It’s one thing to go outside on a crisp, clear night and marvel at a sky full of stars. It’s another to marvel not only at the spectacle but to recognize that those stars are the result of exceedingly ordered conditions 13.7 billion years ago at the moment of the Big Bang. It’s another still to understand how those stars act as nuclear furnaces that supply the universe with carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, the raw material of life as we know it.

And it’s yet another level of experience to realize that those stars account for less than 4 percent of what’s out there — the rest being of an unknown composition, so-called dark matter and energy, which researchers are now vigorously trying to divine.

Brian Greene's NYT Op-Ed, "Put a Little Science in Your Life", touches on the fact that science is not only a discipline, but a way of life and a perspective. That is, you don't have to work in science to be a scientist. And perhaps some people who do work in science aren't scientists.

Of course, I couldn't resist the above astronomy excerpt. Just like I can't resist this quote, from Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier:

Look at the night sky. You are not seeing only the light of the stars. You are also seeing the journey of the light of the stars toward you. Admire space and you admire time. In this way, immensity conducts you to history.

Leon Wieseltier is not a scientist in the traditionally understood sense of the word, and the book Kaddish is not about science, overtly. Except that actually, the book is about science, in that it is about systematic inquiry. Relatively systematic inquiry; the kind of systematic inquiry that is personal.

The point is that systematic inquiry makes me a very happy person. Kaddish is a record of Mr. Wieseltier's explorations of the origins of the prayer, and is highly interesting. Also, there are various references to Washington, DC, which is always nice.

Also, the photo is todays APOD, a particularly awesome photo of a solar eruptive prominence taken about eight years ago.

This morning, I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be physically possible to pack everything in my room into eleven boxes and deliver them to McShain between ten am and six pm. But I totally did it, and finished by four. I was like a box-packing tape-wielding machine. I even found Cardboard Barack Obama a place to stay for the summer.

Now the room is really strange - there is too much light because the weatherstripping is gone from the door and the curtains are off of the windows. There are random bits of duct tape, packing tape, and two different colours of masking tape stuck randomly to walls, and a few of the posters that I'm either taking to Texas with me or am getting rid of are still up. All that's left to do is clean up the trash, pack my suitcase, and print out a boarding pass. Also, go to N---'s Rocky Horror party, which should be awesome in many ways.

I can't believe I'm only taking my messenger bag and one suitcase back to Texas for the summer. The next few months are going to be so strange. It will be easier to unpack, though. Also, I don't know what's up with the waking up early thing I've been doing lately. It's got to stop - I'm getting noticeably sleep deprived. At least cleaning up while sleep deprived will be much easier than I thought it would - the cleaning lady on the floor offered me trash bags. I asked for one, and she gave me two. Then she gave me two more later. They were really useful - I wrapped my water filter in one so it wouldn't leak, used two as packing material when I ran out of newspaper, and I'm going to use the last one to collect all the trash. Later, anyway - right now I'm watching 30 Rock, triumphantly.

I'm ambulatory! Well, ambulatory enough to get to Dahlgren Quad, at any rate. I have a meeting with a professor soon, although I'm not sure exactly when. I wrote it down on my hand and then, because I'm a genius, washed my hand before writing it down anywhere else. I'm entirely sure that it's today and I'm fairly sure that the time starts with the number six. So my super duper genius plan is to hang out in the quad until I hear the six o'clock bells, then hang out until the hallway until either my professor or I figure out it's time.
There have been cherry blossoms at Georgetown forever. Well, not forever. Longer than I've been here. Since before the first time I ever stepped foot on campus, a few days before the start of classes my freshman year. But I feel like I've been here forever, so in my mind the cherry blossom trees have been here for longer than forever. Longer than forever is very similar to forever - infinity plus one may as well equal infinity (even though it doesn't), and all of that.

The photo of the cherry blossom petals on the steps is blatantly stolen without authorization from Project Beltway. I wish it was mine, but alas, it is not. It was taken in DC, and I added it just to illustrate. The petals are everywhere; they're so thick on the ground that in many places in the Quad they obscure the bricks, stone, dirt, and other plants.
The photo of the fountain in this post is also an example of why I should get a digital camera. I took it because I haven't been outside in a while, really, - with the being in bed while sick and all of that. I'd forgotten that the short life span of cherry blossoms means that they fall. And the gentle winds common to spring in Washington mean that they fall faster. The Quad is blanketed in fallen cherry blossom petals right now, and even though I don't like pink I have to admit that it's beautiful. Beautiful in a life and death pretty pink existential way. Also they're sort of like snow, but not. There are enough trees in a small enough area that at any given point in time, for now, there are at least a handful of petals falling. Sometime whole flowers. People are walking around with cherry blossoms in their hair and on their clothes when they don't even realize it. If the cherry blossoms were alien invaders we'd all be screwed. But at least our flowery overlords would be aesthetically pleasing. And sometimes they fall into the fountain and you can watch the water currents push them in waves over to the side and off. I want to make lots of multi coloured paper cranes, or boats (boats might be less likely to fall over) and put them all near the center of the fountain to watch them get moved around and eventually pushed off the side. It would be kind of awesome, until the point where I would be reminded of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, and the Crimson Permanent Assurance building floating off of the edge of the world, and then it would be funny and awesome. And a little existential. Or a lot.

Just now the wind started blowing harder, and there is a deluge of flower petals and whole flowers. Also I'm fairly sure I hear the sound of a guitar coming from the tunnel that runs under New North and Old North - I wonder if it's the same kid who was playing there last night. He was surprisingly good. I keep having to remove pink petals from my keyboard and clothing. There's no way I'm going to make it to this meeting without flower petals in my hair. I'm okay with that.