From the Desk of the Liquid Engineer

So, things. Got my grades for Spring 2006 in a few days ago. All in all, I’m very pleased.

• Linear Algebra: A-
• Algorithms: B+
• Designing Interpreters: A
• US Foreign Policy: A-

Cumulative GPA: 3.799

Is it wrong that I’m annoyed with myself over that one-thousandth of a point? Probably. Perfectionism is a double-edged sword, I suppose.

As for May Term, I’m taking Exploring the Universe, a comprehensive astronomy course under the auspices of the Physics Department. Because it’s May Term (and thus, only about 21 days), it’s looking like it’s not going to be as grueling as the full semester equivalent. For example, we got our syllabus yesterday. He put it together based pretty much on what we as a class were interested in learning about. Also, we won’t be using the telescopes as part of normal labs (because our lab hours are 0900-1130)–all sky gazing/analysis of heavenly bodies is done through a bit of software that can simulate the sky at any time, from any place, in the last several thousand years (and maybe in the future…I haven’t played with it that much yet). Unfortunately, the book was 112 dollars…though it did come with a full copy of said software.

The Da Vinci Code opens today, with X-men 3 (wherein Kelsey Grammer of all people is an action hero) opening next week. I find the controversy over DVC highly humorous. It’s amazing how bent out of shape people can get over what amounts to historical fiction. I enjoy reading/watching things based on Greek and Norse mythology, but that doesn’t make me a pagan. I also greatly enjoyed National Treasure, wherein the Founding Fathers were shown as amassing a gigantic hoard of historical artifacts to rival the Library at Alexandria. That doesn’t mean I came away thinking Washington, Franklin, and the rest were conspiratorial whackos. I mean, the Illuminati goes back much farther than them.

Personally, I find the whole thing rather ironic. X-Men as a franchise has always been on some level a race relations allegory. The only thing that changes is how much the writers do (or do not) want to emphasize the point. But the pop culture seems to ignore this completely in favor of staring at the sheer wicked-coolness of Wolverine and oogling Halle Berry, who looks absolutely fabulous as Storm.

(Now, I would’ve paid someone to write in the Logan/Storm relationship. Jackman and Berry could’ve rocked together. The Storm/Nightcrawler stuff was promising, but Kurt’s not even in this movie. Which is a whole other rant.)
Phasers on stun. Good luck. Liquid Engineer, out.

[tags]movies, university, da vinci code[/tags]

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