School? Oh dear.

It's that time once again, ladies and gentlemen--that time when men cry like young girls and everyone else sort of snickers at them:

School is back in session!

This semester, I am taking "15" hours of classes.

I put the number 15 in quotes because...well, let's take a look, shall we?

Ordinary Differential Equations - MA 36600 - Back when I was still in Chemical Engineering, I took a semester class called "Linear Algebra and Differential Equations." The class was, effectively a Differential Equations class geared towards teaching you the material in as engineeringly friendly as possible. Unfortunately, the Math Department doesn't find that class particularly helpful for actual Math majors...so it is necessary for me to retake it.

Introduction To Creative Writing - ENGL 20500 - I'm particularly excited about this class. I haven't had the chance to stretch my creative muscles in a while. I may end up posting some of the better works up here on the internet for all to see. This is a class that I am taking to fill up my English requirement.

Elementary Psychology - PSY 12000 - This is sort of a seat filler. I'm only taking this class because I need another General Education class...and this seemed to fit the bill.

Symphony Orchestra - BAND 111 Normally, I'd be in Philharmonic, but I have a conflict with my classes, so I'm stuck in the evening orchestra. On the bright side, so did half my cello section. This means, among other things, that we get to play the Overture to William Tell. This is flipping fantastic and I cannot wait.

The reason there is a conflict with Philharmonic Orchestra is because of...

Seminar On Teaching College Algebra And Trigonometry - MA 48400 - I'm so freaking excited about this class. This semester, in addition to discussing pedagogical methods of Math, I get to TEACH a section of MA 15300--Precalc.

This is going to be fantastic. I am also, it seems, going to be paid to grade my section's work. This is also fantastic.

HOWEVER, this is going to be the most time intensive thing I've ever done...Orchestra is always incredibly time intensive due to the amount of practice outside of class that needs to be done to not sound like crap, but this class will probably take the cake. I already have a lesson plan due Monday...I should probably finish that later today...

Soundtrack of my nightmares redux and life update

I haven't had much time to post recently. I apologize for this grievous breach of the blogger-bloggee social contract.

Here's why!

I went home this weekend! The always arduous trip home via Satan's Waiting Room I-65 was actually not anywhere near as bad. Only one traffic jam caused by gawkers at an accident.

Today was, surprisingly, very busy.

I got a hair cut in fact, I got them all cut. ha ha ha ha. I'm only sad that this now makes the avatar I've put up everywhere (thanks Jen) somewhat obsolete. Bah. Oh well.

I figured, I'd might as well get my hair nice and groomed considering the fact that I will be starting teaching in 7.5 days. It might, at least slightly, lend some sort of credence and ethos to my lectures.

Most importantly, I saw a one woman show written and performed by Alison Vodnoy, a friend of mine I haven't seen in years. We were in diapers together and now she's a big star! Hooray! If you happen to be in Hammond, Indiana tomorrow sometime around 2 PM, please consider going to see it at the Towle Community Theatre. It's great, she's AWESOME, and it's TOTALLY worth paying the 15 bucks to go see it.

Tomorrow is a wedding...and then Monday is a dentist appointment (ick) and then back to campus to laugh at all the marching band people as they stand outside sweating for hours on end. =D

To make up for my absence, here is some mindfuckery. Enjoy.

ETA: Mindfuckery doesn't get red-lined as a misspelled word. That's hilarious.

Why I love science:

It's stuff like this that makes science so amazing and beautiful.



Thanks to @godlessgirl for finding this and tweeting about it!

Zen Part 2: Non-Attachment

Kitano Gempo, abbot of Eihei temple, was ninety-two years old when he passed away in the year 1933. He endeavored his whole life not to be attached to anything. As a wandering mendicant when he was twenty he happened to meet a traveler who smoked tobacco. As they walked together down a mountain road, they stopped under a tree to rest. The traveler offered Kitano a smoke, which he accepted, as he was very hungry at the time.

"How pleasant this smoking is," he commented. The other gave him an extra pipe and tobacco and they parted.

Kitano felt: "Such pleasant things may disturb meditation. Before this goes too far, I will stop now." So he threw the smoking outfit away.

When he was twenty-three years old he studied I-King, the profoundest doctrine of the universe. It was winter at the time and he needed some heavy clothes. He wrote his teacher, who lived a hundred miles away, telling him of his need, and gave the letter to a traveler to deliver. Almost the whole winter passed and neither answer nor clothes arrived. So Kitano resorted to the prescience of I-King, which also teaches the art of divination, to determine whether or not his letter had miscarried. He found that this had been the case. A letter afterwards from his teacher made no mention of clothes.

"If I perform such accurate determinative work with I-King, I may neglect my meditation," felt Kitano. So he gave up this marvelous teaching and never resorted to its powers again.

When he was twenty-eight he studied Chinese calligraphy and poetry. He grew so skillful in these arts that his teacher praised him. Kitano mused: "If I don't stop now, I'll be a poet, not a Zen teacher." So he never wrote another poem.

~~~

Moral of story: If you want to do something particularly well. Don't do anything else you enjoy for the rest of your life.

For those of you who were out of the loop on this one:

Being in Alcoholics Anonymous involves you admitting defeat to your alcoholism and embracing a higher power to help you through it.

I can only assume that Narcotics Anonymous works much the same way.

You would think that giving up personal control in this situation would be a terrible idea. Shows what we know...

In related news, there is an alternative called The Sinclair Method which uses an opiate antagonist in conjunction with continued drinking to reverse the endorphin conditioning that causes the addiction in the first place.

Cool! So a scientific-based method of quitting versus a religious method of quitting.

Guess which one I think is probably better for you!

Daily dose of wtf

There's something about a group of rabbis not allowing two people to marry each other for NOT BEING JEWISH ENOUGH that seems somewhat ironic. I may have hit Godwin's Law on this one, but it is incredibly hypocritical.

The uproar in question happened when Nico Tarosyan, a man who had moved to Israel from Russia, was deemed to be unfit to wed Olga Samosvastov who was, it seems, a "Proper Jew." *sigh*

So, what is it that they ended up doing? They said "Fuck you, we're marrying anyway!" Good for you both!

It is bad enough, I think, that marriage in Israel is solely at the discretion of the religious institutions.

But to give the power to the Ultra-Orthodox rabbis? Wow. Terrible idea.

Walking tour of the Creation Museum Part II: The Quickening

I apologize for the various and terrible quality of the pictures you are about to see. Enjoy!


This picture is likely highly indicative of the rest of the museum. Let's see what happens, shall we?


Those sharp claws on his feet are for slicing lettuce. There is a salad spinner behind the sign.


Mel Brooks decided to make a special guest appearance. He was displaying the fifteen ten commandments.


Maybe there IS hope for this museum after all! *shifty eyes*


"Om nom nom nom nom"


This lamb looks like he's scared of being raped.


"Really? Vegetables?"


Did I mention that these wax dummies look way too eerily realistic? If they spent as much time actually providing substance to their exhibits as they did trying to make eerie, lifelike dummies, they'd give the Smithsonian a run for its money.


There was not enough room to finish the sentence. It should have read, "The world's not safe anymore for people with IQs above 10 with museums like this still being funded!"



Here we see two people particularly angered by the paparazzi. Apparently they weren't willing to sign the release and their pictures were used anyway!


After killing his brother, Abel, Cain has to sneeze like a motherfucker. Abel's first invention, pepper spray, doesn't work anywhere near as well as he'd have liked.


Completely undecided as to what this was telling us not to touch, we hands-on Atheists decided to begin investigating. It turned out that nobody cared...except maybe the one guy. You'll see him.


Discovered by one of the members of the party with which I was touring the Museum, we come to the real heart of the issue. There is nothing on Earth besides the United States and, perhaps, part of Canada and Mexico. It is a stunningly accurate commentary on the educational system of many religious areas of Kentucky.


The museum was kind enough to embolden some of the more important words of this quote from one of the books of Peter. I think we could do without all the rest of the empty text. "Willingly ignorant word of god" seems to be good enough for me.



Here we have what I can only imagine is Hebrew...sort of.
It's time for a quick Hebrew lesson.

*HEBREW LESSON TIME!*

Let's begin, if you will humor me, from the right side. Hebrew is written right to left. Let us begin with the awkward blob of letter that looks like a K who has seen better days. THIS IS NOT A HEBREW LETTER. Awesome. If it is supposed to be a tsadi or an aleph, it is a tsadi or aleph made exclusively of fail.

Next, we come to the letter Resh. The only problem with this letter is that it has been flipped 180 degrees.

Thirdly, we hit the Hebrew letter Vov which is both correctly oriented and in the proper proportion. Let's move on. Nothing to see here.

Fourthly, we have what is called "Fey." Besides the fact that the letter is the mirror image of how it was supposed to be, it is fine...except for one thing:

This is Fey in it's so called "Final" form. This letter, if it is to be in the sentence AT ALL, should be switched with the letter farthest on the left...which is funny because that letter is a Fey also! It is also flipped over itself.

So, creation museum...whatever you were going for here...it didn't quite work.

EDIT: Jen got the video of me explaining this at the creation museum. I am aware I pointed the wrong way when I mention the end of the word...It had been a long day. Spare me please. =P