God Bless Catastrophe

Retard in Florida called off his Quran-burning! Thank God...I don't know how it seemed like a good idea to him...and I definitely need someone to be coming home to me in one piece next winter. And I'm not the only one. Plus...really? I never understand how some people have so little respect for their fellow human beings.

Anyways.

I finally have direction in my studies! Mostly. I talked with my department head today and we threw around some ideas for my major paper. I haven't gotten into enough research yet (obviously) to know how viable certain aspects are, but here's some of the approaches I'm hoping to take:

First off, the overarching goal of my paper will be to recommend a course of action as far as utilization of nuclear energy globally, particularly with regards to our own national security. This includes not only how we will deal with plants currently in operation, both here and abroad, but whether to expand our use of nuclear power (or whether other countries could), and how this would be achieved in the safest, most efficient way possible.

Other themes I'm intending to touch upon include the theoretical basis for the concept of "national security" in the first place...because what do we really mean when we refer to security? I also want to examine nuclear energy in Russia in particular, and compare and contrast it with nuclear programs in the US. Again, security becomes a major issue when looking at Russian nuclear technologies.

Some of these may be dead ends, or too broad...or whatever. I'll figure that out more as I go along. In the meantime, I've shaped two projects I have this term around my major paper: one, a group project examining the debate behind nuclear energy policy in the US, and two, a theoretical examination of our concept of "national security".

Even more fun? I just so happen to be dating a nuclear cyborg (no, really) who just so happens to know an awful lot about nuclear reactors. So he's all excited for me to start asking questions haha. I'm excited we'll have yet another thing (kind of) in common to talk about :) That and the fact that I'm still managing to work Russia into the whole thing. In case you don't know, I kind of have a thing for Russia.

Anyways, I've got to finish my awesome "Intro to Nuclear Energy" reading so I can actually understand the rest of this...and then sleeeeep.