Today I have a German test and before it, our professor collects our work books where we do a lot of the homework for practice. But I've never seen grades on them, or her looking through, and she hands them back the moment we finish the test. There's probably 20 pages per chapter and with about 15 of us, that's 300 pages! So I've been toying with this idea of how to confirm if she does. I thought about writing a love poem or saying something flirty in it, because that would both admit to her my very real crush on her and get some sort of reaction, but then I thought it might be creepy or just inappropriate. I mean, we have a good student-professor relationship as is, and I'm not really in love with her so I'd rather keep that for now. But then I thought I'd do something to pique her literary interest, like writing a poem. But I'm not a poet, so that would be option Z. I could copy some famous poem into it and that might get her attention, but maybe she'd only silently smile without any sort of comment and that wouldn't help my goal. Then my friend suggested I write a poem in German. It was a good thought, one I wish I had, but my German isn't good enough to confidently ask if they speak English so I can't really express anything with poetic diction.
UPDATE: Nothing. I figured I'd be able to tell even if she didn't write something, but I just got her usual smile which could win awards, but it didn't tell me that she'd read it or anything. I'll assume she didn't.
-Cantwhistle
So what I did was translate a few short parts of famous poems into German.
Emily Dickenson has a poem:
I'm Nobody
Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
There's a bit more to it but I like that part.
Auf Deutsch:
Ich bin Niemand.
Wer bist du?
Bist du--Niemand--auch?
It doesn't have the same charm in German, but it's alright.
The second was by Robert Frost:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
That's the end of the poem (I did these from memory so forgive that they're incomplete) Auf Deutsch:
Die Walder sind schon, dunkel und tief,
Aber ich muss Versprechen halten
Und Meilen fahren vor ich schlafe.
Und Meilen fahren vor ich schlafe.
So that one didn't turn out real well, but I actually like the first line of it. It sounds very similar (an extra syllable, but I think the rhythm is kept. I'm not very good about rhythm though so maybe not) and retains the same meaning. But I scrawled them in big blue sharpie across sections we didn't do, so she should see them and hopefully because it's in German, she'll scribble "Sehr Gut!" on it or correct it or something. I'm sure others have translated it better than I have and she's certain to have heard at least one of them.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Arguments
If you don't know what an argument is, or think you know but have never taken a logic or philosophy class, watch this Monty Python video. Maybe it'll just be a review that you can laugh at, maybe you'll only take from it that these folks are weird or that they have some funny things outside of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but whatever. Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WVuXQLNpjo&feature=related
To summarize, an argument is a collected set of premises aimed at proving or supporting a conclusion. For example, this guy is stupid (conclusion). Today I had someone confuse an argument with a debate and either way he would've lost because he had only a rudimentary understand of the subject.
It's not a very strong argument, but it's a quick example. I'll explain it more here.
In German we were learning the difference between wissen and kennen. Both mean "to know" but kennen is used with direct objects and wissen with clauses or pronouns, adverbs or negation. The sentence was ,,Das weiB ich nicht" (fun trivia, in German punctuation, quotes are done with two comma looking things and then backwards quotes usually used to start a quote in English). And we had to circle weiB and underline what it was modifying. Negation, adverb, pronoun were our choices since there is no other clause. He wanted to underline just nicht for the negation. Then I explained to him that it should also be das because that was a pronoun (meaning that). So what does he do? He underlines ich nicht. I said, "No, no, no. Ich is the subject. Otherwise it would say 'That doesn't know me,' which wouldn't make sense in the context."
"Yeah, but, it's like negation, look, see? Nicht" then he did a stupid laugh to disarm me.
I wasn't even in my "You're an idiot, just listen to me" mood. I was legitimately trying to help him understand. I pointed to other sentences and said, "Yes, it's negation but it also has a pronoun. WeiB is modifying both," which might've been wrong but it was DEFINITELY modifying das. So he gives in and is like "Whatever, let's just move on."
Then we're writing a trivia questions for Illinois (in German), and I suggested "Did you know that Lincoln wasn't born there?" which in German vaguely looks like this ,,WeiBt du, Lincoln ist nicht in Illinois geboren?" But he wanted to say ,,WeiBt du, Lincoln war nicht in Illinois geboren?" I don't think anyone cares enough to go into the grammar of this, but war is used for things like "I was tired," or "I was there." Ist...ge- is used to say "I have run a mile," but more commonly would be translated to "I ran a mile." Both are past tense, but ist (more often haben) is required to say "I have..." so that people know you're talking about something you did in the past and is used in conversation. Ist is used for condition changes like birth or death, location changes, or some other things I forget. I only explain this because that was how I explained it to him. I gave him a refresher course on past tense and how war wasn't used with a ge-verb because it'd be like in English saying, "I was drove to the mall." It sounds ridiculous.
But here's his response. "Sure, let's go with it," fine, at least he's submitting to my superior knowledge. Then he adds "I don't wanna argue."
Really? You have to add that so I know that you don't agree but you're too stupid to explain your point which isn't a point at all? Everyone in that class is an A-student unless they don't do the daily work or are just god awful at tests and oral exams or don't show up. It's not a difficult class, but let's differentiate between my A and his. I get A's because I get 99/100 on tests and I only lose a point because I mixed up my bin and habe for past tense, or I forgot an obscure word in German like Abschluss. He gets A's because he's a suck-up and always shows up to class and always drops by the professor's office with little questions like "What's this word?" and it looks like he's trying hard, but he doesn't remember the answer for more than a class period.
But he's not the only one who "doesn't wanna argue." People like to argue politics, and religion, and love and court cases. They like the big topics, giant overarching truths, or something controversial that makes them feel important even if they have shitty arguments. And when you corner them with an intelligent argument, they'll either spout off the rhetoric they heard someone else say, or they'll say "That's your opinion." GOD I FUCKING HATE THAT! Caps can not properly express my disdain for it. I nearly threw a shoe at the window just thinking about how people say it.
We live in a world where opinions "matter." Not to anyone else, not to reality, but to ourselves. They make us feel good inside. They raise our self-esteem. Forget that we're completely incompetent and ignorant. We have good self-esteem, so, yeah, hooray. No one likes to think that maybe they're wrong and maybe there is a right answer or a few good answers, and a shitton of bad ones. If you read The Gorgias by Plato, you'll understand. Rhetoric, as he uses it, means tricking people into believing you over the experts because you speak well. It doesn't matter that you don't know better than the experts.
Here's another example of people not wanting to argue because they have no intelligence. I was talking to a friend and I asked her if she'd ever get the bridge of her nose pierced or maybe the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. She, being a good Christian and very conservative except when it comes to sex, said "Ew! Gross!" as expected. I then asked, why that was gross when ear piercings aren't. I was legitimately interested in the subject and hoped she could provide some insight like "Earrings draw people's eyes to your face whereas a nose piercing draws it to just the nose," but instead she just kind of waved off the subject and said "Certainly people can overdo it, but I think one earring in each ear is pretty."
"No, it's not. Men that I know don't really likes earrings and you're not a lesbian so who are earrings supposed to attract?"
"I didn't say they were for attracting people. They're just pretty."
"But pretty implies attractive. The point of pretty is to attract someone. Women look pretty to attract men. Cars are painted pretty to attract buyers."
"Whatever. I just like them."
"But why?"
She doesn't have an answer for any of this and tries to derail me from the conversation. Then she started saying "Okkkkk!" or "Alright," "Mhmm," "Sure," etc. So I called her out on it, I told her she was an obstinate child with no mind of her own, hoping to invoke a little passion so maybe she'd continue the discussion. It definitely aroused her anger, but instead of providing some premise, she said "It's a dumb topic and I don't really care."
A lot of you might agree. This is a dumb topic. It's certainly small, but how else do you argue something like having a mind of your own than through examples and generally examples are small. You think it proves that you have original or fresh thoughts by spouting off something about love and God and all this other stuff that you've been fed since you were two weeks old? I don't even disagree about God or love. I think there's love, but I try to have a fresh take on it other than just the bullshit quotes you get from sappy chick flicks that are about as realistic as fake boobs. But it's a lot easier to point to these habits people develop as a result of environmental conditioning than it is to sift through their grand theories on things they know nothing about. So yes, unless you get your ears pierced for a legitimate reason that you can explain to me that you have thought about and considered, I'm going to think you are just a product of your environment and another drone.
That's a bit harsh since most girls get their ears pierced as a child when they can't understand the effects of environment, and men seem to have better reasons for piercing their ears (e.g. they're gay and some gay men like ear piercings, women that the man is attracted to are easily distracted by shiny things), but women and girls, and I don't mean this as a sexist men are better than women thing, I mean this as an honest observation, women get their ears pierced for no reason and it's stupid and they should stop.
I didn't have anywhere to stick this, but I like saying it "Opinions are what the uneducated call their shitty arguments."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WVuXQLNpjo&feature=related
To summarize, an argument is a collected set of premises aimed at proving or supporting a conclusion. For example, this guy is stupid (conclusion). Today I had someone confuse an argument with a debate and either way he would've lost because he had only a rudimentary understand of the subject.
It's not a very strong argument, but it's a quick example. I'll explain it more here.
In German we were learning the difference between wissen and kennen. Both mean "to know" but kennen is used with direct objects and wissen with clauses or pronouns, adverbs or negation. The sentence was ,,Das weiB ich nicht" (fun trivia, in German punctuation, quotes are done with two comma looking things and then backwards quotes usually used to start a quote in English). And we had to circle weiB and underline what it was modifying. Negation, adverb, pronoun were our choices since there is no other clause. He wanted to underline just nicht for the negation. Then I explained to him that it should also be das because that was a pronoun (meaning that). So what does he do? He underlines ich nicht. I said, "No, no, no. Ich is the subject. Otherwise it would say 'That doesn't know me,' which wouldn't make sense in the context."
"Yeah, but, it's like negation, look, see? Nicht" then he did a stupid laugh to disarm me.
I wasn't even in my "You're an idiot, just listen to me" mood. I was legitimately trying to help him understand. I pointed to other sentences and said, "Yes, it's negation but it also has a pronoun. WeiB is modifying both," which might've been wrong but it was DEFINITELY modifying das. So he gives in and is like "Whatever, let's just move on."
Then we're writing a trivia questions for Illinois (in German), and I suggested "Did you know that Lincoln wasn't born there?" which in German vaguely looks like this ,,WeiBt du, Lincoln ist nicht in Illinois geboren?" But he wanted to say ,,WeiBt du, Lincoln war nicht in Illinois geboren?" I don't think anyone cares enough to go into the grammar of this, but war is used for things like "I was tired," or "I was there." Ist...ge- is used to say "I have run a mile," but more commonly would be translated to "I ran a mile." Both are past tense, but ist (more often haben) is required to say "I have..." so that people know you're talking about something you did in the past and is used in conversation. Ist is used for condition changes like birth or death, location changes, or some other things I forget. I only explain this because that was how I explained it to him. I gave him a refresher course on past tense and how war wasn't used with a ge-verb because it'd be like in English saying, "I was drove to the mall." It sounds ridiculous.
But here's his response. "Sure, let's go with it," fine, at least he's submitting to my superior knowledge. Then he adds "I don't wanna argue."
Really? You have to add that so I know that you don't agree but you're too stupid to explain your point which isn't a point at all? Everyone in that class is an A-student unless they don't do the daily work or are just god awful at tests and oral exams or don't show up. It's not a difficult class, but let's differentiate between my A and his. I get A's because I get 99/100 on tests and I only lose a point because I mixed up my bin and habe for past tense, or I forgot an obscure word in German like Abschluss. He gets A's because he's a suck-up and always shows up to class and always drops by the professor's office with little questions like "What's this word?" and it looks like he's trying hard, but he doesn't remember the answer for more than a class period.
But he's not the only one who "doesn't wanna argue." People like to argue politics, and religion, and love and court cases. They like the big topics, giant overarching truths, or something controversial that makes them feel important even if they have shitty arguments. And when you corner them with an intelligent argument, they'll either spout off the rhetoric they heard someone else say, or they'll say "That's your opinion." GOD I FUCKING HATE THAT! Caps can not properly express my disdain for it. I nearly threw a shoe at the window just thinking about how people say it.
We live in a world where opinions "matter." Not to anyone else, not to reality, but to ourselves. They make us feel good inside. They raise our self-esteem. Forget that we're completely incompetent and ignorant. We have good self-esteem, so, yeah, hooray. No one likes to think that maybe they're wrong and maybe there is a right answer or a few good answers, and a shitton of bad ones. If you read The Gorgias by Plato, you'll understand. Rhetoric, as he uses it, means tricking people into believing you over the experts because you speak well. It doesn't matter that you don't know better than the experts.
Here's another example of people not wanting to argue because they have no intelligence. I was talking to a friend and I asked her if she'd ever get the bridge of her nose pierced or maybe the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. She, being a good Christian and very conservative except when it comes to sex, said "Ew! Gross!" as expected. I then asked, why that was gross when ear piercings aren't. I was legitimately interested in the subject and hoped she could provide some insight like "Earrings draw people's eyes to your face whereas a nose piercing draws it to just the nose," but instead she just kind of waved off the subject and said "Certainly people can overdo it, but I think one earring in each ear is pretty."
"No, it's not. Men that I know don't really likes earrings and you're not a lesbian so who are earrings supposed to attract?"
"I didn't say they were for attracting people. They're just pretty."
"But pretty implies attractive. The point of pretty is to attract someone. Women look pretty to attract men. Cars are painted pretty to attract buyers."
"Whatever. I just like them."
"But why?"
She doesn't have an answer for any of this and tries to derail me from the conversation. Then she started saying "Okkkkk!" or "Alright," "Mhmm," "Sure," etc. So I called her out on it, I told her she was an obstinate child with no mind of her own, hoping to invoke a little passion so maybe she'd continue the discussion. It definitely aroused her anger, but instead of providing some premise, she said "It's a dumb topic and I don't really care."
A lot of you might agree. This is a dumb topic. It's certainly small, but how else do you argue something like having a mind of your own than through examples and generally examples are small. You think it proves that you have original or fresh thoughts by spouting off something about love and God and all this other stuff that you've been fed since you were two weeks old? I don't even disagree about God or love. I think there's love, but I try to have a fresh take on it other than just the bullshit quotes you get from sappy chick flicks that are about as realistic as fake boobs. But it's a lot easier to point to these habits people develop as a result of environmental conditioning than it is to sift through their grand theories on things they know nothing about. So yes, unless you get your ears pierced for a legitimate reason that you can explain to me that you have thought about and considered, I'm going to think you are just a product of your environment and another drone.
That's a bit harsh since most girls get their ears pierced as a child when they can't understand the effects of environment, and men seem to have better reasons for piercing their ears (e.g. they're gay and some gay men like ear piercings, women that the man is attracted to are easily distracted by shiny things), but women and girls, and I don't mean this as a sexist men are better than women thing, I mean this as an honest observation, women get their ears pierced for no reason and it's stupid and they should stop.
I didn't have anywhere to stick this, but I like saying it "Opinions are what the uneducated call their shitty arguments."
Friday, February 4, 2011
Thomas Wolfe is why we're not any worse than you
Vast majority of this post was deleted for the sake of coherency. It's okay to regret your midnight or later mistakes.
Literature, more so present day, uses very little melodrama. Hollywood loves this crap. Many of you love this crap. I'm sorry, but it's crap. Sometimes it's so well done that it's believable when you're watching for entertainment, but upon examining it, putting yourself in that position, you'll probably realize "Uh...why the fuck are you crying, (wo)man?!" There are exceptions to this. There are times when crying and other heart-jerking scenes are appropriate. I'll list the ones I know, but there are probably a few more. Death of someone close to the narrator, rape or some other traumatic event, and failure to achieve something the character worked really hard for, and children.
Children (I'd go with pre-puberty as a general rule) tug on our heart strings for some psychological reason. Probably because we've all been there and children cry a lot easier than we do and when we see children cry, we want to cry. We've had similar experiences as these children, some difficult or possibly trivial event that shattered our happy world.
The best example in Literature that I've found is Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy." Content-wise, it might be the greatest story. Simple, relateable but still sort of novel, and vivid characters. It's about Thomas Wolfe (he uses another name for his character in the story but I can't remember the name) and how he lost his brother, Grover, when he was three or four years old. He doesn't remember his brother, so he asks his dad for a story about him (which is told through first-person through Grover's eyes), then his mom for a story about him, then his sister. Dad tells a story where he stood up for his 12 year-old son who was always acting like an adult but came to tears because of some mean shopkeepers. Then his mom brags about how mature he was and how he could talk to adults like an adult. Thomas Wolfe was the most successful of the family, but if 12 year old Grover hadn't died, he would've been twice the man of Thomas Wolfe. His sister tells him about how her little brother always acted like the older one and he would treat her to a meal and ice cream every now and then and it was so special, but then at the end of one, he threw it all up and a few days later died. And none of this is too hard to handle for a cynic like me. It's touching and it's well-done and realistic, but it's not enough to make me cry. Then it goes to present day, in the mid 1930's, where Thomas Wolfe is going back to the home Grover died in and he's asking the lady who lives there now to see it and he reminisces about it and it's implied that he's sort of lost himself. Again, it's not too much. But the tears are definitely coming. The final scene, about a page long, is the one memory Thomas Wolfe digs up of Grover. Thomas Wolfe is three or so. Grover is eleven.
The years dropped off like fallen leaves: the face came back again-the soft dark oval, the dark eyes, the soft brown berry on the neck, the raven hair, all bending down, approaching-the whole appearing to him ghost-wise, intent and instant.
"Now say it-- Grover!"
"Gova."
"No-- not Gova-- Grover! ... Say it!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h-- you didn't say it. You said Gova. Grover-now say it!"
"Gova."
"Look, I tell you what I'll do if you say it right. Would you like to go down to King's Highway? Would you like Grover to set you up? All right, then. If you say Grover and say it right, I'll take you to King's Highway and set you up to ice cream. Now say it right! Grover!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. You're the craziest little old boy I ever did see. Can't you even say Grover?"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. Old Tongue-Tie, that's what you are.... Well, come on, then, I'll set you up anyway."
And this might not mean much to you, since it's only an excerpt, but this is what gets me. Even now. It's not what's sad that makes me cry. It's a sad set-up and a happy memory that does it, in that order. It's the bittersweet effect. The scene of him dying and Thomas Wolf's own issues have hardened you and suddenly you're hit with this happy end (there's a little more but it's not important right now) that comes from the past. You're not ready for it and you cry. Or at least I do.
Disclaimer: I by no means think English, Literature and writing are harder majors than other fields. Simply that it requires more care when reading because secondary sources aren't going to tell you anything more than what you could find out from the book. The only secondary sources that are worthwhile are the ones referenced in the book like, Northanger Abbey referencing The Mysteries of Udolfo. You need to read both to get the full effect. And other fields, it's different. And for those of you thinking "I've taken literature courses and skimmed the first half of the book and still got an A! Don't give me that shit!" those are introductory-style (maybe not level) courses with professors who have eased up on their demands for folks like yourself. That would be like me taking a Calc course and getting an A after not trying or a Chem course and immediately declaring that they're easy so all of those courses are. That is called a hasty generalization and is a fallacy.
Sidenote: I don't praise too many living people for their skill. Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half would be one of the exceptions, but the second is Tiffyiffyiffy. She's the girl from the youtube video I linked in the last post. She just put up a new video and it's amazing. It's an original track and I want you to listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX2Jqs6vPLc&feature=feedu
Edited, but all of this is still meh. I apologize. Still listen to that girl.
-Cantwhistle
Literature, more so present day, uses very little melodrama. Hollywood loves this crap. Many of you love this crap. I'm sorry, but it's crap. Sometimes it's so well done that it's believable when you're watching for entertainment, but upon examining it, putting yourself in that position, you'll probably realize "Uh...why the fuck are you crying, (wo)man?!" There are exceptions to this. There are times when crying and other heart-jerking scenes are appropriate. I'll list the ones I know, but there are probably a few more. Death of someone close to the narrator, rape or some other traumatic event, and failure to achieve something the character worked really hard for, and children.
Children (I'd go with pre-puberty as a general rule) tug on our heart strings for some psychological reason. Probably because we've all been there and children cry a lot easier than we do and when we see children cry, we want to cry. We've had similar experiences as these children, some difficult or possibly trivial event that shattered our happy world.
The best example in Literature that I've found is Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy." Content-wise, it might be the greatest story. Simple, relateable but still sort of novel, and vivid characters. It's about Thomas Wolfe (he uses another name for his character in the story but I can't remember the name) and how he lost his brother, Grover, when he was three or four years old. He doesn't remember his brother, so he asks his dad for a story about him (which is told through first-person through Grover's eyes), then his mom for a story about him, then his sister. Dad tells a story where he stood up for his 12 year-old son who was always acting like an adult but came to tears because of some mean shopkeepers. Then his mom brags about how mature he was and how he could talk to adults like an adult. Thomas Wolfe was the most successful of the family, but if 12 year old Grover hadn't died, he would've been twice the man of Thomas Wolfe. His sister tells him about how her little brother always acted like the older one and he would treat her to a meal and ice cream every now and then and it was so special, but then at the end of one, he threw it all up and a few days later died. And none of this is too hard to handle for a cynic like me. It's touching and it's well-done and realistic, but it's not enough to make me cry. Then it goes to present day, in the mid 1930's, where Thomas Wolfe is going back to the home Grover died in and he's asking the lady who lives there now to see it and he reminisces about it and it's implied that he's sort of lost himself. Again, it's not too much. But the tears are definitely coming. The final scene, about a page long, is the one memory Thomas Wolfe digs up of Grover. Thomas Wolfe is three or so. Grover is eleven.
The years dropped off like fallen leaves: the face came back again-the soft dark oval, the dark eyes, the soft brown berry on the neck, the raven hair, all bending down, approaching-the whole appearing to him ghost-wise, intent and instant.
"Now say it-- Grover!"
"Gova."
"No-- not Gova-- Grover! ... Say it!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h-- you didn't say it. You said Gova. Grover-now say it!"
"Gova."
"Look, I tell you what I'll do if you say it right. Would you like to go down to King's Highway? Would you like Grover to set you up? All right, then. If you say Grover and say it right, I'll take you to King's Highway and set you up to ice cream. Now say it right! Grover!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. You're the craziest little old boy I ever did see. Can't you even say Grover?"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. Old Tongue-Tie, that's what you are.... Well, come on, then, I'll set you up anyway."
And this might not mean much to you, since it's only an excerpt, but this is what gets me. Even now. It's not what's sad that makes me cry. It's a sad set-up and a happy memory that does it, in that order. It's the bittersweet effect. The scene of him dying and Thomas Wolf's own issues have hardened you and suddenly you're hit with this happy end (there's a little more but it's not important right now) that comes from the past. You're not ready for it and you cry. Or at least I do.
Disclaimer: I by no means think English, Literature and writing are harder majors than other fields. Simply that it requires more care when reading because secondary sources aren't going to tell you anything more than what you could find out from the book. The only secondary sources that are worthwhile are the ones referenced in the book like, Northanger Abbey referencing The Mysteries of Udolfo. You need to read both to get the full effect. And other fields, it's different. And for those of you thinking "I've taken literature courses and skimmed the first half of the book and still got an A! Don't give me that shit!" those are introductory-style (maybe not level) courses with professors who have eased up on their demands for folks like yourself. That would be like me taking a Calc course and getting an A after not trying or a Chem course and immediately declaring that they're easy so all of those courses are. That is called a hasty generalization and is a fallacy.
Sidenote: I don't praise too many living people for their skill. Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half would be one of the exceptions, but the second is Tiffyiffyiffy. She's the girl from the youtube video I linked in the last post. She just put up a new video and it's amazing. It's an original track and I want you to listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX2Jqs6vPLc&feature=feedu
Edited, but all of this is still meh. I apologize. Still listen to that girl.
-Cantwhistle
Sexy Ostrich twitching for Philosophy
I'm observant. It's not some natural talent I've had since birth to spot things. Or whatever talent I did have only took me so far until I started trying to be observant.
In my Contemporary philosophy class, there are seven students including me and we sit at an oval table in a small (like ten feet by fifteen feet) room. Usually Professor Ray sits at the head of the table with me on his right and the Sexy Ostrich on my right. Yesterday, he didn't.
He sat on my right, which blocked Sexy Ostrich's perfume or deodorant or natural wonderful body odor. So now the set up is Professor Ray on my right, to his right Sexy Ostrich, then Middle Aged Lady, Idiot at the end of the table, girl who pays no attention, shaved head girl, and the philosophy major that uses his coat as a blanket for all of class and sometimes naps in his chair. I'll get to describing each more, but for now I want you to realize my unique position. Generally in a class, I'm in the back corner and I can see the back of everyone's head and the professor's face. But because everyone was to the right of Professor Ray except for me, I could see the back of his head and everyone else's front side. If everyone focused on Professor Ray, I could've gotten away with murder. It'd have to be quiet murder, but whatever.
So he was talking about Eliminativism (possibly the hardest school of thought to say because of all the damn i's) and I scooted backwards every time his hand flailed in my direction and threatened to backhand me. He likes to gesture while speaking. And I wasn't close to him to begin with, but I eventually was about four feet away and safe from his powerful theatrics. And I really was watching him and paying attention, but past his strong chin and wind-ruffled hair, I could see Sexy Ostrich brush her hair across her forehead so that her bangs had a swoop. I think I've mentioned her before, but I'll explain it again. She's from Austria, and in German Austria is Osterreich which looks like Ostrich. And she's sexy.
Her mouth opened and she stared at the table but it didn't look like she was interested in the cement-colored speckled tabletop. She was thinking. She had a loose grip on her pen and if it wasn't already pressed to her notepad, it would've fallen. Her eyes jerked like she had watched a cricket hop away. When Professor Ray paused to breathe and wiped spittle from his lips, she asked "So is Eliminitavism saying low ontologically ranked items don't exist or..." she trailed off and Professor Ray answered, "Sort of!" and went on to explain somethings I don't feel like repeating.
So she jotted down what he said, and she looked up at him out of the corner of her eyes. This isn't some new ground-breaking observation. People are very aware of the eyes' tell. Professors use it to track who's listening and who has something to say but is maybe unsure of it or too shy to raise their hands. House M.d. directors use a close-up on Hugh Laurie's face about once an episode where he's talking about something irrelevant with Wilson and suddenly the Epiphany horn sounds in his head and he rushes off. So it's not uncommon, but still amazing to see the eyes in sync with the thoughts churning. There's also quite a bit of eyelid action, but it's mostly just twitching. If you ever have a chance to see it, and haven't already, watch and you'll be able to tell pretty quickly when someone's reached a conclusion.
A little later, Sexy Ostrich heard something that piqued her attention and again her eyes are turning with whatever arguments are working themselves in her head. And I waited for her to open her mouth a little wider and prepare to say something, but she didn't. Instead she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands over her winter-soft tummy (my polite way of saying she had gained some weight which isn't at all bad. It was well distributed in the proper areas).
Middle Aged Lady is a piano teacher with kids and she's kind of pretty. But she spent the entire lecture scribbling furiously and scowling at her paper. She'd write down the definitions, the quotes, the key ideas, the analogies, and even the drawings that Professor Ray did on the whiteboard. She'd stop every so often and glance just above her notebook. Her arm was on the table and the notebook laid on that. Her eyes did similar things to Sexy Ostrich's, except she never said anything. And she didn't make eye contact with Professor Ray and so he didn't notice her suppressed ideas.
Then Idiot. I hate him and he is an idiot. It's why I hate him and call him Idiot. His eyes were fixed on Professor Ray at all times and his hand was to his bearded chin. This guy looks like a serial killer/pedophile/rapist. He's got the trifecta going on. He wears glasses, like me, but his rest on the end of his nose like he's a geezer. He wears casual-dressy shirts all the time, but they're open and beneath he has a v-neck white T-shirt. I haven't and won't see him today, but I guarantee he's wearing that under his black zip-up hoodie. He always wears jeans, which isn't weird, but his look like they haven't been washed ever. His opinions are always stupid. That's right, stupid opinions. But I don't blame him for being stupid. I blame him for not knowing he's stupid. Anyway.
In class he interrupted Professor Ray. Not with some insight into the working of Constructionists, who we were now talking about, and not to ask a question for clarity or discussion. No. He said, "Sounds like they're tripping on acid." What? Constructionists say that Justice, God, Morality and other such intangible theories are just a matter of peoples' opinions and that they don't really exist except in our mind. It's wrong or useless or whatever, but it's a valid approach to the world. And then he snickered. If you've ever seen a good production of Charlotte's Web the play, directors often have Templeton snickering in a devious way. Idiot's snicker would've guaranteed him a role as Templeton.
Professor Ray just moved on and so will I since I don't feel like dragging Idiot's reputation through the snow and mud until I look like the asshole.
Next around the table was the girl who wasn't paying attention. She gets no fun or descriptive nickname like the others, because she's not that interesting and I don't know her and I don't want to call her the fat girl. But she was fat. She wore glasses and had her notebook on the table, but she wasn't writing. She instead spent all of class twisting the cap of her blue highlighter, around and around and around and around. And her pink and green and yellow highlighters were lined up next to her notebook. But she wasn't listening. She wasn't even looking at Professor Ray except when her eyes darted upward because he had asked a question of the class.
"So how can anyone say Justice really exists and it's not just a product of our feverish imagination! I can say stealing is bad, but if everyone said and agreed that stealing was good, would it be?"
Only then did her eyes convey to me that her mind was scrambling to squeeze out whatever it had just subconsciously soaked up. Luckily, he didn't call on her because Idiot made another stupid comment.
"Only on the weekends." Can I kick him?
Next is Shaved-Head Girl. She is about five feet tall, in heels, but she'd never wear heels. She is a lesbian, but not the kind you see in pornos. She is round and on the ground, as in fat and short. But she's very nice and has the occasional worthwhile insight, which if you've ever been in a philosophy class you know is pretty rare. She'd write things down whenever Professor Ray raved about it, but occasionally Professor Ray would just say, "And well, there's nothing else that we can say at this time about the immaterial Mind moving the material Body." Which is a fine statement, but not something note-worthy. But she'd write it down! Why? I could tell. Her eyes were sunken in and hard to read, but if I had to guess, she wasn't writing what he had said and instead something that had occurred to her. Since she stared at her notebook or the table or glanced at the clock, it never seemed like she focused on the class and instead let her mind go where it may. I understand that. I do that.
Then there's the Philosophy Major. He was across the table from Professor Ray. He has long brown hair, lots of zits that have been popped and scraped. Sometime they bleed. He looks like he hasn't shaved because he doesn't need to. I'm baby-faced as well, but his skin looks teenagery. But he's well-read enough to bring up other philosophers' opinions and relate them to the topic at hand. Like we were talking about Quietism (first we spoke of Realism then moved on to Quietism). "What I hate about Quietism with Ludwig whatever," an Austrian Philosopher whose last name is impossible for me to remember even with my year of German and Sexy Ostrich crush. Philosophy Major couldn't remember it either though. "and Descartes, is they say just shut up when they could be proven wrong! I mean I want a theory. Explain it to me, man!" After he said this, Professor Ray responded, but Philosophy Major took his coat off the back of his chair and draped it over him like a blanket. He had his hands underneath and his head slumped to the side. Professor Ray spouted more and more about Quietism, but to the whole class so Philosophy Major took a nap. For the rest of class, he seemed asleep. He'd twitch, a myoclonic jerk I think it's called.
I think I will too
Tangent Alert!: Descartes (I think it was him) proved that mathematically it is impossible to touch a wall. Wherever you start from, before you can get to the destination, you have to go through the halfway point. So You're 8 feet away, then 4, then 2, then 1, then 0.5, then 0.25, 0.125, 0.0625, etc, until you are infinitely close to 0, but you can never reach 0 because no matter how often you divide something in two, it'll never be zero. I like this idea. You can apply to people, how you can never really know them or something.
More unrelated stuff: Listen to her. I'd like her to be famous and on the radio so that all the trash currently on the radio can realize they're trash by comparison. So I'm spreading her goodness to my corner of the internet, which is about as big as the corner of the house of a mouse of low income. I probably listen to this song five times a day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0NCJslBkss&feature=related
-Cantwhistle
In my Contemporary philosophy class, there are seven students including me and we sit at an oval table in a small (like ten feet by fifteen feet) room. Usually Professor Ray sits at the head of the table with me on his right and the Sexy Ostrich on my right. Yesterday, he didn't.
He sat on my right, which blocked Sexy Ostrich's perfume or deodorant or natural wonderful body odor. So now the set up is Professor Ray on my right, to his right Sexy Ostrich, then Middle Aged Lady, Idiot at the end of the table, girl who pays no attention, shaved head girl, and the philosophy major that uses his coat as a blanket for all of class and sometimes naps in his chair. I'll get to describing each more, but for now I want you to realize my unique position. Generally in a class, I'm in the back corner and I can see the back of everyone's head and the professor's face. But because everyone was to the right of Professor Ray except for me, I could see the back of his head and everyone else's front side. If everyone focused on Professor Ray, I could've gotten away with murder. It'd have to be quiet murder, but whatever.
So he was talking about Eliminativism (possibly the hardest school of thought to say because of all the damn i's) and I scooted backwards every time his hand flailed in my direction and threatened to backhand me. He likes to gesture while speaking. And I wasn't close to him to begin with, but I eventually was about four feet away and safe from his powerful theatrics. And I really was watching him and paying attention, but past his strong chin and wind-ruffled hair, I could see Sexy Ostrich brush her hair across her forehead so that her bangs had a swoop. I think I've mentioned her before, but I'll explain it again. She's from Austria, and in German Austria is Osterreich which looks like Ostrich. And she's sexy.
Her mouth opened and she stared at the table but it didn't look like she was interested in the cement-colored speckled tabletop. She was thinking. She had a loose grip on her pen and if it wasn't already pressed to her notepad, it would've fallen. Her eyes jerked like she had watched a cricket hop away. When Professor Ray paused to breathe and wiped spittle from his lips, she asked "So is Eliminitavism saying low ontologically ranked items don't exist or..." she trailed off and Professor Ray answered, "Sort of!" and went on to explain somethings I don't feel like repeating.
So she jotted down what he said, and she looked up at him out of the corner of her eyes. This isn't some new ground-breaking observation. People are very aware of the eyes' tell. Professors use it to track who's listening and who has something to say but is maybe unsure of it or too shy to raise their hands. House M.d. directors use a close-up on Hugh Laurie's face about once an episode where he's talking about something irrelevant with Wilson and suddenly the Epiphany horn sounds in his head and he rushes off. So it's not uncommon, but still amazing to see the eyes in sync with the thoughts churning. There's also quite a bit of eyelid action, but it's mostly just twitching. If you ever have a chance to see it, and haven't already, watch and you'll be able to tell pretty quickly when someone's reached a conclusion.
A little later, Sexy Ostrich heard something that piqued her attention and again her eyes are turning with whatever arguments are working themselves in her head. And I waited for her to open her mouth a little wider and prepare to say something, but she didn't. Instead she leaned back in her chair and folded her hands over her winter-soft tummy (my polite way of saying she had gained some weight which isn't at all bad. It was well distributed in the proper areas).
Middle Aged Lady is a piano teacher with kids and she's kind of pretty. But she spent the entire lecture scribbling furiously and scowling at her paper. She'd write down the definitions, the quotes, the key ideas, the analogies, and even the drawings that Professor Ray did on the whiteboard. She'd stop every so often and glance just above her notebook. Her arm was on the table and the notebook laid on that. Her eyes did similar things to Sexy Ostrich's, except she never said anything. And she didn't make eye contact with Professor Ray and so he didn't notice her suppressed ideas.
Then Idiot. I hate him and he is an idiot. It's why I hate him and call him Idiot. His eyes were fixed on Professor Ray at all times and his hand was to his bearded chin. This guy looks like a serial killer/pedophile/rapist. He's got the trifecta going on. He wears glasses, like me, but his rest on the end of his nose like he's a geezer. He wears casual-dressy shirts all the time, but they're open and beneath he has a v-neck white T-shirt. I haven't and won't see him today, but I guarantee he's wearing that under his black zip-up hoodie. He always wears jeans, which isn't weird, but his look like they haven't been washed ever. His opinions are always stupid. That's right, stupid opinions. But I don't blame him for being stupid. I blame him for not knowing he's stupid. Anyway.
In class he interrupted Professor Ray. Not with some insight into the working of Constructionists, who we were now talking about, and not to ask a question for clarity or discussion. No. He said, "Sounds like they're tripping on acid." What? Constructionists say that Justice, God, Morality and other such intangible theories are just a matter of peoples' opinions and that they don't really exist except in our mind. It's wrong or useless or whatever, but it's a valid approach to the world. And then he snickered. If you've ever seen a good production of Charlotte's Web the play, directors often have Templeton snickering in a devious way. Idiot's snicker would've guaranteed him a role as Templeton.
Professor Ray just moved on and so will I since I don't feel like dragging Idiot's reputation through the snow and mud until I look like the asshole.
Next around the table was the girl who wasn't paying attention. She gets no fun or descriptive nickname like the others, because she's not that interesting and I don't know her and I don't want to call her the fat girl. But she was fat. She wore glasses and had her notebook on the table, but she wasn't writing. She instead spent all of class twisting the cap of her blue highlighter, around and around and around and around. And her pink and green and yellow highlighters were lined up next to her notebook. But she wasn't listening. She wasn't even looking at Professor Ray except when her eyes darted upward because he had asked a question of the class.
"So how can anyone say Justice really exists and it's not just a product of our feverish imagination! I can say stealing is bad, but if everyone said and agreed that stealing was good, would it be?"
Only then did her eyes convey to me that her mind was scrambling to squeeze out whatever it had just subconsciously soaked up. Luckily, he didn't call on her because Idiot made another stupid comment.
"Only on the weekends." Can I kick him?
Next is Shaved-Head Girl. She is about five feet tall, in heels, but she'd never wear heels. She is a lesbian, but not the kind you see in pornos. She is round and on the ground, as in fat and short. But she's very nice and has the occasional worthwhile insight, which if you've ever been in a philosophy class you know is pretty rare. She'd write things down whenever Professor Ray raved about it, but occasionally Professor Ray would just say, "And well, there's nothing else that we can say at this time about the immaterial Mind moving the material Body." Which is a fine statement, but not something note-worthy. But she'd write it down! Why? I could tell. Her eyes were sunken in and hard to read, but if I had to guess, she wasn't writing what he had said and instead something that had occurred to her. Since she stared at her notebook or the table or glanced at the clock, it never seemed like she focused on the class and instead let her mind go where it may. I understand that. I do that.
Then there's the Philosophy Major. He was across the table from Professor Ray. He has long brown hair, lots of zits that have been popped and scraped. Sometime they bleed. He looks like he hasn't shaved because he doesn't need to. I'm baby-faced as well, but his skin looks teenagery. But he's well-read enough to bring up other philosophers' opinions and relate them to the topic at hand. Like we were talking about Quietism (first we spoke of Realism then moved on to Quietism). "What I hate about Quietism with Ludwig whatever," an Austrian Philosopher whose last name is impossible for me to remember even with my year of German and Sexy Ostrich crush. Philosophy Major couldn't remember it either though. "and Descartes, is they say just shut up when they could be proven wrong! I mean I want a theory. Explain it to me, man!" After he said this, Professor Ray responded, but Philosophy Major took his coat off the back of his chair and draped it over him like a blanket. He had his hands underneath and his head slumped to the side. Professor Ray spouted more and more about Quietism, but to the whole class so Philosophy Major took a nap. For the rest of class, he seemed asleep. He'd twitch, a myoclonic jerk I think it's called.
I think I will too
Tangent Alert!: Descartes (I think it was him) proved that mathematically it is impossible to touch a wall. Wherever you start from, before you can get to the destination, you have to go through the halfway point. So You're 8 feet away, then 4, then 2, then 1, then 0.5, then 0.25, 0.125, 0.0625, etc, until you are infinitely close to 0, but you can never reach 0 because no matter how often you divide something in two, it'll never be zero. I like this idea. You can apply to people, how you can never really know them or something.
More unrelated stuff: Listen to her. I'd like her to be famous and on the radio so that all the trash currently on the radio can realize they're trash by comparison. So I'm spreading her goodness to my corner of the internet, which is about as big as the corner of the house of a mouse of low income. I probably listen to this song five times a day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0NCJslBkss&feature=related
-Cantwhistle
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Elementary School to College: Perceived Maturity
I made some charts for you guys. We were talking about maturity in my Psych class and it got me thinking about how mature everyone thought everyone else (and themselves) was at certain ages. So this is my best estimation of what I've observed and it's in no way scientific and the numbers are arbitrary. The X-axis, which is unlabeled because I'm no good at Excel, is the years in school from 1st grade Perception on until your Upper Classmen years of college.
You start off in the pre-6th grade years, which was elementary school for me. It's pretty linear, with the older you get the more mature you are, something common in all of the age groups. Obviously the big kids are more mature than the little kids. It just makes sense!
Then you get to 6th grade and reassess that view. You've been through some harder stuff. No more recess and you're separated from friends. All of this conflict leads to personal growth. So you imagine that you'll continue to grow through high school, too. But you have no sense of college and you may not even realize what it is if you don't have older siblings. So maturity peaks, in your idea, as high school seniors.
Then you get into 8th grade. You're the king of the school! And every year below you is just a bunch of babies. You're no high schooler, you get that, but you're not that far behind them! You've already had two courses of sex ed and you can confidently tell the difference between a depantsed woman and a depantsed man. You see girls wearing bras and you're sure their B-cups are huge and stuffed with boobies! Only through time can you get more maturity, but you've done the majority of growth already! You're practically an adult.
Then you get to high school and realize how fuckin small your pubescent body is compared with other fuckin bastards in the grades above you. Shit, you recognize that you grew an ass-load between 7th and 8th grade, but goddammit, maybe you overestimated it a little. It's certainly not as much as you grow in mother fuckin 9th grade. And again, with age comes more stupid maturity and soon you'll be just as awesome and fucked-up as the seniors. They only discriminate against you because of fucking ageism.
Then you're seniors. Kings of the school once again. Pretty much everyone below you is a fucking idiot, always standing in the hall and so worried about getting a detention that they usually rush to class. You know you can walk in a few minutes late and charm your way out of a tardy. Or you'll accept it like a man and not bitch and moan. What're they gonna do? Stop you from graduating? Pft! You're the real king. They're just advisers as far as you're concerned. And until this time, Yeah you thought you had it tough, but really!? 300 word essays and college applications?! No one has any clue the pressure that puts on you. Certainly you don't usually text that much throughout the Calculus lecture. And you're not like those goddam freshmen, cussing sentence. When you do it, you do it to make a mother fucking point. Really you do.
You're an upper classman now. You've printed off 500 pages of notes and essays this semester alone. Maybe you've been abroad. You can legally drink, but only do so before exams because you know it's the best way to blow off steam. You've stopped showing up to some classes because you're only taking them because the college says you have to. And they're easy for a guy like you. You've interned at the local bank! You're a real businessman. So you can make the proper decisions when class is and isn't appropriate. You only have two classes to worry about: your seminar and the one with the cougar professor. If you do well in the seminar, you graduate. You do well in the other one, maybe she'll give you a good graduation present. She knows you're an adult. She can see that you're no longer concerned with your looks. You didn't even bother getting rid of the freshman 15. You aren't some neurotic kid any more.
The reality is none of these are accurate. Maturity peaks around 10th grade when you get your license to drive. But you're so caught up how great you are, you let yourself slide when you should be trying harder. You berate the freshmen for crowding in the halls when you and your friends do the same. You say they have no consideration because they don't move out of your way. They dare to sit at your table? And when you graduate high school, you're pretty confident that college is going to be great. You've heard all these stories about how it's one big party. You go in believing that but also thinking you're a real intellectual. You show up to classes the first few weeks, then you see others are occasionally gone. I can miss a day, too, then right? The professor doesn't say anything to you when you do. These freshmen level classes are just like high school so you figure all of college is like this. You miss more and more and parties are happening every night so you think you're required to attend all of them. And this new group of friends is going out to eat, and even though you went out a few nights ago with your other friends, you feel obligated not to favor anyone over the other.
Then in your second year of college, anxieties about your future begin. Will I have a good job? Will I ever get married? Is that girl I'm sleeping with really so slutty? Should I get tested? But rather than change your future by seeking the advice of professors and working hard, you drown yourself in booze, pot, fast food, friends, anything to keep your mind off the worries. But third year comes around, and things are looking real. You've declared your major and everyone knows your latest intended career. You have to put a conscious effort forward. And you do. And you continue to do so, as well as maintaining your fun side-life. You're not quite up to snuff as far as maturity goes, but it'll come in graduate school (I'm told) or after, when you actually start being an adult.
However successfully, I tried to do each explanation of the graph and the perceptions in the voice you might use at that age group. Some I did better than others. I forget how I explained things before 8th grade.
-Cantwhistle
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