Slowly charting the waters

well that certainly doesn't solve anything

2009-03-23T18:40:27Z

I just received my score for the third of my teacher cert. exams. This exam is supposedly the hardest of the three, and I should've waited until next winter to take it. I should be utterly confused throughout it, should feel like I failed it, and not be discouraged if I actually do. I took it out of order, before the second. Passing score is a 220 out of 300. I got a 288. That's a 96%.

This is right of the heels of "the worst lesson [I] have taught to date", according to my cooperating teacher. Now, I knew academics were never really the issue, but life didn't have to make so obvious.

Time to decide which city I'm living in next fall, which is a whole other barrel of monkeys.

Phenominal cosmic powers...

2009-01-08T05:21:48Z

Iiiiity bitty classroom. The presentation I made yesterday is going to be used to teach kids tomorrow. Something I created is going to be responsible for the education of seventh graders. It's weird to know you have the power to royally fuck up a kids perceptions for the next few years.

:-)

2008-06-29T02:40:42Z

A word to the wise: never settle. Settling gets you a world of hurt, plus 30 pounds. Thankfully, one of those is no longer a problem.

One a side note, happy birthday Kyrie, enjoy driving.

Maybe I just steal too much music

2008-05-12T03:12:44Z

I think someone stole my ipod. Either that, or someone managed to get their hands on and fix my bad hard drive. I went to open skate at a new rink tonight (the closer one is closed), and during the two hours I was there there were about 5 songs played I didn't own. Not only that, they played some really obscure ones - Suite of American Dances obscure. I'm gonna start watching my back...

hlpxx @ 2008-04-16T20:56:00

2008-04-17T00:59:09Z

Happy birthday, Bill.

Meh.

2008-03-30T23:13:07Z

Floating. Again. Oy. Times go from ok to shitty, and I'm still running out of money. It's just money though, right? I think I'll go see a movie.

Loss

2008-03-13T19:41:02Z

It's gone, it won't come back. I realize that now. So why do I still not feel any better?

This sucks.

Fun times

2008-02-28T20:29:46Z

It's time to make this a little more like an actual journal.

Him carve out him heart/concrete and steel

2008-02-21T17:26:48Z

Uranium, particularly that used for nuclear reactors, is an interesting substance. Only U-235, which is about 0.7% of naturally occurring uranium, is fissile. By refining it, you can bump that up to about 4%, but the rest of the rod is radioactive, not fissile. This means that after enough half lives, all of the fuel is expended, but you're stuck with a huge chuck of radioactive mess that can't be used for reactors. There's two ways to get rid of this garbage. One way is to drop a bunch into a swimming pool sized tank surrounded by six foot thick concrete, then steel, then a cooling system. The other is a little more involved. The used Uranium is mixed into concrete. This is encased in an airtight steel container. That's cased in more concrete, and more steel, then stored on a concrete slab in the base of a mountain.

It's been four weeks, but my heart is still shattered, broken, and even worse, won't change. I can't drop this, though I've tried. I hate to think it, but I think I have to close off my heart, case it in concrete, steel, more concrete, and lock it away in a mountain. I'm scared to think that I might not come back from this.

People tell me to move on, build my own life, live for me. I've tried, and at times it's ok, even good. But then, inevitably, I fall back. I've done a lot of driving, lost a lot of weight, and read a lot of books, but I'm still lost. There are times when I don't want to be where I am, wherever it is, and I don't know where to go to feel better. It's like nowhere I can be would be comforting.

I hope time is what fixes this. I really do, and all I can hope for is that time will pass as quickly as possible.

Darkest of days

2008-02-15T04:43:47Z

I may take up botany just so I can grow black roses. I have the feeling, being on the other side of the fence about today, that there'd be quite a market for it. In actuality, today was really just like every other day - I spent a long time in a car, I have a headache, and I'm bored stupid. But seriously, I could make a killing in black roses, if for no one else but the goths.

I'm a rocket man

2008-02-08T00:58:18Z

I don't know how I forgot that I could take research for credit, but somewhere in the torrent of the last two weeks, it slipped my mind. It's ok though, my adviser didn't. As of now, I'm planning on taking one education course, and the other three credits will be from research. I have to go sleep at the education building tomorrow or something to make sure that they actually talk to me, instead of try to pawn me off on a professor that isn't there.

As for the research though, it's kinda cool. My adviser has a little contract with NASA going. They have a camera in space they're using to take pictures of clouds with a laser. There's a problem, though. The laser is slowly losing intensity, but they can't figure out why. The idea they have now is that there's some epoxy that they used to put together the satellite that didn't fully polymerize, and when the airlock was blown, the tinier bits wriggled loose and landed on the lens. The laser then gave the energy to fully polymerize the epoxy, which gummed up the lens. It's my job to test this.

Long story short, I get to shoot a laser at shit and see what happens - awesome. I may even get to take a few field trips to NASA (in Greenbelt, not Florida :-( ). Things are definitely looking up.

I'm so busy, doing absolutely nothing

2008-02-07T13:36:11Z

I think I finally realize what Ang went through last (and who are we kidding, this) semester. I sent emails to five different people about fixing this damn semester yesterday, and I only got one response, which pretty much said 'can we talk about this Friday afternoon?' It's very frustrating.

I took a few minutes to think about what I accomplished yesterday, and I came up with, *ok sign* bagel. I held office hours, but spent the whole time trying to get into the education department. I spent a whopping 30 minutes in lab, which was effectively checking email. Teaching was effectively babysitting; it was simple enough that I didn't do anything but clean at the end. I got pizza for dinner, so I didn't have to cook. All of these things seem like nothing, busy work, but they added up to an entire day. A day in which I didn't do anything, but I can't afford to have those right now. I have applications to fill out, recommendations to get, research to START and classes to line up by Friday.

On the plus side, I don't have to teach for the rest of the week, and classes are not a necessity. I guess I'm just surprised at how busy my Wednesdays are going to be.

Genesis

2008-02-04T22:21:55Z

It's been said (and I've seen) that these things tend to be good for people. It's a way to get things out without actually having to have someone to talk to. We'll give this a shot.

It's a new beginning. My life, in all aspects, is changing direction. Maryland? not for me. Ph.D? also not for me. Little miss wild? well, that depends on who you ask. It's very sobering to realize that what you've done, the plans you've laid, do not lead to a place you want to be.

A beginning must come from an end. I've had a couple of those. First things first, I've gotta get the hell out of this state. Hey, if it's your thing, that's great, but there are far too many people, it's too expensive, there's no snow and no hockey - screw you guys, I'm going home. I love the work, though. The teaching, the learning, the lab work, that's all great. Mostly the teaching - I suppose that's why I'm becoming a teacher. I've just started filling out the apps today, so we'll see how this goes. My boss doesn't know I'm leaving yet, but I think he'll get the idea when I ask him to write me a recommendation.

In other news, Freakout was great. The game kinda sucked, but the music, catching up with old friends, making a few new ones and the drinking (soooooooooo much drinking ) reminded me of something. It's something that I slowly lost sight of, but something I plan to get back very shortly - my life. Being a Ph.D. student drains you, between the 60 hours of lab time, the teaching and grading that's expected to be done simultaneously and the reading papers. OH, the papers - I hate reading scientific papers so much, it actually hurts me to look at them. I don't looking at it as quitting, because quitting implies I don't think I can do it. I can, I just don't want to be that person. It won't make me happy, which is, of course, the source of all action, I have learned.

I don't regret any of what's happened. What happened has happened, and it cannot be changed. I can only hope to learn from it, and change for the better. I had a picture of the future. It has since been blurred beyond recognition. Once I get a lens or two, I'll take another look. I have a feeling that the picture won't be the same, but I don't expect it to. It's going to change whether I want it to or not, I just hope I like how it clears up.