That Still Only Counts as One

I just watched ROTK for the seventh (yes 7) time. THis was my first time out of the theatre seeing it. What a spectacular film!! The visualization gets me every time, I have cried each and every King Theoden dies. I totally connect with Eowyn.
Even though I have sat through all the films and have felt a sort of anger about the mistakes, the left out parts and the changes in the story (I have read the novels twice)I still love these movies.
Anyhow, this will be a short but sweet blog, i hope to inspire conversation and debate about said topic.
Which character do you (the reader, yes I am talking to you now) connect with? I strongly connect with Eowyn, her desire to save and protect those she loves. Her strength and her courage is something I strongly admire.
So anyways, with those thoughts, peace.

i'll just be going back under the covers now

hey all
apologize for my lack of blog-ing this week. Not like anyone reads this anyways..
found out this week that my dog has cancer. I am making the journey home to be there when she is put down tonight.
It's funny, I have gone through my share of pets, as I am sure anyone has in their childhood. But, here I am, almost 20, and dealing with the first death of an animal to which I was rather close. My other dogs always were taken to a better place, we moved a lot, and sometimes we had to find new homes for our animals. Thinking of those furry paws and wet tounge giving others joy and friendship was something I was able to accept and understand. Sure, it sucked having to give the pets away, but I was always convinced they would be going to a better place.
In that light, it is kinda the same with my dog Zoe. She stopped eating almost a month ago, and has done a complete 180 turn. A dog who was always energetic, friendly and active turned into a ghost over the past month. She stopped eating, barely wagged her tail when greeted and crawled around in misery.
In my heart, I know that this is the best thing for her. I believe in reincarnation, so she will never truly be dead. Hopefully, all the good karma in this life for her will upgrade her in the next life to a cat or something.:)

Anyways, I am on my way home today, after work. I am sticking it to the man right now.:)
Shirking on the job...etc.
Ah well, best be back to the filing
peace

In the world in which we live

In talking to someone whom I weight a lot of importance on today, I was explaining a situation I have found myself in.
To which the reply came
Since when does loving someone mean getting something out of them? Since when does it mean doing something for someone?

Love is not a possession. the people you love are not posessions.
If you want to be in a relationship with someone, if you want to tell that person that you love him/her, you must mean that you love them as they are.

Tom Robbins wrote, in his book Still Life with Woodpecker,

The bottom line is:
(a) People are never perfect but love can be
(b) That is the only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed
(c) doing that makes that
Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love.

and

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its acomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would make security out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.

Alas, I have to use someone else's words to convey what I wish to say today.
It is very beautiful, however, in the scheme of things and these words are exactly the ones i need to express how i am feeling today.
:)
later

The Spectrum of Things

Hey again
hooray, it's friday
and it's nap time, cause i just got off of work:)

Anyhoo, I was going through the files today...(I am not even 25% of the way done with them and I have been working on them since tuesday..or wednesday)
And I was going through the spectrum file, this is the organization on campus that is for gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual. They call it an alliance with straight people and hold several events throughout the year, many I attended this year. Most of the material in this file was from 1992-1994. It was about a program, that still goes on on campus today, called SAFE, which seeks to educate faculty and staff about conseling students and working with students in Spectrum or that may need someone to talk to.
There was one report that I was going through that was put together by the president in 1993. Spectrum had sent out several letters to faculty and staff explaining the SAFE program and encouraging participation.
The responses included in this report were terrible. People sent back the letter with comments written on them like "fag" "jesus loves you" "the bible says homosexuality is wrong" "no way would I ever help out with this" etc..
I was appalled, this was only a little over a decade ago. And these were the people that the students paid tutition for the univerisity to pay.
I think now, we are at the same place with gay marriage.
I hear commentary on NPR, ministers who preach that marriage is only for the making of babies, protests against the fags, etc.
The whole thing makes me sick, but then again this is america. People are allowed to have their own opinions. But such blantant hatred I can't understand.
For more ideas, watch the Larame Project.

Anyhoo, it's nap time for me.
this is more of a venting post than anything else, i suppose.
:)
later

"science" and the art of filing

I certainly feel more educated today; I learned what the Science of Hadith is basically about.
I have a hard time believing in the sort of research done by any religious institution as scientific in the traditional sense of the word. In statistics, it is all about unbiased data, how one can create a study that is more and more unbiased. Of course, there can never be 100% unbias, there are way too many factors that contribute.
In the case of Islam, they already have this prophet up on a pedestal and the people conducting this research strongly want to believe in him. Therefore, this can be connected with the theoretical physics idea that what you want to see is generally what you will see.
John Gribbin writes in his book, In Search of Schroedinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality that,"In the world in which we live, what you see is what you get, there are no hidden variables, God doesn't play dice and everything is real."
So, I guess, I have come around in writing this to again prove that indeed, even these religious research can be scientific and indirectly, physics. Physics is defined as the science of knowing how the world works. With such a broad definition, it can be said to contribute to knowing how relationships work as well as the mechanics that everyone remembers from Newton in high school.

In other news~
I am still filing stupid frat stuff at work.
Today, I need NPR to keep me awake....seriously, I don't know how many more frat suspensions,fights, parties etc I can read about. It's like a broken record...i swear.:) Usually, classical music would put me to sleep...now it's keeping me awake.

This afternoon, I am going to get training for my other campus job that starts in a couple of weeks.
For 2 hours a day, 4 days a week, for 6 weeks, I will be testing incoming freshman over the level of german course they should be placed in.
Hoffenlich, werde es Spass machen!
I am very excited about this job. I think I will have a blast working with the german department.
A year ago, I didn't even want to take german, but now, I am a german minor, and possibly thinking about upgrading that to a german major. I really love foreign language. I also hope to take some french, if I can fit it into my schedule during my undergraduate years.
A language I would really like to learn is Gaelic. I know it is considered a dying language, but it sounds so beautiful to me.

University Fraternities....

Ok
So I have this summer job working as a secretary in the student life office at my university.
I am helping them this summer reorganize their files...ALL the files
So I was going through the fraternity file today and I am really wondering...
what good are they?
I am flipping through pages upon pages of defaulting on loans with the school, drunken parties, people being injured and hazed, sexual misconduct and violations of many other school policies.
On rare occassions I found letters of thanks for a fundraiser or some community service performed by a frat.
However, I would say 95% of the file I went through (could swear this thing weighted 5 kilos) was negative and disiplinary in regards to the frats.
The sororities at my school don't have houses, plus, I am not to the 'S' s in the filing system.
I always have heard to never walk down frat row (the street where all the houses are on) by myself, especially at night.
So why do university still promote or at least condone frats? They seem to be more trouble than they should be worth and other organization (for example the Society of Physics Students) seem to be a much more positive contribution to the campus.
Or are frats just another excuse for college students to delay maturity?

In other news...
I took a nap today and went running, it was really hot. I h8 humidity...why can't I live in Canada?
I like the politics and the people there so much better...ah well, maybe graduate school...
Really not much to talk about physics today, sorry folks. But, this is my second post today, I replied to my last post and that was REALLY physics-y
Peace

QED

QED= quantum electrodynamics
also~ title of a collection of lectures by the late Richard Feynmann
excellent for the amatuer physist
still trying to determine my status...im still undergrad, so does that mean i am an amatuer or one step above? i know i'm not professional yet
work was ok this morning
had alarm clock problems...etc
read about difraction grating today at work
fascinating how all of science, physics anyways, can be dwindled down to probability
blows the mind away
kinda feel like neo in the matrix when morpheus tells him about the matrix
only not so dramatic
:)
But, a point: all science IS physics (any physist will tell you this)
Feynmann writes:
"In fact, biologists are trying to interpret as much as they can about life in terms of chemistry, and as I already explained, the theory behind chemistry is quantum electrodynamics"
HA
i always knew chemistry was a cheap spin-off
Chemistry is like that stupid modern punk music today...punk used to be something good, and now, most of it is just a cheap spin-off, sold for way too much at mall chains, designed by old people who buy a lexus every other year because they get sick of the color.
Never thought you could connect chemistry with punk music?
leave it to the physics majors to do the unexpected.:)
ah well, now the brain hurts, time for a break
im going to listen to some dashboard confessional now...
wait a sec, no im not. then my brain would explode from the horridness of it all.

First Post

This is my first post. I define myself as a physics major, undergraduate.
I love my field. Please feel free to post all physics type material here...non-physics type material simply does not exist. :)
So anything goes and remember, there ain't no party like a physics party