Sunday, March 27, 2005My Commencement Speech
I have not delivered this speech to anyone. At least, not yet. If I am selected as this year's student commencement speaker then I may deliver it May 14th at the Portland (Maine) Cumberland County Civic Center. In the meantime, read what I wrote. Let me know if you like it.
I want to thank the University of Southern Maine and you, the graduating students, for this opportunity to speak to you. Congratulations on all that you have achieved.
I am a ‘non-traditional student’. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in 2000 from the University of Connecticut. I had a double-major: Philosophy and German. I spent two semesters studying at a German university. I left college with high marks and a beautifully printed degree. I proceeded to flounder around, unsure about where to go or what to do. Graduate school for Philosophy seemed like the way to go for a while. But then I realized that this would (quite possibly) lead to a career involving questions no deeper than, “do you want fries with that?” I didn’t have the passion for the pursuit of Philosophy for its own sake. I discovered that I do have a passion for teaching and for science and this is what brings me here to USM. I am no more sure about anything than I was before: the difference is that I’m now doing something I love.
But life isn’t about school and school can only do so much to prepare you for life. And our lives are no less difficult today than were the lives of our parents and grandparents. We live in a world with a great deal of sorrow and war, poverty and tragedy. No, I admit that the whole world is not terrible. All the same, it’s difficult not to be cynical. Some would say that you have to be young, naïve or both to believe that there is a chance for economic justice and true and lasting peace among nations. Kurt Vonnegut, summarizing the sayings and doings of youth in his novel Jailbird said that “Young people still refuse to see the obvious impossibility of world disarmament and economic equality.” Vonnegut’s voice is unmistakable. He sounds awfully cynical, saying that world disarmament and economic equality are obviously impossible.
But that isn’t what he’s saying.
He’s saying that when we allow ourselves to believe that such ideals are ‘obviously impossible’ they become impossible in fact. Sure, neither you nor I (as individuals) can bring about world peace. But cynically saying that any well-informed member of society must accept abominable poverty, sickness, hatred and war as facts of life is unacceptable. Only hope and hard work can bring about change in the world. Call me naïve but I believe that there is reason for hope.
Gathered here today are people who believe in the future. You have chosen to better yourselves by education. Gathered here today are people who believe in the pursuit of truth and beauty. You have distinguished yourselves by your academic pursuits. Here today gathered are people who give me hope that the world we leave our children will be better than the world we were given. I believe that you “refuse to see the obvious impossibility of world disarmament and economic equality.” My hope is that you will always refuse to see this. My hope is that you will not relinquish hope but will instead work to further truth, justice and peace in the world.
We have a choice about the way we see the world. It is not a simple choice but an important part of it is whether we decide to be full of cynicism or hope. Choose hope.
Thank you.
posted by Aaron @ 06:21 AM EST [.]Thursday, March 17, 2005No More Comments
To my reading public:
(If there is such.) Too many jerks have been spamming my blog with 'comments' about online casinos. Who knows what might be next? It seems that I can't prevent this abuse. In addition I don't get any real comments. So I've decided to remove the opportunity. If you want to comment on something send me an email and if you'd like me to I'll post it here.
posted by Aaron @ 11:29 PM EST [.] [Karma: -1 (+/-)]Monday, March 14, 2005Memory
Random thought: if you don't remember anything about who you used to be then who are you now? I sometimes feel completely divorced from my own history. I have no desire to relive anything. And it isn't as if I'm future-oriented. I want certain things (money to study, time to study, a teaching job eventually) but I'm not anxious to accomplish my goals. Ah, maybe I'm just tired.
posted by Aaron @ 12:13 AM EST [.] [Karma: 0 (+/-)]
Another day...
Another day (or night as the case may be) and another attempt to write something readable. Already a poor beginning. Well, you have to start somewhere.
I have decided to give a shot at writing a speech for the University of Southern Maine commencement this May. Any graduating student may apply to be the student commencement speaker. The only direction given is that "the speech reflect on the University experience and provide direction for the graduating class." So the first obstacle is to identify a good topic to occupy my mouth for 500 to 750 words. Suggestions anyone? I always seem to have a lot to say until I sit down and attempt to write.
posted by Aaron @ 12:12 AM EST [more]Sunday, March 13, 2005It's the middle of the night
Here it is the middle of the night, 3:09 am to be exact. I am working as the night audit clerk at a hotel in Brunswick, Maine. I took this job so I could do my homework while I work since there isn't much else to keep me busy. Instead for the past few days I've been goofing off. OK, last night I did get a paper edited and ready for publication in the "Proceedings of the National Conference for Undergraduate Research". But I could have gotten more than that done. Tonight I haven't done any homework yet at all: I've been too busy trying to find a way to keep spammers from ruining the little I've written on this site by filling up the comments with a million links to online gambling sites. I know I shouldn't bother. First, no one reads this stuff. Second, I have better things to do. Third, no one reads this stuff.
I don't really have anything to say but maybe I can start tonight to make it a habit to write regularly.
So here goes. It snowed again today. Nice wet snow so you get soggy just looking at it. Fortunately, I didn't look at it much because I slept through almost all the daylight hours. I say fortunately but really I hate sleeping during the day. I can sleep a full eight hours (or even nine as my body tends to want to do) and still feel like going to bed by the time it's time for me to go to work at 11:00 pm. But I get here and there's no where comfortable back behind the desk and I'd hate to be found sleeping in the lobby...so I'm not tempted to sleep. I just give myself guilt trips for avoiding my homework.
I have to write a lab report for my work last week for Instrumental Chemistry. I'm not looking forward to it. It's just another standard curve with the twist that I have to compute the area of a band on a cyclic voltammogram. I think I'm avoiding that because it's so uninteresting. Sigh, but I'd better get to work if it's going to be done by Tuesday. Reading the voltammograms alone will take a few hours, I'll wager, just because we didn't label each curve very clearly. Don't worry, I won't include a link to a site explaining what any of this is. Maybe you'd want to follow it, maybe not. In any event I'd just be wasting my time looking for one.
So I guess I'll go get to work. If you found reading this interesting then God help you.
posted by Aaron @ 03:12 AM EST [more] [Karma: 0 (+/-)]Thursday, October 21, 2004"What the BLEEP Do We Know?"
Last Sunday night I went to see a movie (title above) with some friends. The movie was about quantum physics, neurobiology, psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and religion. It was a bit much for one movie, I think, and the plot suffered a bit. The movie was essentially a documentary with a series of excerpts from interviews with experts in the various fields I mentioned. So maybe the plot wasn't really that important except to provide examples for the very lofty discussion.
I like what the film had to say about the effect that a person's thinking has on his or her life. To a very large degree, we make our lives what they are from the inside out. Circumstances often appear to be completely without relation to our desires, hopes and dreams. In fact, our predispositions and prejudices and habits of thought determine much about how our lives develop. I have found this to be true in my own life. When I allowed myself to believe that I was powerless to make my life into what I wanted it to be, I was powerless to do so. When I was suffering a major depression I was convinced I was worthless and, what's more, this conviction perversely served as its own proof! On the surface of my mind (as it were) I could recognize how wrong this was, at least in its circular logic if not in its factual content. But deeper in my consciousness, embedded in the habitual structure of my thoughts and the physcial structure of my brain, I could not take the action necessary to change my life. Or so I thought.
posted by Aaron @ 07:42 AM EST [more] [Karma: 2 (+/-)]Friday, August 13, 2004Report Number Ten from NASA
Maine Space Grant Consortium
NASA Internship Program
Dr. L.E. Nyquist, Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry
“Investigations of Chemical and Physical Processes on Hot Re Filaments in Relation to Ion Yield in Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry”
Report #10 (Week Ending 8/13/04)
This week there is little of interest to report simply because new developments were not forthcoming as I finalized my data, charts, graphs, tables and the final report. On Monday I worked on some notes that I intended to use in a discussion with Dr. Nyquist regarding the conclusions that our work this summer have made possible. Dr. Nyquist had also given me a few relevant papers regarding the latest ideas we have had regarding the ionization process.
On Tuesday I met at length with Dr. Nyquist to discuss my data, results, conjectures and ideas. He added a new wrinkle to our investigations when he suggested that chemical processes may not be dominant in the ionization process and that the physical process of evaporation could be considered to play a large role in determining the ‘effective activation energy’. On Wednesday I continued working on putting my data into a presentable form and corrected some errors. There was still one problem that I had not resolved and that was that the signal strengths I calculated based on the data we took were not even close to the actual signal strengths I observed. I went over every step in my calculations and could find no fault with any part of it. I asked Dr. Nyquist to look it over as well and he could find no fault with it either. This left me with the conviction that there must be an assumption somewhere that I was overlooking. I did not find out what this assumption was until Thursday morning.
(click on 'more' to read more)
posted by Aaron @ 04:45 PM EST [more]Friday, August 6, 2004Report Number Nine from NASA
Maine Space Grant Consortium
NASA Internship Program
Summer 2004, JSC
Dr. L.E. Nyquist, Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry
Working Title: “Investigations of Chemical Processes on Hot Re Filaments in Relation to Ion Yield in Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry”
Report #9 (Week Ending 8/6/04)
On Monday I continued collecting data on chromium. There was one last filament loaded with Cr together with silica gel and boric acid. This element seems to produce a large signal fairly easily, much like strontium. It has been very helpful to watch the progress of these experimental runs while in control of them myself. I can decide when to change the filament current to add more heat and I can decide to wait and watch what the signal is doing. At times the signal was steady and made a fairly straight line on the analog recorder. As I stepped the current higher there were places where the signal would waver up and down erratically, grow dramatically larger, or diminish slowly. These changes can serve as a warning to me that conditions are changing and that I would soon be unable to use further data, should I collect it.
(click on 'more' to read more)
posted by Aaron @ 05:04 PM EST [more] [Karma: 12 (+/-)]
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