Written Sunday, posted Tuesday...why is that? Read to find out!

Sometimes I've sat in class and thought: If society collapsed tomorrow, none of this would help me. Who cares about thermodynamics when the human race is on the brink of extinction? What I would really need would be survival skills. Or at least some useful skills that would make a tribe leader think I was important enough to keep around and feed. Needless to say, these kind of thoughts made many of my chemical engineering classes seem pointless. Now I've veered away from chemical engineering and my studyies are more focused on steel. Now that's useful. If I could make steel, everyone would think I was useful, they would definitely keep me around and not abandon me in the terrible wastelands that would be left after society collapses. This has been a big motivator to work hard in my classes and studies now. The only problem is, no one has actually taught me how to make steel in the real world. I may need to do some outside research...I mean, do I just find some red rocks and throw them in a fire, and out comes iron? I don't think so. But I don't know.

Here it is. This picture single handedly delayed this post from going up until today. The entire post was written, and the other picture was done on Sunday, but I couldn't decide what to do for this first picture. I searched online for images of ruined wastelands...but a rare fit of guilt at randomly stealing other people's pictures for my own puroposes, no matter how great and noble those purposes might be, suddenly kicked in. I have shamelessly stolen bits and pieces of other people's pictures (and sometimes the whole thing) numerous times. I'm not sure what happened. But it did, and I had to create my own ruined wasteland. So I searched through my pictures, found this one, edited it, and put it up. I guess I'll put the original below so you can see some of the wonderful ways paint can edit pictures (though technically the color changing was done in some other program that is on my computer). But the point is, this is what the world could look like tomorrow. Are your classes preparing you for it?

Speaking of classes, school's going pretty well for me, despite great obstacles and opposition. And by that I mean I'm doing fine, but you always hear those stories of people overcoming great odds to do something. That makes me feel like I should be doing something more, since I don't really have any huge setbacks (When I was young, I once went on a shopping trip with my mom and sisters that lasted for many, many hours. That nearly killed me...but I feel like it's just not quite the same as some of the obstacles other people overcome). So rather than work harder and do more, I decided I would invent difficulties in my life, so my meager accomplishments would look like huge triumphs of the human spirit. Maybe someday I'll go into more detail about these huge obstacles I face on a daily bases. You know, the type of obstacles that would make a lesser man give up and surrender to the bleak realities of a stark and cold future that surely awaits him. But for today I thought I would just go on vaguely about what's going on in my life for the people that care (I know you're out there...at least one or two of you...if all else fails, I'll call my mom and make her read this. She has to pretend to care.)

This is what I claim my life to be like. Well..understanding that the lightning, pit of vipers, torrential downpour, and deadly briar patch are symbolic for the many grueling hardships that I face on my journey. Don't worry though, as hard as my life might be, I continue pushing on and making meager accomplishments, despite the metaphorical (and possibly literal) pits of vipers that I must face.

This weeks been pretty good. I learned some interesting things. One, playing a mobster card game (Family business) the night before Valentine's day, makes for a different sort of Valentine's day. I don't think I've ever been wished "happy Valentine's day...massacre!" so many times before. Nor have I ever seen so many red and pink cards with veiled...or not so veiled...threats on them. Secondly, I've learned...well...actually, that may be it. I try not to overload my weeks with too much learning. In other news, my younger sister got back from Japan this last week, after having been there for a year and a half. It's exciting to have her back...but lest you think I'm actually a good older brother, I should probably point out, this sister has always been pretty easy to tease...and teasing by email just isn't quite the same. While she's been gone, I've had to up the teasing on all other sisters quite a bit to make up for her absence.