NOVA's Fabric: What is Space

NOVA is probably one of the most consistently interesting shows I have ever watched. Of course they do have some that I am not personally interested in, but they never treat their viewers as if they were simpletons. They move have shows for all age, from those that focus on and teach the basics of a topic, to those that move quickly through a review of the basics and onto more challenging topics. None of them, I must say, come across as talking down to, or over the heads of their audience.

What 'Space' is made of has been a sideline interest of mine for quite a while now....the way I figure it, if nothing existed in it, there would be a constant and unbeatable vacuum all around our planet...this means our planet, and all those millions and billions of stars and their planets couldn't possibly exist. Thus, just as we can't see air (at least in its natural mixture)....there must be stuff we can't see in Space as well, something to account for the lack of pure vacuum.

NOVA has shown me that I am thankfully by no means the only one who thinks this way, nor was I the first. Point towards me....

NOVA's presentation did confuse me at one point though. They spoke of the surprise scientists felt when they found out that the universe is expanding, or speeding up, instead of slowing down as they had thought. There was great points made as to how and why this could be happening, and it occurred to me...all these scientists are talking as if there has been such a great time since The Big Bang, that the universe would have obviously started slowing down by now if it was going to...my question is this...why view the billions of years since The Big Bang as such a LONG time ??? In terms of the lifespan of the universe, billions of years is probably just a blink of an eye...Could it not be that we are still in the expansion phase of The Big Bang, and that the energy that was created during this even simply hasn't expelled enough so as to begin dropping off yet?? These scientists seem to be speaking as fatalists, as if the universe should already be dying...

Even though it has been observed that many stars have died and gone supernova during this time, could it not be possible that the universe will survive as such for a lot longer than they have ever conceived of? That it is, in actuality, still a baby? Still just being born?? Still being expelled from its 'womb'?? Why assume that it has already started to die or that it should be dying/ending anytime within our concept of 'soon'.

Paradigm Shift: Where I came from to gradually get to Here

Acceptance letters. Flimsy, pieces of pressed wood pulp, usually with some fancy dancy pattern embossed on them, covered in fancy dancy acrylic lettering, they come in an envelope and sometimes even within their own individualized folders (wow! nice to see and get but I feel guilt for the student fees at work here) proclaiming to the world inside the head of the recipient.....

"You're a risk with a high success probability rate, we want you to pay us copious amounts of your hard-earned money so we can claim you as one of Ours!"

or

"I'm sorry, your probability of success at our institution has been deemed too low as to warrant expenditure of our valuable time and resources, we wish you formality-worded luck on your future endeavors and suggest that if you are determined, you apply similarly to an institution with lower standards".

I've gotten them both. I remember being directly out of high school and applying to colleges throughout the United States hoping against hope that I would get a "thick envelope". I did, I got a couple, I accepted one offer, and went bounding off to this grand old adventure of college. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and I bombed, spectacularly. Let it never be said that I haven't gone full head on into what I choose to do.

My problem was that high school was easy for me, and thus the reason I hardly tried. There were very few classes that were able to interest me enough that I wanted to try, in which I even bothered to do more than the bare minimum and yet, somehow, still get high grades. Needless to say when I graduated from a public Alaskan high school and dived into a full first-year's Pre-Medical course load at a true university....There was very little water in my pool, I hit my head rather hard.

One year later I ran away, escaping before they kicked me out, back to my hometown and the local university (more a community college actually, in much but name) to work, make some more desperate mistakes in my drive to discover who it was that I was and that I wanted to be, taking classes mainly because I didn't know how to go about life if I wasn't in school.

Today I am one and a half semesters away from graduating with my B.S. in Anthropology with a Minor in Psychology...when I do, I will have been out of high school and in college for 10.5 years.....solid. I have three certificates, one A.A.S, have had one career, finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up, and am getting the grades I should have been starting Day #1.

Somehow, the people I know are impressed with me. This is what I don't understand.

For some reason, they look at me, and see only the big things I've done, skim over the amount of time it has taken me to figure it all out and get to this point, and call me Smart!

For some reason....They think I'm edumacated.....

They have no idea how much further I have planned for myself to go. If I'm edumacated now...is there a term for what I will be when I get where I'm going?