Wow have the past couple weeks been rough! I was talking with some of my classmates about it recently, and we all agreed that we knew the program was going to be rigorous...but none of us expected it to be like this. Don't get me wrong- I'm not complaining, I love the fact that we'll have a full out MS degree in only 9 months...but good grief we're earning it. I've never worked so hard (except for my mission) and felt like I'm still struggling to tread water. The homework assignments all take many many hours to complete, and they continue to come, like clockwork, overlapping at the same time every week without relief. At least I score well on the homework.
I've had three of my four midterms now and numerically done horribly on all of them. Fortunately, it doesn't matter! All that matters is that I do as well or better than everyone else. For example, on my first midterm I scored an 80 out of 120. The class average was a 77/120, so that'll probably land me an A- or B+ for the test. Still, though, after all the studying I do, knowing that a 67% will probably be the highest percentage grade that I get on any midterm this year is kinda disheartening. I had my hardest midterm today because, according to my teacher, Halloween seems like a good day for it...grrrrr.
I asked him if anyone had ever scored 100% on his midterms before, and he replied "I don't think so." Faaaaaaaaaaaantastic. Couple that information with the fact that I am not Asian (those kids are seriously intellectually amazing) and I had zero hope of answering all the questions (not answering the questions correctly, just flat out answering the questions). Taking that test was like stepping on the end of a rake so that the pole comes up and whacks you in the face...over and over again. Fortunately it seemed like everyone else had similar bruises on their foreheads afterwards.
Well, hooray for the tests of this week being over! Check the family blog for pictures of the fun part of Halloween (mostly of James, of course :) )
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
I Am Now "That Dad"
Yup, the dad out in the hallway with his son during most of Sunday School and Elder's Quorum. There really ought to be a "pre-nursery". Lisa is a primary teacher, so she is gone for those two meetings every week. I've tried (and done a pretty good job I think until now) to keep James in the meetings with me, but I might as well be trying to bring a pet squirrel to class. He really just wants to run around and throw things and bang things and yell. Don't get me wrong...he's a happy kid- just a very loud happy kid. To my consolation, I saw a couple members of the Bishopric in the hallway doing the same thing. January 18...just three more months and then he'll be in nursery! Tell you what though- I sure love that kid. If I "have" to spend a couple hours outside of class with someone, I'm glad it's him.
Friday, October 26, 2007
How To Get Girls
Don't wear one of those "supposed to be funny but in reality everyone knows that you picked it off the rack at PacSun back in high school" shirts with the caption "How to get girls" written across the top of it with stick figure people doing wierd things.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Proof Positive
After reading that last post, my soon-to-be-brother-in-law (who is an incredibly intelligent guy in the world of biology and law) shared this picture with me. Thought you'd all enjoy it as well. It's titled "New Jesey children play in a fog of DDT in 1948." My parents were born in 1949...you see, we all turned out alright!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Nobel Warming
"Leeeeeet theeeeeeere be peeeeeeeeace on Eeeeeearth and let it begin with Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr..." Here's Albert as he officially wants the world to know him. Here's a more happy Al Gore. Well as you all undoubtedly know by now, Mr. Al Gore has won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for "creating the internet...[and taking] the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives...".
Alright, that was the obvious dig on Sir Albert. In reality he and the International Panel on [Global Panic and] Climate Change (IPCC) get to split the US $1M payout for "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change". Now that he's a legitimate Nobel Laurette, I finally find myself vindicated in asking myself in difficult and trying times "WWAGD"- What Would Al Gore Do?
So it is appropriate at this point to admit that (regardless of my opening satire) I am like Sweden when it comes to Al Gore...just about as neutral as they come. I honestly find the man fascinating. I really don't know much about him as a person. I really don't know much about his cause(s). I DO know that he is NOT a scientist. Actually, I think he's more the antithesis of a scientist- a businessman...and not just a normal businessman, a politically motivated businessman. Maybe he really does have an amazingly super-human altruistic care for our planet and has honestly devoted his life to reducing the amount of carbon (and other "harmful" agents) in the world around us. I'm not one, however, to join movements simply because they're convincing and popular.
Anyone who frequently solves math problems knows that one of the best techniques to get a feel for an answer is to go to extremes (limits). So in this case it's not difficult to remember some other convincing and popular ideas from our past...Communism, National Socialist German Workers Party, Democracy, and maybe more applicable DDT. These are probably poor examples, but I think they illustrate my point in that movements aren't necessarily good ideas simply because someone tells you they are...although Democracy did turn out pretty darn well (except maybe in Iraq.....).
I've listened to the arguments for both sides of the "global warming" issue, and I've been impressed with both the caliber of people and level of logical persuasion that both sides have presented. It's refreshing to see a controversial topic being debated mainly with logos without so much of pathos and ethos which is so common among most political infomercials and agenda-pushing materials (see "Bowling for Columbine", "Fahrenheit 911", "The Wal-Mart Movie", and "Under the Banner of Heaven").
So after all the research I've done on the so-called impending global crisis (which I'm sure is not much by some peoples' standards) I've come to the conclusion that I don't know what to think about it. The arguments on both sides are terribly convincing. The leaders on both sides are well respected and highly educated. In an ideal world I would like to simply sit down and talk openly and honestly with members from both factions and just get the stone-cold facts...no propaganda, no misleading or incomplete or unweighted information, no exaggeration. Even then I still probably wouldn't know. Whatever the world deems to be truth, however, I'm afraid we're heading towards another DDT-type mega-decision which will impact the lives of millions and future generations. Like many out there, I AM sure the Earth is warming...I'm just not sure it's because of us or whether there is anything we can do about it or whether it is simply a cyclic pattern of the Earth's natural course.
(DDT note: DDT, as the pesticide is now infamously known, was a miracle bug killer upon its inception, and the inventor Paul Muller actually won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine directly because of it. Then in 1962, Rachael Carson [the 60's version of Al Gore] published a book Silent Spring bringing to light the possible effects this chemical could have on humans and animals, including cancer and birth defects. Unfortunately, before any decisive agreement could be made within the scientific community, DDT became black labeled as the next Agent Orange and since then has been outlawed in most countries around the world. As a result, countless people have suffered from bug-born diseases like Malaria simply because Rachael Carson thought there could be a chance that DDT would be harmful, and it's STILL up for debate in the scientific community if it's really harmful. In retrospect, even if DDT is harmful, which is worse- DDT effects or Malaria? Is the global warming issue one we're going to look back on in 15 years after we've spent billions and billions of dollars on it and say to ourselves "What were we thinking?"
Alright, that was the obvious dig on Sir Albert. In reality he and the International Panel on [Global Panic and] Climate Change (IPCC) get to split the US $1M payout for "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change". Now that he's a legitimate Nobel Laurette, I finally find myself vindicated in asking myself in difficult and trying times "WWAGD"- What Would Al Gore Do?
So it is appropriate at this point to admit that (regardless of my opening satire) I am like Sweden when it comes to Al Gore...just about as neutral as they come. I honestly find the man fascinating. I really don't know much about him as a person. I really don't know much about his cause(s). I DO know that he is NOT a scientist. Actually, I think he's more the antithesis of a scientist- a businessman...and not just a normal businessman, a politically motivated businessman. Maybe he really does have an amazingly super-human altruistic care for our planet and has honestly devoted his life to reducing the amount of carbon (and other "harmful" agents) in the world around us. I'm not one, however, to join movements simply because they're convincing and popular.
Anyone who frequently solves math problems knows that one of the best techniques to get a feel for an answer is to go to extremes (limits). So in this case it's not difficult to remember some other convincing and popular ideas from our past...Communism, National Socialist German Workers Party, Democracy, and maybe more applicable DDT. These are probably poor examples, but I think they illustrate my point in that movements aren't necessarily good ideas simply because someone tells you they are...although Democracy did turn out pretty darn well (except maybe in Iraq.....).
I've listened to the arguments for both sides of the "global warming" issue, and I've been impressed with both the caliber of people and level of logical persuasion that both sides have presented. It's refreshing to see a controversial topic being debated mainly with logos without so much of pathos and ethos which is so common among most political infomercials and agenda-pushing materials (see "Bowling for Columbine", "Fahrenheit 911", "The Wal-Mart Movie", and "Under the Banner of Heaven").
So after all the research I've done on the so-called impending global crisis (which I'm sure is not much by some peoples' standards) I've come to the conclusion that I don't know what to think about it. The arguments on both sides are terribly convincing. The leaders on both sides are well respected and highly educated. In an ideal world I would like to simply sit down and talk openly and honestly with members from both factions and just get the stone-cold facts...no propaganda, no misleading or incomplete or unweighted information, no exaggeration. Even then I still probably wouldn't know. Whatever the world deems to be truth, however, I'm afraid we're heading towards another DDT-type mega-decision which will impact the lives of millions and future generations. Like many out there, I AM sure the Earth is warming...I'm just not sure it's because of us or whether there is anything we can do about it or whether it is simply a cyclic pattern of the Earth's natural course.
(DDT note: DDT, as the pesticide is now infamously known, was a miracle bug killer upon its inception, and the inventor Paul Muller actually won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine directly because of it. Then in 1962, Rachael Carson [the 60's version of Al Gore] published a book Silent Spring bringing to light the possible effects this chemical could have on humans and animals, including cancer and birth defects. Unfortunately, before any decisive agreement could be made within the scientific community, DDT became black labeled as the next Agent Orange and since then has been outlawed in most countries around the world. As a result, countless people have suffered from bug-born diseases like Malaria simply because Rachael Carson thought there could be a chance that DDT would be harmful, and it's STILL up for debate in the scientific community if it's really harmful. In retrospect, even if DDT is harmful, which is worse- DDT effects or Malaria? Is the global warming issue one we're going to look back on in 15 years after we've spent billions and billions of dollars on it and say to ourselves "What were we thinking?"
Prologue
Though I don't feel as if I have a great knack for it, I find myself enjoying writing down my own personal thoughts about the world around me. I have no desire to write a private journal (unfortunately), but for some reason I find it both entertaining and intellectually stimulating to communicate the incessant ramblings of my mind to the world around me for everyone to read. So, since I would like to write a journal but just can't find the motivation to do it, we'll call this "blog" a happy medium. Don't worry though, I'll continue to be a regular contributor to our family's main blog. That forum will continue to serve as means to keep everyone updated on what's happening with our family. As the title suggests, this page will mainly be a conduit into the running commentary of my mind as I observe the world around me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
