Time Travel

Blogging is not entirely my favorite thing to do. However, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I’m glad I chose to do random thoughts as my focal point, because I seem to have an excess of them. I’m finding it hard to concentrate on blogging at this particular moment because I’m watching my favorite television show ever, “Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman”. I’m something of a science nerd, and this show is packed full with amazing information. I’ve learned so much from this show. I feel like I should share some of the neat bits of science I’ve learned about, which is what this blog is going to be about. Yay for science.

             The episode I’m watching right now is about time travel. Time travel is something you think of as science fiction right? Well… wrong! We are actually constantly traveling back in time. It takes light one billionth of a second to travel one foot… so when you see something, you are actually seeing it one billionth of a second in the past, and the farther something is from you, the farther back in the past you see it. It takes light from the sun 8 minutes to travel to earth, so we see the sun as it was 8 minutes after what we see happening has happened. Confused yet? Did you know that NOTHING can travel at the speed of light, except light? The closer you get to the speed of light, you actually start to slow down, and right before you approach the speed of light, time will actually stop. Incredible, right? If a train was traveling JUST under the speed of light, the people on that train would feel as if they had only traveled ten days on the train, while actually over 10 years would have passed on the outside world. Next time someone says stop living in the past, I guess now you have a solid argument for how it’s just not possible J.

            Did you know that the only place you can find all the elements that create life… is in a star? Now that’s really something to think about. It Gives the Big Bang Theory a funny twist. So essentially we are all made of stardust perhaps?

            Oh the things the world has yet to discover, and oh the things we have already discovered! Learning new information about life, and the things around me that influence my everyday life is so awesome. There are so many influential things affecting our daily lives, and yet we have no clue about half of them, and we understand even less! 

I PRITHEE

I prithee send me back my heart,

Since I cannot have thine;

For if from yours you will not part,

Why then shouldst thou have mine?

Yet now I think on 't, let it lie,

To find it were in vain;

For th' hast a thief in either eye

Would steal it back again.

Why should two hearts in one breast lie,

And yet not lodge together?

O love, where is thy sympathy,

If thus our breasts thou sever?

But love is such a mystery,

I cannot find it out;

For when I think I'm best resolved,

I then am most in doubt.

Then farewell care, and farewell woe,

I will no longer pine;

For I'll believe I have her heart

As much as she hath mine.

Sir John Suckling

This is a little gem of a poem i discovered a year or so ago, when i was at the peak of my poetry phase. There’s something about this poem that strikes a chord in my heart. I’ve never been one for poetry. I’ve always liked long novels or stories with character development and intricate plots. However, once in a blue moon I’ll come across a poem that I fall in love with, and this is one of those little pieces. It’s so simple, while still in depth. Maybe it’s the simplicity of it that makes it so complex, and perhaps that simple complexity is what I fell in love with. Often the things that seem like they have such a light an easily understood meaning are the ones that resonate the deepest. The simple ones are the ones that reach into your soul and pick away at your heart strings. I think this has something to say about life in itself... Keep it simple stupid, and perhaps that is how you can achieve happiness. 

The real Story of Xmas

With Thanksgiving approaching, and Christmas also around the corner, it’s the time of year people start thinking about all the things they are grateful for. I see all over Facebook how people are doing a “25 days of thankfulness”. Seeing these posts gives me mixed emotions. I don’t understand why people only feel a need to be grateful during the holiday season. I’m glad people are being thankful, but thankfulness should be a year round thing, not just a month or two a year.

            The holidays are supposed to be a time of family, celebration, and giving. However, I think it’s obvious that for most people, especially people with families, that it can be most the stressful and expensive time of the year. I often hear people saying things like “You need to remember what Christmas is really all about” or “Remember Christmas is about love and giving, not money and gifts”. Being the curious person I am, I make it a habit to find out what things REALLY are about. Where do they come from? Why did they come at all? Who? What? When? So, in honor of the holidays, and in favor of my insatiable curiosity, I’ve decided to get the story on Christmas, what it’s really all about, and how it came to be what it is today. There’s the story everyone already knows, which is that Jesus was born in a manger on December 25^th to the Virgin Mary, but what where did this story come from? Whose idea was it to spread this story around the world? Well… I’ve done a little investigating, and this is what I’ve discovered.

The roman emperor Constantine said he had a vision of the sun superimposed with the cross of Christ, three centuries after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, leading him to victory in battle, and so, he instituted the Edict of Toleration in 313 A. D. for the roman empire which he ruled, declaring the equality of all religions, including Christianity, which had been harshly persecuted for three hundred years previously.

 The “Christmas Season” was created to match up with the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, a month-long festival to honor Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture.  Saturnalia was a lively holiday where all classes of people – from slaves to royalty – were encouraged to fellowship, eat meals together, and exchange gifts.  The festivities also included hanging garlands and decorating the household. Constantine decided to merge the Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth with the winter solstice celebrations and Saturnalia.  The nature of the festival declined over the centuries (as did the Roman Empire), but many of the pagan traditions stuck to the holiday and became a part of Christmas forever.

One of the reasons that Christmas caught on across the world was that many pagan cultures also had celebrations that fell around the same time of the year.  This gave Christmas a rich blend of traditions to draw from, and helped other cultures adopt it more easily.  In Scandinavia and Germany, winter solstice celebrations were always held around the late December/early January time-frame, and adding a new god – Jesus – to the mix was no problem for their polytheistic culture.  These pagan influences formed the basis for Christmas trees, and gave us the name Yuletide, which meant “the turning of the year” in ancient Norse.

Americans did not widely celebrate Christmas when the country first emerged.  Congress was in session on Christmas day for many years, and the holiday was not officially recognized by the government until 1870.  By the end of the Civil War, people all over the country were warming up to the idea of celebrating Christmas.  The Santa Claus legend started growing, and decorating and gift-giving became the standard.  Sending Christmas cards became a yearly tradition as the Post Office connected friends and families across the country, and Charles Dickens brought attention to the holiday as a time for family and love in his famous work, “A Christmas Carol.”

There is the left side, the ride side, and then there’s the truth. I think digging into the past will teach us that things are always what we thought they were. There is always something to be learned. 

If you highlight the underlined sentences, it will show you the websites where i found this information. ENJOY :)

My "Chicken Soup for the Soul"

I have such a busy life sometimes that I forget to keep up on this blog. Blogging seems to be the farthest thing from my mind usually, until I’m in bed nearly asleep and it creeps into my consciousness. Of course, I’m not going to do anything about it when I’m on the edge of sleep, which is a rare commodity in my life. I then fret and worry about what I’m going to write about and lose the precious sleep I had been looking forward to in the first place.

            Anyways, now that I’ve gotten that chip off my shoulder, I’ll get to the point of my complaining. I’ve come to understand that without stress, work, and life’s general problems and obstacles there would be no appreciation for the good things in life. Would I appreciate life if there wasn’t death to make me fear not living? Would I still appreciate money if I was rich? Would I appreciate love if I had never had a broken heart? How do you experience joy if you never know sadness? These questions often cross my mind on a daily basis. It makes me wonder what it would take for everyone to appreciate everything they have in life.

            Sometimes it’s the simple things that make me appreciate everything. It’s a warm cup of coffee on an early summer morning. It’s a hot afternoon in a swimsuit floating down the river. It’s the smell of lilacs blooming in early spring. It’s spending a winter evening with my sister watching Christmas movies from our childhood. It’s hearing from a friend I haven’t seen in months.

            What brings all these thoughts to my mind today is chicken and noodles. The one thing that makes me feel happy and content with life (other than reading) is cooking. When I have a rough, tiring, or stressful day, nothing makes me feel better than taking something boring and making it fantastic. It’s like not only am I reinventing those ingredients to create a new product, but I’m reinventing myself. Each of those ingredients represents some aspect of my life. The carrots could be my job, the celery my school work, the eggs and flour for noodles could be my love life, the chicken broth could be all the other things that encompass all those daily obstacles, and the chicken is me. It seems slightly fitting that I would be the chicken.

            All of these things aren’t so special by themselves. They have no meaning or depth or flavor being solitary, but you put them together, and you have something new, something special. I’m not a creative person by any means. In fact, I often tell people I’m not a creator, I’m just an appreciator. I don’t even like being creative. Cooking is the only thing I love to make creations in. It’s so easy to get lost in mixing batter, or sifting flour, or dicing carrots. To get lost in a concotion that you know will make you happy with the product at the end of the day. Not only is it relaxing, it’s also a learning experience. Every time I cook, I learn something about myself. Lots of life lessons seem to lie inside that chicken broth…  

Harvest time Haikus

Here are a few seasonal inspired haikus and some visual aids to complete the picture!

I took these pictures throughout the week around my house and on my way to and from work.

 Vibrant sights behold,

A chauffers' sight of delight,

                                        Beauty knows no bounds!

The leaves are changing

Golden hues they are flaunting

                                            For autumn is here.

Rusty reds, fawn browns,

united with fair yellows,

shapes a fetching fresco.