My answer to "life, the universe and everything"
So livejournal has come out with a new layout and I thought it looked pretty good (though I wish I could use that Generator layout, but that’s a paid account feature) and decided to use it. I’m still tweaking with some settings here and there, but it’s not bad so far. By the way:
It’s that time of year again. If you’re a little tense, calm down, relax, and read on (taken from Science Jokes collected by Joachim Verhagen).
THE STUDENT MIND DURING A FINAL EXAM-The last thoughts, and percentages of brain capacity
* 10% The prof. never covered this section!
* 10% Actual knowledge on the subject.
* 10% The T.A.’s kinda cute!
* 10% I knew I should have read the book!
* 10% Soon this will all be behind me!
* 10% I hope the curve is really low!
* 10% PANIC ZONE!
* 10% Prayers for a miracle flood, fire, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, etc…
* 10% Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…
* 10% Summer break!
Good luck with finals everybody.
Nothing really new to report. Thanksgiving was interesting. I spent it over at my aunt’s house in San Francisco; it’s a shame my family couldn’t make it up north, but oh well. My brother and sister are probably too busy trying to get the Lincoln High School Academic Decathlon to team to the State Championships for the first time and are looking to break all sorts of school records. Go team.
Last Saturday, we had the last party for the semester over at Alpha Delta Phi. It was smaller than the last, which was actually kind of a good thing since there was less crowding, and it was easier to talk to people since everyone was essentially a friend of a brother some how. I must say though that it was a little disappointing to see just about every cute girl there with some other guy, but that’s the way it goes in Berkeley I suppose. The big plus of the party though was getting our name out to a lot of people who never used to party with us and it gets our name out to the community that this is an active and partying frat. This is no longer just an obscure frat and I’m looking forward to getting the word across even further in the next few semesters, where we can hopefully get some good pledges from outside the house to participate in the frat events and further spread the word.
Now it is time for me to get some sleep and study hard for finals. Oh jeez.
Funny Quote–Patrick Gallagher: “Yeah we were talking about the perfect girl for Allen one time…”
Me: “You were?”
Patrick: “Well we were really drunk at the time.”
Happy Birthday minchy_cow. To celebrate, I thought I’d give you some tests that reveal a little more about yourself, for knowing yourself is the greatest gift of all (okay that was totally sappy).
So, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and it couldn’t have come any sooner. It’ll be good for me to catch up on some lost sleep (of course, if I really wanted to do that, then I wouldn’t be writing my journal this late at night now, would I?). Now, usually I put up some random stuff in between a long update and the next. Not this time. Sit back and read on about last week.
Last Tuesday, I went down to Ben and Jerry’s with Jacqueline and her Christian youth group. They were suppose to go to celebrate all the November birthdays, but surprisingly no one had one. Oh well, we went any way and enjoyed some good ice cream. Did I mention that I went there with a bunch of girls? It’s not a bad thing, sure. However, when they start talking like you aren’t there, then you have problems. I mean they started talking about all sorts of female matters from tampons to Disney heroines to fisting and by the time we got to that, I called it a night. Well, I’m here at Berkeley to learn something.
After exploring Christianity for a few weeks, I decided to check out Judaism for a week and went with Shoshana to Berkeley Hillel last Friday. I didn’t expect this much Hebrew and I had a really hard time following it until near the end of the service. Then, we walked over to her apartment and watched the movie Donnie Darko. It was an engaging movie, though I will say it left me hanging a bit at the end. So, I recommend watching it, but acknowledge it has a very glaring fault. By the time the movie was over, I was already sleepy and I had to crash on her roommate’s futon.
I was then woken up the next morning by Vicky who, because of my messed up hair, thought I was Joey. Anyways, I proceeded to watch TV with her for a few hours. It was funny; we ended up watching such a variety of shows such as Fresh Gear, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Beverly Hills, 90210, and Access Hollywood. It was also Big Game day as it was Cal vs. Stanford for the 106th time. And for a brief moment, I doubted the Golden Bears’ offense, but boy was I wrong. Final score 28-16, Cal. Looks like Insight.com bowl here we come. After a brief detour to Comics and Comix, me and few frat bros went down to Pinole for In and Out burger, when who do I run into again, but Vicky, who went there with some other Alpha Delts. After eating, we go on the freeway, when Jared has the bright idea to moon have Patrick change lanes and moon Nick’s car. That was hilarious.
After a slow Sunday, Jacqueline, Kyle, Nick, Vicky, and I treated Joey to a belated birthday dinner at Gypsy’s on Monday. It’s sad that we need big occasions to get us all together again, but oh well. I think we all had fun, putting aside school work for a chance to talk at the dinner table and catch up on all the little things.
And now here I am finishing this update. Hope you enjoyed it.
Funny Quote–Me: “So, I found this book on Amazon that says that Chinese people arrived in America before Columbus and set up colonies.”
Nick Gonzalez: “So you mean to tell me there were fobs here before Columbus?”
Me: *plants hand on face* “Uhhhhh”
So Jacqueline wanted me to write some new things. Well, there have been a lot of new things that I feel like writing about. I wonder if I can write everything I want to write. Let’s find out…
So last week, we had frat elections and after having no positions last semester, I now have 3: secretary, literary chair, and philanthropy . I hope I can do a good job and so far I have a bunch of ideas. I could use some help with literary events that would be good. There should be a Shakespeare Kegger (drinking and Shakespeare make a decent combination), Improv comedy night (’nuff said, this should be good), some kind of reading and discussion club (have to decide what to read though), and some other events like poetry slams and such. I hope to make this a fun semester and if you have any ideas for events, feel free to comment.
Speaking of literary events, the Shakespearean Kegger was at the house the week before elections. I honestly didn’t think it would be fun, but what do I know? Frat Bro Andy managed to get a bunch of people from the snowboarding team together and a bunch of others who were telling me afterwards how great a time they had. I also managed to pull out this weird British accent on the fly, and it certainly got me some praises. The one problem I had though, was that due to my unfamiliarity with Comedy of Errors (the play), I had no idea when to do be funny and when to be serious. But the weirdest part of the night was seeing somebody sitting in the audience doing their math homework. Gee, it sure is a smart move studying in a room with loud, drunk people isn’t it? Ah freshmen.
The night after I went done to some gathering called Interpraise for all the Christian fellowships. Nice little concert and an interesting sermon on fear was put on that night. I thought it appealed to a very wide audience of people. Then, I went home and surprise, surprise I saw Vicky and Jacqueline over at the frat house. I had forgotten that Air Force ROTC had their annual Crud night party at the house. That was interesting, as I got to see a bunch of the men and women in the armed forces party. Wow, it got so wild they had like 10 people dancing on the pool table.
Then, on Saturday, I went grappling with Joey, frat bro Jacob and David Marquardt. Dang, Jacob pulled my elbow a bit with an arm bar. Man that hurt. Then after letting my arm recover a bit, Joey and I met up with Vicky to go see Matrix Revolutions. I can’t believe Joey liked it and that he called me a conformist for agreeing with everyone else about how bad the movie was. The fact is the movie moves in no direction, no plot, no exposition, no explanation, and it’s missing a multitude of important scenes (not mentioned as to not spoil it for anyone who still hasn’t seen it). Whereas The Matrix was a movie with many unconventional ideas and exploration into human thought, Revolutions offers only mindless action. That would have been okay if it went along with the plot, but it didn’t, as the first movie was appuladed for making the action blend with the plot well. So instead, the movie falls flat on its face. Sorry.
Anyways, I just realized I just wrote an entry devoted to the week before this and talking very little about this last week. Well, there’s an event on Monday that I hope will be good to add. So wait for it.
Interesting Fact-I think many people know that there are two University of Miamis, one near Miami, Florida and one in Oxford, Ohio. However, I had no idea there was a school called California University, in Pennsylvania. Check them out at http://www.cup.edu (reading that out loud must be hilarious).
Campbells is donating a can of soup to the homeless every time someone goes to their website and clicks on their favorite NFL team. It will take two seconds…so do it and help some people out… http://www.chunky.com/click_for_cans.asp also forward this to everyone you know… [From Takehito Midori]
One of the main reasons I got this livejournal was the ability to share my personal opinions on the current issues. As it was so eloquently stated in a college joke, though, “Western Europe could be wiped out by a horrible plague and you wouldn’t know, but you can recite last week’s re-run of The Simpsons verbatim,” meaning that I haven’t been as good about keeping up with the news as I should be and have left the editorializing to columnists and journalist who most certainly know more about the issue than I do. But I felt the need to write a short entry giving out my two cents on an important issue, our judicial system.
One of the biggest news stories of the week has been the expulsion of Roy S. Moore from the Alabama State Supreme Court, because he wouldn’t remove his monument of the Ten Commandments from the state’s judicial building. This has set off this big debate over the separation of church and state, as Moore fights for the right to acknowledge God in a place of justice. Well after the sham of a verdict that allowed Robert Durst, a man who admitted he shot a man, cut up his body, and buried it, to be acquitted of murder, I don’t think God (if there was one) would want anything to do with the judicial system now. How could jurors find this man innocent after what he has confessed to? I mean it defies all common sense. Granted, the defense has stated that he killed him in self-defense and that chopped up the body after drinking, but come on, he cut up a body and buried it. That is grounds to think that he did commit some kind of murder, and yes as a legal analyst pointed out, the prosecution did bungle this case by not pursuing more charges on him beyond first-degree murder. Nevertheless, it is still a rather difficult task to acquit a man who admitted he killed another man and buried him. And now this can go down as another one the great let downs of the judicial system, along with the OJ Simpson verdict and every single one of those frivolous lawsuits that goes in our courts that waste so much taxpayer money and where justice is not served. Now there are several high profile legal cases going on at this time, such as the Kobe Bryant case, the Scott Peterson case, and let’s not forget, the Martha Stewart case, all of which are bound to start controversy no matter what the outcome. Whatever the verdicts maybe, let us hope that everyone who is part of the legal system learns from the Durst case and seeks justice. After all, isn’t that what God would want?
Extra, Extra, Read all about-Robert Durst’s acquittal-This article from the New York Times.
So Halloween is a time when people from all walks of life walk out of those houses of theirs and just go nuts with all sorts of weird outfits and costumes, decorations, and go out to the Bay Area. I, on the other hand, did the exact opposite by not dressing up in a costume, decorating my room, and leaving the Bay Area. Joey talked me into going off to the Living Water Fellowship Retreat, a Christian outing to Santa Cruz full of worship and prayer. Seeing as though I’m not Christian, it makes little sense for me to have gone, but I thought “hey free trip to the mountains” and besides I figured it was time for me to get away from school and such. Well anyways, it was pretty fun going there actually. I found everyone’s take on God and the universe intriguing actually, as I had some discussions on relativism and ethics with some of the people. Not only that, but I thought I met some interesting people and played some fun games (though some of the games seemed a little young for us to be playing, but hey whatever). However, besides the obvious hilarity in me going to a Christian club, is the fact that everyone was praying for my soul. I thought it was rather funny how people were praying that I would be saved and some how let the Lord into my life. I mean it wasn’t funny when it happened, but when I look back at it, I just can’t help but laugh.
Wednesday, November 05 I went over to Wheeler to go see something called Redeeming Columbine, which was presented by a man who had lost his daughter in that horrible tragedy. It was a very sad story about how this very good person, who did nothing but want to help people, just lost her life so senselessly. And yet, it’s a hopeful tale, as her death may have allowed her to spread a message of hope and how she made a difference, whereas her being alive may not have allowed her to impact the shear amount of people it did. It also served to show that a person’s faith in God can drive them and hope that it inspires others as well. As I write this, one thing comes to me and asks “why would an all loving, all good, and all powerful God allow her to be shot senselessly by evil people?” One could argue God allowed her to fulfill more by being dead than alive, which is sorrowfully true, but then I you wonder why not have a God who allowed her to carry on her message of good will thru living. It’s a puzzle that can be argued needs little solving or a lot of solving.
I hate to close on such a somber note, but I think I’m going to take sometime to think about this and so should you.
Featured Website–Rachel Scott.com-Read more about Rachel Scott, this victim of Columbine and her message of hope.
Basically, it’s a way of mapping out where all my friends are in the world. It also works for non-livejournal users too, so feel free to use it. (Though I wonder why I even put this up since most of my friends are some where in California)
Stolen from kenzilla.
These are collection of scientists jokes a few people (okay me) would find funny. I found them at the Featured Website, Science Jokes collected by Joachim Verhagen. It’s a little bit hard to navigate, though, but it’s worth it.
YOU MIGHT BE A PHYSICS MAJOR…
-if you have no life – and you can PROVE it mathematically.
-if you know vector calculus but you can’t remember how to do long division.
-if you chuckle whenever anyone says “centrifugal force.”
-if you’ve actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
-if when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.
-if the “fun” center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.
-if you’ll assume that a “horse” is a “sphere” in order to make the math easier.
-if you understood at least five of these things
You might be a Chem. major if…
-You keep a picture of Mme. Curie over your desk — and it turns you on.
-You think that fresh air smells bad.
-You are distilling your own alcohol
-you heard another explosion without it bothering you!
You might be a scientist if…
-your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies.
-you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test that actually takes five minutes to run.
-you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.
-your I.Q. number is bigger than your weight.
-you can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary.
-you have ever owned a calculator with no equal key and know what RPN stands for.
-you have more friends on the Internet than in real life.
-you think that when people around you yawn, it’s because they didn’t get enough sleep.
-your three year old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory. (I would so do that)
You might be a mathematician if…
-you think that jokes about math are funny.
If you thought these were good, check out the humor page in my subprofile collects a few more of these