at a loss, sort of

for reasons not worth mentioning, i end up looking at a lot of master's theses and PhD dissertations. invariably a number of them have odd, rambling dedications that divulge far too much information. often the amount of dedication text is inversely related to the quality of the actual research.

this statement, from a 2005 PhD dissertation from Capella University, was by far the strangest:

Finally, I would like to publicly thank God for the experience of New Year's Eve 1993 when the free will of a gang, through their initiation activities, left me with a bullet in my chest and the opportunity to "Be still, and know that I am God."

I'm not sure what one, as the reader, is supposed to garner from this intensely personal disclosure, but I can certainly say that it created quite an interesting back story for the resulting reading.