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For whatever reason, I am having a total fascination with this physics class. I remember feeling this way when I was younger, reading Steven Hawkings for the first time, listen to my genius grandfather talk about relativity theory, learning about quantum mechanics and probability. Last semesters physics was dealing so much with objects on a larger scale, an ordinary scale. Collisions between objects from 1-1000 kilos are not all that interesting to me. Now, go down to the minute scale of elementary particle interactions, and I'm completly drawn into the discussion.

I guess its like what Dr. Bell said about deserts: "when it comes to scale, its about the very large, and the very small. The entire grand canyon view on a cloudless morning, or the tiniest drop of water from a seeping spring, keeping its own time". I'm enthrawled by that which is extraordinary to our experience, whether it be the moving of massive bodies through space, of planets or stars, or by things that are so obscure by their tiny size, such as protons and electrons.

Now, keep that idea and move into my personal field of biology. The same concept applies: the facination with the intercomplex workings of the entire biosphere composed of all the ecosystem relations, down to the small and "forgotten" organisms, even smaller to the inner workings of physiology. The ability for me to expand my mind and think of the world on a whole, and then minimize it to view the fluid structure of a cell membrane is important to me. It speaks of my understanding to the interconnectedness to the obscured (occult) in the world.

Seek and yet not forcing. 'cept, of course, when talking about newtons second law. *wink*

Herbarium is a cool guy. eh mounts plants and doesn't afraid of grasses.

So, we have a job in the herbarium, mounting plants this semester. Should be fun, and we get paid.

The process includes gluing pressed plant specimens onto archival stock paper, with lables. Some of the oldest specimen cards in the place are 200 years of age, so these things last if you do it right.

Did we mention the getting paid part?

This and agristology, the study of grasses, should make part of this balanced and complete semester. Or interesting, we mean.

So yeah, um....SCIENCE, right?

To be honest, I'm having trouble coming up with something specific to discuss right now. I have very little fodder for creativity at the moment as far as my classes are concerned. Except maybe for....

Today in Fisheries Management, we had a lecture on the history of fisheries management in Wisconsin, told by the former head of the fisheries program in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He had been working in fisheries since the 40's; it was interesting to hear about the change in management plans from a first person perspective. What became even more apparent as the lecture went on, is that we as natural resource students only learn a small portion of the skills we need to be a good manager (of not only the resource, but the habitat and most importantly, of people). He was telling us that things are never clean cut in natural resources, that politics play a substantial role, and that alot of times if you are just damn good you can bypass and squirm your way into getting what you want to happen. For example, walleye reintroduction into the Fox River, post 1970's clean up. It was an unplanned thing, he just asked his upper management for 2 million walleye fingerlings, demanded almost, was persistant. It was something he really wanted to do. And then he went out in his own boat and dumped them in by hand over a weekend. Stocking seldom works as well as people used to think it did, but in this case it was a success. One man reintroduced a species of fish to a river over a weekend and it was sucessful.

Funny how that works. Seldom will it work the same way twice.

Back to school

Since my last semester ended and the subsequent isolation of my hometown and parent's house, quite a bit has happened.

Some of it I don't feel like talking much about.

Summary: I got rather drunk xmas day and told my neighbor about the hormones (as open as I am when I drink) which led to threatened blackmail and subsequent weeks of paranoia.

I had a psychological split which makes me a we, two voices, different facets of my personality. The arguing that took place during the first split period ( about a week) lead to me going off hormones. It was a nasty fight. It has also led me to get a therapist (something the modes decided was best, and I, as singular agree).

I finished all my graduate applications, came back to school, and am now looking forward to a visit from my SO.



The rest is messy and rather irrelevant. And suck. And isolation.

I hate that house.