penn

Just because I'm a geek . . .

I had to take this test. This is quite possibly just about the only test I'd ever post on my blog, but it's so me.

You are water. You're not really organic; you're
neither acidic nor basic, yet you're an acid
and a base at the same time. You're strong
willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready
to flow. So while you often seem worthless,
without you, everything would just not work.
People should definitely drink more of you
every day.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

SNOW!

It snowed tonight in Seattle.

YAY.

Warning: a political thought

I don't usually get into politics. My main concern is the environment; most candidates don't really make a big fuss about it. However, several events within the recent year have caused me to look more at the political situations in our country. I'm really frustrated about President Bush and his administration.

First, there's the small issue of the environment. "Streamlining" environmental regulations means taking away strict controls. Apparently, he's raised the allowable amount of arsenic in drinking water. Insane! When I briefly lived on a reservation in Arizona, I had to drink only bottled water because of the levels of uranium in the local drinking water. Why can't our president make moves to clean up the environment for the citizens? Or, at the very least, where is the sense in rolling back environmental regulations?

My other major beef is the budget. Deficits should be illegal, first of all. Citizens are not allowed to run in a deficit (other than credit card debt, but that's for another post). How can the country? How are you supposed to take care of the citizen's needs with imaginary money? And how can you justify spending money outside of the US (especially on non-humanitarian actions) when there are so many pressing needs within the US for increased health care, police patrols, education, work training programs, low income housing, etc?

Bush (and his administration) raise a lot of questions for me. Where are the answers?

Evolution

I don't understand why people say they can't believe in evolution just because they're Christian. I'm Christian, and I believe in evolution. Isn't it possible that God put things on the earth that then continued to grow and evolve? Evolution does not mean that other primates evolved into humans. Evolution means that animals continue to adapt over generations following several models (including survival of the fittest) that Darwin put out. Evolution occurs with things like bacteria (hence the reason antibacterial overuse causes the strongest bacteria to survive, therefore causing bacteria to evolve superstrands) and with birds, turtles, and scads of other animals that have been observed. It really confuses me when people say that evolution and christianty can't go together. Where is the exact conflict between these two ideas?

I was a male hobbit?

I just had the weirdest dream. Maybe it is finally time for me to go see RTOK (Return of the King -- haven't mad it to the theater yet).

I just dreamed that I was a male hobbit in a Lord of the Rings thingy. Actually, I was only a hobbit for part of it. For another part of the dream, I was a female adventurer or something. I managed to injure some bad guy (btw, this has nothing to do with the plotline of any of the books) by striking him in the eye. I didn't kill him, but he was hella pissed at me. So, I ran into him again, and we were under a sheer cliff with him on top. The cliff was only twelve feet or something. There was a little hunting knife stuck in the cliff, so I climbed up and grabbed it. All along, he was taunting me that I couldn't harm him again. Then, I just flicked the knife upward, and it hit him in the exact same spot. He started spurting blood, got a shocked look, and keeled over.

After that, Aragorn, Legolas, and some other random tall guys rushed up to unload a bunch of arrows into him. All of a sudden, instead of being outside, I was inside. Same tall guys, but this time I was a male hobbit with a short female in a fancy dress next to me (not sure if she has a hobbit too or not). They were still going to unload arrows into the same bad guy, despite being maybe three feet away from him. I was holding onto my girl, who kept tickling my leg, and I was trying to wrap the curtain around her so she wouldn't get blood on her.

Then, the alarm rang. Let's hear it for the weirdest dream I have had in a long time. I think I need to get more sleep.

A friend

Tonight, I realized just how much I miss one of my school friends. We meet in the first week of freshman year; she lived on my hall, and we had an expository writing class together. As part of the class, we had to do lots of drafts. My friend V and I would get together and edit each other's papers. We also worked on a coloring calendar as we worked on essays. For example, I'd read one of V's papers (and she's a great writer, too!) while she would color on the calendar. After I finished editing, I'd explain all my marks and notes to her so she could write them down and I could keep them all in my head. Then, I'd color while she'd read/edit/etc for me. It worked out really well for us, because it allowed us to justify having some fun due to the work we would get done. Plus, it helped me relax, and I'm sure V would agree. We managed to finish the whole twelve months of the calendar by the final. We then showed our professor, who laughed -- I'm sure he found our editing method funny, but it kept us on task. V and I looked forward to editing because it meant more work on our calendar!

V has now been in Spain since this August, and I haven't seen her since last May. We didn't hang out all the time; she and I have different circles of friends. However, we would run into each other on campus and spend time catching up or chatting. Sometimes, she'd come over and we'd color on a different book I had. Still, she's a good friend, and I enjoyed seeing her around campus. This fall just felt a little different with her gone.

Tonight, I got a wonderful two emails from her! She's in India for Christmas, and it sounds like she is having a wonderful time. Her other email was just a personal one with Christmas greetings and packing suggestions. She has warned me to pack light -- we'll see how I do.

And the best part of her email? She is excited to come visit me and go stare at beautiful Van Goghs! I'm in art geek heaven.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone out there :-)

New Photos

There are new photos up in the "VZ Newts" Photo album. They're really just other sciency-type photos from this past semester, but I threw them in there anyway. Until there's a way to remove thumbnails from the main page, I want to minimize my number of photo albums. Anyway, enjoy the three I posted! I'll try and find more photos I want to post soon.

Random Notes

I got a beautiful moleskin journal from Chris (my soon-to-be not boyfriend when I embark on my European adventure) as a Christmas/Hanukkah present. He doesn't celebrate Christmas, but he doesn't really do Hanukkah either, so holiday gift giving is usually just a "here is your Christukkah present" type of thing.

I watched La Bamba today and cried. I am a human waterworks some days. I also saw Men At Work, but I was less impressed. It was funny enough, I suppose, but I don't really like comedies. I believe in the need for suspension of disbelief (odd . . . ), but comedies require too much suspension of disbelief. I mean, they shove a bunch of people down a hill, handcuff police officers to a merry go round (the little kid playground kind), and cause several accidents, yet everyone gets off scott free and happy? No thanks.

Our Christmas tree has been up since last Thursday, complete with lights (thanks to my dad and I), but there are still no ornaments on the tree. It's a family tradition to decorate together, and none of us are all home at the same time ::sigh:: I'm hoping the tree gets a few ornaments before Christmas Eve. Otherwise, I'm sure my mom will make us wait to open presents until all the ornaments go up, and then my brothers will get surly. The rest of the house remains undecorated as well. Ironically enough, we will decorate after Christmas, because our family hosts an annual open house for the members of our church. I love how holiday spirit isn't enough for us, but we have to do it for other people. (However, tho I complain, it's not really a big deal to me. I don't see the point of plastering fake garland all over the house, even if it looks good, when the whole rest of the world is decorated AND it's not even snowing. How can it be Christmas without snow? Oh, well, I'm still excited -- I got good presents for everyone this year, and my shopping got done in a record short time, because I only bought for my family. I made Chris a blanket, so he wouldn't accept any other presents.)

Really, as the years go on, my life is getting focused inward more and more. My whole family has become unified in a singular quest to spend every vacation we have together in the "clean-and-sort" mode. Maybe someday we'll get rid of enough that we can all just spend time together.

Last night, my boyfriend and I got in an argument. Sometimes, it's hard for me to resist hanging up, because I know we're just breaking up when I leave for Europe in a few weeks. Sometimes, I think we argue just because I'm leaving. Leaving is stressing: the relationship is over, and it's not anyone's fault. Therefore, to distance yourself from that person so that you don't feel horribly hurt, you fight with them. My exboyfriend and I did the same thing as we approached our "planned break up date" of me going back to school (all of you out there, never plan a break up date. it sucks. It just creates stress. I need to remember that next time).

Anyway, my boyfriend and I fought about something incredibly stupid. We fought about where he would sleep.