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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, December 27, 2008 | |
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At the request of my family members I apparently need to blog more. Things of note: <3 my family and friends. I've had a great week hanging out with everyone and seeing people I missed and reaffirming some old connections. The holidays were super stressful, but with everyone's help I've almost made it through. Twin and I will be back by Wednesday, and then I can really breathe easy. I still have a slew of responsibilities. First and foremost is to finish the AAS poster and find a way to print it. I *really* needed to do it before classes got out but I just didn't have the time. Next I need to install the photo software and send pictures to my sisters. Then I need to download the latex programs (I think it was miktex, texmaker, and jext ? also I should get bibtex but I don't know how it works at all), and update and translate my thesis draft into that. And the grad school stuff never ends. I need to email everyone with whom I want to work and let them know I'll be at AAS; make CVs/contact forms to put with my poster; order transcripts for my last 9 or 10 schools, and order GRE scores for my last 3 schools once I've figured out if they need them or not; and apply to all of them; plus sign and send the forms for all my letter writers. Despite this lovely break, I do have a lot of work to do, and I hope I can get it done in 3 days when I get back instead of playing my 4 new video games! |
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The Topic of the Day is: Sunday, December 07, 2008 | |
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seriously sucky migraine on Friday put a cramp in all my "catching up" plans. I WOKE with the headache. So not fair. Did nothing to earn it (and Sashafeather, if you put up with that kind of shit every day I am seriously sorry and I don't know how you do it). pain meds held the beast back until 1pm, at which time I realized I hadn't eaten all day. But I had meetings. So I had to wait until 2, ate, had raging, blinding headache that made my eyes throb with every instance of noise and light, tried to sleep it off in the physics club room until 5, and then staggered home. This headache lasted until 10:30pm, whereupon the tasty sinus meds my roommates bought me, combined with application of ice cubes, dark living room, a bunch of alone time, and some kittens, kicked in and produced a tenuous state of not-totally-in-agony. Then I went to bed. Least. Productive. Day. Ever. I am pretty sure my boss is kinda pissed at me because I haven't gotten any real work done and the semester is over. And I've spent 4.5 years working for him, yet pretty much never put the lab as my priority. So! in order to appease the mighty boss, tonight I shall construct an introduction and lit review, as well as methods section, of my senior honors thesis. And arrange the proper forms for ordering those parts he wanted me to get. Grad school stuff: I finished Virginia, barely; had to have an emergency letter sent. One of my letter writers didn't turn in some of his letters. He submitted the Virginia one late... growl.. .turns out he forgot to do the one for my big NSF grant as well, gosh darn it; I called them, and asked them if he could submit it late or if they might still consider my application. We'll see, maybe something will work out. Maryland is essentially done, sans transcripts and letters. UPenn is pending on one letter of rec (which I will submit tomorrow morning, at, say, 10am) MIT is done as far as I can recall. They refused to waive my fee so I am kind of mad at them. UCSD I am waiting to hear from them precisely what they mean about "statement of purpose, limited to 1 page"... cause mine is currently 3... so if it's 1 page doublespaced, I may be screwed. That's it for this round. Next round is Berkeley if I can convince Peter to write a letter for me (he says there is no way I will get in, but I already sent them my transcripts and GRE scores, so I figure I could try), U of New Mexico, U of Mass Amherst, Colorado, U of Minnesota, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and Case Western. and I need to figure out if I should call back the Delaware people who actually *called* me and wanted me to apply at their school. eep! So, in other words, ridiculously busy. But floating, gently, on top of things. And who knows, maybe I will do all right in all these other things. to do: last week's lab this week's lab thesis poster WSGC paper WS paper WS notes for Tuesday and Thursday Poetry write ups on two books of poetry, 1 poetry reading poetry editing Grad schools until death help stefi xmas shop (casey, jessi, dad) 623 final. I am soooo doomed Labels: doom, Grad School |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, October 17, 2008 | |
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PHYSICS GRE!!!!!!!!
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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, October 04, 2008 | |
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Still too crazy busy to write a real post. This is just a wave to say hullo and that I'm still alive. In New Mexico right now. Unexpected. There was a McNair conference down here and since it's a prospective grad school, I got the program to pay for me to come (wayyyy more expensive than I originally thought, though. woosh). The conference was.... average. It was interesting to be here alone; I was able to get more work done and I didn't feel sad or even left out. I dreamed here. Second most vivid dream after the ones with the trees. There was a wolf... I'm not Indian American. I can't have a spirit quest--isn't that cultural appropriation? if I take and I haven't suffered to earn it. That's not quite what I mean... but I can't just take the good parts of a society, the parts I like, and make them mine. It's not my society, right?... but there was a wolf. Went for a looooong drive today. I actually ended up sleeping through the much-acclaimed balloon festival (a pity!!), but I got up early enough to discover that not only was the VLA doing tours today, but the Trinity Site (where they tested the first atomic bomb) was open to the public. Both only happening twice a year, and both on the weekend I was here! JOY! so I drove. And drove and drove and nearly killed myself taking pictures (naw, I would've just blown out a tire on the rental car) of all the mountains and then drove some more. and some more. Holy Seven Gods, these places were out in the middle of nowhere. I got to go into White Sands Missile Range (ooo, military!) and then made it out to the Trinity Site. It was neat, but I didn't stay long. But it still put me to thinking. What kind of responsibilities do we as physicists (yes, even the astro peeps) have, and take on, when we pursue physics, and become interested in these studies? What do we own in our identity, and what is our accountability? Anyway, stopped for gas and headed off into the hills in the opposite direction to find the VLA. Damn, that part of the drive sucked. Every time I mounted a new hill in the car I almost went off road, looking for dishes. Good thing the road was mostly empty. Also, all the speed limit signs had been taped over with duct tape. EVERY. LAST. ONE. One of my potential advisors had mentioned a "Socorro Speed Trap" but hadn't elaborated, and I spent the whole hour trip worrying that I was going to get whammied with a speeding ticket. The VLA was.... cold. and in some ways awesome. I wish the tour had been more for scientists, though I did get to ask a lot of questions and take lots of pretty pictures. And if I had been there alone, it might have been perfect. You have all this vast, vasty empty space, miles and miles of this sandy scrubby brush land that disappears into the blue shadows of mountains on all sides, and here and there the white, alien structure of a dish (they were in A-configuration, so very spread out). The wind slapped the plateau and the sky gathered fistfuls of dark clouds. It even started drizzling. I wanted to be alone with the wild, painful beauty of it, to touch the cold metal of the telescopes and blink back tears as they whirred and arced across the sky. But there were people, and all I felt was a stubborn movement away from them. Maybe if they'd been willing to talk to me, to share in that wild, ridiculous joy--but they were in their groups, and I was alone. In some ways I may have fallen in love with New Mexico. MOUNTAINS. Ridiculous. They're not... they don't scrape the sky, they don't prop up the clouds. they aren't touched with snow, they don't fill my vision, they don't cast a shadow across the land. But they are so large that they are intimate, closer than they should be. Like you could dig your fingers into their sides and take a handful of dirt. And you almost reach out, and when you do you find out they're still miles, miles away... it's ridiculous. But they're beautiful. Like someone cut a shadow out of the early morning sky. And when the rain came, in the late evening, and pulled its curtain across their faces, I wanted to be there in the downpour, at the place where the mist and the rain became one, part of the dust and the ways in which things are obscured. I don't know. It's beautiful. But maybe it's only because it's new to me? I don't know if I can see myself going to school here. Good thing I don't have to decide yet... peace be with you peeps. Labels: Grad School |
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, August 25, 2008 | |
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Post Arecibo Flew in. Last flight was delayed, then cancelled; I got on a later (1am) flight to my home town and managed to get to bed at like 3 in the morning. maybe 4, I don't remember. My mom and sister completely surprised me with my guinea pig (I thought she was back in collegetown). Saw K. for part of a day (it was fun, and very relaxing), and R. for another part of a day (so much fun! I miss you! and thanks for guarding my shiny new laptop), and S. and Megs for another evening. I even stopped by and had supper with my dad and his girlfriend and my brother. It was good to see everyone. Had most of a day at my mom's hanging out and relaxing, and then left at like 11pm or so to drive back to collegetown. The drive back was... remarkably... not that bad. I thought I would be a lot more tired. And I was tired, I won't lie. But for the most part I was able to stay well awake above the dangerous sleepy threshold, and I only had to switch with Twin a couple of times. We got back in at 4am or so and I collapsed at her place. Then I spent the day napping and seeing friends, and a week moving. Moving is hectic as always and left me injured and drained. But when it was done, it was very satisfying. My last night in my old apartment, my former roommates and I got drunk, cleaned, and watched the Olympics. I really like my new place though, especially now that my bed is assembled and my bookshelves loaded and everything is almost completely cleaned up for the new semester. I do have some stuff to work on yet, so busy with that and settling in. Let's see... then I spent a week hanging out with the Twin and friends and our house's new kittens (squee!). Went to see Wall.E again with the Twin. Went to two birthday gatherings on Saturday. Went to the Rennaisance Faire on Sunday. That was pretty sweet. The jousting, though fake, was so much fun; we cheered for the evil guy, who promised us blood, chaos, and victory at any cost. He looked like a cross between Sting and the villain from Tank Girl (Malcolm McDowell??), and he had some pretty sweet horsemanship skills. I saw a falconer with his hawks and falcons, an owl, so many people dressed up like awesome, and a couple of freakishly entertaining shows. All in all, I enjoyed myself a fair bit too much, but it was great. Oh, and I bought a sword and pouch. Now time to figure out if I can carry my blade as a ... discouragement... on my long late-night walks home. And also, how to care for it. I think it's been handled poorly because the edge is fairly sharp but the blade is crusted with dried oil. Today has been a busy and fairly productive day. I need to see a bunch of people and get things figured out (and I did, in some small part, though not enough); I have tons of papers to write and forms to fill out and submit and people to talk to and appointments to attend. The next few weeks are going to be crazy! I wish I could see my twin again though; I was really productive with her one day last week and I want to do it again. I want to read more books, but already I don't have enough time for it. Barbara Hambly and Robin Hobb are going to have to wait. I find myself gradually missing Arecibo in sharp moments--on the drive home from the Renn Faire last night, for example, I looked out the window and saw the Big Dipper, and I couldn't help but remember all the late nights on the dark drive back to the Observatory, seeing the silver sprinkles of light brilliant in the inky sky. It's good to be back, but I miss the people as well. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory: The Last Day Well, this is it. What a busy five days it has been. My receiver got installed on the dish and observations were made with it. We need to focus it, fix its pointing, figure out what's wrong with the cal and then calculate the Tsys and the SEFD. Which, unfortunately, is not likely to happen before I leave. I wish I had more time, but I've already been here almost a whole extra week. Friday when we went up to install the receiver I tripped in the receiver room in the dome. Bruised my knee and wrist and got some delightfully square cuts. They're healing all right but I am worried about maybe having chipped something, and also an ugly bug bite which might be Lyme Disease! not likely here, but I'm a bit of a worrier. Saturday we went to G.'s house for supper. His wife cooked some delicious South Indian food and we got to meet his daughter again. A good time was had by all and he loaned us his copy of Contact! Sunday we did go to Playa Sucia, one of the prettiest beaches on the island. It was a really long drive, all the way to the south, and we left at noon so we got there at like four. Swimming in the Caribbean was great--the water was green and cloudy and warm and beautiful, and the salt did wonders for my wounds. We met a big hermit crab on Anthony's towel, and I found a bunch of sea shells. Then we went to La Parguera, the bioluminescent bay. There was a little too much city glow for the bay to look neat, but the sky was gorgeous, with a nice Milky Way and some dust lanes, and even some shooting stars. We got in at 2am and I got up at 7am to come in and finish up my presentation, then headed up to the Visitor's Center early to practice. A quarter of the way up the extra giant hill (it's twice as tall as the way to my cabin!), one of the maintenance guys picked me up and drove me the rest of the way. I had a great, natural conversation in Spanish and it was delightful how easily I understood what was going on. The presentations went well and I got asked some really pleasant, thoughtful questions that I was totally able to answer. Post presentation, we had a party at the pool for a few hours. Then I had two hours of observing time with three extraintelligent superbrits who spent the time three steps ahead of me but never unwilling to stop and help me figure out was going around. They ran around and shouted things and were swift at programming, and we fixed our first light signal until it got a lot prettier and the pulsar astronomer came to kick us out. So I returned to the pool, and we discussed so many intelligent things in a thoughtful, realistic, yet entertain manner until midnight. When we got back to the cabin, we watched Contact (loved it! turns out Jodie Foster stayed in the other cabin, though. What a disappointment. and that bedroom they show? that's the LIVING room. the actual bedrooms are much much smaller) and went to bed at 3. I almost stayed up for the sunrise but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Today has been super busy. Tons of running around, trying to get things to work, having final talks and presentations, doing pictures, meeting people. G. and D. took me out to lunch at Tony's Pizza and we've worked out the details on what we need to do next to get and keep my receiver functioning. I get to look into coming back in January over winter break! I don't know how I'll juggle it around AAS and trips to prospective graduate schools, but it is worth a try. And I think if I don't get into graduate school, they'd have no problem taking me back for a year. I am really going to miss this place. The strange, exotic nature of the nights, the dusks, the dawns, and the color of the sun and the sky during the day... all the greenery, the weird trees, the fresh fruit, the too sharp hills and the jagged cliffs and the giant cows. And the beaches. Definitely going to miss the beaches (I'm going one last time tonight in two hours). And I will miss all of the wonderful, amazing, friendly, kind, helpful, gracious people who have made this place a form of home. They have treated me as a scientist and as a peer and as a friend, and I have never felt more please nor more confident in my own abilities (except after going up to the platform). So thank you, to all of them. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, August 01, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, T minus five Wednesday, they took my antennas and receiver (together called the front-end of a receiver system) up to the platform and installed it on the platform floor inside the dome. BUT they got chased out by our pulsar astronomer, who wanted to use the time for observing even though it was test time. *disapproves*. And yesterday, the carriagehouse (ie, the thing the big line feed is attached to) was not working. So, no work getting done on my project then. Then today, some transmitter wasn't working last night so they are running it now. I might get to go up at 9:30 or 10. Hopefully that's enough time. Hopefully afterwards I'll be able to observe from the ground and get my real data. The hard part about doing an instrumentation REU is that I'm coming into what is essentially a closed, functional system. There are enough people here to run around and keep the telescope running; but all the people are required at all points of their time to do it. Introduce me, and suddenly I'm trying to use the resources available to add an additional function to the telescope. I can't disrupt the running of the telescope, though, so the real result is that everyone is worked extra hard whenever they have time to spare and nothing of mine gets done in a timely fashion. Well, anyway, at least it's heading up and essentially from here on out it's data reduction. Wednesday we went to the beach for sunset. I forgot my camera but John and Diana let me take some sweet pictures. The beach was glorious--the water just warm enough, and lots of big swelling waves. I want to go back there so that feeling can stick with me. There was also a cooler full of beverages and pizza afterwards. The people here are ridiculous levels of fun and oh so kind and helpful. I hope we can go again next week Tuesday, the night before I leave. When we got back from playa and pizza, there was a coqui on our window. I caught it and held it for a while, and then when I tried to look at it it jetted out of my hands. I chased it around the porch for a bit but I couldn't catch it again, so I just took a bunch of pictures and then chased it away. SO CUTE! half the height of my thumb and not much wider, so light and little... I think something about me is a little more complete after getting the chance to see the great mystery of Puerto Rico, the small and the difficult to find, the singing of the frog at dusk. My camera is incapable of capturing the light here. Dusk is brilliant and overflowing with a sort of shivering illumination that makes the trees and the cabins more obvious, and yet my camera has the hardest time getting pictures that emphasize this... this magical post-sunset landscape... it's just impossible to describe. And then, the night! a slew of liquid darkness brimming with frogs and insects singing, the rustle of the trees in the wind. And that's jungle darkness. It's different from the ocean darkness, where the whole world simply disappears at the shore's edge, and the lights and everything human falls off and what's left behind is... nothing. I'm going to miss it here. I love this place, its newness and strength and magic, its dusk and its night and the soft shallow luminescence when the sun rises. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, T minus seven... A week until I leave! and of course, the result is PANIC and FLAILING and TONS OF WORK LEFT TO DO. Basically, my antennas and receiver box are finished. So today, hopefully! (assuming I see Carlos), we take them upstairs and install them. And if we get lucky and have time, I get to do a scan using a spectrum analyzer as opposed to a full backend receiver. If I do that, then I can make sure that my system, which is, let me tell you, sensitive to a range where there's a lot of high spike interference, won't blow out the backend receiver it's plugged into. I don't know *how* I will determine that, but that's what I get to figure out. IF that plays out well, then on Friday we have a whole chunk of time where I get to manipulate the system into thinking my receiver is some other receiver (because my receiver hasn't been programmed in yet) and then taking observations with it. Hopefully. Two major observations to do in that time period. The first is to focus my receiver; ie, figure out how much offset it is from focus and then adjust it. With software. Somehow. And then the second is to do essentially a cross or spider scan of as much sky as possible with my receiver, to check out the local RFI that we see from the telescope. Did I forget to mention that I need to first hook my system up to the noise figure meter and figure out the cal level, then email that to Phil? Does it not make sense to you? Because large portions of it are gibberish to ME. and it's my freakin frontend. Then comes the data reduction. Vasty, vasty quantities of data reduction. And I'll get the data on FRIDAY, so I'll have to work on it on SATURDAY (in addition to a pre-pack to figure out if I need to mail anything) before heading off to my boss's for a going away supper, and then on SUNDAY we're going to supposedly the prettiest beach in the south (well, it'll be a Caribbean beach; I admit, I don't need much more) and then to the bioluminescent bay at night. And then MONDAY is the workshop and our going away party and TUESDAY is my presentation. when the heck am I going to have time to reduce all that data before Tuesday???? AAAGH! and WEDNESDAY I leave. We head out at 10 am, which might give me some time to go shopping before hand. There are a few things I need to pick up yet (Louise (?), Jacki and Rachel (R!), Paddy and Sarah (R!), Patrick (?), Stephen (?), Mom (C+), Ryan (?), Casey (?)--aack!). A visit to the visitor's center this weekend might help with this. Anyway, one week and then I can see my family again, and have a few days hanging out with some fantastic friends, and then I get to head back to town and move in and get cats and do my regular lab research and... *is all excited* Labels: Arecibo 2 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 61 (I think) Whoosh. Two weeks until I leave, and a lot of that useless, restless feeling is dissipating. Yes, I'm ready to go and really excited to be back. But work is happening! The receiver box is almost done. I just have to: Analyze and write up the LNA conclusions Tell Carlos about any changes Attach copper strips to the plates (once the helix+forms are attached) to impedance match I think that's everything! then we get to install them up in the dome! (scary!) and take actual observations with them. Fun. Then, data crunch time and writing up a powerpoint at the same time to do my presentation on. I am really failing at doing anything besides enjoying myself in the evenings. Last night we went swimming in the pool until late. This past weekend I did do some data reduction but I also went shopping in San Juan, and saw Get Smart (wayyyy funnier than I thought), and went to a panaderia. And I've been playing vasty quantities of xbox's star wars battlefront. Squee! I am learning how to aim to shoot. yay! This coming weekend we are going to try to find Playa Sucia, supposedly one of the prettiest beaches on the Caribbean side of the island, and at night we are going to the bioluminescent bay in the south. Oh! and tonight we will probably go see Batman. yay! Anyway, as far as work goes, I am behind on my IDL for home and my emailing grad schools for home and my studying for the physics gre for home and my writing my mcnair paper for home. Shootshootshootshootshoot. I finished reading Inuyasha manga. Man, it was long, and I won't deny that a good 50% of it could be cut without harm to the plot (all right, maybe 70%). But I think it was worth it to see it through to the end. Sesshomarou turns out to be the best part (mwahahahahaha), and yes, there is lots of sadness, and yes, there is lots of gleeful happiness. Totally worthwhile. But it's long, I warn you, and at times tedious. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 54 Halfway between productivity and procrastination. I get a bunch done, and then I sit on my computer for hours. I am really looking forward to going home, back to a normal schedule and the rest of my responsibilities. I really really wish I was more motivated. I keep thinking of Tasiha's story, and how even though it can't go anywhere, it's still so beautiful, so powerful. Maybe the reason I'm so work-weird is that I keep falling into the writing. Not poetry, even. Just... Tasiha. The dragon voices story is plot-stuck now (I really don't know where it's going from here), and the wizardslave story is lacking character motivation--meaning, I don't know WHY it's going where it is. I suppose that isn't necessary.... but still... I don't know. Everything is tumbled about. I feel like I'm just counting down the days until I leave. And it's not just all "I miss my family, friends, and home." There is something unreal about this place. I'm just passing time here. I don't get to leave a mark. Soon enough I will move on. And I am enjoying myself, and having a good summer, more than anything else. Perhaps that's why I'm ready to leave. I feel like life is on hold for vacation, and that I want to get back to the life. Things to do: meet with phil to talk about data reduction once we hook up the receiver get cal injection from g. get boxes from s. do noise figure analysis with g. on all the LNAs wire two more LNAs also study for the physics gre aaaagh back contact grad school folks finish contacting grad school folks work on my idl program. *kicks it* I am so addicted to Law and Order: SVU that I may consider collecting it. Other things I want to collect: Saiunkoku, Mushishi, Black Lagoon, Hellsing Ultimate (and I want to see Noein and Ergo Proxy in full), Full Metal Alchemist, Mahou Shoujo Tai (heehee!), Shin Angyo Onshi manga (even if I have to print it off and staple it together), Full Metal Alchemist manga (but there's so much of it and it's so expensive...)... so many ways to ... waste my time? well, to enjoy myself. I always want to be an expert at what I do, but I'm not willing to put in the effort--it's easier to sit about mindlessly losing myself in things. gah. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, July 11, 2008 | |
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And that was followed by an AMAZINGLY productive afternoon. woo! Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Thursday, July 10, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 49 The end of my 7th week here. Everything still feels like it's a dream. The project is moving forward! My helix antennas are getting constructed and this afternoon we are going to try some noise figure analysis measurements on the two possible types of LNA (and no, I don't quite know what that means). Pluses: I am learning how to work a network analyzer, and I think I will definitely get my receivers built before I leave. The guys I am working with (electronic department engineers) are really nice and very helpful (now that the telescope is no longer broken) Minuses: Not getting any papers out of this. Also, I am getting sick of hanging out with people. Maybe it's just me, mood swinging, blahdeblah, but I want to spend some time alone. I don't want to put the effort into paying attention to and validating other people. It'd be nice if they did it to me. Well, all angst aside, tonight we are going to go see The Happening and tomorrow, Wall.E. Then, in a week and a half, Dark Knight! Woohoo! And it looks like this weekend I might go to San Juan, and there's going to be a cook out Sunday that we don't have to cook at. And maybe we'll end up at the Caja de Muertos island (doesn't that sound awesome???) before I leave in August. Perhaps I'll even get the chance to hit the beach again before this is all over. Perhaps it's a bit silly, but I am really enjoying this as a vacation, learning to have fun and enjoy myself. Other things: I am missing the family and the friends and the lab, where I can get something done without depending on one person who's too busy to help. I need to study for the physics GRE! but every night it's just too much effort, and I don't have a study space. I'm about 50% done with contacting graduate schools (and it's been a great help!) but it's really time consuming and, I admit, kind of boring. I want to write, but I am at something of an impasse for both of my ongoing stories. I can't figure out the motivation in the wizard/slave story, and I can't figure out the overarching plot of the dragon story. I've some distinct images in mind, but nothing to connect them. And my poems keep getting stuck, because people are always around when I'm trying to write. rawr! Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, June 28, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 37 Today's officially the start of my sixth week, and I am just about half way done. Cool things since last time: Twin came and visited me!!! YAYYY!!! we went to the local Arecibo beach on Saturday and both burned; then on Sunday we tried to find Bajuras Beach and failed, so we went to Crashboat Beach and snorkeled around a sunken ship (so cool! there were tons of awesome fish and the boat was neat, but the waves were kind've rough for snorkeling). Then we tried to find Tres Palmas beach in Rincon and failed, but ended up at Rincon Beach, which was very peaceful. Lots of nice big waves but nothing to smash on. Twin and I talk a lot when we are in water. Then we headed all the way down through Mayaguez and almost made it to Ponce before we realized we missed our exit; turned around and headed back to find the Bioluminescent Bay in La Parguera. Find it we did (amazing!) and it was really really really sweet. We lucked out and made it out before the moon rose; the sky and the water were very dark, and riding a boat out there is beautiful. The stars were gorgeous; and then when we got to the bay they had people jump in and swim around so we could see the awesome glowingness of their motion. Green fire in waves and ripples.... Finally, on Monday, Twin and I went to the local Arecibo beach in the morning; then she dropped me off up at the Observatory. Things that suck: I'm sick. With sneezing and coughing. The coughing's actually getting worse and as a result I won't be going to El Yunque, the national rainforest, today. *is very sad*. I can't do anything at work. I'm pretty much down to the machine shop stage, so everything I need to do I need to have supervision for, and everyone is hella busy. And next week my boss is gone so I am doubting that I will be able to do anything then either. I have to hope that the guys machine my stuff without me there. And I didn't give them the big picture... I simplified things... so there're a few steps that I'll have to do myself, I think, so that'll be challenging. I don't know if I'm getting far enough on my project. I know it's only a summer thing but I do want to get stuff done and it's just not happening I have run out of some food vitals (but fortunately someone is stopping at the grocery store for me today. yay!) Family + Insurance = strife and suckiness. nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh. why are my family things so complicated and painful and awful? last night I only prayed for healing for my twin and I and happiness for the rest of the family. And it hurt me to realize how far away and perhaps impossible those things are. Why do Twin and I have to suffer so much in the middle of all the family whirlwinds? Well, today is a day for staying home and finishing up some responsibilities. I'm going to finish reducing W-STAR data, fix/write my McNair paper, study up through Chapter 3 for the physics GRE, and email the rest of the grad schools in my "recommended" list. I will be productive! Labels: Arecibo 2 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 26 I've picked up the piping for my antennas and sent in a work order to get the ground plates cut. I think today I'll find a caliper and go in and measure the width of that thick copper wire and see what gauge it is, and then talk to Dana about starting to wind it. Hopefully there's a machine that'll make helices if I give it the right dimensions. We only have enough piping for one of the 995MHz antennas. Plenty of piping for the 700 MHz. I hope my simulations are relatively accurate. It would suck to produce this and then have it fail. I got my book from P.1. last night, so I can start studying for the physics GRE. Things to do: Email more graduate schools (woo! I actually started! holla that!) Study for the Physics GRE (seriously, just get to work on this) Talk to D. and G. about the next step, now that modeling is mostly done Measure the gauge of that wire Go to the 2pm meeting Go swimming at like 5pm after work (yay, pool!) Reduce WSTAR data (seriously, just do this stupid thing. It won't take long and it's easy and you really really really really really need to do it) Rewrite McNair paper for spring (gak!) Submit info for AIAA scholarship (woohoo! goodbye to my last loan and my work study!) I can get through this. And if I do, I'll be in good shape. AND I have the best reward ever: Twin is coming down to visit me!!! YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!! she'll be here three days, and I have off for them, except for the meeting. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, June 13, 2008 | |
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I have to say that the coffeeshop arc in Girl Genius is really, without doubt, one of the best things I have ever read in comics. Ever. Girl Genius by itself is a really excellent comic, but that arc? SUPERB. In every sense of the word |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 19 Well, last night our last student arrived (in theory... there are other ones scattered about who come at various times in the summer. But now the two cabins on top of the hill are full), so there was a mini party. Afterwards, the sky was so clear (usually it's quite cloudy at night), so Ethan and Ali and I trekked down the hill and up another hill to the optical lab to see the stars. We could even see the milky way a little bit. I recognized the dippers, corona borealis, the summer triangle, and scorpio, but I don't know the constellations very well here. We shall have to go again at the dark of the moon; it was gorgeous but very bright. From the hill top we could see lightning storms coming from different directions. Slept 6 hours. Letting myself get adjusted to being busy again. I wish I were motivated to do my grad school prep work in the evenings, but with all the other people around distracting me it's kind've hard. Got up early, came on down here, and found my advisor, D., and we ended up going to the platform. It was.... challenging. Interesting. Really cool and simultaneously scary. The ride in the cable car was much easier than I thought. As long as I didn't lean over the edge (which I didn't, and couldn't), it was fine. Good view of the surrounding areas and the platform as we approached it. Getting onto the platform was not hard, and it's quite secure. Lots of railings, no place to fall over at all. But there were lots of stairs, and of course you can see through the stairs and all the way down to the dish below. That was pretty freaky. I was quite wobbly-legged the whole time, clambering up and down all the stairs. There were two tricky climbing parts; not fall-dangerous, just difficult to navigate. I took it slow, and it was actually kind've fun to be up there. But by the time we finished (installing a new compressor), they'd already begun astronomical observing so we couldn't take the cable car down. So we had to take the bridge/catwalk. And let me tell you, the catwalk is far worse than I thought. It is very steep, and very holey. Nothing dangerous, just that you can essentially see everything through all the holes. The dish, the wires, the surrounding hills, the visitor center. So you're going down hill, quite steep, your legs working very hard to keep from going too fast, and there's not really a railing to hang onto, just mesh as high as your head so you keep having to let go and get a new grip. and then at one point it was just a little bit tilted to one side. Not enough to be dangerous. But by the time I reached that point, a whole bunch of other workers were on the bridge besides me and D., and the thing was starting to shake and sway and move and it was just... terrifying. That's really the only time I freaked out at D.; not badly, I just asked him to stay closer so I could watch his back instead of the swaying bridge. The bridge lets out above the visitor center so we caught a ride in a van back down to the control room. D. and I then went into town to buy piping to wrap my helix antennas around. We found some stuff that looks like it will work quite well, and nothing for the larger size, so I have to run my simulations again and see how to produce what I need on a 4.5" diameter pipe. My legs ache, as if with cramp. Too much climbing and tension. Also, my back is..... um... crispy. Yeah. That's the best word for it. But I bought some aloe vera gel now and that's helped a lot. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, June 09, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 18 La playa, la playa, fuimos a la playa! We went to the beach on Saturday morning. I was the only one ready on time; everyone else was late, but oh well. I'm a morning person. The beach was BEAUTIFUL. soft sand and this gorgeous little bay shielded from most of the waves by a ring of rocks and coral reef. I got to touch coral reef (it's like... porous stone, but covered in a soft slimy layer that feels like moss), and I stubbed my toes on some rocks. Then David let me borrow his snorkeling mask and tube, and I learned how to snorkel. It worked surprisingly well. And there were ALL sorts of fish: some little yellow and blue striped ones, and a bigger yellow one shaped like a butterfly, and a large white angel fish, and some other white or transparent fish that were hard to see, and some more just like them only with neon blue and yellow strips down their backs... well, okay, I'm not very technical :D I'll poke around online and see if I can find a list of tropical fish and their names, and get back to you. Then we went out and had some local food from the stalls: bacalaito, which is essentially a deep fried flat bread stuffed with little bits of cod that you couldn't taste; and hot dogs (loaded with meat, potato strings, cheese, ketchup, and mayonnaise... ugh, I thought I was going to die of cardiac arrest, though it was tasty); and piraguas, essentially shaved ice with syrup flavor, like snow cones. We went grocery shopping on the way home to pick up some essentials and I started to notice that I'd pinked out at the beach. Well when I got home and took a shower (it took forever to get all the sand off... how the heck did it get under my suit??), I discovered I was more than pinked. I'm pretty crispy, to the point where it's a bit uncomfortable to move my arms too much and wearing my backpack hurts like hell. I'll probably peel in a day or two. Sunday was spent goofing off on the computer and watching TV. At about 4 or maybe 5 in the afternoon, the rain started. We normally have afternoon thunderstorms here but this was a really big one. the lightning was tremendous, the rain torrential; we live on the top of a big hill, after all, and some of the strikes were pretty close. The power kept flickering on and off, and we lost the cable tv and the internet at various times. This morning I got up extra early so I could come in and get some work done. Instead, I ended up heading down the hill and taking a walk around the telescope. The ground shield is enormous! four or five times my height (maybe more, I'm no good at estimating). I got close enough to the telescope to touch a panel (exhibit gleeful squee here). I hope to go every morning; it's a kilometer circumference, so that makes for a nice walk, plus the climb up the hill afterwards is good for me too. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Thursday, June 05, 2008 | |
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Yesterday was interesting. I didn't get a lot of work done (oops) but we had our first meeting. People droned on about safety and not doing things alone without contact for medical help. I learned I can take a walk around the telescope whenever I want (so will probably do one this afternoon). We also talked about a whole ton of cool activities that we might do on weekends. So now we have 6 people here for the summer: Me, my roommates Diana and Tracy, and the guys: Elvin (sp?), Ali, and Ethan. There was a little introductory party in the afternoon by the pool and I talked to one of the British Guys, then shmoozed a bit with the awkward guy from Cornell and got some names of people to talk to (I think that I'd really like going there for grad school). I was preparing to spend another night putzing around on the computer, but then I wandered out for a walk and a talk with Ethan, and Diana came out to meet us and tell us she was bored. So we decided to go for a drive. I took my cell phone and was able to call my mom and my sister and my dad when we got down to Arecibo, and discovered that all my ID card problems were now major problems. shootshootshoot. But then something happened to turn the whole evening upside down. Atlantic. Ocean. ... ... ... ... I took no pictures. It was too dark out anyway. But there's no way a picture would suffice. The wind. The dark sand disappearing into the horizon And then you go down a dune, stumbling blindly because you can't see the changes in elevation in the dark, and the whole world opens... the horizon like an old wound, dark water and clouded sky stitched together in the distance. and lightning flickers to one side, and the water curls itself around your ankles and pulls at you. The horizon is hungry, like a mouth open but silent, and the wind rushes past you and the you sink into the sand a little bit more with every wave, and it goes on forever ... Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, June 02, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 11 An unproductive weekend, no doubt in part due to my lack of internet up at the Cabin. It rained a lot Saturday and a little bit Sunday. We have a new neighbor in the other cabin. He came over a lot and we ended up watching a fair bit of TV. I'm not really the hanging out type person; usually I just want to be left to myself, so it was a little awkward. But it's nice to be left to myself while other people are around. It makes me feel comfortable and at home. Don't get me wrong. I guess I just don't like the hostess role, required to be utterly entranced by everything the other person says and keeping up the conversation when it flags. I don't do regular conversation very well. But I am not a misanthrope. Television and internet aside, I wrote a lovely bit of the Dragon Voices story. Two lovely bits. In fact, I almost doubled it (sorry, MadCityWriters: looks like it's a novel after all. *sigh* I fail at short stories). And I decided to spend an hour a day in meditation; not speaking, not trying to think, just being by myself and observing and listening. Not like that's not what I do already. My boss, G., should be back today. Then we can ask him about the gain we'd need to get the beam to the tertiary properly filled. I'm a little stuck because I've had to make assumptions from these equations that I'm not sure if I can make. Other exciting things: I twisted my ankle Saturday (it's okay). And I chickened out on going up to the platform. Maybe when it's with D. and G.... I prefer facing my fears with people who know me a little better, so they can understand that even if I'm freaking out, beneath that I'm an intelligent and rational human being. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 | |
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kind've angsty tonight. Project is a little... troubling. In that it looks difficult and I find it a bit hard to understand. But it is, after all, only the first week. More importantly, I've come to realize how much my own happiness depends on having those I care about around me. Twin especially. Friends also. this realization has lead to me being uncertain about how successful I might be in graduate school. now I'm all question-y and uncertain and nervous and lonely (even though my first roommate is here, so that's good). Miss you peeps. Labels: Arecibo 4 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, May 26, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 4 Had a fun weekend. Went to see the new Indiana Jones movie with lots of people from the observatory. Had a good discussion with D., my second advisor, about what my project might be on. Then I spent all of Sunday reading The Time of the Dark and Trickster's Queen. I also watched portions of Blade. It was very relaxing. This morning I took a hike down the stairs to the office (tripped once on the way: wounds abound upon my knees and palms) and met with G. and D., where we discussed my project for almost 2 hours. Then I went into phase 1 of project, which is "learning what the hell is going." I spent three and a half hours reading, realized I hadn't had lunch, and lugged my books back up the hill. And I told D2 about the lack of utensils, internet, and phone service up here on the way, as well as got my key to get into the lab and my computer username, etc. Tomorrow I'll go turn in the paperwork to be here officially. The observatory is just lovely shortly after a rain--everything looks greener than before, and it's cooler and quieter. I ducked under a huge tree to get to the path to the stairs and wandered along by the cliff and then thought to myself, yep, I'm living in the rainforest. Making friends with the lizards and birds, hoping someone will eat the wasps building a little nest above the cabin door, and waiting for my roommates to show up. Pictures to come when I get some batteries for my camera so I can load them. Labels: Arecibo |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, May 23, 2008 | |
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Arecibo Observatory, Day 1: Got 3 hours of sleep last night. Flights to Chicago and San Juan were easy. Struggled back into my Spanish and managed to find the appropriate taxi driver (pre-arranged), get to a grocery store, and make it up to the observatory. The roads are hellishly close here, and everyone barrels around them at 50, and they're very hilly, and on one side there's a drop off and on the other there's a nice steep hill. Or, occasionally, little patches of town, with everyone parking on the street and making it extra dangerous. The observatory is... indescribably gorgeous. Everything's dense and overgrown (reminding me, disturbingly enough, of the remake of the King Kong movie... let's hope they don't have critters that large. eek), and it's moist and humid and it rained twice on the way up. And the noise outside! It's a chorus of thirteen different frogs and birds and other things. Very dark, badly lit, very steep. Getting back to my cabin (at the tiptop of the hill) is interesting... the car couldn't make the hill so I got out and walked. It's like Bascom only you don't have to go as far. and it's a little steeper. It smells like flowers and trees, and I am sure that it will take three days for my sinuses to adjust. After some fun miscommunication, Ganesh and Dana and I met and toured the place a bit. Met Chris, Tapasi, and Piya again, as well as some other people whose names I don't remember (except for David's). Found out that I will, in fact, get to go to the dome on the top of the telescope (AAAAAAAAAAA!), hopefully not soon so I don't get too freaked out about it. My project is... proof of concept? something the telescope users have wanted to see for 2 years? I don't know yet; I thought I was just building a receiver with certain lines filter-removed, but something about seeing the whole telescope? It's an interesting challenge. I want to find out more. But first, I want to sleep in hopes that my low-blood-sugar, low-sleep-level, high-stress-level, high-humidity-level headache will go the hell away. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 | |
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Well, it was a long haul, but it's over. good riddance to that semester. A few general points: Quantum is over. It was hell and it ate my life and taught me to give up and made me hate physics. With any small amount of luck, I got a B (but no grades posted... cmon, it's been a week!) Cosmo is over. I really enjoyed the class and I think the final went well. Within any luck, an A, but almost definitely an AB. Poetry is over. It was delightful and fun and light and like candy and it changed me and the way I work and write. and I got an A. always a nice feeling. Shamanism is over. It was easy and fun, and I think I might use some of it in my fiction writing because I'm getting sick of wizards. Probably an A, but definitely no less than an AB. I only had the four classes but because of quantum and all the other stuff it was a huge load. I'm not in the clear yet. I have a lot of stuff to do this week. 8 errands to run this afternoon, a paper to write for McNair, a lot of work to do for the lab, packing and moving out and getting ready for the trip (oh, surprise, I only get one bag :P stupid airlines), sending off all geek.kon mailings before I leave, and setting up car insurance and my phone as well. Good news! My mom got a new job and a new apartment and movers to move her there. The new job is actually going to pay her decent money, as opposed to the current one. so the whole panicking about how my mom has no cash? that's gonna go down a whole bunch. (now I can just panic as to how my sister has no cash. Anyone of my IRL friends: we should hang out by Thursday, else I won't see you until August. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, May 05, 2008 | |
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conclusions from an angry Physics-Club-Discussion I have a hard time objecting to an opinion (because that is not something which is mine to control) but I can and will object to the people who choose to hold such an opinion (or to the choice to hold such an opinion) if it is an opinion which I vitally disagree with. So, I remarkably disagree with the idea that "middle eastern men are all terrorists" but if someone holds that opinion, well, that's their opinion. I cannot control it, it is theirs. (I mean, I can object all I want, but I have no right to tell other people what their opinions should be. Though I totally would, even though I have no right to do it). But I can and do have a right (responsibility) to object to their choice to hold that opinion and object to them as a person who would hold that opinion. this was accompanied with much storming about, tears, and silent moments of contemplation punctuated by punching walls. Physics Club makes me SO GODDAMNED ANGRY that I can't think straight and I can't react fast enough. it took me 10 minutes to come to those conclusions, and all the while I was helpless to their idiocies. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, April 18, 2008 | |
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And I am back from the dead! SWEET! Last week was RIDICULOUSLY crazy, mainly because getting to my conference sucked. It takes up WAY too much space to tell the story here so I'll just summarize: 1) My flight out of town was delayed an hour because they couldn't find a plane 2) Despite running through Chicago's airport, I missed my connecting flight and the subsequent connection 3) I got a new connecting flight but I didn't get the standby position on the flight to my final destination 4) I met a bunch of other people going to the conference who also didn't get on that last flight, so we all got a rental car and drove down to Salisbury 5) We drove through dense fog that devoured the space around us... so creepy, like driving into a void. 6) I got to my hotel at 5:30 in the morning, got put in the wrong room, and had to go back 7) I had 45 minutes of sleep before I had to drive out to the airport to try to collect my luggage 8) my luggage wasn't there 9) I ended up giving my poster on <1 hour of sleep and in slept-in tshirt and jeans 10) The weather was gorgeous! 11) After 12 hours of flying on the way home, I had to pull another almost all nighter to finish quantum homework 12) I had an MRI done Wednesday and it was really really really really freaky (even though I've had one before... the tube narrows at the place you enter from.... has anyone seen "The Jacket?"... I'm not claustrophobic, but really that was not fun) That about sums it up. I managed to finish all my homework for the week so I am going to do some writing for the MadCityWriters Group tomorrow. Lots of poetry floating in my head. Lots to do and think about. A lot of confusion about the future. Bah. My angsty side is coming out again. *squooshes it* 1 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Sunday, April 06, 2008 | |
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Today I felt too big for the space I'm in. Not in a sense of me being a large woman, but in the sense that everything loomed over me and pressed too closely. I wanted to kick down the walls, or run screaming along the rooftops. I want to press my face up against the sky and have nothing in my vision but the swirls of silver and blue clouds in the dying afternoon light. I took off my glasses--I couldn't take being framed in any more. I *ran* out of the building on my break and walked restlessly for minutes, scarcely looking, letting the cold wind pull my elbows and soothe my aching neck. My head is all tight, like someone wrapped it in spandex and squeezed. I want to let go, to burst free. I want to kick things and run. I'm impatient. I don't know what's going on. I want to lie on the ground in the dark at the observatory and let the galaxy wheel overhead for hours, listen to the yap of coyotes, shiver in the icy night wind. I don't want streetlights, my small bedroom, 4 walls, a routine. I'm too impatient for reading novels, perhaps even for playing video games. It's hard to sit here on a computer and write. Maybe a notebook under the stars. No stars tonight--too cloudy--but still, that's what I want. The warm damp earth under me, my head reaching up until my neck aches with stretching, stars brushing like spray against my cheeks. I want to hold different things in my hands--angora, 100% silk yarn, baby alpaca, glass, marble, and chiffon, and gelatin, and mushrooms, hot water, granite, sand, warm crumbling moist dirt, and splintering wood. I want to press them to the back of my neck, I want to feel them in my sensitive palms. I don't know why I'm so restless. I want to tear free from my foundations, but not because I dislike them--I feel like I'm too much for them any more. I've spent all this time training to move beyond undergraduate, and maybe I'm ready--but then again, I'm not, I suppose. there are still classes that I would benefit from having. But on the other hand... yes. I think I'm ready. I'm ready for more. Finger Eleven: One Thing: Restless tonight Cause I wasted the light Between both these times I drew a really thin line It's nothing I planned And not that I can But you should be mine Across that line [Chorus:] If I traded it all If I gave it all away for one thing Just for one thing If I sorted it out If I knew all about this one thing Wouldn't that be something I promise I might Not walk on by Maybe next time But not this time Even though I know I don't want to know Yeah I guess I know I just hate how it sounds 2 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Sunday, March 23, 2008 | |
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A Spring Break Summary ~Got a really nice message from Stephen (squee!) ~Saw Wicked the musical in Chicago with Twin and MN's J. (FANTASTIC!) ~Watched all 3 LOTR (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... left me angsty for days) ~Started a new story (it's... interesting. But I'm glad to be writing again) ~Read 3/4 of the Protector of the Small series (would've read the last one but I don't have it); Memories of Empire (see review); part of Elvenblood; all of the Dragonsong trilogy. ~Cleaned the kitchen, the living room, and ~Got pretty much nothing productive done at all (eek!) All in all, a very relaxing break. I am feeling quite at peace with myself--I think I might have finally started to come to terms with the fact that classes will not be my only priorities throughout my entire life. I am beginning to put some serious effort into things beyond the classes--learning for my sake, knowing what I like so I can pursue a career in it, establishing better connections with friends and family. what about that whole feeling distant from SciFi Club and Physics Club thing? It is entirely possible that I will separate myself from those things. I don't know why--maybe it's because they're changing, and I'm changing in a different direction, so we scarcely align any more. Maybe it's because my priorities have changed. I am now going to try to BALANCE living healthily, writing, and doing science, because I need to practice that balance. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, March 21, 2008 | |
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Book Review: Memories of Empire, by Django Wexler (SPOILERS) This book focuses on a girl who travels with a powerful swordsman as he attempts to regain his memories and find out who he is, and where he got his sword. On the way she begins to be addressed, helped, and manipulated by an ice spirit. Meanwhile, other spirits (of shadow, fire, and light) manipulate other people in a grand battle for power World: The story takes place in a former dynasty now overthrown by conquerors. It's generally believable, although there are not enough details about how the world works to say for sure. There are some details concerning the conquering peoples, who now inhabit most of the land, but for the most part these things are ignored. I'd like to see more on: the slave trade (what kind of people use slaves? It seems to be pretty common to buy and sell slaves but no one OWNS them or uses them); the type of farming; what kind of business comes in on the river; etc. Characters: A few too many female characters are "barely flesh over bone," and of the 7 or so we come to know, only 2 of them ever have sex-drives. for shame! That aside, Corvus is kind of interesting but tends to be a little paper-cut-out (c'mon, he kills things with swords, and doesn't know about his past. What more does one need?); Veil grows to be more 3 dimensional as the story goes on (I like her 'capture-playing' ability) but she tends to stay the "helpless virgin," more afraid of being raped than dying, and only in the end manages to handle some weaponry. Zhin is woefully underdeveloped, outside of his love-interest in Isobel. And Isobel could really stand to have more development. She's supposedly had a lifestyle similar to Revy's from Black Lagoon (in a fantasy-world sense), but that's a superficial layer that covers what could be deeper details inside. Kit and Kei get the most deep background development, with whole flashback sections and plenty of room for witty dialogue; but even though this is the case, I didn't find myself very interested in them. Maybe it's because they rode the draeks, and I wanted more about the draeks but never really got that... or because I didn't understand the role they played until much later in the text. Plot: More interesting than I originally expected; that is, very little to do with saving the dynasty from the conquerors, or any of that. Instead, the story gradually becomes more oriented around the demons or spirits that are interacting with the humans. The humans eventually become pawns and have to fight their way free of their respective spirit controllers in various ways. It ended with a "save the world" twist, of which I disapprove on principle, but which was not too disruptive. other comments, impressions: One of the most irritating features of this text is the number of typos present. I'm not sure if I should write to the publisher and complain--things like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation, with the addition of lines that run together and some lack of paragraph breaking are not a significant part of the story, and yet I feel like they have their place and without them it's as if the company didn't try at all. In general these stories remind me a very little bit of David Eddings' Belgariad; that is, it tends to 'tell' instead of 'show,' being very heavy on the exposition. All in all, I don't think this book was worth the $8 investment and I'm going to resell it. It's a pity I got sucked in by the beautiful cover, interesting opening, and fascinating title (listen, I thought it might be like Fire Logic and be about learning to live after being conquered). |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 | |
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Extra thanks to Louise for making me such an AWESOME layout! yay for spring! So far break has been relaxing. I made a list of graduate schools, studied for the GRE, watched Fellowship of the Rings with Twin and Dead Poets Society with Sarah, hung out with everyone Friday night, and read a bunch of books. Looking to add more to that last topic, too. And, by the by, I finally did some writing! After a certain point of rambling in my own notebooks where I kept concluding that I needed to plan certain things, to think about certain characters, I finally scrawled, "screw planning, I want to WRITE," and did so. Four pages of a new story (it's... um... odd) came out of nowhere and are heading in a good direction. I added another half a page yesterday, and hopefully will have some more today while I'm at work. J. is coming down tonight and tomorrow Twin and J. and I are all going to Chicago to see Wicked and go swimming in a hotel pool for two days. Then Friday it's more of the same. I really need to get into the lab and do some work. I should see if A. is around and wants to give me some IDL advice or get me started. I also have to stop by McNair and pick up my GRE form and register for it, and then call my professor at Arecibo and arrange a time that he'll be there for me to arrive. And then there's the mail I need to mail, and the bank I need to go to, etc, etc. whatever It's been lovely so far. Hope you guys find your week peaceful too. 1 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Friday, March 14, 2008 | |
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*bursts free from the surface of homework* FREEDOM! *gasp* at last! A summary of the week: QM test is over (but it went pretty bad. gaaaaaaaack. I'm kind've numb about it. Just gotta do better on all the homeworks, and that's it :P) Cosmology test is over (it went WELL. it made me feel like I knew what I was doing! It made me HAPPY! dear gods, do you know how long it's been since a test did that to me? we'll have to see how my grade goes) Fall count for the season is up to 8 (damn you snowmelt that freezes overnight and is all but invisible :P) upcoming plans are all fantastic (weeeeeeeeeeee!) Twin and I are doing great things! (weeeeeeeeeee!) Went for half an hour walk this morning (yay!) the weather is improving! JOY!!!! I begin to feel more distant from people again. Physics Club is full of people who talk and don't do homework, and whom I don't know very well and whom don't seem to want to get to know me at all. I think I might start studying at M. Library since it is peaceful and might actually help me focus. But it's strange for me to be so distant from them. It makes me sad. And SciFi club, too, is like something that happens around me, not to me. I don't know what to think. Do I need to put more effort into it? Or do other people need to put more effort in back? I miss writing group. I have sucked it up at attending and writing for it for almost 6 months now (the december story was a scant few pages of change to the story from September). I miss writing. I always seem to be putting it off. Of course I do the poetry, one piece at a time, very nice, and I enjoy it. But the story ideas in my head are fragmentary, I never pursue them, and they start to die. Is it impossible to reach a balance between the side of me that needs physics and the side of me that needs writing? Right now I'm sacrificing one for the other. Is there no life where I can have both? Is it the school effect, the "make me a better scientist" effect, the "learning to actually be good at physics, gradually" effect? I am feeling more like I am good at physics. Of course maybe it's that I got into some nice summer programs, or some remnants of what AAS did to me. But I feel more confident in my abilities. I want to do more physics: I want to go to the lab a lot more, I want to make progress and have results, and find out how interferometry works with WSTAR. But I don't want to give up writing. It feels like it's slipping away. When I try it again, it feels desperate and clingy Oh, for the love of... would you RELAX? That's only because you are out of practice at it. You can't lose it forever. If you practiced... if you actually did the 1 page a day thing (just like if you actually did the 100 situps a day) I think you would notice a lot of difference. Plus, if you did the 1 page a day thing, maybe you'd LEARN how to have time for both writing and science. Maybe you'd learn how to handle the surges of character-memory that make science so hard (popping up inconveniently). You keep running away from this problem. Time to face it never thought of that before, that I could *learn* balance. I thought that was something I had or did not have. To practice it... to perfect it... I like that. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Sunday, March 09, 2008 | |
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Movies coming out in the next year, theoretically, that I want to see: Spiderwick Chronicles Doomsday Nim's Island The Forbidden City the next Chronicles of Narnia Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Meet Dave (maybe) The Happening (maybe) WALL.E (maybe) The Dark Knight InkHeart the next Mummy movie Blindness ... WHAT!!!!??? apparently they are making a movie based off Jose Saramago's FANTASTIC book.... ..... .... there's no way in hell they can do it justice. They're either going to ruin the ambiguous ending, or they're going to give it too much plot. They couldn't make a literature-like, interpretation-free exploration of humanity, anarchy, good and evil... not without bias. not to the masses. but ooo it'll be nice to see them try. I still want to see Dragon Wars and the Dark is Rising (even though they both look AWFUL). |
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The Topic of the Day is: Sunday, March 02, 2008 | |
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Puerto Rico it is. Lots've good rationale. Now, time to try and focus so I can get some work done. BUSY!!! |
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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, March 01, 2008 | |
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REUs I've been rejected from this year: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory REUs I've been accepted to this year: Wyoming Infrared Observatory National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAWAII! PUERTO RICO!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!) REUs I haven't heard from yet: NASA's Undergraduate Student Researach Program Southern Association for Research in Astronomy Northern Arizona University Kitt Peak National Observatory Wisconsin Space Grant Elijah Project Cornell University McDonald Observatory Any of the four scholarships or three research grants So, here's my dilemma. What I want: 1) A cool project 2) A cool place to do it in Things which best meet 1: NRAO at Green Bank, Arecibo, and Hawaii (alright, I admit, I haven't heard about my project from Wyoming yet. or ANY of the other places' projects) Things which best meet 2: Arecibo Hawaii NRAO at Green Bank To be frank, here it is. I want to go to all of these places and I'm scared to go to the exciting places. Hawaii and Arecibo would be, I think, the two hardest REUs to get into EVER. And they both took me. Which is fantastic, but where do I want to go? Hawaii's offer sounds so ATTRACTIVE!: "You will be paid a weekly stipend of xxx from which a deduction of about xxx will be made for housing in a convenient and pleasant private house (all inclusive). You will have your own room and share kitchen and bathroom facilities with other REU students. The total stipend for the program after the housing deduction will be about xxx. We will also pay for an economy class airfare to and from Hilo to attend the program. In addition, you will be taken on an observing run on Mauna Kea. Contingent upon good progress in your work, you will be invited to attend an astronomical meeting, such as the January 2009 AAS meeting in Long Beach, CA to present the results of your research. This year, the Hawaii REU program will operate on three islands, Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii (also known as the Big Island). You will be located in Hilo, on the Big Island, with 3 other students. Hilo is a smaller town than Honolulu but with many other attractions nearby including Kilauea volcano, scenic beaches, valleys, waterfalls, and, of course, Mauna Kea. You will be able to participate in the summer REU seminar series and other lectures at the Honolulu campus via polycom. All Hilo students will be flown over to Oahu for the end-of-summer REU symposium." I mean, it's HAWAII! it sounds GORGEOUS and EVERYTHING like Hawaii's supposed to sound like. Then there's Arecibo. No descriptions of the location yet, but it's in Puerto Rico. I would essentially be traveling to (almost) another country... or rather to an in between state which is neither "America" as I am used to it or "Other Country" as I am afraid of. It's still as exciting, but perhaps more tolerant in terms of my own ignorance. (by the by, when I say, "afraid", I more mean, "feel inexperienced and naive and thus worried that I'll fsck up some how, or won't be able to handle it") But the project at Hawaii is building a NIR camera (and testing it, and getting it ready to go). I don't really know a lot about IR and it's not really of interest to me (although of course it's the science that one would be doing with the camera that's more of an indicator of interest to me. NIR means stars and dust :P) The project at Arecibo is radio astronomy, specifically building a receiver to study radio interference. It sounds cooler. But it was described in more detail so it sounds harder. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do the project (I had my choice of two but the other one is software :P yuck). I don't have EE experience, I don't know fantastic quantities about circuits. BUT it is much closer to what I might do some day. (and, now that I talk about it, I remember that this is just a summer project and I don't have to be perfect at it. Who takes a student job which is precisely what they know they can do? Nobody. I'm pretty sure I thought I couldn't do a damned thing of Peter's project when I first applied for it. And it turns out that he was willing to explain it to me. So, good.) ((so does this mean I should look more into the PI of each project as opposed to each project itself? Assuming that they are both quite hard and that I should be depending on a professor to help me through it? probably!)) (((and, by the by, what do I do about NRAO? I built up a little bit of a relationship via phone and email with the PI who offered me that job... but it doesn't meet need 2 nearly as well as Arecibo and Hawaii do))) ... I wish it were Monday so I could talk these things out with people in the lab who have more background into these situations. I suppose I shall send both Hawaii and Arecibo the same email that I sent Wyoming and NRAO, so I can wait until Monday and have a chance to think about it. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Thursday, February 28, 2008 | |
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Today I feel: round and slobby. xP Things to do tonight: Finish writing up quantum problems 1 and 2 go to sci fi club and have some fun; watch saiunkoku when I get back. To do tomorrow: Call NCUR people about Hotel question find that stuff on which dean to email about my bio credits study 4 hours of cosmology (reading and notecards) study 4 hours of qm (reading and notecards) drive Stefi mail other book help with work if can To do weekend: help with work if can taxes geekkon meeting study 8 hours QM, 8 hours cosmology do 2 hour review of questions session for Shamanism geektour to do monday: poetry homework cosmology homework 4 hours quantum study 1 hour shamanism study |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 | |
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Well, it's getting on midterm season, and yesterday and today I suffered for having procrastinated so much over the weekend. SO, new rule is: absolutely no webcomics for 1 month. I think this should probably include manga, since that's sort've replacing webcomics in my affections. ... to be honest, you never end up rewarding yourself for the work that you DO get done. that's because I consider the procrastination as a sort of pre-work reward, so I'm always trying to catch up on the work that should've earned me that reward. But the stuff you do while procrastinating is not what you WANT to do. it's just an excuse to not do what you DON'T want to do. True enough. I need to keep an eye on making sure my productivity and reward times are kept separate. So, what do I drastically, vitally need to do tonight? Request off work for NCUR'y weekends, pieces of spring break. Send another email about The Bluest Eye trip Send Scifi Club Zombie Night and GeekTour emails Look into WSGC's travel grant Arrange new dentist's appointment Think up good questions to ask the dude from NRAO who called me, and email him (an aside: I SCREAMED when I got off the phone talking to him; scared the crap out of the guinea pig by seizing her and twirling around my room in joy. It's not a job offer, not yet. But I think I definitely got on their short list. And I should know for sure by the end of the week. But It would look good if I could ask them some nice intelligent questions about the project.) I was going to put "study QM and do QM homework" on the list, but considering it, I think I can get these things done and I think I should really try. And if I *DO* finish, I can reread QM lecture notes. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, February 18, 2008 | |
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The word of the day is: Lozenge. Seriously, what an awesome word. Looooozeeeengeee.... it just sounds fantastic. other news of the day: being productive, and downloading Saiunkoku (because I can't find my burned copy of it) oh man. This is a sort've slacker week, without the 85 papers and applications due... but I still need to do the following: do the reading for my shamanism paper Write a rough draft of my shamanism paper do quantum homework. by myself. seriously. go to the Lunar Eclipse Party. study cosmology a bunch finish my McNair paper renew my license get guinea pig food taxes and fafsa, if I'm lucky. So, remember. A) NASA's putting cool things in our Madison lake, and B) total lunar eclipse on Wednesday night. Go check it out, if it's clear enough. It's interesting to think about personal growth. I know pretty much everything the university has to tell me about scholarships and grants; even the super-secret-scholarship lady couldn't help me much. I am actually starting to work on things in advance like I planned--I am getting ready to do my taxes and fafsa this week, and I am going to do the GRE soon, and start my list of graduate schools. I am, in fact, kind of on top of things. Except for classes, which you've kind've been ignoring. Actually I've studied for them just as much as I have every other year--that is, not a lot, and I will do more later. But you were going to turn your grades around I still am going to. Quantum is--well, quantum is hell, but I think I've been doing okay in it so far. I do have studying and homework to do on it, but I am pretty sure that I can get a B if I do well on all the homeworks and pass the exams. And I got an A on my first cosmology homework set and am getting an A in poetry. And I'm sure I'll do fine on the first Shamanism paper and exam. I have the time, and I am doing things. I am not ALWAYS as productive as I'd like to be, especially Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but I am OCCASIONALLY as productive as I'd like to be. .... .... ... sweet! The inner voice agreeing for once. Things are looking up. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Monday, February 04, 2008 | |
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Chapter 26 7 Seeds: So, I was really excited to read this, since in 25 we connected two of the groups of world-wandering people. And I don't know what to think now. We've connected some other people, but it's crystallized the relation of time between the different groups and now I'm not sure how I feel about it Part of me really enjoyed the ambiguity in the time relation; not knowing if certain people were going to meet. Another part enjoys knowing that the potential to meet is there, or not there, depending on the various groups. So it's just shifted. Still, the Critters Which Come To Life Via Water are being revitalized by the rain; and Whatsisface's dogs have puppies. So over all this is a neat and cute chapter. Not a lot of plot progression. Hana is still freakin awesome. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, February 02, 2008 | |
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This was one BUSY week. I killed quantum homework in time (but of course it reincarnated a few hours later.... eesh, the never ending curse). Wrote a very crappy poem called "I Found My Death Under the Coffee Table" for Poetry class and sent it off on time Submitted 3 REU applications on Friday alone Did some of my transcribing for African Studies, and finished a chapter (I have one left to edit, and then I have to "normalize" them all, and then I have to get 7 more chapters to do this semester from the prof) Got groceries Cleaned the guinea pig So, what do I have left to do? As far as applications go, I'm down to 1 REU, 1 summer program, 2 scholarships, and 2 grant applications. And a paper proposing what I intend to do this semester to McNair, and another paper to them summarizing what I did last semester. EESH. Then I have to register for NCUR and submit my budget to go to it to WSGC, QUICKLY And gather/summarize my receipts from AAS for McNair Set up a program to analyze data in IDL at the lab Do my FAFSA Make sure I have all my tax forms get a new license register for the regular GRE and study for it register for the physics GRE and study for it Submit to the Undergraduate Symposium Edit my paper for my history research and look into getting it published or somesuch return my boots and as far as homework goes: Cosmology to do Poetry to edit and read quantum to start shamanism to read Shamanism paper to start looking in to declare honors in the Astro major find out about trip and senior honors thesis funding for Astro plus self-study of radio astronomy, thermal physics, quantum mechanics, and C and C++ and typing up that thing for wiscon and whatever comes up with geekkon um... .... *panics* |
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The Topic of the Day is: | |
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Manga Review: 7 Seeds Iwashimizu goes to bed one night and wakes up to be tumbled into a life-raft with three other people. They end up on an island that is deserted and rather creepy and of course dangerous. This is the story of their survival and figuring out what is happening to them Of course, I don't make it sound NEARLY as interesting as it is. Pluses: I really enjoyed this manga and plan to keep reading it. The plot is complex and comes out very slowly. The art style is new. The characters are extremely realistic and very believable. 7 Seeds is much more than a suspense/mystery thriller manga. It compares the ideas of living and surviving, and many different peoples' different interpretation of the two things. It's a post-apocalyptic science fiction, which I appreciate. And it literally kept me reading right up until the end of the current chapter. Plus, there are plenty of strong women in the series too. Minuses: The first character we start out with is somewhat annoying (but don't give up! the later stuff gets so much better!), as she is an anti-social shy girl who was bullied and can't stand up for herself. She's supposed to be seventeen but is drawn, and acts, as if she were perhaps 13, maybe 15. Everyone comes out looking *somewhat* cliched (although they gain individual characteristics as the series moves on and become much more realistic). Then there's the problem with the eyes. Several (but not all) of the girls have Barbie eyes. They're very large and scary. BUT that's not the worst of it. That comes when they cry. The crying.... looks like OOZING or BUBBLING or FOAMING, and it is really really disgusting other minuses: there's a lot of creepy/disgusting stuff they face, and I have no affection for that. BUT it's tolerable, and things get less insect-based later on, so that's a plus. other pluses: SPOILERS: So, there are many different groups of people who were all similarly frozen for the future, but we're not sure if they're all moving through the same time or not, so when everyone is desperate to make contact with other life, and they get close, you can't tell if they're actually going to meet. It's amazingly interesting and .... heartbreaking? or suspenseful Grade: AB, will keep reading unless something goes remarkably downhill |
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The Topic of the Day is: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 | |
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Manga Review: Hakoiri Devil Princess Teenage boy releases super hot devil chick from a box who will grant him three wishes in exchange for his soul. Okay, listen. I tried. I read an entire chapter of it. An entire, awful chapter. I suffered through it. For you. In the hopes that if I did, you might not have to. So don't! Typical shitty fan-service plotless high-school based wish-fulfillment. Grade: F- (ugh) |
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The Topic of the Day is: | |
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Manga Review: 07 Ghosts (trying to do no spoilers) 07 Ghosts is the story of a young boy named Teito with a mysterious past who is a student for the military. He overhears something which reminds him of his past and is thusly imprisoned by the military. He escapes from them with his friend's help and finds refuge in the church. The church and the military are opposing powers, and Teito gradually begins to heal, mentally and physically, there. But then his friend shows up again and everything... changes. Conflict arises, and Teito encounters the powers that protect the church and everyone's hearts. Pluses: Interesting artwork in the battling scenes. A character with some depth of background. The church is a really interesting society and so is the world that it is set in. Teito's past comes up slowly, so there's some suspense. Minuses: It's a bit predictable (shortly after you find out about something, Teito's inevitably involved in it), but not ridiculously so. There's a certain cliche-ness to Teito's images (though the priests are very unique looking). And the powers that protect the church look kind've familiar (yay, Shinigami. oops, sorry), and of course he's at the center of everything. Also, pretty much no women to speak of (some faceless spirits, dolls, and mermaids who can't speak. No individuals). Overall: The plot is enough to keep me going. I find Teito a believable and honest character, whose responses to events are very realistic and characteristic. The imagery, like I said, is pretty nice, and we're casually exploring the paths of his inner heart, so good. This reminds me a lot of... Chrono Crusade crossed with ... some other shinigami-based manga which I forget. Grade: B, will keep reading and see where it goes. |
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The Topic of the Day is: | |
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Manga Review: Confidential Assassination Troop (C.A.T.) (SPOILERS) CAT is a (relatively new??) manga that deals with a twenty-one year old female assassin for hire who is known only as Cat. She apparently works out of the U.S.A.. She rescues a CIA agent from a Russian prison only to kill him for her own personal revenge. While hunting down a Chinese agent to kill, she encounters some Russian secret agents who are biological experiments (ie, really hard to kill) and tangles with them. She meets a black-market doctor living in Russia who takes care of her wounds. It is revealed that her father killed her mother and himself when she was very young, and for a number of years she lived only with her cats in an abandoned church. She was finally found by the CIA and taken in for training, where she was abused and eventually raped by some of the officers in charge. She broke out of the training and joined up with an assassin-group whose leader she killed when he tried to rape her as well. Since then she has been a hired killer. Pluses: An interesting, "rough" art-style, and a dark plot. I like the woman being a pretty kick-ass assassin. She's strong and fast and also smart, often using enemies' own strength against them. There are some twists to the plot. I really like it when she gets to know the black-market doctor because we get to see a lot more of her than who she normally appears to be. Minuses: Cat is one of three women in the entire Manga (so far). Of the other two, one dies quickly, and the other nods her head at the CIA leader's comments. The use of sexual violence in the manga is way overdone. Cat comes out in Russia wearing a freakin swimsuit, which quickly gets ridiculously torn. The Russian assassins get off on cutting "her lily-white virgin flesh" and threatening to rape her, and there are too many crotch shots. It takes her a long while to get reasonable clothing and for the artist to start focusing on her face or action rather than her crotch. female issues aside, the backstory comes up too quickly (first in the beginning, and then when she meets the black-market doctor) and the plot is pretty transparent so far. She does start questioning her purpose in life once she's killed her rapists, so we get to start looking into what makes her an assassin and gives her her darkness, but overall I get the impression that this is like trying to tell Revy's story from Black Lagoon from her point of view. The way she thinks about her past and future seems to weaken her formerly strong character, and I'm much afraid she's going to start being weak and depending on the doctor for help. The end of chapter 14 is pretty strong, though, so I might keep reading, so long as there isn't more of the pointless fanservice. Rating: BC (might keep it up, hoping it gets better, but it has some serious flaws that'll make me drop it quickly if it doesn't). |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 | |
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A Geeky Update So I got bored online, and rather than waste my time making fake money for an internet game (curse you, MechQuest!) I decided to read some manga. I selected, purely at random from some online manga at One Manga, Alice 19th. Alice 19th is the story of a girl, Alice, who is essentially characterized as "the cool girl's younger sister." She is put second to her sister in many ways, so much so that it has been ingrained in her own actions. When she rescues a bunny and finds a bracelet, it's revealed that she's secretly a Lotis Master, who uses words to fight darkness in people's inner hearts. There were a couple of things that interested me about the manga. First of all, it's fantasy, which I always appreciate, with a female protagonist. The first word she picks up through her lotis powers is Courage, so that boded quite well. Secondly, the scenes of fighting the Darkness, when in peoples' Inner Hearts, were very visually fascinating. I like darker manga, especially manga that deals with real, solid emotions that interplay in everyday life. However, this is about where my interest wanes. The series is a romance, and while I have no problem with that, Alice is unable to do anything about her romantic interest in Bishi-Guy Senpai. Despite picking up the Lotis for courage, she cannot bring herself to tell Bishi-Guy that she has "really likes" him. This looks like this is going to be a pivotal, never-ending plot element (hiding her affection for him), and 11 chapters in (I had a lot of free time) I am already sick of it. Next, while fighting darkness is cool, and I thought it would be a series on the idea of the darkness latent within everyone (after we hear Bishi-Guy's backstory, I had some high hopes), it turns out most of the fighting they've done is quite shallow. We have one mom's bad feelings towards her youngest daughter, and two people suffering from abusive parents. There's no depth to the angst of the characters--it's just there. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they deal with the Darkness in the Inner Heart by waving some magically pretty words and destroying it, thusly making everything vaguely all right again and without looking any deeper into cause and purpose of the darkness underlying everything. Finally, two key points strongly turned me off this series. The first is its goofiness--the bunny is now a character reminiscent of the cats in Sailor Moon but less cool, and there are a variety of other characters who all goof around. Good for light chuckles but without a real depth it's like putting frosting on pudding (pointless). Secondly, it's a high school story. I can usually tolerate high school stories but honestly this series makes me want to tell the angsty teenagers to get over themselves. Rating: C; very light active dislike, didn't really keep my attention, a bit cliched. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, January 26, 2008 | |
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To do: Rewrite my essay into 5 different essays Write 2 separate, non-related essays submit 6 online application forms Prep a few forms for mailing Work on problem 2 of the QM homework set Read QM textbooks (currently have... 3? 4?) Read cosmology textbook chapter 1 Shamanism reading pick up poetry books tomorrow make graphs out of data from work, and send email talking about results print posters at work look into getting a passport I saw my Aunt this weekend... it was fun, even if it was only for ... maybe 2 hours. We hung out at a restaurant, me, her, my mom, and Twin. I spent a lot of time talking to my mom about her priorities and what she wants from life, and I think I helped. Then when I got home I played Soul Caliber III. Surprise. I have a good 5 hours of study time left tonight and I think I'll use some of it on Quantum. and that makes me feel pretty powerful, that I can maybe do some of this on my own. Here's hoping for things going easy. |
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 | |
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Blog About Choice Day At this point in my life, I would never have an abortion. But that is my choice to make. I may change my mind at some point. I've never been pregnant so I can't speak from experience. But I choose and I don't ever want someone else to choose for me to tell me what my morals are Perhaps I can have some people guide my moral path, but I want to choose who those people are, and I want to choose people who have similar moral tastes as my own. What frightens me most about abortion, roe vs. wade, and the right to choose is how easily it's been stripped down until it won't have anything to stand on any more... how easily states are making state decisions that make it hard to uphold roe vs. wade... and how easily access is limited to women who are money-strong, and have powerful support networks. It's being cut down. It's being kept from people, from people who need it the most. Women who don't have the money or time to travel for 8 hours to a location where they can get it done. how few people stand up for it. It's so fragile, and it's so easy to take away. We hardly know what we have, what we cup gently in the soft palms of our hands like a glowing light. We need to shelter it, so it can grow. But we don't even know how it could shatter. We talked a lot about reproductive choice versus reproductive freedom. The first is roe vs. wade. The second is the idea that poor women wouldn't feel obliged to have an abortion just because they couldn't afford to raise a child. I think perhaps it is time we shifted society away from the individual, away from the idea that "everyone has an equal chance to fight for their own profit," and into the idea that "everyone deserves a reasonable living," that "we help the people who need it." If society is evolving, I think it must move beyond the stage of selfishness, and into a stage of charity and sharing and warmth. We no longer HAVE to fight for our survival... why do we still make people fight for theirs? |
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The Topic of the Day is: Saturday, January 19, 2008 | |
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Reading is delicious I finished Toni Morrison's Beloved and it was indeed fantastic. Hard to get through, painful and lucid... but very revealing, and sometimes beautiful. I also finished Lirael, and I have to admit I don't like it as much as I enjoyed Sabriel (probably because Sameth is a whiny bitch and I just want to slap him... Lirael herself was great, as is the Disreputable Dog). I started Abhorsen but I don't know if I'll have time to finish it before school starts. I finished Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea as well (re-reading it... because it was delicious the first time, and the second)... annnd *thinks* two very crappy poetry magazines which I've thrown out. All in all I have a reading headache and could use some time outside the apartment, so I'm off to Louise's 1 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 | |
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I am very, very afraid. Of this Whose God? |
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The Topic of the Day is: | |
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Everything seems to be going GREAT My mom's situation has a possible very positive out (into a job that's very much nicer than her current one) I got so much stuff DONE yesterday and the day before and the day before that! My room is clean! (gasp!) I heard from Louise and Katie I'm working on applications for REUs and progressing nicely I don't need to try to get transcripts out of colleges involved in my distant past P. the Tall was ... very kind yesterday I went ice skating and enjoyed good company MadCityWriters was fantastic fun as always We got a fish Everyone agreed to write letters of rec for me The conference restored my confidence in my own abilities and my future goals And it gave me so many contacts at various places to ask questions of *sigh* Well... what about... your data reduction and writing for $$ jobs? you're behind in that! And you haven't figured out if you're taking thermal or cosmology yet next semester! Yeah, they'll get done, I have time for them. and who cares? hahahahaha :) 1 Comments:
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The Topic of the Day is: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | |
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Tracey gave me the blog that she actually uses so that is linked now. Yay! How have you been, hon? Not much new here these past few days, just frantically trying to apply to all the appropriate places for summer jobs and getting bored with the applications already. And I haven't even tried to write the essay yet. Things to do, mostly today [] Write essay draft 1, run it by some people [] fill out 3 application forms by the end of the day tomorrow. [x] Email everyone who needs "three" transcripts and be sure to find out if they actually need them or if transfer credits on the transcript work fine [] Email 1/2 of the people I met at the conference [] Clean bathroom [] go shopping tomorrow |
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The Topic of the Day is: Sunday, January 13, 2008 | |
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So, the AAS meeting was AMAZING My poster was quite well received for being about the Gendered Obstacles Faced by Historical Women in Physics and Astronomy. AND I met simply tons of interesting people (lots of whom wanted to offer me jobs or internships at their locations, very nice indeed ^.^). AND I have a ton of swag (anyone want a free Spitzer calendar?). AND, for some interesting reason, my interest in my major has been revitalized. I am pleased by the future possibilities, the random situations where I might end up. I like the idea of being an instrumentation scientist at one of various locations. I like the prospects of my career and being able to be involved in astronomy while still getting to fiddle with things. So, on a lovely astronomy related note, check out MESSENGER , this supersweet thing to visit Mercury. Which is pretty nice, 'cause a lot of Mercury's a mystery. Now I'd like to be on the instrumentation team for THAT :D... In other news: my room is CLEAN! very very clean. And I have stuff to get rid of, which may go up on eBay, unless ya'll want some.... a desk lamp, some stuffed animals, corded phones, and a bunch of games (scrabble, Tipover, Rush hour (I think most of the collection), and some computer games (medieval quest, I of the dragon), and a bunch of CDs that teach you calculus, business, biology, french, and maybe some other stuff. I don't really know. Oh, and a pair of dark blue gloves, new, very soft, and pretty large. And some juggling balls and a squishy star from the US Naval Observatory and one of those cool brick toys where you turn it and it interchanges images on its face. And a four port USB hub, and a laser pointer, though that is most likely going to the lab. *thinks*. And some acrylic yarn in varied shades of blue and purple. And some shoulder bags. (I tell you, I have a lot of crap) Let me know if you want anything, or maybe I'll get you a surprise christmas gift. mwahahaha. MadCityWriters tomorrow, very excited. I can't tell you how much I love the group and wish I could spend more time working on writing. I'm going to try yet again to be organized this semester so perhaps in my free time I'll enjoy writing instead of rereading webcomic archives. 2 Comments:
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My Other Writing Sites | |
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Webcomics | |
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Stories I'm currently working on. | |
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***Tbook1 (Time and Chaos, needs a new name, needs to be edited) ***Book of Sun (Just needs to be edited. Tis a Nano novel) ***Book of Whispers part 1 (Does not jive at all with part 2; needs to be rewritten to fit and to have less suckage) ***Book of Whispers part 2 (Needs some rehaul editing, needs some loose ends tied up, needs to fit) ***Book of Whispers part 3 (Needs to be finished... then needs to die o.o Not sure if I need a third part in the series) ***Dium's Story (Needs a point, progress, anything... needs to be integrated into Tbook1, since that is what it is a part of, mainly) ***Trio Story with Jackie and Louise (Maybe we should get together and work on this, guys) ***Demon Story (This is working out pretty good so far. I like the plot, it's a bit convoluted, and the characters are interesting) ***New Witch Story (It's only 30 pages long, dang) ***Dragon's Voices (This has SO much potential! wee!) | |
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