Optimism and Pessimism

I think of myself as an optimist. This morning, I was standing in the shower thinking about optimism.  (Ok, it was this afternoon.  Our hot water was out for some reason this morning)

Lately in dating, I've been on quite a few dates, and nothing has come out of them.  Which is normal for dating I suppose (Dating still doesn't make any sense to me).  But when I go on a date, and I have fun, my thoughts are already thinking to the potential of a relationship.  I think this has to do with optimism (I feel optimistic that it will work out).  That's great, but every time the relationship doesn't work out, it's makes me pretty sad.

In light of this, I was wondering if pessimism might be the way to go.  If you expect the worst to happen, anything that goes well is a pleasant surprise, right?  Maybe.  But even then, I don't think you're ever happy for long.  So that won't really work for me either.

I think what I decided today is that I'll continue to be optimistic, but a hybrid optimist.  I'll recognize that people make stupid choices that are disappointing, but that I'm going to hope for the best anyway.   That way, I can be happy more often, but also be pleasantly surprised when things do go well.

3 Day Weekend

Ah President's Day.  The last day off I got until the school year is over.

I spent my weekend very well I think.  Here's the breakdown

Friday:  School, Chinese food, more school stuff.  Then that evening, I got to hang out with Taylor Williams. We played video games, drank Dr. Pepper, ate some brownies.  Just like the good ol' days.

Saturday:  In the morning, I went up to school, studied and took a Molecular Biology test (got an A).  After, I went home, and got recruited to record the sound for a movie that a guy in my ward was making for fun.  That was actually pretty cool.  Headphones and a boom-mic and everything.  It was pretty legit.  After that, I spent some time with my roommates playing the classic starcraft.

Sunday: Pretty usual Sunday  except they decided to start a mandated dating class for Sunday School.  Not sure how that contributes to the purpose of Sunday School, but hey, what can you do?

Monday:  Temple with Elder Smith in the morning.  Then he, Creed and I all went to los Hermanos for lunch, stayed and talked there for like 2 hours (I'm sure they loved us for that...).  Afterwards, I came home, finished reading a book, then went to FHE.  After FHE, Andrea came over and we played Super Smash Bros. (N64) and Mario Kart.  It was  a good night.

So yeah.  I like 3 day weekends.

Valentine's Day

At the risk of sounding...bitter?  Yeah, at the risk of sounding bitter (which I'm not) I'll post my thoughts on this holiday.

I think for a guy at least, it is better to be single and have a date on Valentine's day, than to be in a relationship.  Here's why.

Between movies, TV, commercials and the whole retail community, the expectations for today have been built up to people believing that the boyfriend needs to plan the perfect, romantic, fun, and exciting date.  Every year.

Last year, I was dating someone, and I felt like this was the expectation.  Unfortunately, it also fell on the most busy day of the week for me.  As a result, I was very grouchy, and it was probably the worst date we had the whole time we were dating (almost a year).

Compare that to this year.  I have a blind date with the friend of the girl I work with.  I don't feel pressured, because not only is it a first date, it's a first blind date.  No pressure really.  I'm planning on having a great time, and today has not been nearly as miserable as last year.

I read it in a book...

Yesterday I had a quiz in my molecular biology class. It went pretty well for me. But my study partner asked me how I remember things so well. She said, "you read it once in the reading and we never talk about it again, but you remember it." It made me laugh a little bit because it reminded me of one of my dad's favorite stories of when I was a kid (I don't remember it). My sister and I would play trivia games, and she would always get mad when I knew the answer. She'd ask, "how'd you know that?" My response, "I read it in a book." Guess that's still the case.

Research

Between school, work and research I stay pretty busy.

This year I started to research with Dr. Sevy, looking at N20 and pyrazine.  We use a UV laser to excite the pyrazine, then an IR laser to watch the excited pyrazine transfer energy to N20.  Do I understand exactly what we're looking at? Heck no.  But I am getting the hang of figuring out what I'm doing in setting up and experiment, shutting one down, and dinking with the computer.  But it's a blast learning new things, playing with liquid nitrogen, and having an office.  I think the office part is my favorite part.  It's nice having a place to go and leave my crap.  I bought a 20 dollar 17 inch monitor on craiglist for my desk, so I dual screen my laptop when I'm here.  It's pretty awesome

Professor Zach (for the day)

I'm not a big writer, obviously.  How long has it been since I posted?  I don't really know.  But I figure since I don't really write in a journal anymore, I should have some sort of record.

This week I got the chance to teach a college class.  Dr. Woodfield, the professor for the Chemistry class I TA for was in Ohio.  So he told me that I got to teach.  It went pretty well I think for my first time teaching.  It's different teaching a big class than teaching as a missionary.  There isn't a whole lot of interaction from the students, unless they have questions.  Since the teaching part is supposed to be minimal (so they can be in the lab) I had notes, and cruised through them.  We took 15 minutes for lecture and questions, then got down to the lab.  I was pretty pleased.  That's about what I was supposed to aim for, less than 20.  It was a little weird, because I think since I taught the lecture, the other two TAs thought I was the expert.  So I got all the questions from them, and the stockroom.  So I guess I really was the teacher for the day.  Pretty sweet.