Free writes? Yes please! (#1)

One of my favorite teachers posted that she's going to start up "free writes" on her blog and I think it's great because they really give you a chance to just think and write anything and everything that come to your mind on the subject and I figured that I would post them on here too (even though no one reads this). Mrs. Graham gets full credit for this idea :) Oh, and everything is just my opinion - if you actually read this somehow and think differently or like my opinion or anything feel free to comment!

Free write #1

Do you believe in ghosts or evil spirits?
Would you be willing to spend a night alone in a remote house that is supposedly haunted?

~Yes i believe in evil spirits but not so much ghosts - at least not in the traditional view of what a ghost is. My feelings toward this come more from my religion i guess? I believe in the second coming of Christ and that when a person dies they just go to sleep till Christ returns. This would mean that their soul stays with them (i get that it's a long time but we've all had the nights when we go to sleep for 2 minutes and it's actually been 8 hours...)Therefore, I believe that ghosts are - and this is probably going to sound stupid but - the devil and his demons and not actually the deceased person's soul lingering about. As for the haunted house - not unless i had to for some reason, and good luck giving me a good enough reason!

to be continued :)

Since I originally started this blog for my astronomy class (see all previous posts) I had stopped posting anything when the class ended - got an A by the way :) but I read someone else's blog post today and it made me think... if could have that much affect on me then maybe, just maybe, I could have an effect on someone else, hopefully in the same positive way. So i'm planning to continue blogging and hopefully if anyone even reads this they'll enjoy and take something positive along with them when they're done. I may not post everyday, I mean come on, I am a busy girl you know, six college classes will kill you - not to mention a job and volunteering stuff... but anyway, I will do my best to post something at least once a week, even if it's just a little quote I found and liked :)

Stardate

I found the website stardate.org and it's really cool and easy to navigate. It tells you all about upcoming events like the meteor showers and eclipses and when planets are visible. It showed that the next meteor show is the Perseid's and the peak of it will be August 13th. Also the next solar eclipse will be November but you have to go to Australia to see it. It also tells you about the constellations and moon phases, current astronomy news, it has other activities and some stargazing tips as well. Here's the link to the site: http://stardate.org/

Big Bang Theory

Even though I didn't make this up it still has a little to do with what we were taking about in class and it's really funny so I thought I would share it anyway... It's from the TV show The Big Bang Theory and they're talking about the Drake equation. 

Night sky: Moon illusion

Moon Illusion: Date: 6/27/12  


Time: 8:36pm - The moon looked white except for the craters which were more gray. Using the moon ruler it was about one line across. The altitude was almost 50 degrees. My drawings were pretty bad so I took pictures instead:

Time: 10:15pm - The moon still looked white with gray craters. It was also still about one line on the moon ruler. The altitude did change a little though, this time it was about 45 degrees. It also moved about 10 degrees to the west. Here it is: 

Podcast

Episode 12: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence - Astronomy Magazine

I watched this podcast/video about searching for life in space and thought it was very good at explaining the Drake equation. It went through it all step by step and showed examples. It also mentions some other things that we talked about in class like Stephen Hawking not wanting to search for life in space. It was kind of cheesy overall but still worth watching.

Poems

Ok so here is my attempt at a poem. I'm bad with rhyming so I wrote two Haiku's about the night sky instead... Here goes nothing:


The sky is gorgeous
So vast and mysterious
I could watch all night




When the moon is new
And the sun hides it's bright head
Stars control the night