K Now I'm Upset

Started playing FFXI again. 'Cause it's fun. I like FFXI.

The linkshell (guild-type thing) that I'm in has a lot of people who use the word gay as an insult.

I asked on our forums nicely and reasonably for people to stop.

Responses are fucking terrible. Ugh. Just tried to do something good, something easy, simple, and good. A small change. People fucking suck, though.

First bad response I got was "You shouldn't have posted this here."

Isn't the right to be a comfortable something to be discussed with everyone? Shouldn't everyone know there is nothing wrong with being gay? Or at least isn't the issue of respect something that should be discussed with everybody?

Jesus lord. This makes me so upset.

Another response I got that was more on the UGH I HATE PEOPLE side was, "I don't really care because I've known gay people who call stuff "hetero" as an insult."

I'd have the same damn problem with them, too. Fuck. This is so annoying to me.

The last response I got, right now, is "Gay is a derogatory term for homosexual people, so it doesn't matter that I use it in a derogatory way."

Since when is gay a derogatory term? Shit, I wasn't aware. If it is, someone let me know, please? Holy fuck.

All I've got to say is I'm fucking pissed. I was being so nice. So reasonable. Just wanted a small change.

Oh well, this is why I'm an ally. Fuck stupid people who can't think of others.

Here's the thread  here if you want to check it out yourself.

It's Just the Small, Simple Things

...that make me so happy. That let me know you care.

It's fucking awesome.

There's Nothing Like the Feeling

...of falling for someone new. ♥

Still Thinkin' About You

I want to write more blogs about you. I wish I had written more before all this, too, just so I could see you smile about them! Sunshine. You are my sunshine now. You're so wonderful for me. So wonderful. And I know you're worried. Worried that you might hurt me, but I promise you it'll be okay. I'm tough. And you're a lot less mean than you think, hun. I'm also super prepared to be there for you. I mean, I've always been, as much as possible anyway. But like, now, I really get to be there for you and it makes me so happy. Lean on me just as much as I lean on you. We're in this together now, y'know? This isn't a one-sided relationship. Because it is a relationship. I want to be there when you're upset. I want to be the one you talk to. The one that helps you get through your mind. I want to be the person who you can say anything to. So don't be afraid. Even if what's on your mind might possibly hurt me -- the best thing for us to do is talk. Even if things are upsetting, it'll be okay, we'll work through it. I know you're stubborn, and sometimes I am, too. But I'm not worried. I think it'll be fine. It'll be okay. And that everything is going to work out in the end and this will be wonderful. I mean, c'mon, it already is. I just still, cannot explain how damned excited I am to be with you. You have made me so happy in the last few weeks. There's been something of a hole in my life that needed filling (as cliche as it is) and you really, really, filled that space. And when I think of filling in holes I think of planting flowers... and I think our relationship will produce beautiful blooms. I'm so excited. I'm not scared in the least. I'm not worried in the least. I trust you. I know you trust me, too. So all we have to do is keep working together to make each other happy. I got this. You got this. Let's go. Keep going, keep strong. You're wonderful. Everything is going to be okay. We'll see each other lots this summer, I'll make sure of it. Gosh... I just want to be for you everything you are for me. And I know this is a lot, and a rather intense little post, especially for us only being together for not so long, but like, I'm not going to sit around and pretend I don't care about you as much as I do because of silly little time. I'm sure you already have an idea of how much I care by just how our friendship went -- or you should, anyway! You're one of the few people I would happily (this is a key word) drop anything for. You've always meant so much to me, and man oh man, now I get to be with you. I always want you to know that I'll be there for you, and I'm going to care, and I will not abandon you because you're going through a hard time. I like relationships. And the more work you put into them, the better they become. I'm prepared. I'm crazy about you. This blog. This blog, man. I don't write like this too often, but you inspire me. You inspire me to be better, and to write, and you make me feel beautiful. It's been so long since I've really felt beautiful. I just-- I just cannot fully express how happy I am. You're the best. And you're really freaking cool, too!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Also: Infected Mushroom is going to be fucking awesome.

Post 700

↑ Just so you know.

All I can really think to say right now is I am incredibly happy.

It has been a very long two years.

But this... this is so worth it.

The face... the smile... the goofy grin... so many things. So many things are right in the world right now.

It's one of those feelings that is sappy and cliche and silly, but y'know, man. Just so happy.

How can a person express how happy they are in mere words? I don't fuckin' know. I just try.

Try and try and try and try. That's all I can do. That's all I ever do.

And every once in a while, all that damn persistent hard ass work pays off.

God, I'm just so happy. So happy. I could cry. I really could, but I'm not going to. My brother will prolly make fun of me. Hah.

So I've not really been blogging a whole lot recently. Don't exactly know why. It's not Tumblr. Tumblr is a time kill. A silly, silly, silly time kill that happens to have lots of cute animals on it.

(Love cute animals!)

GOSH BUT I DON'T EVEN CARE 'CAUSE I'M SO DAMN HAPPY.

It's just like,

that feeling,

you get,

when you look into someone's eyes,

and you cannot help but smile,

can't think, can't do anything else,

because they've made such a wonderful impact on your life,

and silly words cannot express how... just simply how grateful you are that you got the chance to meet them,

and y'know, be in their life, too.

Man. Just so happy. So happy. SO HAPPY.

I miss him. But it'll be okay. It'll be good.

I'm so happy. So happy.

This is all for you. You are the cocaine in my veins, and the acid beneath my wings. :D

BWAHAHAHAHAAHAH

Good night word, I'll see ya in like 12 hours when I wake up.

Gotta see Cindy tomorrow, I think!

Oh and Churchy people, too! Yahoo!

Darlene McCoy
Karen Barad
FMST 80K
6 June 2011
The Supernova's Entanglement with Philosophy, Physics, and the World
    The lights in the sky have fascinated human kind ever since they had the capability to tilt their heads up toward the heavens and see them. They were once believed to be messages of the Gods by early priests, who then declared that their interpretations of the stars were divine. Since then, the stars have always been recorded, and among those recordings lay an enormous flux in luminosity from one area in the night sky. This gigantic flux in luminosity, recorded by Chinese astronomers in 185 CE, is the first supernovae on record. A supernova is the final event in a star's life: it is a massive explosion that reduces the star to a mere fraction of its original mass in a few seconds. A supernova releases an enormous amount of radiation, even as much as the sun is expected to over its entire life, at 10% the speed of light. The radiation drives a shock wave through the surrounding space, and the shock wave sweeps up the expanding gas and dust from the star, then leaves it behind as a supernova remnant.  The explosion is so bright that it can possibly outshine an entire galaxy, thus making mankind wonder as to why one section of their sky is incredibly bright for some amount of months. Through they wondered, it took almost 2,000 years for the term "Supernovae" to be coined by Fritz Zwicky. How is it that this image of a star exploding materialized in the human mind? How did history, science, people, and the world have to intra-act for supernovae to exist as they do today?
    Astronomy began with the Gods, and it took some time for human thought to disassociate the stars with them. The common masses believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, as they were taught by the Bible. They also believed that the universe was centered around the Earth due to the work of Claudius Ptolemaeus, an astronomer from Egypt, who published the treatise Almgest, which explained the universe as celestial bodies revolving around Earth, which remained at rest in the center of the universe. This geocentric model of the universe was not called into question until the Renaissance, when Nicolas Copernicus looked to the skies himself, and challenged all that people thought they knew about the world and its workings. He published his ground-breaking book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres shortly before he died due to either fear of religious persecution or the philosophical or scientific rejection of his idea of a heliocentric model of the universe. In his book, Copernicus appeals to the Pope, and tries to explain why he would question the teachings of the Bible:
Occasioned by this [the disagreements] I also began to think of the motion of the earth, and although the idea seemed absurd, still as others before me had been permitted to assume certain circles [the epicycles and loops] in order to explain the motions of the stars, I believed it would readily be permitted me to try whether on the assumption of some motion of the earth better explanations of the revolutions of the heavenly spheres might be found. . . . When the motions of the other planets are referred to circulation of the earth and are computer for the revolution of each star, not only do the phenomena necessarily follow thereform, but the order and magnitude of the stars and all their orbs and the heavens itself are so connected that in no part can everything be transposed without confusion to the rest and to the whole universe. (Motz, Llyod, Weaver, 63)
    Nicolas' intra-actions with prior knowledge allowed him to build new knowledge, and bring about a new way of thinking about the universe. Though he did not have physical objects to deem as apparatus at the time, Copernicus had his mind to make agential cuts -- he included some of the work of his predecessors, but not all of it. He chose to exclude prior knowledge to create new knowledge. The cost to make new knowledge was the work of his predecessors that did not continue to be regarded as fact after his work was published. Copernicus' work also cost him peace of mind, for he was far too afraid to publish his work until he thought it was definitive and true.
    Copernicus' work was taken up by Tycho Brahe, who attempted to create a model to appease science and religion. He did not readily accept Copernicus' model, so he created a model of the universe with the Earth at the center of the universe, with the Sun revolving around it, and the planets revolving around the Sun. Tycho was also one of the first men to observe a supernova. He noticed an incredibly luminous star in the sky in 1572 and watched as it eventually returned to the brightness of the other stars. Tycho was indeed brilliant, but because he rejected Copernicus' heliocentric model, he could not progress scientific knowledge as far as his mind would allow. Instead, his assistant, Johannes Kepler, became the man to be revered for his progress in figuring out the workings of the world.    
    Kepler, in looking over Brahe's work and doing some of his own, discovered that the planetary obit of Mars was off by about eight minutes of arc. After some computations, he deemed that Mars' orbit was off by eight minutes not due to an error in observation made by Brahe, but because the orbits of the planets are elliptical, not circular. This discovery, also known as Kepler's first law of planetary motion, broke through scientific thought at the time and did away with the idea of the planets having circular orbits. He also discovered that there had to be some force in the universe propelling the planets to move as they were, which lead to the most famous light-bulb moment of all time. (Motz, Llyod, Weaver 69-89).
    That light-bulb moment would be none other than the moment an apple fell on Isaac Newton's head. Newton formed his theory of gravity from this minor incident, and then changed the scientific world forever. Newton might not have formed his theory of gravity if Kepler did not propose the idea of some force holding the universe together, but because he did, gravity is a force that no man in the scientific world would willingly question today. The intra-action of their knowledge allowed Newton to be in the right place and mindset to have the breakthrough that he did. Furthermore, that breakthrough solidified more questionable science from the past, meaning Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and helped materialize man's conception of the universe and its workings.
    Without Isaac Newton's theory of gravity and the creation of calculus by his hand, more modern scientists would have never gotten the chance to think about how to contend with Newton's strict determinism. They would not have even had the apparatus, calculus, to make cuts that determined the new scientific laws each man set forth. If Einstein did not have the correct tools to formulate his Theory of Relativity, he might not have at all, but because he was blessed with the earlier intra-actions of the history of physics and astronomy, he was able to cut out from the knowledge formulating in his head the speed of light, which is quite the necessary component in measuring supernovae.
    In 1803, Thomas Young performed a two slit experiment that changed the way people thought about physics forever (Barad 98). He found that if diffracted one way, a particle would behave as a wave, and if diffracted in another way, it would behave as a particle. Because of this experiment, other scientists began to study light diffraction more in depth, and discovered how to create lasers, and how to record light visible and invisible to the human eye. Light diffraction is fundamental in understanding how supernovae are measured.
    The key way astronomers measure supernovae in the present time is through technology known as optical interferometry. Supernovae are not local phenomenon -- they are light years away -- and so the naked human eye cannot hope to measure one. Technology today, even, has just barley gotten to the point where stars outside of the Milky Way Galaxy can be measured using telescopes. Optical interferometry works much as Young's diffraction experiment did -- there are just some additional steps in order to ensure accuracy. On each side of the apparatus, a telescope collects light from whichever source is the current subject of interest. The light is then propagated by mirrors into an area where it is combined into a beam. The beam is further propagated by mirrors into what is called a delay line, which accommodates for the Earth's rotation. Then, the light is sent to a beam-splitter, and depending on the phase relationship of the waves, differing amounts of energy will be transmitted or reflected at the site of the beam splitting. Then, single-pixel detectors can measure the energy on both sides (Monnier 810-816). From those recordings, computers can generate images of supernovae, and scientists can use the energy measurements to determine an array of characteristics of the star of which the energy came from. Thus, because humans have a visual stimulant and scientific data proving a supernova's existence, the idea of a supernova materializes in the human mind as an object. Yet, it seems now that the word object seems like such a funny way to describe a supernova. The intra-actions of the world and its inhabitants in a certain way at certain times that allowed the supernova to materialize in the human mind are not so common as to simply label them as things that just exist. Supernovae only exist due to the material-discursive pratices that brought about the technology to cut them from their apparatuses into something that has meaning and matters.  How could they simply be describes as objects, then? Is it not phenomenal that the world worked in a certain way to create a concept in the human mind?
    What if all objects in the world were thought of as phenomena? How would a different epistemological look on the world change it? Supernovae were also only brought into the human mind by the practices that were not included in their development. By looking at the past and conceptualization of supernovae, the entirety of the history of physics becomes incredibly entangled. But for those physics to take place, other science, other ideas, other people, had to be excluded. Science is generally seen as wholly objective, but even in sciences that do not directly affect different types of people, purely physical sciences, there are ideas that are excluded, there are ideas that have been lost, and not all of them have been in the name of science alone, for which human can truly say that he is entirely objective in his work? What has that exclusion cost the world?

It's Going to Be Really Hard

to express how happy I am in coherent words...

so I'm just going to sit here and make weird noises instead.

adbjfwwiuarhg;kfbvak;ebrg NER NERRR NERRR

:) <3

Darlene McCoy
Bruce Thompson
LTMO 144D
31 May 2011
Ghosts in the Big City
    Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote short stories. He wrote stories about life, loss, love, religion, and his uncanny nack to do so at such a high ability earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. He was a man raised in the Jewish Orthodox tradition in a shtetl; and a man who brought his experiences there with him when he immigrated to the United States in 1935. He was a man who lived through the times of the Holocaust, and who saw the decimation of his people. He was a man who believed in the supernatural, and who wrote them into his tales of American-Jewish life. Two of his greatest tales, "The Cafeteria" and "A Wedding in Brownsville" are examples of his great work.
    Both of these works take place in New York, a place not particularly known for the supernatural and ghosts, yet Singer manages to make his stories seem plausible through his characters' musings and the settings where said characters ponder. The setting for each tale is essentially the title of the story --  in "A Wedding in Brownsville" action comes to pass at a wedding, and "The Cafeteria's" central plot revolves around a cafeteria. The two places share a common attribute: the local masses are a large presence in each setting. These local masses call themselves Jewish, but the protagonist of each story cringes at their self-description. Aaron, "The Cafeteria's" protagonist, describes the unruly masses he finds in the cafeteria as "People who try in their own way with all their means to grab as many honors and as much money and prestige as one can" (287-289). He does not see how they can call themselves Jewish, for the Jewish faith does not endorse a money-grubbing way of life. When he arrives at the wedding, Solomon, "A Wedding in Brownsville's" narrator notes the self-indulgent joy taking place in the room, "The room was filled with people and music, with tables heaped with food, a bar stacked with bottles. Guests kept arriving, pushing their way through the crowd, some still in their hats and coats, munching hors d'oeuvres, drinking schnapps" (46). All of the people in attendance of the wedding denote themselves as Jewish as well, but the Solomon does not feel that a self-indulgent lifestyle is much of the Jewish tradition. He even feels that some of the attendees will regard him as a snob for not wanting to take part in the festivities as other guests. The main theme that emerges from both of these settings is that American Judaism has evolved into a way of life that is no longer traditionally Jewish. It is plausible that the more traditionally Jewish people may be seen as ghosts of the past.
    The two protagonists of the tales share a common trait as well: they are mostly alone in the world. Aaron is a single bachelor who is quite devoted to his work as a writer. His main interaction with other people comes from his visits to the cafeteria, but he sees them as people who come and go, and does not care for anyone in particular. He describes his interactions with his community as, "I know each block, each house. There has been little building here on uptown Broadway in the last decades, and I have the illusion of having put down roots here. They known me in some of the stores and in the vegetarian restaurants. Even the pigeons know me" (288). Solomon is married, but he is married to a woman who best fits him, not the woman who he was madly in love with in the old country. Furthermore, Solomon attends the wedding alone, and the story describes his relationship with the other attendees as "Dr. Margolin knew everybody, and yet knew nobody" (46). Even among people who should be considered his own, he feel as if he is a misfit. A ghost among a crowd of living people would be quite misfitted, indeed.
    A more physical attribute of each setting is the simple fact that a significant number of people congregate at weddings and in cafeterias. While a ghost representing an old way of life would still be unexpected to appear, it is more plausible for a ghost to appear in a public area with lots of people than a secluded one without masses.
    Each tale is written from a limited point of view. "The Cafeteria" is a first person narrative, and "A Wedding in Brownsville" is written in a third-person limited point of view. The reader only knows as much as the narrator can see, and he can only recount his experience from his perspective to his audience. Therefore, the experiences in each tale may be quite different if told by another. This discernment allows for the idea of a more supernatural narrator to creep into the minds of the audience.
    At a point in the text of a well-written short story, a reader becomes engaged with the text. Since "The Cafeteria" and "A Wedding in Brownsville" are regarded as well written short stories, there are points of engagement in each tale. The exact point of engagement will differ from reader to reader, since all people think differently and have different interests, but the point that seems most prominent as the point of engagement in these two tales is the point in the short story where there is a mentioning of fallen Jewish values. In "The Cafeteria," Aaron mentions that "None of us learn from all of these deaths. Old age does not cleanse us. We don't repent at the gate of hell" (288). These words imply that simply growing old does not wash the sins of youth away. In "A Wedding in Brownsville," the narrator says, in regards to Solomon's wife Gretl, "Even she, born a Christian, could see that American Judaism was a mess" (43). These points in each text seem so prominent because of the original audience these short stories were published for. "The Cafeteria" and "A Wedding in Brownsville" were both originally written in Yiddish and published in Jewish newspapers in New York, the greatest center for Jewish life in the world at the time. The fall of Jewish values would have been quite the issue for the population of that place, at that time.
    Another general goal of short story telling is to invoke some sort of emotion out of the reader or audience. Singer's ability to invoke emotion is at its highest when he describes incredibly human values and feelings. In "The Cafeteria," one of the stories Aaron hears is about a man who had a shop in Auschwitz, the largest German concentration camp. When he inquires more about the tale, a man responds, "God help us. He kept his merchandise in the straw where he slept - a rotten potato, sometimes a piece of soap, a tin spoon, a little fat. Still, he did business. Later, in Germany, he became such a big smuggler that they took forty thousand dollars away from him" (293). The image of a man selling "merchandise" out of the very straw he sleeps on to other people in the same, grotesque situation as he, is not only heartbreaking, but infuriating. How could this man even think to call himself Jewish? How could he deny any help to others in sure dire need? Is money worth humanity? This small little story in Singer's larger tale is one to tug at the heartstrings of all who call themselves human. It invokes horrid images, and even more horrid behavior due to situations that should have never been fathomed as reality. In "A Wedding in Brownsville," the narrator states at the beginning of the story that Solomon never married his true love, Raizel. At the end of the tale, Solomon is reunited with this young lady, and the narrator describes the situation in fantastic detail, "He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, but at any moment someone might come in. He stood besides her, ashamed that he had married someone else, that he had not personally confirmed the reports of her death" (48). The moment at which a person reunited with a long lost love is not a moment to be scoffed at. It is a wonderful, amazing beautiful moment and also a moment that many a human has the ability to imagine. The idea of love is also one that is universally moving. People sometimes die for love and whatnot. It's quite the emotion.
    Because ghosts in New York city are a little out of the ordinary, it comes as a surprise to the reader that there are ghosts in these stories. Singer is extremely skilled at turning a story upside down in a line or two. In "A Wedding in Brownsville," the plot takes an unexpected twist when the Solomon realizes that the girl before him is indeed Raizel, but she is of the age that he knew her back in the old country. He is older. The progression of time makes no sense in his head, as it should, so he begins to consider other, otherworldly reasons why Raizel stands before him. Solomon comes to the conclusion that he may have died as well. He might have died earlier in the story, when his taxi cab's driver slammed on the breaks due to a collision in front of them. He realizes that he has no clue as to whether he is living or dead. He then recalls dancing in a drunk-dead state. A drunken dead state would be much out of the Jewish tradition, and it might have just "killed" his Jewishness and converted him to the American-Jewish tradition he is so unaffectionate towards. He might have gained the ability to see Raizel through death, because she, in his eyes, is dead, and has been. "The Cafeteria's" plot twist comes as just as much as a surprise as the one in "A Wedding in Brownsville." Aaron, while at the cafeteria, meets a woman named Esther, and continues to have casual, sparatic, and strange relations with her. They become friends, but Esther sometimes disappears for random amounts of time, and Aaron generally does not have much of an idea about her whereabouts. One day, Esther tells Aaron that she has been deemed insane by many a person. He inquires as to why anyone would think so, and she tells him a little tale. One late night, she could not sleep, so she decided to wander the streets of Broadway around three AM. She came upon a cafeteria, and observed an eerie, glowing light emitting from he building. She could not peer in due to drawn blinds, but when she opened the revolving door to the premises, she saw a scene that would haunt her, and cause her insanity. Esther says that she saw Hitler and some fellow followers sitting around a table, dressed in white robes. She stood in terror, shocked, until one of the followers noticed her, and then she fled. She found the building burnt to the ground the following day, and attributed it to the scene she had seen the night before. Later in the tale, Aaron is wandering about Broadway late at night when he spies Esther, in the best shape he had ever seen her, with an old man from his past. Due to time constraints, Aaron decides not to make contact with her, and instead spends nights wondering who exactly the man with her was. In order to learn more, he inquires about Esther a few days later at the cafeteria. A man there tells Aaron that she had committed suicide quite some time ago. Confused and baffled, Aaron comes to the conclusion that ghosts could walk the streets of New York, and therefore, there is no reason why Hitler would not be present at a cafeteria in New York. He draws the conclusion that Esther and Hitler would both be ghosts, but his perception of the world only allowed him to see Esther.
    These elements of the two short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer are small scratches at the meaning behind his words. They are simply general elements of most short stories, and therefore more readily discussable. He was indeed, a fantastic author whose work will echo throughout Jewish literature for times to come.