Over the past half-month, I have gone through a good bit of stuff. Here is just a small sampling of them:

I. Trip to Topeka
I went to Topeka with the University of Texas Solar Vehicles Team to a get-together of all the solar car teams interested in competing in the 2008 race. We turned a race that was doubtful to happen to something that will definitely happen through our enthusiasm. If you think we are going to build those pancakes again, think again — we have put forth these new rules:

• Upright seating, strobe lights, external emergency disconnects, and daytime running lights are now required for all cars.
• For teams that are able to afford the more expensive gallium-arsenide cells, they are limited to an array size of 6m². However, teams using the regular cells are still allowed 8m².

These rules slow down the cars, make things more of an engineering challenge, and emphasize safety, which is most paramount.

II. Battle of the Buildings
Battle of the Buildings is a Whitis Court tradition where the Residence Hall Council (RHC) puts on a series of events to make the buildings compete against each other. Not only did we have our own versions of Project Runway and Iron Chef, we also had a talent show and some field days. One year brought on so many changes! On the bright side, more residents participated in the program and were very competitive and all the buildings broke a building’s dominance. However, the breaking of this dominance was the result of some changes in the way the events were scored. I was not involved in the scoring process, but I think that the changes took more factors into account and gave buildings with fewer residents a fighting chance. In any case, the results stand thus:

1. LLB
2. LLC
3. LLF (my building!)

III. Heck Week
Last week was another one of those weeks where I have three tests crammed in one week. To compound that, I had two back-to-back tests on Friday. My matricies class troubles me.

IV. Faith in Crises
In politics, I have always seen the attempt to legislate morality as attempts to trap the other party. Well, this time, it looks like the party of “family values” has fallen in their own trap. First, there is Mark Foley, who resigned because of sexually explicit emails to male Congressional pages (reference). To add to this mess, a pastor who strongly condemned homosexuality was retroactively caught for having gay sex and drugs over the past three years (reference).

I will admit that for a few brief moments, I would gloat at the revealing of this hypocrisy. However, I am saddened that we do not have strong-willed people to guide us, that people have fallen to their weakness of will. I am quite sure that the news has shaken the faith of a few. For those people, I have this: Remember that God is perfect and humans are not. There are unfortunate instances where religion will be invoked as rhetorical devices. Your best defense against those would be your convictions and living by them. Embrace and practice what you think is right and reject what you think is wrong.