Eseme's Den

Was very good. Got virtually no work done, for school or otherwise. It was too hot to do dishes. Thankfully it is cool and wet today so I can at least get that chore done.

I ended up spending lots of time with friends, which was wonderful.

Friday we went to see the fireworks downtown. They were lovely, especially the many purple ones. As I mentioned in my haiku, the moon was just to the left of the main launch area, and occasionally we were treated to the breathtaking sight of fireworks overlapping the moon. Then we went to a party at Frank's and had s'mores around a bonfire. It was a fun day, and I had a great time celebrating.

Saturday consisted of sleeping in late and eventually heading off with True Brain and Becky. We intended to get to a comic store that Brain knew of, but they had closed just minutes before we arrived. This meant we had lots of time for dinner at the Distillery, where they make good burgers and will let you eat desert first. I got to game right around 7:30, and was quite happy to find myself in a number of scenes involving Theurge-type stuff. It was a good game, and I am happy with the way Lilly is growing up.

Sunday involved more laziness and sleeping in, followed by some shopping and reading the archives of a fun comic called Spellshocked. Boredom and laziness are not super fun in my apartment, due to a lack of comfy chairs. So I ended up going over to visit friends who are blessed with an overabundance of comfortable seating. We watched most of Independence Day and I helped Colleen unpack more boxes. The drive home was nice- the half moon hung low and huge in the sky, still bright in spite of the clouds that made its edges hazy.

I like the radio station I listen to- every now and again I hear some 80's song I haven't heard in ages and am amused by it. See Music.

I get some of the best quotes just doing academic research, or schoolwork.

No, really!! Don't all leave now, hear me out.

"Knowledge is commonly socially constructed, through collaborative efforts toward shared objectives or by dialogues and challenges brought about by differences in persons' perspectives." [1]

Differences in perspectives... isn't that what life is all about, when you get right down to it? That's the joy of meeting new people- finding out how their perspectives differ from yours and how they are the same. It's what makes conversations work and be interesting. And according to that author of the above statement, it's called learning. Meeting new people is learning, conversing is learning, life is learning. I like that.

And here's one I found in Winter Quarter, while I was reading through my graphics textbook, trying to get my Ray Tracing assignment to work properly. And why was this lovely piece of poetry in as unlikely a place as a graphics textbook? Because it has the word "ray" in it and the author was trying to be cute. Computer science textbooks do that all too often, and generally fail miserably. Still, this is wonderful poetry, regardless of how I stumbled upon it:

In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is the night!

Robert Southey

There you go, my thoughts of the moment. Off to try and finish this proposal. *sigh* I may not be done by 6, darn it.

[1] G. Salomon, Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1993.