Random thoughts from 2-14-11->2-15-11

I see many people around me aging.  I saw a picture of Dr. Topoleski, who I haven’t seen in like 2 years, and he looked older.  Although, picture angles and what not can be deceptive.  People in choir are all white (maybe there’s a female minority, but there’s too many females to know) and generally older than 55, many over 70.

I was excited to enter the GSVC, but after contacting them I found out that the executive summary deadline had already passed.  This wasn’t listed on their website.  Way lame.  I was getting excited about this competition, but I found a couple others I can enter- http://www.williamjamesfoundation.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=905

But the whole business-competition thing feels a bit wrong, not exactly the right word… contrived?  I’m just an anti-capitalist hippie at times.  There’s two others I could do but the events overlap with the EPA activities.

Seeing as how the idea of med school doesn’t currently thrill me out the wazoo, I think I’ll wait another year before submitting an application.  I don’t really have much excitement for anything.  Making a business seems like a cool project.  I think that’s what’s driven me the most “____ seems cool” and then I do that as a short-term project.  At least with regards to most exciting school/service type things I’ve done in the past 4 years.  That was definitely the case for med school for a while, and I nearly applied last May, but the letter of recommendation from UMBC Premed Office stopped up those plans.  Passion, I want passion.  I want excitement.  Tonight, I’ll finish up slides to teach some kids tomorrow, hopefully get to the gym, EPA P3 things, etc.  Exciting *rolls eyes*

The awesomely new building I work on has some HVAC problems.  It's frequently in a vacuum, maybe from all the hoods.  There's a draft through the whole building now.  Kind of hilarious for an 8 month-old building.

Apparently the friendly morning janitor lady's husband is real ill and might not make it.  This is very sad.   She’s one of the nicest people I know at Lehigh.

At the gym I asked why, again.  Tomorrow I’m going to teach kids about coagulation and flocculation.  Maybe one day one of them will get a job somewhere where they help provide clean drinking water from surface water and use coagulation to remove the fine particulate.  If so, I can imagine that I will have helped, in the slightest way, to provide clean water to future generations.  This is a good thing and gives me drive to keep doing what I’m doing (at least for the late hours of tonight).  Without having meaning behind all actions, things don’t matter as much and sometimes you just don’t care about the side effects of your actions.

I’ve seen a girl I TA’d last semester at the gym like 2x in the past 5 days.  I think I weird her out.  I tend to think this is the reaction from most girls I first meet.  I guess I am a bit socially awkward for others, especially in a place like Lehigh.  This probably isn’t going to change anytime soon.

021011

So what’s Mike been up to?

I got a nice break after the proposal to keep pondering the Universe and start to get back in shape.  I’ve been trying that the last couple days and today walking is difficult.  But the hormones are firing much better.  Yeah!  Frequently when in the gym solo towards the end after lifting/running like mad, I really wonder what’s the point.  But my mood the subsequent day is so much more upbeat and energetic versus not lifting/running/biking. 

Recent graduate pursuits:

-          Business plan competition- Global Social Venture Competition http://www.gsvc.org/

-          EPA P3 Phase II Proposal http://www.epa.gov/P3/

Instead of doing research, I write.  I think this is a good thing.  I was always told that writing skills are important to have as an engineer, and mine need improvement.  I’ve never completed a Business Proposal (almost started one) and this will only be my second proposal.

I’m supposed to consider whether or not to apply to medical school, and then start that process.  I have no idea and haven’t put the time into thinking about PhD vs MD.  Talking with my advisor feels useful in the process even though we don’t talk about med school.  I wonder how long has he been driven by the economic component to make projects work.  I think he sees the business side as a tool for change.  He mentioned that he’s ignored possible financial benefits in favor for the wellness of others.  His emphasis that charity and compassion aren’t effective, only science and technology are could must come from experience.  Whether failures of his charity/compassion or seeing the failures of other altruists?  It’s probably a mixed bag, definitely the latter with regards to the arsenic epidemic in Indian subcontinent.

I got kind of excited to go to Atlanta this weekend, possibly, and see a Beluga whale and a Whale shark.  But, that ain’t happening.  Oh well, maybe eventually.

I just got back from a talk on Argentine soccer championships in the 1910’s-1920’s which doesn’t sound too illuminating at first.  It was by Jeffrey Richey, a PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill who’s nearing completion.  It seems like he’s put in a ton of time and really knows his stuff.  But, it’s very pertinent for understanding the root of current political opinions.  I learned the following:

Back in the 1910’s-1920’s

-          Buenos Aires considered itself to be white and very European.  This also goes for the surrounding regions.  The portenyo (I don’t know where to find “n-yey” in a timely fashion)

-          The interior was predominantly Mestizo-Hispanic in background and darker skinned

-          The age old white-black racial fear, racism, etc. comes into play and Buenos Aires considers the interior to be full of Indian hicks

-          A Santiago team (from NW region) finally won in 1928 after the Buenos Aires’ refs had corrupted a previous couple games and it was huge in the view of Interior citizens as people and just blacks/Indians

-          Later in the 30’s many international stars were imported to Buenos Aires and competition from Interior teams was minimal. 

-          The soccer championships started as a move to boost nationalistic (read: Buenos Aires) pride.  So losing to the lesser people wasn’t the most effective.

Use of sports for history work:

-          He made some great points to the effectiveness of sports to enable open conversation on people’s world/local views.  It helped that Argentina was a fully democratic nation at this point

-          I think this is a great point in assessing the populus’ feelings, esp. letters from the people, watching news trends, buyership, etc.

For me:

-          I’m working with a guy to get water treatment for people in Pastos Chicos (http://www.pastoschicos.blogspot.com/) , Argentina (Jujuy region) in the northwest.  Being way out in the middle of nowhere Andes and predominantly Native, I think I see some biases against this people group.  We’ve had HAIX resin, material for removing arsenic and providing clean water, in customs for who knows how long.  One trip has been delayed because of the delay.

-          He mentioned the lack of gov’t funded development work for the NW region and when I mentioned my project, he said that was a current example.

-          It’s almost a case of human rights or environmental justice violations.  But, the gov’t is currently providing them clean water, so it’s not.  But, it would save the gov’t much money if we’d just install the system.  Go figure.  It’ll eventually happen, just a bit slow. 

I lost my copy of “Did the Ressurection Happen?” at the gym for a day and then got it from Lost and  Found.  I made some overly spicy potato cubes in the oven that ended up burning a bit and creating “pepper spray” for Matt.  They’re kind of rough on the stomach to eat.  Between that, dahl, and cereal my stomach’s been ridiculously fragrant.  The dahl turned out all right, no whole cumin seeds.

I visited the awesome Paul Gallo last weekend in Philly and had a fun night.  With three of his friends we went to a club where Paul and I were rejected because we were wearing boots.  Paul’s looked like high top dress shoes then next pair he wore honestly looked identical.  Mine were meant for hiking the Grand Canyon, so yeah.  But, I’ve never been rejected from a place based on dress because I’ve never been clubbing.  I even got into the upstairs of Brewer’s Art in t-shirt and shorts and felt totally out of place.  So we got back on the train changed and came back 45 min later to find some of his friends getting kicked out for being drunk/tripping over things.  Then we stood around for 45 min trying to harangue ~15 people.  I eventually went with some people to another club/diner, Star/Silo City (?), where I got a yuengling and bowl of soup cause I was starving.  Then it cost $6 for guys and $3 for girls to dance.  It reminded me of a cramped together student council dance, something I haven’t been to in ages.  That was fun enough.  Then some of us walked to a pizza place and I split off to find Paul Gallo in Lucy’s.  There I used the bathroom walked around for about 2 min then left, cause Paul wasn’t there.  That was a dive club that could’ve used much more bass and less treble.  Oh yeah, I split from Paul outside of McFadden’s (the original place) and afterwards eventually found him again.  I guess it’s common in large groups for people to indecisive in trying not to disagree with anyone else’s tastes, but my goodness there was a lot of standing around and wondering what to do that night.  Also, not trying to lose people was difficult.  Silly drunk kids.  Then Paul and I walked back to his place in Center City.  I miss being around a city even though when I was in Baltimore I was yet to join city life because everyone I knew was a couple miles away at UMBC. 

In the morning at Paul’s place I started reading a book by the philosopher Adler on some of the big issues.  I read a bit on religion and love.  I forget the bit on religion but he made a case for, if all parts were known to be true, God would exist.  He couldn’t decide whether all parts are true, but he made the leap to faith anyway stating that he knows it’s not a rational jump.  His bit on love described the three types of friendships: economic (goods and services), desire/pleasure, and admiration/mutual appreciation.  The first is based on practicality.  The second is based on individual pleasure.  But in the last, love can be.  It’s a mutualistic relationship based on appreciation of the other, or something like that- this was a week ago, I forget details mad fast.  But, afterwards I recognized the desires for pleasure the previous night don’t satisfy, and was reminded of the wonder that is falling in love with someone’s mind/spirit. 

I saw this commercial on the gym TV’s the other night while running on a treadmill Samsung Tab (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPfCZC4VHnE) .  That thing is ridiculous.  I forget the words on the commercial but it talks about exploring a new world and new possibilities when the huge, friggin thing totally obstructs the person’s view of the world.  His every interaction in the world is meaningless because he’s staring at a TV 24/7.  From the mini-phone phase to the computer-in-my-pocket phase in 6 years.  Dang.  Scary similarities to Wall-E.  If we can get Google’s auto-pilot cars working faster maybe Wall-E can be real sooner than not!

I’ve seen bits of the struggle for Egyptian democracy and it’s really humbling.  People are there not for themselves but for their friends, family, and future generations.  They understand that their presence puts their life at risk in the moment and the future, if the revolution’s not successful.  I was part of a videoconference where a Cairo University Professor of Political Science has been attending the rally with her kids, and she’s willing to sacrifice what’s needed for the people’s well-being.  I didn’t realize the initial start of the recent unrest has been linked with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mohamed_Bouazizi).  During his life as a street-salesman he was constantly harassed by corrupt police wanting bribes or taking his goods.  After being humiliated by a female official he lit himself on fire outside a government building.  The importance of that being the huge value of pride and status in culture, and the lesser worth of women.  At this point, I can’t imagine what I’d die for, nor why I would voluntarily die.  The tenacity and lack of fear blows my mind.  George W Bush got a lot of flack during his years in Presidency for many good reasons.  But, if the Afghanistan/Iraqi wars are some of the root causes of successful democratic surges in the Middle East, he will be an unmentioned hero to many.  Although, rhetorically this might be accurate it probably wasn’t his real desire to spread democracy.  Looking back at post-WWII communist fear and modern Islamic dictatorial fear there seems like many parallels could be drawn.  But, I don’t know history.  US’s meek role in wanting not to upset their international military interests is sad.  I’m pretty much ignoring national US politics because it’s going to get real stupid over the next two years of inactivity and argument.  I saw something in Science Daily linking a nation’s well-being to public health.  The international economic decline has made the other international problems intensify. 

Sidenote: the communities that have formed in Tahrir Square are awesome.   There’s been marriages, a full blown wedding, music, poetry, and community.  But, the radical change in relations between Muslims-Christians over shared political vision will be tenuous at best, when the communal reliance dies down.

Alright, I’ve been typing for a while and won’t bring my computer home cause that’s what I’ve been doing lately.  So that’s probably enough for this unfocused update.  Take care cool people :)

Much love,

Mike G

Snowy Grocery Store Walk & Learning to Read

Walked over to Ahart’s and got breakfast.  Along the way a lady asked me for $0.50 and I asked what for and she said food.  I took her with while I was shopping, it was a bit odd getting groceries with her 5 ft behind me.  Their organic stuff’s expensive and limited so I didn’t get much organic, like normal.  I question the environmental benefits of organic versus spending the money on other items.  But, organic foods do taste better and for cost to go down the market supply and demand needs to grow.  She said she couldn’t eat much cause she lost a bunch of teeth and had some loose ones, and she chose Campbell’s creamy tomato soup to go (~8 oz of soup for $1.50).  I got her the generic hearty chicken and rice for $2.15.  But, really if you cook on your own you could make a pot of soup for like $7 that lasts you ~5 meals.  At one point in the store she still asked for money because she needed something at the pharmacy.  Between her lack of teeth, spacey behavior, and desire for money I’m guessing she was using meth.  As I mentioned before, the US should probably make pseudoephedrine prescription only.  When we left I had bought $10 of groceries, $2 for her soup.  I said good bye and it looked like she was confused as to where to go.  I was tired and just continued on my way.  With all the snow lots of people are making money shoveling, apparently $10/hr on campus if you get to the right place at 3-4AM.  But she’s getting SSI for some disability, so maybe she can’t.  I think if I walk more places life would be more interesting and less zombie-like.

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I wonder how common it is for students to writer their own letter of recommendation when someone else is too busy.  Well, it is a bit my fault because of procrastination.  We’ll include this in the list of new things done around this proposal.

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I may just eat a whole box of “Raisin Bran Extra!” today.  Not for any good reason except that I bought it as part of breakfast.

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After re-reading the proposal details my submission won’t count at all because they’re going to review submissions up until Feb 1^st - the date I was going to submit.  Also, I screwed up getting outside recommendations’ and those probably won’t happen.  Holy crap.  After killing myself the last two weeks working on this thing it doesn’t matter because I suck at reading and not skimming.  Well, I figured this would be a lesson in something.  It was a lesson in reading.

Wednesday

I think a good model for gun legislation should be automobile legislation.  They’re similar in nature for their ability to do good and be fun, but also their ability to kill (unnecessarily) through misuse.  This could involve an education program (Gun Ed) and gun insurance.  Ideally it would be grandfathered to all current gun owners, but it would be hard to take away people’s guns if they don’t pass gun ed.  There’s already state-certified hunters safety courses, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get a more general gun safety course.  Gun insurance rates would be based on previous crimes, Gun ed, and safety measures used with your gun- just like car insurance.  I guess there might be different rates for different areas, but that could get racist- but it’s the same for cars.  The insurance would cover costs of accidental damages to others.  It would be interesting the details of what would happen if the gun was stolen.  I think the person should still be somewhat responsible for the gun, in that they had it inoperable except for their personal use (i.e. RFID tags).

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The other day I posted EPA’s laziness with the Boiler Act policy.  Well, it looks they’ll unveil some type of regulations by late Feb.  I’m wondering if they’ll be toned down because of the delay, and desire to watch jobs, or if they’ll be the same and they’ll get lots of flack from industries about having to spend money.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/89/i05/8905news2.html

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Stayed at work way too late writing/editing.  But submitted a crappy draft to my adviser.  I hope things turn a corner once this proposal is submitted.

Didn’t feel like biking/walking home in ~6” of snow so I stayed in a friend’s dorm room.  It was kind of sad walking to his place with 6” of snow on everything and how fun it would’ve been to go sledding and frolicking, but I had no desire to play, just to sleep, recharge the brain, and continue doing grad school crap the next day.  To what end?  After I got into his dorm I was kind of excited to go outside and almost did, but then I just tried to sleep.  It must’ve been set to 78 degrees, and I’m used to sleeping in the cold.  I turned down the heat and eventually got some sleep. 

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Tuesday

Tuesday

You know what’s not complicated?  Reducing mercury contamination of aquatic wildlife and human exposure.  This is an issue in the Everglades.  What’re the main sources: point sources (i.e. power plants, concrete industry, etc.)  How do you eliminate the particulate matter that contains mercury?  Clouds.  I’m not even lying.  http://www.tri-mer.com/wet_scrubber.html It’s really sweet, cheap, and effective.  If the USEPA moves to implement Proposed Rule 75 FR 31938, or at least puts down a final draft, small emitters will be forced to reduce their emissions, but I don’t think this impacts large power plants.

Why won’t this get implemented quickly?  Politics. Reducing heavy metal emissions by forcing plants to add on this new thing will kill jobs- the jobs of the people making the raw materials for CCS, Tri-Mer, the fisheries who will have the future option of harvesting and eating fish that are currently hazardous. 

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I finished a really crappy draft of my proposal, sans budget, proper referencing, and other formatting issues.  Wahoo!  If you have too much free time and actually read this, I’d be very happy to send it to you.  I will eventually develop a non-diary/stream of thought style, I think, that will be more reader accessible.  But, that sounds like it will take editing.  We’ll see.  For now this replaces a little black book I was using last semester.

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I thought the talk by Tim Wise was going to be a joke, but he has a very thorough understanding of American history, academic research, and philosophical argument to make a case for institutionalized racism in favor of “whiteness.”  Two people with a Tea Party-esque demeanor yelled at him for a bit during questions and then left.  He tried to discuss with them in a calm rational manner, but this was difficult.  One interesting point that can be read between the lines is the dysfunctional relationship between Lehigh and the surrounding community.  One of them mentioned how you must be filthy rich or know rich people to get into/afford Lehigh.  I think the Lehigh-South Bethlehem relations are broken, and this might be an example of some of the opinions.  After my first month here I thought the same thing, then I learned about the many Alumni scholarships and remembered about college loans.

Another poignant quote from someone on me talking to God about this is not how my life’s supposed to be.  I need sleep for multiple reasons.

With love.