Monday, October 31, 2005
Ponderance of the moment
Why does sentiment have a positive (or at least neutral) connotation whereas sentimentality has a negative connotation?
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Mambo-jumble...
Excuses don’t get you very far. Neither do aphorisms. So…without any further introduction…
Update on Running
My cross country career has come to an end. I could have a debate (or even a bedate) with myself for hours over a cup of tea about whether the dividing lines we draw through our lives are artificial or inherent, essential or meaningless, helpful or misleading, but instead I’m just going to state it as a given that a chapter in my life has finished. I will never compete in an intercollegiate cross country race again. Now that I’ve stated it so melodramatically, I’m going to take a sledgehammer to my foundations and claim that the fact that this chapter is closed won’t make an iota of difference. I am still a runner, and hope only to embrace that title more fully in my post-collegiate years of competition.
Next up: a rematch between Jordan and the Boston Marathon. The first round went to Boston (due to the unexpected treachery of latecomer streptococcus bacterium), but if I were you I’d put my money on Jordan for round two. After that: trail marathons, ultra-marathons, adventure races, anything and everything.
I feel like I should make a few statements about how significant running on the MIT cross country team has been in the past four years of my life (because I’m worried my ambitious plans to move on may have overshadowed this). Echoing the words of Liz Walker: “Choosing to run at MIT was far and away the best decision I have made upon coming here, and you guys are some of the best friends I have ever had. Thank you.” There’s no way I would have survived here without athletics. Not a chance.
But onto the other things that are keeping me afloat…
Update on Reading
I’m slowly working on my “library problem.” The number of items I have checked out from MIT libraries has, thanks to my diligent efforts, dropped from 21 to 18. It’s a step (albeit a small one) in the sane direction.
I don’t have time to write about all my reflections here (yeah, I remember what I wrote about excuses), but I’ll try to at least list what I’m reading.
For class: “Merchant of Venice” and the “Jew of Malta” and a lot of related and peripheral sources including Marx and Bacon and Nietzsche (who was way more frightening this time around), discussions of anti-semitism and mercantilism, and, or course, usury. I’m not an economist or a sociologist, but I think it’s very interesting how economy, morality, and the relationship between politics and religion form a complex chicken and egg dynamic. I’m going to default to Jones on this issue, just to give you a quote to chew on:
“Theology, law and economic reality chased one another around usury creating a compound that greased England’s entry into the capitalist world of borrowing and lending within socially acceptable limits.” (Jones 203)
I never thought I would find such things fascinating…but I do. Maybe I should add whatever field that quote most closely addresses to my long list of career possibilities.
Up next for that class is “Richard the Second”, which I haven’t read yet. And I need to read “Macbeth” for my own enrichment.
With all this Shakespeare in my life already you’d think I’d be saturated, but I also started reading Greenblatt’s new biography Will in the World. It’s a lot of “educated guessing” put into a story-like narrative. I’ll let you know more once I get further than 60 pages into it.
Ahem, and there’s more. Like I said, there’s a lot…
Until a few weeks ago, the only Kurt Vonnegut novel I’d ever read was Cat’s Cradle. While I enjoyed it well enough, I wasn’t left with a desire to run out and read more Vonnegut. That was about six years ago. For some reason (no speculation as to its origins, please), I decided it was time for me to re-approach Vonnegut. I read Slaughterhouse Five a few weeks ago and loved it. Unlike my first experience with Vonnegut, I left the book somewhat insatiated and needing more. So now I’m working my way through Hocus Pocus and have also checked out Player Piano and Sirens of Titan. (My selections are based solely on availability and circumstance…and whatever fell into my lap.)
Per my brother’s request, I started reading Sebald, “anything Sebald”, to be more specific. An 80% random pluck from the library landed me with The Rings of Saturn, which I wasn’t very into until I reached this passage:
In August 1861, after months of irresolution, Emperor Hsien-feng lay in his Jehol exile approaching the end of his short and dissipated life. The waters had already risen from his abdomen to his heart, and the cells of his gradually dissolving flesh floated like fish in the sea in the salt fluid that leaked from his bloodstream into every available space in the body tissue. Through his flickering consciousness, Hsien-fend followed the invasion by foreign powers of the provinces of his empire by perfect proxy, as his own limbs died off and his organs flooded with toxins. He himself was now the battlefield on which the downfall of China was being accomplished, till on the 22nd of the month the shades of night settled upon him and he sand away wholly into the delirium of death. (Sebald 146)
I have a lot to say on Sebald, but again, that’s for another time.
The face that it took so much space just to describe what I’m reading without even commenting on it should be indicative of…something. And that’s just the humanities stuff. There’s also all the reading I’ve been doing on tidal power for my pseudo-thesis, and all the environmental earth science stuff…and oh I’m getting excited again.
It’s kind of ironic that my section on literature deteriorated into my most prosaic writing of late.
Update on Randomness
Ever since I read about Cranberry World almost a year ago I’ve been dying to visit. Today I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (it snowed yesterday; today it got into the 60s), the good company (Jane is visiting for a med-school interview), and the generous wheels of a friend (Chandler was nice enough to lend me her car…again…) to go to Plymouth, MA and make my longtime dream a reality. The planets weren’t aligned in my favor, however, because apparently Cranberry World closed four years ago. Even though my aspirations educational videos, daintily painted models, flooded bogs, and tart-tasting samples turned out to be a bust, I did get to see Plymouth Rock for the second time, walk along the ocean at dusk, and eat some darn good fish and chips.
A note on Halloween: I dressed as Toucan Sam and Sarah dressed as Tony the Tiger. It great. I mean GGGRRRREAT! (Sorry, couldn’t help it.) A picture can describe it better than I can:
I had so much fun.
At my cross country meet on Saturday there was a man dressed as a whoopee cushion. That’s right, I was in the presence of a life-sized whoopee cushion. No, I didn’t go up and squeeze him and make a fart noise. Yes, I wanted to.
Today I watched Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” Why aren’t movies made today that funny?
I really wish I had some insight in this post but…not today, my friends, I’m just cataloging.
A note on eclectic-ness: So what?
Update on Running
My cross country career has come to an end. I could have a debate (or even a bedate) with myself for hours over a cup of tea about whether the dividing lines we draw through our lives are artificial or inherent, essential or meaningless, helpful or misleading, but instead I’m just going to state it as a given that a chapter in my life has finished. I will never compete in an intercollegiate cross country race again. Now that I’ve stated it so melodramatically, I’m going to take a sledgehammer to my foundations and claim that the fact that this chapter is closed won’t make an iota of difference. I am still a runner, and hope only to embrace that title more fully in my post-collegiate years of competition.
Next up: a rematch between Jordan and the Boston Marathon. The first round went to Boston (due to the unexpected treachery of latecomer streptococcus bacterium), but if I were you I’d put my money on Jordan for round two. After that: trail marathons, ultra-marathons, adventure races, anything and everything.
I feel like I should make a few statements about how significant running on the MIT cross country team has been in the past four years of my life (because I’m worried my ambitious plans to move on may have overshadowed this). Echoing the words of Liz Walker: “Choosing to run at MIT was far and away the best decision I have made upon coming here, and you guys are some of the best friends I have ever had. Thank you.” There’s no way I would have survived here without athletics. Not a chance.
But onto the other things that are keeping me afloat…
Update on Reading
I’m slowly working on my “library problem.” The number of items I have checked out from MIT libraries has, thanks to my diligent efforts, dropped from 21 to 18. It’s a step (albeit a small one) in the sane direction.
I don’t have time to write about all my reflections here (yeah, I remember what I wrote about excuses), but I’ll try to at least list what I’m reading.
For class: “Merchant of Venice” and the “Jew of Malta” and a lot of related and peripheral sources including Marx and Bacon and Nietzsche (who was way more frightening this time around), discussions of anti-semitism and mercantilism, and, or course, usury. I’m not an economist or a sociologist, but I think it’s very interesting how economy, morality, and the relationship between politics and religion form a complex chicken and egg dynamic. I’m going to default to Jones on this issue, just to give you a quote to chew on:
“Theology, law and economic reality chased one another around usury creating a compound that greased England’s entry into the capitalist world of borrowing and lending within socially acceptable limits.” (Jones 203)
I never thought I would find such things fascinating…but I do. Maybe I should add whatever field that quote most closely addresses to my long list of career possibilities.
Up next for that class is “Richard the Second”, which I haven’t read yet. And I need to read “Macbeth” for my own enrichment.
With all this Shakespeare in my life already you’d think I’d be saturated, but I also started reading Greenblatt’s new biography Will in the World. It’s a lot of “educated guessing” put into a story-like narrative. I’ll let you know more once I get further than 60 pages into it.
Ahem, and there’s more. Like I said, there’s a lot…
Until a few weeks ago, the only Kurt Vonnegut novel I’d ever read was Cat’s Cradle. While I enjoyed it well enough, I wasn’t left with a desire to run out and read more Vonnegut. That was about six years ago. For some reason (no speculation as to its origins, please), I decided it was time for me to re-approach Vonnegut. I read Slaughterhouse Five a few weeks ago and loved it. Unlike my first experience with Vonnegut, I left the book somewhat insatiated and needing more. So now I’m working my way through Hocus Pocus and have also checked out Player Piano and Sirens of Titan. (My selections are based solely on availability and circumstance…and whatever fell into my lap.)
Per my brother’s request, I started reading Sebald, “anything Sebald”, to be more specific. An 80% random pluck from the library landed me with The Rings of Saturn, which I wasn’t very into until I reached this passage:
In August 1861, after months of irresolution, Emperor Hsien-feng lay in his Jehol exile approaching the end of his short and dissipated life. The waters had already risen from his abdomen to his heart, and the cells of his gradually dissolving flesh floated like fish in the sea in the salt fluid that leaked from his bloodstream into every available space in the body tissue. Through his flickering consciousness, Hsien-fend followed the invasion by foreign powers of the provinces of his empire by perfect proxy, as his own limbs died off and his organs flooded with toxins. He himself was now the battlefield on which the downfall of China was being accomplished, till on the 22nd of the month the shades of night settled upon him and he sand away wholly into the delirium of death. (Sebald 146)
I have a lot to say on Sebald, but again, that’s for another time.
The face that it took so much space just to describe what I’m reading without even commenting on it should be indicative of…something. And that’s just the humanities stuff. There’s also all the reading I’ve been doing on tidal power for my pseudo-thesis, and all the environmental earth science stuff…and oh I’m getting excited again.
It’s kind of ironic that my section on literature deteriorated into my most prosaic writing of late.
Update on Randomness
Ever since I read about Cranberry World almost a year ago I’ve been dying to visit. Today I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (it snowed yesterday; today it got into the 60s), the good company (Jane is visiting for a med-school interview), and the generous wheels of a friend (Chandler was nice enough to lend me her car…again…) to go to Plymouth, MA and make my longtime dream a reality. The planets weren’t aligned in my favor, however, because apparently Cranberry World closed four years ago. Even though my aspirations educational videos, daintily painted models, flooded bogs, and tart-tasting samples turned out to be a bust, I did get to see Plymouth Rock for the second time, walk along the ocean at dusk, and eat some darn good fish and chips.
A note on Halloween: I dressed as Toucan Sam and Sarah dressed as Tony the Tiger. It great. I mean GGGRRRREAT! (Sorry, couldn’t help it.) A picture can describe it better than I can:
I had so much fun.
At my cross country meet on Saturday there was a man dressed as a whoopee cushion. That’s right, I was in the presence of a life-sized whoopee cushion. No, I didn’t go up and squeeze him and make a fart noise. Yes, I wanted to.
Today I watched Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” Why aren’t movies made today that funny?
I really wish I had some insight in this post but…not today, my friends, I’m just cataloging.
A note on eclectic-ness: So what?
Monday, October 24, 2005
Fun with AIM
A modified version of my current away message:
I've been toying for eons with the idea of changing my screen name. I think that the time has finally come. Help me decide what my new screen name should be:
awakedinosaur
radbadlibrarian
fungible goods
gurgitator jordan
gurgitator gordon
[your own choice]
[don't change it, you imbecile!]
Post a comment to vote!
As my brother says: "DEMOCRACY IS NOT NERDY"
Also, my brother and I give each other's blogs rave reviews:
EWirfs (4:16:49 PM): its not generic cause it's about you!!
jfloat31 (4:18:50 PM): i'd read it even if i wasn't your sister!
I've been toying for eons with the idea of changing my screen name. I think that the time has finally come. Help me decide what my new screen name should be:
awakedinosaur
radbadlibrarian
fungible goods
gurgitator jordan
gurgitator gordon
[your own choice]
[don't change it, you imbecile!]
Post a comment to vote!
As my brother says: "DEMOCRACY IS NOT NERDY"
Also, my brother and I give each other's blogs rave reviews:
EWirfs (4:16:49 PM): its not generic cause it's about you!!
jfloat31 (4:18:50 PM): i'd read it even if i wasn't your sister!
Thoughts over a cup of carrot-dill soup and a hot apple cider (with a stick of cinnamon)
This entry is dedicated to my brother, who claims that I’m better at blogging than he is. Maybe this will prove him wrong?
As I hinted at a few days ago, lately I’ve been struck by an overwhelming urge to get away from MIT. Unfortunately, this is coupled with an even more overwhelming inability to convert that urge into action. (Circumstance, circumstance, circumstance…again, it’s mostly self-imposed, but I probably take self-imposed restrictions more seriously than those that are externally imposed.) So, in an effort to maintain my sanity, I’ve been doing my best to steal away from MIT in snippets, bits, and pieces. I’ve been taking refuge in places on campus where I don’t normally tread in an effort to rediscover my three-year home, and I’ve also been sneaking away off campus as much as I can. For example, right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Central Square (1369 Coffee House, for the locals).
There’s so much thinking going on here it hurts. Everyone with a computer has a Mac. It’s…a complete embodiment of every college-saturated self-portrayed-as-intellectual community stereotype. Bisecting the road from MIT to Harvard, this place seems worlds away from MIT. People at MIT just don’t do this—this being sitting in a coffee house reading, writing, relaxing, observing, anything. MIT coffee shops are meeting points and waysides, places to hash out important details, places to get a cup of coffee that is a necessity rather than a luxury, places to breeze through but not to linger.
Hanging on the wall above me is a painting (at least, I think that’s the right word) where the artist has meticulously and deliberately glued dozens of bright orange earplugs onto a bright yellow canvas. They form a footprint around a black painted shoe—or rather, an archetype of a shoe. Some of the silo-shaped insulating sentinels are standing at attention, others are teetering indecisively at an angle, and others have resigned themselves to a prone position. It’s the middle group I associate best with right now, oddly. (This is a very ironic analogy seeing as I’ve been in desperate need of a pair of earplugs in order to fall asleep lately.) At this point I feel like all MIT has given me is an acute sense of my own masochistic tendencies and a bad taste in my mouth whenever I think of engineers. It’s taken from me my writing skills, my reasoning abilities, my confidence, my sense of direction…should I even go on?
At least I’m running well, though. That, I think, has nothing to do with my level of fitness, but everything to do with finally figuring out how to compete instead of just run. Maybe I’ll be able to apply my newfound ability to focus on my goals during a cross-country race to the rest of my life. But first I have to figure out what those goals are.
As I hinted at a few days ago, lately I’ve been struck by an overwhelming urge to get away from MIT. Unfortunately, this is coupled with an even more overwhelming inability to convert that urge into action. (Circumstance, circumstance, circumstance…again, it’s mostly self-imposed, but I probably take self-imposed restrictions more seriously than those that are externally imposed.) So, in an effort to maintain my sanity, I’ve been doing my best to steal away from MIT in snippets, bits, and pieces. I’ve been taking refuge in places on campus where I don’t normally tread in an effort to rediscover my three-year home, and I’ve also been sneaking away off campus as much as I can. For example, right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Central Square (1369 Coffee House, for the locals).
There’s so much thinking going on here it hurts. Everyone with a computer has a Mac. It’s…a complete embodiment of every college-saturated self-portrayed-as-intellectual community stereotype. Bisecting the road from MIT to Harvard, this place seems worlds away from MIT. People at MIT just don’t do this—this being sitting in a coffee house reading, writing, relaxing, observing, anything. MIT coffee shops are meeting points and waysides, places to hash out important details, places to get a cup of coffee that is a necessity rather than a luxury, places to breeze through but not to linger.
Hanging on the wall above me is a painting (at least, I think that’s the right word) where the artist has meticulously and deliberately glued dozens of bright orange earplugs onto a bright yellow canvas. They form a footprint around a black painted shoe—or rather, an archetype of a shoe. Some of the silo-shaped insulating sentinels are standing at attention, others are teetering indecisively at an angle, and others have resigned themselves to a prone position. It’s the middle group I associate best with right now, oddly. (This is a very ironic analogy seeing as I’ve been in desperate need of a pair of earplugs in order to fall asleep lately.) At this point I feel like all MIT has given me is an acute sense of my own masochistic tendencies and a bad taste in my mouth whenever I think of engineers. It’s taken from me my writing skills, my reasoning abilities, my confidence, my sense of direction…should I even go on?
At least I’m running well, though. That, I think, has nothing to do with my level of fitness, but everything to do with finally figuring out how to compete instead of just run. Maybe I’ll be able to apply my newfound ability to focus on my goals during a cross-country race to the rest of my life. But first I have to figure out what those goals are.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
A great day for a footrace
So it wasn't quite as dramatic as "Chariots of Fire" (especially not that scene where they race around the quad to the chiming church bells), but it was a great day for a race at Wellesley College today.
The skies were overcast ("omnivorous", as a confused dj bubbily misnomed on the radio this morning) and we were graced with a barely detectable drizzle and a sea of golden leaves. Aw, autumn...so pretty...
The conditions were perfect, and even my inability to fall asleep the past two nights and abdominal pains in the third mile weren't enough to hold me back. I ran a personal best of 20:40 for the course (by over 2 minutes...zing!) and was just 5 seconds shy of my all time cross country 5K PR (which was on a course that was actually a tenth of a mile short).
So...fantastic! I loved running around the lake. It was so pretty and...I said that already, didn't I?
Here's a picture of my awesome and dedicated friends who made the schlep (either from their dorm or from Cambridge) to the race to see me run.
On a completely unrelated note: Homemade guacamole is the best thing ever...and so easy to make. I think this could be trouble...
The skies were overcast ("omnivorous", as a confused dj bubbily misnomed on the radio this morning) and we were graced with a barely detectable drizzle and a sea of golden leaves. Aw, autumn...so pretty...
The conditions were perfect, and even my inability to fall asleep the past two nights and abdominal pains in the third mile weren't enough to hold me back. I ran a personal best of 20:40 for the course (by over 2 minutes...zing!) and was just 5 seconds shy of my all time cross country 5K PR (which was on a course that was actually a tenth of a mile short).
So...fantastic! I loved running around the lake. It was so pretty and...I said that already, didn't I?
Here's a picture of my awesome and dedicated friends who made the schlep (either from their dorm or from Cambridge) to the race to see me run.
On a completely unrelated note: Homemade guacamole is the best thing ever...and so easy to make. I think this could be trouble...
Friday, October 21, 2005
Deer Island: More than just a bunch of giant eggs
Continuing in my theme of human waste (and my fascination thereof):
I'm taking an environmental earth science class (12.102) this semester, so my mind has been bobbing and churning around a myriad of resource conservation issues as of late. My professor, the notorious Sam Bowring, claims that although everyone is worried about looming fossil fuel shortage, the potentially more disastrous issue is water. Water is deceiving because living in certain parts of the country (everywhere I've lived: the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast) it is easy to be fooled by the impression that the supply of fresh water is unlimited. Obviously, it isn't unlimited and water is a non-renewable resource (which is why I'm talking about this in the first place).
But, bringing things back to human fecal matter:
Another reason I never really gave water conservation a second thought is because I assumed that water treatment facilities were good enough that we can basically purify any water we use. Well, this is true. Sewage treatment facilities (like Deer Island in the Boston Harbor) can produce amazingly clean water. But that treated water is just dumped into the ocean because of social taboos. (I.e., people don't want to drink water that came from sewage, even if it is cleaner than water we get out of aquifers.)
So I just wanted to say: I would drink the water. Just like I'd drink the water from the magic (ok, so it's not really magic) urine purification machine I saw at Glenn this summer. The water on our planet is all part of a water cycle, so even the "clean" water we get from ground sources wasn't always clean. Sheesh.
Ok, so maybe this post wasn't that revolutionary. I just...don't get why we would go through all the trouble of purifying water just to, essentially, through it away. (It takes a lot of energy to purify salt water into drinkable water.)
I'm taking an environmental earth science class (12.102) this semester, so my mind has been bobbing and churning around a myriad of resource conservation issues as of late. My professor, the notorious Sam Bowring, claims that although everyone is worried about looming fossil fuel shortage, the potentially more disastrous issue is water. Water is deceiving because living in certain parts of the country (everywhere I've lived: the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast) it is easy to be fooled by the impression that the supply of fresh water is unlimited. Obviously, it isn't unlimited and water is a non-renewable resource (which is why I'm talking about this in the first place).
But, bringing things back to human fecal matter:
Another reason I never really gave water conservation a second thought is because I assumed that water treatment facilities were good enough that we can basically purify any water we use. Well, this is true. Sewage treatment facilities (like Deer Island in the Boston Harbor) can produce amazingly clean water. But that treated water is just dumped into the ocean because of social taboos. (I.e., people don't want to drink water that came from sewage, even if it is cleaner than water we get out of aquifers.)
So I just wanted to say: I would drink the water. Just like I'd drink the water from the magic (ok, so it's not really magic) urine purification machine I saw at Glenn this summer. The water on our planet is all part of a water cycle, so even the "clean" water we get from ground sources wasn't always clean. Sheesh.
Ok, so maybe this post wasn't that revolutionary. I just...don't get why we would go through all the trouble of purifying water just to, essentially, through it away. (It takes a lot of energy to purify salt water into drinkable water.)
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Testing the waters...
Yes. Eons have passed since I last updated. There are several reasons for this:
-I originally started this blog to write about my experiences during the summer. Summer is, for better or worse, over.
-Writing about my life requires a level of introspection that I haven't been able to muster as of late. Or rather, I've been mustering that level introspection but I haven't been mustering the will to put it into concrete terms. (As if bytes are concrete...)
-I truly have been busy this term. I know everyone at MIT is busy, but 69 units (5 and three-quarters classes) plus varsity athletics is crazy, even by the this crazy institute's standards.
-I have a fear of being boring. I don't want to write about things that bore you, or worse, about things that bore me.
-General disillusion. I hate disillusion. What a cop-out.
(This will be an interesting experiment. I bet most of my readership--vast subset of the population that it was--has given up on this thing. I know some of you, however, are probably still checking it--Mom, Dad...)
-I originally started this blog to write about my experiences during the summer. Summer is, for better or worse, over.
-Writing about my life requires a level of introspection that I haven't been able to muster as of late. Or rather, I've been mustering that level introspection but I haven't been mustering the will to put it into concrete terms. (As if bytes are concrete...)
-I truly have been busy this term. I know everyone at MIT is busy, but 69 units (5 and three-quarters classes) plus varsity athletics is crazy, even by the this crazy institute's standards.
-I have a fear of being boring. I don't want to write about things that bore you, or worse, about things that bore me.
-General disillusion. I hate disillusion. What a cop-out.
(This will be an interesting experiment. I bet most of my readership--vast subset of the population that it was--has given up on this thing. I know some of you, however, are probably still checking it--Mom, Dad...)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)