Mortaine’s Blog

Well, good– I found out that UCSC, and especially UC Riverside, have collections of Analog, Asimov’s, and Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine, covering at least the dates I personally have in my own collection.

This is a Good Thing. It means that, as I finish reading, I can remove these from my shelves and recycle them.

Went out for burgers at 99 Bottles last night. And beer. I had a Hawaiian burger and a Kona Fire Ale. John had something with garlic and bleu cheese, and ordered a beer called the “Arrogant Bastard.” It turend out to be too arrogant for him, so I made him drive home so I could finish it.

In related (vaguely) news: Last night I talked to John about me pursuing the Physics A.S. degree. Yes, every person I’ve talked to about this has said “Physics? Why?” with that kind of disgusted “I hated Physics” tone of voice. Maybe the answer for me is that I have always wondered and never understood what made things work the way they do. I’ve always known that the universe operated by the laws of physics, and that what we know of those laws is constantly changing, adapting, to fit what we actually observe. But I’ve also always felt insecure about discussing these things, of using them in my communication, in my fiction, in my writing, because I didn’t know what those laws were, what the actual science behind the laws is.

So…. I’m going to go in to Mission College this week sometime to talk with an academic counselor about this possibility. suggested that I take an aptitude or personality test of some sort, which I think is not a bad idea. I took the Myers-Briggs just before leaving SJSU, but the test administrator was a bitch and didn’t get my results back in time for me to have them evaluated for free/cheap before I left (though I think I can still do that as an alum).

If I do go to Mission to pursue this, it’ll mean 3 years of part-time school, because of all the math I’d probably need to take. I wouldn’t need to take any G.E.s for the degree, but I stopped taking math in high school, only picking up the stats course in college (don’t they call that “math for musicians” or something?) One of the things I need to discuss with a counselor at Mission is what assessment tests I need to take– they offer the math as an optional component of the English assessment, but obviously it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to take the English assessment. Also, those 3 years are pretty much set– because of pre-requisites, I wouldn’t be able to shorten it in any meaningful way, even if I decided to go full-time.

The A.S. is in Physical Science (Calculus-based), and I would pursue my degree by focusing on Physics and Astronomy, though I think I would also take a semester of Environmental Biology, just to round things out a bit. I’m looking at the chemistry options and not finding them all that exciting. Since they’re not required for the A.S., I don’t think I’d pursue chemistry.

One advantage to pursuing this kind of degree is that it absolutely would not hurt my tech writing career, if I continued to pursue that, and it would certainly help with the science fiction (which John correctly identified as my primary motivation, here, which was nice). Tech writers with a strong science background make a hefty bit more than ones without such a background. Even though there are no tech writing jobs in Santa Cruz, with a background or otherwise, it would be directly applicable to my work in the semiconductor industry, as well as if I moved more into writing for aerospace (thus realizing, in a small way, my childhood dream of working in space).

Here are some questions from the Value Exercise on SJSU’s Career Counselling self-assessment test, copied here so I can contemplate them later. Feel free to complete them (in your own journals!!!) or ponder them. They might also be useful in sketching out characters for a story.

Complete these sentences:
I am proud because I am…
I can…
I learned…
I made a difficult decision to…
I amuse people by…
I was careful about….
I repaired…
I helped someone…
I refused to…
My family is…

Set #2:
I admire the kind of person…
I think I could hardly live without…
I would like to brag about…
The main driving force in my life…
The best measure of personal success…
I could be perfectly happy if…
My greatest ambition in life…
If I were young again…
More than anything else I want…
It’s fun to daydream about…