Coming to Terms

Today, I came to terms with sunlight, lab reports, geometry sets, and electromagnetism.

I never really liked sunlight. In Florida, it was the general state of the weather, and things like overcast and rain were welcome rarities. Overcast meant that the sun wasn't in my eyes, and rain meant that I'd be able to cool off a little. Similarly, having been raised until seven in Chicago, gray and fog were more nostalgic and reminiscent than irritating. So although the sun was generally a welcome thing in Chicago, the sort of affinity that people have for the sun did not stick with me long after I left.
I never really liked the physics of electromagnetism. It was always some sort of weird force that couldn't be understood in the same, fundamental, way that kinematics could be understood. Things like equal opposite reactions, mass times gravity, friction, and whatnot make sense. Magnets and electricity do not. It's not that I didn't read those children's books and sit through science courses about it, it's just that those sorts of explanations and understandings never rang through for me in the way that solid, tangible things like kinematics do.
I probably don't have to say much about my history regarding lab reports.



First of all, part of my peace with lab reports comes from today being the first day I was completely finished with my report when I woke up in the morning. I felt insanely good about it, a sort of exuberant and radiating joy. Upon the ringing of my alarm, I bolted out of bed, ready to face the clichéd day. And that was quite a feat, given that I slept about four hours total the previous night and afternoon (power nap).
Secondly, my love of geometry sets today started with the Fermat test. They didn't give the diagram to scale, so I made my own.

However, the main period of time that is responsible for my accordance with the aforementioned lab reports, sunlight, geometry sets, and electromagnetism, was after school. The thought of the sun was forefront on my mind as I walked back with the damn thing in my eye. I had the drawings for a certain physics lab to finish. I probably would not have if Karlming had not been there, for I had little idea what the drawings were supposed to be anyway. He was nice enough to help me out by describing just what the drawings had to be of.
Now, these were perhaps the most fun lab drawings I have ever done. I had something beyond just a perfectionist attitude towards the drawings - it was something more like my process in making an n level. It wasn't perfectionist at all in that I allowed some errors to go without white out or erasing. It still had to be good, but I also obsessively followed any whim that came to mind for the sake of it. I drew a top down view of the CRT with the magnet near it, with much help from my geometry set. The idea was to make a single elaborate drawing so that I could afford to make the four drawings of the deflections with varying magnetic field strengths a bit more simplistic. I had spent enough time on it, especially the lines of the magnetic field (which had to be done by hand without aid of any tool), that I did not want to repeat it on the next page for the solenoid acting on the CRT. I especially cannot draw things twice. It is a curse placed upon me, that if I should draw something, the heavens inevitably feel that I never shall again. And, indeed, the solenoid drawing was in most any effect the same, with a coil instead of a bar magnet. The magnetic field lines would not differ. I wished that I had some way of tracing it, alike to those lighted surfaces that paper can be placed upon and permeated by light. Woe, even a makeshift solution to the problem was not supplied, though it would have taken but the smallest twist of fate to do so. Even 'twas denied me.

Then I remembered the sun, that old dog, and the glassed front door. In that instant of epiphany, it was the most perfect tracing pad conceivable. The sun had been my most despicable foe for the past years, and these minutes of tracing upon the door were a reacquaintance with the old friend behind the heartless, merciless waves of radiation. In meeting with that friend again, and seeing the good in such a despised enemy, I in a rush regretted all the time I had focused my hatred so. It had been my madness that led me to such a rash aversion, with little regard or consideration.

Enlightened in a sense, or at least in increased consciousness, I set about continuing my drawings. In this new world vision, I was considerate of the good in all things around me. I even saw application to my current task in them; a loonie and two varyingly sized cups proved excellent for drawing circles about the magnet field. Perhaps by a by-product of my then-current state, the natures of electric and magnetic forces seemed to make themselves clearer to me. In the least, it was a step towards the level of familiarity I hold regarding the more tangible kinematics.
Without further event, I completed the drawings. My geometry set, having consisted of the various gallant machinations necessary for the work, was crippled. Little remained of its former glory, and I mourned its loss, but I knew not to linger overly on such an inevitable passing. As surely as the seasons change, the noblest of souls in all planes of existence must do their duty and accept the possibility of an untimely demise as undeniable side effect of their heroism.

This was a lesson I should have actually learned from the last lab: that doing physics labs is actually quite fun and should not be hurried by tardiness. But while I blundered in a sense this time too, it did not end at all badly. In the end, it is clear that while I had once thought that the fates had conspired against me, they had rather brought several adverse circumstances together for a greater good.