Last Day of Classes!

For this quarter anyway. I just have to finish my physics paper and take my drugs and society midterm and then it's time for spring break.  Just a reminder, Daylight Savings Time this weekend. You need to set your clocks ahead one hour.

I dyed my hair yesterday.

I had to go to class in the middle of writing this post and it is really windy. I'm talking Toto-we're-not-in-Kansas-anymore windy.  To give you an example, I had to wait for the wind to die down before the automatic door would swing open. And now I am done with my classes for this quarter.

This morning my physics teacher did some demos. He swung a bowling ball on a cable extremely close to his nose without touching it to demonstrate conservation of energy. There was a Tesla coil that was really loud. But the coolest part was the bed of nails. He laid down on it and had his TA smash a concrete block that was on his chest using a hammer. That was pretty cool.  It should be on Youtube pretty soon, if it's not already there. I didn't record it, but some other people did.  I'm going to go now, it's paper-writing, Big Bang Theory-watching, finals-studying time.

The Nerdiest Conversation Ever

Today there were a lot of student presentations in my Finnish class.  One of them was on a Star Trek parody called Star Wreck, but that wasn't what led to the nerdiest conversation ever.  What led to the nerdiest conversation ever was our discussion on comment elements in stories.  We began an intense discussion of the similarities between Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.  One of the highlights of the conversation was "Gandalf isn't a temptress!" Also, we discovered that Gandalf=Hagrid.  So that's really all I have to say. I have to write a paper that's due tomorrow.

So I was reading one of Gnetch's older posts about a girl who uses the :/ emoticon at the end of every single sentence and now I have a fantastic idea for tomorrow's post. (If I remember tomorrow, I'll link that to her blog. It's a great read.) I am going to take pictures of my interpretation of different emoticons. It should be fun. You know what I really hate? When people feel the need to end every single sentence with lol. It's not punctuation! And now to go finish that paper.

Nothing but Blue Skies

The weather is so nice again today.  And I am studying again. I'm reading physics for dummies.  It's supposedly written at a sixth grade level, but I still don't understand it.  It kind of makes me feel stupid.  My brain is just not wired for science.  I chatted with C on Facebook again yesterday and told him that I am pretty sure I'm going to fail my physics midterm.  He said that he's sure I'll do fine. It was really sweet, but I'm almost definitely going to fail. He's trying out for the music major on Friday. He's been playing piano for 11 years.  We're having dinner together tonight if he gets back from his brother's house early enough.  I'm in a good mood today because the weather is so nice. I'm not really worried about failing my midterm. It's just something that's going to happen, and I'll be okay with how I do as long as I do my best.  I hope I don't fail the class. I need to write a 10 page paper. I'm writing it on the physics of parkour/freerunning, and I'll just make sure I do a really good job on that. Have a great weekend, well what's left of it anyway.

Random Stuff

I almost fell asleep multiple times during my physics class this morning.  Normally I combat this by doodling in the margins of my notes, but my margins were already full from the previous day's doodlings.  My driver is training a new driver, and the new guy almost took out a bicyclist.

I have my first physical therapy appointment today.  I hope that it is actually helpful. That would be really great.  There's nothing I would like more for my birthday than the ability to walk again.

I discovered this girl yesterday on Flickr. She is amazingly creative and talented. You should go check out her work. I would share some of her photos on here but they are just too cool to allow me to save them on my computer, so you'll just have to see for yourself.

Sayonara, blogsters.

The Frightening thing that happened to me yesterday

Yesterday the movie was canceled.  I texted H to see if he wanted to go see something else. He didn't text back but later I found out that it was because he didn't have his phone turned on.  Anyway it was probably for the best because while I was sitting on my bed and doing my homework while watching the season finale of Life Unexpected, all of a second my entire body started shaking violently. It only lasted for about 30 seconds but I was really scared. It seemed like I had a seizure. Paramedics were called and decided that it most likely wasn't a seizure but tremors, whatever that means.  I didn't go to the hospital and I felt pretty normal, but today I noticed that I've developed a twitch or tic that I didn't have yesterday. It happened a lot today. My leg will jerk and my eye will twitch at the same time.  I have a doctor's appointment on Friday, so I'll see what they have to say.  I'm sorry to report that I don't have any movie reviews for you guys, but I'm sure that you can understand why. 

I learned some interesting stuff in class today. One of the things I learned was that back in the day, tobacco was considered a wonder drug and it was common to blow smoke in the face of a newborn baby in order to help it be healthy. Pretty crazy. I think that there was something from Physics too, but I can't remember. It wasn't important enough to put in my notes, just interesting. That's another thing that's really obnoxious. I forget so many things. I used to have a really great memory. When I was a little kid, I had a photographic memory.  Now I have to write myself notes to remember things. 

I have a book recommendation for you: Dean Koontz's Frankenstein. I just started it but so far it's really great and I am confident that I will continue to enjoy it.  Just don't read it if you can't stand descriptions of gore and dismemberment; don't say I didn't warn you. Now I am off to write that three page paper that's due tomorrow.

Caught beneath a landslide with a champagne supernova in the sky

Sometimes my random surrealism generator is disappointing, but today it said this, "On the fifth day of Christmas, my tasteless love sent to me; five nice and cosy duvet covers! Four freakish trenchcoats, three brightly-glowing pigeons, two indigo denim jackets and a cave painting in a bacon roll." I was pleased.

I am not doing a word of the day today, nor will it continue to be a daily thing. If I happen to have a certain word that I really love, I'll share it. But right now, the word of the day has become a lot less interesting than it was to start with.

Yesterday post-blogpost (see what I did there?), I was feeling pretty depressed. I decided that being paralyzed sucks and I hate not being able to go out with friends. Being in a wheelchair makes me feel so insecure. I had just started feeling confident about myself before my legs stopped working and now I am not very confident at all. I can fake it okay, but I'm really insecure. Anyway, I was in a very bad mood and felt like crying or punching a wall, but since I knew that wouldn't help, I texted H. He didn't text back until this morning, but I was still in a bad mood this morning so it was good. Do you have a person who can make you smile just by receiving a text from them, no matter what it says? Well, H does that for me. He is such a sweetheart. He sent me like 14 texts that were really nice and encouraging, but I wasn't done feeling sorry for myself yet, so I was kind of rude. Well not really rude, but I did give him a bunch of reasons why this totally sucks and how I'm tired of being optimistic. Anyway, I had to go to class after that and it was my discussion section for my drugs and society class. The T.A.'s name is Jason and he is hilarious. It was the first time I had that class this quarter, so we did the normal tell us your name, year, and something about yourself thing. Well my something about myself was that my legs have been paralyzed for three months and nobody knows why. Jason was pretty surprised. He's legally blind, so he couldn't see my wheelchair. After class, when I was waiting for my ride, Jason came over and talked to me. He told me about how he was diagnosed with a brain tumor two days after graduating from college. He had surgery and now he's legally blind and epileptic, and he had to relearn how to walk. Now he's in his third year of grad school and he's my favorite TA or professor so far. He's really funny and makes discussing the readings really interesting.  He told me to let him know if I ever need any help and that I'm an inspiration to him! I didn't tell him this, but he really inspired me. It was just what I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself. When I got back from class, I texted H and let him know that I was in a good mood again and about my TA and thanked him for being there for me. I also let him know that after rereading his texts after my attitude change, I really appreciate them.  He's so great and I can't not like him as more than a friend. Sorry for the double negative, but I felt it was necessary. I wanted to ask him if he's doing anything tonight and then invite him over to watch a movie with me, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll do something stupid like hold his hand or something, and then things will be awkward. I'm pretty sure he still likes me as just a friend. He would tell me if he changed his mind, wouldn't he? I haven't had a whole lot of experience with guys, so I don't know. And I have one more question, do you think I'm pretty? Well, do you think I'm at least not unattractive? The only people who have ever told me I'm pretty were my parents, and I feel like they're supposed to say that, whether it's true or not. Sometimes I feel like I'm somewhat attractive, but I don't know if other people feel the same way. I don't wear makeup and I often wear guy's clothes. I don't know why I'm asking this. I'm pretty sure that the reason H likes me as just a friend is not because I'm not pretty. That would be shallow, and he can't possibly be shallow. He's way too nice. I don't know, what about a girl makes a guy think of her as more than just a friend? I've had mostly guy friends for my entire life and I still never learned this stuff, so if some guys would give me their thoughts on this, I'd appreciate it.

Maybe I'm not girly enough. We did meet hacky sacking and I like listening to metal. I prefer action movies over chick flicks. I know I sound ridiculous, but this blog sometimes serves as a place for me to think things through out loud and then other people read them, and I'm okay with that since I don't know any of those people in real life and sometimes they feel the same way about stuff and then it's a relief to know that I'm not the only one. Thanks for reading this ridiculous jumbled thought process mess anyway.

On a completely unrelated note, one of the guys in my drugs and society class looks exactly like one of my friends from high school.

And now this is the part that I actually planned to write and the reason for the title I chose for this post.  It will probably be boring, but I found it interesting. In my physics class, we learned about how stars die. If they're really small, when they get old they turn into lead. If they're really huge, they can form a black hole that sucks everything near it into a singularity.  If they're medium sized, they explode and it's called a supernova. Wow, this would have been a really short post if I had only written that.

Physics Class

Today's word is meander, because it's just a good word and you probably already know what it means.

Today I only had one class, Liberal Arts Physics, and the guy who was teaching, who was a substitute lecturer, had the really annoying habit of reading directly from the slides on his Powerpoint.  He also seemed really interested in the meteor shower tonight and thought that we would all go out and watch it. The only thing wrong with that is that this is Seattle. We can't even see the stars, there's so much light pollution.  And then he said that if it's not a clear enough night, we can find it on the NASA website or something. Meteor showers are relatively cool in person, but I feel like a recorded meteor shower would be fairly dull and un-awe-inspiring. I also learned that if the sun exploded or something, we wouldn't know about it on Earth until 8 minutes later. Not that we would know about it then either, since we would all be dead.


This picture is super relevant because I'm talking about physics and this is The Big Bang Theory.

Remember when everyone was freaking out about the large hadron collider back in 2008?   They thought that once the particles collided it might create a huge black hole that destroys the entire planet or thought it would cause a big bang and life would start evolving. Well have you heard a lot about it lately? Me neither. It turns out that the particles collided and life as we know it continued. As far as I can understand, the scientists are trying to prove the existence of dark matter and other quantum physics type things. The possible effects are the creation of microscopic black holes and hypothetical particles. It's all very conceptual and highly funded and who knows if anything will even come out of it. I'm not sure why I wrote about that but I did. It's like Y2K all over again. People really enjoy blowing things out of proportion. In the case of Y2K, they made something out of nothing, which is ironically what the large hadron collider is trying to do, make particles out of a vaccum. I'm not really science-oriented, but I thought that this was interesting. Quantum physics has fascinated me ever since I read Timeline by Michael Crichton and learned about dark matter.  I hope I didn't make your brain hurt and/or bore you to death. That's all for today.