2010

So, a new year is upon us. It may even already be a new year where you are. And it will probably be a new year by the time I finish this post. 2010 was pretty good. I started college. And that, I suppose, is a major accomplishment. Here I shall commemorate the most notable music, books, and events that I experienced this year (in no particular order, because then it would take me all of 2011 just to organize them). It feels almost like my whole life has taken place in the last 365.25 days.

Music


Oliver the Penguin's album, "Button Pusher"
Charmaine's album, "Love Reality" (must listen!)
"On a Good Day", "Clear Blue Water", and "If I Could Fly" - OceanLab
"Hide & Seek" - Imogen Heap
"Airplanes" - B.o.B.
Britt Nicole's album, "The Lost Get Found"
"Fireflies" - Owl City
"You Belong With Me" - Taylor Swift
"Miracle" - Matisyahu
"The NaNoWriMo Song" - All Caps
"Touch My Hand" - David Archuleta

Books


"Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder
"It's Really All About God" by Samir Selmanovic
The Genesis Trilogy and "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
"Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer
"7 Deadly Wonders", "The 6 Sacred Stones", and "The Five Greatest Warriors" by Matthew Reilly

Everything Else


Started college
Finished my first semester of college
Wrote my first story with 10,000 words (next year I WILL finish NaNoWriMo!)
Read the entire archives of xkcd, Unshelved, and pictures for sad children
Made some awesome friends
Went for one week without listening to music
Spent more than one week listening to music
Discovered "The Legend of the Seeker" show and "The Sword of Truth" series, which I want to continue watching/reading next year (thanks, Linda!)
Did some serious self-reflection


I'm looking forward to what comes in 2011! See you all next year!

The End!

I’m ending my experiment today. Huzzah! The main reason is that I’m going to church and can’t avoid music. The secondary reason is that not listening to any music is really boring.

I didn’t go insane. That was mildly disappointing. Oh, well! Now I know that I can survive without music; I’ll just be really bored. Lesson learned. I guess this is like one of those studies where they discover that vitamins really ARE good for you! (Who knew?)

Now… let’s see… what music should I listen to first?

“Safe” – Britt Nicole. Ahhh….

Day 2: Meh.

So, this is my second day without music. I’m not going to count the music that comes blaring into my room from the room next to mine every now and then.

I’m okay.

I'm really not missing music as much as I thought. My earworms are pretty calm; mostly I’ve just been hearing selections from Handel’s Messiah all day, but nothing lately. This isn’t as psychologically straining as I thought it would be.

But, hey! That will just make it easier to go a whole week!

…I do miss my music though. :(

Day 1: The Quiet

So, today is my first day without music (see last post). I’m already missing it badly. Not so badly that I’d listen to country music if it was the only thing available, of course. I’ve decided on some further rules, so here is the updated list:

1. Do not listen to music.
2. Do not go anywhere where you know music will be played, and if you are around music, if possible, leave.
3. Do not sing or hum.
4. If someone in the room next to you is playing music loudly while you are trying to sleep, it does not count.
5. No television, radio dramas, or anything like that, unless you skip the musical parts (a.k.a. all of it).
6. No recorded soundscapes (like http://www.rainymood.com).

I’ve deleted my shortcuts and bookmarks to music players so that I’m not tempted to click them out of habit. So far my earworms (see last post for definition) have been really random. They aren’t as intense as when I’ve listened to music in the last few hours.

Right now the silence is distracting (as compared to earlier today, when it was irritating). As long as I can finish this paper that’s due tomorrow, I’ll be fine!

I Will Regret This When I Lose My Mind

Never mind, I already regret it! Nevertheless, I shall go on.
You see, I’ve decided to try a little experiment (and by “little”, I mean “terrifyingly large”). If you know me, you may know that I listen to music. A lot. I’m listening to music right now, in fact. It’s quite nice. Today, however, I am listening to music a bit more cherishingly. This is because, beginning tomorrow, I will not listen to music for an entire week.
I’m doing this for several reasons. First, because I am probably not in my right mind. Second, because I want to examine the psychological effects of music deprivation. This will be a supervised experiment; my roommate is a psychology major, so I’m sure he does this sort of thing all the time, right?
My main concern is that I will go crazy. That is a distinct possibility. Then again, I already am crazy! That makes it less worrisome. I’m also interested in seeing how my studies are affected. I am almost always listening to something while I study.
The most interesting part for me will be the effect on my earworms. Earworms are the songs that get stuck in your head. I have chronic earworms. I literally always have one, except when I stayed up really late, and then I just had static, which kind of scared me. If I remove all musical stimulation, will my earworms die, or will they grow more intense as I crave music?
I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go the whole week. If I feel lightheaded and start to gnaw on my arm, I’ll stop the experiment. I’ll also post periodic updates so that you’ll all know that I have not lost my ability to think and express thoughts in writing.
So, feel free to give advice on how not to lose my mind. Unless, that is, you want me to lose my mind, in which case, you are not a nice person and that makes me sad inside. :(

Update on my Relationship

If you are a faithful reader of my blog, you will recall that recently I received a comment on my Nablopomo (National Blog Posting Month, for the unenlightened) profile:

Hello,
My name is mary, i got you from nablopomo.com and i want to have a
good relationship with you, please i need your cooperation,
am yours mary

I was, of course, quite excited to find out that I was in a relationship. Mary is a wonderful person. At least, I’m pretty sure she is. I haven’t actually talked to her. I can, however, speculate about what she is like based on the content of her message. I’m sure that I’m qualified to do that kind of evaluation because my roommate is a psychology major.

Hello,

As you can see, she is a very friendly and polite person. She doesn’t just plunge into a soliloquy without a formal greeting.

My name is mary,

Always begin with an introduction! This is an especially good idea when you intend on having a relationship with someone. Also notice how she breaks conventional rules of capitalization. While some finicky English-imbibing fascists would say that is due to ignorance, I know that it means she is expressing her individuality in a conformist world. Arbitrary grammatical rules don’t tie her down.

i got you from nablopomo.com

This expression, “I got”, is also used in cases where people buy  things; for example, “I got this pink-and-orange double-decker bus for half the original price”. As you can see, Mary values me at least as much as she would a pink-and-orange double-decker bus. And those buses are expensive even at half price.

and i want to have a good relationship with you

Not just a relationship, a good relationship. I think I’ve emphasized this already. A surprising percentage of relationships that spring from random internet comments are not successful, probably because the comments do not include this phrase.

please i need your cooperation

Any good relationship requires cooperation. Mary obviously knows this.

am yours mary

<3

As you can see, she’s quite a nice person. She also included an email address by which I can contact her, but I think it’s best if we keep our relationship as objective as possible right now, and I think that if I spoke to her it would make it subjective (or something like that). Actually, I forgot the email address entirely, and don’t feel like going and looking it up again, but I think that I can reconstruct it so accurately that it will tell us even more about her. I’m guessing that her email is something like  penguinluvr@bananayodel.edu.

This means that she loves penguins! A great match; I love penguins too! Also note that she goes to the prestigious Bancroft Anabaptist University of Yorklyn, Delaware. I’m pretty sure she’s a physics student. Bancroft only offers programs in physics and English.

I’ll post further relationship updates, of course. I’d say something about my Anatomy and Physiology lab that I had today except nothing really happened. We just killed some onions, sliced them up, and probed them under microscopes.

Poor onions.

The Lollipop Incident, and Other Drama

Food Science is a really cool class. We get to cook! Today, our teacher said that our topic was sugar, which meant that we would be making candy and ice cream. I immediately went into hyperactive mode and started scribbling all over my class handout.

Canada shout-out! Yes, it looks like a tulip. Be grateful for what you get.

 Also, one that wouldn't fit in a picture: "Splenda: It's made from sugar, so it kills you like sugar! :D"

No, I have no idea why I, on the same page, denounced sugar and declared candy an essential part of the diet. I was too busy looking forward to making ice cream.

BUT, before I could eat ice cream, my lab partner and I had to make chocolate fudge. Fudge sounds kind of daunting, but it can't be that hard, right? WRONG. Fudge requires years of practice (although some say that fudge skills are solely hereditary) in a small French chocolaterie in Lozère. No matter what your cookbook says, you cannot just follow the simple directions and actually expect to end up with fudge.

We mixed the ingredients in a saucepan and stirred it while it came to a boil. So good, so far. Then once it was boiling we waited for it to reach the proper temperature. Then we took it off the burner, added the butter and vanilla extract, and waited for it to cool to the proper temperature. Then we stirred it and... wait, no we didn't. It was hard as a rock. I stood there stabbing the chocolate rock with a spoon while my partner went to talk to the teacher. For a moment I had a vision of failing the lab and being sent home in shame. Fortunately, the teacher just told us to reheat it until it melted and then put it in the pan to cool. Of course, it didn't turn into fudge (once it crystallizes, you never have another chance to fudgify it), but everyone liked it, and we didn't fail. Which was good, since my partner had been cooking for 30 years and who knows what would have happened if she had failed; her family would probably never let her cook again, just in case everything she made turned into invincible lumps. So, it ended all right (labs are notorious for going wrong anyway, right?).

The lollipop incident was the second emergency of the class. While we had been making "fudge", other groups had been making other candies and ice creams, including lollipops, mints, caramels, and fondant (which didn't turn out quite right either...). We had to try one of each of the different projects and write a haiku about it on our lab sheet (at least, I assume we were supposed to write haikus and not couplets or something). I innocently picked up an orange-colored lollipop that tasted like watermelon.

 

 My teeth! My poor teeth! I was probably going to have the incredibly sticky lollipop surgically removed or something. After calming down and half-convincing myself that I would survive, I went off to a corner and tried to remove the sticky mass from my mouth using my fingers, trying not to break any teeth. Oh, and trying not to embarrass myself (well, we can't win everything, can we?). I eventually freed my mouth and tried to retain my sense of dignity.

At least the lollipop tasted good.

Why I am Going to Turn into a Beaver

Sadly, it is true. Any minute now I am going to turn into a beaver. I forget exactly why, but it made perfect sense at 2:00 this morning, so I will not question it.

Last night was “Almost Anything Goes” at Andrews University, which is where each class comes in color coordinated shirts, shouts and cheers, and plays random games against the other classes. It was quite exciting. So exciting, sadly, that I left before it was over because it was really wearing me out. And I only participated in one game. That’s how exciting it was.

When I came back it was after 11:00, so I decided to call my sister, since she was off work. We ended up talking until almost 1:00. It was fun. :D 1:00 is the curfew on Saturday night, so I decided, why not stay up until the RA comes around for check-in? Every night, one of the RAs goes to each room to make sure nobody has escaped or been eaten by a tiger or something. Usually that is at 11:00, except on Saturday nights, as I mentioned earlier. So, for reference on my sleeping patterns, I have only been awake three times in the last month at 11:00. I go to sleep fairly early. So staying up until 1:00 was like walking to the moon: a gargantuan feat.

It took the RA at least half an hour after 1:00 to come to our room. I was expecting him to faint or call 911 or something (“TRAVIS! YOU’RE AWAKE!” *goes permanently insane*), but he was just like, “Oh, hi. Did you guys enjoy Almost Anything Goes?”

“Excuse me, I just stayed awake for four hours past my normal bedtime just to freak you out. I DEMAND surprise, shock, and/or temporary loss of consciousness!” (I did not really say this, although I felt like it. Keep in mind that while I would not normally wish anyone to lose consciousness unless they were pointing a gun down my throat or trying to make me dance on stage, this is 1:30 a.m.)

It took me until after 2:00 to finally calm down enough to get to sleep, after going through the stages of “HAHA I’M AWAKE”, “I’m. Going. To. Die.”, “Haha, I’m still awake! Llama!”, and “SHUT UP AND LET ME GO TO SLEEP BEFORE I THROW YOU TO THE BEARS.”

And I slept until nearly 11:00 a.m.

And that is why I’m going to turn into a beaver.

 

Off-topic!

I got a message this morning! I think I’m in a relationship now:

“Hello,
My name is mary, i got you from nablopomo.com and i want to have a
good relationship with you, please i need your cooperation,
am yours mary”

See, she doesn’t just want a relationship, she wasn’t a good relationship. I still haven’t decided on a wedding date, but I’ll keep you all posted, of course.

Where am I? Who am I?

This morning I awoke to an astonishing realization. This was not the realization that I am at college hundreds of miles from home and my entire life is different henceforth; I figured that out last week. No, this realization was far more earth-shattering: I don’t trust myself enough to figure out what day it is, let alone what my plans are for the next ninety-six years. I was fine until I was on my way to church (yay for being a two-minute walk away from church!) and, not seeing very many other people, suddenly wondered what day it was. Was it Friday? Wasn’t yesterday Friday? What if I slept through Saturday? Wait, Boris (my roommate; pseudonymed, of course) thought it was Saturday too! But what if we both slept through the entire day? What if someone snuck sleeping pills into our water bottles or something?

It was at this point that I saw people dressed up for church, so I decided to stop worrying about what day it was and start worrying about why all of these people were walking around outside instead of being in church. What time was it? Was my watch correct? It looked like it said 10:05. Was I reading it wrong? Had I lost my ability to read anything correctly? Would this affect my grades?

Oh, yes. These people are leaving early church. It’s easy to tell because nearly everyone who goes to early church is, shall we say, “experienced”. The second service is where all the college students go (either because the music is better or because they get to sleep in; maybe both).

So, in summary, I seem to have some sort of condition in the morning that dissociates me from reality. This explains why I like my 8:30 Anatomy and Physiology class so much. Go figure!

(Haha! I bet you thought this post was going to be philosophical or something.)

General Conference

I went to the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists from Wednesday through yesterday. The GC session happens every five years and this time it was in Altanta, Georgia. Unfortunately, my mom couldn’t come, so dad and I had to go by ourselves.

We left Wednesday morning and arrived that afternoon after meeting my sister, Linda, for lunch on the way.

Here is our hotel. It had two beds, a bathroom, and a TV. And that was pretty much it. Not even an alarm clock or refrigerator.

That’s our hotel sign. It has a pineapple. That’s kind of random. Kind of like the wireless internet, which had a very bad signal in our room, hence why I could only get on the internet at the exhibition hall (more on that to come).

We took MARTA, the mass transit system, from a station near our hotel to the area where the Georgia Dome and Georgia World Congress Center.

Here’s the Georgia Dome, where the meetings were held, Wednesday afternoon when we showed up there. The area in the center, where the stage is, was for delegates (representatives chosen from each division), their families, and retired denominational workers.

When we got there, they were just wrapping up a business session (which most people except delegates don’t go to), and we got to watch a screening of The Adventists, a documentary about the Adventist health care system.

Here’s the Wednesday night meeting! There were probably a dozen musical performances at each meeting, with one or two between practically every speaker and such. But those of us who like music don’t mind. :)

 

Each night (except Friday and Saturday) there were videos from the divisions about what they had been doing over the last five years, with two or three divisions showing their videos every night. My favorite video was probably the Trans-European Division’s, which is (obviously) not the one in this picture.

Thursday morning we went to the exhibition hall, where all the booths from ministries all over the world were. Right at the entrance was the North American Division ministries section. They had an NAD Live stage where presentations were done. This one is an actor portraying Ellen White preaching a sermon that she gave at a pulpit that had been made especially for Ellen because she was so short.

Andrews University, where I will be going next year, had a really good booth. This is a replica of the globe that’s at the entrance of the real college (it’s so good that when I saw it on TV at the beginning of GC I thought they were actually at Andrews!).

Here’s the Adventist Heritage Ministry booth. I’m related to someone in this picture.

Here’s the ADRA booth! I was supposed to meet some online friends here on Thursday night, so they never showed. Oh well. I liked the booth, anyway. And they had stickers!

Here’s Hopey, the Hope Channel mascot!

ADRA started a petition called enditnow to protest violence against women. They had this banner that people could sign. I signed my name. Here’s what my dad signed:

Um… yeah.

Here’s the Adventist World radio’s wall that people could sign. I didn’t, because it was full by the time I got there.

Anyway, for reference, here’s Wednesday night’s meeting:

And here’s church on Sabbath:

Wow.

I have a lot more pictures, which I should have labeled and uploaded by tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you all about the FREE STUFF I got at the exhibition hall (where pretty much everyone was handing things out for free).

Here’s the booth of the lovely Sanitarium health food company from Australia. They gave our free food every day. One day I got granola with soy milk, and another I got rice pudding. All delicious!

‘

This is all the free stuff I got. In case you can’t tell from the picture, it’s five bags full of stuff. Most of which is not duplicates. Overall, I got at least 6 writing utensils, three pins, two buttons, a fossilized shark tooth, 16 CDs and DVDs, a bottle of hand sanitizer and a first aid kit, a Russian flag, a bunch of stickers, a fan, volcanic ash, and a whole lot of brochures. And a few free books.

I also got some other things that I had to pay for but at a great discount.

This is a two-book set, each book of which originally cost about $20, but at the ABC sale, both books, together, were $5! I also got an awesome t-shirt at the Spectrum Magazine booth for $6 off the original price:

 

:)

 

Here are some pieces of ash I got for free from the Trans-European Division booth! They came from Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that erupted recently.

I’ll have some more pictures up later, but that’s enough for now. I need to catch up on the rest of my interwebs!

Later,

Siv

I has a new blog

I know, right? ANOTHER BLOG. But hey, I might actually update this one, because it has a topic! And it’s not too broad, and it’s not too narrow, so I might be able to think of something to write about occasionally.

It’s called Broccoli Central (I was sick when I thought of the name, so give me a break), and it’s about health, which is one of my favorite things to study (especially when I’m sick). So… here it is:

http://broccolicentral.blogspot.com

Please at least skim it if not actually read and comment. If you have any suggestions, I would welcome them!

I am blogging…

…during the writing seminar. Hey, look! I can Facebook without anyone noticing!

Class blogger

So... I'm watching the new "Harriet the Spy" movie, which is basically about teenagers fighting over who gets to be class blogger. Schools have class bloggers now? And the students actually care? The teen blogger is cool? I think we've officially entered the 21st century. At least that's what I said when I tweeted about this. Being the only person in my class (unless you count my college algebra class, which doesn't have a blog), I'm now declaring myself official class blogger!

My life? :O

It's true, I have a life. And I'm going to tell you all about it.

Specifically, I'm going to tell you the following things:

1. I'm active on Goodreads again!
2. I'm active on Helium again. Helium is the coolest writing website in the world. You can write an article about pretty much anything (and if the subject you wish to write about is not on Helium you can request that it be added), rate other people's writing, and get money! There are writing contests, a marketplace where you can do freelance writing, and a section for creative writing (where you don't get paid to write, but you do get nifty badges and stars). I've made $7.88 so far, and I think that practicing my writing skills (especially to help me write better scholarship essays...) and getting paid (however little) is great. Oh, and if you want to join Helium and write too, please tell me before you sign up! Tell me your first and last names (if I don't know them already, which is unlikely...) and email address and I'll send you an invitation, because I get 5% of whatever you make if I refer you!
3. I'm going to college. I'm not sure which, but I'm hoping to go to either Andrews University or Southern Adventist University.
4. I'm sick today! \:D/
5. I'm going to be blogging a lot more. Because I love my faithful readers. :D

I'm an uber space nerd!

I just took this cool test that revealed that I'm an uber space nerd. I guess because I know what a neutrino is.

Speaking of art...

Here is a little art based on word usage in my blog:

Apparently "correct" is a favorite subject of mine. Who knew? And I don't even remember mentioning Italy.

The American Art Museum

Yes, I know, it's been a while. You can call off the search party now. :)

Anyway, the first place we went in Washington was the American Art Museum, home of... really good paintings. Of course, I wanted to spend the most time in the contemporary art section (obviously that didn't have anything to do with the fact that my parents think that most contemporary art is silly). I think I have never said "Philistine" more times in a ten-minute span than in that section. ;-)

But first, before we went there, we looked at many, many other paintings. I was going to bring some home, but apparently they don't let visitors take them out of the building (unless that's just some cruel trick they play on out-of-towners).

You can see some of the art on my mom's blog at http://thenatureofthings2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/american-art-museum.html. Be sure to keep an eye out for any mention of Elvis (because, you know, Elvis is the most culturally important figure that ever lived in Tennessee).

The Hope Diamond

Have you ever seen the Hope Diamond? It's one of the featured displays at the Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. Just hearing about it one might think that it looks far more impressive than your average "large" diamond. I was excited to see this very valuable diamond for myself when I found myself on a trip to Washington last month.

It just so happens that it's actually more "hope" than "diamond". Walking into the room where it is held at the museum (yes, it has its very own room, so that we can all stand around it and gaze in awe), I was expecting something about the size of a small potato. Maybe bigger. It took me a minute to find the diamond. The huge bulletproof glass case helped a bit. And there it sat, on a periodically rotating platform, in all its glory: The Glorified Rock.

It was quite beautiful, but really, why not put it in the other gem exhibits with the other pretty rocks? Probably because it would be harder to find. I had a feeling that the main reason for the big glass case was so that it wouldn't get misplaced.

As if to add insult to injury (well, no I wasn't that injured, but I have to use the cliché anyway), the security guard followed me around the room as I walked. "Yes, sir, of course I'm planning to steal the world's most valuable carbon crystal right in front of all these people." Well, if there hadn't been an inch of glass between us and it, they probably wouldn't have noticed.

It was a very pretty blue rock. But I'm glad I didn't base my trip around the hope of seeing the Hope Diamond.

Washington Trip

I took a trip to Washington, D.C. at the end of December, but hadn't gotten around to blogging about it yet... so I shall be beginning that shortly.

If I forget, please email me nasty messages about my pies not browning evenly (or something equally atrocious).