On a Valentines Day

My insides all turn to ash, so slow,
And blew away as I collapse, so cold,
A black wind took them away, from sight,
And held the darkness over day, that night

And the clouds above move closer,
looking so dissatisfied,
but the heartless wind kept blowing, blowing

I used to be my own protection, but not now,
Cause my path has lost direction, somehow,
A black wind took you away, from sight,
And held the darkness over day, that night

So now you're gone,
And I was wrong,
I never knew what it was like,
To be alone... On a Valentines Day !

-Valentines Day, Linkin Park-

Valentines day just like every other celebration has its history behind it. It all started by a priest named Valentine who lived during the 3rd century Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single man made better soldiers than man with families, he outlawed his soldiers from falling in love and getting married. Valentine realising the injustice of the law, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Claudius discovered Valentines actions, he was ordered to be put to death. During his time in jail, all the young lovers that got married gave him roses and notes. He also fell in love with the jailers daughter during his time in the jail. Valentine was hung on the 14th of february after writing a note to the jailers daughter that ended with .. Sincerely, Your Valentine.

What are rocks?

Rocks are assemblence of one or more minerals. Therefore every Geologist must have learnt the compositions and identifications of minerals to be able to study rocks. The study of minerals is called mineralogy. There are approximately 4000 unique minerals(200 common minerals) that make up the 3 major kinds of rocks; sedimentary rocks, methamorphic rocks, and the igneous rocks.

Learning to identify minerals in class was a huge problem for me as I used to memorise the characteristics of certain minerals to identify them until i was thought to look at it in a broader manner, by categorizing those minerals into larger groups.

Minerals from Igneous Rocks make up almost 75% of the minerals in the Earth. There are only 7 groups of minerals under Igneous Rocks; Olivine, Quartz, Pyroxene, Plagioclase, Orthoclase, Biotite, and Amphibole. So if you pick up a rock and some one asks you to identify the minerals in it, most of the time if you guess one of these 7 groups of minerals, you will be right. So for all of you who read this, try memorising the names of these few minerals and you can then sound like a geologist.

The white mineral in the picture is known as Quartz which is mainly made up of only silicon and oxygen under certain amount of temperature and pressure. The green mineral in the picture is called Olivine (Fosterite in particular) which is made up of Magnesium, Silicon, and Oxygen.

Georgius Agricola (1580) is known as the 'Father of Mineralogy'. His books were used by many European mining companies to increase the efficiency of their outputs.

Team Building Camp at Shaver's Creek

I am enrolled in this class called Diolog on Races where we just sit in a circle every mondays and wednesdays and talk about race related issues for 2 hours. There are 7 students in the class including me and this is by far the best most educational experience i have ever gone trough. I have learnt so much about myself and how, why people from different backgrounds think differently. Last sunday we took a van ride to shaver's creek for a Team building camp that lasted the whole day. Shaver's Creek (land own by penn state university) is situated in the mountains about half an hour from my university. We basically played some team building games and we had to analyse the idea behind every game. That was fun but very common. We had fecilitators who actually tore us down and kept asking us very personal stuff so that we be open to the rest in the group. We were asked critical issues and we had to give opinions about it and have a proper reason for our opinion. At first it was very unconfortable to speak our mminds out but towards the end of the day, we were so open to each other. I learnt so much about myself and this camp helped me alot in breaking my walls while understanding stuff outside my box. The group i went with is more like my family now here in Penn State. I wished education institutes in Malaysia come up with these kind of programs to increase integration among race as well as understanding other peoples point of view.