Douglas MacArthur - "We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction."

I like quotes. :D Could totally do a short story based on this! Or at least a scene... Those are short stories, right? Or short shorts...

Sark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote of the day:

Sark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In August 1990 an unemployed French nuclear physicist named André Gardes attempted a singlehanded invasion of Sark, armed with a semi-automatic weapon. The night Gardes arrived he put up signs declaring his intention to take over the island the following day at noon. He was arrested by the island's volunteer Constable, while sitting on a bench, changing the gun's magazine and waiting for noon to arrive."

So what if now I'd rather visit Sark over anywhere in France? I'm amused. It looks like a bizzarre little island, rather akin to the forgotten little planets in Star Wars. Cool, though.

Quote of the day: "If you don't see people coming, you can't get out of the way." -my roommate

The first of two finals today start in an hour and fifteen minutes, and I feel much better about them than I did last night. Yay for getting perspective and for sleeping! Yay for worship music, too! I really like the stuff from right around 2000; it has more substance than the popular stuff lately. Or it's just more meaningful to me. Maybe that's it.

Anyway. I studied for manufacturing this morning, and I need a 55% to get an A in the class. That's pretty happy and stable. As for calc... I would very much like to get the 89% that keeps me at an A. I think I can do it, but stupid mistakes have cost me 15% on two of the three midterm exams (I got 99.5% on the other). Even so, I'd have to fail it to get a C in the class, so not too much pressure there. (Except that I really want the A. I've enjoyed that class too much to settle for a B.)

Then I can relax tonight and study my eyes out tomorrow for numerical methods on Thursday. All in all, it can't be that bad. I only need a 68% to keep my B in the class, but if I keep up with my consistent 84% in the class, it'll probably become an A with the curve.

Welcome to college reasoning: if I keep doing what I've been doing, it should curve to an A. Go figure. Still going to study my eyes out anyway. I'd be very proud of myself if I got an A in that class!

Quote of the day:

Concerning chocolate-filled marshmallows:

Suitemate 1: "Why would you ruin good marshmallows like that?"

Suitemate 2: "Why would you ruin good chocolate like that?"

Suitemate 3: "Why would you ruin good chocolate with peanut butter?"

It's been a Nubbins week. Last's Friday's episode of Sanctuary kicked it all off with the new creature-of-the-week: Nubbins, the breeding and attractiveness of Tribbles crossed with the open faces and male-aversions of Furbies crossed with the ears and viciousness of Gremlins (I'm assuming; I've never seen).

Episode two: Manufacturing, of all things. Our lab mostly finished the hammer handles. The last step was to cut off the last seven-eighths of an inch of turned steel, a bit approximately the six of a 9mm bullet that makes a wonderful nail file. "Anyone want their nub?" the prof. called at the end. I poke my friend and whisper, "Nubbins." He groans.

Finale: Oryx and Crake. After genetically engineering the perfect chicken-meat-producing ... blob... called a ChickieNob, a fast-food franchise springs up around it offering what may have made an interesting solution to the Sanctuary's problems: Buckets O'Nubbins.

A Nubbin week indeed. Happy word-mongering!

I've not taken a single midterm and already my brain is fried. I'll manage somehow. Fortunately, they say sophomore year is the hardest. Once I get through this I should be all right. Theoretically.

At least calc is going well. Calc is amazing. I could probably do calc all day. Of course, I'm biased. Right now, we're "learning" stuff I already needed for other classes, so that makes it particularly easy--and fun. AND... We learned today in calc some vital information I need for my numerical methods midterm tomorrow. Woot. Assuming that's on it... and assuming I learn everything else I need. I'm so lost in that class until they sit me in front of a computer. It could be worse, I suppose.

As soon as my brain reboots. Three cheers for the wonders of hot chocolate, just as soon as I get back to the Tower.

Unfortunately, as I sit here and gaze sightlessly out into the empty column of Nord, my creative brain has rebooted, leaving the important (and/or applicable) portions to wallow in an organic BSOD.

I wish calc counted for more. It comes so easily and makes so much sense. I wish I could look at the people who are waiting for me to accomplish something and show them how easily calc comes, how complicated it looks but it doesn't have to be. Vector calc, anyway, so far as I've seen. The beautiful nature of two-variable functions and level-set diagrams, of gradients and mixed derivatives and the chain rule in a three-variable function. So beautiful. And comprehensible. And then there's numerical methods: the application of said beauty before it's learned. Woot. I can kind of see why Mike dropped it last semester, why he swore not to take it until after he finished calc. Not that it'll help. It's not really understanding the math that's the problem: it's distinguishing the nine nearly-identical processes of finding roots to systems of equations and why you've done it wrong if you start with an identity matrix instead of ending with it, even if you get the right answers each time. Miff. I'm not good with subtle differences, especially if arbitrary (non-descriptive) names are applied to each.

Off to study and then to my favorite class: scifi!

Thwing should have unicorns!

The common consensus of 502-f.

HELLO SOPHOMORE YEAR!

So proud of myself already: I got unpacked, and my room is as neat as it's going to be all year. Y'all who come, enjoy it while you can! Ignore that you can see only part of my desk--it's covered with study materials only, I assure you. Yes, the lava lamp and external speakers next to the CD player all count as study materials. I moved the fountain elsewhere.

You know, sometimes it just feels like cheating when you find the answer in the book for homework problems. Will someone assure me otherwise?

There are things we do as humans, ways that we live, that are not explicitly wrong but that are not in God's ultimate plan--the plan for when He rules directly. These things do not put us beyond His grace and blessings for now but instead limit the blessings He can give. So how should we live?

I miss writing. I miss scifi. I miss Ike.

But?

God is cool. Life is good. Work is challenging.

And...

I'm growing: stronger, smarter, more physically fit, more emotionally enduring, more spiritually faithful, and...

more tired.

I probably know enough about horses to be hired as someone's personal farmhand/stablemaster. As long as they didn't need much. Do you think I could put myself through college that way? Or should I just stick with writing. Salary? Scholarships? Hmm...

Go to shower before Dr. Who. Will invade director's house. Woot.

Beliefs of a United Methodist Christian by Emerson Colaw, 1972

SUMMER!

This has to be a quick rundown of what's been going on.

As most of you know, I'm working at a totally awesome United Methodist camp that happens to be located right beside the Flight 93 crash site. (Thank God they didn't crash into the camp!) I'm on horse staff, working from 7:30 AM to... whenever the barn is done, so usually somewhere between 7 PM and 9 PM. We care for twenty-one horses and eight ponies, all of whom have their own unique quirks, plus around forty campers, most of whom have easier quirks than the horses. (Ponies are so much more stubborn. If you have a choice, always work with horses, even if you're small!)

Just FYI, I've been involuntarily dismounted four times from horses and four or five times from ponies, but the worst I've gotten are some scratches and a sore butt. Hakuna matata. I've learned a lot about my reflexes this year; apparently, I tuck and roll when I'm involuntarily dismounted. Cool beans. I also learned (thank you, Chrissy) that I may or may not dig my nails into anything attacking me. I highly recommend not trying, because while I stabbed the ground last time, next time, the prankster might not be so fortunate.

Well, I'm ten weeks into camp and I haven't gone swimming. The lifeguard just called me and invited me, so I'm off. Hope y'all are having a great summer.

It's official. Vista boots faster than Win 2000. My cell phone boots faster than Vista. But ME boots faster than my cell phone. Yay ME.

Chryson, Jadzia, these I admire to some degree, yet I feel as though I'm more like Ezri. Why? Chryson respects no one; Jadzia is nearly faithless. Both of these fundamentally contradict my beliefs.

But Ezri is mild, timid. Her lack of confidence prevents her from accomplishing what she's capable of. The unweighted words of others weigh heavily on her, pushing her to the breaking point with the slightest tap. Isn't that how I am? The slightest thing goes wrong, and I want to cry. I have no idea what I'm capable of, because I don't really think I can do it. I don't believe I'm any different from anyone else, and when I do, I'm no longer the same.

That must be what I admire in Jadzia. She's bold, even into arrogance, but she can be told to back down. She can listen to others' advice. She lives loudly, in perfect control of herself and enlightened to the ways in which others give her power. I could be like that. I have been like that. I don't know if I should be like that. I'm not bold.

But I am stubborn.

From where I am now, accounting for where I was, I'm as likely to become Ezri as I am Chryson. I could be the shy one, sitting back and listening, hanging around, sitting in. Withdrawn, insecure, empowered but lacking the will to use it. Or I could be the one sitting in the middle, trading stories with all the misfits and the in's, gliding from circle to circle and shining in them all. Bold, arrogant, confident, inspiring, admired.

The hardest part of knowing I can be either is believing that neither is better.

At last, behold the wonders of my skills. After studying for physics, I took my old note sheet and expanded it to five note sheets, only to compress it to two note sheets, all with the same information. Behold: I am organized! And I will have multiple copies to take with me in case anything happens. Now if only I could procure a calculator I'm allowed to use...

To bed with me, then, and to practice the exam come morning... later morning. Behold: it has yet to reach midnight, yet still I get me toward bed! What new wonders might I see, if already both college students in this room reach bed ere midnight?

Once again, I find myself feeling like the image of a college student. Dressed in my church clothes, wearing my cheap, green flip-flops to avoid rubbing the new blisters on my toes, I struggle to open the door to my quad. Tucked under one arm are three physics test, a clipboard, three different physics textbooks, and a tin of homemade cookies. In my other hand, a cold can of Dr. Pepper. Yup, I'm a college student.

Now to check my grades from the past two finals...

In chem: A. Otherwise, I couldn't have missed the final.
In math: A. 92% on the final, enough to keep the A I barely managed. Whew.
Statics isn't posted.

I wrote my first legend today. I was thinking about it all last night. This is how the Gertewet began. I'm quite proud of myself. What do you think?

Chris:

"Remember: you can be your own differential equation fairy. And you can see whether you're a good differential equation fairy or a bad one."


"I won't guarantee it, but I'm pretty sure that by the time I'm finished, second order linear homogeneous differential equations with constant coefficients will be your favorite."

(Concerning biology) "This frog had a heart... not anymore."

"What do you get when you cross an elephant with a mountain climber? Nothing. You can't cross a vector with a scalar."

Chris: "I could use 75, but that's like killing a butterfly with a bazooka."
DSD: "Have you never done that? It's fun."

CC:

"The age of innocence is over and physics is now a matter of life and death."

"The image is as big as the object, even if the mirror is small."

"I got sidetracked by stats in our last class."

"Statics."

"No, statistics."

"I. C. the difference."

Thanks, DSD.

Physics labs. Ich habe nichts damit zu sagen. Nichts.

Ich habe Nummern. Sind sie nicht schoen? Wollen Sie meine Nummern?

Analysis, what? What's that? What's to analyze?

To Be politics:

The situation:
Eighteen women are kidnapped from the western hemisphere by an alien race:
Dr. Lee, American MD.
Kalli, American, strip dancer
Pastor Ariel, American, clergy (Presby.?)
J. Nussbaum, American, database manager
Cpt. Crawford, American, pilot
Ophelia, Mexican, factory seamstress
S. Lewis, Canadian, massage therapist
D. Tyler, American, swim coach
Maggie, American, daughter of the Speaker of the House
J. Lewis, Canadian, daughter
Lauren Krege, American, student
Martinez, Chilean, teacher
Susan, American, deli worker
S. Dippel, German, civil engineer
P. Clark, American, USAF Journalist
Carol, US, college kid (BME, premed)
Kelly, US, college kid (CS)
Nelinda, Chinese-American, college kid (poli sci)

The last, of course, is Sarah Anderson, a student about to enter high school who blends with an alien before returning to Earth (to drop off some of the others before heading back to the alien base). All eighteen are returned to a USAF base by three officers at the base and by Vinnet, Sarah's symbiote.

What are the political ramifications? What happens? Any thoughts?

tbc. Need to work.

New picture posted on the "Und So Weiter" section of my filer site.

"Crystal Dolphin Fae" came about from me wanting to draw more to convey how I think. No, I don't think in pictures, but my thought patterns mirror my drawing style. That's why no one wants to read my code. It's not organized, but it flows. Then it comes to a sharp point. It only makes complete sense to the artist.
That and I was too sick of chemistry to devote my whole attention to the lecturer speaking about the crystal structure and formation of semiconductors.

I will not support the Day of Silence.

I recognize that it has a worthy goal: the cessation of harassment in educational environments. However, its scope is too specific for me to support.

I will not support, enable, or condone the continuation of any gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transexual activities. These behaviors are flat-out wrong according to my beliefs. While I recognize at the very least the futility of arguing that they are unnatural or learned behaviors, I will stand by my position that they are unnecessary, especially in middle and high schools. According to what I believe, no one needs to be engaging in sexual activities in these age groups, and abstinence from any sexual behavior will not harm anyone. The people who tend toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transexual activities could choose to abstain, and I believe that is the best course of action for them.

Regardless, I understand the Day of Silence is not about supporting those behaviors. It's about protecting the people. I believe no one can do anything to make them sub-human or to separate them from God's grace. To adhere to that grace, I am mandated to love not only those like me but also those from other cultures, with other believes, and with other habits. In the interest of loving the members of the "LGBT community," I must care for their well-being, physical, mental, and emotional, and therefore strive to end their harassment. The goal of the Day of Silence is this end. However, I believe its emphasis on the LGBT case is misplaced. By all means, include them, but include other groups as more than a side note. Does no one see the racism still active in our country? Does no one hear the stereotyping of the populations of various countries? Does no one note the slander of one political party about another? Will no one fight against the unhealthy images in our culture that lead overweight kids to be made fun of or that bring skinny girls to become anorexic or bolemic?

The pressures degrading the people calling themselves LGBT are wrong, but they are no more or less wrong than those acting against many other people. In all honesty, who hasn't been made fun of? Who hasn't been harassed? It's wrong, but it's not limited to this one population. I applaud the general goal of the Day of Silence, but I won't support it until its emphasis broadens.

As a side note, I don't see what the spread of awareness can accomplish. If you seek an answer from school administrators, you won't accomplish what you seek. Administrators and teachers should have their jobs at stake for condoning any harassment, but they cannot possibly control the acts of other students. There are always empty hallways and unsupervised corners with no present authority. There are always bus rides and bus stops. There is always the neighborhood and the walk home. These are where harassment really occurs: where no one else can see it or stop it. Trust me. I know. You can raise awareness among the student body, among the administration, and among the parents. You can make every person in the world aware of the issue. It won't change anything until the bullies' hearts change. And the parents' hearts change. It won't change anything until you can look around at every person in sight and know that they won't hurt you. It won't change anything until attitudes as a whole change, and that's a tall order. Go, by all means. Change our culture. Teach us to be tolerant of one another. Teach us to love. While you're at it, teach us moderation. Still think it's possible? People are too varied for one approach to work, but universally, all you need to do is change hearts. I don't think the Day of Silence will do anything for that but create resentment, ultimately working against your goal.

A student's prayer before tests:

Any students, writers, or God-seekers reading this: please feel free to submit revisions/additions to this for the rest of us to reference in the future. What is our prayer as we study? For that matter, what is God's role in academics? All responses welcome.

Heavenly Father,
thank you for this work.
Thank you for everything I need to finish it.
This is good.

Please keep my heart focused on you;
keep my mind focused on my studies
so that I may praise you for all You've helped me do;
let the fruits of my studies glorify You.

Let all that is in me praise you
for all the good You give me,
work and studies included.
Please keep me focused.

Sometimes, I feel utterly useless, as though all I am amounts to nothing and as though I could never accomplish anything worthwhile.

Today, as I walked under the cloud-free blue sky, feeling the cold wind trying to sneak into the collar of my hoodie and various layers, I realized that that can't be true.

I am a student at Case Western Reserve University, not some random catch-all college that produces ho-hum alumni, but an educational institute that at times competes with MIT, the third-ranked engineering college in the world (could be wrong on the scope) and often with Carnegie Mellon, another highly-respected university. I wouldn't have been accepted into this incredibly geeky community if I hadn't any talent for it, and I wouldn't hold A's in my classes if that talent had lost its potency.

I associate as an equal with a group of very intelligent, very talented (and some very hard-working, persistent) achievers, and though I am not the best, I don't need to be.
And that's just for engineering.

I am a writer who has attended an international workshop that accepted eighteen young writers that year--with one of my worst stories. I was close to attending a similarly-sized writing group at a Governor's School of Pennsylvania, likely thwarted only by my chosen genre and open will to write any story that appeals to me, whether with my own characters or someone else's. My writing may not be perfect or comparable to Timothy Zahn's or Jim Butcher's, and definitely not to Tolkien's or Rowling's, but it is better--in style, plot, and characterization, to many published books. I have a very real chance of being published so soon as I finish something original in the genre I love--science fiction novels--rather than the one with better publishing statistics and at which I'm worse--science fiction short stories. (Alas, the harm in adoring character-oriented fiction and developing as I write: It takes me 5,000 words to show the progression of a character a short story writer would describe in a sentence. I could do it, I suppose, but only when accompanied by the groaning and tortured screaming of my inner muse.)

These things aren't what life is about, I know, so they should not matter so strongly to me. At least I don't need to be best. I just want to be good enough to have a future in them. To some small extend, they're like the assurance that God will shape me into the person he made me to be. It's not a measure of where I am now, but it is the confidence of what I will become that pushes me to do the work required to get there.

Powerful faith: faith the size of a mustard seed
is not only having faith in God
and living your life devoted to Him,
trusting Him for everything.

Powerful faith is having faith
that your will is aligned with God's,
that He has transformed your heart,
and that you love like God loves.

Powerful faith is the certainty
that you are so close to God,
whatever you ask will be given to you
and you ask carefully but generously,
according to the Holy Spirit's prompting.

Powerful faith moves mountains,
withers fig trees,
heals physical wounds and spiritual,
stops thunderstorms,
and inspires witnesses.

It is not for the weak of heart.

On a lighter note...

I had intended to post stuff every other week this semester. You can see how well that's going. I just don't keep in touch with people enough. I don't make time to. I hardly get my homework done on time, and I don't spend much time on the internet at all. The only reason I even use my computer most days is for the routine: check e-mail, check weather, check e-suds, write papers, keep notes for ENGR 145 and Black Book, listen to music, and sometimes to read Erica's stories. Oh, right, and www.freerice.com , too: my homepage. I'm up to 42, but I only play when I open a new browser. My days of living on the internet came to a close a long time ago. There's too much to do here to not be here in mind and spirit as well as body. It's part of living in the moment.

I don't suppose I've mentioned Black Book much. It's my new project, though it will likely last a decade. The first draft lasted five years, and that was for only five books. This one should be eight or nine. Who recalls the Reeses series about which I've written so much? Now take all the copyrighted material out and replace it with more scientifically feasible yet still analogous counterparts. Welcome to the world of Project Black Book. How to explain better?

In 1969, the United States Air Force began phasing out Project Blue Book, an official investigation of unidentified flying objects that sought a scientific and fully comprehensible explanation for every sighting, including the famous weather balloon explanation for the Roswell, New Mexico, crash and no explanation for the low-profile Kecksberg, Pennsylvania, hubbub. These are the documents eventually released under the Freedom of Information Act and cited in various UFO documentaries. Some of the sightings never received suitable explanation, however, and the documentation of others, procured under that Freedom of Information Act, are heavily edited with thick, black marker, to prevent the release of information pertaining to current projects, namely, Project Black Book, which replaced Blue Book in 1972 with a new mission: to catch the actual flying saucers and gain scientific and strategic information from these sources. As years passed and the project had no opportunity to prove its worth, the United States Air Force shifted its attention from the excitement of yesteryear to Earth-bound politics. Its attention and funds diverted from Project Black Book, leaving the small shell of a mostly empty base in the tiny town of Cohagen, Montana, two and a half hours north of Miles City.

Over the years, the Air Force found it convenient to have such a dead-end project to relegate officers too insubordinate for active duty and too intelligent to let go. By 1995, Project Black Book consisted of four officers and a token number of MPs and Airmen. Brigadier General Donn Marshall, Major Joliene Patrick, Lieutenant Kyle Fairfeld, and Tech Sergeant John Bailey were perfectly capable of fulfilling Black Book's mission and spent many years of boredom not only searching the empty skies for the silver flying saucers but also elaborating on the base's unique aspects. It was during this time that they gave the Project the nickname of "the Bed and Breakfast" or "B&B," even going to the extent of hanging a welcoming sign in front of the office/warehouse in which they worked.

In that year, Project Black Book fulfilled its original mission, revitalizing the entire project. They succeeded in capturing an alien spacecraft, but one of the occupants, a rebel Gertewet symbiote named Kitchell, took the general as its next host and left. Over the next few years, Kitchell and the original Black Book staff, now led by Marshall's neice, built a friendship between the United States and the Gertewet. At Donn Marshall's request, the Gertewet provided enough information to Project Black Book that the project could grow in its research and development mission by procuring more technology from the Gertewet's enemy, the Kemtewet, a similar species who ruled many human-occupied worlds in the galaxy and who had previously visited Earth, looking for new hosts.

Officially, Project Black Book was to reverse engineer any captured alien technology in order to either advance current technology, for the Air Force or possibly for the general public, or provide a defense against possible alien incursion, which concerned the Air Force enough in the 1960's to fund Black Book in the first place. Despite the procurement team's distaste for Kemtewet rule, they were not to engage the aliens but in defense. After all, Congress hadn't declared war, and the Air Force didn't have the interstellar resources (from Black Book) to fight one. For the time being, Black Book could only procure new technology, reverse engineer it, study applications of it, and maintain a casual friendship with the one Gertewet they knew.

That all changed in 1998.

Book 1: To Be (featuring Sarah/Vinnet, Lauren Krege, and a number of curiously familiar characters)
Book 2: Heart of Gold (featuring Sarah/Vinnet, Lauren Krege, Matt and Sally King, Katorin, Jenn Cors, and Chryson, among many other familiar characters)
Book 3: TBA (featuring S/V, Vandrof, David Rice, and many other familiar characters)
Book 4: Under the Radar (featuring Sarah, David Rice, Chryson, and characters that will be familiar by then)
Book 5: Best Left Dead (yes, I'm keeping it. I love it too much to let it go. But it'll be better this time, trust me.)
Book 6: Out of Enemies (featuring Setira, Chryson, Teresh, and Tacita, among others)
Book 7: Rebellion Reborn (featuring Chryson, Setira, Kitchell, Katorin, Tacita, etc.)
Book 8: Chain of Command (featuring Setira, Chryson, the Marshalls, etc.)

That's right. I'm not just rewriting the S/V series. I'm adding. And, as you can see, about the only things I'm keeping from Stargate are the concept of the Goa'uld and Tok'ra (Kemtewet and Gertewet). Okay, and the NID, who are now NFI-Com (National Freedom of Information for the Preservation of Constitutional Rights and of Citizen and National Security Commission). Okay, and the Ha'taks (Muuldepet)... kinda. These are cooler and more pretentious. That's right. As if a gigantic, gold-plated pyramid wasn't pretentious enough. No more System Lords, though; that's too simple. The Kemtewet now have a much more interesting structure: one emperor (like Ra, only not) ruling over six kings (kinda like system lords, I guess), who rule over five lords, who actually rule over planets. But since that's not enough enemies, there are also Kemtewet servants for the kings and emperor, who would rather not have to deal with humans at all. And they have culture! Folk songs, architecture, designers, maybe writers, scientists/reverse engineers. And competition, though I won't get into it until we meet Chryson in Heart of Gold.

OMGoodness! I love Chryson! If you've read anything about him (yes, Chryson is supposed to be male), you can't tell me he isn't completely lovable! I can't wait to write the books with Setira and him. Then again, I guess very few of you are familiar with how Setira turns out. Think Alliah from Dune, only basically good and less self-centered.

What else has me so excited about this series?

The crew from the Scifi Fridays I host hath decreed that the Black Book series (dunno why it's called Black Book since it's mostly about the Gertewet and Black Book falls into the background) is "engineering fiction," not science fiction. People complain so much about science fiction not being scientifically feasible, I'm trying my hardest to keep within that realm. Okay, so I have a few typical scifi magic concepts that I don't want to bother explaining: FTL, short-range transporters, evolution of the galaxy, etc. Typical write offs, explained by the ever-powerful Plot. (Refer to discussions last night throughout SG-1 viewing.) I ask my readers to forgive me a few if I adequately explain evolution and physiology of the 'Tewet, along with how their modifications to humans work. (Might keep the healing and extra strength as magic, too, but I'll explain the glowing eyes and weird voice.) Perhaps if I adequately explain the dimensions and development of the Kemtewet space craft (which I adore--someone build me a Kaxan, please!)? Remember the fun Tollan symbiote-indicating device and the Tok'ra memory device? I'm planning something that's a hybrid of the two, and Case has the perfect material to make it work. Thank you Martin, Blankenship, and Xie for your research. I hope you don't mind me publicizing it in fiction. I already know the origin of Black Book, NFI-Com, and the Kemtewet, as well as their internal politics, for the most part, and the politics and workings of the Gertewet. I know how Black Book and Cohagen develop throughout the series, why, and even the distribution of personnel throughout the departments.

So excited! I wish I could include sketches in my stories. After I go through all the trouble of creating them to write it, and the details don't quite make it into the story. Anyone recall Vinnet's dress in Best Left Dead? I have a color picture of it, and I really wish I could make it and have somewhere to wear it.

Oh, yeah. Mike has been told he should major or minor in poli sci. (I wouldn't put it past him.) Anyway, he pointed out a bunch of things that weren't politically accurate in the Announcement. They're being fixed. The changes work out well in the beginning of "Under the Radar," when Chryson comes back to Earth.

New characters!!! YEEEEE!!! You know how the others who were kidnapped with Sarah disappeared in the original version of To Be? They stick around now. We'll see them in the second half of To Be (which needs a new title), possibly in Heart of Gold, definitely in the Announcement, definitely in Under the Radar, and who knows after that? They all have their own back stories and personalities, some of which conflict enough to generate spin-off short stories, methinks. (Kalli and Pastor Ariel. Sorry I can't spell Kalli's name right on here. There should be a heart over the i.) Oh, and one of the abductees turns out to be so important that she's a catalyst for major plot events throughout the series.

Yeee! I love this series! It's always so dismal when I go back through my fifty-four pages of notes and see how little I have when I think I have so much, but I trust from my readers' reactions that it's all going to turn out pretty well. I'm trusting Mom, Molly (who hit me when she read BLD), Emily (who nearly or actually cried when she read BLD), and Mike (who picks on me for BLD) when they say it's publishable plot and characters. After reading Tobias Buckell's Ragamuffin, I'm inclined to agree. (Sorry, Toby, the story's great and the characters interesting, but your writing style is hard to get through in novels. You're very used to short stories.) Someday, I tell you. Someday, this is going to be published. I don't know when or by whom. Maybe I'll look up the editor I meet at Alpha and give him the first shot at it. Maybe I'll go to conventions and network. Maybe I'll intrigue someone by my supposedly contradictory major. Or maybe it'll turn them away. I have no way of knowing. Either the logic goes "She's majoring in engineering; she can't possibly write." or "She's a writer majoring in aerospace engineering. Practical. Probably really loves space. She's devoted and probably really awesome." I can dream, anyway.

So. Feel free to ask questions. I might answer.

And when it's published, read it. 'Twill be a blast.

Follow-up to the crash since I never posted any:

While we were sitting in the health center, Mike pointed out that there was a piece of my glasses missing: the hinge. We figured it was still sitting in front of the parking garage, where I crashed. Well, a doctor took me back and did what she could to clean it up, but she couldn't tell if I needed stitches. I don't know if I told her that a part of my vision on the left side was faded. I don't know if either of us noticed how dazed I was. Shock, I guess. Lucky for me, it didn't hurt that much. I guess I had a headache from the impact, but the actual torn flesh got smacked or scraped or squished so much, it was numb.

But I had an appointment to go to, and I was going to do anything I needed to to get there. Right. I missed it. And the two classes after it. When I resigned to not making the appointment with my professor, I asked Mike to go tell her. (Turns out, I was heading to visit the wrong professor, but in the end, it didn't matter.) I also asked him to take the paper that was due that day, but he didn't. Looking back, now that I've heard his assessment of that day, I must conclude that he was more worried than I was and his information overload didn't allow for my research paper to take priority like it did in my brain. All well. My professors understood it as an emergency and let me off the hook. (I still wanted to turn it in. I'm probably the kind of person you want on a mission to save the world. I'll be bleeding and beaten half out of my mind and still try to get everything right.)

Everyone left for a while for some reason or another, and they wouldn't let me leave. The health professional had me all bandaged up, but she was waiting for the real doctor to get back from lunch. So I lay there, trying not to stress. I knew it was all my fault. I remembered thinking that the bike might not go over the curb. I remembered that I should have worn a helmet after the first crash of the year. (But by golly, I wanted to see my alarm clock from my bed, and I had no other way to keep it up that high!) I knew my parents were going to freak. I knew it never had to happen. My stupidity had given me a big bloody gash, broken glasses (how was I going to tell Mom?), a very important missed appointment, and two skipped classes--my most important ones of the day. Or maybe I didn't have to miss them. How long did I have to finish there? Maybe I'd miss the mandatory humanities class, but I still had time to make my 3:00 fiction writing class. If only I didn't need stitches. I didn't think I could do stitches. The thought of a needle going in an out of my skin, sewing it together like the holes in my camo skirt, terrified me. The pain that had to cause! I couldn't take pain. I couldn't deal with it. Please, God, I thought over and over, anything but stitches. Anything but stitches! Finally, to at least try to hold myself together, to push away the regret for later, to push away the worries until I could do something, I sat up, waited for the room to stabilize, tottered to my feet, and got my Bean (media device) from wherever I kept it then. I played the uplifting Christian music I rely on so heavily and lay back on the bed, only this time, the music emphasized everything that had gone wrong. I cried. Eventually, I tried to stop. Just listen. Wait and listen.

The doctor came in after a while, and I resumed my brave face. Jokes to break the tension. Act pleasant above all else. I don't think she fell for it, but she at least pretended to. My shaking voice and hands might have given me away. She told me I needed stitches and that she was going to call Campus Security to take me to the emergency room, which I was thankful for, since I hadn't a clue where it was, though it couldn't have been more than two blocks away. I might could have walked... Anyway, she suggested I have a friend meet me, and I called Mike to ask if he would go with me, if he minded the chance of missing his afternoon class. He said he didn't. I still didn't like asking him to.

The doctor was kind. She gave me a bag of something, I think. Maybe she put my bloodied gym shirt in a paper bag. I don't remember. She gave me ice, though it melted long before I saw another doctor. I don't remember when Mike got there. It had to have been at least five minutes from when I called; I know he was on Northside, but he biked back as fast as he could. Whenever he got there, neither the doctor nor he would let me carry my own backpack, though I would have if they'd let me. It couldn't have been that heavy.

The doctor sent me down in the elevator, and Mike and I waited at the bottom for campus security. (Come to think of it, I don't know why we had to wait. Their office is one floor below where we were waiting, as I found out when Idaho made me lose my phone later on.) Mike didn't say much, so I tried to keep talking. Anything to keep my mind off my parents and my stupidity. I had to have a decent story to tell people. How could I deal with admitting that I'd crashed my bike while not wearing a helmet? "Klingons," I told Mike. "I got attacked by Klingons, and I won." We bantered like that for a while... kinda. He was distracted or something. I wonder why. We laughed at my coat, which had about a dollar coin-sized hole in the shoulder, spewing little puffs of white feathers into the air.

Eventually, the campus security SUV arrived, and we climbed into the back. The officer was really nice, too, and he and Mike talked the whole way. We took a spiraling path from there to the emergency room. I don't think it was much farther than two hundred meters in displacement, but we had to go around the edges of the block to get there. The weird hospital has the emergency room embedded in the very center of the entire complex. The officer snarled something sarcastic about a car blocking the drop-off zone and Ohio drivers' ineptitude. We got in all right in the end, glad for having met him.

I don't really remember much about waiting. I filled out some forms, described my pain as about a four. Mike admonished me for that. He said I would have gotten attention faster with more pain, but I answered that I was stable for now and had no reason not to wait when others might need the attention before I did. The hospital couldn't have been that stupid. Surely, they took into account both that I had a bleeding head wound and that someone had already tended it for the moment. I was pretty calm by then, starting to regain my senses, and we talked pretty much the whole time, the only people laughing in the emergency room waiting area. I'd have been sick with anxiety if he hadn't been there, and I knew it. He might have been instead of me, though. I never knew.

About 5:30, they called me back to see a doctor. After some preliminary cleaning, she looked at it and said, "You have a piece of metal in there."

"Really?" Mike and I looked at each other, information clicking into place. "So that's what happened to the hinge."

Sure enough, she pulled the hinge of my glasses out from my eyebrow. Now, remember: the first health professional, the health center doctor, and I had all looked at it, trying to determine how deep it was. I don't think any of us suspected it could hide an entire hinge. Well, we mused over it, and then she threw it out! I moaned about it, sure we could have fixed my glasses with that one part.

Six stitches in the end. They weren't as bad as I expected, though they might have been if things hadn't played out as they had. Mike held my hand. The doctor talked to one of us, probably Mike. I don't remember. They talked about skiing, about school, our majors, how we met. She commented on how nice he was to come with me. I agreed.

He walked me back to Leutner for dinner. I wasn't as dizzy as I had been, but it was still a long walk. The cold wind felt especially sharp against the new wound, even if it was covered with a band-aid.

Somewhere in the middle of it all or shortly after. Maybe that night. I don't know. At some point, it struck me that God had been with me through it all. I don't know why it happened, but I do know that it could have been hundreds of times worse. If Mike hadn't been there, I would not have staunched the bleeding. If I hadn't had racquetball that morning, I wouldn't have had expendable clothes with which to staunch, contaminated by the locker room floor, though they were. If it hadn't been cold that morning, I wouldn't have worn my big, puffy winter coat, and the hole in the coat would have been in my better clothes or in my shoulder. Had I not gotten stitches, no one would have found the hinge in my face. Had Mike not accompanied me, I would have freaked out in the emergency room worse than I did in the health center. And missing class turned out to be okay... just this once.

Random notes among random notes:

Reversing the polarity actually worked!

Step one: have polarized screen between light and room (on computer case).
Step two: ensure no light gets through.
Step three: reverse the poliarity.

Poof!

No longer just science fiction!

12/8 amusing pseudeutsch

Projectklub

Achtung! Alle Lookenpeepers!

Diese Computermeachine ist nicht fuer Fingerpoken und Mittengrabben. Sie ist einfact Springenwerk zu schnappen, Fusen zu blowen und Corken zu poppen mit viele sparkenspitzen. Sie ist nicht fuer gewerken bei die Dumbkoepfen. Die rubbernecken Sichseeren muss die cotton-pickenen Haender in der Pockets keepen; relaxen und watchen die Blinkenlichten!

11/29

12:30

I pick myself up off the ground, mostly concerned with getting out of the parking garage's driveway. My glasses are missing, and I reach for the one piece I see: the side. Someone points out the rest or hands them to me. I don't remember which. My bike is so far away, but I must notice someone else moving toward it; I start walking away. Someone coming the other way stops to tell me my forehead is bleeding. A swipe at my forehead comes away bloodier than I expected; a second swipe covers half my hand. Mike is beside me now with both bikes--his and mine. His eyes widen, and he looks worried. I know University Health Services are nearby--almost right across the street. I start walking that way. He stops me.

Apparently, I was bleeding worse than I realized. He urges me to use something to stem the bloodflow.

"Gym bag. Purple shirt." It's an old one. I think Mom tried to convince me I outgrew it six years ago. No loss, except that it's the coolest shirt I have that's appropriate for gym.

Mike drops his bike on the grass and fumbles for the gym bag wrapped around my handlebars. I stand to the side and watch a drop of blood trickle onto my pale blue coat. I lean forward so the next one falls onto the grass. I watch it like a rain drop falling from the tip of my nose.

Mike passes me the shirt, and I hold it against my face, heedless of the sweat and grime embedded in its fibers. I dropped it on the locker room floor earlier. All well. I know I need something more than I need something clean.

Just then (maybe earlier) someone I know parts ways from the masses of hungry students whose classes ended at 12:20. I've talked to him but not much. Is his name Ray? He says something to the effect of, 'Oh, God, Shannon, are you all right?"

I probably mutter something like "I'll be fine." Isn't faith wonderful? More than that, isn't our culture wonderful? I'm so conditioned to believe that I have to be fine that I can be standing on a street corner, dripping blood with my second pair of glasses this school year in pieces in my hands and still think I'm fine!

11/14/07

There are four kinds of knowledge: memorization, comprehension, understanding, and experience. They are interconnected and interrelated, perhaps interdependent, but they are not identical.

Memorization is knowing the facts, the surface of a concept. It is knowing what is or what happens. It is the simplest form of knowledge and the most common one to test. Memorization is the emotionless connection of semantic information.

Comprehension is deeper. It is knowing how ideas are connected, the mechanism of how an event or state--even a static state or fact of existence--occurs. Comprehension can be communicated through words.

Understanding is deeper yet and more exclusive than one might imagine. It is knowing two steps or more beyond how a state developed--it is knowing why. People can be led to understanding, but it cannot be taught. One must achieve it on one's own through personal analysis of the comprehension available. All understanding implies comprehension, but not all comprehension requires understanding. Understanding may change one's comprehension subtly so that it no longer reflects others' comprehension. Understanding is key to the best enjoyment of life; it is so important that it may supercede all other forms of knowledge.

Experience is akin to understanding, but it offers a different perspective. While experience may not always provide understanding or even comprehension, it does provide some memorization and a kind of emotional knowledge. Experience, like memorization and comprehension, provides input for understanding.