Mechanics and The Upper Room

Yesterday morning I kept coming up with Google search results with "This Site May Harm Your Computer" underneath each and every one! I thought that the internet had broken down or something, but my fears were subsided when I read this article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,486268,00.html

Tonight I went with Angelina to The Upper Room again. We got there ridiculously early to make sure that I had a normal parking space and would not have parallel park. (I park very crookedly in normal parking spots and cannot parallel park to save my life.) The service was very good and I found myself yet again translating the sermon into physics. For example...the pastor was talking about how big God is, and he related God's power working through us to a big elephant and a tiny flea on a bridge. They jump on it and cause it to oscillate, and then after they get off, the flea remarks "look what a difference our jumping made!"
In mechanics, we generalize things. Often we disregard air drag when doing calculations with falling objects. We make everything into a point particle and simplify as much as we can. We would just ignore the flea if we were calculating the magnitude of the force that the elephant exerts on the bridge when he is jumping on it. It is technically not an accurate picture. However, if we were looking at things from the level of the flea, every single force exerted would become important, including that exerted by the flea on the bridge. It would then be a much more accurate picture.
Now things are generalized and simplified in general mechanics, but in quantum mechanics, things suddenly change. Generalization and the ignoring of very small forces becomes impossible. The picture is more accurate than the generalized picture of the elephant, but everything is now based on probability. An electron has a higher probability of being here and in that spot right there, but it also could very well be on the other side of the planet.
This relates to our worldview. We like to generalize and simplify things so that we ignore the flea and just look at the elephant. It gives us control. But when we look at things from a more accurate perspective, everything is probable and we have no control and cannot predict what will happen. We may not know whether or not an electron will be here in the next nanosecond or on the other side of the universe. We do, however, know what the final picture will look like and that the electron is a component an atom, or of that big picture.

Whether that made sense or not...

After the service we bought lunchables at Safeway because we hadn't had them since elementary school, and then went to the coffee house. I love food. And I love coffee houses.

Goodness Gracious!

Today I was taking a break from homework and felt a sudden urge to call one of my bestest friends. I did so, and it turned out that the random phone call was much-needed and very refreshing. I love it when God does things like that.

We had physics lab again today. We spent most of the time waiting for water to boil. I had some escapades, one of which involved soaking a pile of papers with an ice water bath. We were doing a lab on heat capacity, which we only got half way through. The instructions said to look on the internet for a chart containing the relationship between millibars and temperature, so I typed in "mbars as a function of temperature." Google then suggested "do you mean: mars as a function of temperature?" I started laughing and couldn't stop for a while. Later I heard that one of the other groups had typed in "internet.com" into Google.

I got my physics exam results back. :D I got a 71! That may seem like a barely passing grade, but in my physics class, a 50 is the class average. You have to know what you are doing to get a good grade on the exam, and you have to know how to do it quickly. The "quickly" part is the part that I am challenged with. Anyways, I still have an A in the class and am really happy...because that is the highest raw score that I have had on a physics exam yet! I was so scared that it was not a raw score; once when we did really awful he graded on the curve. I ran back to his office two minutes before lab was supposed to start and quickly asked if it was graded on the curve, and it was not. I'll see if I got anything wrong tomorrow! My main problem was just finishing the thing. =P

I talk about my physics class way too much on here. Humm...what else?

I'm reading through Isaiah and James right now. The last book I read through was Ecclesiastes.I love Ecclesiastes. It pretty much keeps my head on straight. EVERYTHING is meaningless without God. I have been convicted so much by reading James though...and have some other things in my life that need worked through right now. It's hard to work through them with school going on...which is why I need to go sleep...so that I can wake up early tomorrow and have some God time. Wuuunnnnderfullll it has been a very interesting day. Weekend begins tomorrow afternoon!

Yay!

My physics exam is over! I spent half an hour on definitions and tutorial, which left me only twenty-five minutes for the rest of the problems...there were probably 8-10 of those, and I think I only did half of them. However I am fairly confident that though I only did about 2/3 or 3/4 of the exam, I think that I got everything that I did correct. We'll see. I was hyperventilating before the exam...I really don't like exams.

Usually I do physics homework in math. I hadn't read ahead for the chapter I thought we were going to do today, so I was pulling out my notebook so that I could take notes. I placed it on the desk, and my math teacher announced - "We will not be learning anything new today!" Crestfallen, I picked the notebook back up and put it into my bag. We were to have an optional quiz at twenty till, and the rest of the time was to be spent working on problems. I opted to do a bit of review but soon tired of it and began physics homework. Then I got distracted and kept helping a classmate with homework. He kept forgetting to use identities; I don't know why. Once I met identities, they became my best friend! I think that they are awesome. My math professor kept walking by and laughing at me. Whatever.

A couple of days ago I made one of my physics classmates so mad that he stomped out of the room after tutorial. He had been intending to stay but I guess it was the combination of me being dreadfully annoying and some things that I am guessing have been going on in his life that did him in. I was mortified; I hadn't been that annoying in a while. But when someone invites me to be annoying, it is exceedingly hard to resist! I guess I need to grow up a little more...

My brother and I went to WalMart today; I needed new headphones (they break monthly...for no reason!) and he needed fish food. We both decided that we had a craving for candy, so we stood in front of the candy section for ten minutes trying to decide what to buy. After those ten minutes had passed, we realized that the craving had passed and bought the rest of our items.

What has been new...nothing else. I was intensely focusing for the physics exam. Now my eyebrows hurt and so do my teeth; when I am stressed I keep my eyebrows in a worried position and clench my teeth. I am going to go to bed to relax my face now.

The countdown begins...

Er, it already began...since the beginning of the quarter. I have a physics exam in two days! I'm hoping I can pull over a fifty on it. I have an A+ right now but know from experience that the grade drops a couple points after exams. Except after my last final...there were three hours allotted for a normal-length test, and my grade surprisingly went up after the final! I had enough time to do everything.

Anyways, I am ahead on math right now. I am romantically infatuated with trigonometry. The beauty of it all. I really like it. For no reason whatsoever. I hope it is this way with calculus.

Today I almost fell asleep in church. I feel so bad because every Sunday, once the sermon starts, I am out. I should really try to get more sleep on Saturday evenings, or something. I was also struggling during worship. When I went down to Bethel, I was surrounded in a wonderful atmosphere. But the way I at least worshipped down there was based on feelings. Not necessarily the joy that comes from the amazement of the fact that God sacrificed His Son for me - tears every time - but...I can't describe it. Anyways, less of my worship was based on the gospel than on what God was doing right now at that moment in the room. Bethel was a wonderful atmosphere to be in but I am now back in suchandsuchatown, WA. Pretty much...not like that. I can't explain the difference except that spiritually it is a lot different here. And what happens when the worship is based on the atmosphere instead of the gospel? Wacked out and wrong. So today I just felt kind of numb and sleepy. I thought about what it was like worshipping at Bethel and worshipping here. I have been thrown into an atmosphere of reasoning and questioning ever since I started school again, so I ask a lot more questions than I used to and am a little wary of things based solely on feelings. And it was during that time this morning that I realized how very feelingsy my worship had been there. Here, though the atmosphere is spiritually...less desirable...I enjoy worshiping more here because I worship because of the gospel, the cross and the resurrection. That's the REASON. I am humbled by the grace that He gives. I so want to give that kind of grace to others. I don't want to be so swayed by the emotions and feelings in my heart. I want to be strong, but humble because...without Him...I am just completely lost. He's not a life enhancer. He is life itself. Physics doesn't matter without Him. Art will just represent the infinite void if it does not have Him. Math is absolutely nothing without Him; math is a complete reflection of His love. Without Him, my hands are holding onto a frictionless rope over an infinite vacuum at zero kelvin.

I have a physics exam on Wednesday! *gulp*

So last night I went to the physics club social night and watched the Dark Knight. I cried. End of story.

I have a lot of homework on my mind right now. I think I am behind in History and have no idea what will be on my exam on Saturday. It is kind of frustrating having an online class and I am not sure that I want to go through it again. Life goes on! I am also very sleep deprived. Hopefully I make it through work okay today.

It is almost 6:30 am. I have been up for about two hours now. I haven't accomplished a whole lot, but I have been working on history homework. I am sitting in front of the warm fireplace, and the rest of the house is still, sleeping. I like it.

Tonight I am going to watch The Dark Knight for the first time. The physics club is having a social night, with food. I hope they have marshmallows. I have this intense craving for marshmallows right now. One of my friends came up to me outside of math yesterday. I was staring at the physics club poster.
"So I saw one of these in the PUB earlier" she said. I laughed, and she continued.
"One of my friends saw it too and said, 'I can't think of anything more unappealing than a physics club.' I told him, 'well I know someone who disagrees!'" We laughed.

They have a microwave in the physics lab. Yesterday I went to microwave my food and accidentally interuppted a particle accelerator meeting. It made me laugh. We had lab an hour after that. Lab is so long and it is the only part of physics that I really don't like. Thank goodness it doesn't count for much - only one of my classmates read the syllabus for this quarter; everyone else thought it would be the same as last quarter. He later showed us a small change under the weight that everything has on your grade - "Lab: worth virtually nothing". We got through 7 or 8 of the 13 pages and had all of these messups with uncertainties and significant figures. I hate uncertainties! Anyways, I stayed after lab to work on today's physics homework with a classmate because I was sure I was wrong - I had 1600 degrees Celsius as my answer, which seemed immensely wrong. However, we came up with the same answer, so it remains to be seen whether it is right or wrong. I still think that is such a large temperature for the question asked. =P

I suppose I'd better get back to history homework. I have to leave for school in an hour.

Yay for another day of school!

I went back to school today! I unfortunately missed the inauguration because I had to do physics. I was planning on watching it tonight but that didn't happen, so I'll probably watch it tomorrow. Even though I didn't vote for Obama and don't agree with everything he stands for, I'm thrilled that America gets to have such a historic moment!

I was delighted to get my math exam back. I got a 96 on it, and reasoned everything out right on the part that I had forgotten how to do. The points that were taken off were just for some stupid algebra mistake that I hadn't caught. Now we're doing trig, which is exciting. I really like it a lot. I am ahead in homework and didn't even listen in class today; all I did was work on physics homework. I'll probably end up doing that tomorrow too. I can't wait to teach myself math over the summer so that I can go at my own pace. =P

Today on the bus...I love beginning sentences like that. I always encounter strange things on the bus. Anyways, today I sat down next to a friend but was squashed up against theses creepy guys. I could tell that they were watching us, and they weren't quiet about it either. I strained my neck to look away from them and at my friend the entire time, but couldn't pay attention to our conversation. Meanwhile, the creepy guys started rapping to their music, which had awful lyrics about blood and other gross things. Then one of them burped. Finally they stopped trying to subtly get our attention, and one of them asked what we were up to. I surveyed him for a moment and tried to decide which language to speak in. He'd already heard me speaking in English, so I gave up and said shortly "going home." They tried to make more conversation but I think I was cold enough that they got the picture. I don't like creepy guys! If only I had been sitting next to my brother! When possible, I sit very close to him on the bus so that creepy people get the wrong idea.

I can't wait to hear back from my colleges! I still haven't received word as to whether or not Whitman and Lawrence got my applications yet. I'm hoping I will by the end of this week. To be honest, I'm really not sure whether or not I will be able to go to college this year. Finances are looking more grim every day, and quiet conversations in the other room frighten me. I'm going to try to get the Lieslrose website completed in a month so that we can start selling my paintings. Hopefully that will help a bit. At any rate, whatever happens is going to be God's plan. He'll work it out - if I'm supposed to go to college, then it will work out, and if not, then it will fall through...but as long as I do my part, I can trust Him to complete it.

The long weekend is over!

In exactly 12 hours (unless something unexpected happens, which would be weird), I will be sitting on the floor outside the door marked "physics lab". Brad and Sean will probably be comparing homework with me, and the geography class will come out of the door at exactly 8:55. Then my physics professor will come out and laugh at me. Sitting on the floor is funny as opposed to standing?

I tried to watch a movie with my brother last night. Once a week, I take a random trip to WalMart after work. Often I buy juice or goodies for homework evenings. Yesterday, we worked together and went to Wal-Mart on our way home. He had been craving a bag of Skittles for two weeks, and after we obtained the coveted item, he decided to go buy a movie. I Am Legend was brought home with us, and popped into the laptop. Halfway through the movie, I paused it and told him to take it away. I just couldn't bear to watch it anymore. I Am Legend is about one of the last people on earth, some doctor guy who barracades himself inside his house at night and sleeps in the bathtub with his dog and a machine gun. A virus purported to cure cancer caused mutations in humans and dogs; their hair fell out and they craved blood. I definitely prefer the Twilight vampires to these. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting, but actually, it is one of the creepiest things I have ever seen. I enjoy Stargate, though it has crazy strange more bloodthirsty creatures, because they are aliens. Okay, they look like humans, but the story makes sure that you know that those are the hosts and the worm things (I can't spell them) inhabit them. It's just totally not real. It is just so much different. Gotta love sci-fi. In I Am Legend, these were mutated humans. I just can't...watch that. They have minds that are capable of thinking like humans and being smart and scheming, but they have no inhibitions whatsoever. It just revolted me. I've promised that I'll try to finish it as long as my brother fast forwards through the scary parts. We'll see how that promise holds up. I am not a fan of horror. I made the dog sleep on my bed after I turned off the movie. Usually she is in mortal peril if she so much as sniffs my bed. And I'm going to go to a physics social night on Friday and watch the Dark Knight...what am I thinking?

Well, I have to get back and finish homework. I want to paint a little tomorrow morning too. I am going to update my art website by the end of this week. I updated a lot of it so it will load faster but have yet to put it onto the server. Tomorrow I hope to take pictures of all my recent paintings.

On and on life goes...

The end of another day!

I am so surprised how easy physics homework was - again. All I am doing is plugging in numbers to equations. Last quarter (and last week) I would have rejoiced but now I feel like it is really lame and I don't feel like I am learning anything from it. I wish we could do tutorial (amazing conceptual homework developed by the UW) twice a week, because I honestly think I learn more from that than I do from the textbook now. But we have an exam in a week and a half...so I'll see what I'm saying then. =P

Math is going to get challenging! Finally! At least...maybe. The chapters start covering trig on Tuesday. I am ready. I've got to go do the homework for the first section tonight. Finally I can understand the meanings behind sine and cosine instead of just how to use them. I feel like I am the only one in my physics class who doesn't have a background in trig - once I kept asking my professor "why?" until there were no more becauses, and he was forced to say "because some guy decided that's the way it would be."

I'm not necessarily enjoying my online history class. I know so little about history it is pathetic, and I can barely say anything on the discussion board because I have nothing to found my opinions or ideas on. The skills I learned in Critical Thinking last year are giving me fits right now. I love reasoning but I do not like feeling guilty when I choose to ignore it. I need to study more for history...more than my watery textbook is giving me...and then perhaps I will be able to participate in the discussions a little better. Economics and anything to do with the Soviet Union are the only topics I feel confident in discussing.

We had worship all during the service today at church. I enjoyed it, especially the hymn part. I used to despise hymns, but now I like them better than a lot of modern songs in terms of lyrical content. I led some more modern songs, but was kind of convicted last night and this morning. I procrastinated choosing the songs and practicing until the last minute. I just haven't been putting any effort into it when I sing at church. I used to think I was born to lead worship, now I feel less confident. But God was showing me that it didn't matter whether I felt like a leader or not, I have been placed in this position and I need to take it seriously. Thus, I am amending my ways. I'm going to ignore those fickle feelings, trust God, and strive to do my best wherever He puts me. That's what it's about anyways, isn't it? I've been so discontent (in spite of physics) lately and really want to live in the moment instead of in the future or in my textbooks.

Half over...

The weekend is half over! I still have loads of homework. I was barely at home today, so hopefully I can get a lot done tomorrow.

Today I went to work at 7:15, typical for my Saturdays. I couldn't find my nice shoes, so I wore my tattered formerly nice shoes all day. I guess it is time for some house cleaning.
Last week I realized how blessed I am to have the job that I have. I love working at the retirement home so much, and I'm going to be sad to leave this fall. The residents are all dears, and my co-workers are better than I could have asked for. On a typical evening, a conversation between me and an elderly man with short-term memory loss goes something like this:

"Let me tell you, in the presence of my wife, that you have a beautiful complexion."
"Thanks ____."
"It just goes to show what washing your face every two weeks will do for you!"
"Thanks _____! You should try it sometime!"
*gales of laughter from his wife*

I went to a church service tonight with Angelina. They were celebrating the sanctity of life - they showed clips of Bella and some women came up and gave wonderful testimonies of what God had done in their lives, and the theme of redemption was all throughout their stories. It was beautiful, and I enjoyed myself. We left to a coffee shop afterward and had coffee...er...an Italian soda for me. Thus, I became quite...excitable. It is amazing what immense amounts of sugar can do to me.

Well, back to homework.

Three-Day Weekend Approaches!

Well, I had the math exam today! It was certainly more difficult than my previous math professor's exams; I only finished it and briefly rechecked it 10 minutes before the hour was up. I honestly don't know what I got on it, but as long as I didn't make any stupid algebra mistakes, I think I must have got over a 85. I knew what I was doing on every single problem except the second to last, which wanted to know the direction of the parametric curve. I think that I reasoned it out correctly; it was only part of the problem, so if I got it wrong, I didn't lose a lot of points.

One of my friends is in Math 72 and struggling with a difficult professor right now, so I am hopefully going to be tutoring her during my hour break at school. I'm excited; I love math now and want to help other people love it, or at least, to understand it.

I got an email back from the UW today, simply stating that they had found my letter. Thanks. I just sent a new one in yesterday...perhaps I should have waited and saved my parents a trip to the post office. I also heard from Reed. =D My application is now in, but it also has a missing component - my senior first semester grades! What is the deal? They were on both my high school homeschool transcript and the one that I requested to have officially sent from the college. Now...I wonder what will be missing from Whitman and Lawrence.

I almost left my physics textbook at school. The bus was scheduled to arrive in five minutes, and so I left the Science and Tech building, walking with my physics classmates to the bus. I then realized that I wasn't holding my physics book, so I ran in my high-heeled boots (I can't find my regular shoes) back to the physics lab and threw open the door, staring at the empty table where Aaron, our T.A., had been using my physics book for our study session.
"He just left to find you!"
I ran around outside and couldn't find him, so I decided to miss the bus and wait in the physics lab until he returned. One of the Calc-based girls had called his cell; he had my physics book and was on the way to the bus stop, but returned and I was reunited with my textbook. That thing is...quite important to me! I wouldn't be able to read ahead for Wednesday...

Later, on the bus, I was settling down to do my physics homework, and some large guy with black fingernail polish clomped his way to the back of the bus. His eyes had black makeup around them, and were covered by his mop-head haircut. To contrast the rest of his emo black appearance, he wore Costco blue jeans. I ignored him for three seconds until he started snapping a round box that made a loud clicking noise several times. I felt confused and looked at a physics classmate, who shrugged and looked back at me, wondering what my problem was. I stared at the emo/Costco boy as he took out a Gatorade bottle with what looked like undissolved storebought garden dirt in water. He opened his round box, and it had the same store bought garden dirt. To my horror, he grabbed a bunch in his fingers and and stuffed it inside his mouth! It took me a while to figure out that he was chewing tobacco. I had never seen it done before, nor do I wish to see more. It repulsed me, but I was unable to concentrate on my physics homework after that. I felt sad for him in a way, not necessarily because he was chewing, but because I think that God was showing me some things about him, and because I've become a lot more sensitive to what other people are feeling, especially since I spend less time worrying about school now. I prayed for him and will continue to do so. I was honestly scared of him, and didn't talk to him, but I've been having a lot of encounters with broken people on the bus, and I really value it. I can't wait to see who God brings across my path next! I love people, even if they scare me.

First exam!

Tomorrow marks my first exam of the quarter! Precalculus, here I come to hopefully ace you! I feel ready, woohoo! I hope I'm saying this at 11:00 am tomorrow.

Today I upset a classmate pretty badly. I hate it when people make wrong decisions; it hurts me a lot and I have a hard time handling it. I blew up at him and acted like his mother...comparable to Mrs. Weasely's Howler to Ron in Harry Potter. Nasty. I was really upset. My other classmates and I sat down and prayed for him after he left in a sullen anger. Next time I see him I've got to apologize. One unacceptable action does not justify an unacceptable reaction to it.

Other than that, it was a fairly uneventful day at school. Physics lab. Bleeeehh. We got through only 9 of the 14 pages. And had a half hour cut off of lab because we didn't have the right equipment. Life goes on...

And the process continues...

So the University of Washington has lost my Letter of Recommendation for the Honors Program. And I wasn't notified until a day before the application deadline, even though I sent my application in almost six weeks ago! *sigh* Hopefully they don't mind if a copy comes in late...

A New Quarter

A new quarter has begun. I am taking General Physics II, Precalculus II, and US History III.

In my math class, I sit in the front with my brother, a physics classmate, and a randomized selection of people who enjoy switching seats. My math professor is good friends with my physics professor, and so my physics classmate and I often chat with my math professor before class begins.

Yesterday, we were talking about our physics class. I was gushing over physics, while my classmate simply stated,
"This book contains all imaginable forms of torture known to mankind"
I laughed and my thoughts diverted themselves elsewhere; my attention span is short. A moment later, I heard a classmate from Forks ask,
"Do they teach you how to do waterboarding in it?"
I gave him a "what-is-wrong-with-you" look and asked how we had gotten onto the subject of waterboarding. I was then given the "what-is-wrong-with-you" look by both of my classmates and my math professor.
"Do you even know what waterboarding is?"
Somehow I had managed to mix it up with surfboarding.

Today I went with the same physics classmate to my physics professor's office. I feel like I live there. I would live there simply because of the sheer amount of books lining the walls.
We discussed some things we were not understanding from our homework and were handed back our graded homework from the previous week. My classmate snorted as he looked over his. On it, he had written "Can't find brain" underneath one of the conceptual questions. My professor had marked it wrong with a red X and had written "Look behind couch".

There are only five people left in physics. Of course, the most recent member to leave us only transferred up to calc-based. I wish I could be in calculus...gar. I reverted back to my old habit of doing physics homework during Precalculus (I'm taking Precalc II this quarter) even though I sit in the front row. Lecture has been barely necessary providing I've already read the math textbook. Ugh.

I have sent in my applications today. Every single one of them. Actually, half of them. I sent in the UW's in December, Reed's last week, and Whitman and Lawrence went out today. Now...I wait. I hope that they like me!