The sun outside is brightly shining

Someone told me I have beautiful friends. I agree.

Fulfillment

There is glory somewhere. There is freedom from envy. That anchor, that precious, unmovable, unwavering anchor is out there. And I will find it, or I will be defined looking for it.

There is one thing I really, really don't like about myself.

A Typical Wednesday?

Well, it seems like Wednesdays certainly will be the "hump" of the week. Today was probably a decent sample of the typical - maybe it was a little worse than usual, but not much.

8:45 AM - 9:50 AM : Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, we looked at chemical characteristics of different rock suites, including the difference between Fenner and Bowen's series (both subalkaline), vs the calcalkalic/tholeiitic rocks, etc.

10:00 AM - 10:50 AM : Advanced Macroeconomics, went over Cobb-Douglas production function, the components of national income and distribution of that income to the factors of production, macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy, crowding out, and how the interest rate is the magic price on capital that balances the goods market.

11:00 AM - 11:50 AM : Exploring Music, sang for warm up, harmonized some example pieces with I,IV,V chords, looked at intervals.

12:00 PM - 12:50 AM : Got a signature from Suzette in her office in order to take half credit music credit choir again.

12:30 PM - 12:50 PM : Lunch. Finally a break.

1:00 PM - 3:15 PM : Petrology lab, identifying and describing the texture of basalts in microscopic thin-section. This was fun, except not really, since the olivines and pyroxenes were occasionally difficult to tell apart. The olivines ended up being more clear in plain light, but otherwise, relief, birefringence, crystal habit, cleavage, etc. tended to be very similar.

3:20 PM - 3:30 PM : Stopped by the GEO11 lab to pick up TA copy of tomorrow's work and see what the section would be up to tomorrow. Got Peter's signature on add/drop form.

3:40 PM - 3:50 PM : Stopped by registrar to drop off add/drop and make sure everything is okay. FINALLY it all is.

4:40 PM - 5:40 PM : Spent the inbetween 40 minutes going back to Marsh and getting Turkish materials, then Turkish conversation with Sengul and Aurora. My first conversation section with another student at the same level as me, so this will be really interesting.

6:00 PM - 6:30 PM : Dinner. Spent the time going over Leonhardt's old columns.

7:30 PM - 9:00 PM : David Leonhardt, economics columnist for the NYTimes came to speak in the Converse Red Room. He gave a really interesting speech about long term GDP growth, investment in infrastructure, education, and other capital, and the way in which currently we're floundering and ignoring investment when that is what will cripple us in the future. He is upbeat, though, for the most part.

9:10 PM - 10:00 PM : Went lap swimming, got pretty tired.

10:15 PM - 11:00 PM : Read and hung out a little bit at Schwemm's, got a pizza bagel which ended up being delicious.

Phew. A busy semester. Music section at 8 AM tomorrow!

Fifths and Perfection

I stayed after music class today to talk to Professor Schneider about general music things. I didn't have any specific question, but I asked him if he could somehow give me a more systematic understanding on the ordering of the sharps and flats and why in that order they always gave the perfect sequence of whole and half steps from the root note. I'm pretty fast at recalling keys, but my method is completely ad hoc - I still use Fat Cats and Bead-related acronyms.

Well, we covered that pretty quickly - he demonstrated the theories behind the wheel of fifths (or fourths, whichever you choose) and how continuing off from a middle tone (which happens to be middle C in western music) in either direction leads you to the exact ordering of the major keys, simultaneously dictating the flats and sharps in the process. But from there we developed into a conversation about imperfect tuning to achieve a balance between all major scales, the frequency ratio for different intervals, international systems of music, medieval scales, harpsichord tuning, overtones, harmonization, etc.

It was great. Why is class so awesome?

Balance

I think I prefer the fantastical world in my head sometimes to the stranger-than-fiction realities of the real world. You know, the ones where things will always get better, where there is a positive resolution to every conflict, where life's philosophy centers around an almost irrationally optimistic picture of the world.