Four-point Friday

It's about time I got to this. The thing about one class having a test this semester is that it's not just the one; all of them except for Doctrine and Covenants have a test. I would like to say it's all over for another few weeks, I really would, but it's not. Thankfully, it's mostly over. I have the beast looming ahead of me with what I will call its little crony. The beast would be the A&P Lab Exam on all the muscles and the crony is the take-home test for Algebra coupled with the online portion of that class (which usually goes over stuff that we don't talk about in class...). This is the reason why this post is later than usual. If I had attempted to write a blog post yesterday or two days ago, the fog that was filling my head would have invariably produced nonsensical babbling and I suddenly wouldn't have anyone following this blog except for psychiatrists, insomniacs, and an aggregate of crazies, with the latter two (maybe even all three) most likely being on some kind of drug.
The unfortunate thing for me (and arguably those of you who read this out of a sense of obligation (though I don't know why you would feel so obligated)) is that there's a direct correlation between the length of time between posts and the length of the post itself, meaning the longer I wait to post, the longer the post ends up being. I could just sum everything up in mildly vague generalities that would take a few minutes to type up, but for the sake of those who want the minutia, I'll come half-way. And away I go...
This last weekend was spent in good ol' Utah and it was great. One of my roommates, Bethany, and some other friends accompanied me, but for their own reason. I went mainly for car reasons that happily fell on Father's Day weekend (hope it was a good one for all the dads out there!) and they went for the Strawberry Days Rodeo in Pleasant Grove. Yeeha. It was a good weekend. I forgot to bring my school stuff so I could only do what was on the internet. I joined everyone else in Pleasant Grove for the rodeo Saturday evening and let's just say I never have to go to another one of those rodeos again.
Rexburg has finally hit summer. It was stormy/cloudy/unhappy June 20th with no foreseeable end to it and on June 21st it was clear, sunny, and hot (for Rexburg (around 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit)). Since then it's been bipolar, per usual. Today is a prime example. Started out stormy, complete with a 5-10 minute downpour and large peals of thunder could be heard tumbling across the land from inside my classroom right before a brief blackout occurred. I was so excited to get out of class and witness the heavens' might rolling past little ol' Rexburg and I emerged from my windowless classroom to witness wet ground and mostly sunny skies. That's okay too.
As the semester starts to "wind down" (in reality, my classes are still gearing up for an explosion of academic gore (I don't think it will be pretty)), I'm focusing on one step at a time. Focusing on depressing things, like the distance between here and Australia, will get me nowhere. Also, looking at all my classes as a whole is not a good idea, but rather I must focus on them individually to avoid getting overwhelmed. I feel like an ostrich burying my head in the ground, but if I emerge from the safety of the little things to look at the grand whole of what I have left, a piano starts to ease onto my chest. Alma 37:6 is very applicable here, just saying.
Now for some random tidbits of what I've been learning. Tom, Dick, and Harry reside in everyone's lower legs (Tibialis Posterior, Flexor Digitorum Longus, and Hallicus Longus muscles), how to graph rational polynomials (which I'll spare the detail on, but the graphs don't look very rational), that the acid content of vinegar can be determined through a long process involving making tartaric acid, draino (diluting a sample of heavily concentrated (6M) Sodium Hydroxide, aka NaOH), and mixing a bunch of it together, to put it simply. Math and science teachers make a lot of typos on worksheets and exams, the presence of the right person can make a headache go away, peanut butter and chocolate will always be delicious in spite of the protests of others, there's nothing like a good walk, a few hours helping with house work can make for good feelings and memories, and I could go on, but you're probably wishing I'd stop typing or you've already stopped reading this post, in which case it doesn't even matter that I'm writing this.
That's it for this post.

Maximum Speed on My Mark...Engage!

Isn't life funny with the various speeds it seems to go and the sudden changes in both speed and direction? One minute you're wandering blissfully along, fitting into a nice little groove that you just barely eked out and the next minute you get blind-sided by the equivalent of a mack-truck coming out of the blue above left field. Whether or not that mack-truck actually stops and gives you goodies or just runs you over is the major indicator of whether or not you're going to like this new direction. I have seen both in the last couple of weeks. I'm happy to say that I wasn't run over by the truck, but sad to say it plowed two people I know on its way. Naturally, those two people were not autonomous, but have connections to a complex network of people that the affect diffuses through; kind of like they're all connected by cords. Interesting to note that you can see a mack-truck coming from that spacious blue if you know where to look. Sometimes the sun's in your eyes, sometimes the truck has screaming lights, hopefully you get my point before I belabor this any more.
So life has its ups and downs, per usual. Human Anatomy and Physiology has tried to swallow me whole but ended up having to fight Chemistry and Algebra for me. So in a way, I'm grateful that all three have tried to claim me because if they hadn't, one would have succeeded and I wouldn't be writing this right now...at least coherently...well, you know what I mean. I was told that the forearm would be the muscle equivalent of the skull, and they were pretty much right. Your forearm is more complex than you would think and is a beast to try and figure out using the models they give you (maybe it was because I was really tired and didn't feel like being there in the first place). Lucky for us students, there are people who donate their bodies to science. Cadavers are very valuable to an A&P class.
My Chemistry class is not a chemistry class for at least 2 weeks, but a physics class instead. We're dealing with light and what my chemistry teacher calls "wavicles", which are things that have both the properties of a particle and a wave, like light itself, electrons, so on and so forth. This is the same chemistry teacher who said that water molecules, upon absorbing heat from microwaves, begin to spin around very fast and turn into "lots of tiny, microscopic ninjas-HiyAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Indeed he did scream "hiya!" in the middle of class. I'm liking this class, but the quizzes and exams try to kill me (unsuccessfully, thank goodness).
Algebra is the same as it always is, we're just going through polynomials and such right now. That's about it and yeeha for that.
My religion class is really great. My teacher, Brother Pyper, loves church history, so we get a lot of church history in with our lessons, especially since it's a Doctrine and Covenants class. Also, he has a doctorate that makes him very knowledgeable with Old Testament stuff. It's just amazing and I soak up every minute of the class.
Anyway, I should be wrapping this up now. Referring to the title of this post and the beginning, life seems to be going at break-neck speeds in some parts and matching cold molasses in others. Funny. Anyway, here are a few pictures from my date with the wonderful Miss Bethany last week. Enjoy!

Superman's Molecules vs. Mine

I want to start this post out by saying that I will be dedicating a certain portion of my life to training my molecules to obey my commands. The reason is that I wouldn't have to really expend any amount of work to move and I would go really, really fast. I learned in my chemistry class the other day that molecules move really, really fast, just in random directions. In order to move ourselves anywhere, we have to fight the molecules' "desire" to just stay in their little areas of random movement. If we were to figure out how to get our molecules to obey simple commands and move in unison, we wouldn't have to fight that "desire" and we would move extremely fast (we're talking 1000s of mph). That's when the guy sitting next to me in class decided that it's how Superman flies and how he's so fast while still able to kick the bad guys' butts. Unfortunately, my molecules aren't very responsive, but they stay together to make my body, so I'm happy about that. And that's all in spite of my efforts to get my molecules to disband; which brings me to my fun activities of the week.
First off, Chemistry Lab. This week in the lab we took copper (II) and set it through a series of reactions that eventually turned it back into plain ol' copper (II) again. Fun, right? Well, most of those reactions involved the hazardous chemicals that you normally think of when one thinks of laboratory experiments. To name a couple, we used Nitrous Acid and Sulfuric Acid, both of which will literally make your flesh slough off your bones. We also had by-products like Nitrogen Dioxide, which is brown in color and, simply put, will kill you (kind of like when a roommate has eaten too many eggs or something). There were also dangerous instruments, like the bunson burner, which gets up to around 900 degrees. I survived the entire lab with one injury: I poked myself with my pencil. Yep, boohoo for me.

Second off, ward sports. I am a part of three ward teams this semester (ultimate frisbee (of course), soccer, and softball) and I attend the games when I can. Wednesday night was a double-whammy of Ultimate at 8:15 and softball at 10:15 (each game is only 45 minutes). Frisbee was plenty fun- no real injuries. In fact, it gave me a good start to the night. For those who really know my soccer skills, you're probably questioning why I'm acting like I have any soccer skills. The truth is, I do. They're not much to brag about, mind you, but they're there. With that being said, I've never been very confident on the soccer field, especially if I haven't played for a semester or so, though that doesn't stop me from trying and having a good time. Anyway, this game started out really well for me. I was a defender (per usual) and I made some good blocks/interceptions, got some proper headers and things of that nature. Well, I had a toe-punt that lacked good technique (the technique is basically to not break your toe) and also a run-in with an opposing player that resulted in my toe being roughed up. Those are the two candidates for the unusual pain and accompanying blood that I noticed oozing into my sock and consequently a little into my shoe. It's nothing serious, my toe's bruised and the toenail got partially separated from the nail bed. By the end of the night, a scrape on my shin and knee from another player's cleats felt worse than my toe, so it really wasn't acting up at all.
As for the molecules in my brain, they're a-okay because I made sure to header the ball correctly, thus not giving myself a concussion or any sort of real brain damage. I've found that school is easier the more (correctly) functioning brain-matter you have. Since this week has been a little busy for me, I've tried to take especially good care of that mass of neurons and fat and such that's cradled in my skull. Chemistry, Anatomy and Physiology, Algebra, I had midterm equivalents in each one of them this week. I still have one more test to take, too. Oh how I love the near-dementia test weeks can sometimes produce...Good thing is that I feel pretty good about all my tests so far (except chemistry, but my teacher tries to match an ideal grade bell curve as close as he can (meaning most of his students would have C's), so it's hard to feel good after one of his tests). I do have a feeling, though, that these next few weeks, maybe even the rest of the semester, will not be so enjoyable. We're going over a complicated process called action potentials in A&P which will give us the basis for everything else that we will talk about from here on out. We're starting up a little physics in chemistry, talking about waves and such, which doesn't seem so bad now, but we're only one page into the chapter notes. Doctrine and Covenants will plug along as it usually does, thank goodness, and Algebra shouldn't be too bad either. So I guess it's really just my two hefty classes will get even heavier.
Anyway, I should probably think about wrapping this up for the sanity of those of you who actually read these inane ramblings that I've managed to format into a blog. That, and I have a date tonight. This is one that I intentionally got myself, even. Impressive, eh? I thought so. This date involves picture-taking, so if you're lucky, some of the pictures just might make it onto this very blog. At any rate, I'll close with explaining the picture at the top of this. We had a ward social last night that provided dinner and had an elite panel of 3 guys and 3 girls who were to answer questions about dating. When I say elite, I really mean we were basically an aggregate with the specifications of 3 guys and 3 girls. Yes, I was on that panel and that was my placement marker. Notice how it's not my handwriting...just thought I would point that out. It was a good time, though I was pretty nervous most of the time and couldn't really think of anything to say. I think the best thing I said came from a religion teacher of mine. He said that in the dating world, you shouldn't really push the subject, but instead focus on being who you are supposed to be. So there you have it, and on that note, I'm out of here.

Brain-fry

Tomorrow at this time I will be staring at a series of bones and identifying each numbered part (whether it's a foramen, process, tuberosity, tubercle, fossa, or whatever) in 30 seconds or less. Today I took a chemistry exam that had me staring (once again) at the first problem like I was being asked to calculate how much fuel a 4-ton rocket needs to reach Jupiter in May. That happens all-too-often on my chemistry quizzes/exams. The rest of the test, with an exception of one or two questions, is a cake-walk by comparison. I seem to have a knack for forgetting one vital piece of information that will help me solve the first problem and thereby nearly disintegrate my confidence for the rest of the test. Maybe I'll save the first question for last from now on...
School in general is going smoothly in a slightly bumpy sort of way. I'm at least understanding pretty much everything we're discussing in class and the things I don't catch on to right away come with a little time. I'm enjoying my Algebra class much more now that we're going into the actual crunching of numbers and solving equations. Right now we're going through Matrices and are learning about "dirty data" which we can't calculate an exact fit. Finding an exact fit is a rather long process, but finding a "best fit" is even longer. Evidently I'm in for a long haul on my finals.
Moving along, I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day. My whole weekend was a good one. For one thing, I have procured a leather jacket. That's right, all I need now is a helmet and a motorcycle, which is probably the order that I'll get them in. It seems that every time I go to the DI with something specific in mind, I can never find it, or I can never find one that's suitable for a guy like me. This last visit hopefully broke that trend. I got it for a whopping 8 bones and it looks great. The reason for this purchase is a music video that some friends and I will be replicating in the near future. I'll let you see it when it's completed and that's if I'm feeling nice. Anyway, although it was stormy off and on the whole weekend, especially Memorial Day, I really enjoyed it. I believe the main contributor to my happiness was the fact that I managed to complete all my homework before Saturday was even half-over. The major let-down of the weekend was that almost everyone I know that was still up here had waited until Memorial Day to do their homework. Puh-leeze. Why ruin a perfect opportunity by procrastinating or not preparing? I used to be that way, and still can be, but not so much anymore.
At any rate, I had better get back to the grindstone. And away I go...