blake johnson

I’ve heard of weddings which spare no expense, but this is incredible.

Sammy spoke today with fond memory of a comment he had written on a blog. He sent the comment— it is so typically Sammy that I just have to post it here for posterity:

I burst forth. Not me the person, me the words you read here. What is at stake in the transcription of feelings/emotions in the form of a letter, a graph of any sort? Nothing short of translation. Not unlike a new language, beginning in the limited sense of unintelligibility between speakers of different languages, the translation repeats itself in interpretation and understanding. The problem of letter writing? What the other reads is not what you wish them to. I had a conversation with Allie yesterday. Not a vocal conversation, or even properly speaking, a text conversation, though it was textual. The trace? Nothing. Our memories. Divergent. A letter we may write each other in the future about such conversation? Different. Distant.

I just read a except from a book by William Griffis, an American that went to Japan in the 1870s and stayed there for quite a few years. Griffis kept pretty extensive journals, but the reason that he did this is not entirely clear. One historian suggests that it might just have been out of family tradition. But, it reminded me of comments that I have heard others make (sometimes tongue-in-check, sometimes not) about leaving materials for our biographers. This always amuses me because it is at once a very arrogant statement, but on the other hand, if any of us actually do end up making a significant contribution to the world, then it is not such a bad idea afterall.

In any case, these thoughts have me thinking about trying to keep a journal again. Not because I think I am going to be a great person, but for my own entertainment (I have a journal from Swiss Semester which is highly entertaining to read).

Well, my first exam is in three hours. We’re starting off with the easy one: French. I can only imagine that it will be downhill from here, since both of my physics exams are coming up on the same day— ouch!

Actually, my quantum test should go fine too. Lene Hau seems to give reasonable questions. Come to think of it, Masahiro Morii gave reasonable questions on our midterm too. That test was just way too long. Well, if I can ever figure out why anyone would ever want to use a canonical transformation, then I guess I’ll be just fine.

In Mass on Sunday, M. Chien said that St. Paul’s parish will not be participating in the Archdiocese’ capital campaign this year. M. Chien says that he cannot in good conscience ask the parishoners to give money to the Archdiocese when the use of the money is as uncertain as it is now (there have been reports that Cardinal Law has been considering filinng for bankruptcy to protect the Archdiocese from lawsuits). While I was shocked to hear this annoucement, I am very proud of M. Chien for doing what he believes is right.