Nova

Well, there we go, I've changed my name again. I don't think I'll find any reason not to like this one, so we can assume it will stay.

Well, I'm back at school today and it's actually been quite a good day. This morning's biology class didn't take very long (2 hours vs the scheduled 4.5 hours) so I went and studied in my car for an hour and went to a free college "fitness challange" dance class at noon. While I don't think I'd try modern dance (which was the subject of this class) I might see what else they offer for next semester. It might be nice to have something a little different.

Anyway, this morning I was running a bit late (Mass at the Carmel is at 7:15, so I usually shoot to leave at about 6:30) so I grabbed some oatmeal packets for dinner and decided I'd splurge and buy lunch. [I won't get home 'till about 11:00 pm unless the lab is a short one.] I bought a gigantic piece of spinich and fresh mozzerella pizza and an orange for $3- not a practice I'd like to keep up, but sort of fun every now and then. But it's nice to live at home where the pantry's always full, and to be able to stay away from being a cafeteria regular.

And the most exciting thing of the morning is that I saw a sign posted on the wall that read "end the ignorance. abort73.com" in the typical vauge and mysterious wording of most community college activist posters. I checked out the website, and it's a pro-life site, so I guess I'm not the only pro-lifer that roams these halls. (I sit here wearing my Crossroads shirt... the heavy stares felt akward at first but you get used to it.)

Well, all for now. I have to go find out exactly how we're going to get some chemical out of cloves tonight and write it up.

God bless,
ada

(No intended reference to any dark-haired friends from school, but not avoided either. If you ever stumble on this, howdy, suite-mate of old.)

Alicuius Modi...

...you just have to love that construction: a wonderful example of Latin concision. (Maybe that's not a word. But even if it isn't, you know what it means. Strunk and White in two words: precision, concision.)

The really cool thing about the picture below is that it updates itself! (I'm sure some of you are a bit less easily amused...)

It's going to be a glorious chapel.

Well, news from the Teflon corner of the globe:
I got new lenses for my glasses today. The ones they replaced were utterly shot- I'm pretty sure even an eyecare charity wouldn't be able to use them. The glass was yellow and some kind fo coating on them had partially worn off, leaving a rough and scratched-looking surface. The new ones are clear and smooth, and make me feel about two feet taller than I used to.

I also drove about 90 minutes round trip to order contacts from my county college's optical clinic, where they resell things at cost to students and faculty (for practice and training). I think it came out to about $10 less per box than retail would have been.

My brother is coming home tomorrow through Saturday from boarding school, which will be nice. I think most of our relatives are headed over to our house for Thursday. It will be so weird to have a "normal" thanksgiving and not a "guest" one... although those sure are fun. (Thanks to all the generous families who host us!) Pumpkin and apple pies are just out of the oven downstairs, and smell wonderful.

My term paper on the genetic code is coming along- I think I have a general structure. The teacher agreed to accept a paper endorsed by the "Association for the Banishment of Boring Papers" so I'm trying to make it at once an informatively clear exposition and a fun narrative to read. So far its protagonist is a little boy, the nephew of a member of the Nobel Committee, who is really intrigued by this discovery and does all sorts of reading up on it before asking his uncle the meat-and-potatoes questions about the experiments. It may, however, have an epilogue or a Part II that shows through the example of this particular discovery that thinking is a huge part of the scientific method and, aside, that liberal education is thus important for the progress of science.

Satis sit hic pro nunc.
Valete!

Yippee!

Notes from a water bubble in an oil world

Howdy, folks.

I apologize in advance, this post is going to have a distinctively negative tone.

You never can escape the cross. At TAC I was always busy, usually too talkative, and very often on the downhill side of an emotional rollarcoaster. Now, however, I rarely have anything that really seems worthwhile to do (Although there's plenty of mundane stuff to fill the day- although I know that this should be worthwhile anyway if it's for God's glory, but like Kakashi noted about working in the sacristy vs. the kitchen, it's easier to do some things that way.) In my little bubble of cultural isolation, there are very few triggers for any kind of emotion and certainly no reason to talk (at school) beyond "please" and "thank you". I guess the best way to describe this world out here is "unstimulating". [To the point that I composed this blog in my head but had almost no inclination to type it out and post it, besides telling myself that it was dumb to complain about being lonely to myself.] It may seem funny to contrast TAC (with its geographic isolation and relative cultural undiversity) as overstimulating, but maybe it is in certain ways.

I'll be there in 8.5 weeks and counting. I literally shed a tear or two of joy over the prospect a few minutes ago.

There is, however, so much to be done now and so many opportunities that won't come around again in the same way. I just wish this haze of boredom would go away so that I could embrace them more fully.

A poor man with a vocal tic has been sitting at the next table and staring at me while I write, so I better not be too much longer. I'm pretty sure he's not malicious, but you know...

God bless you all.

Happy Sunday!

I've been thinking that maybe I should change my name. Elenor Teflon was the first thing that came out of my head when I was replying to Tommy a bit ago, but (as my tutors have told me time and again during Don Rags) the first thing to come to you isn't necessarily the best thing to say. Especially when you have the kind of imagination that thinks of "polka-dotted hippos" as an example of adjective and noun before such mundane things as "blue book" or "rational animal". Anyhow, it might be nice to have a name with the same initials that actually means something. Ideas are welcome.

(On the side, my physics teacher recently was expounding to us the carcinogenic properties of teflon. We were going over coefficients of friction. )

Elenor, if you're wondering, was the name of a beloved pink elephant toy that I had when I was little.

Well, I'm on the eighth day of a cold. I missed class last Monday for it, and took Monday's chemistry exam between classes on Wednesday in the "testing center". For various reasons my friday and saturday classes were cancelled, so I've spent the past few days away from The Game. I finished listening to an audiobook of 1984 a few days ago and have listened to all of My Antonia since Wednesday. The funny thing is that I was not listening to it to "get ahead" on seminar readings, but simply for fun- which makes all the difference. I was so fully into the book that when my brother asked what Mom was going to make for supper, I almost answered that she had just said that she would cook the turkey when Papa got home from town. That, of course, was what Antonia had just told her boys. We, on the other hand, were having ziti.

Last night I outlined and started writing my term paper for biology. I'll have to see if the professor will allow the Association for the Banishment of Dreary Papers to have its influence on this one. If not, it may be extremely dry, since it's going to be just the history of a particular discovery. We'll see what we can do. I'm hoping to put the reader in the shoes of a curious layman to the scientific community, following the discovery as it comes along and sharing in the excitement thereof. (The speech with which a nobel prize was bestowed on the discoverers called it "the most exciting chapter in modern biology". If I can get the reader that excited about it while he comes to understand the laboratory techniques and the results of the experiments and what they mean, I'll have done my job.)

By the way, did you know that Schwann and Virchow were really at the beginning of the "cell theory"? I found that out yesterday and I guess I really didn't realize that when we were reading them.

Well, our little parrot is dancing around his food bowl saying things I can barely understand. I think he would like to be fed. :o)

Happy Holyday!

Happy All Saints Day!

Well, today started with Mass at the Carmelite monestary. That's been the start of most of my school days recently, even on "regula' days" (non-holy days sounds weird...).

School is plugging along, and I think I'm now resigned to the nonacademicness of it all. Just play the game now, and I'll get back more worthy pursuits later. I'm finally reading the "blue book" founding document of our dear school, and I whip it out during solitary cafeteria dinners and lunches, and during breaks in class. It's therefore going in fits and starts, but it's calming to read something reasonable. Yesterday I tried to read a chapter for biology on the origin of life, but I couldn't look at so much rubbish in one day. Play the game, win the ribbon, run away.

My extracurricular pursuits have expanded beyond music to also include studying some Spanish. It seems like a useful thing to know in any case, and I'm hoping to go on a missionary trip to Mexico for a bit next spring.

I hope you're all doing great.