Good Thing We Live In MA

Everyone, I'd like you to meet someone (my Moldovan neighbor calls it my "life partner"): my new fish Epoch!



For reasons I'm still not quite sure of, my school was giving away free little fish yesterday. It was one of those things that must cost a lot but they don't advertise much (which is odd because there's signs for the most random shit everywhere). I happened to be in the campus center yesterday morning and saw all these people with fish tanks, so I headed back after Calculus and, lo and behold, free fish! Naturally, I got one because, well, I guess I do need a life partner. Unfortunately, they had no food, so poor Epoch has had to go hungry so far (allegedly there's some arriving later today). Thus far, there aren't any good stories about him* but count on him becoming a regular here on the 7th Notion.

*I have no idea if Epoch's a dude or not, but I'm sticking with the male pronoun anyway

Afternoon Snack

Apparently Congress passed the "College Cost Reduction and Access Act" on Friday by a huge margin. Basicly it gives more of the government's money to Colleges to make them more affordable. Oh, and I keep hearing about this debate on universal health care. And I'm presently living in a state that requires everyone to have health insurance (first step towards that universal health care I would say). Say what you want about our capitalist-minded government, but we're moving towards a welfare state. And guess what; piece by piece, everyone (well, maybe just liberals, but around here that's all that matters) will agree with it because morally we all believe in welfare states.

(This message brought to you by late-night political debates...and the government, who pays for your 7th Notion subscription).

A Little Of That Old Time BFTSOB

Ok, so it's getting late, I'm bored and can at this point get a maximum of seven hours of sleep tonight. I would turn in but my roomie has a paper to write that somehow got left until Sunday night. Whatever, it'll happen to all of us so I'm not going to be bitter, just bored. But I guess it's a positive statement about the state of tis blog that my BFTSOB posts are due to boredom, not inactivity. I will probably go back to reading Stephen Hawking soon, but I can only take so much of him at a time (given that it's complicated and occasionaly blows my mind enough to mke me stop). Before that, I'll give you a couple random tidbits:

There's apparently a Crazy John Brown University. This amuses me greatly. (Anyone who took US history with me knows why).

I've recently embraced my OCD side and starting keeping a host of to-do lists, daily planner stuff, etc. The most recent addition to my to-do list: disprove the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (probably more on this in a future post).

Question worth debating: would being fluent in Elvish improve or hurt my chances with girls?

Just when I thought I was really disapointed in my institution of higher education (aka drinking is dumb), I found out that no one on my hall knows who Bones McCoy is. I know it's geeky and they're young, but that shit is classic.

Let's Get High On 'Nerd'

Let's look at one the most basic precepts of the way we view the world."There is, and there is not". We all have a concept of nothingness; it's basicly the antithises of everything else. A cup can be or empty or full (sure, it can be half-full, but thats just a combination of the two, not a wholly different middle ground). A piece of paper can be empty, or written on. You either love them, or you don't. You get the idea; we found our worldview on the concept of a filled/void contrast.

But where does that concept come from? Like most (or all?) of our ideas, we derive it from experiences we have in the natraul world. And what experience would teach us about the difference between being full, and being empty? Air. In our daily lives, the atmosphere is the negative space to positive objects. Look across the room to the far wall. Don't you consider the space between you it empty (even though you know it's full of gas)? Sure, it's empty; you could throw a ball through that space and it would reach the wall. But you can't throw a ball into the next room because it would hit something "full" (the wall).

But that's wrong. That space isn't empty; it's full of atmospheric gases, and that ball didn't move through it unimpeded; it lost speed as it hit all those little particles. Even space isn't empty; it's full of cosmic rays and radiation.

So could everything we believe be wrong? Could our entire view of the world be flawed at its most fundemental level? Could our experiences with nature ultimately lead us to misunderstand it? Maybe there is a middle ground, something between full and empty. Empty-ish? Maybe that coffee mug isn't "half empty", its going through a weird transitional period during which it's full of a coffee/not coffee hybrid substance. Our idea of nothingness makes us see ourselves as isolated objects seperated by void, but what if we're all part of the same soupy continuum?

Think about it.

The Numbers Game

I got a 2290 on my SATs the first time I took them. Sure, it was fun, but I don't really give a shit. I'm glad it got me into college, and I'm sure as hell glad I didn't have to take them twice. But whatever, standardized tests are largely a load of bullshit. It's the story of my life, though: getting the laurels of alleged intelligence constantly laid on me without being smart so much as 'good at getting grades'. But it's easy to feel pretty good about yourself, growing up as a 2290 kid. People love telling you all about how great and smart you are, and even with a healthy dose of self-hatred it eventually gets to you.

I must admit I gave in to the adoration nd got to believeing that I really was the shit. Then I arrived at the fabulous college I supposedly deserved to get into and I got a reality check of bitch slap proportions. Not only is everyone here really smart; capable of intelligently discussing any topic, dropping hard-core vocab and sparkling AP scores everywhere, but they all have tons of other stuff going for them. We have elite athletes, people who can speak four different languages, founded all sorts of clubs and organizations. I listened to my orientation trip comrades spend two hours of a busride simply listing the books they've read. One of them could also boast a strong musical background and brief career in competitive rock climbing. My only non-academic credit is a few seasons on varsity teams (not particularly good ones) and a captainship. Stuff ike that is footnote here. I just ate dinner with a kid who, for a school project on emersion journalism, traveled to Iraq on a whim (without telling his parents until he arrived there). He made national news for it.

Can anyone say "inferiority complex"? Actually, yes they can...in four languages.

Greek Life

I kind of imagine this as a montage from the end of a Scrub's episode where all the subplots get tied together by JD narrating to really fitting music. Having said that, don't count on good organization of a well-defined theme. (the soundtrack is Fallout Boy's "I Have A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Up").

Everyone has a collection of idols in their lives, people we lean on when reality lets us down. We all also all lose idols. It can be late at night around a fire, talking about how much of a whore a mutual ex-girlfriend is, or by foolishly looking at pictures of people you don't need to see. The story? I recently started playing an online Star Trek RPG run by a women who is an able organizer, excellent role-player and fabulous writer. Needless to say I grew to respect her, which, because of my...unique realationship with women, means she ended up on a bit of pedestal. Then she sent out a picture of herself and several other players at some geek-con (the fact that they went to some convention is no surprise, after all they play a Star Trek RPG). Sadly, she looked like a total dork (and not even a hot one). Should that matter? Fuck no. But I'm a guy, so my pedestals always involve a certain degree of attractiveness. Do I want to bang my RPG mod? Of course not, but I did imagine her as a little hotter.

Yeah, I'm kind of a monster, it's true. But at least I still have my RC.

I Take My Oatmeal With Extra "WTF"?

With school fast approaching (2 days and 1 epiphany away), I want to resurrect this old blog and fill it with kick-ass college quality posts. I have a couple in mind already but presently I'm far too tired to write coherently. I've been staying up until 5 or 6 AM the last couple days and being forced to wake up far too early (noonish). After a summer of sleeping ten hours a day, its been a rough tranisition. More to point, I can't see straight so I assume I can't write straight either. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I'm going to try some SoC poetry to prove that I shouldn't be writing right now.

Ok, I take that back. I just tried it and mentioned lollipops by the fourth line. Call me a coward, but when I start composing poetry about phalic candy and guys named "Beezelybum", it's quittin' time.