Varied things
Jan. 15th, 2005 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetYou know, before this weekend, I had no idea how addicted I was to LiveJournal. Now I'm slightly more aware - - And here I thought I was just an internet junkie...
Anyway, on to the good stuff.
I meant to talk about this yesterday, but sh1t happened and was unable to here.
The Huygens Probe landed on Titan, yay ^___^!
Okay, I'm going to be truthful. I had no idea what it was or what it was for or even that it exsisted before being side-tracked while doing research on bridges yesterday. However, now that I know, I'm not going to stop being excited about it. This is because firstly, aside from home sweet home Terra, Titan is about my favorite planet/satelite/heavenly body/whatever in the solar system, and secondly, because I have a friend who works at the VLBA in North Liberty ^_______^. (VLBA = Very Long Baseline Array) For those who don't know, the VLBA consists of about ten huge satelite dishes located in various places around the U.S. They pick up radio waves (and some of the stuff looks pretty damn cool when translated to things humans can see) from way far away, but the satelites individually don't have a very big range. DeeJay, the guy who works there, once compared it to looking at stars through an incredibly long paper towel tube ^^; Fortunately, when the dishes hook up together, the amount they can pick up increases (I think >_>) by powers of ten. (I don't have a perfect memory, despite how often I pretend I do/otherwise seem to, so forgive me my mistakes.)
Back on track now. Apperantly there was this issue with communications that I don't know all the details of but ended with the probe sending back radio waves when it got pulled into Titan. What was expected was that as soon as the probe landed communications would cease. What _happened_ was that the probe was able to launch and work a parachute (Titan has a nice, thick atmosphere ^___^ <3) and the VLBA was recieving signals until the planet (us, I think) turned out of range. So, yay for defying expectations! Congrats, Huygens Probe on reaching your destination and shocking a number of people and promoting DeeJay's workplace! And hooray for me, finding out more about one of my favorite features of our solar system!
(I would like to take this opportunity to point out, on behalf of DeeJay and the rest of the staff at the North Liberty VLBA dish, that their work is not controlled in any way, shape or form by the University of Iowa, and the North Liberty VLBA dish is not the U of I's pet project, so stop taking credit for their work, thank-you-very-much.)
We're doing a fencing unit in gym class :D!
Yes, you read that correctly, a fencing unit. It's not much, but I'll take it.
...There was really no point in my cutting that, was there? Ah, well.
Dojo today ^_^. Worked quite a bit on left-side technique in Bojutsu. Jillian-sensei is still deciding what will go on the standard sheet, but she knows it will include both sides, so we have to work really hard with our retarded left sides to get them up to snuff.
Worked moslty on shuffling and movement in Shinkendo, with a side order of suki (and by this I mean stabbing motions, not liking thingsthough both apply in the case of our dojo).
Shinkendo was primarily when my affinity for fandom-following worked against me.
Sensei Dan: *to Roger* I can't believe you got me to uke for that guy!
Me: O_o
1st Thts: Did he just say what I thought he said?
2nd Thts: Yes. He did. Calm down.
1st Thts: Calm down? Calm down! How am I supposed to calm down?!?
2nd Thts: By remembering that 'uke' is a proper martial arts term for one who is on the recieving end of an attack or series of attacks.
1st Thts: ...I knew that.
Looking back, I can completely see how those particular Yaoi euphamisms/phrases/whatever came into comman usage ^^; I mean, wow, is it ever glaringly obvioius!
Not too long after this, we ended up seperated into groups for a pushing exersize. See, what we had to do is the one person had to place his or her hand on her partner's chest right about where the collar bones come together and push, and the other person had to resist the push without un-balancing or, in the event the first person's hand was removed, falling flat on his or her face. Sensei had everyone divided into same-sex pairs (and made a point of pointing out this to the class, which, after the above remark/train of thought, had a whole new dimension of meaning to me that he almost definately did not intend).
Sensei went on to explain that he was pairing girls with girls and guys with guys for a reason.
Sensei: It's so I don't have to deal with what would happen if anyone's hand slips, for any reason, lower than it should. Ladies, you know that if any of the guys did that to you, I would allow you to wreak unholy carnage upon them. And then, you know, half my class would be gone, so this way is just easier.
I thought for a minute about pointing out the inherent heterosexism in that statement, but thought better of it in the end. I mean, I'm bi, but that doesn't mean I'm neccessarily going to do anything--which, yanno, being a philophobe, I'm not--and since I'm not, I see no reason to bring it up and cause Sensei unneccessary worry. He worries enough as it is, I think, without having to worry about this. I mean, we make a lot of really bad gay jokes around the dojo (what with hakamas looking almost exactly like skirts and most students being male and so forth--there was this whole day were there was nothing but running gags on Sensei and Sensei's recent trip to San Fansisco and how 'We're not that kind of school - but wait, we are!' that totally killed me ^^) and bringing it up would just put too much strain on him because then he'd go back and worry about every bad gay joke he'd ever made in my presence and worry about whether it had offended me or not. (I _think_ that's what I'm getting off of him at any rate...)
So yeah. Said nothing. Was privately amused and so forth.
To finish up from my long-winded talking-about-various-things thing, I'd just like to say that I think I found a way to make the sequel to Misinformation work ^_^. See, I didn't think it was going to work because there wasn't any real _conflict_ left, but I think I found some. So yay ^_^.Now I just need an excuse to get Sakura into some weird Kaitou-Kid-esque costume...
Anyway, on to the good stuff.
I meant to talk about this yesterday, but sh1t happened and was unable to here.
The Huygens Probe landed on Titan, yay ^___^!
Okay, I'm going to be truthful. I had no idea what it was or what it was for or even that it exsisted before being side-tracked while doing research on bridges yesterday. However, now that I know, I'm not going to stop being excited about it. This is because firstly, aside from home sweet home Terra, Titan is about my favorite planet/satelite/heavenly body/whatever in the solar system, and secondly, because I have a friend who works at the VLBA in North Liberty ^_______^. (VLBA = Very Long Baseline Array) For those who don't know, the VLBA consists of about ten huge satelite dishes located in various places around the U.S. They pick up radio waves (and some of the stuff looks pretty damn cool when translated to things humans can see) from way far away, but the satelites individually don't have a very big range. DeeJay, the guy who works there, once compared it to looking at stars through an incredibly long paper towel tube ^^; Fortunately, when the dishes hook up together, the amount they can pick up increases (I think >_>) by powers of ten. (I don't have a perfect memory, despite how often I pretend I do/otherwise seem to, so forgive me my mistakes.)
Back on track now. Apperantly there was this issue with communications that I don't know all the details of but ended with the probe sending back radio waves when it got pulled into Titan. What was expected was that as soon as the probe landed communications would cease. What _happened_ was that the probe was able to launch and work a parachute (Titan has a nice, thick atmosphere ^___^ <3) and the VLBA was recieving signals until the planet (us, I think) turned out of range. So, yay for defying expectations! Congrats, Huygens Probe on reaching your destination and shocking a number of people and promoting DeeJay's workplace! And hooray for me, finding out more about one of my favorite features of our solar system!
(I would like to take this opportunity to point out, on behalf of DeeJay and the rest of the staff at the North Liberty VLBA dish, that their work is not controlled in any way, shape or form by the University of Iowa, and the North Liberty VLBA dish is not the U of I's pet project, so stop taking credit for their work, thank-you-very-much.)
We're doing a fencing unit in gym class :D!
Yes, you read that correctly, a fencing unit. It's not much, but I'll take it.
...There was really no point in my cutting that, was there? Ah, well.
Dojo today ^_^. Worked quite a bit on left-side technique in Bojutsu. Jillian-sensei is still deciding what will go on the standard sheet, but she knows it will include both sides, so we have to work really hard with our retarded left sides to get them up to snuff.
Worked moslty on shuffling and movement in Shinkendo, with a side order of suki (and by this I mean stabbing motions, not liking things
Shinkendo was primarily when my affinity for fandom-following worked against me.
Sensei Dan: *to Roger* I can't believe you got me to uke for that guy!
Me: O_o
1st Thts: Did he just say what I thought he said?
2nd Thts: Yes. He did. Calm down.
1st Thts: Calm down? Calm down! How am I supposed to calm down?!?
2nd Thts: By remembering that 'uke' is a proper martial arts term for one who is on the recieving end of an attack or series of attacks.
1st Thts: ...I knew that.
Looking back, I can completely see how those particular Yaoi euphamisms/phrases/whatever came into comman usage ^^; I mean, wow, is it ever glaringly obvioius!
Not too long after this, we ended up seperated into groups for a pushing exersize. See, what we had to do is the one person had to place his or her hand on her partner's chest right about where the collar bones come together and push, and the other person had to resist the push without un-balancing or, in the event the first person's hand was removed, falling flat on his or her face. Sensei had everyone divided into same-sex pairs (and made a point of pointing out this to the class, which, after the above remark/train of thought, had a whole new dimension of meaning to me that he almost definately did not intend).
Sensei went on to explain that he was pairing girls with girls and guys with guys for a reason.
Sensei: It's so I don't have to deal with what would happen if anyone's hand slips, for any reason, lower than it should. Ladies, you know that if any of the guys did that to you, I would allow you to wreak unholy carnage upon them. And then, you know, half my class would be gone, so this way is just easier.
I thought for a minute about pointing out the inherent heterosexism in that statement, but thought better of it in the end. I mean, I'm bi, but that doesn't mean I'm neccessarily going to do anything--which, yanno, being a philophobe, I'm not--and since I'm not, I see no reason to bring it up and cause Sensei unneccessary worry. He worries enough as it is, I think, without having to worry about this. I mean, we make a lot of really bad gay jokes around the dojo (what with hakamas looking almost exactly like skirts and most students being male and so forth--there was this whole day were there was nothing but running gags on Sensei and Sensei's recent trip to San Fansisco and how 'We're not that kind of school - but wait, we are!' that totally killed me ^^) and bringing it up would just put too much strain on him because then he'd go back and worry about every bad gay joke he'd ever made in my presence and worry about whether it had offended me or not. (I _think_ that's what I'm getting off of him at any rate...)
So yeah. Said nothing. Was privately amused and so forth.
To finish up from my long-winded talking-about-various-things thing, I'd just like to say that I think I found a way to make the sequel to Misinformation work ^_^. See, I didn't think it was going to work because there wasn't any real _conflict_ left, but I think I found some. So yay ^_^.
