On Choosing a College Minor

The fall of my freshman year, I wrote something on this blog about searching for my major.

I was like Link.

I was trying doors, searching for the key that would let me out of the dungeon. The battle was long and hard, but I did it. I picked up the treasure and got out of the room. I declared my major. I declared two majors. And a minor. I had escaped the dungeon, and I was proud of it.

Or so I thought.

It is now the fall of my junior year, and I'm still like Link.

I still haven't rescued the princess. I've slain a few monsters and gotten a sword, but there's still plenty of evil to defeat and a world that isn't very saved.

Somewhere in between the exhilaration of getting back out into the sunlight and looking forward at all the paths and doors I knew were ahead, I forgot that the path I was on might change. In fact, it probably would.

And it did. I found myself in another room. A room with lots and lots of doors.

It was smaller than the first room, and I had less time to get through it. I scrambled between doors, taking out monsters and getting a little battered and bruised until I figured it out.

Back in the first room, I'd picked up an extra treasure. I'd carried it around for all this time, thinking I could use it, and just recently I realized that I couldn't. It wasn't really helping me, and I didn't want it. So I set down that treasure called Computer Science so some other hero-to-be can come by later and find it in the tall grass. Maybe that hero will know how to use it with his other tools. Maybe it can become a part of that hero instead.

And now, here I am. Just a student of English, Greek, and life, with a few extra CS skills that I'm more than happy to hang onto and a load that's just a little lighter.

I'm like Link.

Link is on a journey. He's still discovering who he's meant to be.

And for now, that's good enough for him.

An Object In Motion

I'm not much of a science person, but physics holds a special place in my heart. Somewhere back in the hazy realms of middle or late elementary school, possibly in a fourth grade science unit that I vaguely remember involving wheels and rubber bands, my classmates and I were introduced to a man by the name of Sir Isaac Newton.

Back in ye olden times, Sir Isaac developed some laws that are now Indisputable Facts of How the World Works, and I'm sure they're actually more complicated than my fourth grade memories of them. It seems like the only one anyone ever remembers is the third one of the three -- for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction --  or at least that's the one that's most often quoted for whatever reason. His second law is the only one that can be crammed into three letters and a symbol -- f = ma -- although it doesn't make a lot of sense unless you know what the symbols mean. His first law is the law of a fancy physics term called inertia -- an object in motion remains in motion and an object at rest remains at rest unless a force acts upon it.

Wikipedia tells me that Newton was a "physicist and mathematician," but I think the name people would've attached to him back in his day describes it better -- a "natural philosopher." (Side note: I know natural philosophy was an actual area of study, but I'm looking at this as an English major, not a philosophy historian.) Sure, Newton studied lots of science-y things, but I think his laws go beyond wood on wheels rolling across classroom floors and blocks sliding or not sliding down ramps on desks. They're surprisingly applicable to other things. Like life.

Take his first law: an object in motion remains in motion and an object at rest remains at rest unless a force acts upon it.

I mowed my grandparents' lawn today. It sat in the shed until I opened the doors, turned it on, released the brake, and pushed down on the gas pedal. Friction and lack of energy slowed it to a stop when I lifted my foot. Newton's first law in action: an object at rest remained at rest until a force acted upon it, and once it was in motion, it remained in motion until a force acted upon it. Physics. It works.

I stopped by the grocery store to grab something for my sister on the way home, and I happened to bump into my cousin there. When I mentioned I'd just finished mowing Grandpa and Grandma's lawn, he asked if I'd be willing to do his since he wouldn't have time this weekend. I'd been up since before seven that morning, and in that time I'd cleaned a bit, gotten some things ready for next semester, spent over two hours driving, mowed one lawn, and scoured the grocery store for some random chocolate for my sister's baking project. The past two days I'd been cleaning and doing yard work. I wouldn't have time to mow his lawn later in the weekend; I was already babysitting. I'd only have time tonight. Tired as I was, I thought "why not?" and agreed to do it. And after dinner, I went over did it.

An object in motion remains in motion unless a force acts upon it.

Motivation is oddly like physics. A person (or at least an Erin) in motion tends to remain in motion. A person making progress wants to keep making progress. A person at rest tends to remain at rest. A person making no progress (or being lazy or bored, to paraphrase a favorite band of mine) has a hard time getting motivated to start making progress. Some days I get a lot done, and those days are when I have the motivation to keep getting things done. Other days... not so much.

I find it interesting the ways human nature and the natural world reflect each other. So intricately designed and connected that even art and science meet. It seems I can't escape the mysterious beauty of that even after I've taken my last science class.

I don't think I'd want to, either.

Treasures of Darkness, Take II

Every summer, we have a goal of cleaning out my closet. I remember having this goal in the fourth grade. I had it last summer. And probably most in between. Needless to say, the closet has built up a few layers of miscellaneous objects over the years I avoided this task.

I spent last summer with quite a few boxes full of college things piled up in my room, and when I made it home after finals this year, I decided that this summer, I wanted them out of the way. In a closet or something. A closet with space for all my college stuff.

Oh.

Well, I guess ten years is more than long enough to put off a chore, so I actually got to it. When you haven't cleaned your closet since the fourth grade, you find some interesting things buried in there. For example:

• An old English worksheet on writing theses, including a practice thesis on why the Wonder Chef, a completely innocuous character who gives the player recipes in the video game Tales of Symphonia, is evil.
• My glockenspiel from Kindermusick. Apparently, I knew what a glockenspiel was when I was in kindergarten. I'm kind of impressed with my little self. I think I also had a dulcimer with only two strings. Its body was made out of cardboard.
• An old vocabulary exercise in which I use vocab words to write a story about Voldemort making his Death Eaters throw a birthday party for a very reluctant Severus Snape.
• A sticky note containing the following list (how these things are related is completely beyond me):
• Jones soda bottles
• snuggies
• cereal marshmallows
• screws (Phillips/straight)
• musical instruments (C, F, Bb)
• Draco Malfoy
• An extremely bizarre short story about a guy named Fred who hitchhiked to Albuquerque with three cats (all named Fred) and then mailed himself in a box with the cats back to a gas station where the protagonist’s older brother worked. There were also a lot of clay turtles involved.
• Chao comics. Lots and lots of chao comics.
• A blue work shirt with the name “Dean” on it in red. It was my Science Olympiad team shirt in high school. One of my other friends was “Steve,” if I remember correctly. We also had “Scott,” “Bob,” and “Bobby,” among others. I think one of our lab coats was named “Gertrude.”
• A page of physics notes including an explanation of gravitational potential energy becoming kinetic energy via drawings of a turtle, said turtle on a roof, and said turtle falling off said roof, as well as the following two quotes from my physics teacher:
• “The only thing in the universe that’s zero Kelvins is Voldemort’s heart. But using his heart at the center of your heat engine is probably hard, because he’s mean. And he has magic powers. He could turn you into something, like a newt.”
• “If you can invent a bucket that can hold fusion, you’ll win the Nobel Prize. If not for physics, then for peace. Because you could solve all the wold’s energy problems. Unless you gave it to a country that wouldn't share.”
• An undated tardy excuse note from my freshman year of high school that I never had to use and I believe I saved with the intention of using it my senior year. Still never used it. Alas.

This is why closets need cleaning out periodically, folks. Sure, because all that random old stuff builds up in there, but maybe also because there are a few childhood treasures hidden in there, too.

Treasures of Darkness, Take I

Crazy Sibling Road Trip Chronicle

A few weeks ago, my siblings and I found out that Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy author whose books we really like, was doing a book signing in the Chicago area. That eventually morphed into this:

Yup. The Sanderson Sojourn 2014, as my sister named it, or as I've been calling it, Crazy Sibling Road Trip. The three of us jumped in the car with some carrots, Oreos, a plush guinea pig, and seven copies of his books (among other miscellaneous things) and headed on down to meet Mr. Sanderson at a Barnes and Noble in Skokie, IL.

It. Was. Awesome.

We got there a little after eleven Chicago time, which left us with just under three hours to grab lunch and await Brandon's arrival. Which wasn't really a problem -- we just settled down with the books we'd brought (well, the books Matt and Ani brought, as I don't actually own any of them myself) and got to reading. Not only is a bookstore a nice place to hang out for an hour or two, a few other Sanderson fans were starting to show up. We started overhearing snippets of conversation going on around us about characters we knew and plotlines we'd followed, which was really cool. I love reading and discussing books, and suddenly I found that my siblings and I were sharing this common link with some complete strangers. In a way, it's hard for me to explain what a neat experience that was. I could go on for a lot longer about how essential stories are to our human experience, but we haven't even met the author yet, so I'll leave that for another post (or, as a friend of mine and fellow Sanderson fan would say, that's a sermon for another soapbox).

By this time, the bookstore people had started setting up chairs for the event, so we joined the growing cluster of fantasy fanatics like ourselves and claimed some seats. There weren't a whole lot of people there yet, so we got to talk with some of the others who were most excited for this. Everyone was really friendly -- I made a comment to my sister across the aisle about a book and other people chimed in. We had several good discussions going until the man himself arrived.

Meeting an author whose stories you love can be a little scary. What if he's nothing like the person his books make him seem to be? What if he's really not interested in his readers? What if he turns out to be a really talented jerk?

It blows all those fears out of the water when he turns out to be fantastic human being. I was extremely impressed with him. Personable, passionate, humble, intelligent, genuine -- in short, he struck me as a really great guy. He had a lot of great things to say about writing and answered quite a few audience questions. His books have shown me how important faith is to him, and I'd love to talk with him about it some time. His talk made it even more clear to me that he loves his work and loves his readers. He also has book signing down to a science, despite the colossal stacks of books some fans (like my siblings) brought. It took us about an hour and a half, give or take (probably give), to get through the line, and there were upwards of a hundred people ahead of us. He signed all of them while talking to us -- and not just small talk, a quick bit of quality conversation about his books -- and pausing for a picture.

And here we are. Matt was very excited to get a question about the cosmere answered (for those interested in and in the know about the Sanderson 'verse, highlight to read the minor spoiler for the Stormlight Archive: he confirmed that Hoid has used Shadesmar to world-hop). That itty-bitty object Brandon's holding is a miniature copy of the book he was touring for, Words of Radiance, that Ani put together. I can only take credit for doing the cover text and getting the art down to size. She also put in the inside cover art in the front and map in the back. Most of the pages inside are blank, except for the first two. Ani wrote in "for Brandon," our names, the date, our hometown, and a quote from the book ("Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination."). He broke into this huge grin when Ani handed it to him, as if the day hadn't already been made for us.

Unfortunately, the day didn't end without a hitch. We stopped for some Chicago-style deep dish pizza before heading back home, and although it was delicious, our car was broken into while we were at the restaurant. We'd taken almost everything of value with us (thanks, God!), but we lost the back window of the car and my brother's bag. Although there wasn't anything in it that was monetarily very valuable, he lost the two books that Brandon had signed for him.

It was a cold drive back along the freeway, but we made it back in one piece, thankful that we were all okay and not much was lost. (However, I'm never parking in downtown Chicago ever again. Two busted windows is more than enough, thank you very much.) Despite the somewhat bitter end to it, it was a fantastic day. I didn't get the chance to ask him my question, since the line had to keep moving, but that's okay. Meeting him was phenomenal, and I'm sure I'll have plenty more to discover about it in his future books. Besides, the Sanderson Sojourn won't end in 2014 -- siblings need some traditions, after all.

More pictures can be found on Facebook.

Unlikely Soul Mates

It occurred to me recently that science loves poetry.

True enough, you don't run into very many poems about magnesium sulfate or the phosphorous cycle. We tend to think of poems as generally emotional things, not scientific. When my English class discussed what makes a poem last week, we threw around phrases like "metaphorical imagery," "language play," and "condensed emotion." All of these are true -- to a point. We also offered ideas like "structure," "surprise," and "patterns of sound." Again, all of these are true -- to a point. It's hard to sit down and say, "This is what a poem is. This is what a poem isn't."

Science, on the other hand, seems to thrive on definition. The word science comes from the Latin verb scire, to know. We think of science as specific. Science means knowing things. Science means systematic procedures. Science means testing. Science means proving.

That, however, is where we're wrong. My biology prof told us that if we took anything away from his class, it should be this: science cannot prove anything. Broadly speaking, the best you can get in science is a hypothesis that's been supported enough times, in enough ways, and by enough people that it becomes a theory. Math has theorems, theories that have been proven. Science does not, because it is empirical -- powered not by definition, but by observation.

Poems, my English class noted, are snapshots, moments and thoughts picked out of life and arranged into words. This is especially true of lyric poetry, the type we were mainly discussing in class, and to an extent of narrative or story-telling poetry as well. In short, poetry, too, thrives on observation. If you do not observe -- see, hear, open your metaphorical and literal eyes and ears -- you cannot write a poem.

All this is why I think scientists often turn to the psalms, the Bible's big book of poetry. I still remember Mr. E reading Psalm 8 to us back in Chem 1 my sophomore year of high school and telling us he thought it was David's answer to an essay question he'd given us on our final exam. Last week, my bio prof read part of Psalm 139 to us. And the psalms aren't the only poetry in the Bible. Science is often drawn to -- and, unfortunately, almost as often placed in contest with -- the beautiful poem that opens the Bible.

The word poetry also has classical roots -- the Greek verb ποιεῖν (poiein) means to make or do. Doing and knowing go hand in hand. You can't do very well without knowing, and knowing without doing is pointless. Sure, you can do science without reading poetry and you can write poetry without knowing much science, but there's a sort of mysterious beauty in the communication between the two that you'll be missing out on.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude.

from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning