Update

New blog location! I moved some stuff to wordpress, I've decided to continue posting things on both though since wordpress is still really confusing.

That is all :]

*Singing the blogger blues

So I kind of want to move my blog to a place that's a little more public and findable... but wordpress is complicated and inflexible and tumblr is more about microblogging, which doesn't seem to be something I actually do. That's ironic since this post would probably fit right in... I don't know, the jury's still out.

In the meantime, I am THIS close to figuring out how to classify my political beliefs. The other day I figured I am a classical liberal, which Mom called a JFK democrat and Matt called a right-leaning libertarian. Then today I took a political spectrum quiz which called me a 'center-right moderate social libertarian.' Since that really makes no sense, it helps to know the quiz told me I tend to be non-interventionist on foreign policy and liberal when it comes to cultural issues.

These kinds of opinons change though, so I thought it would be cool for journaling purposes to record where I stand now, just 3 weeks before my 21st birthday.

Anyway YOU can and should take the political spectrum quiz yourself (she says as if someone is reading this).

Peace.

*credit goes to Señor Kelly for the title

an almost religious experience

The nectarines were in rare form today; Mom told me I would die if I ate one. I had already eaten too much though, so I put one on a little plate with a paring knife and set it aside while I read. It's bright red and yellow skin are tempting, and I only get a page farther before I uncurl in the chair and pulled the plate closer. I was skeptical of her praise for the little fruit, but today is the first in weeks of honest-to-goodness summer sun; I take it as a sign to indulge.

You can hear the fibers ripping as I drag the knife through the fleshy nectarine to reveal it's fushia specked, gold flesh. The transparent juice beads on the surface of the cut like sweat, even though we're both protected by by the air conditioning. I carefully hold on to the half I've removed so as not to bruise it and tilt my head to catch the dripping juices in my open mouth. This must be the ambrosia of the gods. Sweet without coating or overpowering the mouth. An overzealous bite squirts nectar all over my arm and the cover of the book I've now forgotten.

At this point I've cut most of the fruit away, but there are slivers left around the pit. I shave them off slowly. I ate the most part of the fruit so greedily that I now want to be able to enjoy the little that is left. And I do.

I call out so Mom can hear me from the next room, "I think I died."

some stuff

You know there's no turning back when you're willing to treat the horse like a sphere to make the math easy. It didn't make sense when we started out, but I've become a boundary-seeker, looking to solve things with minimal effort in the shortest amount of time possible. I consider it a success to almost finish a problem on an exam and am happy with estimates - within an order of magnitude of course - if numbers are called for.

I remember taking derivatives the hard way and the confusion that ensued when we included multiple dimensions. Now I can live in the coordinate system of my choice and perform a dazzling Galilean or Lorentz transform upon request. If you really want to know, I can tell you just how much that top wobbles when you spin it or the speed of the racecar from the moon's point of view.

I remember when E only stood for energy and k was always the coulomb constant. Now E can be a field, and k can be anything I want. But I hardly ever make it the Coulomb constant because we can probably cancel pi and epsilon at some point anyway.

I know that it is never acceptable to divide by zero because everything will blow up. I've never actually experienced this, but I've learned enough to refrain from trying.

I know that there is uncertainty in all things quantum, but in life I've found it's never as simple as h-bar over 2. I am certain that I know more than this and still don't know much, much more, but that's for another time.