| (no subject) |
[Dec. 3rd, 2009|02:25 pm] |
Because I couldn't say it better, "click" moment and all, this is reposted verbatim from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nomadicjack's journal:
I've probably written about this before, but man, when's the last time you had a click moment? Here's my latest one:
So I've been reading a collection of essays titled Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape. All of the contributions are really good, but for some reason I never made the connection about why it's "yes means yes" rather than the old "no means no" trope. Well, I was reading over in the Feministing Community blog about Ask Amy's victim-blaming and the author laid it out in such a way that it blew my mind:
Dear Amy:
In your response to the young woman who was raped at a frat party you repeated the old saying, “No means no.” This is an outdated model of consent. Women do not exist in a state of perpetual consent to sex, which they must cancel out by saying “no” in order to prevent a man from having sex with them. Consent means an enthusiastic “yes” from both parties, not just a lack a “no.” I hope you will use your column to remind people that yes, and only yes, means yes.
Aha! So remember kids: yes means yes! |
|
|
| Writer's Block: Book review |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|07:39 pm] |
Yeah, so, I don't usually answer these, but this one's important.
No book should ever be banned from anywhere. There are a lot of subjects which I consider completely lacking in any merit whatsoever, but that doesn't give me the right to tell other people not to read them. Thought should be free, even if it's stupid.
That said, there are PLENTY of books and subjects which I don't think a school library should be spending its limited budget on. Those are the ones of little merit that I mentioned above. Empty smut? Out. Books (supposedly) written by politicians or celebrities? Either wait til the politician has no semblance of power left (when the books are cheaper anyway), or put them in the fiction section. Beyond that, there are plenty of books that I'd rather not read which still have significant literary merit, and those do need to be included. There are others which don't have much direct merit (coughtwilightcough), but do in fact encourage people to read who wouldn't otherwise, and as much as I hate that that's true, it must be accounted for.
I would personally appreciate it if libraries put little "reader discretion advised, contains [graphic sex/incest/rape/torture/etc]" stickers on books - I remember one year in high school where every book I checked out from the library included some sort of detailed sex scene near the beginning, and at that age I found it an unpleasant surprise - but I know that would backfire when exposed to the general public, and you'd find people checking out anything with a sticker on it.
So yeah. There's a wide margin between banning certain books and shoving them under people's noses saying READ THIS NOW, and I think it's plenty wide enough for most libraries to fit in.
Now we just wait for someone with a twisted sense of humor to donate a big box of smut to a school library and see what happens. |
|
|
| A tale of two Nathans |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|11:56 pm] |
...a minor, inconsequential tale, but long-winded enough to make Dickens proud, so I suppose I've got that going.
So.
How many coincidences have to line up before you start feeling like there's meaning behind them?
I have no idea what this would mean, but I find it extremely amusing:
Okay, so. Background. I have this boyfriend. His name is Nathan. You may know him. For those who don't, we met (a bit over a year ago, last summer) through the online community that has served me in lieu of a life for the last six years or so.
The first meaningful interaction I remember having with him was about science. One of his computer engineering classes was introducing MOSFETs. I asked what the abbreviation meant, and when he told me "metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor," I got very excited, because I knew what the first three words meant (due to having learned about semiconductors and p-n junctions and all that good stuff the previous semester in inorganic chemistry), and for me, knowing what's going on in a computer engineering class is pretty darn cool.
I don't have my chat logs to hand, but I'm pretty sure he said he understood the second half of the abbreviation but didn't get anything about the metal oxide whatever. So...
I ended up running to my room to get my notebook from inorganic chem and gleefully explaining everything I'd learned and thinking it was so awesome that I knew this and could teach it to someone studying a subject that is to me like astrophysics is to most people: really interesting (on the shallow level that most people are exposed to it) and kinda exotic, and also completely beyond anything I could dream of learning.
Then he explained the field effect transistor part, which I hadn't known, and I went to bed in a glow of nerdly satisfaction.
The next day he made sure to mention to me "we watched a video about mosfets in class and it was pretty much exactly like you said." I felt smug all week.
And then this summer we became a couple, but that's an even longer story.
More background. Now I'm taking a class in optics for my physics major. There's a lecture and a lab. There is a student in my lab section who is named Nathan. He also happens to sit behind me in lectures (which makes me feel extremely awkward when I'm chatting with my Nathan on Skype during the lecture and I think he might glance over my shoulder and see me talking to someone with his name and I don't even know). The class got divided into groups to do research projects/presentations a few weeks ago, and classmate-Nathan and I (and somebody neither of us knew who sits on the other side of the room) ended up in the same group. Our project is about CCDs.
One of the requirements for content in our presentation is how our chosen piece of technology works. Classmate-Nathan volunteered to put that section together, and it was with a significant degree of amusement that I read the first draft of his slides. The concept of a CCD relies heavily upon the unique properties of semiconductors and p-n junctions, so I was essentially having semiconductors explained to me by someone named Nathan. Lol, coincidence, ok.
Then today, I was going through another version of our presentation, and reading through the references at the end, and I noticed a citation for Miessler and Tarr's Inorganic Chemistry. Which is the book I used in the class which taught me about semiconductors. There was no other information on any of the slides that could possibly have come from the book. This coincidence further amused me, but it was starting to get a bit weird. I resolved to ask my classmate what occasion he had to get this information from a chemistry text.
Lab tonight started - guess who my partner was - and all thoughts of semiconductors temporarily fled my mind as we tried to figure out the confusing, conflicting instructions from our lab handout and our professor's "helpful" hints. Later on, though, we got to chatting about majors and things, and I explained how I'd gotten my chemistry degree already and was just staying the extra year for physics, at this point, for the fun of it. "You were a chemistry major at MSU?" he asked. I answered yes. "My fiancée is a senior in chemistry here right now."
Major lulz going on in my head at this point. Not to mention a big smile on my face at the idea of an astrophysicist and chemist couple.
I did regain composure soon enough to say "Oh, that's why Miessler and Tarr showed up on our references page!" and he confirmed that yes, it was her textbook.
At this point our prof interrupted with more (un)helpful advice and so I did not get a chance to explain that, like this girl I never met, I too explained semiconductors to my boyfriend Nathan based on my knowledge from MSU's CEM 411 class.
Seriously now.
Does this mean I am being commanded by supernatural forces to become friends with him? or with her? Is she my doppelganger? I'm a bit confused by it all.
Put me in a good mood all evening though, due to sheer wtf sort of amusement. (Well, that and getting to talk to a friendly sciencey classmate. That's always good too.) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 14th, 2009|01:42 pm] |
Hm. It's been a while since I've been brought to tears by my failure in a class. And I don't think it's ever been to this degree before.
What an interesting experience. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Oct. 9th, 2009|08:26 pm] |
Much appreciation expressed to those sharing love and encoragement on my last post. My brain's in better shape now, and I'm focusing more on exciting things (like going to Maine after Christmas, and going to Toronto in less than three weeeeeeks). Also helping is the fact that I decided I'm not allowed on the internet on weeknights unless it's specifically homework related stuff.
Mostly, I just wanted to post this for the benefit of the knitters I know are on my friends list:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/2009/10/wanna-bet/ |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Sep. 11th, 2009|12:53 am] |
There is a whole ton of stuff that I could write about... but I have homework due tomorrow and more homework due Monday and a room to clean and other stuff to do, as usual. So instead, I'll just repost this link from one of my Facebook friends:
Gordon Brown Apologizes to Alan Turing |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Aug. 21st, 2009|02:22 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  mixed | ] |
A wonderful thing about music and poetry is how they tend to be very open to interpretation. A song becomes more and more dear to my heart, the longer it accompanies me through life, and the more meanings it gains as my experience broadens.
For me right now, this song is Autumn Leaves. A very few of the people who may still read this journal will remember it as the final piece of our senior year marching band show. In that context, it symbolizes the end of good times with good friends, and the bittersweet idea of growing up.
Now, I see new meaning in
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.
My four-year anniversary with AJ is... would have been... 66 days from now. We met and fell in love under the changing leaves on this sylvan college campus. This year, as of today, while we will still be able to walk side by side down the street under a clear blue sky with a tinge of smoke scent on the chilly air, we won't be together for it. Just together.
It's hard to describe exactly how I feel because it's all very fresh and new. I'm secure in the idea, though, that I will always remember these years with a smile, maybe a few tears. We'll both move on, but I'll always miss him a little. And moreso with the autumn leaves. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|03:57 pm] |
They say that dopamine is one of the chemicals that your brain uses to make you feel "good" when you do something that it likes. Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, get dopamine, feel good. It encourages you to do things that are good for you by giving you a reward.
When I've been having a long, serious talk with someone I care about, the kind that addresses uncomfortable truths, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world to see them smiling again afterwards. I wonder if this is the same mechanism, or a similar one developed for higher brain functions. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|02:47 am] |
Perspectives are fascinating, confounding things. It amazes me that people can go through life with so many different views of the world, and different ways of approaching and applying those views, and still have similar degrees of happiness and fulfillment and dissatisfaction.
Even more amazing is that so many of these people believe that their particular view of the world is Right, and a good portion of those also believe that everyone else must be Wrong. But even the ones who don't presume like that still pick something to believe and, in general, stick with it.
By the time someone grows up and is around university age, at least one of these viewpoints has solidified in their head and become known to the host as The Way Things Are. Sometimes, several have taken up residence in succession, only to be challenged, cast down, and replaced by a successor. This is an interesting process to watch, but not a particularly fun position to be in.
Sometimes it gets more difficult. Sometimes, one interpretation of the world is invalidated in someone's head, but not immediately replaced. A person is left aimless, lost, knowing that one thing is wrong but not knowing what is right. So many possibilities are available, and all seem valid, but none seem quite right. How is one to choose?
How about it, internet? How do you know that your view of the world is true enough for you to keep believing it? Whence comes this truth for you? I'm in search of a good source. |
|
|
| Ronni's book meme |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|11:45 am] |
Don’t take too long to think about it.
Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you.
First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.
Copy the instructions into your own post.
These aren't the *first* 15, but they're the ones I thought best fit the other criteria. In order of them appearing in my head.
1. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
2. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
3. His Dark Materials (not going to attempt to separate the books, they're important to me as the trilogy) by Philip Pullman.
4. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett.
5. The Lord of the Rings (again, the whole darn thing) by J.R.R. Tolkien. (Yeah, not in the first spot, weird I know.)
6. Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan. I will forever use these books as an example of why just anyone shouldn't have their YA fantasy series published.
7. Jingo by Terry Pratchett.
8. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
10. The Seedling Stars by James Blish.
11. Fire and Ice: the US, Canada, and the myth of converging values, by Michael Adams. Yes, it's nonfiction.
12. Sabriel by Garth Nix. The other two too, but not as much.
13. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
14. The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
15. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
-
As many of you know, last week I had a very awesome weekend full of stories and adventures. The problem with posting them is that I want to record it in much finer detail than anybody should have to read, so writing up a post for here is secondary to a private journal entry somewhere. So, I might tell you all about it, or it might go the way of my second Notacon post and never appear on the real internets. |
|
|
| And more |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|12:49 am] |
Sometimes you get people who don't beg to be messed with. This is the best conversation about human nature I've had in many years:
( City folks' values )
I'm still not sure if it's sad or poetic that these are just chance connections and I'll probably never interact with this person again.
As a corollary to that, just now in IRC:
Imperiopolis> I feel bad for this guy.
Imperiopolis> He's been searching for three days
Imperiopolis> for someone he got disconnected with
ally-> aww
Imperiopolis> I tried to explain to him that the odds were he'd never find them again
Imperiopolis> but he insists on keeping at it
ally-> :(
ally-> poor guy
Imperiopolis> he said they talked for 5 hours
Anoria> awww
Imperiopolis> then the thing asploded
ally-> and they didn't exchange info before that? damn
Imperiopolis> Yeah :(
Imperiopolis> He wouldn't stay to chat.
Imperiopolis> Had to keep hunting.
This has got romance story written all over it. |
|
|
| Omegle wagon |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|09:51 pm] |
I was bored and a bit lonely this weekend so I decided to finally try Omegle. My first non-asl conversation was a lot of fun even though I really don't have much in common with Brazilian uni students studying management.
I got sick of just disconnecting from people looking for cybersex though, and decided to try to mess with some people. Here's a log of the best one so far.
( Wherever men or women are from, it ain't Neptune ) |
|
|
| A good cause |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|09:18 pm] |
I'm reposting this straight from my friend E's Facebook notes. A little bit of the audience will overlap but I'd like to let as many people as possible know:
A Call for Gently-Used Formal Wear
Here's a project in which women around my age are uniquely able to participate:
Women at Risk, International, a Christian organization that fights to end the exploitation of women around the world, is starting a "Garments of Praise" rental shop in the Dominican Republic. There, needy women will be trained with marketable skills, including tailoring, and then employed to help customers find and be fitted in formal dresses for special events.
They are asking for donations of gently used prom and bridesmaid dresses to stock the shop (please, only dresses from the last ten years). This will greatly lower their start-up costs. Many of us have dresses that no longer fit but have been worn only once or twice - these dresses are great candidates! Imagine your beloved dress helping to lift another woman out of poverty.
For those of you already in the Grand Rapids area, the drop-off site is:
4345 Sawkaw Dr. N.E.
Grand Rapids, MI 49525
The post continues with her plans to collect dresses from her/my locale and do a mass drop-off in Grand Rapids. If anyone local is interested in contributing, let me know in a comment or email (and I'll try to coordinate things. If you're not local, the end of the note mentions that she thinks the donation is tax-deductible (which means the cost of shipping your dress(es) would be also), if you'd like to participate from a distance.
Part of the reason I'm reposting this far and wide is because I don't have any qualifying dresses to contribute. Most of the reason is it seems like a very good cause and not the usual kind of donation request.
(Thanks for reading <3) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[May. 26th, 2009|09:00 pm] |
The other section of my Notacon post stayed in the edit window for many days before I accidentally closed it for some reason or another. I didn't finish it, surprise. It's saved on my desktop which is where lj posts and to-do lists go to await final judgement and the potential of an afterlife. That was a month and a half ago.
Stuff I actually want to write about now:
- Weekend was wonderful. Visited maternal grandparents on Saturday (listened to rare stories of Grandma's childhood and rather worrying stories of step-grandpa's time in the army reserve), planted parents' vegetable garden Sunday (which involved using the rototiller for the first time and learning that my dad is glad I've got his family's gardening gene), went to the city parade Monday (which was long and ill-planned but still good, both for the actual military presence and for the marching band nostalgia), and spent some quality time at Brother Eldest's desk learning about mosfets, LEDs, potentiometers, and other such neat stuff.
- Bus ride home was a comedy of errors. It all worked out fine, but there were three individual mishaps (I assumed AJ would be able to drive me to the station and he couldn't, I discovered five minutes after Jake dropped me off at the station that I'd forgotten to pack my ticket, and five minutes after Jake came back with my ticket the scheduled bus that arrived was already full and we had to wait for the backup) and then the long... [vulgar term implying group sex but which actually refers to a tangle of mishaps which is painfully amusing in its magnitude] that was the actual bus ride with a driver who had never driven on the highway between Lansing and Detroit.
- I keep thinking of stuff I need to do and then forgetting about it when I have time to do it. It's getting rather annoying.
I know there was more, but if I try to think of anything else to write I'll think of a million things to write and then not want to post until I've addressed them all, i.e. I'd never get this posted and I need to.
Happy Day After Towel And Lilac Day.
I keep having dreams about characters from Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. I think I'm in love with at least five of them. I must get my own copy of that book. |
|
|
| Notacon impressions |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|12:26 pm] |
Sitting at Notacon. The first set of talks doesn't include anything I'm dreadfully interested in, so I'm sitting on bench next to the registration desk people-watching. Planning on keeping this going as kind of a whatever-I-think-to-type entry mostly for my own record, but which will be posted publicly because some of you may be looking for ways to procrastinate studying or other responsibility and I'd like to help you out there.
( Things. ) |
|
|
| Happy Easter |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|12:24 pm] |
Whether you believe in the resurrection of a human god, or the renewal of life as spring returns to the northern hemisphere, I hope you have a wonderful day full of hope (and chocolate, if that's your thing).
(I'm alive. I'll start posting more when I have less homework. Love to all.) |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Mar. 8th, 2009|11:31 pm] |
So I just got back from seeing Watchmen with an old friend. I think they adapted the comic quite well. Most everything that they took out, I could understand why and appreciate how they worked with what they had. Even when they mutilated the ending, they did quite a good job at stitching the pieces back together.
Little stuff I liked:
- The newsstand and the kid who showed up in the background of a few scenes. I understand why they took the sub-comic storyline out, but I'm very glad they left the characters in.
- Jon's voice. You'd think Dr Manhattan with the power to manipulate quarks would have this ominous booming voice, but instead it was quiet and gentle and so at odds with his power and significant of his conflicted human/god nature.
- To compliment that, Veidt's voice was deep and booming, at odds with his slight figure and metrosexual appearance.
- The flamethrower at the end of the successful sex scene. To a slightly lesser extent, the whole thing. That's the first sex scene I've watched in any movie where I didn't just feel awkward and want it to end. I more wanted to cheer.
- The faces on Mars.
- The final "ink" blot.
Little stuff that I didn't like:
- There was no mention of the Gordian Knot lock company. That was such a good clue in the comic.
- They moved dialog around a little bit so that Dan's "I think we should spring Rorschach" wasn't as awkwardly timed. I really liked the awkward timing, it's one of the reasons I <3 Dan so much.
- They also completely downplayed the Laurie-staying-with-Dan bit of the story. "Hell and damnation" was another one of my favorite lines. I have a feeling you're starting to see who my favorite character is.
- There was probably more, but I wasn't keeping notes.
In general I enjoyed it a lot and it was a good evening overall and I hope Arthur makes it back to Ypsilanti alive despite issues with headache, caffeine requirements, rain, darkness, and a hyper dog.
I should go to bed now. I'll write up why I'm leaving for Florida in 12 hours after the fact so I don't jinx things. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Mar. 8th, 2009|01:34 pm] |
"Those who point and whisper and gossip and pick? They can take a flying leap. The people you want around are the ones who don't notice, or the ones who notice and don't say boo. It's good to be human, after all. Your imperfections make you real, and make me just a tad more comfortable with mine. Ain't that the truth."
- The View from Mrs. Sundberg's Window
I enjoy Mrs Sundberg's wisdom, even if I can't quite tell whether she's fictional. |
|
|
| (no subject) |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|11:25 pm] |
Okay so I just checked livejournal for like the third time today and suddenly my default userpic was of some random person playing hockey. The keyword and description of the picture were the same and my other two userpics hadn't changed.
I deleted that picture and decided it's time for a change anyway (big change, different ship from the same game, but yeah...) and changed my lj password. Anybody else having problems with this? |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
completely overwhelmed
curious
happy