Yesterday my boss assigned me a project and told me that I needed to "stay focused" on it. While I often roll my eyes at unsolicited advice (particularly from management) this suggestion highlighted something I've been thinking of for a while.
I work hard (which is why suggestions on how to do my job irritate me) but I don't always "work smart." As far as focusing goes, I'm very good at concentrating intensely on whatever is in front of me--whether it's a client that can't log into our vault to see his/her statements, cleaning the mildew off of my shower curtain, reading my book on the T or editing a paper for school. What I'm not so good at is dealing with anything with a due date later than next Thursday.
Much like my tendency to panic, while I'm sure most of this is innate, it has probably been exacerbated by working in a small business environment since college. Small businesses are lucky if they can manage strategic planning instead of just moving from crisis to crisis. And while it's nice to know that even if I'm freaking out I can perform well, in order to succeed as a human it would be helpful to have some long term planning skills.
My own inability to think beyond next Thursday is also, I suspect, partly due to my fear of failure. On the whole, my inability to deal with long term projects has been a problem. When I would think of applying to grad schools or learning to drive any time in the past 12 years, the project always seemed too big or too complicated. So for a long time I couldn't manage anything more complicated that "do the laundry" or "upgrade the server and support the result." These are both necessary things, but as a grown up, I should be able to do more than react, play "what could possibly go wrong?" and think beyond nest week. While I will always be best in the here and now, I've come up with ways of dealing with larger endeavors.
No one was more surprised than I was when I actually got into an MBA program--not because I'm stupid, but because it was the culmination of a long process that was entirely self-motivated. No mentor, manager or teacher was checking in with me--I had to make myself jump through all of the hoops. I had friends who helped me (and very helpful they were!) but I had to make myself go. I succeeded by 1) frightening myself into believing I needed to get a graduate degree and 2) dividing the project into smaller bits (parts that didn't involve thinking beyond next Thursday.) First there was the GMAT project, then there was the recommendations project, then there was the essays project (this last involved three friends sitting on me while I wrote them in Gulu Gulu and one of the three editing what I'd written.)
Now, a year and a half later I have the Driver's Licence/Car project. There is a car sitting in my parents' drive way. It is my sister's former car. It's her former car because after having her third kid she needed to upgrade to a minivan (or start making her husband ride in the trunk.) The longer the car sits in my parents' driveway, the more likely it is to become a Car Shaped Object, as opposed to a Car. Since moving out of Cambridge, I've been meaning to get my license, but it's always seemed like too much hassle to learn to drive (and oh, by the way I have a project due for work/school next week.) So this Summer the only classes I'm taking are driving classes. Is learning to drive still a big scary project? Yeah, kinda. Do I have a plan for it? Yes I do and it's not anything that I need to think farther than next Thursday to execute.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Les Miz
It is rare for me to encounter a novel that works out better as a Broadway musical than it does as a novel. I'm the sort of difficult individual who will *not* see the movie made out of the book until I have read the book first. This is because I hold the book as a superior interpretation of whatever the author had to express. When one sees the movie made from the book one sees the director's (and script-writer's) interpretation of the author's work--so it's a few degrees of separation from the original. I admit this is a bit pig-headed of me and it has made people mad at me but really--if the book was that good shouldn't I just read it--instead of seeing the movie first?
This doesn't mean I won't see the movie, or the play or the musical--it just means I want to read the book first. With Les Misérables, I really had no opportunity to read the book before I encountered the musical. It opened on Broadway in the 80s--when I was way too young to be reading books that were 2.5 inches thick. My voice teacher in junior high had taught me to sing "Castle on a Cloud*" even before my parents bought the soundtrack (I preferred my voice teacher's suggested cadence to the Broadway version.) I was studying French in middle school, so I was intrigued by the idea of a French musical, and all of New York was crazy about Les Miz. But I didn't see the show until I'd at least taken a stab at reading the book (in English). I failed to work my way through the book at my first attempt at age 14. Of course, at that time I had not yet learned to love big, thick novels and 19th century novels in particular.
I saw the musical some time when I was in high school. We got student tickets and ended up in the second row. I loved every minute of it.
As I've mentioned above, I love 19th century literature and thick novels. I love Dickens and Tolstoy and I also love a lot of what Victor Hugo wrote (I read a bunch of of it--starting with "Notre Dame de Paris" aka "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") while living in Paris, but I found "Les Misérables" to be impenetrable. It was the only book I left in Paris. I see that there's a story to be told-but M. Hugo fails to make it interesting--which is why it's the only novel I've read that actually makes a better musical than a novel.
Part of the reason that the book is so hard to read, in my opinion is because the author intentionally leaves Les Miz-the miserable ones--characterless-so it's hard to sympathize with them. Furthermore, this is a miserabilist novel--designed to show the unhappiness of others. That makes it less-than-fun-to read.
I got into an argument about the book with the former proprietor of Ave Victor Hugo books in Boston (lots of used French books.) The proprietor was into 19th century authors and when I said that I liked Victor Hugo but *not* "Les Misérables" he just got a superior look on his face and said that I just wasn't ready to understand the book yet. It's been 10 years since we had this conversation, and I think I can safely say he was full of shit. I like the concepts that Victor Hugo wanted to present to the world-but he didn't do a good job of presenting them. He did such a bad job, that we must be grateful to the Broadway stage for doing a better job of presenting his ideas than he did himself.
*I also made her teach me "I Dreamed a Dream." She didn't want to--"No sweetie-you are too young for that one"--but when I sang it for her she admitted I had a point--it worked out because I was so young.
This doesn't mean I won't see the movie, or the play or the musical--it just means I want to read the book first. With Les Misérables, I really had no opportunity to read the book before I encountered the musical. It opened on Broadway in the 80s--when I was way too young to be reading books that were 2.5 inches thick. My voice teacher in junior high had taught me to sing "Castle on a Cloud*" even before my parents bought the soundtrack (I preferred my voice teacher's suggested cadence to the Broadway version.) I was studying French in middle school, so I was intrigued by the idea of a French musical, and all of New York was crazy about Les Miz. But I didn't see the show until I'd at least taken a stab at reading the book (in English). I failed to work my way through the book at my first attempt at age 14. Of course, at that time I had not yet learned to love big, thick novels and 19th century novels in particular.
I saw the musical some time when I was in high school. We got student tickets and ended up in the second row. I loved every minute of it.
As I've mentioned above, I love 19th century literature and thick novels. I love Dickens and Tolstoy and I also love a lot of what Victor Hugo wrote (I read a bunch of of it--starting with "Notre Dame de Paris" aka "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") while living in Paris, but I found "Les Misérables" to be impenetrable. It was the only book I left in Paris. I see that there's a story to be told-but M. Hugo fails to make it interesting--which is why it's the only novel I've read that actually makes a better musical than a novel.
Part of the reason that the book is so hard to read, in my opinion is because the author intentionally leaves Les Miz-the miserable ones--characterless-so it's hard to sympathize with them. Furthermore, this is a miserabilist novel--designed to show the unhappiness of others. That makes it less-than-fun-to read.
I got into an argument about the book with the former proprietor of Ave Victor Hugo books in Boston (lots of used French books.) The proprietor was into 19th century authors and when I said that I liked Victor Hugo but *not* "Les Misérables" he just got a superior look on his face and said that I just wasn't ready to understand the book yet. It's been 10 years since we had this conversation, and I think I can safely say he was full of shit. I like the concepts that Victor Hugo wanted to present to the world-but he didn't do a good job of presenting them. He did such a bad job, that we must be grateful to the Broadway stage for doing a better job of presenting his ideas than he did himself.
*I also made her teach me "I Dreamed a Dream." She didn't want to--"No sweetie-you are too young for that one"--but when I sang it for her she admitted I had a point--it worked out because I was so young.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Bonk by Mary Roach
It’s been a while since I reviewed a book so, dear readers, I would like to recommend to you _Bonk_, by Mary Roach. This book is subtitled “The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.” I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Roach’s first book; _Stiff_; which was an exploration of what happens to cadavers in America. Her second book _Spook_ (which was about evidence-or lack there of-of life after death) was rather “meh.” However, since second books often suck, when I found _Bonk_ in the remainder section of the Harvard Bookstore I thought it might be worth purchasing. I have to say that was definitely $6.99 well spent.
Ms. Roach is a journalist. Her non-fiction books read as if each chapter was an article she had to write. She has chosen for her books the sort of subjects that inspire, um, morbid curiosity. Somehow she manages to admit this and be snarky about it while still being respectful to (in the case of _Bonk_) the human subjects who volunteer to do sex research and the scientists who do such research and (in the case of _Stiff_) the cadavers she views. Because _Bonk_ is a look into the history of scientific studies of sex I feel that if I just say it was a fun read you, dear reader, will just roll your eyes and say “duh.”
Well, yes, duh, books about science and sex can be fun, but the reason I feel the need to write this one up and share my impression with the world is because this morning the chapter I was reading on the commuter whale made me laugh out loud. I feel a bit bad for the guy who got on at Salem and had to sit next to me (in an older car—the ones with the smaller, blue seats that aren’t really big enough for two people) while I laughed as quietly as I could between Salem and about Chelsea. Unlike most commuter whale-riders he was unequipped with an ipod, a kindle, an ipad, a laptop or even a book. All he had was a folder with some notes in it and he got to sit next to me, reading and shaking with tears coming out of my eyes. Poor man.
The chapter that made me laugh so much was about suction devices designed to help with sexual dysfunction. Apparently, not only are there suction devices to help men get their thing up, but there is also one suction device designed for women (it sucks blood into the clitoris.) The chapter in question was about this suction device for women however the Eros* wasn’t what made me almost fall out of my chair. What made me laugh was the case of a man who had died while beating off with his vacuum cleaner. I’m not sure whether it was that he had suffered “burns on the area in contact with the beater bar” (Bonk, page 208) or the fact that his wife had previously caught him masturbating with the vacuum cleaner, or that when he was found dead he had “one arm encircling the canister in the manner of a lover’s embrace.” (Also Bonk, 208)
Why did these things make me laugh instead of making me squirm? Well let’s start with this one “Dear Future Soul Mate-whoever you may be-I realize that “You can’t love another without loving yourself (Shakespeare) or to put it another way, even in a committed relationship it’s okay for a human to spend “quality time” with himself, however if I catch you putting the moves on my vacuum cleaner we are going to have a serious talk.”
I admit I found the cherry-picked history of scientifically studied sex interesting (with a big eye-roll for Freud) but what really amused me was that there was a man who thought it was good fun to put his dick in contact with the beater bar of the vacuum cleaner-even after his wife caught him at it. Now maybe she suggested that this was not wise and he ignored her. He died of a heart attack while being sucked-off by the vacuum cleaner. And I found this so funny that not only did I laugh out loud on public transportation, but I also stayed up late to write about it on the inter-webs.
*The device that sucks blood into the clitoris. Available for $400 by NuGyn
Ms. Roach is a journalist. Her non-fiction books read as if each chapter was an article she had to write. She has chosen for her books the sort of subjects that inspire, um, morbid curiosity. Somehow she manages to admit this and be snarky about it while still being respectful to (in the case of _Bonk_) the human subjects who volunteer to do sex research and the scientists who do such research and (in the case of _Stiff_) the cadavers she views. Because _Bonk_ is a look into the history of scientific studies of sex I feel that if I just say it was a fun read you, dear reader, will just roll your eyes and say “duh.”
Well, yes, duh, books about science and sex can be fun, but the reason I feel the need to write this one up and share my impression with the world is because this morning the chapter I was reading on the commuter whale made me laugh out loud. I feel a bit bad for the guy who got on at Salem and had to sit next to me (in an older car—the ones with the smaller, blue seats that aren’t really big enough for two people) while I laughed as quietly as I could between Salem and about Chelsea. Unlike most commuter whale-riders he was unequipped with an ipod, a kindle, an ipad, a laptop or even a book. All he had was a folder with some notes in it and he got to sit next to me, reading and shaking with tears coming out of my eyes. Poor man.
The chapter that made me laugh so much was about suction devices designed to help with sexual dysfunction. Apparently, not only are there suction devices to help men get their thing up, but there is also one suction device designed for women (it sucks blood into the clitoris.) The chapter in question was about this suction device for women however the Eros* wasn’t what made me almost fall out of my chair. What made me laugh was the case of a man who had died while beating off with his vacuum cleaner. I’m not sure whether it was that he had suffered “burns on the area in contact with the beater bar” (Bonk, page 208) or the fact that his wife had previously caught him masturbating with the vacuum cleaner, or that when he was found dead he had “one arm encircling the canister in the manner of a lover’s embrace.” (Also Bonk, 208)
Why did these things make me laugh instead of making me squirm? Well let’s start with this one “Dear Future Soul Mate-whoever you may be-I realize that “You can’t love another without loving yourself (Shakespeare) or to put it another way, even in a committed relationship it’s okay for a human to spend “quality time” with himself, however if I catch you putting the moves on my vacuum cleaner we are going to have a serious talk.”
I admit I found the cherry-picked history of scientifically studied sex interesting (with a big eye-roll for Freud) but what really amused me was that there was a man who thought it was good fun to put his dick in contact with the beater bar of the vacuum cleaner-even after his wife caught him at it. Now maybe she suggested that this was not wise and he ignored her. He died of a heart attack while being sucked-off by the vacuum cleaner. And I found this so funny that not only did I laugh out loud on public transportation, but I also stayed up late to write about it on the inter-webs.
*The device that sucks blood into the clitoris. Available for $400 by NuGyn
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
"Le Corps d'un Ennemi Mort Sent Toujors Bon*"
I've been out of the world attending a company retreat for the two days. Yesterday, as the conversation at the breakfast table was flagging, I pulled out my phone to "read the paper" (i.e. look at Boston.com and Nytimes.com's apps.) "Osama bin Laden has been killed by US forces?" I said aloud. "Oh yeah. Didn't you know that?"asked the guy next to me.
I found the whole thing not only shocking but odd. The lead story was about Osama bin Laden's death. The next story on nytimes.com was his obituary. Huh? Do we normally print obits for people we hunt down and kill?
Before I continue musing and navel-gazing let me say this--Osama bin Laden got what was coming to him. He claimed responsibility for terrorist acts against the United States. Either he was involved with the acts with the acts (the bombing of the USS Cole and the 9.11 attack on the World Trade Center, for example) and took responsibility for them, knowing that this would make him a legitimate military target or he was not involved and took credit which still makes him a legitimate target. In the latter case he was a fool. In the former case he knew what he was getting into.
Also, he blew a giant hole in my hometown and in doing so, changed the world--and not for the better. He opened a door, and through it strode fear and jingoism. We haven't recovered from the effects of 9.11.01 and I don't feel like the death of Osama bin Laden makes things any better. I don't mean to be whiny about this, but as we're all sick of hearing "September 11th changed everything." We've changed the way we think and the way we behave. We don't like taking our shoes off or being X-rayed (or patted-down) to fly, but we put up with it. We don't like discovering that that there is warrentles wire-tapping, but we put up with it. I personally don't like the idea that someone may be tracking my Google searches, my phone calls, my personal e-mail, my text messages or my facebook account, but I put up with it.**
The death of Osama bin Laden doesn't change any of that.
I am a little put off by the rejoicing at his death, I must admit. Although I've been out of the world, I've had brief moments to look at facebook. I've seen ambivalence, jokes in bad taste (which are still funny--if we cannot laugh about something we are no longer human) and blood-thirsty GO TEAM USA comments. The last comments bother me a bit. I would have preferred that they brought Osama bin Laden to trial, but I recognize that this was not a likely outcome. It could have been politically embarrassing in many ways. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, even if one hoped that bin Laden would be captured and tried, if he put up resistance was killed in the process, no one can argue that he was simply assassinated. And, as I mentioned above, even if he was simply "taken out" he was kind of asking for it, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to him. This is not a case of some 18 year old kid pulled off the streets of LA because he had family in Afghanistan and took it into his head to go home in the Spring of 2002 and got hauled off to Gitmo for it. As I said before, he got what what was coming to him.
I am not sad for him. I am not even particularly sad for his family--they must have known what he was doing and what the consequences might be. I am sad for us--the rest of the world who wonder if our e-mail is being examined, or are harassed at the airport because we're carrying breast milk in a container, or have our bags checked at Back Bay T station, by TSA employees. I am sad that people--including our president--are pointing the death of one bad man out as one of the greatest American accomplishments--personally I'd prefer the telephone or even the atomic bomb--any medieval lord/lady given enough time can track down an enemy and kill him/her. But it takes more than that to develop a computer, a telephone, the Internet etc. These are the kind of things that make me want to shout"Go USA!" not the finding and killing of an enemy.
In Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim, the narrator says about John Wilkes Booth "Damn you Johnny you paved the way for other madmen to have their day.."That's kind of how I feel about bin Laden. He was a bad man--he was an asshole. He got what was coming to him, but the rest of us are still dealing with the after-effects of his actions.
*The dead body of an enemy always smells good. A Dumas, La Reine Margot
**There's no reason why anyone might be tracking any of these things. I'm a thoroughly boring individual as far as National Security is concerned--I don't even belong to a book group, but I feel that if anyone wanted to put me or anyone else under surveillance it would be easy to do so now.
I found the whole thing not only shocking but odd. The lead story was about Osama bin Laden's death. The next story on nytimes.com was his obituary. Huh? Do we normally print obits for people we hunt down and kill?
Before I continue musing and navel-gazing let me say this--Osama bin Laden got what was coming to him. He claimed responsibility for terrorist acts against the United States. Either he was involved with the acts with the acts (the bombing of the USS Cole and the 9.11 attack on the World Trade Center, for example) and took responsibility for them, knowing that this would make him a legitimate military target or he was not involved and took credit which still makes him a legitimate target. In the latter case he was a fool. In the former case he knew what he was getting into.
Also, he blew a giant hole in my hometown and in doing so, changed the world--and not for the better. He opened a door, and through it strode fear and jingoism. We haven't recovered from the effects of 9.11.01 and I don't feel like the death of Osama bin Laden makes things any better. I don't mean to be whiny about this, but as we're all sick of hearing "September 11th changed everything." We've changed the way we think and the way we behave. We don't like taking our shoes off or being X-rayed (or patted-down) to fly, but we put up with it. We don't like discovering that that there is warrentles wire-tapping, but we put up with it. I personally don't like the idea that someone may be tracking my Google searches, my phone calls, my personal e-mail, my text messages or my facebook account, but I put up with it.**
The death of Osama bin Laden doesn't change any of that.
I am a little put off by the rejoicing at his death, I must admit. Although I've been out of the world, I've had brief moments to look at facebook. I've seen ambivalence, jokes in bad taste (which are still funny--if we cannot laugh about something we are no longer human) and blood-thirsty GO TEAM USA comments. The last comments bother me a bit. I would have preferred that they brought Osama bin Laden to trial, but I recognize that this was not a likely outcome. It could have been politically embarrassing in many ways. But, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, even if one hoped that bin Laden would be captured and tried, if he put up resistance was killed in the process, no one can argue that he was simply assassinated. And, as I mentioned above, even if he was simply "taken out" he was kind of asking for it, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to him. This is not a case of some 18 year old kid pulled off the streets of LA because he had family in Afghanistan and took it into his head to go home in the Spring of 2002 and got hauled off to Gitmo for it. As I said before, he got what what was coming to him.
I am not sad for him. I am not even particularly sad for his family--they must have known what he was doing and what the consequences might be. I am sad for us--the rest of the world who wonder if our e-mail is being examined, or are harassed at the airport because we're carrying breast milk in a container, or have our bags checked at Back Bay T station, by TSA employees. I am sad that people--including our president--are pointing the death of one bad man out as one of the greatest American accomplishments--personally I'd prefer the telephone or even the atomic bomb--any medieval lord/lady given enough time can track down an enemy and kill him/her. But it takes more than that to develop a computer, a telephone, the Internet etc. These are the kind of things that make me want to shout"Go USA!" not the finding and killing of an enemy.
In Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim, the narrator says about John Wilkes Booth "Damn you Johnny you paved the way for other madmen to have their day.."That's kind of how I feel about bin Laden. He was a bad man--he was an asshole. He got what was coming to him, but the rest of us are still dealing with the after-effects of his actions.
*The dead body of an enemy always smells good. A Dumas, La Reine Margot
**There's no reason why anyone might be tracking any of these things. I'm a thoroughly boring individual as far as National Security is concerned--I don't even belong to a book group, but I feel that if anyone wanted to put me or anyone else under surveillance it would be easy to do so now.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
How To Never Get Laid Again
Like many concepts of human behavior, the Never Get Laid Again (NGLA) area is a spectrum. This does not include mental illness or other innate conditions (sleep apnea, IBS, speech impediments, etc.) because those conditions 1) are not your fault 2) don't necessarily result in never getting laid again(I've never heard of IBS being a turn-on but I've definitely met people who found mental illness hot ). The NGLA spectrum encompasses things that people choose to do which make it difficult for other people to find them...lovable or fuckable.
On one side you have behaviors that might cut down on your chances of getting laid--owning a hairless cat, listening to annoying music, being a Republican in Massachusetts, being a Democrat in Arkansas, saying "that's what she said" all the time--whether it's relevant or not or having too many Homestar Runner T-shirts (not that I would know anything about that.) These things may cut down on your chances of getting laid, but they won't obliterate them.
On the other end of the spectrum we have behaviors that give you a small but non-zero chance of ever getting laid again such as having an extra throat pouch installed so that you can consume a second meal, but keep it in your throat until you are hungry again, corresponding with others only in Esperanto and having your sex organs removed entirely.
In between the two ends of the spectrum lie many different ridiculous human behaviors. One of which you, dear reader are probably doing now.
On one side you have behaviors that might cut down on your chances of getting laid--owning a hairless cat, listening to annoying music, being a Republican in Massachusetts, being a Democrat in Arkansas, saying "that's what she said" all the time--whether it's relevant or not or having too many Homestar Runner T-shirts (not that I would know anything about that.) These things may cut down on your chances of getting laid, but they won't obliterate them.
On the other end of the spectrum we have behaviors that give you a small but non-zero chance of ever getting laid again such as having an extra throat pouch installed so that you can consume a second meal, but keep it in your throat until you are hungry again, corresponding with others only in Esperanto and having your sex organs removed entirely.
In between the two ends of the spectrum lie many different ridiculous human behaviors. One of which you, dear reader are probably doing now.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Late Spring Term Report
I appear to be failing Statistics. This in spite of the fact that I do, in fact, study.
I'm trying not to be upset. The Add/Drop period ended right before the second mid-term, so I'm stuck on this bus even though it is headed off a cliff.
There's not much I can do about it I can't take more time off of work to study, for example. I can't do homework in the evenings on weeknights because I'm too brane ded to do math. I*get* the concept, but there's so much arithmetic involved that even when I get Excel to do the heavy lifting(The square roots, the factorials, the standard deviation, etc.) I don't get the right answers. Or, I get the right answers in the problem sets, but not in the exam. If this was a class with blue book exams, where one showed one's work, I might not have failed my second midterm. But then again, I might have failed it anyways, because after two days of study, when I sat down to take the test I felt that it was on different material than what I had been studying.
I often had nightmares--not actually in college, but after college--about the situation I'm stuck in now. It's too late to drop and I'm sitting in front of an exam that might as well be written in Russian. These are dreams about feeling trapped. Of course in the dreams I used to have, I was screwed because I hadn't studied and I had forgotten to drop the class. In my dreams I'm trapped because of my own flakiness.
The situation I'm in now is a bit different. The add/drop deadline was a few days before the second midterm. I considered dropping the class, but thought that if I did it would just be laziness on my part. I'd gotten a decent grade on the first midterm and I understood the material that was on the second midterm (or so I thought) so I felt that dropping the class would be lazy of me. Yes, it would be wonderful to spend the next few Saturdays hanging with friends, reading trashy novels or even having to go into work for after-hours stuff--but I would be backing away from something because it was just *hard* and I couldn't let myself do that. I now fervently wish I had done so, because I flailed the last exam, got all of this week's problem set wrong (after re-doing the problems) and I know the next few weeks are full of hard concepts. Yug.
I don't mind having to take a statistics class--I mind having to take *this* statistics class. I have nothing but the text book (since the class is online-there was no classroom option or I would have taken it) and while I agree that it's nice that there are tests that one can do to discover whether or not one can be 95% confident that the population mean falls within a certain interval, I don't see the practical value of making management students do that arithmetic (If we were scientists it would be another matter.) I agree that it's a good idea to understand the math, but this is mostly arithmetic--this is the sort of thing that people write software to figure out for them.
So I am trapped in this. I'm not going to stop studying, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I fail.
But in spite of this, I am hopeful for myself. I have mentioned in the past how moving to Beverly (becoming part of the Beverly Dog Pack as some would say) where my best friends live and where I'll be more likely to get drawn in to other events with friends (even if said friends live in Somerville--they'll still come up to the North Shore for brunch and beach walking.) Three of my good friends are moving into a house a few blocks from mine. It's a fixer-upper, so they've been at the house painting or talking with the carpenter for the past few months. I can drop by when I'm ready to set my statistics book on fire, or stop by to be beer wench after I'm done hurting my brain with statistics for the week. I am no good at home improvement (which they accept) but I can call in the dinner order, move a step ladder, bring someone a beer, go to Home Despot, unload a truck and take the dog to the beach. I can be social. This is more than nice. This is awesome.
Today I was talking with the soon-to-be newest member of the Beverly Pack (my friends bought a house with an apartment and she'll be moving into the apartment) and we discussed whether she should get a cat or a dog. One of the new owners has a nephew that's very allergic to pets, so aside from the dog-cat issue there's the allergy issue. I pointed out that the only hypo-allergenic cats were hairless cats. But hairless cats are not..fuzzy which is something we both agreed we would want in a pet. Also, they would keep one from ever having a third date. We laughed over that and then she went to go unpack things and I went upstairs to keep my friend who was stapling floorboards company.
Academic success is great I think part of why I'm so calm about failing Statistics is that I've had a decent amount of academic success. But success means nothing without people. I have good people around me which makes me more successful than I have been before even if Stats bites my ass and work is stressful.
I'm trying not to be upset. The Add/Drop period ended right before the second mid-term, so I'm stuck on this bus even though it is headed off a cliff.
There's not much I can do about it I can't take more time off of work to study, for example. I can't do homework in the evenings on weeknights because I'm too brane ded to do math. I*get* the concept, but there's so much arithmetic involved that even when I get Excel to do the heavy lifting(The square roots, the factorials, the standard deviation, etc.) I don't get the right answers. Or, I get the right answers in the problem sets, but not in the exam. If this was a class with blue book exams, where one showed one's work, I might not have failed my second midterm. But then again, I might have failed it anyways, because after two days of study, when I sat down to take the test I felt that it was on different material than what I had been studying.
I often had nightmares--not actually in college, but after college--about the situation I'm stuck in now. It's too late to drop and I'm sitting in front of an exam that might as well be written in Russian. These are dreams about feeling trapped. Of course in the dreams I used to have, I was screwed because I hadn't studied and I had forgotten to drop the class. In my dreams I'm trapped because of my own flakiness.
The situation I'm in now is a bit different. The add/drop deadline was a few days before the second midterm. I considered dropping the class, but thought that if I did it would just be laziness on my part. I'd gotten a decent grade on the first midterm and I understood the material that was on the second midterm (or so I thought) so I felt that dropping the class would be lazy of me. Yes, it would be wonderful to spend the next few Saturdays hanging with friends, reading trashy novels or even having to go into work for after-hours stuff--but I would be backing away from something because it was just *hard* and I couldn't let myself do that. I now fervently wish I had done so, because I flailed the last exam, got all of this week's problem set wrong (after re-doing the problems) and I know the next few weeks are full of hard concepts. Yug.
I don't mind having to take a statistics class--I mind having to take *this* statistics class. I have nothing but the text book (since the class is online-there was no classroom option or I would have taken it) and while I agree that it's nice that there are tests that one can do to discover whether or not one can be 95% confident that the population mean falls within a certain interval, I don't see the practical value of making management students do that arithmetic (If we were scientists it would be another matter.) I agree that it's a good idea to understand the math, but this is mostly arithmetic--this is the sort of thing that people write software to figure out for them.
So I am trapped in this. I'm not going to stop studying, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I fail.
But in spite of this, I am hopeful for myself. I have mentioned in the past how moving to Beverly (becoming part of the Beverly Dog Pack as some would say) where my best friends live and where I'll be more likely to get drawn in to other events with friends (even if said friends live in Somerville--they'll still come up to the North Shore for brunch and beach walking.) Three of my good friends are moving into a house a few blocks from mine. It's a fixer-upper, so they've been at the house painting or talking with the carpenter for the past few months. I can drop by when I'm ready to set my statistics book on fire, or stop by to be beer wench after I'm done hurting my brain with statistics for the week. I am no good at home improvement (which they accept) but I can call in the dinner order, move a step ladder, bring someone a beer, go to Home Despot, unload a truck and take the dog to the beach. I can be social. This is more than nice. This is awesome.
Today I was talking with the soon-to-be newest member of the Beverly Pack (my friends bought a house with an apartment and she'll be moving into the apartment) and we discussed whether she should get a cat or a dog. One of the new owners has a nephew that's very allergic to pets, so aside from the dog-cat issue there's the allergy issue. I pointed out that the only hypo-allergenic cats were hairless cats. But hairless cats are not..fuzzy which is something we both agreed we would want in a pet. Also, they would keep one from ever having a third date. We laughed over that and then she went to go unpack things and I went upstairs to keep my friend who was stapling floorboards company.
Academic success is great I think part of why I'm so calm about failing Statistics is that I've had a decent amount of academic success. But success means nothing without people. I have good people around me which makes me more successful than I have been before even if Stats bites my ass and work is stressful.
Monday, April 4, 2011
In which we catch a cold
I've never minded the occasional cold (Occasional-not 6 weeks of hacking like I had in fall of 2007.) If nothing else feeling sick reminds me of how much I enjoy being not-sick. "See this chair I'm sitting in? In a few days getting up will be no big deal. Tonight it'll be a 5 minute process. Where's my Nyquil?" Or maybe it's just that I'm a drama queen.
I mention this because I'm currently being colonized by some wicked-bad cold germs. I awoke yesterday morning with a tickle in my throat. Until I got out of bed I figured I had left the heat on and dried my throat out. As soon as I got up and made coffee it was clear that things were very wrong. But there was sunshine and there were friends to meet for brunch. Also, there was DayQuil.
After a cheerful day in Salem--full of good food, good friends and a nice long walk my friends returned me to my apartment for a sedate evening and early retirement.
The NyQuil wore off at about 3 AM. I spent the next four hours alternately aching and shivering or having fever dreams about installing software. I don't know about you, but my fever dreams (Whenever I'm sick enough to have them which, thankfully isn't too often) are often frustrating and repetitive. They are usually intimidating in some illogical way (at least this wasn't). But that said, jeez Brain of mine-I cook you a little bit and all you have for me is software installation*? Maybe I really am a deeply boring person after all.
*On an MS Exchange 2003 Server with RDP. The background was XP Blue. *shudder.*
I mention this because I'm currently being colonized by some wicked-bad cold germs. I awoke yesterday morning with a tickle in my throat. Until I got out of bed I figured I had left the heat on and dried my throat out. As soon as I got up and made coffee it was clear that things were very wrong. But there was sunshine and there were friends to meet for brunch. Also, there was DayQuil.
After a cheerful day in Salem--full of good food, good friends and a nice long walk my friends returned me to my apartment for a sedate evening and early retirement.
The NyQuil wore off at about 3 AM. I spent the next four hours alternately aching and shivering or having fever dreams about installing software. I don't know about you, but my fever dreams (Whenever I'm sick enough to have them which, thankfully isn't too often) are often frustrating and repetitive. They are usually intimidating in some illogical way (at least this wasn't). But that said, jeez Brain of mine-I cook you a little bit and all you have for me is software installation*? Maybe I really am a deeply boring person after all.
*On an MS Exchange 2003 Server with RDP. The background was XP Blue. *shudder.*
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)