Clearing out my head

I’m not really sure how to start this. I’m mostly doing this for my own sanity, but if you find entertainment in reading this, more power to you. I foresee a lot of incessant rambling, but given that a grand total of perhaps five people will read this, it’s of little concern to me.

The last few months have truly been the most exciting time of my life. I was accepted as an Astronomy major at the University of Arizona, selected to see the second to last shuttle launch, only for the astrovan to turn around at the VAB, was in Europe for sixteen days, was invited back and witnessed the last shuttle flight in history, drove roughly two thousand miles across the country to my new home, and went to Los Angeles to watch and meet one of my biggest influences perform at one of if not the most important show of his career.

I’ll be starting back at school in eight days, in what will be the hardest semester of my life. It’s been quite a number of years since I’ve taken fifteen credits, and in my opinion there aren’t any soft A’s. Honors Electricity and Magnetism, Honors Thermodynamics and Optics, Linear Algebra, Advanced Applied Analysis, and C Programming. If I’m completely honest, I’m quite nervous about all of them, perhaps programming being the exception. That being said, I will do whatever it takes to do the best I possibly can. I’m more than willing to sacrifice my health and personal relationships in the short term in order to succeed. Sorry (up to) five people that might come across this and have any sort of concern for my well being. My drop in communication with you is most certainly not intentional. Perhaps I’m biased, but I think up until now I’ve screwed around when it came to applying myself, academically speaking. Because I’m a new transfer student, my GPA resets. With that, I have a new opportunity to prove to myself that I truly have the drive and desire to succeed in whatever endeavor I choose. The way I see it is that given the scenario I’ve presented myself, not just this semester but my overall academic goal, I have to rise to a level of commitment I hitherto have not reached and sustain it. That being said, I am eager to begin again. For as much anxiety as it generates, there isn’t a drug on this planet which comes close to the feeling I have when I accomplish what I set out to achieve, especially in this context. The cosmos, in and of itself, is a drug far more powerful than what homo-sapiens can produce or cultivate. Taking this journey is unequivocally the most difficult thing I have ever done, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Keep looking up.

An expansion of scope

Alright, so I suck at posting regularly. Since my last entry, I've grown ever more disenfranchised with the state of this country. As a result, I feel it necessary to broaden the subjects in which I write about. With my fall semester quickly coming to an end, I hope to be able to post not only more frequently, but also about more issues.

And yes, I'm aware that maybe all of two people will see this.

Seriously?

There have been multiple things I've wanted to blog about but I have grossly underestimated the amount of time needed in trying to comprehend electromagnetism in a condensed 5 week summer session. That being said, here's the latest thing that I find utterly disgusting:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129048165&ft=1&f=1001


Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Yet another example of our ever decreasing privacy and the seemingly exponential growth of the surveillance state all under the guise of national security. It's almost understandable that this occurred in such a country that has already gone to great lengths to limit speech and expression, but how much longer will it be before we see countries with more "freedoms" demand the same sort of access? Not long.

Vandalism on Billy Graham Parkway

As if we needed yet another example of hypocrisy in the context of religion, a person has felt it necessary to deface a billboard that was recently put up on the Billy Graham Parkway. To whomever did this, I say: Thank you. Thank you for clearly illustrating the intolerance your “faith” has the potential to breed. Thank you for highlighting the ignorance in which your "faith" has the potential to cause. Thank you for revealing your true nature in an utterly juvenile manner. Your action does nothing but inspire us. We are the same homo-sapiens. We breathe the same air. We live on the same pale blue dot. We will never be stopped. Our message will never die.