I figure that I could make my once in a blue moon update.

So, this week has been a general improvement over last. In some respects. Physics most certainly was not better with the increase of stupid questions from my triangle of terror. This name is for the three people in the class who ask impossibly stupid questions. If there were three people whose vocal cords I wanted to relish in ripping out, it's these three people.

The vestiges of Religion and Popular Culture are coming to their necessary conclusion. I got a 32/33 on my last paper because it was half a page too long and I doctored the margins to be too narrow. That was rude. But anyways, I have my last paper to write this weekend, PLUS we have no class this Thursday (WOOT!), meaning that this Tuesday constitutes the last six hours of torment and anguish of university requirements. Then I'm all done with all of my requirements for the university, and I'm simply down to major requirements.

Speaking of major requirements, Ray just got a 74 (on the CLEP scale of 20-80) on his Western Civilization I test, meaning that Ray is essentially fantabulous.

I'm considering changing my schedule again. I don't know how much I really want to do more physics. I was thinking of taking another history course so I can get down to just 3 hours left in History. Of course, if UCCS offered stuff like the History of Ireland, I could not possibly refuse that. Either that or I could take my critical thinking requirement for philosophy and get that much closer to being done with that major. I'll think of something.

By the way, Thursday night was my one anti-school event of the week as I got to see the wonderfulness of Celtic Woman. Yes, I am gloating right now. HA HA HA HAHA. Definite awesomeness. We had like no one sitting near us, except for this one guy who wore Crocs and kept taking them off (nasty). Suffice it to say, I was quite thrilled to see them.

Yeah, I don't really have much else to say.

Dang.

Yo-Yo Ma is absolutely amazing. If anyone catches the Silk Road Journeys, it's fantastic stuff. So is Simply Baroque, the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Soundtrack, and pretty much everything else.

I am now 62.5% of the way done with my anti-fun Religion and Popular Culture class. That's exciting. Fantabulous actually. Thursday=more movie watching. I'm about 100 pages through My Name is Asher Lev. Nothing astounding about the book. I don't find it this amazing thing of literature, like the fantasticness of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I got Mistress of the Spices last night at the library, and I definitely look forward to reading it.

I just don't feel like I'm going anywhere right now, but with classes like these that just frustrate me so much, it's not that surprising.

I have a stupid test on Saturday. Actually, not stupid, but rather an amazing life-saver test. Why? Because it will count for three credits at UCCS, which will get me to 6 hours of history left to get towards my major. Yayness.

I wish I had something of any interest whatsoever to discuss, but there just is nothing very interesting happening to me right now.

Um, blah

So, I'm still not completely finished with my stupid paper. I've been procrastinating like crazy, which is becoming a habit with regards to Religion and Popular Culture.

My paper is technically done, as I only have to do my second round of editing and then throw in all of my citations and make a nice works cited page, all of which I can do in a bout an hour or so, which is nice because I basically have to be ready to go in about 2 hours.

I can therefore spend a half hour more procrastinating, and and additional half hour bathing, etc.

I'm so tired of this class, it's not even funny. We're only done with half of the classes, though being done with 2/3 of the work is fantastic.

So I have about 5 pages done for this essay, but so far, as usual with my first drafts, it's not very good. This one is going to require MAJOR remodeling and tweaking. Stupid papers. I hate writing papers about topics in which I have no interest. Who ultimately really cares about how the Simpsons is a critique of religion? Who cares about the sacrilization of the secular? Who cares about any of that stuff?

That a course like that is even TAUGHT is particularly surprising. That it matters is even more surprising.

I'm seriously le tired, and even though I would LOVE to just quit writing it for today, I have so much editing to do tomorrow on that nasty bugger that I'll be spending much of tomorrow doing that.

So I'm definitely not reading the comic book. It may be technically required, but if the papers have nothing to say about it, then I'm not going to talk about it at all.

So, I'm pretty sure that when I finish it tonight, I would have at least a C guaranteed on the paper, which means that I would be pretty much guaranteed to pass the course, assuming that I decided that the last paper didn't matter and didn't do it. We all know though that that doesn't exactly fir with my personality all that well.

next week is going to be particularly painful. I have to write yet another paper for next Tuesday (grr.) and I have a physics test next Monday. Stupid school. Why do I like school, but hate it at the same time? I don't know. Blah.

Not doing work works

Guess who's procrastinating? RAY IS!

I have yet another paper due this Tuesday, and I am currently frustrated because I hate writing papers about religion and popular culture. This time, I have to discuss how the Simpsons is a satire for religion. I wish the class was more open-ended. I mean, if you want discussions on religion in general, then something like Star Trek is a fantastic tool, because it's not specific to any one religion with which we are familiar.

But still. I think that this paper is going to be significantly shorter than my last paper. However, the person next to whom I sit wrote the bare minimum (4 pages) last time and got the same grade that I got. Therefore, an excess of work gets me nowhere. Although laziness possesses me, I do have the benefit of the last essay to boost any less than satisfactory work which I might produce out of my laziness. I think though, that I will try especially hard on this paper to get another 100%, so that on my final paper, I can still get an A with a 76%.

On top of this, I have two books which I am supposed to read this week, the first being 375 pages for Tuesday. Slight problem is that I don't even have it yet. Whoops. The other is some comic book, which I also do not have.

I keep telling myself that it is good that this is my last class which is a university requirement. The bad thing is that I'm only 1/2 of the way done with it. In 4 days though, I'll be 3/4 of the way there. I can feel the end of this class coming, but I don't think it will accuarately hit me until next Tuesday when I turn in my final paper.

I did just look at the prompt for the final essay, and I don't have to discuss the comic book, ergo, I will not read it.

I am having this burning desire for scientific work. Work that does not include a certain loudmouth with whom I have had too many classes, and unfortuantely, with whom I will have at least two more classes this fall.

I wish that I could jsut do something or go somewhere exciting. That's all, really.

I am apparently "fantastic".

I am 1/2 done with religion and popular culture. Two topics, about which two weeks from today, I never care to hear anything about. EVER.

I've been trying to hone my opera voice---yes, I do have one. I'm trying to negotiate that fine line between screaming and singing, and whenever I have the music on, I'm always trying to compete with it, rather than going with it. I'm always trying to outsing Watson, Pavarotti, Carreras, Te Kanawa, or the other examples I have.

I'm actually having more luck with the 1989 recording of the Berlin Symphony playing "Ode an die Freiheit (sp?)" even though German is a nasty language. I avoid shrieking then.

Basically, one of the things I want to do is to do some kind of vocal try-out thing (not American Idol, because the US is so damn petty), but like for a musical or an opera. Even if they say no, it's still on my list of things to do, to say that I've done.

I actually have really nothing about which I can comment at this time.

Somehow, I have survived most of the way through the second week of summer classes unscathed. However, this is not a guarantee for the next two weeks. It's hard to believe that in two weeks, I'll be pretty much done with my first course of the summer, and halfway done with another.

Only half? Boo. I have a short gripe about physics. There are about 5 people who absolutely drive me bonkers, because they ask stupid questions. And I'm one of those people who assumes that if you ask a stupid question, then you're just a little slow today, but repeated stupid questions lends insight to the fact that you are actually stupid. I almost snapped today. I was on the shear edge of telling people to shut the fuck up and telling them that if they are too stupid to take the class, they should drop it.

Conceptually, I have no problem with physics. It's just the other people in the class. It is disappointing though that we have only made it through two chapters in two weeks, and we have to cover 7 more in 6 weeks.

I was playing around the world on orbitz, and I found flights to and from Copenhagen for $1000, flights and 6 nights in Tillinn, Estonia for $1756. Estonia is supposedly a massive bargain. Podgorica, Montenegro was $2000, mainly because I would have to make connections in Chicago, Frankfurt and Vienna.

Of course, I have no money, and therefore, no means of going to Estonia or Denmark or Montenegro.

Um, by the way, I am essentially fantastic as I got 100% on my first essay. Yes, you may bask.

Well, I completed one editing process, which is good, and I even put in all of my sources (fortunately, we only had to do in-text citations). That is a phenomenal piece of work there. I even got to watch Hell's Kitchen, which I could never do. I mean, I LOVE cooking, but not enough to make that kind of food or take that kind of pressure.

Anyways, back to my paper. I would say that it's probably at high B+ level right now. I mean, I have 6 pages and the instructors basically said that if you write at least 4 you've already got a C. Seriously. I think some tightening and some minor editing will get me where I need to be.

So I noticed that the people apparently think that I should be able to read about 100 more pages on top of all the Da Vinci Code. My ass I can.

I might get the reading about the Simpsons later, because, it's the Simpsons. I personally hope we get to watch the one where Bart and Homer become Catholic and hang out with "Jesus Dude". I think that's the one where they call communion "sacrelicious".

Physics was ok today. I found out that I got a 108 on my final last semester. I wish I could carry over all of my extra credit into this semester. I'd be like halfway to an A.

I think that's all I really have to say for now.

So I finally finished the Da Vinci Code. Literally, just this minute. Again, not a very good book. Far too forced, in my opinion. But at least I have it typed.

My phyiscal lasted a total of ten minutes. Yeah.

I did however get 2 and 1/2 hours of work in today and I'm scheduled to work every Friday from 10 AM to 1 PM or something like that (I'm supposed to get an email confirming my time later this week).

I've almost completed my first editing of my paper, which I will need to do in the next 4 hours, technically, but in reality, I have some time in the morning, and I can pull a late one.

So yeah, there's the update of my life.

Oh Em Gee

As you can tell by my title, I'm starting to freak out a little bit.
First, I have a physical tomorrow morning at Peterson AFB. I don't know how many people have military health services, but I'm pretty sure that they'll be pretty similar to some of the stuff I've found online. Which is horrendus.

First off, I'm going to have to be far more nude than I prefer to be. As in pretty much all the way. Except I refuse to take off the socks, and if possible, I would like to keep my underwear on. I had that area all checked out two years ago, and that's good enough for me.

Everything else has not been examined in....12 years, basically. Yeah, I know, I'm going to get chewed out for that, because even at my age I'm apparently supposed to have one every year. Whatever. If I have somethign like cancer, then it's a good thing that I just let it kill me because those kinds of genes just should not be promoted through something like reproduction.

I looked online for a list of some preparations I could make for my physical tomorrow. Working out for two weeks and not eating during said period probably would have helped. Anyways, what I found was a list of standard operations that doctors normally do (hence them being standard) and they had little movies to go along with it, and it looked like some form of medieval torture. I frankly do not want to be fondled, nor to I want to have a phalange (a finger) inserted inside of any orfice of my body.

Then why did I sign up for a physical? Because apparently, that's how you get orders for blood tests for cholesterol and triglycerides, plus I would like to see if a doctor would think if I should see some dermatologist for my vast number of moles or some chiropractor for my back. I should prefer not to spend the money seeing them if I don't have to do so.

Then on top of that, I have that NASCAR paper, of which I have a first draft done, which means I have two more to go. The first one always sucks, but I'm starting to freak out a little bit because I'm basically going to only have like 10 hours to work on it. Ick.

Only three more weeks of serious stress.

By the way, I've been reading the Da Vinci code since it's required reading for our class, and I don't like it. I know a lot of people made a big deal about the whole religion thing, about which we know Ray really does not care that much, but I don't like it because the characters and the plot line are too forced. These people know too much about totally insignificant things. Symbolism of the divine feminine? Why do I care? I care about symbolism of G-proteins, DNA sequences, and transcription, the symbolism of how the universe works, but not some stories about the history of metaphysical beliefs. Seriously?

Seriously.

My prude is going to have to go subside for like one hours in about 12. Omg. I'm starting to freak out.

So it's halfway through my Saturday off, and I'm sitting on the computer with nothing to show for it.

Well, actually, I do, I'm 10 chapters through the Da Vinci Code, which we're supposed to have read for Tuesday. Yeah, not happening. I'm doing 20 chapters a day (there are 106 in the book, which is an average of about 4 pages per chapter), and frankly, I don't like the book so far. Not because of the whole religion controversy, but just because I don't find it very intellectually stimulating. I am far more of a non-fiction person or a classical literature person than I am modern lit. There are of course exceptions, like Modern Latin American literature. For a brief divergence, I should mention that the last 60 years of LA lit have been the greatest in Latin American history. Talk about a cultural golden age that many people are missing. Gabriel Garcia Marquez will probably be remembered as the greatest LA literary figure in history, and maybe the greatest author of the 20th Century. Amazing work, frankly.

Anyways, I have done absolutely nothing else of productivity. I haven't even taken a shower yet today (probably won't either).

However, in exciting news, I get to work on MONDAY! It's probably going to only be about 2 hours, but still. OMG. Yay. Money.

By the way, I get a raise in October from $9.16 per hour to $9.41 per hour. Serious excitement there. Next year I'll get another raise to $9.66, I think. Assuming that my boss will keep me on the job.

So I'm going to try to find articles on Dale Earnhart Jr/Sr now. Talk about non-fun.

Oh, today was another class about which I was not excited and still am not.
We watched Groundhog Day, which I didn't really like, and the persistent mentioning of the movie did nothing to enhance my already poor interest in the film. As a cynic myself, I detest movies that show the changes of a cynic to this warm and loving person. Obviously, then, I don't like things such as The Christmas Carol. In any regard, I received my first paper assignment, through which I have to discuss the postmodern interpretation of secularization and sacrilization, which is not too challenging (at least for me, for about 20 people in the class, it seems it was more difficult), followed, however, by a discussion of one of these processes in the realms of either the film we watched or sports. Apparently, the hope for scientific discussion is lost at this time, but hopefully there may be a future opportunity for some kind of research into environmentalist movements.

Anyways, I find fortune in that my memory is still strong and that my dad is more interested in sports than I, because I refuse to discuss the movie. I decided that I will analyze the almost religious idolization of Dale Earnhart Jr. after his father's death in racing as some kind of motif of a resurrection of the father through the son, which is essentially a connection to Jewish mentality. Possibly Christian, but considering that I am in the center of Protestantville USA, and that all three of my instructors are pursuing their Ph.D.'s in religious studies of various sorts at the University of Denver's seminary, these types of discussions would be more open to vast criticism. Additionally, subjecting my analysis to purely Christian motifs would similarly decrease potential interest in my topic, as the vast majority of students in the class are of any number of Christian denominations, it is logical to assume that they will write about Christianity, thereby diminishing any kind of uniqueness which would make my argument stand out in comparison to the 24 other class members.

Speaking of which, an additional 8 people have dropped out of the class throughout the day today, decreasing our total from the beginning of the semester from nearly 100 to only 59. Such a diminishment in class size should not be considered a success by any standards.

That's all of interest I have for today. I do however have a stolen thing that I intend to complete.

Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...The MUST be real places, names, things...NOTHING made up! If you can't think of anything, skip it. Try to use different answers if the person before you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. Once you're done, forward on to friends and back to the person who sent it to you. Now Go!
(Clearly I'm not following this very well, because no one sent this to me, I just saw it somewhere.)
Your Name: Ray
1. Famous singer/band: Rage Against the Machine (I actually do not listen, it was simply the first thing to come to my mind)
2. 4 letter word: Rage (how coincidental)
3. Street name: Rusina
4. Color: Red
5. Gifts/presents: Regalos
6. Vehicle: Race Car
7. Items on a menu: Roasted Raddishes
8. Boy Name: Rex
9. Girl Name: Rachel!
10. Movie Title: Rush Hour
11. Drink: Red Bull
12. Occupation: Researcher
13. Flower: Rose
15. Magazine: R&D
16. US City: Redding, CA
17. Pro Sports Team: Rangers
18. Reason for Being Late for Work: Red Lights
19. Something You Throw Away: Rusty nails
20. Things you shout: Rot in hell!
21. Cartoon Character: Rocky

I'm almost done with week one....out of eight.

I'm having so much difficulty actually doing things for this humanities class. We have our first paper topics coming to us tomorrow, and I anticipate that there will be immense discussion regarding every possible technicality. A lot of people in there are apparently freaking out about these essays, but I don't feel too stressed, partially because I would leave my Civil War papers until the Saturday before they were do and just work on them non-stop until Tuesday, and look how well I did.

Plus, since I have no idea what the possible topics for the essays are, there is no sense in getting upset about them.

Anyways. Today was another physics day, and I am starting to see that we might have some time constraints. We have 13 more sessions to squeeze in 8 chapters, and while I see that it is certianly possible to get everything, plus 8 hours worth of exams included in that time, that possibility is beginning to run out. We've been continuing our fascinating (slight sarcasm here, I actually think that this is somewhat interesting) study of electricity, something I've never really had the opportunity to study. I did have the physics II lab last year, but that didn't help me learn that much. Suffice it to say, I should get more out of lecture now.

I've been thinking about reviving the possibility of a physics minor. Technically, I am supposed to have Calculus III to continue on in physics, however, UCCS does not have a good way of weeding people out of classes. I have not had much math in my physics classes so far beyond basic algebra, and I would certainly love the possibility of taking Astrophysics next fall, Modern Physics in the Spring, and finding room for one other class the following spring. It would certainly not be difficult, if I can weasel my way out of Calc. III. If equations do arise, I could always enlist the help of either of my cousins at USAFA who have already taken Calc. III.

I don't know yet. We'll see how things go.

Anyways, on the last hour of the week (so WED from 3:30-4:30), we have these scheduled movie things, and today we saw something on the magnetic field of Earth, which again was actually interesting because they said that in the last three hundred years, the magnetic field has DRASTICALLY declined. In case anyone did not know, the field helps keep out a lot of radiation and prevents the solar winds from blowing our atmosphere away. While it sounds like doom and gloom, scientists have recently discovered that these kinds of changes in earth's history have preceeded the polar shift of the magnetic field, so a lot of them are saying that we're going through one right now and it should be complete in the next 700 years. Basically, a polar shift would mean that all of our compasses would point south.

I've been kind of wondering if this shift might have something to do with the whole global warming thing going on. That would be an interesting analysis. Too bad humans didn't live long enough to see this kind of data.

So between discussing magnetic fields and how sports and religion are related, we can obviously tell where Ray's interests lie.

Going back to those papers, I have a really interesting topic that I would like to pursue if given the opportunity. Recently, environmentalism has become a big kosher thing for big-wig celebrities (even though they still manage to fly in private jets which combined produce about 5-10% of the greenhouse gases of the United States. Here's a group of people who make up less than one tenth of one percent of the population) and for religious groups (even though they spend millions of dollars sending out pamphlets made from trees and waste money on stupid stuff like lights and free bibles when people probably would rather have food, medicine, or clean water. Leave it to a Christian to give you a bible when what you need is a polio vaccine. Nothing like prayer to beat away viruses). I think that that would definitely be an interesting thing to anaylze. That or how the two have linked or fought for medical research, esp. stem cells (which I support. Not the embryonoic kind, because it's a waste of resources. They're too difficult to control, compared to the adult ones. We're wasting money looking at embryonic ones when we should be looking at a cheaper and more readily available resource for stem cells), breast cancers, heart screenings, etc.

Anyways, that's what I would like. Instead, I'll probably have to write about how Sammy Sosa crosses himself before an at-bat.

So expanding on my last post....
My humanities class does not look like it's going to be a good use of my time or money, but since 1/8 of the class is done already, it would obviously not make much sense to ditch it now. I think I have the best of the three instructors of the bunch, and I have a pretty good idea of the order of quality of those instructors.

Interestingly, this is the first semester here where I do not have a class taught by a tenured faculty member, or a person with a Ph.D. for that matter.

No wonder things are looking so bleak.

Anyways, tomorrow is physics, which promises to be a very LONG session (four hours, again, yikes). But after tomorrow, I'll be 2/15 done with that class, AND that much closer to being done with physics, hopefully forever.

I am somewhat upset by people who talk. Right now, I have maybe four or five targets of my intellectual rage (i.e. people who talk in class). Whenever I talk about talking in class, I don't mean having side conversations. I mean people attempting to contribute when whatever they have to say is really something ignorant.

I hate that.

I hope that I will survive.

I am NOT looking forward to the next month in case anyone wants to know. Spending three hours talking about a syllabus is not a productive use of anyone's time.

I should have brought my physics homework to do.

I should have taken thermodynamics or World War I

Um, why do I have to take this?

So, I started my wonderful summer classes today. Only they are not so wonderful.

Physics I suppose would be ok, assuming that I did not have to have two people who are excessive talkers in my class. The nice thing is that the class only has 17 people in it (which I like). The not nice thing is that it meets for 4 hours a day twice a week for 8 weeks. Which would be 16 sessions, except that the school is closed for the 4th of July, so it's really only 15 sessions, which are now down to 14. So basically 56 hours left.

The other class looks FAR worse. Eight sessions for about 6 hours a day. NOT looking like fun. However, there are 40 minute lunch breaks, which will reduce the classes by 320 minutes, or about 6 hours, which is about one session.

The reading and the material don't look that fun, but fortunately, there's someone in my class from my human physiology class last semester, so I can complain about how much the class probably won't be fun. The assignments seem simple, but there are only three essays, each with three pages. So, I'm wondering how I'll do on those. I think it will be one essay per two weeks. By the way, I technically have to read like 150 pages for tomorrow, and I have not even started the class.

Why do I have to take a class called Religion and Pop Culture anyway? Stupid college requirements. I don't mind major requirements, but college requirements just suck.

So, that was my real post for now.

I know I never post in here, partley because I have other blogs that I am operating, and partly because I don't think anyone reads this.