Sunday, May 10, 2009

Some Dark Knowledge Floating






10 comments:

Σφιγξ said...

Jane Smiley, author, A Thousand Acres: A Novel

I used to have a newspaper clipping announcing my parents' marriage. They were tall and handsome, holding hands and smiling. On the other side was the headline, "Russians Have H-Bomb." Thus was my fate decided, or so I thought throughout my childhood, because I was obsessed by nuclear war. Alongside The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew and The Black Stallion, there was always the nightly news, announcing the latest little step toward mutually assured destruction. No doubt this is the know-your-enemy reason that I went to summer school to study physics between fifth and sixth grades, even though I had no math aptitude and had always run the other direction when my older boy cousins tried experiments. (How high would three firecrackers blow an empty tin can into the air, and would they blow the can apart?) But that summer, and for another year or so, I loved the atom. In those days it seemed so simple-electron, proton, neutron, everything adding up so benignly until you made you way up the periodic table to U-235 (nice uranium was U-238). I liked those inert atoms best (helium, neon, argon, krypton)-they were harmless and minded their own business. But every element was like a character in a book, and I thought I would study them that way, once I grew up and became a nuclear physicist.


http://www.doublex.com/section/life/secret-dreams-famous-women

Σφιγξ said...

I love this children's book, and the vintage ones in general, with photographs.

Σφιγξ said...

https://books.google.com/books?id=JMzKPtgCsm0C&pg=PT602&dq=Marjorie+Morningstar+%22there+aren%27t+fifty+pages+left%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfuITf76iBAxWKGFkFHaQLDDkQ6AF6BAgKEAM#v=onepage&q=Marjorie%20Morningstar%20%22there%20aren't%20fifty%20pages%20left%22&f=false

Σφιγξ said...

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AsA4BY25Ql_1m3P2I6iEclquqWeI?e=yJYqXb

Jane Miller's Birth of a Foal (1978). Reproduced here for educational purposes.

Σφιγξ said...

I understand; if, and when factoring in the upfront costs, and pains to do it are too high, but I cannot bear the thought of not investigating it. Being attached to other people’s children is a heartbreak. Dying alone without attachments is something I have seen.

If it is impossible, we can amp up our retirement savings respectively, and be at peace. I will still love you either way. The last decade made me only contemplate family formation, as a person like myself, with a person like yourself. You are a good person, and our values do not fundamentally conflict.

Σφιγξ said...

I have no final thoughts about having a child with you. My current work demands require that I am standing and doing for at least ten of the fourteen hours that I am there. The OR empties without mercy. It is not easy. That is why it pays.

My endeavor is to transition from a first to a second profession or a hybrid without a loss of income. Prolonged standing and sitting are associated with preterm birth. Having a situation, a compromise, on all fronts is necessary

Σφιγξ said...

A young woman in her late twenties just had her second child, which was born to term, and several days after the Nagel date, in fact. The calamity that befell her was having her car destroyed Friday night after driving home from work, and colliding with a deer. She gave birth Saturday.

A woman closer to my age was on bedrest the last three months.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jane-smiley/lucky-smiley/

The compromise would be to be as healthy as possible.

Unrelated: I have in mind working on a year program like an enrolled agent (EA). I take a computerized accounting course this fall. I can ask more about it. The money is much less, but it could be an intermediate step, like taking a pharmacy technician course was for me in 2014, prior to becoming a nurse.

Σφιγξ said...

I would never stop being a nurse; mind you, but getting someone born, I could always negotiate three days a week. I work three days a week now with periodic overtime. I check my YTD to make sure that I am >100,000 at the end of December after taxes.

Σφιγξ said...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2024/07/05/4-ways-to-build-a-long-lasting-relationship-from-a-psychologist/

Σφιγξ said...

https://www.hrblock.com/corporate/income-tax-course/#contact-us

https://www.youtube.com/live/cQ6HikWvQ2s?si=I6UJppTsl_yglZ2h

There is an H&R Block office up the street at Towers.