About me: I currently inhabit a fairly roomy apartment outside Pittsburgh. I take classes at the University of Pittsburgh - hoping to further my career as a geologist and vertebrate paleontologist. So far, I am still in the on the way there phase, largely due to my life taking a few odd turns here and there along the way. I am by no means a super duper A+ student - though not necessarily referring to my capabilities to do well, just that life seems to sneak up and drag me away from my school work way too many times to have made my college career the relatively quick and done and finished state it really should be in. I've had my fair share of crappy and incompetent professors over the years - some of which waited until after withdrawal period ended to show their true colors. I have had to fall on my sword more times than merely once - taking an F - because of the teacher's issues. Yes, yes, I did at the time figure it was something I had done - of course why would I believe my college professors were jerks and assholes [yes this blog will have a fair amount of cussin in it - I prefer to use the right words instead of being politically correct - it's just not in my nature to pretend to be anything but authentically me - if you do not like it then I suggest you not read my blogs]. But I saw that other students in these classes were being treated in the same manner and under the same circumstances as myself. When there's a weasel in the henhouse - it doesn't take long to find the evidence of its passing. I will more than likely mention in more detail these disparate incidents throughout my college years. Right now, I prefer to stick with teachers who have given me and my fellow classmates a fair shake in the past - even if they were tough graders. I've had a couple of those over the years. Tough but fair - there's a quick and easy way to tell the difference between these honorable folks and the incompetent asses. The good ones actually give you constructive criticism on papers and assignments - so even if you get a less than stellar grade - they tell you right on the assignment what they see wrong and how and where to improve. A good example of this in my situation was a charismatic young Spaniard named Abel Franco. He taught a low level History and Philosophy of Science class I took many years ago. I still need to retake that class - but I just haven't had the time. I think I was hoping to retake it with him as my teacher but since I couldn't possibly take other classes and actually hope to get any kind of decent grade, my schedule just did not allow it. Hey, I like a challenge - and his assignments - though seemingly simple and straightforward - are not as easy as one would believe. The others - those jerks and incompetents who have no business teaching college classes of any kind - do not give constructive criticism. Some just do not believe in teaching what the students are paying big money and giving up their precious time to sit in classes to learn - Homer James' physics class was on that order. He actually had the balls to tell the entire class that we were all stupid losers because we did not pass the exams - except for the fact that we all studied exactly the material he presented in class - but the exams were testing us on material he refused to go over. It left most of the class scratching their heads. Actually we should have all marched over to student accounts and demanded or money back - since the teacher was clearly not capable of teaching the material. Hey, it's the school's fault for hiring the ass in the first place, not the student's. Students walk into a class and expect to learn what they are forking out large sums of money to learn - if the students cannot learn due to the teacher's incompetence - that's the teacher's and the school's fault - not the student's. I just look at the crappy teachers as academic speed bumps - like the three challenges adventurers must pass through to get to the good magician's castle in Piers Anthony's Xanth series. Only the most determined will make it past one way or another. Persistence pays off big time. Persistence and determination. I have succeeded at least as far as an A. S. degree in Science and Mathematics from the local community college and a B. A. in History & Philosophy of Science from here at Pitt. I put a hell of a lot of hard work into the assignments and classes to get them - I earned them fair and square. I am not one for wasting my time - I tend to forge ahead - retaking some classes as needed along the way. But then again, I did not choose to go to college and stick it out for a good time - my career is important to me - and college classes are not easy peasy - they are tons of very hard work - that actually cost a lot of money. Yes, I have school loans I will eventually need to pay off - of which I recently lowered my interest to under 3%. Yay for me!
As it is, most of my writing right now consists of daily handwritten Morning Pages, a la Julia Cameron - and various research projects for the University of Pittsburgh classes I continue to take - in the hopes of making it into a very successful career. As for the art thing, I was making soul collages - except my stash is way disorganized and getting terribly out of hand - and class work is my #1 priority right now, so fixing up the apartment is on the back burner until the end of term. I have not been completely idle on the art side of things though, lately I have started doing something a bit different there. It was a bit of a challenge that came my way last week that I have only put into action on three occasions so far. First, I find a piece of artwork - either in a book, a magazine, online, or in the real world somewhere. I look at it, observing it for a time. Then I write two handwritten pages of stream-of-consciousness writing about the piece - describing it and writing random thoughts it inspires. I do this in a special art journal - because, after I finish with my synopsis of the piece, I then draw a pencil drawing of my own, inspired by the piece. The last one ended with a drawing also inspired by Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - another favorite author and series of mine. It's a scene inside the Heart of the Stone of Tear, with Callandor hovering above the ground and a swirling maelstrom of flames near the ceiling in the background with a cascading fiery "waterfall" also in the background. It turned out pretty nice - maybe someday I'll be able to post my drawings online. I'm just not very tech savvy - it's a bit of a miracle that I actually have a few blogs. I have drawn the Thackan'dar scene from one of Rand's dreams from the series - trying to keep it looking as exactly as described in the book - actually I drew it at least twice already. Maybe I'll do a larger, and more official piece some day - actually, I'm hoping to. I have thought of doing a series inspired by the novels. I've seen some nice pieces online that others have done - there's one of Thom Merillin that is awesome - I swear, me and that artist must see nearly the same exact thing when we read the story. That's how it is for me, when I read a novel, it's like a movie playing in my head. Let's just say, my imagination is very good - on the same level as my powers of observation that I have developed from years of science training.
Since I am talking about books, novels to be exact - I may as well put in on those I have read most recently. Let's see - other than rereading the entire Jordan series from prequel to book 11 which took me a few months total to accomplish - I have also read the latest Pip & Flinx novels by Alan Dean Foster - Running from the Deity, Trouble Magnet, and Patrimony - I finished them in about a week and a half - yes, I am a fast reader - a necessity of my college career. Yet, another of my favorite series - which sadly is coming to an end way too soon for my happiness. I still haven't read a couple of the books in the series - though I have read the Founding of the Commonwealth starter trilogy. I apparently missed the part where Flinx gets honorarily adopted into an Aan family clan and became fluent in their language. I recall him getting stranded on one of their planets - but I apparently missed something there. I did know he was a member of the Thranx Zex family. Once I have the rest of the series, I'll give it a once through as well. They are not easy to come by - at least the older stories. The Ujurians from the Orphan Star novel remind me of Jordan's Ogier - but an entire planet of them - and for a fun game - they dig holes through space time - akin to the Jordan Waygates. I didn't quite grasp that too well when I read that story - until they showed up in Trouble Magnet. Maybe I'll do a comparison between the two series on my lit blog once I get the entire series together and start rereading it. I've also read three novels by a relatively new author, A. Lee Martinez - Gil's All Fright Diner, In the Company of Ogres, and A Nameless Witch - I read them in October as a pre-Halloween treat to myself. A lot of fantasy, some horror, and a bit of science fiction all mixed together with some really funny bits added and some really cool main characters. It was light and fun reading. Reminded me of Douglas Adams stories.
As for the election, all I will say is that I did not vote for Mr. Obama - because he seemed too good to be true from the start - some of his actions along the way contradicted entirely all the words he was saying - both written and vocalized. The Bailout was the final straw for me - he backed it more vehemently than did Mr. McCain. I still cannot understand what McCain was thinking with picking Palin as his running-mate. Probably to get the far-right votes and more women's votes - plus she's a hockey mom - but some of the absolutely not-in-touch-with-reality aspects about her I believe was damaging to his campaign. An odd thing I did notice, all the polls out there pre-election had McCain 4% higher than Obama - yet, Obama won by a landslide. I just don't see the two coinciding in reality as they did - unless those pre-election polls were skewed toward McCain. Then again, we are stuck with computerized voting machines which we now know are regularly tampered with. So, who knows. There were ACORN scandals on both sides and sadly McCain's side tended to dish out more crap than the Obama side as far as mudslinging. That's one thing I will give Mr. Obama credit for - mud minimization. You would think that those right-wing conservative republican types would act more like the Christians they claim to be - apparently not in a presidential campaign. Also, why do they consider themselves conservative when it comes to money - when they are the more irresponsible and clearly useless when it comes to spending it? I guess they really truly believe that God will provide more cash when needed just by praying hard enough. To me, they just look like a bunch of hypocrites. Every republican president we've had over the past couple decades has quite literally run the country's economy into the ground. They just like to play fast and loose with all those taxdollars. I guess maybe they are conservative with their own money, just not with anyone else's.
I did not agree with Bush's invasion of Iraq, it was stupid, blind, and the wrong thing to do. But we now have to finish what he started. Iraqis were not among the 9-11 hijackers - and Saddam was our man all the way. We helped him take over and rule Iraq. He was not Iraqi and he was not a Muslim - and we knew damn well, at least the idiots in Washington knew it anyway. Why Iraq? It makes no sense. We should have hauled off and spoke to the leaders of those countries where the terrorists hail from - find out where we can find the filthy bastards and have at it - finish the fight they started. Get their head honchos like Bin Laden - and neutralize or eradicate them - whichever route they choose. Terrorism is not a political -ism like Communism or Socialism or Capitalism which are political philosophies - all of which have some positive and redeeming aspects to them. Terrorism is just as it sounds - killing and terrorizing for an adrenaline rush - and with no sane reasoning behind it. It is not a philosophy - unless you want to believe that mass murder just for the hell of it is philosophical in any way whatsoever. the terrorists are not Muslim - they do not adhere to the teachings of Mohammad and the Quran. They claim that they are Islamic Fundamentalists - but none of their words or activities are condoned by the Quran's teachings. For example there is one line from the Quran where Mohammad actually declares such actions to abominations against humanity, Islam, and Allah. "thou shalt not kill a Christian or a Jew, for they are your sister religions - to do so is the same as killing a fellow Muslim..." Well, it's true - it's written and it is forbidden for Muslims to do such things. Therefore, not a single terrorist is a Muslim of any kind - most of them have never read the true Quran - most are illiterate and easily led. They attack people they do not know - because they are taught that their intended victims are infidels and deserve to be destroyed. They are ignorant fools - though dangerous monsters nonetheless. Any so-called Muslim that kills as these devils do, is not a real Muslim. Sorry if you do not like it, but it is the truth. So, please stop calling those bastards Muslims - when they clearly are not - do not give them that much honor - for they have no honor and do not deserve such a description.
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