The last week

The semester is ending and I am quite busy with one residual homework, two take home finals, 600+ physics exam problem, and a partridge and a pear tree.

The other week I was taking a short jogging break when I ran into two guys with white shirts ties which were each carrying a book. They were right in front of my house and I decided to be courteous and invite them in rather than take an extra lap (which would have been completely a diversionary tactic). Would you believe it, they were Mormons. So blah blah blah, we are now meeting weekly and I need to come up with a good way to fit 1Pet 3:18-19 and 1Pet 4:5-6 into my theological views on the state of the dead. Both of the guys are 19 or 20 and since I was an SM for a year, my heart goes out to them having to be away from home and all that. We've had our first scheduled meeting.

Frankie (a Taiwanese graduate student) told me about this talk on international politics and science. We went to the talk and I really enjoyed it--until the guy started showing Russian slides. Then the subject strayed from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor www.iter.org and I let myself drift into level 1 sleep. Afterwords I went up and talked to him. I think he had been a little board talking with the non-technical people because one question lead to another and another and then his agent (for lack of a better word) interrupted and said they had to go. I was pretty impressed because he had one or two photographers hovering around him, and I got my picture snapped. Anyways he encouraged me to pursue my interest in ITER. And frankly, fusion sounds cool.

So that is the latest buzz.