I hate that when I read the email today, I was mostly just relieved. :(

I don't want to be that family.

Thank science for ibuprofen!

Five years ago, if you had asked me what I aspired to, and I'd had a chance to think before answering, I would have said that I wanted to win a Nobel Prize in Physics someday.

Today, I'd much rather win a Nobel Peace Prize, if I'm gonna be recognized for something.

As I move forward in my life and evaluate my desires and priorities, physics is becoming more of something I see as "the bill-payer." I no longer continue with physics because it amazes me. It does, but of late I can't bring myself to find those amazing things to be so...meaningful.

When faced with the knowledge that our world is on the cusp of destruction, physics seems trivial. If I sound melodramatic... Deal. You make think I'm being reactionary, overthinking, whatever, but I would respond by saying that you're not reacting, not thinking enough.

I feel helpless and lost more days than not. There is so much bad and so many people who say, "Well that's just the way it is and that's how it's always been and that's how it'll always be and nothing you do can change that." It makes me want to cry. It does make me cry, on occasion.

I suppose I will continue to pursue physics. I've already put so much effort into, and I do love it - it is amazing. Check out my Fermilab pics on Facebook.

But physics has lost its position as my passion. I can't devote that mental energy to anything less than saving the world. It needs it.

I am monstrously disturbed by the size of the cockroach I just saw. Exoskeletal creatures should NOT be allowed to get that big. UGH!!! I've got creepy-crawlies all over my skin now. UGH UGH UGH. Thank imaginary patriarchal being in the sky that we're sleeping in the Jeep.

Also. I hate boys/men. They're so fucking proud of not needing toilet paper. Then when there's a visitor, she doesn't get to pee, because there's no paper in the stall. Not even an empty roll! Just two lonely metal bars sticking out from the wall. What do they do if they need to shit?

Of course, if women were permitted in the infantry (and assuming any of them passed the appropriate physical prereqs, of course), this wouldn't be such a problem. They'd make damned sure to keep the bathrooms stocked. Be on the lookout for a future RPW post with my opinions about women in the military, with plenty of tasty tangents about how much it sucks that there are militaries at all!

Also, I find it highly entertaining that on the list of things to check while on duty, one of the items is that the "latrine" be clean/supplied/not-a-shithole... They definitely don't fulfill that requirement. I've only ever felt the need to do the hover-over-the-seat move in port-a-johns...until now. And then I didn't even get to pee because there wasn't toilet paper! RAWR.

Okay. I think I'm good. Thank you, LJ, for being here to accept my complaints and rants about my personal life. ^_^

Some things make me happy.

Some things make me sad.

Usually the happy things can't outweigh the sad.

The song "Far Away," by Nickelback has, for some time now, been guaranteed to make me, at the very least, a writhing mass of emotions, if not a complete sobbing wreck, any time, any place.

I just watched the music video for the first time.



This song will now also fill me with the stomach-wrenching nausea that I get whenever I realize how fucking desperately I will not be able to handle it if anything happens to Dru while he is deployed.

This is why I am a pacifist.

Okay, so back in March my college put on a production of The Vagina Monologues. We just got the DVD copies of the performance today, and I'm pretty psyched, because I had a ton of fun doing this. Here's my performance.

I don't want to go to bed. But I don't really want to do anything, either. Mostly I just want to see/talk to Dru.

I'm glad I've retained this LJ so I have a place to vent my more personal issues. I'm trying to make RPW a bit more refined.

Sigh. I am lacking motivation in a big way. You know that state of boredom where you're so bored that even when someone suggests something to do that sounds like it might actually be fun, you still don't want to do it? That's where I am, but with motivation. The answer to a motivation problem is just to fucking do whatever it is you don't want to do, but I've gone so far past that point that I can't even bring myself to give a flying nun about forcing myself to do homework or RA stuff or anything. It's to the point that the only thing keeping my grades up is the pleasure I get from seeing Dru happy about my grades. Sad, eh?

What I want is a long period of time in which I have absolutely zero responsibilities during which I can be with Dru. I want that period of time to last long enough to make me sick of not doing anything, so that when I do return to productivity, I'll appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah, "That's what we call 'childhood,' hurhur." You know it's not the same thing. Summer vacation doesn't count, either. The month of May, during which I have no school and get to spend a halfway decent amount of time with Dru, I still have to spend giving myself a crash course in C programming. After that, I'll be doing my REU - data analysis for Fermi. Then Dru deploys. Then school again - rougher and tougher than before. Then a summer spent preparing for/starting grad school. At least Dru will return at some point that fall. A short respite that winter, perhaps, but then back to school.

It's never gonna fucking end, and the fact that this is already filling me with a sense of dread and lethargy does not bode well. I'm fucking 21 years old and apparently hitting my mid-life crisis. WTF.

Grr. Need cuddles. Need Dru.

Also, the way the formatting on these posts is set up annoys me. It puts the tags DIRECTLY beneath my text, making them almost indistinguishable. I'm going to have to try putting a series of letters or something after every post, to push the tags away.

m
u
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But I'm going to cross-post myself. Again.

La poésie

I'm vain, what can I say?

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On a continuing personal note, but less MEMEME:

I'm trying to confront/address my white privilege. I have been actively seeking out such blogs as the kickasstastic Angry Black Woman. I have yet to feel quite as uncomfortable as many people profess to feel when undertaking a task like this. I highly doubt I'm some super-enlightened person who's just perfectly at ease with everything. So, I'm wondering. Is it because I have not yet delved deep enough? Do I need to wait a bit longer before I start to feel like I'm really having to make changes? Or is it enough to start noticing (without any defensiveness, I might add, which is the part that's weirding me out) such things as the fact that when my high school texts depicted life in the '50s for the "average American," such depictions were, you guessed it, of white people?

Is it weird that I'm basically asking why I don't feel like more of a bigot?

Whee!

This is an ancient post, and not mine!

But you pretty much absolutely must read it. If you want to, you know, go straight to *headdesk* mode, of course.

On the true value of a woman, by Amanda Marcotte.

Bonjour, mes ami(e)s!

I have decided, after a couple of events, that I will start trying to visit LJ a bit more. I want to keep up with some people with whom I have lost contact, and I just realized that one of my favorite authors has an LJ that she actually updates!

I will be using LJ to track friends, mostly. I won't be posting anything original here, but instead just cross-posting from my Blogger account. But doing that will remind me to actually check LJ on a semi-regular basis.

So, here's a recent blogger post:

But What Good Is It?

Inspired by a conversation I had with my dad. Go figure.

What are you afraid of?

That's what the Writer's Block prompt just asked me. I'm afraid of never changing anything. This world sucks. I will read the news or something and think, "This sucks, I want to leave the country." And then I will realize that there really isn't anywhere better to go. And then I want to leave the planet and I can't. So I really want to be able, eventually, to make the world less shitty. And I'm afraid I can't. So yeah.

Harry Potter!

I just finished Book 7. Holy buggers? My ship! It's stuck in AU. :(

Wow. I'd nearly forgotten about LJ. ^_^

It's Thanksgiving break now. I'm home until Friday/Saturday (not sure which just yet). I get to see Chrissy on Wednesday!

So last night I was informed that there are already production stills from the movie of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The boys both got haircuts!! It's strange.

Final Fantasy XII is fun. I'm still getting used to the KotoR-style battle system.

Anyway, things are pretty much the same as ever. Hope everyone else is doing well!

The colors of the leaves are changing really fast up here. I'm sort of sad that summer is gone already. It's raining right now. It's one of those softish rains that make you want to go outside and play in it. But I just showered, so I'm not gonna do that. ^_^

The whole RA thing is going relatively well. I don't know if I'm cut out for it, but that might just be 2nd week blues. I'll probably be all about it again in a couple of weeks.

I've been playing Katamari Damacy #2 a ton the past few days. Basically if I'm not playing WoW (and I'm lvl 52 now. I can wear my first piece of Tier Zero gear, w00t!), then I'm playing We <3 Katamari.

So yay for that.

Love and kisses!

What's success?

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

"You're such an excellent fisherman," said the American. "Why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA, and could help you. If you spent more time fishing, you could buy a bigger boat. Then you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then L.A., and eventually New York City, where you would run your expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then, senor?"

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time was right, you would announce a public offering, sell your company stock to the public, and become very rich. You would make millions."

"Millions, senor? Then what?"

The American said, "Then you could retire. You know, move to a small coastal fishing village -- where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."


I found this here.

My Stumble button lets me find the niftiest things...