Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I Am Not Just a Pair of Casual Pants



I know that resorting to posting a video from somewhere else is basically admitting that you shouldn't have a blog, but I honestly don't care. I've been uninspired (or at least inspired without discernible focus, which ends up with the same results) and I feel a little guilty going so long between posts. I'd blame it on my heavy course load this semester, but that's bullshit. I spent an hour last night flipping between rain delay filler for the Braves game and the pre-show for Monday Night Football. I'm perfectly aware that I'm wasting time and that I could be wasting more productively. I'm not stupid enough to think I should even bother expecting myself to work ahead of deadline on school or work activities. That just ain't going to happen.

Oh, and this speech is amazing. He talks about a fairly new direction the science of neurology is exploring, except he does it with some of the most captivating and easy-to-understand delivery I've ever seen. This is good even for TED. If I were at MIT, I'd be shanking people to get into this guy's classes, even though I purposely avoided science and math classes my first time around. I now strongly regret that decision. Actually, I was reluctant about neglecting my science education even then. I've always loved science. It was just that I hated math, and, despite my A in high school calculus, I didn't want to mess with the crap in college. Now, in my 30s, I'd gladly go back, sucker punch my younger self in the stomach and sign him up for some advanced math and sciences. I'm not sure what classes I would have dropped, however. I don't even regret that Modern African History class I dropped on the last day to drop a course because I didn't want to write the 10-page paper. I loved that class.

Maybe honors Self and Literature. I spent most of my time in that class watching squirrels because the stupid professor couldn't lock us away in a classroom inside where the distractions were fewer. Also, there were a lot of squirrels on that campus. I'd fantasize that the chipmunks (which were also ample, but stayed closer to the buildings) were the secret protectors of people from the diabolical squirrels who were planning on blitzing the dorms at night en masse to kill us all. A squirrel once bit my sister in the toe, so I knew this was true. I actually told this daydream to my wife back then (although back then she was not my wife) and she didn't seem to be disturbed by it. She laughed kindly and sincerely at my story and I knew that I loved her. Also, I only read half of the books for that class and I don't think my life would be any worse for having not read The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. I hate Gertrude Stein. The squirrels probably weren't really that bad.

7 comments:

Courtney said...

I couldn't concentrate in that class either. Also, I don't think anyone has ever hated an author as much as you hate Gertrude Stein. You've mentioned your hatred of her and that book at least 87 trillion times since I've known you.

Mickey said...

I hate how much they wrap the sciences up with math. I love science and I think I would make an excellent wildlife biologist or geologist or sub-par astrophysicist, but the math courses never interested me in the least. Shame, too, because I love math as it relates to the physical world, just not when it comes out of a text book.

Rassles said...

Hey, at least you posted relevant and interesting stuff concurrent with a video created by someone else on some other website...

Jacob said...

Courtney: I'm pretty sure it's not literally that many times, but I think the first forty or so it was from the sheer irritation of having been forced to read that book, or worse, having actually bothered to read it when I didn't read half of the books for that class and still made passing grades on those essays. After that, it just became a part of who I am like beer and my wife.

Mickey: You creep me out a little sometimes.

Rassles: You didn't watch the video did you? It's about neurons and shit and I'm going off about squirrels.

Julie said...

I didn't watch the video. I'm sure TED is awesome (Have you met Ted?) but I barely have time to read your blog and I know and like you. TED will have to wait.

I always assumed the squirrels were in league with the der.

Jacob said...

In league with the der, Julie? Are you making some sort of joke about the mentally handicapped, that squirrels like to hang out with the retarded? There is no room for such ignorance on this blog. I'm ashamed of you.

Hank Gay said...

@Mickey I've been convinced for a while now that they approach Math all wrong. Statistics and Probability should be way more prominent, with calculus and the like being way less prominent. Unless you're an actual engineer—not a pretend engineer like me—your odds of actually needing calculus are staggeringly small. The little bit you do need tends to be stuff like optimization problems, which are very simple and don't require the reams of useless pablum that so amuse math professors, e.g.,
Newton's notation vs. Leibniz's notation.

Also, statistics is mind-numbingly awful with most professors; assuming you could get the profs to do it, it should probably be taught by people in your major department so that it can be tied into something you actually care about.