24 August, 2006

And then there were eight: A reflection on Pluto

The International Astronomical Union after several days of sometimes acrimonious debate has decided to reclassify Pluto as a dwarf planet, stripping it of its original designation as a true planet, a designation that Pluto had held since, its discovery in 1930.

www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/iau0603/index.html


In ight of this decision primary school teachers will have to develop a new mnemonic device to asist their students in memorizing the planets.

18 August, 2006

An Intriguing question: How am I

Yesterday, I received a voice mail message from a friend who se voice I have not heard since late December or early January asking how I was doing, Her voice mail message made me pause to reflect on the question.

In my reflections I found that I have been answering that question on a day by dat basis and yet I had comnsidered the cumulative effect of the question in the sense that I never really considered it over the long term.

An assessment of my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual state is something that I assess on a daily basis because, there is not a single uniform answer.

Indeed in the last eight months I have grown older and perhaps gained a little wisdom through my experiences. I have changed and grown in some ways and in others I remain unchanged.

Most of the changes were due in part to medical and psychological problems I am now under treatment for, and now I am on the right combinations of medications.

Also, I have found that I have generally withdrawn from much of the social activities I used to enjoy and have begun taking more pleasure in playing chess, reading, writing coin collecting, and stamp collecting, sword collecting that for a long while I had to give up because of all that was going on in my life.

In all I would say that the past eight months on a scale of -10 to a +10 that I have seen both ends of the spectrum. More often than not I fall into the middle of the spectrum. To provide a more detailed explanation of why this so would not in mind be prudent so I will say simply that I have been lonely and while my beautiful dogs Alli who passed away and my new dog Bella can only allieviate so much of my lonliness.
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12 August, 2006

The death of a noble man

This morning I attended the funeral service for Rev. William John Young C.S.B. I did not know Reverend Young all that well. Although, he was there for me during a difficult period in my life in his capacity as a priest. In this capacity he was able to help to find hope in a time when I had none left for myself and I had despaired of graduating. I will always be grateful to him for all the counsel and help he gave me during this period of my life.