NSAS members, along with other Astronomy Societies of Sydney, volunteer with Telescopes and information stands to show the people the wonders of the sky. Discussions are held with the public about telescopes and other equipments, sky objects, weather and light pollution, among other spontaneous subjects. It is a night for learning and enjoyment for the families.

I hope you come along. See you there!

I don’t look old.

But I feel old.

Instagram, facebook, tumblr, and whatever social network that the kids are into nowadays makes me feel old. I really wish I had that opportunity in my twenties to partake in some of these things. At least that’s what I thought in my previous blog. However, it dawned on me. Well, let me backtrack and let you in on what lead to my dawning of the dawn shall we?

On twitter, I follow quite a few people I don’t know just for gits and shiggles. Partially because they’re purty and I want to see how the purty live on a daily basis and if they have anything to say worth reading (spoiler alert: they DON’T #shocker). And I saw a tweet from someone I follow with an instagram link to a picture. And of course I clicked on it, which brought me to that person’s instagram account.

And. Here’s my point. I promise you I have one.

I looked at the Instagram account and I continued to scroll. And scroll and scroll at countless pictures. Pictures of drinking, pictures of partying, pictures of ridiculous clothes that I can never see myself or my own friends wearing, etc. And this is when the dawning arrived. All of these programs are ridiculous. Just utterly. Ridiculous. It doesn’t make any sense to take time out of days to upload, crop, color correct, etc pics to put up to an account for all the public to see. I mean.. for what reason? To show that you have a life? Well I’m sorry but looking at a picture of a bug on a window frame doesn’t reveal that you have a life, only that you’re bored beyond belief. This is how we communicate. Picture taking, picture uploading, picture commenting. And this annoys me. What happened to just hanging out? Without picture taking? I can remember a time where we did that. We didn’t have a youtube. We didn’t have an Instagram, or a facebook account. And we made out alright, right? We didn’t have cell phones or the option to text someone. Although I am quite fond of the texting. I mean, it’s fantastic to NOT have to listen to a long convo about someone’s life on a phone and use up time and minutes when you can just text them how you feel. It’s brilliant.

Follow me here. At some point, I think we will all go back to zero. These social networks will go down the tubes. They’ll all self implode either because things will keep changing like in facebook and people will get fed up OR we will eventually grow tired of sitting in a room looking at picture after picture. At some point we will destroy these networks, go OUTSIDE, drive, or take a cab, or take the train, or ride a bike and hang out with friends because that’s what life is about. Making your own memories. I guess we all need validation that our lives are worth meaning and that is what the networks provide on the outside. But I guarantee most of us are still pretty lonely. STILL and the constant scrolling and commentary connects us. Somehow.

Although I don’t know how much connection I can feel when I see someone “like” a picture of a peanut butter sandwich.

Surely I can’t be the only one here who feels this way.

Surely.

But then again, what do I know?

Healthy eating on the slow carb diet from The 4 Hour Body, Tim Ferriss! Tatiana and I are changing our eating habits so that we can tone up for the summer. On the slow carb diet you are to avoid any “white foods” (eg. Bread, potatoes, rice, quinoa, white onion, etc.), avoid all sugar… So no fruits, and each meal that you eat must have at least 1 source from each of the following categories: protein, beans, and greens. So a meat of sorts, legumes – ideally lentils, red beans, or black beans, and a nice portion of veggies!

The above image is what we made for lunch for our trip to the beach today! We took 4 hard boiled eggs and mashed them, then mixed it with 3 cans of tuna, and about 2 tablespoons of Veganaise. We sat bayside and ate lunch at the picnic tables, then walked over to the beach to soak up the sun!

I hope you all are having a terrific Sunday! What are you doing with your day? Let us know in the comments.

- namaste.

Be here now. Be present in the moment. Develop leadership and create your life while helping others do the same.

This noise heard from the ground,
fulfilling the ears of the observer,
spreading through the air ’till infinity
is the music of the big city,
the harmony of the massive movement,
the progression of those trying to make it.

Those who are talking, those who are dealing.
Dealing with a life they didn’t ask to have.
When they finally get home, they get to work.

Again.

- Mateus Rodrigues

Well, I spent almost half of my day reading by the sea, my bubble of peace and quiet left un penetrated. The rest was spent with a friend and then family.

By this brief account, one should be able to tell that an anniversary that is universally celebrated by teenagers with as much grandeur as possible,depending on leniency shown by parents, was given hardly any importance by me. And as much as I deeply enjoyed my delicious and heavy breakfast of mushroom omelet and mint tea, observing the endless waters before me, and reading a wonderful book (“Around India in 80 Trains” by Monisha Rajesh), observing the silence, a small part of me does wish that I’d gathered my friends for a party, or at least worn something new to commemorate the occasion.

I have observed that we introverts who secretly wish to step out and put ourselves forward, brave and uninhibited, might live in a much more exciting world conceived by our minds. A world where being wrong and making mistakes isn’t as terrifying. Where we are funny and willing to interact with everyone, even people whom we may feel terribly uncomfortable with now, e.g little children. Or at least i hope that there are other people like me out there.

I admire clever people who are comfortable in groups and keep the conversations flowing. And I say this with shame, but I sometimes picture my alter- ego in my world saying and doing the same things. Like writing a script for the life of a person I secretly wish I was. I make up incidents and anecdotes which make me smile, and sometimes even laugh out loud like a looney- toon in the middle of a walk..

Now people might say that such thoughts go against the concept of being satisfied with who you are. But to this I have two responses.

1. One can never be fully satisfied with who they are.

People have expectations. They have expectations with everything; work, the government, their peers, GOD, and also with themselves. And these expectations are perennially extending themselves. Once one expectation is met, more are created. These expectations give us something to work for.. They give us an opportunity to grow. An incentive, even. Let me illustrate with an example.

A man who has no money first aims to be financially stable. When the money comes, his next expectation is to find a partner deserved by him after his hard work and persistence., and so on. This does resemble Maslow’s hierarchy of needs a bit.

Our expectations with ourselves are endless. But should that mean that it’s okay to wish you were a totally different person? So here comes point 2..

2. I have just begun to know myself.

No matter what I think about certain things and how I put myself forward, i am just a teenager. My life has just begun. I have just reached a stage where I am beginning to truly observe those around me; who are the people most sought after and who are the ‘seekers’ ,why they are in those positions and how they are interdependent. This is a stage where I am supposed to figure out which group I want to belong to. Experimentation, reinvention are all a part of this process of finding out who you are (this worn out, over used phrase isn’t given as much credit as it should).

So excuse me for wanting to participate in this major level by wanting to be this person whom I have been thinking about and perfecting in my mind for a long, long time. She is brave, confident, independent, smart, strong and good under pressure. And has a high metabolism rate which enables her to gorge on ice-cream without worrying about ruining her abs.

What? A girl can dream.

I’m not talking about the Disney princess here but the light show produced when Earth’s magnetic field directs charged particles into the atmosphere.  Auroras are common in a specific zone roughly 10° to 20° from the earth’s magnetic poles.  Even if you don’t live in a frigid clime, you’ve likely heard of the northern version, the aurora borealis, named after the Roman goddess of dawn (not the Disney princess), Aurora, and one of the four major Greek gods of wind, Boreas, who was the north wind and bringer of winter (dramatic drum roll).  The counterpart in the south is the aurora australis.  It sounds less impressive but that’s probably because not as many people have seen it and romanticized it through prose.  Tonight or early tomorrow morning, because of a significant solar flare aimed right at us which occurred on April 11^th, the aurora borealis will be sent all the way into the mid-latitudes of the United States.

How to See the Awesome

As with all such celestial events, you need to be at the right place at the right time and skies need to be relatively cloud free.  New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or the mid-Atlantic in general should be the best area to catch the aurora after roughly 20:00 EDT tonight and before 03:00 tomorrow.  Note this time period is just an estimate based on how fast we think everything is traveling!  A map of the US with viewing conditions can be found here:

Graphic by Al Blasko, Accuweather.com

And for Europe:

 Graphic by Al Blasko, Accuweather.com

If you’re not lucky enough to catch this tonight, the next astronomically awesome sight to look forward to is the Lyrid meteor shower beginning in a week or so.  I should make that my next post…

I myself have still never seen an aurora and, due to my current locale, that won’t change for me tonight.  I will comfort myself by looking at how auroras appear from space. You can see a bunch of awesome videos of auroras taken from the International Space Station here – http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/videos/crewearthobservationsvideos/Videos_Aurora.htm – and a rather more artistic approach from Michael König can be viewed here http://vimeo.com/32001208.

And if you want to get pinged about the next big aurora, check out http://spaceweather.com/ where you can sign up to have aurora alerts sent to you!

The Science Behind the Awesome

Radiation from the sun is hitting Earth all the time.  Luckily several things, including our own magnetic field, protect us from a lot of it.  In the case of an aurora, sun-fired charged particles are funneled down and accelerated along Earth’s magnetic field lines and when they collide with certain particles in the upper atmosphere they excite or ionize them causing the emission of photons.  This process happens about 50 miles up and the color of the aurora depends on whether the emission is happening from nitrogen (giving off blue or red photons: blue if the atom is regaining an electron after it has been ionized, or red if its returning to ground state from an excited state) or oxygen (green or a rusty red photons depending on exactly how excited the atoms get).

If you want to see what the sun is doing RIGHT NOW or AT ANY TIME, check out the live images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (the most awesome SOHO outside Manhattan) here http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/realtime-update.html  Of course because the flares (and coronal mass ejections, which often follow, dun dun DUN!) which affect us most here on Earth are pointed straight at us, they often look relatively unimpressive in the SOHO images.  Here’s one erupting in profile, with a close-up and overlay of Earth to scale to give you a sense of just how astronomically awesome these events can be.

Image Credit: Best of SOHO Gallery http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/bestofsoho.html

To only say that the experience at the Arecibo Observatory was unique does not reflect in its entirely the true nature of this opportunity. I guess if I had to say what was one of the most significant details of the experience, it would have to be the comprehensive insight that one receives of what a scientific research career would be like. Radio astronomy wise speaking, this experience opens your eyes of how it all goes down, meaning that one can see how all the raw data is receive, collected, analyze and then stored for a later more comprehensive and thorough review. However, I must say that the most awesome moment (which is almost always the little details) was the opportunity to look into the clear night sky next to the world’s biggest radio telescope; giving away a sense of its endless wonders, and the urge to understand its mysteries.

Jonathan (left) and other members of the UAT on the tour of the telescope. The Arecibo telescope is amazing!

The last night of an observing run is a bit like the end of term at school. You’re tired, but buoyed up by the knowledge that some relaxation is ahead. And there is the prospect of getting down to sea level and a real atmosphere with intoxicating levels of oxygen. The trip down is almost like a drug, as your chest can relax, as breathing stops being a chore, an finally your oxygen starved body gets what it needs.

It doesn’t last long, but I think coming down from the mountain is a pretty good drug. Maybe observing is addictive?

This was my yesterday – rain rain rain and thunder all the day long.

I hide myself, and I hunt. Instead of staying on the radar, I submerse myself as a spectator into the great ocean of the internet; instead of contributing things to the world, I become a ravenous consumer of information and opinions.  I spend hours reading about a specific topic, with hopes of finding an answer to my woe of the moment.

When I realise what I am doing, I feel an incredible urge to stop; to break out of my hiding place and remind the world that I exist – and that I have my eye on it.

Hello World. I hope you are prepared.

Late yesterday we got back from our two days together.  My husband and I high-fived each other as we drove into the driveway in acknowledgement that we were both still alive and speaking to each other.  ”Nobody died,” my husband said.  He then went up to his computer to sort through the pictures he’d taken.  He had a bunch.  I took four pictures.

A friend of mine just returned from a week away and came back with 1500 pictures.  She distilled them down to a slide show of 4 or 8 hundred shots.  I don’t remember the number because I couldn’t focus after she came out with the 1500.  

An acquaintance, after many years of relationship building, was finally given a coveted native American flute by an elder.  He promptly asked if there was any sheet music to go with the flute.  The elder thumped his chest and said, “In here!  Just play!”

Enough said.

For an impression of what it’s like, have a look at this video – Hotel Mauna Kea.

An UNDERCOVER-REPORT about resistance and observance in West Papua.
Both Sides entangled in mistrust, secrecy & unspoken fears.

I first began to think about sabbath in college.

I grew up in the church, so the concept wasn’t foreign. Still, I hadn’t pondered it, or tried to figure out why it was mentioned so many times in the Bible, or considered that it should be a part of my life.

Whenever I talk about how I started thinking about sabbath, I mention Lauren Winner. She is one of my “writer friends” and the conversational, right-there-with-you way that she writes has made me feel like I know her.

Lauren wrote a wonderful little book called Mudhouse Sabbath which tells the story of her ongoing thoughts on sabbath and certain other elements of Judaism she missed from her youth as a member of the Orthodox community. (If you haven’t read it, I recommend her highly).

In college, I decided that I needed to try to set one day apart where I did not do homework or laundry or work. It was extremely hard, and I will not tell you that I was consistent about it. Especially as graduation approached, I did not keep my sabbath. I tried not to be legalistic about it, I don’t think that was the point I was trying to engage with (I certainly hadn’t gotten legalism from Lauren Winner). I ached for rest, though, even as I fought it.

After college, I found myself with a schedule that didn’t match most of the people I knew. I worked weekends, and I couldn’t dedicate either traditional sabbath to resting. I chose to make Wednesdays my sabbath for a while.

There are two things that I am learning (and will probably be learning for a long time) about sabbath. One is that it is best practiced in community, and another is that the important reason that I need to do it is because it forces me to give God control of what happens at least once a week.

Wednesdays were hard to keep consistent, mostly because I did them all by myself. Without community, something like sabbath seems like the equivalent of having a dinner party all by myself. There is a lot of food to go around, but it’s not very fulfilling. Everything I found in Scripture referenced sabbath being practiced in a group, whether it was within the family unit, or a larger body, it wasn’t something you were to do alone.

In our individualistic culture, it is difficult for me to get my mind around this concept. We say that we need each other, we need community, we need the Body of Christ, but I don’t always live that out. Sometimes, I decide that what I really need is a break.

I have found sabbath to be many things, but I have never found it to be a break.

Not only are sabbaths filled with people, mostly people I am very close to, but they are also a day where I don’t take things into my own hands. The hardest part is letting go, of expectations, of my to-do list, of the illusion that I have control over my own life. All the time, I say I trust God, I really do believe that I’m not big enough to mess up my own life, I know that He is sovereign, but I don’t always act like I believe that.

When I started digging deeper into what the Bible says about the sabbath, I came across something that I had never noticed before. You may know that there are two sets of the ten commandments, one in Exodus, and a reprise in Deuteronomy. In Exodus 20:8 God says: “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” and in Deuteronomy 5:12 it says: “Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.” In the Exodus reference, it goes on to talk about creation, and how God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. As you read on in Deuteronomy, the Israelites were urged to remember that they had been slaves in Egypt and God brought them out and that is why they should observe the sabbath.

Being a word person, I pondered this. The words are different, but they go together.

So often, God asks us to remember. No wonder. If you look through the Bible, you will notice that people are constantly forgetting what God has done for them. I am no better. God was always asking people to set up piles of rocks so that they would see them, wonder why they were there, and someone would remember the great thing God had done. All of the holidays were remembering devices as well. Every year, Passover helped celebrate the fact that people who had been slaves were now free.

Once a week, it seems, God wanted His people to remember that He made them, that He was good at time management, that He had freed them once from bonds that seemed far too strong and He could do it again.

I could stand to remember that once a week.

Once a week, He asked His people to observe. Not to engage, not to figure it out, but to observe.

Here are two of my favorite definitions of “observe”:

1. Notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant.

2. Watch (someone or something) carefully and attentively.

Sometimes, for me, this all happens in a cycle. I forget what God has done, or who God is. I forget to pay attention, I forget that I am dust with God’s breath in me, animating my every move, thought and hope. Sabbath reminds me.

I am entering a new chapter in my life today. I am joining the ranks of people who work during the week. I am thinking about sabbath again, stirring to experience what it will look like for me in this season. I’m sure I’ll need the reminder more than ever.

(If you’re interested in reading some of my thoughts on sabbath from college days, click here, for thoughts from that same time on remembering, click here).

“Paths are made by walking” – Franz Kafka

Like an atomic bomb detonating within my cranium, the simplicity and profundity of this statement blew my mind to smithereens. One might have thought, “Well Kafka, it does not take a rocket scientist to know that paths are made by walking”. But the truth is, simple does not mean shallow. This destruction in my brain caused me to examine and inquire into my way of thinking and seeing. How come something simple has evaded my comprehension? Because in a way, through life, we become conditioned to filter out what seems unimportant and we no longer pay attention to details. We see, yes paths are made by walking, but we do not observe the implications of this statement and the details escape our grasp. You might wonder, why is this statement so important? It is simple enough. Paths are made by walking, so what. That’s the point. We do a literal translation (seeing), without seeing if there is anything else (observing). Maybe I just think too much into things, it could be since thinking is a favorite pastime of mine. Maybe I’m just rambling from lack of sleep and rest, it could be. But what I take from this is a sudden realization of the importance of not only seeing but observing.

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.” – Charles Bukowski
“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.” – Bertrand Russell