High School Dances

Happy Labor Day everybody! What an incredible weekend ya? There is something special about staying up late on a calm Sunday night, not having to worry about class the next day! My Monday was GREAT, spent with the people I love most, enjoying the sunny yet chilly weather, and catching up on a lot of homework! The most interesting thing, is that so many aspects and events of this weekend will tie into the blog entry I am about to write!!! HOW CRAZY IS THAT? Hope it was good for you too! 


Piece number 1) 
This morning, while hiking up the trail to Squaw Peak, I bumped into my best friend's dad, Doug, who was my young men's advisor and IS my hero! Best looking guy I've ever met (until our wonderful Honors Civ202 professors)! With sleek silver hair, stories that could hold you forever, and lots more (for more information, google "coolest guy on Earth!!!") this man is one of my greatest examples! 


Piece number 2) 
Friday night, the night of nights! Went to the freshman dance! It was some wild and crazy, peppered with magic. Now, question to all the fans out there. Is it cool for upper-class men to date freshman girls? Is it cool for upper-class women to date freshman guys? why or why not? Anyways, I didn't really go to the dance, just walked by it...drove by it to be precise. It is a piece to the puzzle.


COMPLETE PUZZLE: Doug often was a chaperone at High School and Church dances! What does this have to do with anything? Because, it was always so important to Doug to makes sure everyone had a good time. If someone wasn't dancing or associating with others, Doug would be right at my buddies and my side, encouraging us to somehow involve that person. Because of Doug's encouragement, I danced with the widest spectrum of girls than I can remember! Girls that would sing off-key into my ear. Girls that had stinging body odor. Girls who, just like me, were weird, and going through the same, potentially awkward high school years. But through this training, I came to understand that these girls were beautiful. They were somebody's most precious daughter. Did it cost me much to offer a dance? or to introduce them to some friends? In hind sight, it was the best thing I could have ever done at those dances. There was never any doubt that it was the right thing - the Spirit was always quick to let me know that - but it took guts. The hardest thing to overcome, was my pride. I always thought, "what would my friends think?" Our silly pride can sometimes make us so worried about ourselves, that we are blinded to the facts and the people around us.


So, keep that in mind. Here is a Chinese idiom which I like. I found it on the internet :)


Deep doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, little wisdom. - Chinese Proverb


I am so grateful for curiosity! Think about how many questions we think of just out of curiosity. Like, why does the sun and moon come out when they do? Or, are stars rotating around our Earth? or are we rotating around the sun? And more importantly, how do we figure it out? With our gift for curiosity, also comes a gift of discovery. In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy solved these problems! The geocentric model was accepted for over a millennium! Why? Because of observations and answered questions! Because if the Earth did move, the shapes of constellations should change! Because the planet, Venus, stayed the same brightness most of the time! Because the Earth was so heavy, and nothing was big enough to push it! Because if the Earth spun, all the trees and birds would fly off! Just to name a few reasons. The Earth was thought to be in the middle of the universe. Not bad problem solving if you ask me. However, this explanation did not satisfy everybody. 
Unpopular theories such as "Pythagorean System" (Earth and other planets traveling around a central fire) and Aristarchus of Samos's theory (Sun was the center of the universe) came to rival the Ptolemaic System. However, it wasn't until 1543 that the Copernican System posed the greatest challenge to the Ptolemaic System. Read the history books and you will find that even after telescope proofs and various sketches, the novel Copernican Heliocentrism System had a difficult time being accepted. At first, heliocentrism was completely rejected, regardless of the mathematical proofs. This novel idea was absurd!!! Furthermore, this idea clashed with numerous biblical passages.  It was not until Galileo's telescope and biblical translations that the tide began turning towards this new, yet more correct theory of our universe. Is that incredible? a little scary even.


One of the first things my research mentor, Dr. Dan Simmons, taught me, was the goal in biochemistry - to find out what is going on in living organisms. Rule number one, we don't know what we will find in advance, so we must not be bound too tightly to preconceived notions. Dr. Simmons, the discoverer of COX-2 protein, has first hand experience with this. The discovery of COX-2 is huge! COX-2 is why you have pain and inflammation during fevers. COX-2 is why you take aspirin or ibuprofen!!! When Dr. Simmons made this discovery, the whole world challenged the idea. It is always hard to accept new ideas. However, if the evidence is powerful enough, the world will be able to accept and build off of this idea. 


End this blog time. When I taught my grandparents in Taiwan how to use skype, I kept getting the same, frustrated response. "What is wrong with using a phone?" When I think about blogging, I feel a sudden dread and fear. Why don't I like using this new piece of technology. Maybe it makes me uncomfortable to use something so complicated. Maybe I don't really know what to type. Or maybe because I'm not good at it, and I don't like that feeling...because I am prideful, because everything I do is good, or was good, until I run into something new. Maybe? You tell me... :)