Sunday, May 30, 2010

Heart Warming

While checking my mail the other day AOL had this video in their daily line up of news. I thought it was one of the sweetest things I’ve seen in awhile so I wanted to share it.

The look of wonder, amazement and then recognition of his mother’s voice for the first time was a joy to watch and left me uplifted. I felt happy for him and his family; and once again grateful that this sort of technology is available to help people live ‘normal’ lives when nature provides a challenge like being born deaf.

Here is the link to the original article: Baby hears mother's voice for the first time


Momsie

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Human Powered Vehicle Event

Remember when I was telling you all about the Human Powered Vehicle club I joined at college? And how we, the club, were building this bike to take out to Northridge Cal State to compete against several other Universities?

Of course you remember! You've been sitting on the edge of your seat just waiting for more info ever since I wet your appetite about the whole thing :)

Yes well now I have actual proof...see I wasn't just making everything up, I have cinematic evidence to back up my claims about our Human Powered Vehicle!

Anyway here is a video one of my team mates put together you might not be able to tell, but both Matthew and I appear in this video a few times.
I'm riding the bike for the most part and Matthew is running around making "repairs" on the bike...

Enjoy:



This event was a lot of fun, there were so many fancy bike designs out there and everyone was just great, helping each other out and cheering all the teams on even though we were competing -- it was just a great experience I really enjoyed being part of it not to mention our team did an awesome job! :)

Photographic proof of the above mentioned events coming soon, so stay tuned...

~Olivia

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Kid's denial of gratification discipline tested

Word of the Day--Agnosticism

Agnosticism (ăgnŏs'tĭsĭzəm), denying that human beings can know if God exists, emerged in the 1860s and 1870s as the opinion of a small but influential minority of religiously serious, well-read Americans. Many belonged to the class of writers, academics, and scientists soon labeled "intellectuals." They commonly enjoyed relatively high economic and social status. The word "agnosticism" itself was coined in 1869 (from Greek roots denoting "unknown") by the English scientist Thomas Huxley, and American agnosticism closely tracked similar, somewhat earlier tendencies among British bourgeois intelligentsia. Several of the most prominent early American agnostics—such as the scholar and cultural critic Charles Eliot Norton, the journalist E. L. Godkin, the historian Henry Adams, and the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.—were deeply entwined in transatlantic webs of friendships that linked the two countries' intellectual life. And as these names suggest, agnosticism first developed in the United States among urban north easterners.

Agnosticism was not so much a positive belief as a negative conclusion. Victorian agnostics wished to apply to all questions of knowledge what they took to be the criteria of the natural and human sciences. To decide matters of fact by any other standard they characteristically regarded as immoral—a credo classically articulated in the 1870s by the English mathematician William Clifford: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." That agnostics readily carried this principle into religious issues can be explained not only by widespread faith in science but more specifically by the fact that for two centuries theological writers had enlisted science to prove religious belief. That this hoary scientific apologetic foundered after 1860 owed much to contraction by scientists of what counted as scientific evidence, a restriction associated especially with Darwinism. In ensuing decades, a growing number of Americans weighed the evidence for the existence of God and concluded that nothing approaching scientific evidence existed to prove a God.

Typically, agnostics bore no grudge against those who did retain faith in God. Although agnostics tended to see themselves as clearer thinkers and more rigorous moralists, they rarely trumpeted their unbelief or publicly attacked the churches. In this, agnosticism was unlike atheism, actively denying God. Atheism in both the United States and Europe flowed from dislike of organized religion, and atheists—their outrage at "priest-craft" often stoked by class resentment—were usually anticlericals. Lacking powerful established churches to resent, the United States proved much less fertile ground for atheism than did Europe, and agnosticism became the more common form of unbelief.

Agnosticism was entrenched in American culture by 1900, although the vast majority of Americans have continued to believe in God. Unbelief has probably remained chiefly an opinion of intellectual elites, especially academic ones. Unlike atheists, agnostics have rarely felt any need to institutionalize their views (the Ethical Culture movement was a rare exception, founded in 1876 by Felix Adler). To invent a structure to house a lack of beliefs perhaps seemed oxymoronic. Hence, agnosticism did not really evolve intellectually after establishing itself (except among academic philosophers) but rather in the twentieth century blended into low-key religious indifferentism.

Bibliography

Turner, James. Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Un-belief in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.

—James Turner

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Poet's Respite: Work upon immortal Minds...

Image editing by Sarah


"If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust, but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity."


Daniel Webster



Jumbo's


Jumbo's Quote of the Day!

Keep cool; anger is not an argument.

~Daniel Webster~

Friday, May 7, 2010

Booklist 2


I wonder how it happens that every time I talk to my mother I end up leaving with a large list of books that she wants me to read to better myself in some way or another.
So for the month of May I have selected four relatively easy books to knock off my list:

Story
by Robert Mckeee
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the brain by Betty Edwards
Guide to Good Writing
On Writing Well by William Zinsser

See ya on the other side of this book list.
Sarah

Monday, May 3, 2010

Slalom Skating


I've taken quite a fancy to roller blading lately. It's been coming on for a while now, ever since I discovered this style of skating called slalom skating, which is a fascinating form of break dancing/gliding on skates, it has been my goal to achieve that.



For the past two months or so I've been skating off and on just for fun but last month I started getting more serious about learning how to do new things on skates, and move past the basics.

I'm learning different braking techniques at the moment, like this:



my brake pads died out on me a year ago and so I'm forced to find different ways to come to a stop.



I'll keep you updated once I learn some new tricks.

Skating is blast and it's great exercise I would recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone whose looking to have some fun :)

~Olivia

Happy BDay!

Today is my sister Evelyn's birthday so here's a little song...

"Happy Birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
*Hope you have all the cake you want
and all your wishes come true!"

*Ok...ignore the fact that I sound off key :), but as it's your birthday all sweets are calorie free!!


I was looking for a pretty emerald related image to add since emerald is the birthstone for may, but I couldn't find what I was looking for, so instead, a tribute to emerald from one of the "greenest" places ever...Emerald City, Oz.

Have a Wonderful Birthday Evelyn and many returns of the day!!!

With Love,
Angela




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