My Spontaneous Field Trip

Today I went to Miller Hall’s geology museum, just for a visit. It’s been a while since I’ve been, and seeing as I pulled another all-nighter last night, it was raining, and the lights looked so inviting, I figured it was about time.

I started off by looking at the selection of rocks and minerals used in Geology class for first year engineers, which involved a little wistful reflection of those times so many years ago when we had to perform all the tests on the samples to determine their properties and later their names. I always have loved Geology, but I was going through so much during that time, I couldn’t even enjoy it then. 😦 I moved on to the end of the hall, where they had a few little samples of random rocks, and then I backtracked to my favourite part: the collection of meteorites. I had my music on high, and just immersed myself. It was wonderful. Peaceful. There’s also the additional effect it has on me, based on feelings I have toward nature (see the post directly below this for more info on that), so it was really a good mental break.
   
I then moved to the main room, where there appeared to be a class trip for some French-speaking kids, maybe grade 5 or so. I turned my music up and toured around, stopping at some of my favourites — the tall amethyst sliced-in-half-geode, galena, pyrite, azurite, the gorgeous chalcopyrite, molybdenum, smithsonite, sodalite, tourmaline, and of course all kinds of quartz….. and yes, I did just go to a random minerals site alphabetically 🙂 There were, of course, many others, but far be it from me to remember what they were. I’m always kind of surprised they don’t have (or maybe I just can’t find it) one of my favourites, lab-made bismuth. I had one once, and it disappeared somewhere, but it had what I just found out is called “hopper” qualities — where basically the mineral forms an empty cube without a top, and then stacks these box-like structures all over itself in really neat designs. It’s also got some iridescence going on, which is always pretty neat. Oh, and there was ulexite, which I love to look at because it has fiber-optic properties. Very cool.
      
I love just going to places like that randomly, it’s so inspirational and relaxing at the same time. It was also nice to see some of the children fascinated in the minerals, while the others ran around yelling. Haha, I guess it brought me back to my youth….. not a bad place to visit every once in a while….. 🙂

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Why I Love Walking

Today I was walking around downtown Kingston, trying to make up for lost time.  Lately I’ve been so busy, and have had such little sleep, that I’ve pretty much been a (non-)walking zombie. Yesterday when I went to class, I was literally stumbling. If you know me, you know that I can handle being tired. Heck, in the past people have commented on how upbeat I was, not knowing that I’d pulled an all-nighter the night before. So, for me to say I was feeling it, I mean I was feeling it. Today I had to get up for a group meeting, which consisted of very little work, but at least a little organization. After that, I decided it was time to walk off everything that’s been building up in me.

I had a great experience. A lady came up to me and asked me what the wreath was that I was wearing. Confused, I looked to where she was pointing: my poppy. She didn’t have an accent and didn’t look stupid so I was curious why she didn’t know what it was….. I asked “You mean my poppy?” She nodded. “Well, we wear it to recognize and give respect to our veterans. For Remembrance Day.” She smiled and said, “Ahh. We were wondering why everyone was wearing wreaths. We’re from California.” She thanked me, we walked away, and I heard her telling her friend the result of her inquest.

That made me smile.  I think because the poppies had been so prevalent in walking downtown that it made her curious enough to ask. That impressed me, and I suddenly felt very patriotic 🙂