I'm alive!
Damn, haven't updated in close on a month. No particular reason, I just haven't felt like writing much. The latter part of november and the first week of december were rather uneventful.. just the usual school, work, maxin' and relaxin'. Haven't been partying much as of late (the whole no drinking thing is definitely a contributor to that), in fact I don't really know what I've been doing with my free time. Playing Desert Combat with Scott, hanging out with Colette, the usual.
Now we're into exam time, just had my first one (astronomy) this afternoon. I think it went pretty well, certainly better than the midterm. I beat the class avg by a bit on the midterm, but still did way worse than I was hoping. Looks like the admission into the business faculty is going to be a GPA of around 3.1 or so, and I'm on target for that in poli sci (knock on wood) and I'll beat it significantly in physics. Astro was a bit of a wild card, but I studied a lot for it, and I'm feelin pretty confidant about the exam. Only time will tell though..
As for work, it's been super busy lately which is pretty nice. Makes the shift go by a lot faster, and it's just way more fun when you're selling stuff. Last year was a real downer as far as the sales go (mainly because of the lack of snow), so we really need to move the product right now. Also I got in trouble from my boss, but still can't really seem to figure out why. That's all blown past now though, so it's all good.
Otherwise there really hasn't been a lot going on in my life. Xmas is coming up pretty quick here which should be fun, and I'm going to Canmore over new years. Between now and then it's just study study study, work work work.
I've also been thinking a lot lately regarding the nature of life, death and reality, and I can't seem to get certain thoughts out of my mind. In that respect, I have an idea to do an essay or some sort of paper to organize my thoughts, and clarify in my own mind what exactly is meaningful in life. For example, having a lot of exposure to physics this semester has givin me a glimpse into how utterly insignificant we are. In the big scheme of things, our society, our culture, and we as individuals are about as close to meaningless as you can get. I was reviewing some astronomy with Colette the other day, and was explaning to her that that Saturn has a vast system of rings. She asked me "What are those for?" before she realized that she ment to ask how they got there. Got me thinking though. The rings of Saturn serve no purpose, they are not there for any reason. We as a people are not here for any reason either. Our roots can be traced back a billion years as a peculilarity in a primordial soup. However, quantum mechanics tells us that anything not under observation is not real. All things around us are simply waves of probability that state the most likely configuration of all the particles when seen by an observer. But what makes me an observer? Would a universe without observers even exist? Because (as far as we know) for billions of years there were no sentient beings in our universe to view it. Was our universe not real until that point? Assuming I can figure out some answers that make sense of those questions to me, what will my answers mean to my real life? What do they mean to morality and ethics? Do they say anything about how I should live and what choices I should make? I've taken a couple philosophy classes over the years, and I've never been particularly satisfied with the answers they provide. They seem to start with the view that humanity has some sort of intrinsic value, and I think that is a bizarre assumption to make. I would like to figure out some answers for myself that don't rely on that prerequisite.
Sorry if I rambled on there, that wasn't really intentional. Continue on :)
Now we're into exam time, just had my first one (astronomy) this afternoon. I think it went pretty well, certainly better than the midterm. I beat the class avg by a bit on the midterm, but still did way worse than I was hoping. Looks like the admission into the business faculty is going to be a GPA of around 3.1 or so, and I'm on target for that in poli sci (knock on wood) and I'll beat it significantly in physics. Astro was a bit of a wild card, but I studied a lot for it, and I'm feelin pretty confidant about the exam. Only time will tell though..
As for work, it's been super busy lately which is pretty nice. Makes the shift go by a lot faster, and it's just way more fun when you're selling stuff. Last year was a real downer as far as the sales go (mainly because of the lack of snow), so we really need to move the product right now. Also I got in trouble from my boss, but still can't really seem to figure out why. That's all blown past now though, so it's all good.
Otherwise there really hasn't been a lot going on in my life. Xmas is coming up pretty quick here which should be fun, and I'm going to Canmore over new years. Between now and then it's just study study study, work work work.
I've also been thinking a lot lately regarding the nature of life, death and reality, and I can't seem to get certain thoughts out of my mind. In that respect, I have an idea to do an essay or some sort of paper to organize my thoughts, and clarify in my own mind what exactly is meaningful in life. For example, having a lot of exposure to physics this semester has givin me a glimpse into how utterly insignificant we are. In the big scheme of things, our society, our culture, and we as individuals are about as close to meaningless as you can get. I was reviewing some astronomy with Colette the other day, and was explaning to her that that Saturn has a vast system of rings. She asked me "What are those for?" before she realized that she ment to ask how they got there. Got me thinking though. The rings of Saturn serve no purpose, they are not there for any reason. We as a people are not here for any reason either. Our roots can be traced back a billion years as a peculilarity in a primordial soup. However, quantum mechanics tells us that anything not under observation is not real. All things around us are simply waves of probability that state the most likely configuration of all the particles when seen by an observer. But what makes me an observer? Would a universe without observers even exist? Because (as far as we know) for billions of years there were no sentient beings in our universe to view it. Was our universe not real until that point? Assuming I can figure out some answers that make sense of those questions to me, what will my answers mean to my real life? What do they mean to morality and ethics? Do they say anything about how I should live and what choices I should make? I've taken a couple philosophy classes over the years, and I've never been particularly satisfied with the answers they provide. They seem to start with the view that humanity has some sort of intrinsic value, and I think that is a bizarre assumption to make. I would like to figure out some answers for myself that don't rely on that prerequisite.
Sorry if I rambled on there, that wasn't really intentional. Continue on :)