to apply that extra discipline to both the 'going to bed' part and the 'waking up' part. I'm hoping when I get the 'going to bed' part down, the 'waking up' part won't be so difficult, and that when I get them BOTH down, neither of them will be difficult. Humans are creatures of habit, same as anything else on this planet. All I need to do is break my habit I've had for years of pushing the limit on my bed time and pushing the limit on my rising time, and start a new, more disciplinary one. Here's hoping.

my own biggest obstacle

I've discovered over the years, and am continuing to experience and feels things that support this, that when it comes to getting involved with a girl, I'm my own biggest obstacle. The reason for that is, I have a tendency to get way ahead of myself with any girl I start to like. I begin to think way further into the future of the relationship than it will probably ever reach. I begin to imagine how things would be like between us in a year, 2 years, or more. All this before we've even been out on a date. I tend to let myself get more emotionally wrapped up in a girl than I should, and because of it I make all kinds of special effort to facilitate hanging out or going on a date, or anything really. I'll attempt to rearrange my schedule, I'll push other things asides, I'll make myself available for no good reason. As soon as I begin to think that things might go somewhere, the girl jumps up to priority #1. And that's why I'm my own biggest obstacle.

Take this girl I'm dating now. I started liking her about a month ago. I asked her out. We've been out lots of times since then. She didn't start displaying any real signs that she was interested in me until about 2 weeks after the first date. During that time I'm emotionally reaching for anything, any kind of sign that I can rationally interpret to be her liking me or being interested. And it kills me. Even where we are now, I'm pretty sure I'm more emotionally involved than she is. I just want to lavish attention on her and speak freely about how great I think she is or how much I like her, but I know I can't do that because I'd probably scare her away. So then I have to consciously hold myself back. When I want to talk to her all the time and go out every night, I have to tell myself no.

It doesn't help that I'm usually not that busy. Other people have lots of other things going on, things to distract them from their potential love interests. I really don't have that much to do, or maybe I'm just more prone to think about the girl I like more often than the average guy. I just care TOO much. I sometimes wonder if it's just desperation. I'm not necessarily lonely at the moment, but I am still highly invested in finding someone to replace that best friend spot. Someone who needs me as much as I need them. And that kind of defines this weakness of mine I've been describing. I think at the moment I just really need that person, and so when someone comes along that passes my short list of criteria, I just get so excited that I overdo it.

I hear time and time again from friends, "Don't over do it", "Don't rearrange your schedule just for some girl", "Just go on auto-pilot and don't think about her so much". All suggestions of holding back and not putting so much emphasis on the girl. I wish, I wish I could do that. Again I say: I am my own biggest obstacle.

This last weekend has been kind of an emotional roller coaster for me. Erica and I went out Wednesday night, and we talked about some good things. We established that we'd like to start a relationship. That's huge news. Well, really it was me suggesting it and her saying her saying she'd give it a shot. That's kind of been the reoccuring theme in our dating so far: I am leading her down the road. She's not saying no, so obviously she's doesn't mind where I'm taking her. She's admitted to liking me, and so obviously she is following me to some degree of her own interest level. However she's still trailing a few steps behind me, which (given my weakness I've explained thus far) is beginning to drive me crazy. Anyways, it was Thursday morning that she reaffirmed that she liked me. That was 3 days ago, I should still be happy with that. But yet, it feels like it was so long ago. Clearly I'm still not convinced to a level that I'm satisfied with that she likes me. And I can't go to her about that to find out what her deal is, because it's MY problem. And she just left this morning to go out of town for a week. I was hoping to take her out Friday or Saturday night and kiss her before she left, and also to make our relationship official. But in a string of bad scheduling and unfortunate things, we never got to go out. I didn't even really get to say a proper goodbye to her.

So now, I'm in a place where I realize my problem. I realize the situation. The only question now is how to proceed. I've debated trying out a few tactics I've heard from friends, being more assertive and direct about dates, talking to her less, ignoring her to a degree, etc. Or I can stay the course I've taken thus far, which is probably a tad over bearing, and little TOO nice, and not quite dominant enough, however it's the course of action that has gotten me this far. I also wonder what kind of things Erica responds to. Mostly it's been emotional-level and social-level stuff between us, and like I said, she has more or less just been riding along. So then I wonder if she'll respond more to physical attention. As one of my friends suggested: Try and get the short-term game down first, then the long-term will follow if it's meant to. And I've made a post about THIS before too, about the short-term game being more physically charged than emotionally-charged. And that's why I have no short-term game. I've always only moved a relationship along on a physical level as I feel it's moved on an emotional level, or in other words I keep the two on a similar level.

In any case, I dunno, she's out of town for a week. I dunno if she can talk on the phone or get texts where she's at, we never really talked about it. So then do I be the first one to call/text her to see how things are going? Or do I wait for her to decide she misses me and wants to talk? I don't know...things are way more complicated than they ever need to be with me. Again I say: I am my own biggest obstacle.