Changing behavior

Campus feels very different today.  There is an increased emptiness now that people are wrapping up their final exams and either heading home or taking a short break from work.  The hallways have a dark echoing feeling with so many shut doors.  The pathways thru campus are sparsely scattered with students behaving in a "schools out for summer" manner.  Walking about without determination or apparent destination, loitering in parking lots, in front of school buildings and cafes.  Some choice conversation snippets I overheard included "Just how wasted was I last night?" and "Hey, there she is! How's it going slut?"  It really is amazing to me that these students are intelligent enough to compete at the university level.  Perhaps it's just the natural end of school year release, some of us get really drunk and behave like heathens, and some of us spend three hour scrubbing our stove top until in sparkles.  Everyone just needs a bit of change and a way to release the tension.

The inhumanity of man

I'll never be able to understand how a person can be cruel to the helpless little creatures.  My husband is a veterinary nurse and in his work he is witness to unimaginable evil.  Some days seem to be particularly full of horrifying  stories.  The worst of yesterday was a tiny kitten being tossed from a moving vehicle during morning traffic.  Thank god, a kind woman saw it happen and saved the little dear.  He still doesn't know if the kitten will survive, the skeletal damage is minimal, but the brain damage is difficult quantify and to heal.  

Is there a logical explanation for spurts of evil in the community?  The classic explanation of moon phase is illogical since we are at an intermediate waxing stage.  Could it be depression from our winter extending in to June this year?  Stress from the end of school, graduation, life changes.  I know it is ridiculous to attempt to make sense of something evil or of insane behavior.  This is a problem I've always had.  I remember as a small child asking my mother why John Lennon was murdered, she told me simply that the man was crazy, and you can't logically explain why.  This truth is as difficult to accept now as it was then.  It seems like every time I'm faced with a tragic event I try to justify it, rationalize why it happened, campus shootings, the suicide of a gifted young professor, harming helpless animals.  

It's pointless, but I can prevent myself doing it.

Relaxation update

Looks like the hammock is out for this week.  We're having an unusually cold and rainy June here in Oregon.  Last nights exercise in relaxation was a wash.  Had a very nice pub dinner followed by  a really bad rental flick.  I'll have to try again tonight, perhaps a Kim Stanley Robinson novel, chips and salsa, and a cool beer.

The end is nye

Just need to drop off my Stats term paper and I'll have wrapped up my first year of grad school. At the end of fall term I toasted with Champagne and Guinness.

At the end of winter term I spent a week in Vancouver, drinking the best beer BC could offer.

And now for spring term I feel an anti-climax.  I kinda just want to have a relaxing swing in the hammock and read a book.  Sounds lame, but a guilt free evening that includes reading for entertainment is unattainable during the school year, and can truly only be found during this brief transitional period where the stress of classes wane and the stress of research has yet to build.

Catharsis

One week left of term and the veil of procrastination has been lifted.  Writing term papers (ie paper that should take a term to write) in a short period of time (like a week) can be a form of catharsis.  Dumping every thought and applicable strand of information out through your fingers and into the computer gives me a feeling of being lighter and emptier when finished.  I still wish I hadn't procrastinated, but at least there is an upside to the stress and pressure I've subjected myself to.

Epiphany

Statistics is awesome. 

Why the hell did I resist for so long?

Pasteur's insight

Listening to the Science Friday podcast this morning I was drawn to a Louis Pasteur quote: 

"Chance favors the prepared mind."

Ira quoted Pasteur when introducing a story on recent amazing observation of the early stages of a supernova.  What a fantastic description of how most great scientific discoveries occur.  We train ourselves, believe in our instinct, and use science to discover the why behind our luck.  What a brilliant man Pasteur was.