After nearly four hours of studying physics:

I don't really have any common sense. I only use equations.

Which is why I always fail these exams, and I have to wait until four in the morning to finish the homework. It finally makes sense then because I've stopped trying to use equations.

Soooup of the Eeeevening

Beauuutiful sooooup!

(and biscuits too)


I made a delicious smelling soup for dinner tonight. I hope it tastes as good as it has been smelling.

I took out frozen chicken pieces from our freezer at ten this morning. Then I let them thaw a little while I finely chopped onions, peeled potatoes, and carrots. At eleven, I put the chicken into a large soup pot and turned the heat on. I poured a wee bit of oil in to keep the chicken from sticking too much. After all sides were nicely cooked (the inside was still pink, however) I turned the heat off.

Then I pulled out a glass measuring cup, the kind that measures two cups at once and all in-between on the sides, except I think this one only holds one cup. Oh yes, it is called a liquid measuring cup. But I put flour in it first. Then I slowly dribbled a little water in and stirred it. I continued to do so, adding only a little water at a time. Soon I had a thick sauce. I poured this over my chicken in the pot.

Next, I sprinkled in a lot of different spices and seasonings: Bell's seasoning, parsley flakes, dried basil, dried oregano, a pinch of ground pepper, and some garlic powder. Then I threw in the vegetables I had cut up previously. I filled my liquid measuring cup up with hot water and slowly added it to the pot while stirring the mixture inside. I continued to add water until I thought the soup was high enough and soup-like enough.

It has been simmering on and off all afternoon.
I will be serving it soon with biscuits.

I need a new topic

Hurrah for rabbits and foxes!
They make such nice predator-prey equations that we can solve using various differential equation methods.
They tell us that the foxes eat the rabbits so the rabbit population decreases.
But when there are no rabbits, the fox population decreases.
So the foxes decrease exponentially and the rabbits increase exponentially and they form a cyclical graph.
And that was the end of my class. There are no more differential equations for this semester.

Wind Near My Ear

You see,
To me,
To be
A bear
With hair
Covering me
Sounds heavenly
Especially
When I hear
Wind near
My ear.

The Quote of Wednesday

This quote of Wednesday is brought to you by my differential equations professor concerning the achievements of great mathematicians in history.

"We could probably call them the heroes of civilization."

Sleep

Jo wants to sleep. I know this because she has told me so several times already this evening and suggested it as a topic for a post when I asked her for one.
I think she wants to sleep because she went to bed after twelve last night and had to wake at six-thirty.

Sleep is an important thing to talk about anyway. As a college student, I see the consequences of the lack thereof far too clearly. Too many friends think they can get by with very little sleep. They even pray that they will be able to function on less sleep so they can get everything done that they need to. I have a solution to that problem that does not involve less sleep. Do less. Really, that is what most of them need to hear (and follow).

I was telling my dad that I felt all my days and evenings were spent studying and when I was finally done, I stayed up late so I could get a little bit of fun stuff in. But I felt I had to cut into my sleep to do all this. He said it was similar to make a financial budget. After budgeting everything you think of some fun things you'd like to do as well. So you look to see where you can fit it in. You can't so you say, "Well, I suppose we could not eat..."
It puts a different perspective on things.

Another thing is that not sleeping is a form of pride. If you are not sleeping, you are not admitting that God made you human with a need to sleep. You are trying to be like God who does not sleep. So that is not a good thing either.

If you don't get sleep, you are more liable to get sick as my friend who slept only one hour a week ago did. She is dropping all sorts of things and not doing too well and she isn't getting the sleep she needs. At least, she wasn't. I believe she has realized her need for sleep after getting sick. But it is best to not get sick to realize such a thing.

Another thing that happens if you do not get enough sleep is that you fall asleep in classes. That is not always the best thing especially if you are having trouble understanding the content anyways or if you have been trying to impress the professor with your wide-awake awareness during class.

Anyway, I must work on some homework now while it is still fairly early in the evening. Then I can get some much needed sleep.

A nothing post

That's right! Another nothing post!
My brain is slightly sleepy, but I feel like writing something.
So, of course, that means a nothing post is in order.

Now nothing posts tend to pick up some sort of topic of their own, but I really can't think of any at the moment. I suppose I'll just keep typing and see what sort of topic it takes on.

It is sunny today. It makes me happy. I can look out my window and see the sun shining on the yellow and green leaves of the trees right outside. It is a pleasant sight. It makes me wish I had no homework but could instead go to a park and sit and think or doze or read a good book. Maybe take a short hike and play frisbee with some friends. But not at the moment.

At the moment, I must begin my homework for differential equations and strength of materials. I have not yet begun them today because I attended a Bible study this morning. But it is after lunch now, so I must start work. Later, perhaps, I shall go to Salvation Army with some roommates. One of my roommates must find an ugly shirt for "ugly shirt day" at her work. The Salvation Army is an excellent place to find ugly things (and some nice things, but those you have to look a little harder for generally).

So this is the end of the nothing post.
Unfortunately, it is not as interesting as my other nothing posts. I guess I am not in quite the right frame of mind to right a really good nothing post. That requires a certain deadness of the brain which is not quite dead. Then what comes through is that peculiar kind of writing good for nothing posts. I can't quite explain what I mean because I am sleepy, but I suppose if you read other nothing posts, you would get it.

Agh!! The whole-body materialist view on personal identity as it relates to the case of tuvix is driving me nuts!!!!!!

Friday stuff

I have successfully completed my first calculus exam. I hope I did better on it than I feel.


Anyway, here is a quote from my Biology book:

Culture is the sum of a social group's behavioral patterns, passed on through the generations by learning and symbolic behavior.

Biology - The Unity and Diversity of Life
eleventh edition page 452

So, i don't know why I had to post that. Kirk told me I did because i read it to her from my Biology book and she thought it was funny or something.
I don't have any Friday Vocabulary today. But maybe I will next week.

The Quote of Wednesday

Oh my goodness! I just remembered today was Wednesday and I had to post my quote for today!
Except, I don't have a quote for today.
Hang on, I will find one...

Okay, I walked into the kitchen and saw this written on our white board:

Ponder the zucchini.

Actually, we chopped up the zucchini last night, so it is no longer ponderable, but before we did, we named it Zeke. Zeke was the largest zucchini we had ever seen and was one of the first out of Melanie & Laura's family's garden (roommates of mine). Zeke will taste good in zucchini bread.

Bicycles

Have you ever ridden a bicycle? I have. It is a great deal of fun, but I wish the tires on my bike were in better condition. I have not ridden all year because of the state they are in.
And also because I have not been at home very much.

This is a picture of a wall of bicycles from the New York State Museum. I think it would be fun to have a bicycle with a great large wheel like the one on the left hand side of the picture. It would interesting to ride.

Look! It is one of those nothing posts I am so good at. See, I think there ought to be some sort of interesting post associated with this interesting picture of a large pottery pitcher from the New York State Museum. But I can't think of one. 'Tis most unfortunate, but true.

Maybe I will post this picture again later when I can think of something to go with it.

9/11

I read this and it is excellent. Please go read it.

Physics Equation of Saturday

So here is the first physics equations of whatever day I happen to get around to posting it, which happens to be Saturday. And the physics equation I chose for today is one that shows the relationship between the charge and the potential difference of a capacitor.
A capacitor is formed of any two conducting objects next to each other. When it is charged (has electricity flowing through it), each object has a charge of the same magnitude, but different signs (+ or - signs). The electricity flows from the + charged object to the - charged object and energy is stored in it.
So the equation is:

q = CV

q is the charge of each object.
V is the potential difference between the two objects. It has to do with the energy.
C is the capacitance of the capacitor (or the measure of the charge needed to produce a certain potential difference)

And that is all I am going to say about this seeing as how I now need to go solve problems using this equation for homework.

Jo is absent

She has many things to do. She has started college and is now appreciating all the walking around and around from class to class and the studying and the backpack pulling on your shoulders.

But she isn't in Differential Equations, so she can't be having as much fun as I am. Differential equations are fun and exciting and my professor even calls them beautiful, which I must say I agree with. I feel so sorry for Jo that she is missing this. But at least she is taking calculus 1 which is almost as fun.

I do not expect her to post much more than she already does. In fact she will probably post even less. So I guess I will have to post for her.

UPDATE: Instead of Friday vocabulary, I think I will do the "Physics Equation of Whatever Day I Get Around to Posting It On". That should be a good change.

This little munchie started crawling yesterday......

Spinach Pasta Stuff

So I made this stuff the other day and mum and dad said I needed to post it. So here it is:

This is what you will need:
1 pound on some sort of smallish pasta like orzo, or shells or something like that, cooked according to package instructions.
2 cloves of garlic minced nicely
1 package of frozen (or fresh) spinach cooked
1 container of ricotta cheese. I didn't use the whole container nor did I measure how much I used. You will have to use as much as you want.
1 chunk of Montary Jack cheese grated.

Mix all the ingredients together in any order you wish. Serve cold or hot with salt and pepper.

Thats it. Next time I make it I will take a picture with my new camera.

Random Nothingness

This literature site classifies "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" by Charles Darwin as a science fiction book.

There is a most interesting little bug on some books in front of me. He keeps opening his wings up quite wide and then closing them again quickly.
He is all dressed in black and has two long feelers that stick out comically from the sides of his head. When he is facing me straight on, I realize how flat he is. His body is thin with his six legs coming out on either side of it. His head is like a little ball, tiny in comparison to the rest of his body. I cannot quite tell for sure, but I think there is a little brown spot just under his head on both sides. He appears to be some sort of beetle species because he has two long wing cases down his back that meet in the middle of his body.
He has been sitting here still while I have been typing. Perhaps he knows I am trying to describe him and is staying still so I might look at him better. Now he is beginning to move again. I suppose that means this description is over.

Now he is gone.

Johanna's 18th Birthday!

Happy 18th Birthday Johanna!

I hope you have a wonderful year.
Don't forget to register to vote!



P. S. Sorry this is three days late!

nothing at all of interest to you (don't bother reading this post)

So, I got tagged....



Seven random facts about me that you might not know.
1) This is the first time I've ever gotten tagged in my life (that I know of anyway).


2) I can't get RPI Scheduler to work


3) my sister just figured out my password


4) so I changed it


5) I installed Ubuntu on my dad's old laptop


6) and I'm quite pleased with myself


7) I'm really happy that school is done




That's it. Not very exciting. I always thought it would be fun to do one of these things but they are harder than they look. Now I'm supposed to tag 7 people........like Laura, and mum......... I don't think I know 7 people that read this blog....

So, if you read this blog, and I didn't tag you, please consider yourself tagged.

National Day of Prayer

In case you didn't know,
today is the National Day of Prayer.

Rain

Rain is ...
Wet

Sparkly
Drippy
Lovely

It get all over my glasses so I can't see anymore and it does its best to get into my eyes as well.
Sometimes the sun is shining while all the sky is gray and rainy. Then one feels like dancing up and down the road. It is nicest when with the rain comes clean smells and wet flowers.
Flowers that appeared from nowhere to join you in the rain. And the winter is done and the spring has begun. And I laugh and throw up my arms to the sky.
And little worms crawl al over the path and squirrels chase squirrels around trees.
And fresh dirt is laid and pansies are planted and bugs fly up in my face.
(no, wait, bugs don't do that in the rain)
And little greens buds turn to little green flowerets and the tops of all the tall trees.

SO I was told I had to post something and it had to be about yesterday.........
So, we had a ton of people here yesterday! :) It was fun. We had a time of worship and then we shared a meal together.
One of Kirk's friends from college came too. He biked up here in the rain/snow/slush. He was wet.

Kirk has read 24 books since December 18, 2006. I haven't counted how many I read.
Bethan is the cutest baby in the world! :) I'll post pictures of her sometime. I'm tired.

Friday Vocabulary - Excessibly

Excessibly:
What one says when one is tired and can't remember how to properly say "excessively".

An accident

My first car accident, and it wasn't my fault.

I was calmly sitting at a gas station with my blinker signaling I was turning right while waiting for the traffic to clear sufficiently to let me in. I am a very unoffensive driver.

Suddenly, just as I was moving out, a large bump in the back of the car startled me.
My dad and I had no idea what it was, but he said "Keep going."
So I kept pulling out and as I did so, we both looked behind us. A young man with a purple car had backed out of a parking space and obviously did not look where he was backing into.

So now we have a nice scrape and a crack in my dad's rear bumper, but as Dad says, "That's what bumpers are for."

Don't bother reading this post

I am posting another nothing post.
I have nothing to say because I am lazy and don't want to think of something meaningful to say.
I just like having words flowing out from my typing fingers.
It is almost like having a beautiful piece of blank paper and a fresh black pen.
My thoughts always dry up at that point.
The paper and the computer screen look so inviting, but I can't think what to write!
Hence the invention of nothing posts. Because nobody likes to read nothing, and that is frequently what I write.
As I have mentioned before, there is vast quantity of nothing already out here on the web.
I suppose my bit of nothing will not make any difference, because, after all, when you add nothing, nothing changes. Nothing is increased.

Speaking of nothing, this post is actually something. Computers use bits and now I know binary numbers so I know how a computer would be storing this post. Sort of. My ideas of how computers work are rather hazy. But I do know something about binary numbers. I had a lab yesterday where we hooked up a bunch of wires and got four LED's blinking binary numbers from 0 to 15. They looked so pretty.

equations

You know what? I have found some equations I absolutely love.

You think I'm crazy, I know, but I really do like these equations.
There are two I am thinking of at the moment. The speed of sound equation
and the velocity equation that uses the speed of sound and the Mach number.

The speed of sound equation is this:
a = √γRT
The flow velocity equation is this:
V = Ma

Aren't they so cool?

γ is a Greek letter called gamma. It has different numerical values based on what fluid you are calculating the speed of sound in. For air, this is 1.4.
R is the gas constant. For air, this is something like 287 J/kg/K.
T is the temperature of the fluid.

M is called the Mach number. It is an important number in aerodynamics. You can find it easily if you know the flow velocity. It is V/a. If you know M, you can find the flow velocity.
The flow velocity is the velocity at which the fluid is moving at a particular point in a flow.
A flow is pretty obviously a bunch of moving fluid.

So now you know the two equations I am in love with at the moment. They are beautiful, simple equations.


And I know I wasn't studying too long last night.

A nothing Post

My mum found this really funny quote on her gmail :

Smoking kills - If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life.

Brooke Shields

Isn't that funny?

The Quote of Wednesday

I have been reading "Stepping Heavenward" by Elizabeth Prentiss. It is a most amazing book which I think I must read again to more fully grasp all that was said.
So here is a quote from it:

"Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Take
what I cannot give--my heart, body, thoughts, time, abilities, money,
health, strength, nights, days, youth, age, and spend them in Thy
service, O my crucified Master, Redeemer, God. Oh, let these not be
mere words! Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon
earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. My heart is athirst for
God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

page 184

Happy 19th Birthday Kirk!!!!!
I love you lots!!
Love always,
Jo

Wednesday Poem

The 23rd Psalme

George Herbert


The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?

He leads me to the tender grasse,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently passe:
In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my minde in frame:
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.

Yea, in death's shadie black abode
Well may I walk, I fear;
For thou art with me; and thy rod
To guide, thy staffe to bear.

Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev'n in my enemies sight:
My head with oyl, my cup with wine
Runnes over day and night.

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my dayes;
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.

Poem Game 2

Here are the rest of the poems we wrote during the poem game.

Joel's poem is first:

Mr. Pare was looking in his dictionary,
He was looking the word "Hairy",
When suddenly his lunch got stale,
And he began to fiddle with a
pine cone, and then began to sew,
without a thimble,
He pretended that he was driving his car,
or was being condemned

I had some trouble reading Joel's handwriting, but I think I got it all. He gets really silly when we play this game.

The next one is mine:

It was unintentional
And very un-understandable
(Is that in the dictionary?)
An accident that nary
a person could repeat.

Somehow the strange old fiddle
With its worm-eaten middle
Was dragged form a box
With a stale smell and engraved fox
to accompany the pine cone fire.

An odor of hazelnut coffee
Mingles with the scent of pine tree
While the fiddle plays madly
Like a music box that's sadly
and terribly out of tune

After being woken by the sound
A bear begins charging around
And smashes Joel's red car,
Recently guaranteed to be up to par
with inspection regulations.

The guests had to leave by sleigh.

All my poems always have a story in them. Mostly they end up that way by accident.

This last one is my dad's:

It was completely unintentional,
the dictionary was rather stale,
so he made a fiddle from a pine cone,
and played it on the phone.

Very hungry - have a hazelnut?
We'll play the fiddle with a thimble.
Still hungry - orange next?
Set the music box on the table.

There's a bear on the car -
it's squashed now, guaranteed.
Don't eat the starfish! it's not far -
We'll ride the sleigh and hitch the steed.

Have some milk - it has calcium.
With the fiddle playing, a drink for a queen.

Dad said a poem written with this list of words would have to be post-modern. Also he was unsure how to fit condemned and coating in to his poem, but he had all the other words. Yes, hungry-orange was one of the words on the list.

Annie did not know quite what to do in the first round, so she just wrote down the list again.

That's the end of the first poem game. I'm trying to decide whether or not to post the poems from the second game we played.

Poem Game 1

Last night we played the poem game again. You can see the rules and the poems we wrote.
So I thought I'd post our results so everyone else can be almost as amused as we were. I'm not going to post all the words we came up with, but I will put the words we used in our poems in italics.

In random order:
First, here is Mum's:

It was unintentional that I chose the dictionary
for out came a fragrance so stale.
My eyes fell upon the word canary
and all at once I could hear the wail
That mournful wail of the fiddle.
What, do you think that a riddle?
Mournfully high then mournfully low
I'm so glad it's only one!

Although there are supposed to be at least five words from the list in the poem (see the rules here), Mum was holding a wailing Bethan. That seems to have also affected the content of the poem.

Second poem is Noelle's:

My chocolate chip cookie,
became very stale;
For I was playing on my fiddle,
a song about a whale.
Pine cones are very furry,
and my eyesight very blurry,
because I ate one to many,
a hazelnut cookie.
My thimble rolled away on me,
It reversed it's gravity,
And now it's sitting in a tree,
looking as happy as can be.

I guess she was thinking about cookies because we were eating Christmas cookies while playing this game. I am puzzled by the furry pine cone line. I never thought pine cones furry.

Next poem, Jo's:

The unintentional consequence of
his studying the dictionary was
that he became increasingly
stale. "Stop it!" he suddenly
cried. "When you fiddle with
the pine cone you make me
drop my hazelnut into the
thimble! And I can't hear my
music box when you make such
a noise! You sound like a
bear driving a car guaranteed
to run like a starfish! I would
prefer it if you drove a
sleigh, It would improve
the quality of the calcium
in the queen." After that
he was condemned to be
continually coating jellybeans
with chocolate.

I believe she used every word in that "poem". She said it was free verse.

The Quote of Wednesday

Since I have not found anything interesting today to quote, this is what I came up with:

"If muffins grew on trees, I would cultivate them."
Laura D.

That is a quote from a girl I met in college. I did not actually hear her say this, but her roommates found it so memorable, they wrote it down and frequently tell to one another again when they are in a silly mood. Laura loves muffins, and that is why she said this.

Tyndale and Spurgeon

On New Year's Eve, our family likes to pick a long movie and watch it instead of the dropping ball (a disappointing appearance - dropping balls ought look more like a dropping ball, not a slowly moving ball). This Eve, we watched God's Outlaw, a DVD about William Tyndale who translated the Bible from Greek to English.

William Tyndale lived in England during the time of King Henry VIII. The Reformation was just reaching England and books like those by Luther and English Bibles translated by Wycliffe were not allowed. Tyndale longed for people like plough boys and farmers and other common folk as well as the many unlearned priests to be able to read God's Word for themselves. So he began translating the Bible to English. Only, he needed it published, and that couldn't happen without a license. But he could not get a license because it was many churchmen believed it was wrong for people to read the Bible for themselves. They said the common people would not understand it without all the traditions of the church, that the people had no learning and would use the Scripture wrongly. Because of this, Tyndale left England and had his New Testament printed in Germany and smuggled into England. Of course the authorities were not happy about this, so they had spies after him. He lived a poor and dangerous life for many years. Finally, he was betrayed and summarily martyred.
But the Bible was being read all over England in English. Sometime after Tyndale's death, King Henry VIII ordered great English Bibles to be kept in all the churches and licensed them to be printed. At last the common people could legally keep and read English Bibles.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jo was reading Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening to me. The evening reading for today was about being renewed in the Scripture every day, feeding ourselves and becoming rooted in God's Word.

"We know the only way to prevent the body from wasting away is to eat meals frequently. It is just as necessary, in order to restore the soul, to feed on the Book of God, listen to the preached Word, and partake of the Lord's table."
Spurgeon, Charles H.Morning and Evening New Updated Edition. Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., March 2005

She and I agreed that we needed to be reminded of this for we have failed too many times.

And then we realized how great William Tyndale's gift was. For by God's grace we are able to read His Scripture and be renewed directly from the Word.

Oh, thanks be to God for raising William Tyndale, for placing us in a country in which Bibles are legal and in abundance, and for drawing us to Himself.
His mercies are everlasting and the truth of the Lord endures forever!