![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yesterday was the beginning the spring semester at my university (yes, they are expensive) and although the timetable said my classes don't start until next week I just had to turn up and be sure. One long hike up a hill later (because I had to sneak up on it, see) and a half hour sit in the chill wind with nothing warm to wear and I was satisfied. Went over to one of the more populaous campuses and discovered my student access needs to be reactivated. Okay, I can do that from home easily enough (since it was late there and no computer admin type people were available to do it on site). There was still no sign of any fliers from the LGBT group which seemed so prominent in my previous times there, making me wonder if a few personalities who were a driving force might have graduated. What I did see were flyers for two different religious groups, one catholic and the other the all-pervasive Campus Bible Ministries (may have to go along to that one of these days to see what goes on in there). Seems like an active day for the forces of proselytisation - some guy at the station offered me a pamphlet about the 'Lord Jesus Christ". I told him a firm no thank you but maybe I should have collected it for study. But the most annoying part of the day was the large poster advocating testing for sexually transmitted infections targeted entirely at gay men. Perhaps I am setting myself up to be shown wrong but, really, isn't this a problem for everyone who is sexually active and especially those who are promiscuous and especially especially those who don't use protection? I don't see what good it does to target the message so specifically.
There have been a few changes since last I was there: the observatory seems now to have a small radio telescope, and in one building the chemistry and biology labs have now become the social sciences rooms. New paint all about too.
Fun news, in the carpark I saw what I believe to be a Crimson Rosella up in a tree which I am sure was not native to the area - it had large, broad, dark green three-pointed (looked up trefoil and it seems not quite right) leaves and a somewhat waxy look so I suspect it to be from a much wetter climate. It was lovely, too, to see the crescent moon hanging high in the sky on its side. Must be just past New because I remember it being thinner a few days ago. Was harder to get a sense of its distance and relative position in space compared to the Sun, which made me wonder how many people see things the way I do. Do you see the size of it, how far the sun is? Do you see the arc of our orbit across the sky? The curve of the Earth's surface, it's tiny immensity? The paths of other planets across the sky? Have you any sense of the size of those worlds, of their textures and their skies? What about the stars? When you look up at them do you have any sense of how they relate to each other, of their environments and how they are built? When you look around you do you have any sense of what the things around you are made from? Their history? The air you breather? The reaction upon reaction, the oh so many cycles and processes taking place everywhere around you? The history of every thing and all its parts stretching back and back and back for as long as there has been time? And their future? So many pieces weaving and interlocking. I have to shut down or else weep for every living (and sometimes nonliving) thing past, present and future, in joy and sadness.
Travelling back the sky was coloured in pastels, blue and pink and mauve. And so, stop.
There have been a few changes since last I was there: the observatory seems now to have a small radio telescope, and in one building the chemistry and biology labs have now become the social sciences rooms. New paint all about too.
Fun news, in the carpark I saw what I believe to be a Crimson Rosella up in a tree which I am sure was not native to the area - it had large, broad, dark green three-pointed (looked up trefoil and it seems not quite right) leaves and a somewhat waxy look so I suspect it to be from a much wetter climate. It was lovely, too, to see the crescent moon hanging high in the sky on its side. Must be just past New because I remember it being thinner a few days ago. Was harder to get a sense of its distance and relative position in space compared to the Sun, which made me wonder how many people see things the way I do. Do you see the size of it, how far the sun is? Do you see the arc of our orbit across the sky? The curve of the Earth's surface, it's tiny immensity? The paths of other planets across the sky? Have you any sense of the size of those worlds, of their textures and their skies? What about the stars? When you look up at them do you have any sense of how they relate to each other, of their environments and how they are built? When you look around you do you have any sense of what the things around you are made from? Their history? The air you breather? The reaction upon reaction, the oh so many cycles and processes taking place everywhere around you? The history of every thing and all its parts stretching back and back and back for as long as there has been time? And their future? So many pieces weaving and interlocking. I have to shut down or else weep for every living (and sometimes nonliving) thing past, present and future, in joy and sadness.
Travelling back the sky was coloured in pastels, blue and pink and mauve. And so, stop.
