The Gorn-Dee-Kerd Chronicles

Ok, so I've been putting this off for a while now, since I've been busy. With what? Why, nothing other than a SUPER STARGATE MARATHON!! Yes, I am going to watch every Stargate movie and episode out there. There will be about 300 of them by the time I'm done, which is currently scheduled as being the end of July. So, for the next 2+ months, I will be watching a minimum of 3 Stargate episodes everyday. I've already started it a few days ago, and it's been great catching up on early SG1. It's definitely better than I remembered it.

Let's see how long I can keep this up.

Meanwhile, my marks for my 3rd year at the University of British Columbia (spelling it out for those who don't know me personally) are out, and for the 2nd term, here are the scores:

1. Near Eastern Studies 312 - 90%

90% is pretty damn good for me in this case, since it's an arts course. On the other hand, I had help, since the subject of this course is, get this: Ancient Egyptian Religion. I actually moved into this course thanks to my friend telling me that they refered to Stargate during the first class. It was hilarious and facinating listening to the lectures, as the various Goa'uld names were mentioned over and over. Though Stargate did get things wrong: Ra is actually "Re", proncounced like Ray (so Kawalsky's joke about Ra's brother "Ray" in Children of the Gods hilaritized me to no end); Apophis was the demon serpent and NOT a God in Ancient Egypt; he was never portrayed as a man, but just a snake, and he wasn't the God of the underworld - that title goes to Osiris, thank you very much.

But anyway, it was fun hearing Horus, Anubis, Ba'al, Bastet, Montu, Thoth, Seth, and various other Gods'/Goa'ulds' names mentioned, even though the lectures were often long and without-breaks.

The best thing about this class though, was the fact that it only had 2 things on which marks were based on: the Midterm, and the Final, each worth 50%. Normally, people may hate this since, if you screw up one of them, you're basically screwed, period. Well, I don't buy into that, since I usually don't screw up at all. Haha. But anyway, I got 90% on my midterm, and after a few days, the prof decided to make things that much more simple: instead of counting both the Midterm's and the Final's marks and then averaging them, he'll only count the highest-marked one, with that mark being your overall course mark! That meant that, if you're happy with your midterm mark as being your overall course mark, YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO TAKE THE FINAL!! Well, it was a no-brainer for me in this case, and so I took my 90% and stopped showing up to class or caring about it, and I still ended up with 90% at the end. Switching to this class was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

2. Statistics 302 - 95%

Out of all the math subjects, Statistics was my worst in highschool. All that Combinatorics crap screwed me up something fierce. So I thought I should try my hand at bettering that part of my academia nut; that, and I needed some statitics for my Quantum Mechanics courses. This course covered Combinatorics and Probabilities in general. Anyway, the course was difficult at times, but overall it was handle-able.

3. Math 317 - 97%

This course was fun. It was dedicated to Vector Calculus. You had line integrals, work integrals, flux integrals, and various theorems that made working with real life stuff much much easier (i.e. wind currents, electric field lines, etc.). It was amazing to see how the work done around a path can be calculated just like *that* with the Fundamental Theorem of Line Integrals, for instance. Then there was Stoke's Theorem and Divergence Theorem and...am I boring you?

This course was pretty easy, to be honest. I ended up getting the highest in the class on both of our 2 midterms. Still, I was hoping to get a higher final grade (I have high standards), like...100% or something. I guess I either screwed up on the final, or they lowered everyone's marks with scaling. Oh well.

4. Physics 313 - 98%

This was a HUGE surprise. The course was dedicated to Thermodynamics, which I SUCK at. My sucking at it in Highschool didn't change, and I continued to suck at it in this course. There are just too many conditions to keep tracks of. Is it reversible? Is it isolated? Is it an ideal gas? Can you perform this approximation or not? Etc. etc. I hated the course...but I guess they REALLY scaled the marks up, lest half of the class fail it. Ha.

Combined with my marks from the previous term, my overall average for Year 3 is: 94.1%, which is 0.1% higher than my Year 2 average. Ok, so it's not the 99% I predicted based on linear extrapolation, but still...at least I didn't go down.

And that, as they say, is that. Next on my Stargate marathon schedule: There But for the Grace of God.

Yeah, so I love geography, geology, and all that stuff. Therefore, you just know that I'd get hooked on GoogleEarth when it came out. And I did.

It started off simple enough. I picked my brain for all the cool places that I can remember off of the top of my head, and I "went there" with GoogleEarth. It was awesome. Later on, when our family began going on trips again, I would basically use GoogleEarth to go on an identical virtual trip to anticipate what I will see (it doesn't ruin the experience though, because, as I said in my previous trip report, seeing pictures of the stuff on GE is no substitute for the actual grandeur of nature). For our next trip, I've used it to choose between difference routes. For instance, there are two ways we can leave Crater Lake; 1, I found, had 5 waterfalls along the road worth looking at, and the other only had 1, with nothing more of interest.

Obvious which one I chose. Prepare for mucho waterfall pictures in late June.

But, it was only 2 days ago when I discovered something I can do on GoogleEarth that wasted time like nothing else: River-Following. It's simple: pick a river, preferably a long and well-known one, and follow it to its source. Along the way, pay attention to the landscape around the river channel and see if you can pick out those shaped by the river (i.e. bluffs, meander scrolls, oxbow lakes, etc. etc.); also, make sure you're actually following the river and don't get accidentally sidetracked because of tributaries. For a geography buff like me, this is damn fun.

I've already done it for the Missouri, the Mississippi, the Fraser, and now the Nile (yes, both the White and the Blue Nile). Try it yourself.

So that's that folks. I just finished my last final today, and now I'm free for the summer. I'm planning to do a lot of nothing, followed by another bout of nothing. And, if I have time, I will do more nothing. I will be busy...with nothing.

Well, ok...maybe not nothing. The reason for the Buffy-musical-episode-title blog entry title is because of The Great Trip III. Oh yes, we're gonna go again this year, most likely. The target date is June 14, and this time, we will be pretty much revisiting every location in Washington and Oregon that we kind of missed in the past due to bad weather. I'm talking about Mt. Rainier (from Sunrise), Mt. St. Helens (Johnson and Coldwater Ridges), most of central Oregon with them volcanoes and...well, volcanoes mostly; Crater Lake again (hopefully this time with clear skies), and Olympic National Park, which was cloudy and foggy during our 2 previous visits. The trip should take about a week, though really it may only fill 5 or 6 days. This time, we're going to make sure we get to see all of these sights. If it rains one day, then we'll wait it out. Simple as that.

As usual, pictures and maybe even videos await you when I get back.

Moving on. I got my Stargate: The Ark of Truth soundtrack in the mail today (autographed by JOEL GOLDSMITH...DUDE!!!)!! Woooohooo!! Verdict: AWESOME. I like music. I LOVE music. In fact, the legend goes that my mom played music while pregnant with me, so I got started at an...early age.

Fast forward to today, and I was pretty much blown away by this soundtrack. You don't have to be a Stargate fan to appreciate it. You just have to like music, basically. Every track has something unique to it that makes it special. Be it a powerfully epic choral backdrop, or melancholy notes forming scenes in your head of fallen grace, or action-packed techno music used for fighting sequences that are just as bitchin'.

Stargate: The Ark of Truth had it all, in spades. I would highly recommend getting the soundtrack. Really. It's good music.

Really.

BUY IT.

Or not...decide for yourself:



I just shot this a few minutes ago from my bedroom window. I wonder what that purply-pink light (in case you didn't notice it) was. Before I shot this, the light had appeared and hovered there for a moment, its brightness changing a little. It didn't take me long to grab my camera and shoot it.

The weird thing is, I just bemoaned my bad luck at not seeing an UFO yesterday (after watching an UFO documentary, natch). Funny how fate works sometimes.

Do note that we are heavily overcast at the moment. Whatever it was, it was flying low.

Heh...my emoticon has never been more appropriate.

Well, time's flew past, hasn't it? This is my last week of classes. After this, it's 2 weeks of study time, then 3 finals in quick succession. Oh yes, I only have 3 this term. Yippy-Hooray-ness and chocolate guns to all for happy munching onto.

But what happens after that? As always, I've decided to take the summer off and relax after the gruelling chore of commuting to and from UBC everyday. Oh, and learning, too. For 4 months, what will happen? Actually, the question should be: what won't happen? The answer: nothing. Wait...let me just work that out.

Uh...nothing, won't happen...nothing will happen...shoot! I gots it backwards!

Yes, that's right, everything will not happen. Yeah, that's what it is. So, like every other summer, I'm planning to do nothing, except for MAYBE another family trip. Maybe. But really, this big doing of nothing basically amounts to one thing: I'm going to be in front of the computer for a long time and I will interact, face to face, with no one. Hence the title of this entry. Once more, I will isolate myself from society and participate in the much-more-exciting world of the Internet.

However, perhaps it's time to change that? Almost always, around late July, there will happen to be one night where I'm sitting in front of the computer (of course) and realize just how cut off I am from the rest of society. My thoughts would drift back to the good times I've had with my friends, both old and new, and I would get depressed. Then I'll discover something cool on the Internet and the whole cycle begins again. Would it be wise this year to do something else? To participate more? To go to more parties and/or other social functions?

Nope. Not my kind of thing, and I doubt it ever will. I've developed the horrible problem of getting-extremely-nauseous-before-any-important-event, which plagues me to this day. You name anything out of the ordinary, and chances are I'll be nauseous before doing it or, more likely, I won't be doing it at all.

So, it seems the cycle will begin again; and 3 months from now, that night in July will come, and nothing will change.

Switiching gears for a moment, go here:

http://www.soundtrack.net/features/article/?id=252

If you like music, then you should read this. It's an interview with the masterminds behind the soundtrack of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Even if you don't know much about the show, you can still appreciate the music by simply listening to the samples provided within that link. Come on, take a chance and waste a few minutes of your life on this. It won't hurt, and then you'll know how I feel.