Friday, January 30, 2009

Because I'm too lazy to come up with a new blog entry!

I'll give you something I already put on facebook!
This was a meme, which someone creates and then sends to other people, who do it and then send it on and so forth. It's almost like a chain letter, but instead of warning you of all of the horrible things that will happen if you don't pass it on, it's just for fun. Some of the older ones have been traveling around on the internet for years! I first heard about this one from Brynne's mom, who got it from one of her friends where she works, etc., etc. Here's the original post I made, with a few errors fixed.
__________________________

Bla bla bla, on with the note already. Read me! >:(

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose up to 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag up to 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I thought long and hard about what to name this note... and I think the result speaks for itself.

2. This note is not, I repeat NOT, an attempt to avoid homework. Crap, 10:00pm already?!

3. This year I'm taking Sociology (to be a sociopath), History of Ethics (to be a bore), Environmental Ethics (make that a self-righteous bore), and Spanish (¡y un aburridor!)

4. Right now I'm listening to the always-excellent Carlos Santana.

5. I only feel slightly guilty that my exercise regimen is based entirely on Wii Sports.

6. If #5 isn't proof, I play waaay to many video games. And I couldn't be happier! :D

7. I overuse internet emotes on a regular basis. >.>

8. Though I do watch dramas and action movies, cartoons will always have a special place in my heart. Near the inner left ventricle, actually.

10. My first job was at Scully's Packing Sheds on Scotts Valley Rd; my second was at the Lakeport Cinema 5.

11. Though I'm enjoying college right now, I am seriously worried about finding a job once I leave.

12. It makes me sad when people dread the future so much; it tends to create self-fulfilling prophecies.

13. I am an avid writer of haikus, both serious and goofy. For example:
So many buttons
one wrong move, it might explode...
new cellular phone.

14. When it comes to music, I like a wide variety of stuff and tend to go through phases. I grew up with U2, Santana, the Steve Miller Band, and Huey Lewis and the News, rolled on towards Queen, The Who, The Doors, and Cake, dabbled in Metallica, AC/DC and Godsmack, moped my way through Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, and Coldplay (the older Coldplay stuff, anyway), gnashed through Rage Against the Machine, Rise Against, Nirvana, and System of a Down, and am now at a kind of musical crossroads. I still listen to everything above and love it all. I don't care much for rap or hip hop, and dislike country for the most part.

Above all, few musicians have had a greater impact in my life than Raffi. ("Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring--Bananaphone!" God, I loved that song as a kid!)

15. I am a natural expert at the sidewalk dance. You know, where people coming from 2+ directions both try to go left, then right, then left again, then just push past each other mumbling, "M'sorry."

16. I am a serious skeptic and somewhat cynical. I have a lot of trouble believing in anything and only recently have I convinced myself to give everyone the benefit of the doubt instead of thinking they did whatever on purpose.

17. I worry a lot about how I look, but refuse to spend the money on quality clothes.

18. I took an economics class last year, and was amazed at how much I learned and how much I enjoyed it.

19. Though I am a pacifist, I enjoy some over-the-top violent movies as long as they are ridiculous: i.e. Evil Dead = excellent, Saw I-XXV = pointless, uninteresting torture.

20. I am so, so very tired of endless political bickering, and few things make as angry or as frustrated as dogmatism. I'm not just talking about politics here either; this applies to religion (or lack thereof), racial beliefs, economics, social issues, and all kinds of other stuff. Morals and beliefs are good things, but close-mindedness is the bane of humanity. I'm not kidding here. If anything is going to destroy us, it will be caused by people who aren't willing to listen.

21. I often, without warning, provocation, or warrent, erupt in self-righteous rants about all kinds of moral issues. (See #20.)

22. If you say something serious to me and I smile, it is never, ever because I am laughing at you; I am inadvertently imagining myself in that situation and empathizing with you over it. I can't help myself.

23. I am a sucker for romances and romantic tragedies. As goofy as some of the plots were, I can't bloody think about the endings to some movies and books without getting all teary-eyed.

24. If there was a degree and a job in dabbling in everything, I would take it. I like a lot of different subjects, but tend to get bored quickly with a lot of the things I take up. It doesn't help that I'm also fairly lazy when it comes to both studying and in regards to the stuff that will almost certainly come back to haunt me.

25. I am rapidly running out of things to write about myself--oh good! #25! Let's see, some kind of great thing to end with....
How about a riddle?!
If you have it, you want to share it;
if you share it, you haven't got it.
What is it?
_________________________________

Talk to you all later!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Mild Insomnia...

...is not always a bad thing! I'm happy about what's to come, both class wise and life wise, and having trouble sleeping tonight because of it. Might as well do something worthwhile!

So! First impressions on classes this semester:

Spanish sounds like it's going to be intense, but ok. I know enough from before to get by at the start, and the homework thus far has been weighty, but useful. It's mostly just exercises and things, but later we have to do what is called a 'composition' which will just be a short paper on some topic the Professor assigns. The professor herself is kind of funny. Her name is Wha Sook Kim (pronounced 'Fasook Kim' with a light f) and she looks distinctly oriental, yet has a very thick Spanish accent. She's pretty intense, but more than willing to repeat herself or rephrase a question for us if we don't understand her. The class was supposed to have like 18 students, but about 4 didn't show and 5 hadn't actually met the requirements for it (which the professor says hasn't happened before), so we're a class of under ten.

Environmental Ethics looks like it's going to be awesome. I know the professor from last year and I like him a lot, and the homework is the same as well: keep up with the weekly reading and write some questions on it when it's your group's turn. The reading topics are exactly what I was hoping for: historical roots of our current crisis, ideals of 'human excellence' and what this should mean, the rights of non-humans including animals and, in some cases, plants, and just general philosophical questions about Environmentalism as a whole. And that's just the first half of the year; after that, he's letting us look through the second section of the textbook and deciding which areas look most interesting to us. Part of it will include how these discussions and problems can be to influence policy-making too, which is exciting for me. I'd like to be able to focus all of this philosophical mumbo-jumbo into real, useful situations.

History of Ethics looks good too, mostly just because I don't know a whole lot about how ethics and what is considered morally acceptable or not has changed since ancient Greece. I was disappointed to hear that it will be strictly Western, but I think the workload would be enormous otherwise, so no biggie. The focus is going to be on ancient Greece, modernism, and a little bit of 'post-modernism' (only in quotes because of how it appeared in the syllabus) including a good body of work by an influential philosopher in this past century named Bernard Williams, whom the professor has a lot of respect for. The class is pretty big, about 25 students, and there seems to be a lot more Freshmen than in the others. I'm hoping I'll have a bit of an edge with my experience last semester, but who knows.

Sociology looks fascinating. After the Professor (who is a visiting graduate student from UCLA) starting talking about the focus of the class, I realized how closely it will tie in to what I've already taken. All last semester I heard about how effective economical policy is greatly affected by public opinion and the current state of the populace, and about how the ancestors of mankind banded together and developed from tiny groups to our modern cities based only on their own group dynamics. This class will go a long ways in helping me understand the motives behind past decisions, and will hopefully give me a much better perspective into what motivates groups and individuals in the choices they make. The class has a ton of reading assignments, but these look interesting too. The books tend to focus on different aspects of society, including the need for security with fear (among other things) as a motivator, the same issues trough the perspectives of many people of different races and backgrounds, and, interestingly, the experience of college life and its effects on students. I kind of wish I had taken this course before holding any leadership role in scouts; it sounds like it would have been useful.

Alright, I think I'm tired enough to sleep now. Time to hit the hay. I leave you with a haiku I scribbled while waiting for Sociology to start:

No moss, rolling stone;
too busy for life to grow,
it misses the point.

Good morning, and have a pleasant today!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Post-Christmas doldrums...

I'm not sad or anything, but after all of the hustle-n'-bustle of the Holiday Season, sitting at home for hours watching TV and hanging out with my cat just doesn't seem to fill in the hours like it did before. It makes me appreciate being busy with school work.
Hah! It reminds of a character I like in Catch 22. In an effort to make his life last as long as possible, the character Dunbar actively seeks out jobs and pastimes that he hates or finds boring. He reasons that, since time flies while you're having fun, time slows to an absolute crawl when you're not. When asked why he would want a life full of things he hates, he says, "Well, it's all we've got."
It doesn't help that I'm waiting for packages to arrive. I've counted the days since buying stuff on Ebay, and I swear it's been at least a week and a half since last Friday. I just gotta keep reminding myself to stop and smell the roses, and not get caught up to much in the future when there's so many great things going on around me. Think I'll go for a walk...
Happy New Year everyone! =D

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

And now it's time for...

...another ridiculous philosophical question! *ahem*

Let's say there exists a person who is an absolute expert on everything having to do with human eye vision. We'll call him...I dunno, Ray. When it comes to seeing, he knows ever single process and bit of interaction that occurs in the eye, between the eye and the brain, and in the brain itself. For example, he knows exactly what seeing the color red is like for every possible structure involved in it; every wavelength received, every interpretation, everything.
However, Ray is blind. He has never seen the color red, and he cannot conceive of experiencing the color since all he has ever known is black. Still, no one is more knowledgeable on the experience and the process of seeing red than he is. He's just never done it.
Then, by some miracle or scientific advancement, he gains the ability to see red. Does he learn anything new past what he already knows?

Merry Christmas!

(P.S. And just for fun, is it possible to be an absolute skeptic if you have unbreakable proof in your skepticism? Or is imperfect skepticism, or not knowing for sure if you are skeptical, the only way to be absolutely skeptic? hmmm...)

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

It just occurred to me...

Randomly, while watching a goofy show online...
Christmas is almost here!!!
Family and food and presents and all kinds of great stuff that I can't think of right now!
I can't wait!!

Though, I worry how my mind got from a hero defeating a fire-breathing ninja to Christmas at home. I bet I'll have weird dreams tonight.
hmmm....

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Fast semester...

Whew, been a while since I last posted.
This semester has really flown by, especially with things being so busy her at the close. I swear I say this every year, but I just got used to writing 2008, and now we have to switch already!

The big thing this week was registering for my classes next semester. I had this great plan with interesting classes and plenty of down time, then everything collapsed when I learned that some of them had prerequisites. Plan B!
So, first I've got Elementary Spanish, which will be loads of fun to wake up to every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I still remember the language pretty well from high school, so hopefully it wont be too much of a drag.
Next is History of Ethics, which is kind of a followup to this semester's Problems of Philosophy. This past week has been about ethics, starting with Aristotle's The Nature of Virtue (which I talk about later) which has been interesting and looks like it has some real life usefulness. 'Cuz to tell the truth, all of this semester's stuff has been extremely interesting, but it seems like most of it doesn't exist in the real world per se. Though, if nothing actually does exist (besides my mind), then that doesn't really matter much, huh?
Then (because my other class fell through) I have Environmental Ethics. I'm hoping this will different enough to stay interesting. Who knows, maybe when I come back home this summer I'll be the most ethically knowledgeable person in Lakeport. Need to know ancient Egyptian right of punishment for stealing sacred cats?! I'm your Mr. Ethics Person!
Last is Intro to Sociology, which should go well with the others. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing when my Lit class didn't work out. I think I remember Mom saying how much she enjoyed the class, and it sure looks like a thought-provoking subject. Yeah ok, it's true I knew basically nothing about it before looking it up online, but afterwords it looked good. Really!

Class-wise this semester, next week is going to be a hurricane of due dates and frantic, late studying. Hurricane Pomona. Foremost is a big paper and presentation due in Archaeology about the Viking influence in North America before Columbus's discovery of 'India.' It shouldn't be much of a problem; I know I can produce and deliver a quality PowerPoint, but I need to make sure I practice the speech enough. I still cringe over my first semester's presentation on Sir Kay.... Oh yeah! I got my second test back from that class, the one I thought I didn't do real well on, and it turns out I did better by about 10 points. It's tough to tell, but I think my grade is balancing between A/B there. All of those early papers weren't worth many points, unfortunately.
Speaking of tests, I just got the last one in Geology, which I was confident about. Despite the great potential for irony here, that one actually turned out as good as I had hoped, with like 97.5/100. I think that makes the grade there a high B, which the soon-to-be-due project and final should raise up.
Economics is coming along well. The A/B is going to ride on the final, but as of now I think it's like a 92 or so. All things considered, it should be alright. At the moment we're studying everything having to do with international trade. Tariffs, quotas, globalization, the whole deal. Interestingly, it appears that both tariffs and quotas, which we use all of the time in the US, tend to do more harm than good. Go figure.
Aristotle's views on what make a virtuous life are pretty interesting. He had a special word for the best life one can lead: Eudaimonia, which roughly means good spirits. It doesn't really have a good translation into English, and is often (wrongly) interpreted to mean happiness. Happiness is more of a psychological state of being, while Eudaimonia is a kind of permanent evaluation of life. According to Aristotle, the 3 best lives are those of pleasure, honor (fame), and money-making. This is hotly disputed, but generally makes sense with a little explanation. First off, pleasure is an end unto itself. You can ask why someone does anything they do, and there will be an underlying purpose of some kind; but asking why someone does something for the purpose of pleasure is a moot question, since the purpose of pleasure is self-evident. He assumes (justifiably in my opinion) that even the painful things a person does are meant to bring pleasure to oneself or others.
As for fame, he's not talking about critical acclaim so much as knowing that one is the best at what one does. This is where 'honor' comes in. It's more personal than others seeing you as the best in that your own desire can be completely independant of those around you. It's kind of like the Olympic competitors not recieving money professionally, if you take out all of the endorsements. It's not saying there's anything wrong with getting praise, only that it should not be the driving factor behind your honor.
Moneymaking didn't seem very convincing to me, and in truth this kind of life just leads to the other two; getting pleasure or knowing you're among the richest. Overall, all three are just meant to be lives of virtuous activity. I like this stuff since it more of what I can relate to personally, and I like thinking about what makes a 'perfect' life. I especially like the idea of living without needing the approval of others; we all strive for personal satisfaction, but few, if any, really do. I don't mean like indifference, more like...perfect self-confidence? I dunno.


Alright, onward to those crazy vikings. Odin protect me!
Talk to you all later.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Funny coincidence (?!)

I was studying for my Geology test coming up and I had to make an acronym to help me remember all the Periods of the geologic time scale. Here's the first thing I came up with:

(Periods) Acronym

(Cambrian) Can
(Ordovician) Our
(Silurian) States
(Devonian) Dig
(Carboniferous) Coal
(Mississippian) Mines
(Pennsylvanian) Permanently
(Permian) Providing
(Triassic) That
(Jurassic) Juries
(Cretaceous) Continue
(Tertiary) Treating
(Paleogene) Poor
(Quaternary) Quadrupeds
(Neogene) Negligently?

This college has burned environmentalism into my subconscious!

P.S. Sorry it's so hard to read. This dang blog program makes it hard to make separate lists...