some thoughts

I've had an interesting day today. I saw Johnny P for the first time in like 3 weeks. I took a test in the testing center. (Man, I was so sleepy! They like send out sleepy gas in there!) That was not so fun, but... not difficult either. I talked with Jeff, and he seemed uber-nicer to me today. That was cool. On that note, I've always sort of seen Jeff as a nice guy inside, but usually kind of distant, or absorbed in other things. He seemed much less distant today. It was good.

My sister Megan's blog reminded me to ask all of you to pray for my sister Camille. She's in the MTC, but should have left for Finland on Monday. She did something to her IT band, and is in alot of pain. She's still at the MTC for another two weeks, in anticipation of her healing. If she does not heal in that time, she will be sent home to heal. If she does heal, then it's on to Finland. Please pray for her to heal in time.

Homework and a Physics rant rampage.

Today as I sat in the library to do my calculus homework, I sat next to a guy who was doing his chemistry homework. I was shocked at how easy his homework looked. It then occurred to me that he might find MY homework extremely easy. He might be a math major who understands how parametrics and polars work without even thinking too hard about it. I didn't ask, but... it was an interesting thought. I couldn't concentrate on graphing my parametric curves, because I was amazed by this thought. I was also kinda jealous that he had such easy homework. but... he looked like he was struggling through those Formal Charges and VSEPR. I thought, "man, if I was doing that homework, I'd be done in 20 minutes, tops. prolly more like 10." I dunno. Chemistry in general just makes sense to me. Which reminds me...

PHYSICS=stupid. yeah. you heard me, physics is stupid. or... at least my class. I became convinced of this yesterday when I went to do the lab, and the instructions said something that was blatantly false. We were doing a lab where we had to determine the value of g, or the gravitational acceleration constant on earth. The instructions claimed that if your determined value of g wasn't within 1% error of the "accepted" value, you were doing something wrong. THIS IS NOT TRUE. As I remember from chemistry and statisics, up to 5% error can be explained by random variation. So... I basically just said, screw that, and just posted a value of 4% error on one part. I am not going to do an experiment 40 times with faulty equipment to try to get the same results as someone using state-of-the-art equipment who is getting paid to do this kind of thing. Honestly, no matter how many times I drop that $^%# steel ball, the rate at which it drops is not going to be correct, because those $#%# timers don't work properly.

That's only one-half of my hatred of physics. The other half is that in my class, we're spending an eternity on concepts that are NOT that difficult. I mean, honestly, you should not be in physics 121 if you don't understand what a derivative is. that's in calc one. a prerequisite to this class. And yet, the teacher explains the concept of a derivative as if no one in our class has ever heard of it before. The only trouble is that she sorta assumes that you know, so... if you do understand the concept, then you're moving at too slow a pace, and if you don't, you're completely lost. It's the worst of both worlds. It's kinda like Spanish I in 9th grade with senor selles. he'd talk to us in spanish, and if we didn't understand, he'd say it slower. NO ONE understood. If you could understand at all, you'd hate your life because you'd be stuck with a bunch of idiots.

Physics is easily my least entertaining and most boring class. I hate to say this, but it's true. The homework problems focus on ridiculous ideas, such as "In the equation a=3+4t^2, what are the units attached to 2? to 3? to 4?" There is NO reason to even think about this. 2 is unitless, 3 is in m/s^2, and 4 is in m/s^4. but... WHY SHOULD I CARE?!?!? m/s^4 is meaningless. There's no practical application of anything like that. I could just assume that if the teacher is giving me the question, the units are going to work unless I do something stupid. If it's a problem where I'm finding acceleration, the units are going to cancel to m/s^2. That's just logic. It's not going to cancel to m/kg*s^25. WHY THE DEVIL DO THEY CARE? m/s^4 does not exist anywhere outside of this problem. it's not a real unit. groan.

To prove that physics is easily the most boring class, take this as an example. Of the 6 people sitting within close proximity to me, who were using computers to take notes, no less than 3 were either switching between computer games and notetaking, or giving up on notetaking altogether. The concepts here are easy enough to grasp without going through and beating them to death 15 times. (which is what we did). Therefore, people play video games because there isn't anything better to do.

Not only are these problems there, but... the teacher is french. When she talks, th=z. this=zis. something=somezing. It's a little annoying. and... as much as I try to laugh at it, it's just not funny. It's just straight out annoying.

all in all, I don't feel like we've talked about actual science in this "science" class. We've sorta discussed what a vector is, what units are, and what acceleration velocity and position are, but... I learned those in calc 1. I don't really enjoy taking calc 1 again. The whole concept of classical mechanics so far seems to be rehashing everything we learned in calc 1, badly, and then coming up with impossible situations to describe them. For example, "a car goes through a stop sign at 60 mi/h. It then continues at a constant velocity. A motorcycle patrol officer starts off after the car, accelerating at 11 ft/s. How long will it take the patrol officer to overtake the car, and how fast will he be going at that point?" ugh. This is an entirely improbable situation for 3 reasons. one, why the devil is a car going 60 mph anywhere near a stop sign? Stop signs are generally only used in residential areas. two, why the heck is the officer chasing after that car because it went through a stop sign? who ever heard of an officer giving a ticket for going through a stop sign? why not for speeding? and... last but not least, why the heck is that car going at a constant velocity? If a police officer starts chasing you, you either speed up to try to get away, OR you abide by the law and slow down and pull over. You don't keep going the same $%@# speed. It just doesn't make sense. the solution to this problem makes even less sense. The officer is going 120 mph by the time he catches the car. mind you, these people are STILL somewhere near a stop sign. that's dangerous by any means. even on the freeway, 120 mph is ridiculously fast. imagine that in a residential area?

Physics professors should try to think about using common sense. don't use a ridiculous situation to try to teach your students what acceleration and velocity are. It's just stupid.

Relief

I feel much better about life now. I talked things over with Sara, and so... it's all good. The guy across the hall said he'd give me $20 if I can get a girlfriend by the end of the week. THAT should prove interesting. I have 2 or 3 prospects that we'll have to look into, and see if I can't pull it off. One in particular looks promising. I've been hanging out with her during and after sociology for a couple of hours for the past two classes. We'll see if that continues or expands. I dunno. We'll see. If I can't do it, what have I lost? nothing but pride. and... when has that EVER mattered to me? or more specifically, when has that mattered with these guys? (update, 9/11, I'm not going to do it. It feels gross.)

I feel much better about being around these here parts now. HOWEVER, I'm trying to find a ride back to SLC for this weekend. I have some people that I need to talk to. I don't have a car, so if any of you fellow provoians are heading up north, can I come with?

Interesting.

I found a group on facebook today that has all sorts of good quotes on it. and... this scripture. Ether 8:23-26. Read it and tell me what you think it means.
The group name is Latter-day Saint Freedom Group. In case you were wondering.

Devastation

I'm not supposed to be here. at BYU. This place is not where I should be. I decided this today, after being devastated by something I saw... I've been crying pretty much all day.

Here at BYU, the people aren't real. they're too white, and mormon, and too... fake. I get this general feeling that everyone I see is as Jesus would say, a "Whited Sepulchre." It scares me, and makes me not enjoy my life.

I'm supposed to be at home, taking care of my little sisters, helping them with math, teaching them lessons. I'm supposed to be in a society that is flawed, but in a way that I can change. not in one where it's flawed, and I cannot change that.

The Honor Code here is a double edged sword. sure, it stops people from drinking, smoking, or all sorts of other vices, but... it also limits agency. I mean, the whole plan is based upon agency, right? People are supposed to be tested, and have the choice to live as God wants them to, or not. The trouble with this place is that everyone is cookie-cutter, goody-goody, and just... they're all freaking clones. there's NO diversity at all. even if someone isn't white, they act like it. conflict is covered up, and ugh. I cannot stand it. In SLC, I can fix the problems, by being a good person, and helping others. Here, I cannot change the problem, because it is the opposite extreme. There is little bad, so good is devalued. This place is just not where I need to be.

I could fully take advantage of the girl-boy ratio here, by being a jerk, and playing several girls, but... that's not what I want. I don't want to be here. I need evil to balance out the good. I don't want to be complacent. I just... ugh. I don't remember why I ever wanted to come here. was it because I wanted to, or because that's just what my siblings have done, so... I should too? Can I go back to when I was deciding where to go to college, and choose the U instead?

I guess we'll have to get into the really interesting/weird/crazy stuff today.

Now then, The Disclaimer applies again.
This post may contain some things that are hard to believe, but... bear with me.

In the books, None Dare Call it Conspiracy, and The Naked Capitalist, the authors claim that extremely rich supercapitalists, such as David Rockefeller helped out the Russian and Chinese communist parties. This raises the question of WHY would such rich men, the extreme end of the bourgeousie who the Communists call their sworn enemies help them?

The answer is quite simple. These men want power. they want to rule the world, and because they know what communism is, a method of conquering the world, they will donate money, time and effort to help this cause, and to take it over.

Now, why does this matter to the current political landscape? Well, if these rich men were helping the USSR, what happened when it fell? Here's my answer. They decided that the strategy of using the USSR to take over the world was not working, so they decided to go with a different strategy. This strategy involves removing the threat of the soviet union, to make the people complacent, and then concentrating power in the highest levels of the governments of every country. The next step is to collect the power of many countries into regional governments, such as the EU, or the supposed "NAU."

To concentrate the power of government as high up as possible, a scheme called Pressure from above/pressure from below is used. Basically, problems are created and advertised among the masses, and the ONLY solution allowed to surface comes from the government, by creating new powers for the high up offices. A prime example of this is Global Warming. Regardless of whether it exists or not, the only solutions being presented are carbon-caps. The stated goal of such legislation is to disallow the creation of more CO2. The side-effect of this is that it creates a way of controlling the global economy through government.

Now, a more deeply sketchy point that I'm pretty sure is taking things too far, is that Terrorist networks are controlled to some degree by this same group of men. Under the influence of fear, men will willingly give more power to their government than they would otherwise do. Case-in-point, Star wars.

The final victory for these men, according to some, will be achieved when the UN is truly a world government. This is to be achieved, they say, through a war involving China. Basically, if the US of A gets massively nuked, the people will vote to give absolute power to the UN to prevent all further wars. When this happens, the Communist controlled china, and the extremely corrupt Russia, will follow suit, as will the rest of the world. The US of A is really the only obstacle standing in the way of these men.

Now, some might ask, would a global government under the UN really be that bad? my answer? very much so. The UN has no semblance of being a democratic union. In fact, the UN charter is set up much the same way as the old soviet constitution. It states these wonderful things in the first article, such as Universal suffrage, world peace, etc., then it nullifies them by giving ridiculously broad powers to the security council.

I hope this explains in an understandable way, why I think that Global Warming is a hoax, why I think we should pull out of the UN, why I absolutely hate socialist legislation, and why I believe what I do on a wide variety of issues.

On a different note

I'm going to take a break from telling where my thoughts on today's political environment come from to talk about something else.

As much as I may disagree with the somewhat fake-feeling of goodwill here at the Y, it's actually kind of nice to have. People will take you at your word here. When I was in Salt Lake, I got a speeding ticket for going a normal speed on a road where the speed limit is ridiculous. Down here, I could get into the same situation, and NOT get a ticket. This happened today.

The officer, in both situations, smiled at me, with a loving sort of reprimand. but... the officer in salt lake gave me a ticket. the one down here just asked me about how my classes were going.

one of the differences was that I was riding my bike here, not my car. There's a hill by my dorm that you pretty much have to take to get to class, and there's no bike riding on that hill. If you do, it's a $50 fine. apparently this applies to the tunnel at the end of the hill as well. When I came out of this tunnel, sort of riding my bike, the officer got out of his car, called me over and told me what the rule actually is. I told him that I was only riding it through the tunnel, and he took me at my word. Then I talked to him about my major, my classes, and I found out that you can ride bikes UP the hill, just not DOWN it. weird rule. but... NO TICKET! yay!