"Are You Mad?"

     I went bowling with some friends tonight. It was a great time and I spent time with some people that I haven't seen in a long time, plus some people that I see on a regular basis. It was a great night, but I'm getting over a cold and the late night started taking its toll. We all walked from our apartments to the bowling alley and bowled several games, then about 1:00 am we walked back home. The entire way home I was coughing and wheezing, I just put it down to the massive change in temperature: mid-80s Farenheit to low-30s is a huge drop for my already overworked lungs.
     We got back to our complex and I noticed that my car was parked in a manner that would make leaving tomorrow difficult, so I took five minutes to clear it out and move it. During that five minutes I spent moving my car and preparing for tomorrow one of my friends--Peter--was bothering Lucy, another of our friends, about whether or not I was mad. My question is "what would I be mad about?" We all had a great night, made some good memories, and no one got hurt. When I got into the building it was my turn for the inquisition and he insisted on examining every part of the evening until I told him; I'm not mad, I'm sick, tired, and in pain from moving in and out of the cold. He then wanted to go into whether or not I was mad because Calvin came, I was excited Calvin decided to join our group and that I got to spend more time with him, why would that make me angry? In the end Lucy and I just sent Peter to bed and resolved to talk to him later.
     It gets me thinking though, why does Peter think I'm so angry? I might be disappointed something didn't turn out as I wanted, but when I retreat into my own world it doesn't mean I'm angry, rather I probably need a few minutes to myself and to react to large groups of people. As outgoing as I am with my friends, I really am an introvert and I do need those moments of relaxed alone time.

Just a thought....
Stephie

Boomerang Nebula

Hubble Space Telescope

     So I was talking to a friend today and we got into some pretty interesting stuff about science and the universe. Bottom line is that this guy knows a whole lot about physics for a history major. He told me about this place that's known as the coldest naturally occurring place in the universe: the Boomerang Nebula. Apparently it's in the Centaurus constellation and it's colder than actual space.
     The Nebula has such a cold temperature because it's releasing gas from the star's core and expanding at a rate of 164 km/s. It's located 5 thousand light years away and is pretty neat. The scientists who first saw it in 1980 only saw the Nebula's bend, but after viewing through the Hubble Space Telescope some scientists now call it the Bowtie Nebula.
     There are places that are colder, such as Wolfgang Ketterle's lab at MIT in Cambridge, where temperatures have reached 810 trillionths of a farenheit degree above absolute zero, but the Boomerang Nebula is the coldest known naturally occurring place in the universe. It's incredible!

Just a thought...
Stephie

Sherlock Holmes

     I watch a lot of British television. It all started with Doctor Who, and spread from there. The most recent show I've been watching is Sherlock and it's a modern take on the myth of Sherlock Holmes. There are so many different variations of the story--movies dating back to the seventies, and probably before, television series, and even fan-fiction based on the original tales.
     There are two different shows running right now based on the myth: BBC's Sherlock and CBS's Elementary and I really enjoy them both. Elementary is one of the first non-British shows to portray Doctor Watson as an actual partner in Holmes's investigations (at least, according to an article I read somewhere). The combination of Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller is an antagonistic relationship, but the male-female interaction has a different tenor than the male-male relationship.
     When Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman come to the screen the relationship is much different; they maintain the antagonizing interplay, but also have a difficult sort of friendship to describe. They don't seem to interact except when on a case, yet they know an uncanny amount about each other's habits and likes or dislikes. I've only gotten through the first two episodes, but when there are fewer episodes than there are seasons of other shows, two is numerically a lot. My sister and several of my friends are completely infatuated with both the men on the show and the show itself; I can see the draw, but it isn't going to be my life's blood, watching a show that doesn't have another season until next year.
     What I really want to do about this Sherlock Holmes obsession everyone seems to have is to read the books. There are plenty of them to keep us all entertained until the newest season of Sherlock comes on, so who is going to? Every comparison I've heard places these two new adaptations high on the list of "best" but we won't know until we've all consumed the entire canon.
Congratulations Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; you've managed to keep us all entertained for centuries after your death. I wonder what he'd think...

Just a thought...
Stephie

Protecting His Friend, or Himself?

     Have you ever had one of those days where someone said one thing, and it ruined your entire day, and leeched into the next day? That was today. I was chatting with a few friends last night, at dinner, when I mentioned that a mutual friend was interesting and I'd like to get to know him better. Nearly everyone at the table was okay with this decision, but the friend who had introduced us (we'll call him Jack) completely put his foot down. The others: (and these are not their real names) Edward, Lucy, Collin, Peter, and Bernard actually seemed supportive, but Jack insisted that our mutual friend (Calvin, for lack of his literary favorite) was interested in someone else, and this is after Jack'd tried to pair him with a girl from class.
     Normally that'd be okay, but the way he phrased it as "Calvin is off-limits" rather than just suggesting I wait until he'd figured out what's going on with that to pursue anything new. It made me angry that Jack was butting into my life, and kind of indignant that he was butting into Calvin's life. We're at completely different points where we want different things from our relationships and Jack doesn't seem to get that I'm going to do my best not to hurt Calvin.
     I keep trying to figure out why he'd do something so decisive as step in front of any "relationship train" that might move, and a couple of my friends and I came up with answers that don't fit with what I know about Jack: he likes me (that's not going anywhere and he's the kind of guy to move on when he realizes it's not), he's afraid I'll hurt Calvin (okay...), Calvin will hurt me and he wants to prevent that (really?!), he's afraid to lose Calvin to a relationship like he lost Peter to a relationship (that's not going to happen any time soon), and there are more, but those are the ones we're dealing with now. I just want Jack to let whatever is or isn't going to happen happen, let us figure this out for ourselves and you'll keep both friendships and might even develop both further. The only thing that's made the day any better is my other friends' encouragement, that's what friends are for: to make your day better.

Library Woes

     Yesterday I made a trip to the library with my grandmother: not a completely unusual occurrence, but it was not what I expected. Instead of going to the library we normally visit, we stopped by a branch closer into town and I was surprised at the difference between both size of the building and the selection. At our usual library the main room is probably sixty feet long and eighty feet wide. The entire selection of books, movies, audiobooks, music and the public computers take up that space. The fiction section at the library we visited yesterday was about the same size. What made it unexpected was the fact that we're in the same county and run by the same library system.
     My question is: why? Why is a library is the same system--in a more populated, yet more rural area--so much smaller than one closer to town? Wouldn't the thought be, if the library is one of the only modes of entertainment and public enhancement make it more varied and bigger? I don't understand. Okay, I understand that the system wouldn't want a larger library in an area where people wouldn't use it, but if the library was larger, it follows that more people would be able to use it. I guess my largest frustration is that I have read most of the selection at the local library, and now I have to go to other branches if I want to explore something new.
     On the plus side, I now know that particular library has a good selection of general fiction, and a spectacular media section. I think I'll send in a letter to the main office.

Just a thought...
Stephie

Music

    So my friends all think my taste in music is crazy. My brother can't stand it. And my sister changes the radio to the one preset in my car that holds her radio station. But what makes my music any different than anyone else's? Yeah, I listen to country, but I also listen to classic rock, modern pop, 80s pop, and anything but rap (I still don't understand the appeal of rap). My gra'ma only likes to listen to classical or big band, so I keep a nice selection of it in my iTunes. Mom prefers holiday music after Thanksgiving (if you don't like Christmas music, good luck near my mother after December 1st) but otherwise likes the eclectic mix of Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Electric Light Orchestra, and George Strait. Dad enjoys mostly the stuff that was popular before I was born--classic rock and oldies. What makes my preference of everything so different.
     Every day we're exposed to so many different sounds that mix together and combine to create music. It could be considered the music of our lives and its all those little sounds, like the sound of pages turning in the library, friends laughing, computer keys clicking, a family member's voice in the other room, they're all sounds that speak to each person differently. It's the reason STOMP has gained popularity even though they don't use traditional instruments.
     What makes one person like a particular type of music more than another kind?

Just a thought...
Stephie

Back to the Grind

It's 2013!

     It was a crazy year, 2012: at least four "apocalypses", a Presidential Election, and some very influential decisions made in Washington State. Yet, we're all still here. What are some of your favorite memories from 2012? Did you ever keep those New Year's Resolutions that we're always making? What are some of the things you wouldn't change for the world?
     I'm back to school after a wonderful Christmas Break full of friends and family. New Year's was great, the party went as planned, and we had a great group of friends there. We counted down that last ten seconds to the new year and watched the Seattle Space Needle firework show on the local news. Then there was the NYC celebration, the flurry of text messages and phone calls from family and friends, and the midnight toast. Overall it was a great time and a fun way to ring in the new year.
     But now we're back. I learned yesterday that my entire January schedule was wrong: my class starts at 11:30 rather than 2:30 and goes Monday through Friday instead of starting Tuesdays. That doesn't seem like much of a change, except that it's right during the time I was scheduled to work. The frustration of figuring out how to balance all of our schedules and have someone on duty at all times is starting to get annoying, simply because January has a completely different schedule than the rest of the year. Anyway, everything is piling up, and homework is still a huge factor in what all of us Lutes are doing this month, but it's great to be back and have everyone else around.

Just a thought...
Stephie