PENN STATE!” My 10 week NSF funded research is over! YAY! Actually I would really recommend doing a REU program because it pays really well and it is pretty easy (although I don’t know if any science majors looking towards a PhD, Masters, or MD are reading this). I would put my poster on Shambot but I doubt anyone is interested and it is very confusing.
Here’s a brief news update for the summer:
I just got back from Philadelphia and chilling with Morgan. Quakers in general are super nice, and Morgan parents are awesome. There was much discussion of appropriating Grinnell dollars to make titular head films and the content of those films. I think Tim Hau is a natural choice to at least star in one of them, if we can get him!
Also I am going to apply to do a one year Churchill scholarship next year. Similar to the Rhodes Scholarship except Cambridge instead of Oxford and only for math and science. I don’t think I’ll get it, with only 12 people receiving it in the country! But Grinnell sent an email to me and a few others asking us to apply. I figure I have a decent chance of getting one of the school’s two nominations, and that alone would be good for Grad School applications. Plus the opportunity to study and get paid at the best physics/math university in the world is too good to pass up. Stephen Hawking teaches and there so did: Rutherford, J.J. Thompson, and Newton! I’ll find out if I get the school’s nomination in October, but if I want a chance I feel I need to do really outstanding on the GRE’s. I take it on August 16th so these next days are going to be spent STUDYING! WAH BA DOOP BA DOOP! I leave for CR tomorrow at 7.30! arrive at 11.40 am!
Honestly we all knew that Scooter Libby would never serve jail time, link. This just goes to show how the Bush administration feels about accountability, if the way the Iraq War was handled and their press secretaries weren’t big enough hints. I suppose there is sort of a irony to it all, with some republicans saying obstruction of justice and perjury aren’t strong enough to necessitate jail time yet these were the same people who tried to impeach Clinton the same charges. All I can say is that soon the Bush’s 8 years will be over and America will be better for it, no matter who wins, Republican or Democrat.
Okay it occurs to me that I haven’t let your shamboteers know what’s up for a long time. Leaving you with the impression that I am having no fun here. So basically I’ll give you an update but not before starting with a complete non sequitur:
I can’t believe the Supreme Court did not side with the Alaskan Student who was suspended due to the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” poster at an OFF-CAMPUS event. (Wikipedia) Granted the poster was sophomoric, and I would understand if they held the banner at a school assembly. I guess the event was school-sponsored, but it was a public place. I love Justice Clarence Thomas’ argument for siding against free speech, “In light of the history of American public education, it cannot seriously be suggested that First Amendment ‘freedom of speech’ encompasses a student’s right to speak in public schools.” The sad thing is though this statement is unfortunately accurate, this wasn’t even at school! Some people are speculating any website accessible from school could be interpreted as ‘school-sanctioned’. Therefore if you put anything on a blog or social networking site that the school disagrees with you could be suspended. Man. I’m glad I’m high schoolers don’t have important opinions. Otherwise we could be seriously stunting the ability for high schoolers to critically think about this world. Although perhaps critically thinking is no longer the goal of No Child Left Behind Schools. It doesn’t help to critically analyze the questions on multiple choice tests. Justice Stevens had it right when he asked what the court would do if the banner was ‘Wine Sips 4 Jesus’. Honestly I think that banner is a million times more clever. Of course administrators wouldn’t touch that due to the Eucharist even though underage drinking is a serious problem.
Sorry that turned into a rant. This is why I think teenagers should only allowed to have opinions given to them. I plan on installing shock electrodes into my brood to prevent them from dissenting. THE CRUMLEYS ARE A PROUD PEOPLE! Life update after the jump!
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Sallie wearing fashion straight from Harajuku Y’all. One more picture after the jump!
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First off: Please everyone listen to this episode of this American life on Guantanamo Bay prison. Habeas Schmabeas 2007 Granted it’s a little old, it came out last year. But I hadn’t heard it yet and if you already listened to it there are new updates. Plus it is pretty relevant considering the discussion involving Gitmo earlier this Tuesday. Listening to it made me ashamed and proud to be an American. It won a peabody, and it is seriously the best investigation into the prison I have heard/read. Amazing stuff. It seriously spawned a 2 hour conversation between deedee and I about how we could try to change the world.
I leave for Penn State in about a week. I am a little nervous. Anyways I gots lots of reading planned to do this summer, it’s heavy on Japanese Lit, but I just took a class in the subject and I read pretty much none of the authors I wanted to in that class (except Endo). So I’m doing it on my own. Everyone else can put up their summer reading lists to share! BOOP BOOP SUMMER READING CLUB! If you finish them I will buy you a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. So everybody BOOK IT!
TO READ SUMMER 2K7:
Silence Shusaku Endo
Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
Spring Snow Yukio Mishima. He killed himself after he finished the last page of this series. I am 1/2 through and I really dig the style.
Kokoro Natsume Soseki
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Kenzburo Oe
Y the Last Man Vol. 9 Bryan K. Vaughan
The Scientist as Rebel Freeman Dyson
Finally, I know it’s a little lame but… Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J.K. Rowling
I haven’t posted in a while. Maybe it’s because everyone else on Shambot is all “SCHOOL IS OUT OMGZ BBQ TIME L0Lz!!1!!” Whereas I am still stuck in the middle of finals week with tons of stuff to do. I have two tests tomorrow, Thermodynamics and Computer Science, and they are both comprehensive and will be hard. Then on Thursday I am giving a presentation on Zombies! I am super psyched for this presentation, but everyone else in my group has done no work! Hit more for a preview of the presentation!
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Okay, Although technically i have 4 weeks left of school 3 weeks left of class I am completely freaking out that this entire year has gone so incredibly fast. Maybe it is because I spent 1/2 of it in Tokyo. It’s already time to think about wrapping up the semester/year. Petbusters will be shown (in a shorter edit) this Saturday at Grinnell annual film festival. Morgan, Tim and I won first place last year with Bare Aspirations, here’s hoping for another placing in the top 3.
It’s a little early to say this for sure, but I think chances are fairly good that this summer I will be either working on: Designing an efficient solid-state cooler or working in the 2-d plane of angstrom (i.e. atom) sized layers of metals on silicone. I decided to try to get the Cooler, even though I really have no idea how, I would guess paramagnets, but who knows? I just think people will understand “I worked on making shit cold” even though it seems like a lot of people are doing research in these nano-scale 2-d layers and 1-d carbon nanotubes and nanowires. Plus we all know that liquid nitrogen is super fun to play with. I am hoping I get to play with Helium superfluids. Also, you should all come and see me in the lab. We can try to clone dinosaurs, or just break millions of dollars of equipment. God bless the Department of Defense contracts!
I know the seniors on Shambles will probably punch me for saying this, but I am already starting to freak out about post-graduation. I think science majors have it rough because there is no body of work that accumulates, except for grades. It’s kind of shitty because I do have papers I am proud of and things but basically they will never be read by anyone else ever again. So basically it comes to your grades and your performance on the GRE or MCATs (if you want to play Dr. House). Because I have took the semester abroad I will have to learn Optics all on my own for the physics GRE (or decide to take it after i graduate and take a year off before grad school). Terrifying!
I don’t know if any of yous regularly check boing boing, but this was pretty hilarious
click!
Between this and the “Snorlax fucking owns” video on youtube I think there should be a blog dedicated to new yorkers narrating their video games. I hope the cast of sopranos does one!
Hours after the Virginia Tech massacre, before the killer’s identity is even known, we already have a reason for the killings: Violent video games and movies, too many guns, too few guns/gun-free zones. I’m sure it will get worse as the days continue and pundits continue to politically mine this tragedy. I’m glad these things have quick fixes, all we have to do is censor, regulate guns, or join the NRA. It’s nice to know what causes problems a priori, and not waste time looking at empirical data. Or have to really question if these things happening far too frequently is inevitable consequence of modern American society. 24-hour news is saturation. I am glad that Jon Stewart spends so much of his time deconstructing the ‘hyper-real’.
In completely related news, they found a body in a pool near campus, it’s been there for quite some time now. They won’t release the identity but the general consensus it probably is the student who went missing in September.
Right now I am trying to figure out what is worse, having no solution or all the wrong ones. I completely agree with George Bush’s comment that when the sanctuary of our schools is violated we all feel that violation. Of course, he also said today that he still believed it was the right of all Americans to own a gun.
Sorry, I felt I had to type something so I could go do my homework. Also I am concerned why these things seem to happen more frequently in Engineering/Physics departments. If it is that stressful it makes me want to reconsider grad school.
