Earth Day

The past week was Earth Day. Although I never officially learned the official definition of official "Earth Day," it always has had a personally interpreted meaning to me. I feel as though Earth Day is a day to appreciate and care for what nature has provided us. I do believe that every day we must care for the Earth in order to sustain its balance and resources, not just Earth Day, but at least we have one day each year just to remind us.

Motivation!

What motivates me to learn about chemistry this year? I don't really know, because I'm really not intrinsically motivated by chemistry. I guess it's pretty interesting, but the fact that I need to retain stuff, memorize numbers, study, observe, take notes, do work etc sorta turns me off chem (yeah I'm lazy). I just find it really hard to grasp or understand, and I know I don't want to have any sort of career in science, so I don't feel particularly motivated. However, I know I want a good GPA, because I am motivated in other areas of study, so I know I need a good grade in chem so I can keep my GPA up and options open for colleges and stuff. B

Science & Politics

Because I know sooooo much about both these things, yup.
So I googled "science and politics" and found this lovely article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0927/p11s02-bogn.html

Skimming over it, it reminded me of "separation of church and state"... but instead "separation of science and state." I found that often, scientific or medical issues also had to do with morals: Stem-cell research, creationism, abortion, global warming. It also pointed out a stereotype of republicans wanting less involvement or freedom toward these issues (no abortion, no stem-cell research etc.) whereas democrats were much more open...


Also, I read today a post from Mrs. Gallagher's article about how she never saw her grades, never shows her kids their grades, and tries to focus away from grades in her class... I had heard about this and at first i didn't like the idea of focusing on "learning" more than grades, but after she shared the story of frustrations with parent-teacher conferences and only talking about grades, I understood more why she wouldn't want to focus on grades (i feel like if i learned a lot though, I would probably do better on work)

QUANTUM MECHANICS (dun dun dunnnn)

So a cat can be alive and dead at once? I get that, if you open the door to see, anything can happen to change what was happening before measurements were taken. So basically you can't really carry out ANY experiment and collect data that's completely since you influenced the results by watching them. So there are infinitely many variables, and something will ALWAYS affect what you're doing. In otherwords, you will never be able to observe exactly what happens in nature, because by observing it, you're changing it. I'm starting to doubt all the things i notice now... maybe they're completely different when I don't notice them. Quantum Mechanics was this beautiful, brilliant concept. Then it was brought to my attention. I observe it as completely confusing, complicated, and tangled. Is it really like that? I'll never know anything except for the way I learn it... My brain hurts... I hope I find a new way to observe Quantum Mechanics before the test.

So what does it all mean?

MY initial reaction to this video was that our world is changing. Drastically. More information is being produced that ANYone can keep up with. Computers are smarter than people. Americans are wasting potential brainpower. Technology is TAKING OVER and we're all getting carried away with it too fast to resist. Or even realize... Scary stuff...

...or at least that's how they wanted to react. In disbelief after my initial reaction, i watched the video again, this time feeling much less shock than the first time. I felt that so much of the information and so many of the statistics were presented in such a way to exaggerate the truth and make it seem more extreme.

"China will become the top English-speaking country..." Meaning what? Will the entire Chinese population speak better English than I? That would be an instant, jumping-to-conclusions answer, but what if it just means that more Chinese people will study the language than any other country? (P.S. China has one of the biggest populations in the world.)

And those supercomputers? My understanding of that whole "computational capacity" deal is that some machine can solve a scary-looking equation faster than a normal person can in their heads. Which i think is perfectly fine, considering that these supercomputers have every single feature of a calculator, they just save time by not pressing buttons.

Of course TV caught on faster than radio, it was advertised via radio. Then the Internet got publicity from TV AND radio. Of course India has more honors kids than the U.S. has kids. There are like 3 times as many people living there.

Clearly, the makrs of this video were trying to make a point. There are huge changes happening all around us, but the changes haven't been traumatically drastic in my life. The facts are shocking and easily spun out of proportion when lumped all together, but in action, it's not that scary... you should know, you're living with them.