One Down, Five to Go

July 18: exactly one year since I moved to Austin. Anniversaries serve to remind us of the events that defined our current circumstances. Looking back, there are a number of things this past year, both good and bad, that have affected my priorities and aspirations.

I've become aware of the scope of my profession, and I've realized that I could work like a dog for the next sixty years and still have regrets about the things I didn't find time to investigate.

Along those same lines, I've come to believe that in order to realize some dreams, I will have to sacrifice others. While I've never harbored any delusions about my finite time, it seems clear enough now that desires sometimes conflict. A man cannot raise five children while globetrotting.

The idea of being in school until I'm 29 has never made me feel like I'd be missing out on anything, but I will be disappointed if I'm not in a steady relationship by that time. I want to get married, and I want to start building a family as soon as I get out of school. Whether it's been seeing friends starting to settle down or something more biological, the importance of having something personal to pass to the next generation is already starting to nibble at my mind. Of course, it can't just be all about me, so the question is: with what kind of woman can I share this journey? This may be my biggest personal challenge.

I've learned I have to show more pride in what I do. I've always kept my excitement about my job and job prospects tempered out of a somewhat misguided sense of humility. Humility is important, but I think I've always downplayed what I was doing in order not to undermine anyone's perception of his own intelligence (It happens; people get this frantic look like they don't know what they should do or say). Lately, however, even as these self-effacing words come out of my mouth, I've realized that they just make me sound unpassionate and bored when nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I should be seeking to inspire people with the knowledge and passion I have found. They can then decide for themselves if they want to feel curious, excited, threatened, or bored.

I have a well refined idea of the man I want to ultimately be, and for the first time in my life, I can see the means to become him. I want to play an instrument, speak a foreign language, be trained in a martial art, write a book, and be a good father and husband. I want to spend my life educating, inspiring, empowering, and raising the youth of America. I want to preach self-reliance, discipline, resourcefulness, curiosity, joviality, and gratitude.

I am relieved to see that two years after graduation, I still have strong bonds with the men who became my Brothers during the most formative years of my life to date. Moreover, there is still a place for me in that house where we grew up, and the concept of brotherly love is not limited to a narrow frame of shared time.

Now, in a quirky twist of irony, I find myself in the same position I was in a year ago: contemplating the prospect of a new life in a new world. Last Thursday, my advisor asked me -- almost as if it were an afterthought -- if I'd be interested in doing my thesis work on the Super-X Divertor in the United Kingdom. I was dumbstruck. If I go, I'll be working on a project that makes useful energy out of 99% of nuclear fission waste at an international facility. Let's not forget that I'd get to live in England for 3-4 years, with London a 30-minute drive away. I may leave as early as next summer, or perhaps the summer after that. Trips home would be few and far between, but an opportunity to do thesis work like this comes along only once, and in the spirit of making the most of my time, I am almost honor-bound to go. This is so freakin' awesome!

Elitism: When Deploring the Situation Is As Much the Sin

The quick status summary: summer's awesome -- it's hot, but pleasant; knowing some cool people in a cool city keeps my weekends nice and busy; work is at times frustrating but interesting. Now on to the meat and potatoes.

I've become increasingly cynical over the past several months. I don't think I was meant to live in an "urban" area; I'll be the first to admit that I can only tolerate a limited scope of personalities, and the cross-section you find in dense populations is maddening. Things that shouldn't bother me so much are driving me crazy. I listened to a guy today explain the fine art of shoplifting. Meanwhile, a woman is mashing keys on her phone, the tones of which I can hear from six seats away. It occasionally blares a measure of cellular cacophony, and the woman proceeds to yammer into it as if she were making mayday calls from a U-boat. And who waits until a bus starts to take off to decide he wants to get off? What the hell were you doing during the thirty seconds it sat there? Do you even know where you're going?! See what I mean? My perception of humanity is changing in a permanent, unfavorable way, and it concerns me. Nobody cares about where they're going as long as they have 24-hour AC, a handful of food to shove in their faces, something to complain about, a screen to stare at and instantly gratify an unrefined sense of amusement, an undeserved sense of accomplishment granted to them by People magazine, and spinners and a bass system so they can pick up an equally uninteresting piece of Axe-ridden ass to rub their genitals on and spew fluids into in an attempt to validate themselves in their eyes and the eyes of others.

"And as we're straddling from one deal to the next, who's got his eye on the planet, as the air thickens, the water sours, and even the bees' honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity? And it just keeps coming, faster and faster. There's no chance to think, to prepare; it's buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future."   --The Devil's Advocate

Good question. It's becoming abundantly clear why common-sense measures like waste recycling aren't mandatory; nobody gives a shit as long as they're getting their aforementioned jollies, because after all, "If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense (a T-shirt I saw someone wearing today)." Wow, really? Somebody save me from my ever-burgeoning sense of despair for this species, haha. Knowing that there are good, decent people out there is the only thing that calms me down sometimes. Sometimes I'm tempted to let it go and just mentally anaesthetize myself, but then how would I be any different?

Apparent Societal Paradox: Education, in any form, and exposure to different experiences is considered to make a person "better" in a general sense. However, it is considered elitist to think you're "better" than someone who is less educated and single-minded. Obama, for example, has been accused of sounding elitist. Is there a resolution to this tightrope walk?

A thought I've been toying with: The line should not be drawn between who's smart or stupid, or who's right or wrong, but between who's thinking and who's not thinking. Opinions?

I haven't done a real update for a long time, so I thought I should. Not that there's anything terribly exciting going on; like most people, I'm just doing my routine day in and day out.

I received an Honorable Mention from the Fusion Energy Sciences fellowship. Aside from being a nice addition to my resume, I could be eligible for a grant "in the event that additional fellowships become available." I'm putting this in a positive light because after a month of thinking, I realized that although I'm not getting any money, it's still an honor to be recognized. I was pretty disappointed when I first found out, mainly because the letter started out with "we are pleased to inform you." It seemed like kind of a tease. I was also looking forward to having some closure on the issue, but now this possibility of a future grant will keep me wondering. At least I'm still eligible for next year's round of applications, so hopefully my summer work will put me over the top.

If last semester was meant to inform me of the gravity of my situation, this semester was meant to show me that I'm tough enough to succeed here. Electromagnetism is the most hated and feared core class here, but it's been going pretty well for me. I've often taken the leadership role in my study group when it comes to finding and defending a solution, so I know I have something to contribute. Last semester was a harsh introduction to the absolute shittiness of teachers at large schools, but now I've made peace with that, and I'm perfectly content to learn everything I need from a book. That can only help me since I'll be getting my future information from research papers and journals.

The social scene is much improved. I went out with a dozen people to dinner for my birthday, and they paid for my meal. I was genuinely surprised, seeing as how I haven't known these people very long. I spent last night playing beer pong, making acquaintances with several lovely young women (P.S. the "I'm pursuing a Ph.D." line can really work if delivered correctly), and pissing behind dumpsters in downtown back alleys. The previous Friday was spent with 25 other people, a six-pack, and blood lust a la Kill Dr. Lucky, which is an AWESOME game to play if you're looking for an inexpensive night at home. It's kind of like Clue, except you're trying to kill the guy instead of finding out whodunnit, but so is everybody else. It's a game for adults because the rules are somewhat intricate but very interesting. Add six beers to the equation, and you have an orgy of alcohol-related attempted murder. At least I know my twenties aren't going to waste.

I've been exercising every weekday: swimming MWF and running TTh. I've got some nice tone, and I'm back to my pre-senior year binge drinking waist size. Sometimes it's hard to keep up the motivation when the homework hits hard, but the regular exercise actually helps to clear my head and keep me focused when I get back to the grind. I'm going to try to phase in a lifting routine over the summer; hopefully it'll stick by the time the fall semester begins.

I still wish I had the kind of capital that would allow me to zip back to Indiana every once in awhile. Pictures and status messages on Facebook only do so much. My trips this year will be dominated by weddings, which I'm pretty excited about. Unfortunately though, that leaves little money for a more standard trip to visit people. I'm hoping to pull off some magic and make it to Homecoming, but we'll just have to see.

All of this emphasis on proactively doing everything while considering the consequences ten years down the road has got me making lists of everything I want to see, do, and buy before I die. I figured that if I was to ever consider actually doing any of them, documentation would be a good start. At least, that's how a nerd sees it. There's a big list for this summer. Texas-related activities has its own list, including horseback riding and going to Burning Flipside, a local clone of Burning Man. Any takers?

Soooo ... life is good. I consider anytime when I'm in good health, financially secure, socially connected, and doing worthwhile work a success. I can't wait for the summer when I'll get to just work and spend the rest of my time however I like in hot, sunny Texas.

Newsweek

Random Story #1: I think the birds are in full mating season. I was waiting at the bus stop, and the gargantuan crow-like birds they have down here were swooping and squawking back and forth in front of me. One male would try to establish his dominance by expanding and contracting his feathers and loudly chirping, only to be chased off by another male who was then able to home in on him. It made me think how funny it would be if humans had a mating season; then popped collars and bass systems would only have to be tolerated four months out of the year.

Random Story #2: Whether it's justified or not, I dislike it when people come to the indoor track to mindlessly chatter while they walk and take up two of the three lanes. You go to the gym to exercise and sweat, not to catch up on gossip and kid yourself into thinking that you're losing weight. As you can guess, there were two such hens on the track last Wednesday. I was having one of my best two-mile runs to date, but I continually had to dodge these two girls. On one of my last laps, I started kicking it into high gear, so I naturally lost a little control of my gas. After passing them up and getting in front of them, I released the most rancid, noxious, silent fart behind me. I heard one of them cough and say, "Oh God." I had to work so hard not to burst out laughing. I didn't do it on purpose, but I wouldn't take it back if I could, either.

There were a lot of interesting articles in the news this week: some that gave me hope, and some that made me want to cry. Many of them pertain to the most frequently mentioned topics on this blog, and while I feel that I sometimes spend too much time talking about them, I'll always rise to the occasion when prompted by an article.

The Bad:

Scopes Trial Part 8: Why Are We Still Talking About This?

Yet another state’s board of education is debating the place of evolution in school textbooks. Once again, the board wants to present the concept of evolution as “just a theory” alongside other theories. The thing everyone’s keeping mum on though is what exactly those other theories are: creationism and intelligent design, which aren’t theories at all. A “theory,” in scientific terms, is actually the strongest, most well-documented statement of truth, whereas the foundation of creationism is based on a single book of questionable origin and millennia of dogma. And of course, intelligent design is nothing more than the bastard cousin of fundamentalist beliefs, a poorly disguised attempt to give a scientific appearance to religion. That’s the real danger: the illusion of skepticism in favor of an unquestioned belief. Board chairman Don McLeroy was quoted as saying, "I'm a skeptic. I'm an evolution skeptic. I don't think it's true. You need to present other ideas to the kids." Notice he doesn’t say why he’s skeptical, and he doesn’t say what those other ideas are. He paints himself as an analytical person, using the word “skeptic” for the sake of the papers, but he’s obviously just trying to push his beliefs into the curriculum.

That’s what kills me about zealots: they’re always quick to point out holes in scientific theories, yet they refuse to evaluate their own beliefs, always retreating behind the Bible as the final authority on truth. It’s ironic that they would choose to use healthy skepticism as a tool to maintain their own unquestioned beliefs. Moreover, it’s the job of public schools to present documented facts, regardless of personal beliefs involved. Any violation of that is a violation of the separation of church and state, period. If you want to start inserting disclaimer stickers into textbooks, it’s only fair that other groups start placing their own stickers into your religious texts, so that everyone’s beliefs are represented. Is that really what they want? If you have such a bone to pick with evolution, tell the kids whatever you want at Sunday school, but leave the public schools alone.

It’s fine to be skeptical of evolution, or any scientific theory for that matter, but if that’s what you believe, you’d better be ready to back it up with more than “the Bible says so.” Skepticism is a healthy thing, but it seems odd that this is the one theory with which religious groups take such offense. Something tells me that healthy skepticism is not the true motive behind these continued debates.

Physics ABCs

I've been studying for a big Electromagnetism midterm exam for a few days now. The test material is pretty comprehensive, and we don't get to make an equation sheet, so I'm actually supposed to remember the formulas for the reflection coefficients of EM waves in TE and TM modes. Ugh. Looking over all of this, it occurred to me: we physicists have a lot of freaking letters for things. I mean, it's practically a different language, one that encompasses all the glory and wonder of the universe. That being said, I thought I'd test my fluency. The rule is that I can't look up any letters; this is just from memory to show that these things are actually important (George, back me up if I come up short). I also can't use units, just physical variables and quantities.

A - magnetic vector potential                            a - acceleration

B - magnetic induction                                      b - ???

C - capacitance                                                c - speed of light

D - electric displacement                                   d - distance

E - electric field                                                e - electron charge

F - force, Helmholtz free energy                        f - force per unit charge (from EMF)

G - universal gravitational constant                    g - near-Earth acceleration constant

H- magnetic field                                              h - Planck’s constant

I - current, moment of inertia                             i - first Cartesian coordinate unit vector

J - current density                                             j - second Cartesian coordinate unit vector

K - surface current density                                k - third Cartesian coordinate unit vector

L - self-inductance                                            l - angular momentum

M - magnetization                                             m - mass

N - total number (e.g., particles)                       n - number density, quantum energy level

O - ???                                                            o - ???

P - polarization, pressure                                  p - momentum

Q - total charge                                                q - arbitrary amount of charge

R - resistance                                                   r - length (Cartesian), radius

S - entropy                                                       s - spin number, displacement

T - kinetic energy, temperature                          t - time

U - potential energy                                          u - generic energy density

V - voltage, volume                                          v - velocity

W - ???                                                            w - electric/magnetic energy density

X - electric linear response                                x - first Cartesian coordinate axis

Y - Young’s modulus                                        y - second Cartesian coordinate axis

Z - impedance                                                  z - third Cartesian coordinate axis

Okay, so I had to cheat a little by using mathematical coordinates, but all in all I think I did well. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything with o's; I guess they look too much like zeroes. I think there're a W and a b out there, but I couldn't recall any. Of course, we haven't even address Greek letters, but I'm not that bored.