Sorry readers, it's finals time and there's really not many spare moments for posts now or in the near future. A test tomorrow, a Mineralogy lab practical final Tuesday, GeoUnion Tuesday evening, a Biological Diversity lab practical Monday evening, an interview with the UofC Hospital on Friday, doing publicity for the AASC/IVCF Christmas party on Friday, a GIS final take-home lab, a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) final Monday the 8th and then my Mineralogy final Thursday the 11th is gonna keep me mighty busy and hopefully powerfully studying! Compound that with not having access to the internet once I fly home on the 13th and there will be no posts for a while. Yikes. Lots to do.
Today has been a day of cramming in as much work as possible since I did absolutely zero for Thanksgiving break. And I've also been procrastinating by searching for a USB flash drive to buy and looking for future jobs on monstertrak.com. I need some serious help in both of those areas. Is this a good deal? And where do I look for geophysical science related jobs? No idea here.

"Think globally, recycle locally" --Abraham Lincoln
Freecycle is one of the greatest things ever! It's a worldwide network of freecycle groups consisting of people who give everything away for FREE! As the saying goes, one man's junk is another man's treasure, freecycle reduces waste by connecting individuals who are throwing away goods with others who are seeking them--the only rule is that everything must be free.
It's fantastic! I am a member of both the Chicago and Portland Freecycles and they are both growing fast. In fact, the Portland Freecycle group is the largest in the world at the moment! In the couple of months that I've been a member of the groups I've seen people give away cars, laptops, desks, beds, lamps, chairs, full-size statues, rubber bands, pets and just about everything you can think of. Some stuff is indeed "junk", some stuff is brand new, and all in all it's been a great success!
Read a Salon.com article about Freecycle here.

Has John Ashcroft tried to block the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards banquet? Portlanders are upset. We've had a medical marijuana program since May of 1999.
Update: Bud Out!
Local civil-rights lawyers fend off feds' attempt to shut down medical-marijuana conference.

I know it's embarassing and I shouldn't be writing this...but I still can't stop laughing about the hickey. i love you [both] so much.
21 days to go.
i learned a new song today, here are the lyrics: "Johnny had a booger and it tastes like sugar. Who had a booger that tastes like suger? ....Johnny!" [repeat].
I spent my day holding the hand of a six year old boy. And chasing him around. Goofing off, and chatting. It was great. We took the SafeSpace kids to the Navy Pier IMAX to watch T-Rex3D and then to the Children's Museum. Superfun!

Your political compass
Here's Me (next to Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Gandhi, and in the general area of my Pacific Green Party):
Economic Left/Right: -5.00
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHERINE! I LOVE YOU!

Nicole arrived today. She's here til Sunday...so if anyone wants to go have fun this week give me an email to join us! I have the HotHouse, Second City (Tuesday night), the Pub, the Signature Room Lounge, Shopping, the Art Institute and some other stuff in the works. Anyone have any other ideas on what we should do?

ps. Matrix Revolutions: so-so. bad acting. bad script. still entertaining. bloody. and i don't like Zion. the machines still look like crinoids to me. good to see all in all, but not great.

Please sign this. It is very important.

Nicole is coming Saturday!!!!! Only a few hours! I'm so excited!

Nourishment
Due to some bothersome anisotropic minerals, I skipped lunch today. I am the crankiest person alive when I skip a meal. My stomach feels like it turns inside out and all I can think about is pain, and the urgent need for food. I can't concentrate on anything else. I need the essentials to function: 3 meals a day. I don't see how people can go without, and yet hundreds of thousands of people a day are in hunger--a much greater hunger than I'll ever experience. On days like today, when I go 12 hours without food, it makes me realize even more just how lucky I am. I've also been thinking about the concept of fasting (Biblically, and also this time of Ramadan), and just how important and powerful it is: it shows a commitment of faith and a concentration on more important things. I don't do this enough.

Strong, Perservering Women
I went to a great panel discussion tonight. "Women In Politics and Policy", Featuring (I was very impressed with these women!, especially Mrs. Wood): Corinne Wood (Former Lieutenant Governor of Illinois), Tracy Fischman (Vice President for Policy at Planned Parenthood of Chicago), Dorothy Brown (Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County). It was moderated by: Paula Wolff (Former Policy Director for Illinois governor Jim Thompson; currently a senior executive at Chicago Metropolis 2020 and lecturer at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy).
It was a packed-house roundtable discussion where panelists from both political sides discussed their experiences in the political and policymaking arenas and spoke about how gender has played a role in their careers and how they have been perceived.
ps. Did you know that Viagara is covered under healthcare policies but not some contraceptives? Craziness.

The Meatrix with Moofius. This is just udderly ridiculous.

HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY PARKER!
I love you! :o)

My Latest Bedtime Yet This Quarter
Mineralogy is fun (despite my last post). And seriously, I like reading the textbook (yes, I am a nerd). The hours flew by at the Reg tonight and I didn't even notice. Sadly though, I bet I'll still fail the midterm tomorrow, as I do with most tests here after I've spent hours and hours studying. It's late, but there is still much more to memorize.
So I studied with Miss. Erin and Ayla, and met the cute doggies Elmo and Grover. It was fun to study together again, even though it reminded me of those terrible problem sets for Global Tectonics that Erin and I labored over together last year.
Erin says I should blog more emotional stuff..which I will try to do. I guess I haven't been recently because I don't want to always be so downcast and repetative. How do I feel in Chicago? For the most part it's the same as I've felt all along here: depressed, and the people and places I most connect with are still back at home in Oregon. I almost feel as if I'm trapped here, unpassionate and mostly apathetic compared to what I used to be, in this strange body with a strange attitude and personality here in Chicago. I just don't ever feel myself, and I get mad at my own actions and poor brain functions, and sad that I feel unconnected to the world around me. There's some people here who I do connect with, but it seems like no one has time for each other to build solid relationships/friendships at this fast-pace high-pressure studylikecraziness school. So that's that I guess.

Pauls says (1:18:05 AM): "i'm not going to think at all tomorrow. that way there will be a little extra room in cosmic brain space for you to swiggle around in" Hmm. Interesting concept. I hope it works! ;o) I need to do well on my two scary tests!

Child Smuggling. This is so heartbreaking. It's wrong, but necessary at the same time.
Littlest Immigrants, Left in Hands of Smugglers
This suprised me: "Robert Miskell, chief of the criminal division of the United States attorney's office in Tucson, said first-time offenders were likely to get more jail time for sneaking an 85-pound sack of marijuana across the border than a 50-pound child."

I didn't even know the name of the class I've been taking.
How dumb is this? I get a point off on my midterm because I wrote down Global Information Systems for GIS instead of Geographic Information Systems...even when the class title was printed right on the front of the test! Ack. And with that one point that I missed I could have been the top scorer in my class too. Oh well, missing only half a point from the top score on the midterm is awesome anyways--I never do that.

Congratulations to my friend Ola!
...in Lviv, Ukraine. She's getting married!
Hurray! :o)

Brings a Smile to my Face!
Congratulations Michael!
NYU Student Leader on Staff for Former President Clinton

Mineralogy has got me down. For the past three years I thought that there was no way I could bring myself to take Mineralogy. I knew it was mostly chemistry (I hate chemistry!, and some math, and everything I'd studied about mineralogy was boring and confusing to me. But for some reason I signed up for it at the last minute the beginning of the quarter. I told myself I would just go to the first class to see how it is, and then I decided to stay. Surprisingly, I've really enjoyed the first five weeks of the course. Some of Anderson's lectures and confusing and a bit unorganized, but all in all, I've actually enjoyed studying the material. And I've especially liked the labs. Guilherme is a strong TA and explains the concepts pretty well. Plus, I've always thought microscope work was pretty fun.
But my attitude has shifted. The midterm is on Wednesday and I feel completely unprepared. My brain will just not memorize the 40 or so chemical formulas for the minearls I'm supposed to know, and I'm not even sure what to study for the lectures. On top of that, we have the lab midterm which is "take-home", which really means that we have to come in and do an independent lab. It's actually pretty straight-forward, basically just optically characterizing minerals and then identifying what they are. But it's much harder than it seems. Even though we know what we're supposed to do, and how to do it, it's still difficult to me! I keep confusing myself on how the process goes, and then when I double check the work that I have done I find that I have it backwords or totally wrong. I really really need to finish it by Saturday morning when Nicole flies in, but I don't know when I'm going to be able to find the time to do it before then. Yikes.

On a different note, send a future email to yourself in 28 years.

34.6 million Americans were living in poverty last year
More U.S. Families Hungry or Too Poor to Eat, Study Says

Spiritual Disciplines & Community
I took a retreat this weekend with IVCF from Friday night to Saturday night. We drove up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to a conference center, and along with having small groups and some free time we spent much of the time listening to a speaker give three talks:
Introduction: The Reading of Old Books, the Love of Old Saints
Part One: Solitude, Prayer, Lectio Divina; Standing aside quietly to wait for grace
Part Two: Communion, Worship, Spiritual Warfare
Our "homework" for this retreat was to read C.S. Lewis' introduction to, and the first three chapters of Athanasius' On the Incarnation (PDF here). I didn't really have any time to read it before Friday, so as we were waiting for our rides, I quickly read C.S. Lewis' introduction. I was impressed. I've never read any Christian books before, mostly for three reasons: 1) I have had no idea where to start, 2) Many of the new books seem to be all fluffy and emotionally centered, or focused on subjects that do not seem relevant to me at all, 3) The theologians and old texts seemed out of, and are completely overwhelming. I've been wanting to read C.S. Lewis for a long time, but even he seemed hard to start--with all of his books and essays, which one would be best for me to begin to read?
Reading Lewis' introduction and then some of Athanasius was a good start. The translation of Athanasius was easy to read, and his words fairly straightforward.