It feels like I've spent the last few weeks falling apart and trying desperately to hold the pieces together so that nobody will notice. Now I'm simply exhausted. Job hunting sucks. Debt sucks.
I feel so alone.
04 September 2012
31 July 2012
'Merica!
So, I never actually took the blog down like I planned to. I was going to do it at O'Hare, but their internet is evil, so it never happened. Anyway, I'm back. There's a lot to tell, so for this post I'm just going to list a bunch of firsts. These are things that happened to me for the first time in the Chiner.
- Sat in a train for 4 hours without it going anywhere (the tracks were flooded)
- Rode a train (a week after sitting in one for 4 hours)
- Ate at Subway (Seriously. I had to go to the Great Wall to eat at Subway for the first time)
- Watched 5 movies during one plane ride (Wall-E, Up, War Horse, The Incredibles, and Shrek)
- Ran through 6-inch deep water and pouring rain while carrying a 6-year-old
- Sang at KTV (the Chinese version of karaoke) I went with some Enrique, and later joked that I was "trying to win me a little Chinese bride"
- Rode a chair lift that didn't make me nervous (I know, riding the one at Adventureland freaks me out, but riding one over a deep valley and up the Great Wall is okay. I'm weird)
- Saw a sunset at over 30,000 feet above ground--and far enough north where dusk never ended, and sunrise came again before dark
- Ate lamb
I'm sure I'm forgetting some cool things, but whatever. More info to come in later posts.
13 July 2012
Bye (for now)
Well, it's less than a week (counting travel to the airport) until I leave for China. I'm going to be taking this blog down while I'm there, so if it disappears, sorry. If you're reading this for the first time after I get back, hello again! I'm sorry for the disappearance.
But yeah, minor update on my klutziness. I played basketball with some friends on Tuesday night, and I was fairly sure I broke my finger for a while. The swelling and discoloration have gone down since Wednesday morning, so I think it was probably just jammed badly. Then yesterday, I was cooking something in the oven, and when it came time to take it out, my thumb somehow bypassed the potholder and hit the oven rack. So now I've got injuries on both hands.
And while waiting for China, I've been packing a little bit at a time. I've got a fair bit ready now, but I'm still a while from getting it all done. The main thing left is clothes. But yay! only a week left!
But yeah, minor update on my klutziness. I played basketball with some friends on Tuesday night, and I was fairly sure I broke my finger for a while. The swelling and discoloration have gone down since Wednesday morning, so I think it was probably just jammed badly. Then yesterday, I was cooking something in the oven, and when it came time to take it out, my thumb somehow bypassed the potholder and hit the oven rack. So now I've got injuries on both hands.
And while waiting for China, I've been packing a little bit at a time. I've got a fair bit ready now, but I'm still a while from getting it all done. The main thing left is clothes. But yay! only a week left!
29 June 2012
3 weeks
21 Days from the time of this post, I shall be on the first of three planes to take me to the Bring Me Hope camp. (In case you can't tell, I'm excited) With the time change, it'll take 32.5 hours for the first two planes.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning to a dream about getting on the plane.
Anyway, I've got a job interview on Tuesday. Hooray for chances to work!
Yeah, short post. Whatever.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning to a dream about getting on the plane.
Anyway, I've got a job interview on Tuesday. Hooray for chances to work!
Yeah, short post. Whatever.
12 June 2012
Response
Okay, this is going to be mostly in response to recent comments from my uncle on this post, this post, and this post. But first, I'm going to apologize for not posting for a long time. My computer died on me, and so I have to hit up libraries to get online--or use my iPod, where typing is all kinds of fun.
Anyway, on to the response. Firstly, the main reason I post on this blog is so I can sleep at night. If I don't get thoughts down in some form, my brain gets locked on them, and I can't get to sleep. The secondary reason is to let my friends know what I'm up to. So the primary and secondary audiences are mostly--if not all--Christians. So, people who would agree with that kind of thing--just like anywhere else on the internet that uses first person pronouns--and therefore, it's going to look wrong to people who disagree.
Now as to the specific posts. The first thing I'm going to address is from the second linked post--where he wonders what the "impossible that had to happen" was. At this point, I wasn't aware of the possibility of a chiral anomaly. The impossible was the breaking of the conservation of baryon number. Now as near as I can tell from that (and I will admit that that dense wall of quantum mechanics-speak is unintelligible to me and makes my head hurt, so I may be wrong) we don't have evidence showing that that has happened (other than the fact that we exist) so they're only hypotheses--again, unless I'm reading that wrong. And if I'm wrong, I won't say the old "it's only a theory," because I think that people who say that should be dragged to a dictionary, be forced to read the scientific definition of "theory" out loud, then smacked across the face with the dictionary. Like I said, I might be wrong, and if I am, then I'm wrong. I am human, after all.
As to the "argument from ignorance" complaints.... Yes. Exactly. I made logical fallacies. I didn't actually prove the existence of God. I am of the opinion that God cannot be proven or disproven logically--if He could, the debate would have been over long ago. Unfortunately, it may appear that I was trying to prove His existence. The main reason for those posts is that I get frustrated when atheists go in and point out internal inconsistencies in the Bible, and acting as if science has all the answers. There are still holes in science--and in my opinion, there always will be, but that's just my opinion. Now, my belief is that the inconsistencies in the Bible are due to human error--a common factor no matter what field you look at.
As to whether or not scientists should give up because I don't think they'll figure everything out, of course they shouldn't. They should continue trying to increase our knowledge of the universe. And yes, for the most part, the holes have been getting smaller, but we've also found new ones--quantum mechanics vs. classical physics, for example. It's my belief that as they find answers to the current issues, they will find new holes in understanding, so that no matter how long our species survives, we will never have a complete understanding of things in science--only my opinion. Should that be taught in schools? Only the part that there are currently gaps in our understanding--God should only be mentioned in religious studies or biblical studies courses, since it's not science--at most. Show the gaps, talk about experiments that are attempting to close them, that's it.
Anyway, I'm bored with this, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to close this out and head home.
Anyway, on to the response. Firstly, the main reason I post on this blog is so I can sleep at night. If I don't get thoughts down in some form, my brain gets locked on them, and I can't get to sleep. The secondary reason is to let my friends know what I'm up to. So the primary and secondary audiences are mostly--if not all--Christians. So, people who would agree with that kind of thing--just like anywhere else on the internet that uses first person pronouns--and therefore, it's going to look wrong to people who disagree.
Now as to the specific posts. The first thing I'm going to address is from the second linked post--where he wonders what the "impossible that had to happen" was. At this point, I wasn't aware of the possibility of a chiral anomaly. The impossible was the breaking of the conservation of baryon number. Now as near as I can tell from that (and I will admit that that dense wall of quantum mechanics-speak is unintelligible to me and makes my head hurt, so I may be wrong) we don't have evidence showing that that has happened (other than the fact that we exist) so they're only hypotheses--again, unless I'm reading that wrong. And if I'm wrong, I won't say the old "it's only a theory," because I think that people who say that should be dragged to a dictionary, be forced to read the scientific definition of "theory" out loud, then smacked across the face with the dictionary. Like I said, I might be wrong, and if I am, then I'm wrong. I am human, after all.
As to the "argument from ignorance" complaints.... Yes. Exactly. I made logical fallacies. I didn't actually prove the existence of God. I am of the opinion that God cannot be proven or disproven logically--if He could, the debate would have been over long ago. Unfortunately, it may appear that I was trying to prove His existence. The main reason for those posts is that I get frustrated when atheists go in and point out internal inconsistencies in the Bible, and acting as if science has all the answers. There are still holes in science--and in my opinion, there always will be, but that's just my opinion. Now, my belief is that the inconsistencies in the Bible are due to human error--a common factor no matter what field you look at.
As to whether or not scientists should give up because I don't think they'll figure everything out, of course they shouldn't. They should continue trying to increase our knowledge of the universe. And yes, for the most part, the holes have been getting smaller, but we've also found new ones--quantum mechanics vs. classical physics, for example. It's my belief that as they find answers to the current issues, they will find new holes in understanding, so that no matter how long our species survives, we will never have a complete understanding of things in science--only my opinion. Should that be taught in schools? Only the part that there are currently gaps in our understanding--God should only be mentioned in religious studies or biblical studies courses, since it's not science--at most. Show the gaps, talk about experiments that are attempting to close them, that's it.
Anyway, I'm bored with this, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to close this out and head home.
10 May 2012
Nerding out
This morning, I had some nerdiness busting out. I was thinking, and I figured out a way to determine how many decimal places come from a fraction. The first step is to reduce it to the simplest form--1/2 instead of 4/8 or 5/6 instead of 25/30. Then you can ignore the numerator. The denominator is all that matters. The next step is to attempt to reduce the denominator to the form (2x)(5y) where x and y are whole, non-negative numbers (0, 1, 2, etc.). If the denominator can't be reduced to this form, the decimal version goes on infinitely. If it can be reduced to this form, compare x and y. The higher of the two numbers is how many decimal places your answer will have. For example, a denominator of 40 would reduce to (2351), giving 3 as the higher of x and y. This is how many decimal places will always be in a number with 40 as the denominator (unless it can be reduced to a smaller denominator). This stems from the fact that decimals come from exact powers of 10, which can be written as (2x5x) and anything with those numbers the same (or lower) fits evenly.
Now is there a way to figure out what denominator(s) you should pick to have a decimal that is a certain length? Yes. Let's imagine that you are a math teacher, and you want a problem to have a decimal with 3 places. So you take your (2x)(5y) form and set x or y equal to 3. With x, that gives 23. Then vary y from 0 to 3, giving you (23)(50)=8, (23)(51)=40, (23)(52)=200, and (23)(53)=1000. Then starting from this last, vary x down to 0 to get (22)(53)=500, (21)(53)=250, and (20)(55)=125. Then you can always multiply the numerator and denominators by whatever number you want to make the problem seem harder. Just be careful to not make it possible to reduce the fraction further than you wanted.
I ran through all of this in about 15 minutes this morning--for no real purpose. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And proud of it.
Now is there a way to figure out what denominator(s) you should pick to have a decimal that is a certain length? Yes. Let's imagine that you are a math teacher, and you want a problem to have a decimal with 3 places. So you take your (2x)(5y) form and set x or y equal to 3. With x, that gives 23. Then vary y from 0 to 3, giving you (23)(50)=8, (23)(51)=40, (23)(52)=200, and (23)(53)=1000. Then starting from this last, vary x down to 0 to get (22)(53)=500, (21)(53)=250, and (20)(55)=125. Then you can always multiply the numerator and denominators by whatever number you want to make the problem seem harder. Just be careful to not make it possible to reduce the fraction further than you wanted.
I ran through all of this in about 15 minutes this morning--for no real purpose. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And proud of it.
30 April 2012
Support
Well, I'm sending out the first round of letters here in a few minutes. I've got a bunch stuffed and addressed, I just need to get to a post office, which is going to happen as soon as I finish typing this post. So yay! Some of you will be receiving an envelope with my poor handwriting in your mailboxes within the next couple of days! Then you will have a chance to send me money! Hooray for everything! I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SHOUTING!
Um, yeah. Sorry about the excitement. I'm tired. Bye.
Um, yeah. Sorry about the excitement. I'm tired. Bye.
24 April 2012
Letters
Today, I bought envelopes. Lots of envelopes. I still need to actually write my support letter, but I should have more than enough envelopes to send it out. I have to start getting going on things for this trip. They're recommending that I have 2/3 of the money raised by June 1--and that's about $2,000. It feels like there's so much to do to go on this trip. And school's wrapping up. And I need to start looking for a job. And I need to sleep occasionally or I get really paranoid.
Anyway, if you're not sure if I've got you on my list of people to send a letter to--or you want to make sure I have an address--and you want to be on the list, feel free to shoot me a text/email/fb message/whatever and let me know.
Anyway, I should go now. I've procrastinated from studying long enough, and I've got a test this evening.
Anyway, if you're not sure if I've got you on my list of people to send a letter to--or you want to make sure I have an address--and you want to be on the list, feel free to shoot me a text/email/fb message/whatever and let me know.
Anyway, I should go now. I've procrastinated from studying long enough, and I've got a test this evening.
18 April 2012
I'm gonna go over here now
So, I probably worried some people with that post earlier today. To be honest, I worried myself. I did end up skipping Spanish, since I couldn't make myself stop crying for more than a couple minutes at a time.
Well, after some time to think (and talking with a third person and texting a fourth), I think I've got a plan. I'm going to drop out of college. After this semester, whether it ends well or not, I'm going to take a break from college. It's just not working. It's adding stress and debt to my life, I'm not making any real progress toward a degree, and I seem to be moving away from God during the stressful moments. So college seems to be just about the worst place for me to be right now.
So the new plan is to get a job, and stay working until......well, I don't know what would come next. Until plans change, I guess. I might go back to school eventually, I might not.
So yeah....if you're still worried about me, I don't know what else to say--partially because I can't help much more than I have, and partially because I can't seem to successfully type the word "say" in one try right now, because I'm worn out. Going through depression is just exhausting.
Me go bed now. Maybe write again after sleep. Me not think so though.
Well, after some time to think (and talking with a third person and texting a fourth), I think I've got a plan. I'm going to drop out of college. After this semester, whether it ends well or not, I'm going to take a break from college. It's just not working. It's adding stress and debt to my life, I'm not making any real progress toward a degree, and I seem to be moving away from God during the stressful moments. So college seems to be just about the worst place for me to be right now.
So the new plan is to get a job, and stay working until......well, I don't know what would come next. Until plans change, I guess. I might go back to school eventually, I might not.
So yeah....if you're still worried about me, I don't know what else to say--partially because I can't help much more than I have, and partially because I can't seem to successfully type the word "say" in one try right now, because I'm worn out. Going through depression is just exhausting.
Me go bed now. Maybe write again after sleep. Me not think so though.
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