What the heck is doggerel?

Hurrah! I got the envelope today and I bought my dinner.

Letter Home

Cleaned out a desk drawer last night. I have two glues and four tapes. And a kabillion staples.
Astrocamp Application
Heyyyy Mom, it wants to know my work experience. Can you email me the Fitzpatrick's address, and who was my supervisor at Danner? Do I just put Uncle Joe and his work phone?

Oi, Did you set up a notification so that each time I post, you get an email? Or RSS feed me. Speaking of feeding me . . .

Ode to my missing Gold Card
Every day I check the mail
but my box is empty, no avail.
My money, my identification, my luncheon,
are put on hold 'til the card be punched in.
I have to withdraw from the cash machine
to eat my meals, and snacks in between.
Good thing I'm too busy for appetite,
so I don't have to dine for $8 each night.
The library police think I'm totally sketch,
and I'm running out of things about which to kvetch.
Lastly, I have to sneak into the gym to use the pool.
Missing one's Gold Card isn't cool.

Woof

I took this photo.

Block Five

Chemistry 107
My chemistry education in high school had large, gushing, bullet hole gaps. Here's what I've learned in four days at college (well, what I've taught myself, since the professor assumes that we know it already and just need refreshing). I could take Jesuit's 1st-semester finals now.

Monday: Ch. 2
- The electron's charge-to-mass ratio: e/m = 1.758820 x 10⁸ c/g (coulumbs/gram)
- Mass ratios & Law of Multiple Proportions
- Atomic mass and natural abundance of isotopes
- Atomic weight. 1 atomic mass unit = 1.660539 x 10^-24 g
[Naturally occurring carbon, for example, is a mixture of two isotopes, ¹²C (98.89%) and ¹³C (1.11 %). Individual carbon atoms therefore have a mass of either 12.000 or 13.03354 amu. But the average mass of the different isotopes of carbon is 12.011 amu.]
- The difference between covalent and ionic bonds
- homogeneous vs. heterogeneous
- Table sugar is named β-D-fructofuranosyl-α-D-glucopyranoside (We didn't need to know that)
- Metals form cations, nonmetals form anions.
- The metals that can form more than one kind of cations
- How to name binary molecular compounds, compounds with polyatomic ions, oxoacids and their oxoions

Tuesday: Statistics
General Introduction to Statistical Analysis of Data, new to most of us, thankfully.
- frequency analysis
- mean, median, mode
- variance
- standard deviation and normal distribution
- percent relative standard deviation a.k.a. confidence interval (chemistry always uses 95%)
- t-test for uncertainty/condfidence level
- formula for estimating how many data points are needed to obtain lower uncertainty
- Null hypothesis theory, determining if data differences are statistically significant or due to randomness

Wednesday: Ch.3
- Balancing Chemical Equations
- stoichiometry
- yields of chemical reactions
- reactions with limiting amounts of reactants
- molarity. M = solute (mol) / solution (L), stoichiometry with solutions, titration
- percent composition of each element in a compound
- molecular formula, molecular mass; formula unit, formula mass; mole, molar mass; empirical formula, empirical formula mass; mass ratio for molecules

Thursday: Ch.4, Reactions in Aqueous Solution
- precipitation reactions, oxidation-reduction reactions
- electrolytes in aqueous solution
- aqueous reactions and net ionic equations
- solubility rules
- identifying, balancing redox using oxidation-number method or the half-reaction method
- redox titration

Advanced League, Suckers!

Last night. Sheldo told me earlier there was a hockey game at 8:45. Hoorah, so I really am going to join the team in Advanced League, I thought.

Then an hour before the game, I saw Sheldo (team captain) in the library and he was like, "About that . . . . you should come today and suit up because we won't have a lot of subs, but it might be just this game. This is advanced league, you know, and you haven't been playing for so long. We'll put you in if we're down by 20, right?"

And I thought, "Yeah, right. You just wait and see."

We only had one sub, and Sheldo got hurt and had to sit out a lot, and I played the entire game really well. We lost 3-5, but it was a close match, and when we were getting ready to leave Sheldo came up and said, "You played like a champ tonight. There aren't so many people on the roster as I thought. Actually, I think we're going to need you every time."

Booya!

Oh yes, wait a minute Mister Postman

Wait, wait, wait a minute Mister Postman
Please Mister Postman, look and see
(Oh yeah) If there's a letter in your mailbag for me

(To parents) I forgot to pack this stuff. . . or they didn't fit:
Gold Card
all the clothes I left in the laundry basket.
a couple of belts
Prefontaine poster
bike helmet
colorful scarf
Jesuit lanyard, for keys
turntable?
albums: Loverboy, Marlene Dietrich, The Kinks, Ravi Shankar, The Pretenders, Siouxsie and the Banshees (weird underwater album cover)
Columbia 'biner mug
grey waterbottle from Dad

Maxims

The early bird gets the worm.










So sleep in 'til noon. You won't hate yourself in the morning.

Never hit a man with glasses - use your fist.

It's sad that whole people can be torn apart by simple things, like wild dogs.

If you cannot be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

When you're run down, the best thing to take is the license plate number.

Happy Birthday

to Me! I'm 19. Gross.

Career Options

One gets a lot of opportunities to think during winter break, so I used 0.002% of that time to narrow down the list of things I'd like to be. In no particular order.

Neurologist
Astronomer
Conservation Biologist
Microbiologist
Geneticist
International Law Associate
Civil servant
Economist
World religions theologian
Investigator
Anthropologist/Historian
Inventor
Photographer
Writer
Choreographer
Music Arranger, Sound Editor
Film Editor
Mathematician, Logician
Archaeologist
Philosopher
Translator
Standup Comedienne
Nonprofit Employee
Intelligence Specialist
Dictator
Farmer
High-rise building window washer
Professional pole vaulter
Boxer
Stunt double
Aikido instructor
Special ops sniper
Civil rights leader
Outdoor guide/Rescuer
Dirtbag climber
Nun/Hermit
Albatross (qbwaaa-ukk!)

Performance

We are presenting our pieces to the class. Here were two really cool "site specific" dances.
Alex did hers in the Art Studio display case.


People in the math dept. get to see this every day.

Sorry I didn't take a picture of the tree dance, or my duet in the basement.

Practice Time

Katie is making a modern dance. Rashelle, Emily, Liz, and I are "black spirits" and we kind of swarm around Rosey is a "white" spirit
She wanted me to come up with a jump.

Dance Studies

I really like my class. I'm recording moves in my choreographer's journal and I couldn't explain the pose to hallmates, so I had them take a picture.

Wish List

Actually, I've been having so much fun that I don't spend much time on the computer.

Rockets, robots, trikes and fishes
Reveal to me Kate's Christmas wishes.

- Hockey skates
- regular gloves. I have big old ski gloves here. Thanks Luke.
- UPDATE: video camera. Canon HV20, Sanyo XACTI VPC-HD1000, Panasonic VDR.
- Climb Max or Deek and Bryan's Next Adventure REI card, thanks Mom.
- earrings. Thanks Mom.
- Photography/developing class over the break. with Teacher Dad.
- I would like to learn to use the 8mm video camera.
- sports bra from cw-x.com
- Massage Oh my God, thanks Mom.
- Here's the big one. Yosemite Mountaineering School: private lessons to cover protection, anchors, leading/multi-pitch, and finally a big wall Guided Climb. www.yosemitepark.com/Activities_YosemiteBackpacker_Climbing.aspx

That's pretty much it. Everything else is books and music.

Dinners at home:
It doesn't really matter. However, I would like the Christmas Eve meat to be free-range, whatever animal it is. That's a good present.
Lasagna. Steak dinner. Berries.

Readables Wish List

#1. Once a Runner: A Novel by John L. Parker

#2. A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle. Thanks Grandma!

#3. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

#4. Science News [MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION]

#5. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West by Gregory L. Tilford (or something similar)

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Whirligig by Paul Fleischman

Others See Us by William Sleator

A beginner’s Arabic workbook

The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? by Dick Teresi, Leon Lederman

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook Thanks Dad.

California Blue by David Klass

The Runner by Cynthia Voigt

Music Wish List

#1. Tales of Captain Black ~ James Blood Ulmer

#2. C'Etait Ici and L’absente and Rue de Cascades ~ Yann Tiersen

#3. Symphony No. 3 Thanks Dad! Violin Concerto and Dance Pieces ~ Philip Glass

#4. Antics and Our Love to Admire ~ Interpol

#5. Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony ~ Gogol Bordello

#6. From an Early Age: Music of the Gypsies ~ Various Artists

House of Flying Daggers [Soundtrack] ~ Shigeru Umebayashir

Song Of The Crooked Dance: Early Bulgarian Traditional Music 1927-42 ~ Various Artists

Exodus ~ Bob Marley (vinyl)
Experiment Zero ~ Man or Astro-man?

Kaleidoscope ~ Siouxsie & The Banshees

Milo Goes to College ~ Descendents

Station to Station ~ David Bowie (vinyl)
Guero ~ Beck

Terror State ~ Anti-Flag

Daydream Nation ~ Sonic Youth

Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust Inc. ~ Dead Kennedys