I Think Too Much... Apparently

I'm a Star

Because my brain hurts today after yesterday's running around.

Note to self: Don't go to 3 different colleges before graduating again. It's just too much trouble!

So, I find it very interesting that the Tarot Card I received is the Star. It gives me some sort of satisfaction at the present moment as I try to gather all of my application materials together for Grad School to study... well, stars to some extent. I'm amazed and impressed by how many schools in California actually have some sort of Astrophysics Program. May not be exactly what I was looking for (which would be Berkeley and Santa Cruz's program... wait, Cruz's? Does that work?), but at least I can get my Masters or Ph.D with an emphasis in Astrophysics. Sure beats trying to find some sort of other speciality I would want to study. Not that High Energy Particle Physics doesn't SOUND appealing, but it's not where my main interest lies or has lay over the past 10 years, you know?

Wow, I am so excited and giddy. Going back to my old schools (CSUH/CSUEB and Chabot/Hesperian High) really got me stoked again. I forgot how much I liked learning! Just the whole college experience is something that I can't wait to go back to. Especially since now it means Research. RESEARCH! That's what I want to do, and I will be doing it in less than a year! WOOOOOOOOOOO! It kind of makes me feel purposeful again. Not that I feel like I somehow don't have a purpose, but I feel like my life is going somewhere... and it's somewhere good! It's what I have been waiting for for so long! And now I am so close it's ridiculous!

Ok, must contain myself. Breathe.

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Correction/Update

I talked to my sissy last night... and she has actually lost 25 lbs now. That's 10 lbs in the last month! Go Becky!

Where Were We?

Hellooooooooooooo!
I really have no idea what I should blog about. Just know that I haven't updated in a long while so it seems like a good time now. Especially since we are slowslowslow at the working these days. Stoopid rain making construction slow down. It's not even raining right this instant, but it could pour any second now. It rained quite a lot last week. Well, quite a lot in one day's time. It's not raining in Long Beach. That's where my Thanksgiving will be spent this year. It's Becky's last year of school and she can't make it home this time. So we are taking Thanksgiving to her! Weeee! She's on this crazy Becky-Diet which basically consists of working out 1-2 hrs a day 6 days a week and eating less than 1500 calories a day. It's working, though. She looks freaking fabulous. Lost something like 15 lbs already! And it totally shows! She's stoked... as am I, for her. She needs to know she can do it. I think it was 2 months before she actually started to see results, but she stuck with it and now she's losing weight on a weekly basis! Go Sister! However, she doesn't want us to make stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner. No stuffing! I think my mom and I are going to make it nonetheless. Can't have no stuffing! It's just too good to pass up!
So let's see... what else is new? I took the dreaded Physics GRE. I'm so over it I don't even wanna talk about it anymore. But here's a list of schools I am going to apply to:
UC Berkeley
UC Santa Cruz
San Francisco State
UC Davis
UC Riverside
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
San Jose State
One of them should accapet me, right? I'm at least counting on San Francisco State's vote since they don't require the Physics GRE or a Statement of Purpose, thank goodness. We shall see. I won't even get my scores for a few more weeks... 3-4 more weeks. I hate the waiting game almost as much as I hated the test.
I miss Shiva. I have been thinking about her a lots lately. Should she read this-I heart you!
Okay, well work beckons. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
*S to the arah*

Hmmm... That's Weird!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 2 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Last Day of Summer

Well, this is it. As of 12:03 am (tonight/tomorrow), it is officially Fall in the West. I wouldn't say that I'm sad to see Summer go, nor would I say I am glad. With the ebbs and flows of this last Summer, I am afraid to be a part of the Winter. I guess that's what it comes down to. It got hotter here than it has ever been before this Summer. So I fear that the Winter will bring in a similar fate.
At work, we are having an end-of-summer BBQ. I don't really think that 90% of the people I work with even realize that this is, in fact, the last day of Summer. Nor do I believe that any of them knows what that means in term of the length of the day or it's significance in history. And that makes me sort of sad. Sad that they don't know, that they don't care to know. They will just continue on their day as normal, doing whatever it is that these people do.
Now I sound like I feel superior to them. Which I do not, in any way. I am absolutely positive that they all have some sort of knowledge or know-how in their brains that I could not ever truly comprehend. And I'm okay with that. Most of the time.
For now, let's just take a moment to breathe. Breathe in that last Summer breath and bid it farewell for another year. It's time for the seasons to change.

Physics GRE

Yep... driving me crazy. I have 2 months to remember everything I learned in six years. It's possible, I know. But that doesn't make it any easier, really. Harrumph. So I've just been keeping busy with reviewing my old notes, doing practice problems on the most basic of levels, and making as many note cards as humanly possible. At some point I need to sit down and take one of the two practice tests I have in my possession. Only two. So I figure I'll save those for last. Then I can sit down in my 170 minute time allotment and crank out all 100 problems. You heard me right. 100 problems in 170 minutes. Less than 2 minutes per problem. So I really need to know this stuff. Breathe it. Be able to look at the problem and know what the answer is without having to do any extensive math or derivations. My friend Josh has the utmost faith in my abilities since I have the math background. I, on the other hand, have less faith in myself. I'm scared to death. He took the test twice and did not do so well either time. But it is extremely helpful that he has taken it twice. It means that he knows what is or what is not important. So he's given me an outline to make the best use of my time remaining:

Mechanics
Quantum
Electromagnetism
Optics
Thermal
Nuclear
Lagrangian/Hamiltonian Mechanics

The only reason that Quantum is second on the list is because that's the most recent of things I learned that I am relatively comfortable with. So yeah. I have my work cut out for me. But it's for the best. At least I have a plan. I was trying to work problems from some book claiming to be a Physics GRE Prep Book and getting nowhere fast. Josh basically told me to throw the book away. None of the problems they use are in any way related to the test. So that made me feel a wee bit better. A wee.
Tonight my buds are coming over for study time. Granted we will all be studying various subjects as we are all studying various things, but it will be nice to have some people around who are also trying to get work done. 2 months. Seems like a long time and yet it feels like forever. Only because I'm stressing out so much about the test. I need to just chill. Perhaps take a vacation or two. Oh, right! I am taking a vacation or two! Woohoo! Except that both of them will have to have some study time included. Yucky. Who wants to study in Maui? Not me. But I must. And then I'm going to see my sissy after that for a few days of Universal Studios and Disneyland madness. I doubt I'll study there. I'd study on the plane except that it's only like an hour and I can't do much in an hour aside from organize my 15 books of reference. Well, we shall see how it all pans out.
Until next time,
*Raevyn*

UC Berkeley

Can't they just accept me because I am an awesomely terrific and intelligent person? Why must I have to continually prove myself to people in order to give them money? All I want is a friggin' degree, so what if it is a ph.D?
The day the testing ceases is the day I will finally be able to breathe again.

I Miss My Hair

...it's short now. In case you haven't seen it yet, go here.
I got it did last Saturday before my company picnic. I must admit, I was freakishly nervous. Thankfully, I had all three of my favorite local people there with me. My sister being the biggest help of them all, of course. Since she cut her hair drastically many, many years ago, this totally makes sense. I really wasn't sure what I should do (ie, how to style it in the shorter length-layers or bangs or whathaveyou), but Becky had it down in her mind, so I left it to her to describe it to the hairdresser.
Went to a new place in Pleasanton which a friend recommended a couple of weekends ago wakeboarding. Yep, I tried wakeboarding. 'Twas hard. Really, really hard. Much harder than it looks, even. I kept watching person after person get right up and play around on the wakes. But me? Me no get it. Well, I think I got pretty close, but I didn't actually stand up all the way. Logan, Kristen and I went to New Malones (spelling?) Reservoir near Angel's Camp. Dylan met us there, at Vic (Cliff's cousin) and Kristin's house in Angel's Camp where the three of us (not Dylan) stayed the night. We took up Kristen's parent's boat and quite frankly had a blast! There is absolutely nothing wrong with riding around in a boat all day on a lake that is comfortably cool. So I wasn't upset when I couldn't get up on the wakeboard the first day. The second day did not provide any additional luck in my direction, however. I did manage to get up about halfway on 2 occasions. I thought for sure I had it on the next try. But alas, I did not. I actually managed to smoosh and squish my fingers between the edge of the board and the ropetow. Poop. And ouch. My knuckles on my middle fingers have not yet recovered completely. So better luck next time, I guess.
Anyways, back to the hair. It was per Kristin's recommendation that I go to this particular hair place. And rightly so! She did a pretty awesome job!
So I walk in and sit down and she comes over to talk to me (aka Becky) about how I want it cut yaddayadda. And since I was cutting off a lot, she asked if I would like to donate it. Which of course I did. So off went the 1 foot of healthy, naturally blonde locks to a happy cancer patient.
I miss my hair. I keep playing with it, amazed at how soonly my fingers reach the bottom of my hair when I run them through it.
Buuuuut... all in all, it looks pretty good.
A nice change.
For now, anyways.

Top 10 Star Mysteries

See also: Why I want to do what I want to do

In an effort to post something, anything... I have discovered an excellent article on star mysteries care of Space.com. I would absolutely LOVE to share with you now!

Top 10 Star Mysteries
By Jeanna Bryner

For many stargazers, the night sky might look like a backdrop of very similar twinkling lights. But actually the billions of stars that make up the universe are varied and full of tantalizing marvels. From stellar fireworks caused by supernova explosions to invisible black holes, astronomers are gradually figuring out how stars work and what makes each variety unique. Many mysteries remain, however.

Number 10: Diamonds In the Sky
When a star the mass of our Sun uses up its nuclear fuel, it expels most of its outer layers to leave just a very hot core called a white dwarf. Scientists had speculated that at the bottom of a white dwarf’s 31 mile (50 kilometer)-thick crust was crystallized carbon and oxygen, similar to a diamond. And in 2004, they found that a white dwarf near the constellation Centaurus, BPM 37093, was made of crystallized carbon weighing 5 million trillion trillion pounds. In diamond-speak, that’s 10 billion trillion trillion carats!

Number 9: Stellar Corpses
Magnetars are dense neutron stars—a type of stellar corpse—with magnetic fields billions of times stronger than any magnet on Earth. They release flashes of X-rays about every 10 seconds with an occasional gamma-ray burst. They weren’t classified as a distinct star type until 1998, nearly two decades after their telltale light shows were first spotted: In March 1979, nine spacecraft observed a release of radiation equaling the amount of energy the Sun lets off in a 1,000 years coming from the location of a supernova remnant called N49.

Number 8: Close Quarters
Stellar clusters are composed of many stars that develop at the same time. Some contain several dozen stars, and others many million stars. Some star clusters can be seen with the naked eye, such as the famous Pleiades cluster in the constellation Taurus. Stars form in the same region, but why some stay together forming clusters is a mystery.

Number 7: Stellar Rumbles
A starquake is thought to be the tearing apart of the surface of a neutron star, much like an earthquake here on Earth. In 1999 astronomers identified these bursts as the cause of gamma rays and X-rays coming from neutron stars. Predicting these powerful bursts has remained a mystery. Recently, John Middleditch of Los Alamos National Laboratory and his team found that for a particular type of spinning neutron star called a pulsar, the time to the next quake is proportional to the size of the last quake.

Number 6: Super Stars
A neutron star is born out of a supernova explosion, which compresses the dying star's core—with a mass greater than the sun's—into a ball with a diameter the size of a small city. One step from becoming black holes, neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe. Just a teaspoon would weigh roughly a billions tons on Earth. In 2005, NASA scientists found the source of gamma-ray bursts that emit as much light as 100,000 trillion suns—and solved a 35-year mystery: When two neutron stars collided at speeds tens of thousands of miles per second, they emit gamma-ray fireworks.

Number 5: Star Bursts
A new class of stars called rotating radio transients (RRATs) can be fickle flashers. They are massively compressed neutron stars that intermittently send out bursts of radio waves that can last for as few as two milliseconds with dark gaps lasting as long as three hours. Not only are these outbursts short-lived, in order to detect RRATs astronomers must distinguish the fleeting radio flashes from terrestrial radio interference. Even so, there could be hundreds of thousands of them in the Milky Way.

Number 4: Singles Club?
Stars may not be loners, as once thought. Now astronomers predict that 85 percent of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy reside in multiple-star systems. More than half of all stars are binary stars, or two stars that are bound by their mutual gravitational attraction, with each star orbiting around the center of mass. When three or more stars huddle together, it’s called a multiple star system. In 2005, astronomers presented evidence for the first planet orbiting a binary system.

Number 3: Enigmatic Explosions
The catastrophic explosion of a star sends out shock waves that radiate outward at 22 million mph (35 million kph). The end of life for some stars can be a spectacular event. Called a supernova, when a star that’s more than eight times the mass of our Sun burns out, gravity’s inward push tears apart the star’s innards. The explosion propels jets of high-energy light and matter out into space. Since Johannes Kepler’s supernova was spotted in 1604, astronomers haven’t witnessed one in our own galaxy.

Number 2: Sun Rays
The Sun’s atmosphere, or corona, can reach a bubbling 3.6 million degrees F (2 million degrees C), and can unpredictably fling out streams of high-energy particles at near light-speed. Called solar flares, these bundles of charged particles accelerate along curved magnetic field lines toward Earth, where they can disrupt communications and satellite technology, electronic devices, and even cell phones. The largest solar flares can release millions of hydrogen bombs’ worth of energy, or enough energy to power the United States for 100,000 years if it could be harnessed. Astronomers are just beginning to understand the inner workings of the sun, with the goal of predicting these fiery flares.

Number 1: Grim Reapers
Black holes are so dense that nothing can escape from their gravitational clutches. Once past the event horizon, or the boundary beyond which even light cannot escape, there’s no way out. Now astronomers have strong evidence for the existence of stellar black holes, which form from the collapse of massive stars, as well as super-massive black holes that reach jaw-dropping weights of millions of solar masses.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/top10_star_mysteries.html

Testing... Testing... 123

So the GRE Results are in for round two. Here's how I did both times:

Round One (October 2005):
Verbal - 510 - 52nd Percentile
Math - 710 - 71st Percentile
Essays - 5 - 70th Percentile

Round Two (May 2006):
Verbal - 550 - 62nd Percentile
Math - 790 - 90th Percentile
Essays - 5 - 70th Percentile

Ok well really those scores are off the top of my head, but I think they are correct... Verbal and math are out of 800 points total and the essays are scored on a scale of 1-6 for 2 essays scored by 2 readers and then averaged. I guess it's good I did a little better. 10 more percent on the verbal looks way better, but may still not be enough for Berkeley or Santa Cruz... but that doesn't mean I'm not going to apply. No hurt in that, I figure. But honestly... a 790 in the math section?!?!? I think that means I'm a mathematical genius! Haha, not really... but damn it feels good! Too bad I can't remember enough vocabulary to do as well on the Verbal section!

Dark Crystal Sequel

Can I get a what-what?!?
I am so excited! And it even looks like Brian Froud will be doing the design work again! Woohoo!

http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2005/051305.shtml

Starbucks Discovery

Did you know that a venti starbucks has the same amount of espresso as the grande? They just add more milk to the venti! I feel totally gipped! All this time I was getting the larger size, thinking that spending that little bit more money on a commodity I neither need nor can afford was waking me up a little bit more! But no! I actually need to fork over even more dough if I want the venti to actually be worth that extra 4 ounces of drink! I am flabberghasted that no one had ever mentioned it to me before. All my time spent in Starbucks, getting to know each and every barista, and nothing! I had to overhear it from some bubbley blonde girl in pigtails shining a fake smile from here to neverland while batting her lashes over blue contact lens laden eyeballs.

I need to find a new cafe.

Fire

Fancy that... I scored as fire and I'm a fire sign, who's surprised?

You scored as Fire. Fire is your predominating element; it rules the signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. Water 65% Fire 65% Air 55% Earth 50% Spirit 35% Which of the Five Elements are you? created with QuizFarm.com

I am so bored! Apparently I work too fast, so now there isn't really anything to do. I guess that's a good thing... getting caught up and all. But now I am just sitting here. My boss is out picking up his son from the airport and Ryan just went to visit his sister in the hospital. That makes me want to go visit Sierra in the hospital. Except that Ryan's sister is in Alameda and Sierra is in Chico. Chico = much, much farther away. I hope she's feeling better! I called her earlier since I haven't heard anything since Saturday, but she didn't answer which leads me to believe that she is still in there. Hopefully she's getting all caught up on the latest Soap gossip or something!
Lalala. Typatypatypa. I guess I could just go home early. I know I'll have work tomorrow and possibly Friday too, but not today it seems. Carol from the Soils Lab may have me help her with some data entry, but she seemed too swamped to even train me on that, so we shall see. She said that she would come and find me. That was awhile ago. An hour maybe? Hum. And la.
It's my sister's birthday today and she isn't here. She'll be here soon, but not until Monday I think. Today she is at a spa all day and I'm totally jealous. My brain feels like jello. I can't even think straight cuz I am so freakin' bored. I can't decide which is better: being overwhelmed with work that is boring or being underwhelmed with work that is fun. Maybe it will pick up soon. Gosh, I hope so.
Yay! Sierra just called me and she is alive, woo! She is still in the hospital, but she sounds like she is doing ten times better, so that is good. I think she will get to leave tomorrow. And she says she's coming down in a month or so for Elizabeth's wedding so that means that I'll get to see her soon too! Yippee!
Ok, well I'm obviously not the creative type today so I'm going to stop the blabbery typing and find something else to do for a little bit.
*~*Raevyn Mystique~*~

The First Thing I've Written Since The Last Thing I Wrote

Swing sets and sing songs
Are longing to play
But His tarnished wheelbarrows
Adulterate Her stay

Impassive and stolid
With tacit, His eyes
Their whimsical opprobrium
A worthy disguise

Her pristine mind
Will inevitably fail
Quiesce the waters
Under Her soporific tale

Moving On

Ok, I'm ready. Ready for what, you may ask... ready to move on. I'm done letting dumb people run my life, and ruin it! I was so over it and moving on, but He just kept on haranguing me. Pretty irritating, if you ask me. Why did He feel the need to call me and let me know that yes, he had had sexual relations with that girl. First of all, I'm no idiot. They have a past together and yadda yadda. But is it truly necessary to call me and tell me it? I'm thinking no, but He did it anyways! So yeah. Not answering the phone when His number pops up anymore. Plus, He for some reason finds it useful to corner me at my car when I'm trying to leave to ask me if we can be friends. Only, it's not as nice as that. It's more of a demand than a request. You can't demand someone whose heart you've broken FOUR times to be your friend, no matter what time of night or how much money she's just won at the poker table! Especially when You make it sound like it's her fault!
So for awhile, I've been avoiding Him. I don't like getting cornered at my car and told how to run my life. Only, He's part of the crew. Even more now than ever before. So that means that I've been excluding myself from outings and gatherings. I've missed 2 soccer games (which turned out to be okay because they only ended up playing basketball instead cuz the field was too muddy), most jam sessions, and numerous poker games. Not any more.
First of all, New Boy Interest is involved in the jam sessions... so, if I start going, then I start connecting. Who cares if poo ex-boyfriend is there? Well, prolly me. But I'll work on that one next. Anyways, He's not always there. I plan on taking my lovely new Irish Tin Whistle to jam out with! Moving up from the spoons, I am!
So we'll see how my new plan pans out. Well, I am sure. If He tries to corner me again, I'll just punch Him in the nose! Ok, maybe not. But I'll tell Him to freakin' leave me alone. When it's time, it's time. When I'm ready, I'm ready. But don't force me into something by making me feel guilty and worthless! Who would want to be that Guy's friend? Sure as hell not me.

Day 5

Of my new life... smoke free and working full-time in the lab! Both are going quite well, actually! I'm wishing I could just be fully trained already because I was getting a little frustrated yesterday. Everyone keeps talking to me like I know everything already, but I don't, so it's a little hard to keep up. But aside from that, it's pretty fun! I had a brief sautering (sp?) lesson yesterday which was awesome. All of my sauters were done correctly the first time which totally helped boost my self-esteem! Jay also took me around to all of the machine shops and outside service labs that we use here, so it was interesting to finally see and meet all of the people I used to send checks to way back in the old A/P days, haha. All in all, things are going well. Speaking of which, I'd better get back to it!

Day 2

Of the non-smoking.
So far, so good!

Surprise!

I have the bestest friends on the planet! Not only did I have an excellent birthday on Friday, but they threw me a surprise party on Saturday night, woo-hoo!
On Friday I had to work. I pulled a full day, even! My boss got me a cake and so we had some chat-time in the break room which was nice, especially for a Friday. It was chocolate with chocolate, but it was still good! I'm not going to complain about work-bought cake!
It started pouring down rain sometime before I left work at 4, so when I attempted to drive my birthday arse down Crow Canyon I discovered that it was totally stopped! I'm pretty sure the hills were trying to take over the road, so as soon as the "Road Work Ahead" came into view I flipped a bitch and went straight for the freeway. Not to mention that at that same instant my gas light flicked on. Hooray for having to buy gas in San Ramon! Actually, it wasn't so bad because the guy at the gas station (who was so short he had to stand on a footstool to see me and reach the cash register, but was cute no less) ran out before I left to give me a Red Bull (for drinking of the Jager Bombs or Red Bull and Vodkas) for my b-day! Woo hoo free Red Bull! So to the freeway I went. And then proceeded to get off the freeway and onto the secret side road that leads to Castro Valley cuz the freeway appeared to be having just as much troubles as Crow Canyon.
But alas, I made it! To my daddy's house in Castro Valley, that is. Just in time to leave again for the A Street Cafe (on A Street, actually) for my b-day din-din. I was craving French food for some strange reason, so that's what I picked for my fancy dinner. And fancy it was! We had escargot and duck pate appetizers. I had a glass of Shiraz cuz my mom talked me into it even tho I felt a little weird about it at first. For dinner, I chose the special: Ostrich in a red wine sauce with Cream of Asparagas Soup. Yum, yum! Ostrich est tres bon! My mom had veal and my dad ordered a rack of lamb. Everything was superb!
Anyhoo, after the fooding (which took two and a half hours), we drove back to my daddy's house and I traversed on to Simoney's house for some festivities.

Haha, I never made it to the party... well, anyways, I am going to post this and be done with it! 4/25/06