Photo Essay

Image 1: Overcast Overwatch

SDCOE overlooking mission valley

Humongous, fluffy sculptures of iron grey water vapor churn impressively above the sprawling form of mission valley. Humming electrical lines stretch above the no-mans land between a SDCOE parking lot and a spacious golfing green. In the distance, stumpy mountains loom blackly; hazy from suspended moisture.

Image 2: Flagpole

SDOCE outside the Joseph Rindone Technology Center

A soaring spike of steel spears the very belly of a cloud swathed sky, trailing the flag of our United States of America alongside the ferocious visage of the golden state’s ursine mascot. Such a simple image raises a host of questions, if one has the curiosity to pose them. For instance, exactly what kind of metal is the flagpole made of? The likely candidate would be stainless steel, as it would require minimal maintenance, though a core of cheap material could easily be wrapped in some sort of corrosion resistant alloy. Such a rarely seen perspective could also give rise to several exiting guessing games. For example: write down every conceivable number on little scraps of paper and stuff them in a jug. Then have a few people randomly fish numbers out of the jug, until someone collects the exact height of the pole in meters, yards, feet, inches, and centimeters. Give that person a prize!

Image 3: Ocean Sliver

SDCOE overlooking USD and the Pacific ocean

Filtered through our rapidly warming atmosphere; the great constant, the enemy of comprehension, the soundless, motionless void that we call space takes on a cheerful azure hue. The barest sliver of an alarmingly acidic Pacific ocean can be seen peeking over the beaches and bridges of San Diego, providing a picturesque backdrop for a sward of houses and the outskirts of USD. A cool breeze ruffles the tops of leafy trees and sweeps petite wisps of cloud across the blue.

Image 4: Power lines

SDCOE

Enough current to melt the flesh, fat, cartilage - indeed the very sinew off of your bones hums nonstop through towering modern minarets, metal obelisks commanding attention for miles around, demanding acquiescence to little yellow patches emblazoned with the words DANGER - HIGH VOLTAGE. Are such fortifications the best choice for electrical peregrination? It could be argued that, due to their resemblance to military installations, they should be considered with similar design elements. For instance, a tunnel would likely be a more strategically desirable format than a system of wires suspended hundreds of feet above the ground, in addition to being more aesthetically desirable.

Image 5: Plant Light

SDCOE

Sunlight illuminates flourishing plant life through a hole in concrete support columns, revealing in glorious color the majesty of photosynthesis and the beauty of chlorophyll. As everyone should know, chlorophyll is a naturally occurring pigment in plants that absorbs the red and blue spectrum while reflecting the green, and is essential to plant life as we know it. Concrete, on the other hand, was invented in a form very similar to the modern formula by the Romans, and is made with a mixture of cement, aggregate material, and water (plus optional and obscure chemicals). Concrete has excellent compressive strength but poor tensile strength, a combination of properties that generally necessitates some sort of reinforcement, like rebar grids or spirals.

Image 6: Busy Bees

SDCOE

As I sat, enjoying a solitary luncheon, my wandering attention was drawn to a faint buzzing originating somewhere over my shoulder. Imagine my surprise to find a bush immediately behind my bench so packed with flowers the leaves were almost invisible. A few placid bumblebees were busy exploring the same phenomena, albeit with a more invested interest. My lightning fast quickdraw skills were put into full effect as I unholstered my camera and snapped off a flurry of precise shots with the practiced ease of Clint Eastwood. A moment of contemplation later I had the camera set to “macro”, and spent a good deal of time trying to get a nice picture of one of the bees (a feat easier said than done, as their movements were erratic and constant). Feast your starved eyes on the succulent fruits of my labor, and remember that, just as one must refrain from gorging themselves after a prolonged fast, lest their stomach rupture and spill highly corrosive acids into the abdominal cavity, causing slow and excruciating death, you must try to remember to blink while gazing at these photographs, or risk the eyeballs losing too much of their precious moisture to evaporation. Take pains, also, that you do not allow yourself to become dehydrated by crying at their beauty - the human body is 75% water, after all.

Honors Blog

Dear reader,

Before writing anything about the topic, I must clarify that I am not in honors, and so am not obligated to write this blog. However, I am going to do so anyway, because it seems like such an excellent prompt. Unfortunately, I have not read any of the same material about the decision that the real honors students have, so my blog will be, in the main, devoid of factual backup. I will also not strain myself to fit any deadlines, because I hate them. I will also not bother to follow any logical train of thought until I have compiled enough observations to organize them in a complete blog entry.

The decision to use atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was one that would linger in the debate halls and blog prompts of humanity for generations. 

On the one hand, governmental decision makers would have known atomic bombs would kill thousands and thousands of innocent Japanese, but on the other, casualties could be just as high (indeed higher) in a conventional assault. The question then, becomes whether Japan should have been attacked at all or pressured to reach diplomatic understanding.

What am I Bringing to the Magazine?

1. Hopefully I will have a good, informative interview to contribute before any deadlines accrue, but I will also have a photo essay. I guess that if I really feel like it I could write another article, but I would need intense motivation.

2. Hmmm... What a difficult question. We could go with something obvious and boring like "HTHMA Internships", but there must be better choices. Cliches are always fun, but, sadly, the creative portion of the human brain does not give birth on command, so I cannot think of anything much more clever than "HTHMA Internships" (or similar variations like "HTHMA Internships 2009" or "2009 HTHMA Internships") at the moment.

3. I think I would like to read a stark assessment of the benefits and drawbacks, both hypothetical and literal, associated with internships. Of course, if this article was to appear in a magazine written terribly, I would not enjoy it. Similarly, if I saw a well written article about something less inherently interesting in a magazine I would read and enjoy it, going to show that a well written piece of writing is almost always more appealing than a poor one. Considering this, I would appreciate it if the articles obey the rules of english, not focus on any topic in particular.

Internship Immersion

I chose question number 1:

What did you learn during immersion? How did you learn it?

Answer:

Perhaps the most tangible "things" I learned during my immersion were: 1. How to coil really long cables without kinks or bends (things that would presumably shorten the life of the cables and make them more difficult to use), and 2. How to operate a TV camera, because I played the role of an impromptu cameraman for an episode of Math 2 Success.

I learned how to coil like a pro through the following series of events: One day I went to internship. There was nothing for me to do, so I sat in a chair and read an engaging book. eventually, a kindly man happened by and asked if I could help in the studio. I enthusiastically replied that, of course, I would help him (probably to a casual observer I did not appear remotely exited, but I assure you that I was bursting with joy). So, after stowing my book in my backpack, I wended my way to the ITV studio, where I was introduced to several other people who were busy as bees. One guy told me that I could begin by coiling up a blue cable that snaked across the floor like a starved anaconda. I did so, naively assuming that one coils a long cable (must have been 50 feet) in the same way as a rope. Sadly, I was not correct, a fact that was explained to me in civil terms by this other guy who showed my how to do it professionally. As he put it, when there are very long cables that need to be kept in good shape (because everything costs money) pains should be taken to coil them so that they lie (I cannot think of any word for this instance better than flaccid, and even that is not a very accurate description) flaccid, without the cable's natural tendency to twist in a certain way being ignored. He showed me a tricky flick-of-the-wrist maneuver so that the cable naturally forms a coil. I would outline exactly what to do, but, not to be blunt, that was a really long paragraph and I still have another one to finish so I'll just leave it at that. 

After the adventure with the cable, (I think if anyone ever asks me about that again I will have to make up some elaborate story about wrestling a 50 foot python or something else suitably manly) a completely different guy showed me how to use a camera and what the filming would entail, then the TV kids arrived, and (to cut a long story short) we started filming.

It is apparent that the two "things" I chose to describe were skills. I suppose a skill is subtly different from an ability or talent... (I am very tired right now so I will come back to this part later and hash out some acute philosophical connections) (at least I would like to call them acute but they will likely be horribly obtuse).

Immersion

This blog might be slightly (or even completely) irrelevant, as I failed to write it before the start of my internship immersion, but considering that such a series of events is out of my power to change, and the undeniably true saying goes; "better late that never", I decided to finish it anyway.

Question #1: What are you most excited about in regards to your immersion experience? Why do you feel this way?

Answer: I was most exited about being exempt from scholarly requirements for 2 weeks. Now that half of my immersion has expired, I am most enjoying the incredible opportunity afforded by such a bounty of free time, which I am spending by reading several of the books I have been meaning to finish. I am currently more than halfway through Don Quixote (a fantastic read) and after that I want to shift my full attention to War and Peace (my drive to finish this book failed me twice, and each time was in the same part of the book. Leo Tolstoy may have produced an intelligent, deep, and thematically refined novel, but the chapters about the war are so immensely dull that I could not force my mind to continue processing the story).

Question #2: What are you most concerned about (what causes the most stress) regarding immersion? Why do you feel this way?

Answer: Fortunately this storm has passed in much the same manner as this blog entry, bringing to mind the old adage: "time heals all wounds". Before immersion, and during the early days of the intellectual sojourn, my subconscious was pressed to the grindstone of stress by the unyielding arm of my internship project. Eventually I decided to kill two plump bird with one stone, abandoning my sinking project concept to bolster the ranks of another group. In my mind, my time and efforts were better spent improving an already commendable group effort then struggling against setbacks as immutable as the laws of gravity for the sake of an already poor project. Since this liberating decision, my new group has another humble peon lending his mind and body to their project, and I have much less actual work to do, since the bigger the group the less each person must do. So here I am, taking a break from the outlandish and amusing escapades of Don Quixote to write this blog. Speaking of Don Quixote, it is a wonderful book and I particularly enjoy the wide variety of metaphors drawn from mythology that scatter every page. For my part, I would love to have the same knowledge of cultural myths that practically every character possesses and employs with such great skill and wit. One of my favorite is as follows (pg. 355):

"Along this road that I have described, rough and difficult, stumbling here and falling there, struggling to their feet then falling again, they gain the degree to which they aspire; and once they attain this, many are those we see who, having sailed over these shoals and between these Scyllas and Charybdises as if borne on the wings of favorable fortune, govern and rule the world from an armchair, with their hunger turned to satiety, their pinching cold to..."

The part of this that I find commendable (quite apart from the excellent and amusing syntax) is the reference to Scylla and Charybdis, which according to the footnote (prior to this I had no idea what these two names were) were a sea monster and a whirlpool, respectively, from Greek mythology. Such clever and apt references are rarely seen in any writing, and when used intelligently can elevate any story or argument.

PS

Mar 16:

In truth I do not know what motivated me to write this post-script besides a spate of crushing boredom, since it is essentially irrelevant and completely unnecessary. After reading Don Quixote, (which could be my new favorite book - it would almost be worth it to learn spanish just to be able to read the original version) I decided to leave War and Peace to gather dust on my shelf in favor of a much shorter, much more riveting book titled The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis. The book is about the author's journey to Haiti in search of the formula of their zombi poison, and covers everything from history to botany to Haitian culture. Not only that, but Davis managed to combine mountains of the aforementioned (plus others) in the format of a suspenseful, informative, (true) novel, without breaking the mood, pace, flow, or whatever you want to call that elusive quality inherent to a good book.