Do not distract us.

BELOVED ENGINEERS,

Do not allow yourself to worry over lousy overreactions to your opinion, of which you are rightfully entitled. You have tons of other things to think about other than what others think of you and how you might appear to them. If you do so, you are giving these people the means to become popular. Everybody wants to be talked about and in the process you are giving these people the very thing that they want.

Engineering is a tough course (not the toughest for others already claimed the tough spot. But to quote Janina, it came from one of the tough ten) and it requires (among all other things) FOCUS. When you are distracted from your work, buildings may collapse, factories may explode or airplanes may crash. The fabric of the world as humans made it may wear and tear and find us all helpless, if not inexistent. Distraction gives birth to mistakes, and all engineers who take the oath of accuracy treat error susceptibility as a malady, much like the allergen to their allergy.

IRONorwaY.

IT WAS very ironic. Two instances of horrific violence occurred in one of the most peaceful and peace-loving countries in the world last Saturday. An apparently mad, paranoid individual set off a bomb that killed seven people in downtown Oslo and later massacred 93 people, most of them children, in the island youth camp of Utoya.

It was the worst case of carnage in Norway since World War II and the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the Madrid bombings in 2004. Norway is a pacifist, peaceful country that hosts the annual Nobel Peace Prize awards. (The irony in the Nobel Peace Prize itself is that it was funded by Alfred Nobel, the man who invented the detonator or blasting cap for detonating nitroglycerin and igniting explosives.)

To the few who have taste

 Greetings!

I have a couple of announcements to make concerning you, my dear readers. ( Who still haven't found a way to overthrow my blackmails so you could sever your ties to readership of my blog.)

I have managed, despite my esteemed reputation of barely passing CSC 101, to spice up my blog and incorporate the like button and comments section from Facebook. That is, you can now like any of my posts (or dislike if you will but hey keep it to yourself) by simply hitting the Like button appearing after the title. Likewise, you can post comments at the end of every post.

Words of caution: First, you must have a Facebook account and logged in. (I factor this in because although it may sound highly improbable, there are netizens out there without a Facebook account. Example: Jessica Zafra.) Second, the plug-ins do not appear in the homepage. You must go to the post itself by clicking on its title.

I would like to thank AllBlogTools.com for the codes and the instructions. Still, I must say I have to congratulate myself. Digging into the HTML code was quite a feat. I guess proofreading training back in high school journalism proved eventually useful.

Enjoy reading!

Always,

JanMell, who just bought himself The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive by John Graham-Cumming

"For every one student who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity."

          -C.S. Lewis

JanMell Vanity Scripts #06: Expression

I have an unusual predicament. Right now, I can think of a lot of things to write but I couldn’t write a single thing. So I decided to write that I couldn’t write a single thing even though I can think of a lot of things to write. Others probably are envious. Occurrences like having a lot of things to write do not just spring out of thin air. Being able to conceive them is laudable but to write them is a feat.  In times when the workings of your mind give you an ailment, writing them might prove to be a remedy. 

There. It worked. 

JanMell Vanity Scripts #05: A Topsy-Turvy Universe

I always wondered what it would feel like sitting next to him. That was probably because I never entertained the idea that sitting next to him would be possible. I figured that if it were to actually happen—myself in proximity to him—he could never have sat next to me because I would have passed out by the time he gets three meters close (provided there is absolutely no opportunity to run). So imagine my reaction when it really happened. Suddenly, the ice in my glass of soda started to sink as its density exceeded that of liquid water, somewhere in outer space energy was created and destroyed, gravity was turned off and it felt like the entropy of the Universe inverted its arrowhead. I could go on but I think I made my point. My friends told me I was as red as his shirt, as if all my blood rushed to my face in screaming panic. Damn, where is the power to escape to a parallel universe when you need it?

Hear no evil.

Just one comment: I did not cope with college life. It coped with me.

JanMell Vanity Scripts #04: “Abolition of Man” doesn’t mean “Everyone going gay.”

May I interject something? Actually that query is quite unnecessary because I certainly will interject something. With all due respect, will you please cut the crap about homosexuals and how they piss you off and instead go back to what you are supposed to discuss, that is, Science and Technology and its impact to the society? If it would make me feel enlightened can I ask ask you how your opinion that gays are indecisive about things as much as their gender contribute to our value judgments about—again—Science and Technology and its impact to the society? If you think that hesitating to read my essay out loud in front of the class is so gay, and thinking twice is a hallmark of gayness, don’t you also think twice on things that pose as an advantage yet upon second thought, can jeopardize you in the long run? Are we then, including you, all gays? I would like to make this clear to everybody. There is no room for idiosyncrasies of a bigoted chauvinist in here. Not when I am around. An opinionated person such as you will always clash with an opinionated person like me. The natural property of impenetrability and the Pauli Exclusion Principle both implies we cannot be at the same place at the same time, especially when one is speaking his mind. This is not acknowledgment of defeat but it would be a pleasure if you will graciously excuse me while I show myself out. 

This isn't goodbye.

Bowing my head down as if someone might find out what I had done, I munched heavily on my cheeseburger, making sure that I do not remove my gaze on the unfortunate bun in case I accidentally catch eye contact with anyone I know who happen to drop by the fastfood. Imagination still eludes me as to what these people’s reactions will be when they find out what I had done. Guilt aside, I think above all persons in the Multiverse, the person who I owe an explanation to is myself.

 Great tales from the past speak of people going beyond the conceivable and doing what we might have thought impossible. Moses, obeying the command of God and wielding His power, crossed the Red Sea by splitting it in half, racing against the tyrannical chariots of oppression and making way for the desolate people of Israel to continue their pilgrimage to the Promised Land. In Greek mythology, the ingenious Deidarus thought of a brilliant escape from the tower where he and his son were imprisoned. Gathering the feathers of birds who unwittingly pass by their window, he painstakingly designed wings to allow them to fly their way to freedom. Deidarus succeeded of course, and the sad thing about his son is, well, another story. It seems therefore

JanMell Vanity Scripts #03: Boarding House Mishap

One boring night my board mates and I decided we could go for a little drink in one of my board mate’s room. It is spacious and strategically located so as to dissolve the maximum amount of sound waves and muffle our expressions of revelry. It is essentially, a noise-cancelling room. Since I just got paid, I bought the booze and let the drinking roll. By the time it’s over (the drinking and the frustration soliloquys), we helped one of my board mates get up the stairs to his bedroom. I had an initial feeling that it wasn’t a good idea but since my claim to fame is the ability to tame the alcohol in me, I felt responsible to help. Next thing I learned, I slipped and hit my head on cold, hard concrete, holding it in agony and panic. Immediately, I checked my senses-- I still knew that I should use an integral and not a differential to solve for the area under a curve, I still memorized Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 and I still had the same crush. It gave me a headache but it wasn’t probably that serious due in part to the cushion provided by my big hair. Up to know, though, I am still giving myself tests to find out if there has been any  damage brought by the unfortunate incident.

Lessons of the Story:

1. I cannot tame the effects of alcohol. It’s too wild.

2. Drunk men helping another are like blind men leading another blind man. They all land on a ditch. In our case, I fell off the stairs.

3. Stay away from alcohol. It can kill your worms but it can cause brain damage.

Reader beware, you choose your own scare.

Dear First Year Students,

Welcome to college. Brace yourselves for an exciting-but-sometimes-boring adventure. Remember, you can choose your own ending and it is all up to you. Good luck.

Sincerely,