Thursday, September 22nd 2005, 22:15
Finally uploaded something that I recorded with my camera around a week ago.
If anyone wants to be a religious fanatic, **here's** how you do it.
{note: the politically incorrect video is removed for archiving purposes. Please contact me if you wish to see it.
Sunday, September 18th 2005, 20:35
College education comes in many forms, but for me, it's the diversity of the kind of people that you get to meet. It's almost like you are in a classroom 24/7. And like school, some classes are easier to understand than others. You don't get assessed immediately, but you better learn it damn well, because the test comes when you go out into the real world. And the real world doesn't give you grades; job applications and first impressions are a pass/fail venture.
And then sometimes there are these lessons that doesn't seem very hard at first, but then you slowly come to realize that it is something you have never been faced with before. Some people give you seemingly easy lectures, and then leave you with very hard homework to hand in next class. Unfortunately, not everyone in the class gets the same homework, and hence nobody could really help you if you are stuck.
Some people know their strengths and weaknesses, and look for the classes that they find easy, hard or interesting. And some, like myself, always gets himself into very difficult classes, and after two years, barely gets out alive. The problem, of course, is that the course titles don't always match what the class is about. And then there are some lecturers that like changing the syllabus in the middle of the semester if their students are having too much fun. Those are usually lecturers that take a lot of points off you if you don't catch onto it quickly enough. Those lecturers should "retire".
I am faced with a very difficult class right now, one that will prove fatal if I make too many mistakes.
Friday September 2nd 2005, 09:11 (Playing: {Chinese texts cannot be recovered from archives})
There is a common childhood saying that time travels faster when one is happy, and slower when one is sad. To a physicist, time is partially a measurement of events, not a separate physical entity. If nothing ever is, and nothing ever happens, then there is no such thing as time. But the real reason why people feel time travels faster when they are happy is because they are doing something they enjoy. They are distracted, and when distracted, they do not notice the passing of time. Believe me, time travels very slowly when you are in a boring lecture.
To a sentient being, is time purely a construct of the mind?
Time heals wounds, but not memories of the wounds. To heal painful memories is simply killing time. Imagine this: you are immortal, but you wake up everyday with all memories washed out, and you live each day as if it were your first. Are you immortal?
Why people seek immortality, what kind of immortality are they looking for? Humans are mortals, and they do not retain their memories forever. That's how they heal the wounds that they acquired during their brief lives. If one were immortal, they you had to remember absolutely everything you have ever done, and feel everything that you have ever suffered, every moment, forever.
I deeply sympathize with the elves in Lord of the Rings; in a desperate attempt to stop further acquiring painful memories of mistakes, they secluded themselves away from the world, away from all change and progress. Nothing ever much happens in their forest kingdoms, and living through 100 years is just like every other day. Are they really immortal, or do they simply escape to the unchanging land of the West once they can no longer bear the ever-increasing burden of the years?
It is really quiet in my room right now, as I am practicing my free-writing skills for the GRE general test. It's late at night, the skies are cleared from the clouds by the night breeze, and the starlight is almost as bright as the moon. Pain alleviates over time, but it is most certainly not time itself that is doing it.
If time is a construct of the mind, then I must be healing myself!?
Friday, August 26th 2005, 09:10
Finally back in Urbana! School's going fine, the air's nice and fresh, and that should make me a happy person. Except for the fact that my apartment's a mess.
I don't know what happened between November and August but, as far as I'm concerned, toilet door knobs do not just fall off by themselves. Neither to drawers get crushed by their own weight, or that toilet seats get cracked, stains and dust everywhere, and carpets that are dirtier than the bottom of our shoes. The windows seem as if they're about to fall off anytime soon, lights aren't working, stove's half-screwed up and broken chairs are everywhere. The landlord will fix it "sometime next week", which makes me wonder if I can possibly maintain my sanity for *this* week.
No, I'm not going to take pictures. I don't want to scare anyone.
Speaking of pictures though, I do have a new camera. Which I'll put to full use whenever I'm going on trips and stuff. I'm still thinking of all the Thanksgiving plans that I didn't realize during the past two years. Well, I better do that this year, before I either get a job or go to a master's program.