Bridge

WARNING: MATHEMATICAL CONTENT!

As I approach my 'toughest' final of the week (a bridge tournament), I thought I'd share some numbers with you.

A bridge hand consists of 13 cards from a standard 52 card deck. There are 635,013,559,600 hands you can be dealt while playing bridge. You would have to play 24,836,748 hands per day to play every bridge hand over the course of 70 years - that's 287 hands per second.

There are 53,644,737,765,488,792,839,237,440,000 possible hands to be played by the whole table. That amounts to 82,472,935,650,000,000,000 hands a second, played since the earth was created around 4.54 billion years ago.

You have a 566,976 times better chance of being struck by lightning than getting a hand with all of one suit. Surprisingly, you are just slightly more likely to be struck by lightning twice than to get this hand.

You have a .2% chance of having all of the aces, a .00017% chance you'll have all the kings to go along with it, and a .00000000006% chance the queens will join the party. If it is any consolation, you have a 98.7% chance of having at least one of those cards.

Figure this one out:

A large sign in the library says:


Looking for a computer?
Go to: http://labs.uwec.edu/OpenSeats/index.asp


You don't have to be a math major to scratch your head at that one...

A Long Overdue Post

I'll tell ya, not much happens around here. I had two hours to kill before a meeting, so I decided I'd write a blog post, but I got side tracked trying to figure out the location of a point inside a square which maximizes the length of the four lines connecting that point to the squares corners. I didn't really need the fancy computer software I was using: of course it occurs in the four corners. Though a 3-d graph of the values would be kind of nifty. I digress.

I got my first fungal infection, and I suppose that's news to write home about! Everybody tells you that if you don't wear shoes in the showers you'll get all sorts of funk on ya feet, but I acquired my massive fungal infestation on my thigh! It has now spread in little splotches all over my body, after my home remedy fungal ointment proved ineffective, and I spent another five precious days treating a non-existent bacterial infection, per doctors orders. But now my guns are effectively loaded, and the enemy stands no chance.

Final are coming up. Finals week is referred to as "the dead hours", or "dead week" and, in fact, there was even a lengthy article about attempted suicide in the school newspaper. I am happy to report that the prospect of finals week has not brought me to suicide. In fact, it seems to me that a week in which you only have to go to class 2 hours a day is a most desirable week. Granted, 30% of your grade rides on that class, but you have plenty of time to study, and that is an understatement. I have already eyed up a good selection of books in the library (mostly children's books, a genre that I have been delving in to more and more as the "academic" books I am required to read leave me sorely disappointed in "sophisticated" thinking).

And other than that, I am quite out of things to write about, though I should mention that I'm quite glad we are in Year C now, and Luke (my second favorite Gospel, next to John) is the Gospel for the next 50 Sundays!

UPDATE: HERE'S TODAY'S WAY COOL MATH PICTURE!

The square measured here has a side length of 10. the two lower axes measure the distance of the point from one of the vertical sides one of the horizontal sides. The vertical axis shows the measure of the segments connecting the point to the corners of the square. Maximum occurs at (10,10, 53.77), though (10,0,38.10) gives a surprising run for it's money! Oh! Maybe this is the next one: find the point at which z/(a+b) is greatest. But of course! (0,0,EXPLOSION!) I'll stop the math humor while I'm not too far behind.

What Gives!

Now, you don't need to be a math major to conjecture that as we enter the winter, and it gets quite a bit colder, skirts should get longer, and as we move back into the spring and summer months, well then, at least there is a half-ways reasonable excuse for wearing short skirts (though modest is, at all points of the year, hottest, and I'm not refering to temperature). Yet, I am finding that skirts are actually shorter now than 2 months ago! The style goes something like this: wear black leggings that cover your whole leg, and then put the shortest possible skirt on which will, in theory, cover your behind, though it's all really quite optional in reality. This can be represented visually below:

An example of reasonable winter attire:

An example of unreasonable winter attire:

Would it be too cynical to point out that my classes are far easier to understand than my peers?

The Hailstone Sequence

So, here is the pretty picture I made today. An explentation is below, if so desired (but count yourself warned).

WARNING!!! MATHEMATICAL CONTENT!!!



The Hailstone sequence is the sequence defined as

If a(n-1) is odd, a(n)=3*a(n-1)+1, and
if a(n-1) is positive, a(n) = a(n-1)/2

Unfortunately I don't have subscripts at my disposal, so the function/sequence bleedover will have to suffice.

While it has yet to be proved, it is thought that the hailstone sequence converges to 1 for any starting number a(n). I was interested in the number of steps it took to reach one. For instance, starting number 2 obviously takes 1 step, and 4 takes 2. 3 takes 8 steps, while a starting number of 5 only takes 6. The graph then displays on the X-axis the starting number, and on the Y-axis the number of steps (for lack of a better word... perhaps "iterations"?) it takes to arive at one. I'll admit I stole the idea for such a graph from Wikipedia, but they only went up to 9,999, so I consider myself the victor, even more so if Excel could have more than 16384 columns, which my buddy pointed out is 2^14! He's a computer science major, so a more sophisticated graph may be forth coming.


On another note, a Saturday morning impromptu math class (a full 6 days of quality education for a 5 day price!) to learn about mathematical induction was scheduled. I am most excited!

Random Prejudices

I find it very helpful to identify which of your prejudices are "random" and which have some basis behind them. For instance, a random prejudice of mine is a dislike of umbrellas. There is nothing wrong with the umbrella, in fact it is a generally good thing, I think all would conclude. I couldn't explain my reasoning behind my prejudice because I have absolutely none. Even still, every time the smallest amount of precipitation falls on campus I am utterly discouraged by the sight of so many umbrellas.

A non-random prejudice, a very just prejudice, is my dislike of same-sex bathrooms. Of course, I have been using a "same-sex" bathroom my whole life: few homes have facilities designated for women and men. But this is different. On every floor of the library, right next to the elevators there is a woman's restroom and a men's restroom, where the sexes can be with only their same kind, except on the second floor. For some reason the second floor is well-advertised as have two same-sex bathrooms. What's the point? The whole character of the bathroom is lost. There might have been a girl in my men's bathroom! The men's room should be a place where you can be away from the other sex! So, while I normally I abide on the third floor, reading St. Theresa's "Life", or on the fourth floor, studying Wheelock's Latin, yesterday I was on the second floor doing Calculus (learning why e^(Pi*i)=-1, in fact!) and I had to use the restroom. It was quite a dilemma for me, because I refused to support the misguided same-sex bathroom. Fortunately I had enough time to run up to the third floor, and entered the small, most perfect, men's restroom. I even had to wait for another fellow man (so much better than waiting for a girl) before I could relieve myself.

Excel

I found myself with nothing to do this afternoon, which is always an unsettling feeling, so I decided that I was going to make a liturgical calender using Excel in these stretches of time. Actuaries use Excel alot, and it's a pretty nifty program to boot (which is probobly why they use it), so I figured I ought to know how to use it.

Well, as you know, Easter falls on a different day each year (anywhere from March 22 to April 25 in fact). The calculation actually has to do with the lunar cycle: "Easter day is the first Sunday after the 14th day of the lunar month (the nominal full moon) that falls on or after 21 March (nominally the day of the vernal equinox)." Needless to say it gets quite difficult. The other liturgical dates aren't nearly as difficult: the First Sunday in Advent, which is comming upon us quickly, is 4 Sundays before Christmas.

So I figured that it'd be best to tackle Easter first. I used dateofeaster.net (conveniant...) to figure out how it was actually done. I used a different column to calculate the letters for each year and when I got the finished column (the date of Easter) I opened up another handy Microsoft product, Word, and used the "Replace" function to consolidate my formula. Unfortunately Excel cut me off at 9000 characters for my formula, so I needed to use two columns and hide one (oh, but I will have victory one day). My formula was so long because of the steps where you need to determine the day of the week and then do different things for each day; I did this by determining the day of the week, and then having a different "if" statement for each day, which takes 7 times the charachters I think it really ought to. I also found a more simple algorithm by a certain Carl Friedrich Gauss. But after quickly figuring out the First Sunday in Advent (which took a measly 350 characters in comparison!) I'm calling it quits for today.

The Early Bird Yet Again Gets The Worm!

This weekend is homecoming weekend. I first realized this was the case because the Most Honorable Emmet Horan All-Male Sanctuary is on ultra-super-secret lock down. Residences of this Most Honorable Hall must enter through the front door only, and show their school I.D. to go to their rooms. I'm quite amazed that I wasn't woken up by drunkards last night, as usually happens on Friday nights, and would especially happen on such a riotous Friday night. No, I slept like a baby and arose at 5:35 this morning, just in time to pray Lauds, take a shower, throw on some clothes, and arrive at mass with enough time to collect my mind. Though collecting my mind was quite difficult this morning; as I was putting on my last articles of clothing (red socks for St. Ignatius!) I heard the unmistakable sound of several sousaphones (the tubas you see in marching bands the wraps around the player). As I exited the building I saw no less than 15 sousaphones in the middle of the basketball courts which are in the middle of the residence halls, playing the UW Platteville fight song (our opponents in the football game later today), and after than simply making a ton of noise. It was a glorious sight. As they continued playing shouts rang from all around them: "no wonder nobody likes band geeks"... "you suck!". To fully appreciate the situation you must understand that the dorms make a square, so everything echos quite well. An exuberant conversation 100 yards away is easily picked up. The flatulant sounds these guys were making echoed quite well. I could still hear them when I was 400 yards away.

The joys of getting up early...

The Weather!

I forgot to add that the weather today is almost perfect. It's just a bit too cold, and not enough leaves have fallen to make the slight wind completely effective (you know how you get those huge gusts of leaves flying everywhere...), but it's getting there. I am wearing a brown hooded sweatshirt which I affectionately refer to as my "Carmelite sweatshirt", because it is Carmelite brown. I'm suspecting that when I get back to my dorm I could crack the window slightly, put on a cardigan, brew a glass of hot tea (I've only had iced tea so far) and have a hey-day.

Parties

About 3 years ago the use of the word "party" became applicable to a far greater variaty of gatherings. For example, when we changed into our concert dress for highschool band, us 25 boys who were crammed into the small bathroom refered to the gatherings as "changing parties". So too, when a study group is formed, you don't call it a "calculus study group" but always a "calculus party".

Last night I cut my hair with my newly purchased pair of clippers over the bathroom wastebasket. What was a rather humble ordeal quickly became a party, as pictures were taken, onlookers voiced their approval, and some even joined in on the festivities, betraying their curly locks for the regimented buzz cut. It was quite a party.

And again this morning, I stopped into a bathroom to blow my nose, and at least 2 others were there for the same purpose. A nose-blowing party.

Rainy Friday

Today had hopes of being a rainy, dreary Friday, but alas, the sun ruins everything. There is no joy like a rainy day, especially one that is a bit nippy. You can open your window and put on a cardigan and smell and hear the fresh rain, while you contemplatively go about your day. The sun light offers no such joys: its oppressive. You can't open your window, or don any special types of clothing. There are no sounds to be heard, no freshness to be enjoyed. No, give me cold rain before hot sun any day!

I don't have any homework this weekend. I can't understand that for the life of me. I'm going to do two chapters of odd (as opposed to even; odd problems are answered in the back of the book) math problems because they are fun, and I feel like I have to do some school work. Many of the problems I've been doing lately involve finding the volume of jugs like you see women carrying on their heads:
My grandpa recommended I try instant oatmeal to fill me up in the morning (you'll recall my earlier difficulties). I've tried eating cherrios, going to class, and then eating a proper breakfast around 9 o'clock, but then I'm not hungry for lunch, but I know that if I don't eat lunch I'll be starving at 2, not to mention that I'd lose weight like crazy. I have gained 2 pounds since last week, which is reassuring. Yes, so I'm going to go and get some instant oatmeal, perhaps on my way back from mass (though, unfortunately, this is not a blue sock Saturday).

I learned a cool word today: stevedore - one who loads logs onto ships. Perhaps that's not a readily useful term. I also learned that polygyny (a husband having multiple wives) is extremely common in the world, and is in fact more common than monogamy. In many countries women will divorce their husbands if they do not marry another woman and they have the means to do so (the second wife acts as a helper... it actually makes a lot of sense). I don't think I'm ever use that either, at least as long as I'm living in America.

Last night I attended my first Calculus party. One of the party goers was visibly disgruntled, and has been so for the past few days, and I recommend that she sing a hymn, because, no doubt, singing a good hymn will always cheer you up! There is no misery a line of "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent" won't illuminate, or frustration that a strain of "Praise to the Lord!" won't remedy. Unfortunately she didn't know any good hymns, so I printed some of my particular favorites and gave them to her this morning.

Well, other than that little ditty the week as a whole has been quite uneventful. I am 1/60th done with college as of today though. Only 118 weeks. That makes about 1,416 classes, which means something like 1593 hours of class left. Some people have 4 hour long Chemistry labs though! I sat outside a geology lecture today, and I think I'd take even that over a 4 hour lab.

Sing a hymn!

The College Timezone

I've been having a particularily difficult time adjusting to the wildly different timezone college operates in. I get up at 6, eat ready, eat breakfast and go. I'm in that sort of "lets take over the world today" morning mood when I get out the door, in fact the first words I pray every day are "Come, let us rejoice in the Lord!" [Psalm 95], only to find a ghost town. There are bikes and cars everywhere; I have evidence to believe that there are living, breathing humans on the campus, but they are all huddled up behind their closed curtains.

I should add here that breakfast has also been a difficulty. On days I have class the dining hall opens at 7, yet my first class is at 7, and I have class until 10, so I can't eat breakfast there. And on days I don't have class they open at 10 (ridiculous, huh?), which is awfully late to have breakfast. I normally eat what is really two meals, and don't go back until dinner. I'll tell you, at this very moment I'm waiting until I can eat a proper breakfast. I say a proper breakfast, because I do have food in my room. At first I was eating Cherrios every morning, which, no matter what quantity I eat them in (I could have the whole box, two boxes, three!), only serve to make me wildly hungry in less than two hours. I would be less hungry having half a piece of toast than a box of Cherrios. Luckliy a friend of mine sent me some granola which not only tastes good (I was initially sceptical... both for taste and political reasons, actually), but also does a better job at filling me up. Yet even still, right around 10:30 I get awfully hungry.

I think that the morning is the most grevious loss for college students. It's such a wonderful time of day. The sun is shinning, you are full of energy (provided you go to bed on time...) and you have a full 12 hours ahead of you. The problem is that college students don't go to bed on time. Right around the time that I pray Compline, which is the very last thing I do in the day, everybody else is starting the partying. Thursday, as I prayed "Out of the depths have I cried until thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice!" [Psalm 130], there was a salsa dance going on in the basketball court outside my window. When I was praying "Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; Your word has been fulfilled. My eyes have seen the salvation you have prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people, Israel," [Luke 2:29-32] everybody was going to the football game (I should point out that for college students, going anywhere is not a passive action simply involving walking or riding, but rather it is a very active action which involves the whole body, particularily the vocal capabilities; in less sperfulous English: college students are LOUD!).

So yes, my day seems to operate in direct opposition of this University.

A Blue Sock Saturday

Saturdays are celebrated as the day of Mary, the mother of Jesus (especially first Saturdays of the month), and today is just such a day. Of course I wanted to join in on the celebration! Blue is also "the color" of Mary, so I decided to wear my blue socks. I have socks for every occasion really. On the feast days of martyrs of the church I wear red argyle socks. On Fridays (in memory of Good Friday) I wear black socks. On feast days of priests I wear black argyle socks. On occassion I'll wear a pair of tan and green argyles just for the heck of it! But today was a blue sock Saturday (you'll have to excuse the poor photo quality; Apologus De Colegio has yet to make any investment in photo technology):

Today I had to bike to a different church than the one I normally go to. I should add that I passed at least 4 churches on my 3 mile excursion! At any rate, I got back at about 9, and the whole University is dead. Roy was still sleeping (so I figured I shouldn't do homework there), I can't go to the dinning hall for another hour and aside from those two activities, I'm wasn't sure what else I could do... so I decided to do a load of laundry. Normally you won't see these double headers, but the laundry room is across from the computer lab, and after visiting the restroom I still had 36 minutes before my washer was done, and I'll still have 40 minutes before the dryer is done after that. That's somethin', huh?

My anthropology professor begins class by telling a joke that the Indian tribe he researches would find funny. The joke yesterday was a practical joke story, in which the practical joker though he killed his friend for a week: I guess they have a different sense of humor? At any rate, here is a short comedic story to end things: the non-alchohol nightclub on campus was throwing it's first monthy "Hook-Up Club" festivity last night. Those attending were supposed to wear green if they were 'avaliable', red if they were 'taken', and yellow if they 'could be persuaded' (go, stop, and slow down... kind of clever huh?). Roy wanted to go to this, but he didn't have a green shirt, so he asked me if I had one. I was wearing a dark green shirt at the time, and the only other green shirt I have is a very light green... neither would do. So I offered Roy a green cardigan of mine, which was actually my first cardigan (I now have 4, to match whichever color I'm wearing), and I affectionatly refer to it as Carlyle (not Carlisle!). Take a good look at that stud:

And I said, "now tell me Roy, you don't think that when the girls see you in this wonderful green cardigan that they aren't going to be all over you?" He disagreed with my assesment of the situation and went off in a neon yellow/green number. Everybody got back around 2am, at which point I had already been asleep for a few hours. I brought a "talking" alarm clock with me, which I won in elementry school for selling wrapping paper, that announces the hour on the hour, and announces the time when you push on the top of it. I turned up the volume all the way and pushed it, and it shouted "two o' three, am", at which point somebody in the hall way said "boy, that's loud", and continued on their rocous ways.

Oh well... I got to see the steam come off the river at 7am, while they were all soundly asleep.

The First Week: Nothing

I have been at college for 5 days now, and had 3 days of class. I have delayed writing anything about them because, well, there is nothing to write about. I've been utterly bored every day, but that's what I'll write about!

Monday I had orientation, so that kept me occupied until night, at which point I took a long walk. Eau Claire is a city of many churches (watch for an upcoming post... many of them are quite beautiful!), and on my walk I encountered a Lutheran Church that was ringing hymns from their bell tower. That was quite enjoyable.

Tuesday I spent reviewing Calculus. I am in Calculus II right now because I tested out of the first class. But I forgot much of my Calculus over the summer, so I thought it was fitting to review it. It was actually quite fun, doing 6 hours of Calculus problems... I am a math major though.

Wednesday was the first day of classes. One of the things I didn't realize about college is that you only spend 2 hours in class a day (which I did realize), but what I didn't realize is that you then have 6 hours of extra time that you're used to spending in school, not to mention the time you're used to spending on homework! It makes for a lot of spare time. Not to mention that my Anthropology class was only 15 minutes long, being dismissed 35 minutes early.

Thursday was a longer day: 4 hours of classes. Even still, I found time to take a long walk, celebrate the feast day of St. Gregory (from whom we get Gregorian chant from) by chanting two of the hours (that was a slew of linkable words!). That night I was required to attend "Party House" which was something the college put on about drinking. I was given some root beer and shown into a staged "party", complete with inebriated women acting stupidly! I asked how to exit (it wasn't my thing...) and I was told I don't. They didn't even give me that much root beer, and now they lock me in! What kind of life is this partying anyways? Thankfully, by way of shouting "the cops are here!" (I laughed...), I was escorted into another room, where I was given an envelope, which told me the outcome of my night of debauchery. Luckily I "dogged the bullet", and made it back without harm or punishment. A few presentations about drinking later, and I was escorted into a hall to hear a Mr. Green warn us against drinking. All in all it was rather uneventful in my eyes, though I don't plan on drinking... it was something to do I suppose.

Today I had only 2 hours of class again. Right around 1 I decided that it was useless to read my accounting book simply for the sake of reading it, and decided that reading it (with purpose this time!) on Saturday would be a good option, so I read Moby Dick under an excellent shade tree, and then took a long walk around Eau Claire. Then I did a load of laundry, did a few Calculus problems (for fun really, if you can imagine such a situation) and went to dinner with my roommate Roy and some of his friends. (A post about Roy should come soon... to whet your appetite, he likes to listen to the Backstreet boys and sings along!).

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the post office to pick up stamps and envelopes, and read my accounting book. Perhaps I'll go for a swim in the river! Many kids are floating down the river these days. Monday is Sausage Fest at my dorm a most masculine get together over sausages from all nationalities, in celebration of the only all-male dorm on campus! I've grown quite cynical at seeing girls in the dorm hallways: I like thinking of my room as a sanctuary for males, which no female will ever see, but my interest in the opposite sex is decidedly different than the average college male's, and I suppose that changes things quite a bit.

Until next time, perchance you'd be interested in what I learned in calculus today: the wonders of the number e, or perhaps you are understandably frightened when a number is given a letter name... actually, it's the number x at which the integral of (1/t)dt, from 1 to x is equal to 1. That's a full 4 letters, and a wacky squiggle with a number on the bottom and a letter of the top, which somehow equals a measly one! What fun math is when it involves more squiggles and letters than actual numbers! Though I repeat, I am a math major.

My Books

Today I began packing up everything I own into boxes to be hauled away to UWEC. A short, angry digression can be inserted, if the reader wishes:

The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire set up my move in time from 10 - 12, Sunday the 30th. It bugs me to no end because the must know that some folks go to Church on Sunday, and more over that these church services notoriously start at 9, 10 and 11.

I decided long ago that I wasn't going to fall into the Target dorm room way of doing things. No, I want instead to have such a room:


You'll note the contents: a bed, a place for praying (with a large crucifix, and a few books), a stove (which will be replaced by a coffee maker, for tea), and a desk. So much more beautiful. Yet I am not quite a Carthusian yet. I'd gladly not eat meat, wear sandles in the snow and exit my cell but three times a day, but I cannot as of yet give up my books. I need my books. They are an extension of my mind, in fact. I am not quite whole if I do not have Aquinas at the hand. I'm a stunted man if I cannot decide, on a whim, to read Fitzgerald. Take away everything else but my books.

I assembled a large under bed storage container to hold them all. It is far to heavy for a man of my stature to carry comfortably, but it is simply a necessity.

Term Papers, Extrodinary Books, my Email, etc.

I am writing my term paper for Contemporary Social Problems (as I write, actually) on "The Sociological Implications of Immodesty". That is my Providence Academy education way of saying America is debt ridden, excessive and entitled, all three to it's detriment.

In 2 weeks time (Sunday the 30th to be exact) I will be moving into my dorm room. Classes don't start for sometime after that, so I'll have plenty of time to blog about all of the wild things happening on campus. I have a bet with my dad that I will be able to locate a keg in a dorm room in the first 30 days of being there. I don't think it will be hard, as 30% of the college professes not to drink. I'm shocked for two reasons: first, that means 40% of underage kids are drinking, (even higher if less than 100% of the aged kids drink), and secondly, what a bold university, that 4 in 10 kids who could get arrested for drinking told the school they do drink. At least it isn't Madison, which has made every party school list to come before my eyes this year.

A big part of this blog will be all the whimsical non-heady things I do in college, so here is one such story. Well, it's not entirely whimsical, begining with the preface which is needed: Vespers is a organized prayer of the Catholic Church that priests pray, along with anybody else who wants to. There are books dedicated to how it goes (parts of it are different every day, sort of like how the news broadcast has the same general form each day, but there are different stories every day). I recently bought one such book, entitled the Liturgia Horarum. So I showed up to my favorite place for all things extraordinarily Catholic, St. Agnes in St. Paul for their Vespers service on Sunday. That was actually a pun, because the extrodinary form is the old, Latin, incense, gold way of doing things, while the ordinary form is the way most churches do things now (though there is still Latin, incense and gold). Both are perfectly acceptable now adays, by the way. At any rate, I thought that the extrodinary/ordinary division only had to do with the mass, but it has to do with Vespers too, so I showed up with my 'ordinary' book, thinking I was really cool. Well, the folks leading the service noticed I had the wrong book (I was in the front row, but still, quite the vision for these old men), so one of them came down and gave me the right book (the Liber Usualis... the extrodinary one, as it were), and told me how everything went, while it was all going on! How kind of them! So, after a wildly awesome gesture to meet him in the rectory as he was processing out, I gave him the book back. One of the other guys back in the rectory (this really does relate to collge) asked me if I was a student at the seminary, and I told him that I was going to Eau Claire. The Decon who gave me the book told me that he grew up in Chippewa Falls, and told me about an 'extrodinary' church off of Highway 53. I was EXTATIC, because I had long been bemoaning the excessivly ordinary nature of things.

If you made it all the way through that doozy of a story I'd tend to think your a dedicated reader of this little publication. So here's how you can be involved even more:

1) tell other people (who know yours truely, preferably) about this blog
2) leave a comment at the bottom of the page by clicking on the "O comments" button (in hopes of making it "1 comment"!). This will require a google account, or you can even squeeze by with a few other types of things. In short, you gotta sign up for stuff.
3) if your not into the signing up for stuff, you can send me an email. Because of all the spam floting around the internet you'll have to solve a bit of a puzzle to email me:

pistilli (dot) tony (at) gmail (dot) com

or you could think of it this way

lastname.firstname@gmail.com

Pardon the cryptics, but I only want to get your emails. Hope to hear from you!

The College Age Mind

In response to the discussion question, "Describe the difference between personal problems and social problems. Give an example," Miss Frea, my fellow classmate, contributed:

Social problems are those that affect a specific group of people like the wage gap between genders. Personal problems are those that affect a specific person on individual breakup like being fired, or my own personal problem at the moment: my boyfriend of a year breaking up with me.

I always thought the most unfortunate aspect of high school was that it was full of high schoolers, and perhaps college will be the same way. Gosh, I hope not.

Oh boy, oh boy

Economics went well, but social problems is proving a particularily difficult pill to swallow. For outraged discussions of free nature, objective reality and the like, you know where to go. Over here I think I will simply share my frustration in song. Well, several songs. See, there is this great poem entitled "Dies Irae (Days of Wrath)" which is part of the Requiem Mass. It has been given quite a treatment over the years.

Here's how it starts:

Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets' warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!

First, in the original gregorian chant:


Verdi:


Mozart:

What IS a bluegold?

I decided to embrace my school colors here at Apologus. They are the same as my wonderful highschool's colors. Hopefully they will be alike in more than in just color.

I'd embrace my mascot too, but I don't know what it is: a Blugold.

Shredded Letterhead

Since we last spoke I discovered that there was an extra $30 charge on online classes, in addition to regular tuition; in short my amassed millions from all of my working days could purchase myself 2 classes at the Good University. I began Economics 104: Macro Economics today. I'm actually writting this inbetween reading about "purposeful behavior" and "marginal analysis". I know why economics is called "the dismal science", but that sort of conversation will go on elsewhere.

I also received the name of my roommate. I was very much hoping for a Mexican (thinking all Mexican's are Catholic) named Jose de la Jesus. Me and him would hang a papal flag from our window and dedicate a wall to our huge crucifix and all of our collected iconogrophy, paying special attention to the virgin martyrs, our favorite group of saints. But alas my roomate is apparently no such man. Such conversations seem to be a bit rushed at the current moment though.

Lastly, I ripped up my first peice of UWEC letterhead this week. My distaste for the enviromentalist movement which has been blindly embraced and exaulted got the better of me. I'm no supportor of slobs of any sort, but the envirmoentalists we encounter on a daily basis strike me as less-than-rational.

The University of Wisconsin: Eau Claire

You can go to college for two reasons: to get a degree that will place you in a career, or to pursue universal knowledge. I would have rather pursued universal knowledge at Thomas Aquinas, but the way things worked out, I've been relegated to the sort of college where you go and get a degree: the University of Wisconsin: Eau Claire. Maria's Music will have something to say about universal knowledge one of these days. At any rate, I am signed up as an actuarial science major. Actuaries do lots of math, like figuring out your insurance rates. Depending on how many credits I can get out of the way in the summers, and how many credits I get as a result of AP Tests next week I may double major in English Literature Education also.

I'm still waiting for some paperwork to get through, but hopefully I will be taking Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Introduction to World Religions online this summer. 9 credits (including a rather palpable way to swallow my diversity credit) for $90. Not bad.

Accepted

I was accepted to all three schools I applied to (Indiana University, U of W Eau Claire and Thomas Aquinas College). I didn't bother pursing my Berklee Application because I realized that I would die if I didn't have all of the excellent ways to pursue God that I've had in highschool. Yes, I need philosophy, theology, literature, a good Church and Eucharistic adoration to survive. The soul dies quickly when it is starved!

Thomas Aquinas is obviously the coolest, best, most YES (ala Cummings "everything which is natural, which is infinante, which is yes", in reference to God's goodness) institution of higher learning ever. Ever. Yet it is also expensive, as most awsome private colleges are... if God wants me to go there I will get a very large scholarship. Same thing with Indiana, except the only reason I'd go there is for music, with the horrible fear that my soul might catch nemonioa in my first two weeks there, and there won't be any doctors or medication around to cure me. I have the same problems with Eau Claire, but it's cheap.

College, at it's minimum (which isn't an unrealistic possibility) is going to be a trade off: I get a bachelors degree, they get my time and money. Any spiritual progress I make or (of infinantly less importance, especially in the context of The Imitation of Christ, my current read) any academic learning will be added bonuses. I have yet to buy into the idea that I need to recreate myself at college, or that it will change my life. God recreates me and changes my life, but I guess college could be God's way of speaking to me. He has chosen weirder areas to work.

Pray for me!