The Battle Hymn of the Yellow Jackets

So, last night, while I was all hyped up on Mountain Dew, I came up with a super-special-awesome parody of the University of Georgia’s fight song, which is based off of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  I’ve called it, “The Battle Hymn of the Yellow Jackets.”

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Bulldogs in defeat!
They are being trampled underneath the Yellow Jackets feet!
Their power is in politics, in payoffs and deceit.
But truth in marching on!

Chorus:
To heck, to heck, to heck with Georgia!
To heck, to heck, to heck with Georgia!
To heck, to heck, to heck with Georgia!
The cesspool of the south!

We’ve always known that with the BCS, they are in bed!
Their glory on the football field is done by muscle-heads.
But when they’re through with college, they’ll be living in a shed!
‘Cause truth is marching on!

Chorus

They look all day into a mirror while their biceps they flex.
They always boast a plentitude of alcohol and sex.
But, in the end, our signatures will be on their paychecks!
While truth in marching on!

Chorus

Interesting Thought…

So, in 2 Nephi 25:26 it says:

“And we talk of Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophesies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”

Today was fast and testimony meeting for our stake, since we have stake conference next week. Throughout the meeting, it seemed as if people weren’t really saying that much about Christ other than the vain repetitions, “I know that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer…yada yada yada…in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, Amen.” And you know, other than the fact that I’m not God, that’s all well and good, but I think that we could do a little more talking about Christ. I think I will begin.

I know that the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. I have felt it in my own life. Christ has the power to deliver us not only from the bonds of death and hell, but also the powers of temptation and evil and to comfort us in our times of need. We must rely on His Atonement if we are to have any hope of returning to celestial glory with Him and the Father in the eternities. It is the only way in which carnal man can be forgiven of his transgressions and to be brought at one with God.

I know that the Atonement manages to be both infinite and personal at the same time. Christ was able to suffer the magnitude of the pain involved with the punishment for sin and to know the despair that each individual would face in mortality and afterwards. I know that Christ suffered in Gethsemane, died on Calvary, and was raised from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea so that both I and any individual who has ever existed upon this earth might have the opportunity to return to the Father if they will repent and follow Christ with every faculty that has bestowed upon them from heaven.

I know that Jesus Christ was sent from heaven to loosen the bands of death and the bonds of iniquity and that He did win that victory for our sakes. And I say these things in the name of Him, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

More Grad School, Oh Joy…Oh Rapture…

You might think that I would have said enough about grad school at this point, but there has been yet another confounding variable. Mah ho’aka, Feech also wants to go to grad school in approximately the same time frame that I do. For any who don’t know, she’s not an engineering major (she’s takin’ college algebra this fall…huzzah!) she’s majoring in speech-language pathology. Now, if we were married, it would make it somewhat more difficult to go to two different schools that are 2500 miles across the country.

Yes, I said 2500 miles…the two that we were thinking of were Georgia Tech for me and the University of Washington for her. That would leave us with a couple of options. We could get our master’s degrees at different times. (Probably hers first, since a bachelor’s in speech path is kind useless; whereas a bachelor’s in civil engineering can put food on the table.) Another option would be to choose another school that has good civil engineering and speech pathology programs. The last option that I can think of is for me to just get my master’s from the University of Washington…though I’d really rather not.

I think I’ve narrowed it down to about three or four actual options for timing and choices of schools.

Option A: Feech and I move to Seattle, Washington where she pursues a master’s degree in speech pathology. Afterward, we move to Hotlanta, Georgia, where I pursue a master’s degree in civil engineering.

Option B: We move immediately to West Lafayette, Indiana, where we pursue both of our degrees at the same time at Purdue University. Note: Purdue is ranked #2 in the nation in speech-language pathology and #7 in the nation in civil engineering grad programs according to US News and World Report. Similar cities/schools: Austin TX, U of Texas-SP #9, CE #4; Champagne IL, U of Illinois-SP #9, CE #1(tie)

Option C: We move to some awful town full of old people in Iowa where Feech pursues a degree in speech pathology from the University of Iowa and I establish state residency in order to pursue a degree in civil engineering at Iowa State University. Note: The University of Iowa in ranked #1 in the nation in speech-language pathology grad programs and ISU is ranked #41in engineering grad programs according to US News and World Report. Similar situations: Michigan: Western Michigan-SP #38; Michigan-Ann Arbor CE #9

Option D: I just suck it up, move to Washington and get my master’s from the university of Washington. It wouldn’t really be that bad, but it’s just not that impressive of a place to have a degree from.
I really don’t know what I’m going to do at this point, but I’m kind of leaning towards options A or B in all honesty. I’m thinking that Purdue would be the best school for option B since Feech never wants to step foot in Texas, I’m a big Texas A&M fan, neither of us like Illinois, and the University of Illinois doesn’t teach the sub-discipline of civil engineering that I want to go into. Though I’m still a big fan of Georgia Tech and could handle living in Washington. I guess only time will tell.

Crazy Times

Well, over the past few days I have been in Florida, and it was an interesting experience.  The air was thick enough to slice like bread, about every third person smoked, and about everyone was “winning the battle with anorexia,” as my dad so eloquently put it.  Though the beach was fun and the races were probably even better.  Even though Joe Gibbs’ Toyotas won both races, it was still a good time.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about a few things.  Primarily, these are what I’m going to do over the next six, or so, years.  I’ve been thinking about where I would want to live/work, if and when I could serve a mission.  If and when I would get married…you know, that sort of thing.  And at this point, I’ve come to no firm conclusions on anything…It’s kind of sad, but at least I have options.  

 But, hey, at least the Yankees nor the Red Sox are in first place. 

You learn something new everyday…

…but these days, most of the things I learn have to do with women.

So, basically my whole life’s experience with women thus far has been tainted.  My mom was psycho, I had no siblings, every woman that I met in both my mom’s and dad’s side of the family were…also quite strange, in one way or another.  So I have had very little experience with women who don’t scream obscenities while throwing a tub of butter across the kitchen.  And don’t get me wrong, my mom always treated me well, and bought me stuff, but she treated my dad like a three-days used tampon that had given her TSS.  (Oh joy, something else that I learned from my mom.  XP )

So, recently I’ve been learning that there are women out there who actually like men and who aren’t feminazi ballbusters trying to break down men at every turn.  I had some of my first experience with this a few weeks ago, when Feech told me how happy I made her.  In my own internal monologue I was saying, “Wait, that’s not allowed, men don’t make women happy, they just bring them money…”  Well then it hit me.  I realized that some women are actually pleasant to be around, and not like Dementors trying to steal any semblance of hope or happiness that you may have.  Then I told Feech that she’s pretty and she giggled and did all that happy girlish stuff.  But I was like, “Wait you can’t do that.  Your line is ‘D*mmit William!  Don’t f*cking bother me while I’m watching Oprah!’”  And that made revelation #2.

So, I guess that this is just where I stand.  I’m learning all of fabulous things about pleasant women that had previously been hid from my eyes.  Not that I would really ever want to complain about such a thing…

Today’s Utah Man

So, I wrote this parody of the U’s fight song a couple of months ago, during football season…it’s amazing.

Today’s Utah Man,
by William White

Verse:
I am a Utah man, sir, I’m barfing up my spleen,
Our kegstands are the most intense that ever will be seen.
Our women are the hottest, and each a dirty ho, Their flatulence you’ll hear it through the valley yo, fo sho!

Chorus:

Who am I, sir,
A Utah man today,
A Utah man sir,
I swear that I’m not gay!
Yippy-ki-yay!
We use the snuff, we only bluff, we’re game for any cuss,
No other gang of college men can match our endless lust.
So fill your lungs with Cannabis, ’cause times have changed these days,
We’ll eat, we’ll drink, we’ll be merry, for crime, it always pays!

Verse:

I remember the night of prom, I took six skanky hoes,

It’s okay, when you’re a Utah Man, that’s just how it goes.

No matter if a pot smoker, or in just roller skates,

The people all admit we are the queerest gang in state.

Chorus

Verse:

We may not live forever on this jolly good ol’ sphere,

But while we do we’ll live a life of merriment and cheer.

And when our probation’s o’er and night is drawing nigh,

We’ll say before the bar of God, “A Utah Man I am!”

Chorus

Must be doing something right.

So, after my blog post from a couple of days ago, when I made the post about going on a mission, some interesting things have come about.  Let me just say that I can just the lord of darkness aka the father of all lies coming after me.  I can just tell that Satan is trying to mess me up in whatever way he can to keep me from doing what’s right.

Personally, I take this as I sign that I’m doing something right, hence the title of the entry.  I mean, Satan wouldn’t be coming after me if I was doing what he wanted me.  I would think that he would only try to tempt people who are on the strait and narrow to leave it, rather than those who he has firmly in his grasp.  This whole thing has made me think that the first time I tried to go on a mission, it wasn’t the Lord’s will, that He actually wanted me to go later and it was Satan trying to get me to jump the gun prematurely.  When I tried the first time, it was just too easy.  I had everything laid out, and it fell right into place…until it all suddenly came crumbling down with no mission call.  This time, I can tell that Satan is actively opposing me in my efforts to serve a mission.  He’s pulling out all the stops to try to keep me from preaching the Gospel.

All this just reaffirms my testimony that God lives and has a plan for each one of us.  It also tells me that Satan is among us and seeks to destroy our lives, take our agency, and separate us from the presence of God for the rest of eternity.  I hope with all my heart that I will be able to serve a full-time, proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and tell the world of all the things that I have learned of.  Whether they are willing to accept it or not isn’t my greatest concern.  I merely wish to proclaim the word to them, so that they can choose for the themselves.

It’s almost a plan…

So, today I was thinking again about missionary work, as I do every Sunday, but this time there was more of an air of hope, rather than despair.  I was thinking about why I’m not currently allowed to serve and if there would be any way to make some slight modifications so that I could go.  Let me take you through at least a portion of my thought process.

Let me back up a bit tell you exactly why I’m not medically eligible to go on a mission.  Right now I’m taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, fluoxetine hydrochloride, better know as Prozac.  Apparently, back in the ’80s, there were a bunch of kids who went on missions while taking this medication and didn’t come back because they had popped themselves off suddenly.  There has been a documented, yet statistically insignificant, increase in the risk of children and adolescents to commit suicide.  However, there has been a better documented and quite statistically significant decrease in the risk of adults to commit suicide.  Thus, the solution would be to make 19 y/o males wait a couple of years before going on a mission.  But no, anyone who takes the drug is totally barred from going on a mission.  Though that is beside the point.

The point is that, today, I learned of a medication that does essentially the same thing, except with different side effects.  The side effects of clomipramine (Anafril) tend to be more physical than psychological.  There is almost no increased risk of suicide, and yet it does possibly an even better job of what I want it to do than does fluoxetine.  To me, it seems like kind of a no-brainer.

The other issue at hand is whether I would actually be able to pay off my debts and have enough money to go by my 26th birthday.  At this point, I’ve racked up about $7 000 dollars in debts.  I don’t think it would be to my advantage to try to quit school for a few years, pay off the debt, save for the mission, go, and then come back like six years later with no degree and no money with which to finish school.  A much better plan, would be to finish school, then pay off my debts within about a year, save for the mission for another year, then go when I was about 24, or so.

Of course, this is all assuming that the best of circumstances roll out in my favor.  My doctor would have to agree to give me the clomipramine, which shouldn’t be too big of a deal.  I would have to be able to find work basically immediately after, or even before I graduated.  The economy would have to remain at least fairly stable.  A world-ending nuclear war would need to not happen (naturally.)  The missionary department would have to be happy with my choice of medication.  And finally, I would need all of my friends and family to not crap their pants.  Which could be troublesome…

But hey, at least there’s hope…:D

Bringing Gas Prices Down

The way I figure it, the United States and China are both large bulls in the same pen.  One or the other is going to end up dead, while the other rules the pen.  The thing is that China is the young bull; it’s still growing and on its way up.  The US, on the other hand, is the aging bull, still at its prime, but beginning to fade.  Lately, China and the US have come into competition for the vast majority of the world’s natural resources.  Crude oil, precious, as well as non-precious metals, food, etc are being sent at unsustainable rates to both countries.  China, with its gargantuan population, and the US, with its gargantuan appetite for material goods.

The tragic part is that some insane number of people are going to have to die.  It’s the only way that the economies and lifestyles of these two countries will be brought back into equilibrium.  The way I figure it, this can happen in only one or two of three ways.

1) China’s overall population becomes unsustainable, there is famine and pestilence everywhere and millions of the Chinese die.

2)  China’s rapidly increasing male population overwhelms the female population there is a drastic decrease in the overall population of China within a period of 30-40 years.

3) One country or another decides that they’ve had enough of sharing the world’s natural resources with their economic counterparts and decides to wage all-out war.

I don’t think that anyone wants to see the third scenario play out.  This would undoubtedly lead to a world-wide nuclear war with the great majority of the world’s population dead.

It’s a sad story, but something has got to give, and it’s not going to be pretty.

*Sigh of Relief*

So, today, at about 1pm, or so, my roommate, Joshua knocks on the door to my room.  After I invite him in, he hands my a package with “amazon.com” emblazoned across the side.  I knew exactly what it was.  It was my own personal copy of “Differential Equations for Dummies.”  I was pretty excited as it was to get the book, so that I could study for my ODE class in the fall.

But then, something magical happened.  As I was flipping through the first couple of pages, I realized that I pretty much knew what the author was talking about.  It was nice that, at least the majority of the principles were based heavily on calculus as opposed to linear algebra.  That having been said, power series and Laplace transforms are going to be interesting…but I think it’ll work out pretty well for me.

The moral of the story: I’m a nerd…and nerds just shouldn’t worry too much about academics.