Flamboyant, Me?

I've always considered myself to be a person who doesn't care what others think, but lately I feel like, opinionated though I might be to myself, I feel like I have a hard time being opinionated when it counts. Even though "I don't care what others think", I'd still rather blend in than stand out. I'm a lot more likely to take a moderate, safe, careful route rather than be blunt and really say/write what I think about something, especially if I don't know my audience well, or if I feel like my audience is more knowledgeable than I am. Maybe I care more than I care to admit?

I'm writing a short "Op Ed Project" for one of my classes, and the prof offered a potential title upon reviewing my research. I LOVE the title that he came up with -- it perfectly captures my own feelings on my subject very succinctly. However, the title is everything that I subconsciously avoid being in my writing - flamboyant, "controversial", pointed, and attention-grabbing. I feel like, although I'm arguing against something, that I can't argue strongly enough against it to merit such a blunt title. Do I gussy-up my writing, and break away from my usual academic caution? I suppose that's the point of this kind of project - We've been repeatedly told that "this is not an academic research paper". Or, do I come up with a title that matches the moderate, analytic tone that I feel like my project is taking? I suppose I'll have to figure it out soon, the thing is due tomorrow afternoon...

And I Thought I Had Eclectic Taste in Music...

Yes, in my endeavor to actually focus and make real, tangible progress on homework, I got sucked in by YouTube again. It should be illegal for me to have internet access on a weekend that is supposed to be devoted to study.

Every song in this video I enjoyed on its own, never realizing how musically similar they all are. I had noticed several soundtracks, usually by the same composer, that used similar snippets of melody, but never had I noticed that the basic chord pattern was the same! Further searching turned up a slew of other, popular music, non-soundtrack songs (which, lets face it, tend to borrow endlessly from each other anyway) that feature THE SAME chord pattern. There are some trivial things that, albeit pointless in the grand scheme of things, absolutely blow my mind. This is one.

Let the Weekend Begin!

Well, school has been in for three full weeks, and this is the first weekend I'm spending here. My poor horse will be devastated, no doubt, and the family cat may just develop an ulcer because she can't find all of "her" people, but it has to happen. This semester my courses are all pretty frontloaded as far as projects and deadlines go, so I really do need to spend some time making real progress on some of this research and writing. One project that I'm really enthused about working on is a paper for my Early American History course, on the Whiskey Rebellion. I've already cleared out the school library's stock of books on the subject. XD

A friend recently sent me a list of words that don't exist in the English language. How many times have you wished that you had a word for something that you encounter, and English fails you?

L'esprit de escalier (French): The feeling that you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things that you should have said. Translated it means "spirit of the staircase".

Waldeinsamkeit (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods.

Meraki (Greek): Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.

Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Gheegle (Filipino): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.

Pochemuchka (Russian): A person who asks a lot of questions.

Pena Ajena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment that you feel watching someone else's humiliation.

Cualacino (Italian): The mark left on a table by a cold glass.

Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

Couldn't Resist, Mate.

The source of my giggles for the day.

Resuscitation Time

Wow, I just realized how long it's been since I've posted. My summer has been kind of insane, between work, family, and horses. I'm back at school now, and hopefully can devote more time to the blog.

Recently I've been reading (and watching Discovery Channel specials) on dark matter, and the notion that, for the universe to exist as it does, there ought to be an incomprehensible amount of matter "out there" exerting gravitational force. All of that "stuff", science is unable to directly detect! Astrophysics isn't exactly my field in any sense of the term, but I still find the topics and theories absolutely fascinating. If anyone else out there is interested, here's a link to the Wikipedia entry on dark matter. Makes me wish I could comprehend the mathematical subtleties along with the broad concepts. My home satellite TV service recently upgraded, so now I get to watch the Science Channel and have my mind blown to my heart's content, at least on weekends that I'm not up to my eyeballs in homework and research projects!

Starting the school year with a change of blog scenery! I think it looks pretty good, personally!

Essay

Wow, it's been a long time... sorry for the massive gap in posting, y'all!

I thought I'd post this short essay that I wrote as part of the Vision and Values Conference Course here at GCC. The "theme" of the conference was "Progressive Surge and Conservative Crackup", and we were asked to respond to the question: To what extent will the Progressive surge affect your future economically, politically, and in other ways you wish to discuss. Also, consider such issues as: 1.) Will your standard of living be similar to, lesser than, or better than your parents; 2) Will the fall elections give more or less support to the Progressive surge? Include references to specific papers, lectures, and discussions as you are able.

So, here is my essay. Notes refer to papers distributed for the course.

The Center-Stage Question Mark:

What Does the Future Hold?

The Progressive surge will certainly have an impact on the future of the young adults entering into the work/political world. Current events appear to be either utterly trivial or earth-shatteringly significant, with no middle ground. While the economy appears better off than a year ago, it remains to be seen whether the actions taken by the government have brought the country closer to leaving the recession or have simply staved off a much needed correction. Ideals upheld by the Founders, and preserved in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, are being ignored or outright flouted by elected officials who have sworn to uphold them. A fantastic percentage of the population has little knowledge or understanding of American history or even current events. As we have been told, to make additional use of the well worn phrase, those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. While the future is inherently uncertain, the stage is set for interesting things to happen.

The economic troubles of the past year and a half, and the responses of Presidents Bush and Obama to the issue, are a major source of uncertainty and confusion. The job market gets tighter, and it becomes more difficult for unskilled/first time employees to find and keep jobs. Increasing regulations, such as raising minimum wage levels and increasing unemployment benefits, make hiring new employees risky for firms. Free markets are being traded for interventionist policy and a decidedly hampered economy. Credit expansion and inflationary policy lowers the purchasing power of each monetary unit and contributes, along with the exorbitant national debt, to the potential for the current recession to get worse before the economy fully recovers. Economic uncertainty, enter stage right.

For perhaps the first time in American history, young adults entering the work world might not be assured of a better standard of living than their parents, a notion that has been almost synonymous with the “American Dream” for decades. While it is not definitive that we will be worse off than our elders, the current recession and the Keynesian/interventionist measures being applied to “stimulate” the economy offer fair cause for concern.

The increasing number of government programs, most currently the healthcare overhaul, as well as the skyrocketing national debt, almost guarantees an increase in taxation to fund. Programs like Social Security that our parents and grandparents paid into for years may yet be unavailable to them, let alone exist for Generation Y. Not all of this is the doing of president Obama’s administration; the economic chaos dominoes started falling during the Bush administration, and they were likely placed even before president Bush took office. Bush, like Obama, did react to that crisis with stimulus packages, etc., intended to boost spending, a distinctly Keynesian approach to “repairing” the economy.

The political view for the future looks equally interesting. As Dr. Kengor shows in his paper, Dissecting What Obama Won – and What Bush Lost, it does not appear that the election of a radically liberal president and legislature is a result of a radically liberalizing electorate, but of what Kengor terms a “schizophrenic” (271) electorate that seemed profoundly unaware (or unwilling to see) of just how liberal of a senator they were sending to the Oval Office. As far as the next election goes, it will be interesting to see how voters react to the policy of the first half of Obama’s first term at the polls. Will the “Change” that we’ve been given prompt voters to overhaul the legislative branch in November? Will Obama be revealed to be a single term president come 2012? Or will the voters of this country remain “schizophrenic”?

With legislation such as the now infamous Obamacare bill being signed into law, it seems doubtful that the electorate will allow election day to pass without a changing of the guard in the House and Senate. Today’s Democratic Party appears to have traded political popularity for the passage of a, to say the least, unpopular piece of legislation. Because of that tradeoff, there may still be hope for the schizophrenic voters to come around. Although, with the somewhat startling statistics presented in Dr. Kengor’s paper, that hope may stand on shaky ground.

At a time when government needs to be shrinking, or at the very least not getting any larger, it is expanding. The economy needs to be allowed to correct, poor business decisions permitted to be rectified, and malinvestments to be liquidated. That process is being impeded by stimulus plans, jobs projects, and expansionary policy that may initially appear to help the economy, but will likely have a negative effect over the long run, sowing the seeds of the next crisis. Obamacare, a program unwanted by the majority of Americans, has passed into law despite the wishes of the voters at large. As always, the future is uncertain, and the current “Progressive Surge” gives a major pull to the pessimistic side of that uncertainty. It is possible to be optimistic, but if the voters remain schizophrenic, that optimism is going to become harder and harder to find.

Cookies if you read the whole thing, (somehow the font got screwy in my intro paragraph, and I can't fix it for some reason, sorry. The question is actually there, it's just in black for some reason?? This dread machine hates me, lol. Just highlight the area above the actual essay to see the question) just thought I'd post the most opinionated thing I've been allowed to submit for a grade this semester! :)

Cheers,
Caesia

Interview

Here's a link to an interview of one of my college economics professors.

Dr. Ritenour answers questions about his new book, and about the Biblical foundations of the free market economy.

Enjoy! :)

From Drifts of Snow to Drifts of Paper

It's been a while, long time, no type! I've been pretty busy with school; I've got two papers this semester. One for econ about the Eichengreen gold standard hypothesis of the Great Depression, and the "mystery paper" for my gen ed lit course. The lit paper should be fun once I get some info about it. All I know as of now is the expected length, and that I'm comparing some aspect of LOTR (my choice) to some aspect of one of the required readings for class. The prof isn't giving us much more info than that about what she expects, just saying that more info is forthcoming. I'm discovering that a lit thesis is somewhat different than the assertion/defense thesis I'm used to in economics. The real topic for lit is flip-flopping between comparing Aragorn from LOTR to Odysseus and the archetypal epic hero/king in exile, or comparing Sauron to Milton's Satan. As of now I'm liking the Sauron/Satan track, but nothing's set in stone yet.

Kur of the Week!

Steffen Peters and Ravel. This is a demo of his 2009 FEI World Cup ride, not a competition. Woe and alas, I couldn't find an embeddable version of the competition ride that I liked... :(

Enjoy!

Introducing...

Tack Talk! I've started a second blog. For a while now I've been thinking about different tack, it's history, design and correct use, so I decided to start a blog on just tack. Each post will be a specific investigation into some article of tack or equestrian equipment, exploring it's invention, history, different styles, and use. Hoping to also add in-depth descriptions of style and discipline specific equipment as well.

So, take a look, see what you think, by all means correct me if you've learned something different than me, and enjoy!

RIP Blue Hors Matine...

A sad day in the world of dressage. The WEG 2006 medal winning mare was euthanized after breaking her foreleg in the pasture. Here is an article for more info.

Aces in the Hole

One of my roommates is taking a creative writing course, and that has got me thinking about writing, and somehow my mind wandered into the common plot cliches and storylines that I run into in my favorite genres of science fiction and fantasy. It strikes me that even though some people complain about formulaic fantasy plots, the old "farm boy gets sucked into epic struggle between good and evil and along the way discovers that he has more to do with the chain events than he realizes, by virtue of hidden heritage or ability"story arc, some kind of formula is what makes fantasy fantasy. It isn't fun if the hero is the hero from the beginning. It's more fun to watch the protagonist learn and grow. The point at which things get dull is when things are too formulaic, and sound like identical stories with different names for characters. To me, the best fantasy stories are the ones in which the author has applied the "standard" formula, and really personalized it, put their own stamp on it. Another thing that can make less than excellent fantasy stories dull is when the protagonist gets every break in the book. If the task is too easy, the story is boring, plain and simple. Either give the hero faults in physical ability, or give him an emotional/mental struggle to battle throughout the plot.

So, here's my theory of Aces.

No one character can hold all the aces and have a story be engaging. The villain can't hold them all, or the hero would get crushed by the end of the first chapter, or, by the first commercial, if we're talking cheesy TV movie. The hero can't hold them all, or the villain just isn't that scary. No, the aces have to be distributed, maybe even moved around, throughout the "cast" and the plot. Maybe have the hero start with one ace, oh, say, hidden royal lineage, and meet a mentor, who passes along another ace in the form of some skill or other: magic, swordsmanship, whatever, then maybe pick up another ace or 2 along the journey, trinkets, talismans, bits of knowledge (I'm not restricting the story to a single deck here, by any stretch of the imagination). Perhaps even take an ace from the villain at some point, or lose one, or lose them all and need to rebuild to have a prayer of survival at the final climactic confrontation that will decide the fate of the universe, or whatever kind of climax your fantasy preferences lean toward.

Probably not that original of a theory, but the mind can come up with strange things during that minute-thirty while you're swishing mouthwash...

Anyway, I've rambled enough for now. For more random info along this same topic, Google "Hero with a Thousand Faces", and check out this link for an amusing list of fantasy cliches.

Bog-Standard College Confusion Continues (Yay Alliteration!)

At least all of my classes seem to be at least conquerable, if not downright fun. Business Statistics might even be okay... I walked out of the first class with a definite "this might even be fun" vibe, not at all like the "God help me" vibe after the first class of Business Calculus. I love how the classes that are most likely to be challenging (and/or dull) tend to start out with new material in the introductory class, and the classes that I'm actually eager to start reading or hearing lectures on draw out the intro and syllabus review for the whole period.

Amazon has let me down (almost) for the first time EVER. I ordered a couple of textbooks from them, figuring since I was ordering from Amazon itself it wouldn't take an insane amount of time to ship... yeah. Anyway, here I sit, still waiting. As long as they get here by noon tomorrow I'm in the clear, but my developing ulcer doesn't quite believe me. I did snag an amazing deal on a book that I thought that I would just use the online version of to avoid the cost... so that consoles me a little. I never feel like I get the same use and information from studying a computer screen that I do from holding an ink and wood pulp book in my hands. Maybe on top of young and bitter I'm old fashioned.

Anyway, I found the map online somewhere, and thought it was worth a laugh. :D

Back At School!

The Spring Semester starts today! I'm already studying in earnest, and I've only been to one class, lol. I refuse to be madly scrambling and cramming for exams this time. I don't have Business Calculus dragging me down this time, either, so I'll have more time to devote to classes that I can pass well in if I put the time into them. I miss Scout already, and after less than 24 hours back at school I can't wait to see my pony and my family this weekend (Weather behave... I mean it...)

Anyway, in honor of the new semester, a bit of academically-themed humor...


At New York’s Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
“Al-gebra is a fearsome cult”, Ashcroft said. “They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like “x” and “y” and refer to themselves as “unknowns”, but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.
“As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle,” Ashcroft declared.
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, “If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.
“I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence,” the President said, adding: “Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line.”
President Bush warned, “These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex.”
Attorney General Ashcroft said, “As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks.”

Second Chances in the New Year!

Well, I've just had an excellent bit of luck! I had planned on entering an essay contest last fall, but I ran out of time to complete my essay since I was writing two term papers for classes at the same time. Yesterday, I get an email from the school saying that the deadline has been extended to January 15th! Kind of odd, the original deadline was in November, and I hadn't heard a lick about it since the deadline passed. Anyway, I'm starting to get a little bored with no schoolwork to do (and the weather too nasty to do much with the horses), and I could definitely use the chance at the prize money.

Scout had his shoes pulled and hooves trimmed yesterday, and he was remarkably good, considering that he's riding high on weather/footing induced stall rest. I expected him to be swinging from the light fixtures, honestly. He stood like a gem, with minimal fuss over stretching his hind legs out. Something else I can polish on while I'm home. Stretching all of his legs might do him good, anyway, as much as he's stuck standing around right now.

Hope the new year is off to a good start for everyone!