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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

interrogo

If you're aware of graffiti and the things that people find important to write on walls and other surfaces, you're probably familiar with the phrase "question everything".


Often this seems to be a defensive approach to a corrupt world.  Fed up, angsty people looking for social change and a better world spread the word via wall-writing.

Usually "question everything" seems to carry a connotation of "accept nothing" and "you're surrounded by lies and conspiracies and you're being duped" and other similar warnings.

Sometimes there is validity in this, but it certainly is not the only way to question everything.  Questioning is a very valuable skill to develop.  After all, if there's one thing I learned from Sesame Street, it's that asking questions is a way to find things out.  And don't we want to spend our lives finding things out?

I think it's important to question everything.  At the very least, to not be afraid to ask questions.  If you just accept everything, even the acceptable, you'll never learn things.

I mean, think about little kids.  They have EVERYTHING to learn because they haven't learned anything yet (particularly not how to give up) so they ask all the questions that people usually just accept.  Like why the sky is blue and why birds can fly and why cats can't talk.
Why does the sky turn red as the sun sets? That's all the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire. Where does the sun go when it sets? The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near flagstaff. Oh. That's why the rocks there are so red. Don't the people get burned up? No, the sun goes out as it sets. That's why it's dark at night. Doesn't the sun crush the whole state when it lands? Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun's just about the same size. I thought I read that the sun was really big. You can't believe everything you read, I'm afraid. So how does the sun rise in the east if it lands in Arizona each night? Well, time for bed. I hope someday I'm as smart as Dad is. Why, what did he tell you now?
Calvin's dad has plenty of fatherly wisdom to impart to us.  There's a collection of it here.
Ask questions that you normally wouldn't ask.  Ask yourself why you get up when you do.  Ask why an average diet is considered to be 2,000 calories.  Ask if there's a more efficient way to tie your shoes.  Ask why Gatsby bothered to get real books and never cut the pages.

And then answer as many questions as you possibly can.  Some questions have good answers that are easy.  Some questions have good answers that are harder, but might give you some insight you normally wouldn't have arrived upon.  Some questions don't have good answers...yet.  And some questions may never have good answers.  They might only lead to more and more questions without answers.  But it's still important to ask them.

Asking good questions makes you notice things you normally wouldn't notice.  It makes you accept things as an educated sovereign mind, rather than just ignorantly forgetting about the wonderful things around you.  You have to know a thing or two in order to ask a question, so it challenges and enhances this education called life in multiple ways.  It's delightful, really.

And don't turn into a four year old and only ever ask, "Why?"  Remember sometimes to ask, "Why not?"

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

sentio

It's been a while. To be honest, I've had difficulty in writing things lately, hence the blogging hiatus.

And surprisingly, none of this has been due to writer's block or a lack of ideas or drive.
No, all those necessary elements have been quite present.  In abundance.

I've actually had difficulty in writing things lately because I have had too many thoughts that I wanted to develop into posts, and too many passions that I wanted to discuss.

If you frequent literature, you might know the feeling.



Anyway.  It's probably about time I make my public announcement on the blog.  I'm going to be leaving for a time.  18 months, to quantify it.  So there really won't be much new stuff to look at here.  I doubt I'll be able to get anything up here in the time I'll be away.  But if you insist on returning to read your favorite posts, please feel free.  I encourage you to start discussions in the comments with other readers.  (I will say that's one thing that's always bothered me about a blog.  It's very one-sided interaction.  I write things, you read them...the end.  I wish there were more comments and discussions made on blogs in general.  So if I come back to 18 months' worth of commentary, I really won't complain ;D)

That being said, I still have a week here on the blagoblag.  And in order to sort out some of the things happening here in the world and some of the thoughts going on here in my head, I'd like to go out with a bang and blog ALL of the days!  After all, I have so many things to write about that I simply can't write at all.  And the quantity and quality of things to be written continues to build.

And now that we've gotten through all the announcements and apologies, I'd like to move into a small thought that might begin to summarize the surplus of thought that has been surrounding me lately.

It is this:

Hearts break, and minds blow...open.

When your heart breaks, it breaks open.  And that allows new feelings and new love to slip inside that otherwise wouldn't have had that opportunity.

When your mind blows, it becomes more open and ideas can find a home that would have been locked out previously.

So don't be afraid of breaking your heart or blowing your mind.  Embrace all your experiences with no regrets and no reservations.  Feel things.  Feel all the things.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

profectus

Okay.  We are now back from the break we call "Finals".  Back to our regularly scheduled program.

So, I'm pretty sure that regardless of your personal beliefs or religious inclinations, we can all agree that while we're here on earth, regardless of what happens to us afterward, we are here to progress as individuals, families, and society.  Like I said, I'm pretty sure about this, but if your take on the world and life disagrees with this, please tell me in the comments because I would like to know if my assumption is inaccurate.
For now, though, we'll operate on the assumption that everyone want to progress as a human and as groups of humans.


For the sake of thought development (yep, this is developing as we're going...but that is one of the best benefits of writing, in my opinion) we can progress consciously, where we are actively making an effort and thinking about furthering our position in the world, or we can progress, hmm....inherently? accidentally? where you don't put specific effort into it, but you look back after a year or so and say "wow, I've grown so much."

Ah, got it: active and passive progress.

Either way, you progress.  You reach a point that is better in one area or another than your previous self was.  And this is wonderful, because it is what you wanted to get out of life, one way or another.  Mission accomplished! Congratulations!

So, my question is this: Which form of progress is worth more?  Which yields more progress?

See, with active progress, you're actively learning things about yourself and how to achieve a goal.
For example, you set out to actively become more patient.  You do things like remind yourself when you're in line at the grocery store or driving on the freeway that it's okay to not complain about the people around you, and that driving the speed limit won't kill you.  You'll get there when you get there.  When your children/siblings/uncles (whoever you have in your life to try your patience) color on the walls/borrow your clothes without asking/harass you about boys (whatever it is they do to give you so many opportunities to practice being patient), you actively remind yourself to take a breath and not explode, but patiently help them clean the walls/request that they wash and return your apparel/change the subject to soccer (whatever it is you do to make the experience a good one for your relationship).
And at the end of the day, you think back about the things that happened and the choices you made, and report to yourself whether you effectively progressed in being patient that day, or if you need to change tactics and try something different tomorrow.

The benefit with this is that you are forming yourself and actively participating in changing your thoughts and behaviors, so it means a lot to you and you're able to monitor and effect your own progress.

Passive progress gets a little more theological, it seems.  Whether you believe that everything happens for a reason, or there's someone up there orchestrating your life and putting things in your path, or that the human race is bound to evolve and the universe just naturally supports that, we are consistently being led to situations that will try us and help us grow.  This is manifest in those times that you look back on your life and realize that you've become much more patient than you used to be.  And you weren't even aware!  The benefit here is that you change and grown in ways that you never imagined.  Either it wasn't something you would have chosen to change yourself, or you end up somewhere you would never have thought you could be.  You can't limit yourself if you're willing to progress this way.


So which is better?  If you're reporting on how you've become a more patient person, does this only involve active progress, or does your 'accidental' passive progress count toward your efforts as well?  It certainly counts toward the end product...

I think the answer to this, as in most things, is that you need some of both.  You need some balance, some yin with your yang.  To benefit the most, you must on all kinds of benefits.  In careers we try to specialize, but in life we must expand and broaden.



Saturday, April 27, 2013

aurum

So, to offset my guilt at not making a poetry post during National Poetry Month until yesterday (I recognized it was Poetry Month, I just didn't...do anything about it D: ) I've decided to put up another poem I wrote just under a year ago.  I still like it, though there are some things I might tweak...not sure yet though.

Anyway.  Here's another poem:


Midas

Touch me.
Let me glitter,
Gold for you.
Give me worth,
Your admiration.
Turn me from myself:
Commonplace, dull;
To something far prettier
Treasured, longed for by so many
And worthy of your notice.

Kill me.
Stop my heart,
Gold for you.
I mean nothing
Without your attention,
I am foul, worthless
Not just to myself.
I know that you do not love me
As you love those false trinkets,
For you’ve never bothered enough
To say otherwise.


Unfortunately, I couldn't get the formatting on the blog to work out the way I originally wrote it...:\ But this isn't so far off.


Friday, April 26, 2013

onus

So.  A long time ago, I promised a snow poem.

And seeing as National Poetry Month is almost over, I finally got around to writing it.

Part of this delay is due to other things in life (read: the life of an engineer is not conducive to poetry) and also, you really have to be in a particular mood to write a poem.  I tried a few times unsuccessfully to get this down.  But today in statics class, it slipped out onto the paper. :)

Here goes:


Perfection

Snow falls overnight
And we awaken
To a new perfection.

The flawless landscape shivers
And bows
Deep beneath this new burden.

The morning sun arrives to bare the world,
The snow begins to melt
And the trees begin to weep-
drip. drip. drip.
As their sweet burden of perfection
Is lifted.

So...there you are. :)

Monday, April 22, 2013

unitates

Little-known fact: Buzz Lightyear was an ingenious physicist.  You can tell because his name is also a unit of measurement.

Think of all the other units we have in physics.

The Webber.  The Tesla.  The Joule, Hertz, Ampere, Celsius, Coulomb, Henry, Newton, Pascal, Kelvin, Ohm, Watt, Gauss, Siemens...

All these guys made breakthrough discoveries and did fancy science to such an extent that they needed an entirely new unit in order to to more science.  Which is pretty incredible stuff.

And good old Buzz Lightyear is up there with them.  You thought he was just an overzealous space ranger, but much of our modern-day astroscience is possible thanks to Mr. Lightyear, the scientist.




Sunday, April 21, 2013

suculentus

So...I drew some pictures.  I usually try to express some sort of story when I draw pictures and often that's difficult to do in one single picture, so this time I used two pictures, because the story I wanted to express was just so deep.  It was worth two thousand words.

And, somewhat uncharacteristically of myself, I created a rather sappy love story:



Heartbreak ending, I know.

But for the record...I do love trees.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

esse

Scenario: you're in this awkward social experiment called "life", and you need to organize things before you go crazy.  How do you attempt to deal with everything going on, everything that you have to do, everything that you want to do, and the rest of the chaos around you?
A common practice that test subjects have (oh goodness, I'm beginning to sound like GLaDOS) is to organize things into to-do lists. I sometimes do this when I have a lot to do in a day.  Here is an example:

Thursday:
  • Statics homework
  • Calculus homework
  • finish reading The Chosen
  • catch up on writing
  • clean out some fridge food
  • watch a  talk
This is all good stuff, but...what is it leading to?  As soon as I finish my homework, new assignments replace those.  As soon as I catch up writing, there's more to be written.  The instant I finish washing all the dishes, the sink is filled anew.

What's the point of doing things?

Well ultimately, I believe that doing things will lead to being things.  If I continually do math homework, I will eventually become adept at mathematics.  If I persist at washing dishes, I will eventually...be...the only one in the house that washes dishes?

Anyway, I have constructed a to-be list, for several reasons.  Aside from giving long-term goals and an end in mind, I think this is sometimes more constructive than a to-do list.  Instead of just getting my statics homework done to get a grade, I can also focus on getting it done to become an engineer.

It can also combine several trivial tasks into something more meaningful.  It adds depth to what I'm trying to accomplish here.  And simplicity.  Instead of having a list of things to do like "make eye contact" "say thank-you" "open the door for people" "say 'excuse me'", et cetera, you can condense it into one task: be polite.  Then you only have one thing to remember and one question to ask, rather than a whole slew of things to remember to do.

So.  Here is a to-be list that I have constructed for the next couple weeks.  That is not to imply that come several weeks I will have become each of these things, but that these are the things that I want to particularly focus on and progress in for the next while.

To Be:
  • Kind
  • Serving
  • Hard-working
  • Grateful
  • Eager to learn
  • Respectful
There.  Six things, just like on the to-do list.  But there's a lot more to be done here.  Don't let that overwhelm you, though.  You don't have to suddenly become everything all at once, just like you don't have to do everything all at once.

It requires a little bit of a different way of thinking and maybe some different effort, but I think it's worthwhile to have a to-be list.  If anything, it might just be refreshing to get away from the to-do lists for a bit. :)

Saturday, April 13, 2013

saponem arca archa

In following with my previous post, I've decided to share another mind-blossom with you. That's right, some people have mind palaces, I have mind-blossoms...
Besides, it's nice to give flowers to people.




A couple weeks ago, I was going to classes (imagine that!) and in several of them, the teacher got somewhat distracted at some point in the lesson and diverged to some other topic that wasn't going to be on the next test.

This isn't an unusual occasion, especially for some of my classes, but it was unusual in the quality of the diversions.  Instead of talking about a time that a colleague said something funny, or being coerced into doing a solo polka demonstration (true story.  According to my physics professor, "the polka is the only dance that makes any sense," which is why you might make a polka analogy when explaining circuit analysis...) These diversions were more...well, I don't really have a word for them right now.

In choir, we stopped rehearsal (any performer knows that you do this at great cost) to hear and hopefully understand something about the 60's and 70's. How young people were being forced to fight in a war they didn't start, they didn't believe in, and they couldn't support.  But their country and their parents and anything else they had put their trust in was suddenly betraying them, so they reacted in the only way a rising generation can: cultural revolution.

In graphics, we basically bagged the lesson and the quiz and listened to a lecture about the wonders of technology and engineering.  We looked at picture after picture of cool ideas and models and projects, like this chair:
 
In physics, we stopped drawing diagrams on the board and forgot about all the theories and equations to hear stories about young scientists like Michael Faraday who had little education but eager, brilliant minds and the right opportunities to make discoveries that changed the world.

It seemed like I was experiencing a soap box day, where instructor after instructor decided it was a good day to forget about books and tests and just get on the soap box for a bit (or...the majority of the class) and teach us things about life and the world they've lived in and the experiences they've had.


And I found myself learning like never before. I was engaged and interested.  Sleep didn't even tug at my eyelids.  I didn't consider pulling out a book to read or a note to pass (see how well I normally pay attention?)  I went to school and received so much more than I usually got.

Here's the thing.  I can learn physics on my own.  I can read the book and look up experiments and diagrams.  I can even learn skills on my own.  I can teach myself music or how to use computer software.  It's not always as easy, but I can do it on my own.

What I can't get on my own is this life-wisdom that other people have accumulated. I can't understand what it's like to live in a time when people weren't regarded (for the most part) equally.  I can't imagine living in a time of war and having that affect the lives of my friends and family.  I can't create my own inspiration.  I can't learn the value of respect without having someone show it to me.  I can't learn to love without anyone to give it meaning.

People seem to regard the activity of getting on one's soap box as a bad thing.  I think it's one of the most worthwhile endeavors you can make.

Have more soap box days.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

temporum

The scholastic year is now drawing to a close, and I'm just now realizing some very valuable things that perhaps have been growing within my mind all throughout the year and are just now blossoming into the maturity that only experience can bring.

The first of these was made known to me around the end of last semester.  Isn't that nice, how your own thoughts can make themselves known to you?  They've been hiding and waiting for a good opportunity to present themselves all this time...because they know that timing is everything.

See, I was reflecting on some of the books that I had "read" throughout middle school and high school and wondered why I now found myself going to the library and checking out classic literature, something that I never imagined myself doing when I was younger and struggling through Animal Farm.  Clearly, there is something wonderful about this literature that I completely ignored or missed when I was younger.

Perhaps some of it had to do with being 'forced' to read the book. When you're in the middle of your cherished teenage years and someone says "read Farenheit 451. It's about questioning authority," there's something inside of you that is like "Oh yeah?  Why should I read your dumb book?  What if I have better things to do? What if I just don't want to? Huh?" And that mindset kindof taints the reading experience.

Perhaps some of it had to be with being in eighth grade and understanding that Animal Farm was an allegory about some sort of tyrannical situation, but being 13 or 14 years old and having no idea who Trotsky is and only being able to compare everything bad to Hitler...you'd be frustrated at not getting the allegory.

Perhaps some of it had to do with not experiencing enough of the world yet to understand what was going on.  Racism was something we'd only read about; grief was something we'd never quite touched; love was something we could only abuse.

With this realization, I decided that I ought to reread some of the books I didn't ingest fully the first time around.  This is, of course, easier said than done because there are all sorts of books out there begging to be read for the first time, and you want to take the time to reread something you didn't like the first time around?  Silly, silly...

So I haven't made it back to any books yet, but I've thought more about timing and life events, and I realized that perhaps if I had learned to play the piano at a different time, I'd have learned to love it and become proficient.  I could learn to play all sorts of beautiful music that I hadn't known existed until recently...

Perhaps if I had fallen in love with soccer earlier, I could have turned that into much more than a recreational passion.


There are all sorts of what-if questions in regard to timing.  But my wise seventh grade teacher told me at the beginning of the year that contrary to popular belief, there is a such thing as a stupid question, and most often those stupid questions start with "what if".

So don't get bogged down in stupid questions.  I've found that things move in and out of my life with immaculate timing to make me the person I am and keep me on track to the person I'm becoming. If something doesn't work out the first time, that doesn't mean it isn't meant to be, it just means it's not the right time.

And just for the record, I'm not the only person to have this sentiment.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven"
-Ecclesiastes 3:1

Sunday, April 7, 2013

servitium

So, for the past couple weeks I participated in what you might call a challenge.  I made a particular effort to notice the small acts of service that other people perform daily.  Things that usually go unnoticed or taken for granted.  For me, this was best done by having a small notebook to write things in.  That way, I was consciously recognizing things and spending some thought on them, rather than just a fleeting moment of mental capacity.  My record is more permanent and meaningful.

And hopefully people don't think I'm creepy, writing down the good things they do. :P

Anyway, over the course of just less than 20 days, I recorded nearly 120 various acts of service.  Some were bigger things, like somebody cooking dinner for me when I was too stressed with studying to do it myself.  Others were smaller, like a particular compliment, or someone opening the door for someone else.  Some of the services I recorded were done on my behalf, some on behalf of my friends, and some for people I didn't even know.  Many were performed by my friends, and many others were by strangers.

Doing this gave me some hope for society and the world.  It made it clear that the world around me and the people in it are good.  It encouraged and inspired me to be more generous and gracious toward those around me, whether I know them or not.

The cool thing is that sometimes that can be as easy as a conversation.  There were several times that somebody I didn't know very well would just talk to me as we walked from one class to another.  Although we still don't know each other well and that one conversation didn't have a lasting affect on our relationship, I was still grateful to have someone to talk to that day; it always brightened my mood.


I encourage you to look around you at the good that other people are doing in the world.  It's a refreshing experience and makes living a little bit easier, knowing that other people around you care about you, as well as the others in their lives.  They care about the world they live in, and they love it enough to improve it, bit by bit.

Friday, April 5, 2013

imaginatio

Today, as I was spending another day at the ASCE Conference surrounded by fellow engineers, I found myself wondering why more people aren't engineers. 

I mean seriously.

When I have that wonderful everyday conversation with other people where we ask each other what we're studying, and I tell my conversee that I'm an engineer, they always make some silly remark about "Oh, you must be really smart," or "That's cool, I'm not smart enough for that."

I don't think this is the correct approach.

Many people seem to believe that engineers are born, not made.  They have a "knack".



This may be true, but I feel like I could take any number of career paths by making myself whatever I want to become.  A quantum physicist or a soccer player or a researching mathematician or a dinosaur or a writer or a musician or a painter or a historian...

Some of those things, like a painter, would take a lot more effort for me to do.  I have previously held little interest in painting and therefore have developed little talent with it.  Maths and physics, however, I have already had great interest in and therefore I've developed quite a bit of experience in those fields.  But I wasn't born with any of that...I learned it over time, because that's what I wanted.

I believe that it is the same for engineering.  Sure, there are a few of those with "the knack", but there are natural pianists and doctors and lacrosse players and chemists, too.  It's not like every single engineer was born with some supernatural gift and destiny.  Most of them are just normal people with interests and science.

So if you're not sure what you want to do with your life yet, I suggest you consider being an engineer.  See, here's the best thing about engineering: you can do whatever you want with it.  The other day, my friend who is an engineering major asked me what it is that engineers actually do.  This is a difficult question to pin down because there are a lot of different fields within engineering.  At first I responded that engineers make life better.  But really, people in general try to do that, via all sorts of careers.  My next answer was this:

Engineers make the imagination tangible.

How cool is that job?  Imagine whatever you want, and then make it real.  Ahhhh, coolness just radiates from you.  Impress all the ladies.


But seriously, engineering is an art.  It requires a lot more than just math and science and graphs.  It requires craft and creativity. And it produces beautiful things.

So.  If you like things, you should be an engineer.  Because no matter what you like, engineering has something to do with it.  Just through my first year of my engineering studies, I've already used engineering in canoeing, music, soccer and other sports, home improvement, construction, legos...
allll sorts of things.  Engineering opens all the doors.  If you're not sure what to do, be an engineer and eventually it will lead you to something incredible.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

corpus liberum schematum

This weekend is conference weekend.  :D  And for anyone apt to jump to conclusions, it's actually an engineering conference that my university is hosting.  We built a canoe to race against other schools in the area.  And...we built it out of concrete.


Aw. Yeah.  Engineering for the win.

My college life, which is usually filled with fellow engineers, is now flooded with them from other states and universities.  It's a party.

If you're friends with me on facebook, you will already know that being surrounded by engineers is sometimes not ideal.  Here are a few posts I made recently, for those who didn't see them:

"Engineers are a wonderful bunch. They ask you for your number, you know, for "homework purposes". Then they only call or text for homework purposes. -.- Why so clear-cut and logical?"

And

I got a text the other day from a lab partner who had gotten my number, you know, for "homework purposes".

Him: "You going to be around this weekend? :)"
Me: "More or less. Why?"
Him: "Sweet. I wanted to see if I could borrow your book tonight or tomorrow."

*facepalm*

Engineers, as you may imagine, are not the greatest when it comes to dating.

So, here is a handy list to help you realize that even though they may only want to do homework on friday nights, engineers are actually dateable:


TOP 5 REASONS TO DATE AN ENGINEER

1) Free body diagrams

2) No other couple could enjoy a better moment

3) We know how to handle stress and strain in any relationship

4) The world does revolve around us; we chose the coordinate system

5) According to Newton, if two bodies interact, their forces are equal and opposite


Another reason (not in the top five, but there are so many more reasons...) that I particularly like:

Significant figures.


Saturday, March 30, 2013

anomalia

I met a guy on campus the other day, at a political event.  When he asked what I was studying, I told him I was going into Engineering.  His response was this:

"You're an anomaly.  You're interested in politics, you're going into engineering, and you're a girl."

Yes.  Yes I am. Thank you, thank you.

My roommate heard of this exchange and she agreed with the boy, because on top of being politically interested and adept at maths and science, I also like fine literature and working out.  

Hopefully none of this is coming as a surprise to you, o blog readership.  I feel like I have mentioned many of these aspects of my life here on the blag-o-blag.

What makes me wonder, though, is this:
If there was a guy who was politically interested and an engineer...would he be an anomaly?
I mean, there were about as few women at the political event as there are in my engineering classes...in fact, after the event a few of us hung around to keep talking to the speaker, and of those twenty of so, I was the only one sans Y chromosome.

So am I an anomaly in the sense that I do a lot of different things, or am I an anomaly in the sense that I do things and I am a girl?

I prefer to think that perhaps anyone who is interested in engineering and politics and literature and soccer could be considered an anomaly, regardless of their gender or race.  

Of course, I would prefer to think that anyone who is interested in a vast array of differing subjects is not an anomaly.  Why do people assume that if you are good at one thing, you must be inept at others?  People see math and English as an either/or skill set; you can't possibly succeed at both.

Society...

It's not that I don't like being so different. I love being an anomaly, really.  The problem here is not that I am an anomaly, but that society can be so narrow-minded sometimes.  

Please don't be so surprised that an engineering major reads books.  Don't think it weird that a girl takes apart motors to see how they work.  Don't think that somebody who likes playing soccer in the mud and isn't afraid to get messy cannot also read fine poetry and sing classical music.

And even moreso, please don't limit yourself to your own paradigms and fallacies.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

problemata

Lately I have been aware of a lot of problems here in life that don't really have answers.

"Why does it have to be so hard all the time?"
"My roommate drives me crazy."      
"Is there something wrong with me?"
"My best friend is too busy to talk to me anymore."
"I hate it when class gets out late."    
"I'm always so angry at my parents."
             "I feel like I'm just a burden to my friends."
I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

What are you supposed to do? All of these problems are so complex and each situation is so personal and unique that there really aren't answers.  There's no one-size-fits-all solution.  If there was, I would hope that humanity would have found it after so many millenia of existence...But we have to face our problems and our lives on our own. We can't rely on the past, and there aren't any answers in the back of the book.  Alas.  This isn't math.

But there has to be some way to fix stuff like this, otherwise the world would be a terribly oppressive and miserable place. And I've found that for the most part, it isn't...so what's the answer we're missing?

Well, amid all the suggestions from religion, philosophy, science, politics, and so many other views or schools of thought, I've realized that the way I must answer the question is the way an engineer would.

Problem: half the volume of a glass contains water.
Optimist's solution: "yes! I have half a cup of water!"
Pessimist's solution: "curses.  I don't have half a cup of water."
Engineer's solution: "This cup has twice the necessary volume."

(hopefully this is not the first time you have heard that lame joke...XP)

Anyway, the lame joke was demonstrating an engineering approach, which I will now apply to the life problems.
Rather than fixing the problem, sometimes you just need to view the problem differently and redefine it.
So instead of wondering what to do and where to go and why things suck...realize that none of these things are problems.
Your problem is this:
YOU HAVE PROBLEMS.


So in order to fix this, just stop having problems.

"Gee thanks", you say.

No really.  If you can change your perspective and thoughts on life such that you no longer perceive these things as tragedies and problems, then it doesn't matter who your roommate is or how busy your best friend is or how hard life is right now, because you don't think it's a problem anymore.
Your problems don't have to have answers to go away.

It's a hard thing to do.  I am certainly not telling you that this is easy. I'm still not there all the way.  But maybe it's something to consider trying.

Best of luck. :)

Sunday, March 24, 2013

colligo

Earlier, I was transcribing some of the more excellent passages of a book I had recently finished into a notebook I keep for this purpose.  I like to mark up books as I go along, but as this is potentially not the best thing to do to library books...I've decided I should probably get my own book to write in.

This has been a great idea so far, because I could write down the small snippets of wisdom provided by various authors and keep them forever out of context and all in one conglomerative location.  I'm really not sure just how much sarcasm the previous sentence actually contained.

I guess that just goes to show that I'm not really sure if my transcribing idea is the best option yet.  But for now, while I can't afford nor house all the books I'd like to keep, I suppose it will be a nice compromise between the library and I.

See, this is what I would prefer to do:

Sublime option: Check out books from the library.  The oldest copies available.  Read them and annotate them and indulge in them thoroughly.  Then keep the book and all the annotations for my personal library.

Since I don't see that working out so well, here is an alternative:

Option: Check out books from the library.  It doesn't matter which specific copies anymore.  Read them and annotate them and indulge in them.  Remove the best pages from the book, then return the rest of the book to the library.  Compile my collection of pages and bind my own book.  (Best commonplace book ever, no?) Treasure this book.

(anyone familiar with Regina Spektor?  I'd totally become the Man of a Thousand Faces.)

I still don't see this working out the best.  So here is what actually happens:

Reality and "Compromise" (i.e.: bending to the will and fining power of the public library): I check out books from the library.  It doesn't matter which copies.  Read them, pay attention to them, try to indulge in them as much as possible without marking them up.  Transcribe the best passages into a separate notebook.  Return the book in its entirety to the library. Sigh.

I wish I could tangibly take so much more from these books and authors, but alas.  It isn't so.

Sometimes I wonder if this blog should be titled "Confessions of a bibliophile" or something equally cliché...:P

Bibliophilia or not, my feelings for books might just be qualified as an abusive love...:P  But fear not, it can go both ways.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

libratum

Time for a confession of sorts that will probably make my mom cringe:

I used to avoid washing my soccer stuff at all costs.

You know how athletes have crazy lucky rituals and all: Michael Jordan always wore his UNC shorts under his Bulls shorts, Serena Williams is known to wear the same socks all through a tournament, Jason Terry wears five pairs of knee-high socks during games and sleeps in a pair of the opposing teams' shorts the night before a game...


Double shorts in for the dunk.
There's something about continuity that athletes must crave.  I mean...I participate in it too.  Whether with athletics or academics, I:

  • kiss the ball before a free-throw
  • tied my basketball shoes specifically: one in, one out
  • wear my Messi jersey (it's number 10), my Real Salt Lake jacket, and some argyle socks to exams
  • bounce the ball against the back wall (the gym we always played in was small) before a volleyball serve
  • ensure I have two or three very sharp Ticonderoga pencils before any exam
  • ate a raw potato before every soccer game 
  • do a funky dance (shuffle between the posts and hit the cross bar a few times) every time I enter the goal
  • eat a specific cereal before exams
And once upon a time, I avoided washing my soccer jersey at all costs.  I made it through most of the season, too.  It was good stuff.  (Same with my basketball shirt.  The shorts could be washed, but not the shirt.)

Everyone's reaction: "Oh GROSS, why on earth would you do that?!"

Well, for me it was a way to keep the luck of the previous games with me.  Whether we won or lost didn't matter because there was luck there either way, and I wanted to take the work of my own blood, sweat, and tears with me as I progressed through the sport.  I was determined to carry my past with me.

Eventually my jersey got washed and I didn't die, and my rituals have shifted as I've developed as an athlete...(yes, much to the relief of my teammates and my mother, I now wash my jerseys...)

But I was thinking on this the other day, and realized that in life as in sports, we must carry the past with us.  But there is an essential balance to doing that.

For example, never washing your jerseys is probably carrying a little too much of the past with you. It's probably not that healthy.
On the other hand, never taking the past with you could be disastrous...you shouldn't wear a brand new jersey to every game.

Certainly, there is a balance we must find between living in our pasts and moving on from our pasts: you can't live in the past; you'll either depress yourself worrying over past mistakes and things you can't change or just hold yourself back trying to maintain high school relationships to the same degree they were in 1982...or 2012.  But you also can't forsake the past; it is a tool for us to learn how to navigate through this experience called life.  We need to keep something with us to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
 

I believe this is a balance that everybody has to determine for themselves, based on their own values and experiences.  And it takes years to figure something out, and once you've figured it out, it still needs adjusting now and again.

Just remember that it's probably okay to wash your jerseys and sometimes you might even survive with only one pencil on an exam.


Sunday, March 17, 2013

viridi

Today was Saint Patrick's day.

My roommate and I tried to explain how such a holiday works here in America to our roommate from South Korea.  Basically, it went like this:

"Well, you celebrate by binge drinking...except we don't really do that, because we don't drink...and you have to wear green clothes or else people can pinch you."

It makes sense, right?  What a strange, strange world we live in...

Anyway, I got home from church and promptly changed into a red t-shirt.  That's right, RED.


Just like that.

Was I asking for pinches?  Perhaps.

But I felt like I was wearing more green this way than by adorning myself in viridity.  See, if I wear red, then all the green light waves are absorbed by my apparel and the red ones are reflected into the eyes of the beholder.  Ergo I am clad in green.

On the other hand, if I were wearing something that appeared to be green, I would have no green light on my personage; it would have all been reflected off of me.

Science deserves no pinches.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

genius verus

Aaaand...it's Pi day. :D

Hopefully the majority of my readership is well acquainted with pi, though.  So I thought it might be important to celebrate another event in conjunction with pi day.

Don't worry, fellow nerds...pi is not being abandoned, nor is nerd-dom.  

It's time for a birthday party :D

Today in 1879 in Germany, Alberto Einstein was born.  Being German, his parents opted to call him "Albert" for short.  Born on pi day.  He was destined for greatness.
young Albert quickly outgrew the awkward baby stage
and became a dapper young lad.
Most people know the standard Einstein trivia: he was a theoretical physicist, he was a pioneer of the Manhattan project shortly after becoming a US citizen, is one of the more prominent geniuses of history...

I mean, you really cannot dispute the genius of a man whose brain has its own wikipedia article.
By the way, all of the silliness saying that Albert Einstein's brain was significantly smaller than the average man's is...partially true.  We'll have to discuss this fascinating neuroscience later.
(Just don't believe everything you hear about brain sizes; you might begin to believe that women are stupider than men because their brains are smaller.)

So.  Einstein was all about mathematics and physics and the universe and complex stuff like that, right?  Well the funny thing about being human is that you must also dabble in things like religion and arts and other aspects of life.  Man cannot exist on math alone.  Albert Einstein did many things throughout his lifetime.  He learned to play the violin as a child and continued his beloved hobby passionately, perhaps to get his mind off math once in a while.  He went through three marriages and had three children and learned a thing or two about love in the process.  He offered a fair amount of political and theological commentary, as well as physical theories.  His ideas in physics were met with much higher regard, however, leading to a Nobel Prize in physics.

Einstein would often hang out with Niels Bohr (Sorry, that's not a creation of Bram Stoker...it's a scientist) and discuss quantum mechanics.  You know, the way that buddies do. 
Despite being so heavily involved in math and physics, Albert Einstein is quite quotable. Many people seem to think that people who are crazy with the hard sciences are difficult people to understand and are probably too smart to talk to, but I believe that a conversation with Einstein would be fulfilling, enlightening, and enjoyable no matter what your IQ was or where you were in life.

Here are a few quotes of his.  He had many, and it's difficult to choose a favorite. (If you have a favorite, mention it in the commentary of this post!)
  • Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
  • Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.
  • The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
  • Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
  • The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
I'm often inclined to list Albert Einstein as a personal hero or inspiring example in my life, and I think the vibe that people get from that is "Oh, look who's the physics hotshot now" which is really not what I'm aiming for.  He was a lot more than just a high-functioning brain somewhere in the universe.  Some science, some philosophy, some music, some religion, some math,  some politics, some love, some humor...


And a whole lot of life.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

stabilis

The weather is warming up. Grass can be seen.  This means that the only thing I really want to think about at the moment is soccer.
Mmm...soccer.

Last semester I spent basically all my efforts in my English class writing about soccer.  It was a great English class.  Now if only my statics class could also revolve around soccer.  Or even just sit still around soccer, since it's static...

Statics and dynamics tests should look like this:






← 1) Find the applied upward force needed to stall the .5 kg ball. 








2) If there is a 2 N force pushing the .5 kg ball to the left, what is the coefficient of friction between the ball and the boot?








← 3) If the goalkeeper's forward force is equal to 250 lbs, find the amount of work done in stopping his momentum by the spikes of his cleats.  The keeper weighs 180 lbs and the coefficient of friction between grass and the bottom of a normal shoe is 0.5. (Assume the keeper's boot acts like a normal shoe in between the spikes)



This is infinitely more interesting than bridges.  Also, if you solve all three problems correctly, you get a hat trick.  That's a well-deserved three points, whether you're at home or on the road.

Ahhh...soccer puns. X)

But seriously.  Some people in engineering classes like statics aren't really interested in bridges and trusses and structures.  They want to grow up and be a soccer engineer, not a civil engineer.  (Could you imagine how terrible it would be to be a civil engineer?  You'd have to behave yourself all the time!)