An open question to my students.
"I'm a big fan of fourth degree polynomials 'cause they can look like us or ws." I don't get it; it seems like not a typo. What's "ws"?
"PBJ function" I am never letting the peanut butter jelly sandwich metaphor go. We talked about them on the first day of class and we'll talk about them on the last day.
In reply to "What was one interesting thing you learned today?", one student wrote, "Lila really, really likes functions" which: yes. If using the professor as part of the narrative helps you learn, then let's absolutely add that technique to our pedagogy. [There's a short story I'm thinking of, that I wanted to link here. I thought it was by Cory Doctorow, but I can't locate it now. The story is in the form of a history lesson, telling how humanity figured out that facts in a narrative are easier to learn and stick in your mind better than a loose collection of facts. The twist at the end is that the entire lecture/story of how the lecturer "discovered" this is, itself, fabricated to take advantage of the technique. Can you source this? I'll credit you with thanks and replace this message with a link.]
This post's theme word is dabster (n), "an expert; a bungler." It can be used both ways! What a mess this is, you're such a dabster; we'll have to call in a dabster to repair it.
Monday, February 19, 2018
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
"Write it in your dream journal."
"Write it in your dream journal" is this season's witty riposte. Please help me disseminate it by hurling it --- with disdain, if you can manage it --- in reply to any conversational foray you desire.
For example:
Hello, internet. I often remember my dreams, but the coolness of this is offset by the banality of the dreams themselves. Even to me, they are not that compelling; perhaps I have stringent requirements for characterization, plot, and style --- and my own imagination fails to meet these standards.
I recently had a dream wherein I kept trying to remember what happened in my dream, and almost remembering it, then feeling it slip away. When I woke up, I had this feeling... but then I remembered: that was exactly a dream! So it didn't slip away. I found the bottom of the inception stack, and what was there was, frankly, not that interesting.
I also recently had a dream where I noticed a very vibrantly-colored spider, with rectangular pastel markings that looked a bit like eye spots. It also had a very elaborate web design. (Possibly this dream comes from watching too many nature documentaries.)
... and now: they are written in my dream journal. Of sorts. May my continued public expression of private thoughts please you, my readership.
This post's theme word is: antimeria (n), "a rhetorical device in which an existing word is used as if it were a different part of speech." English is insidious about verbing nouns and nouning verbs, and mushing all together until the meaning must coalesce, as from a dream, out of a certain invoked ambiance.
For example:
- Misery poker retort:
"I have three papers due this week!"
"Write it in your dream journal." - Cut off that annoying conversationalist:
"I had such a crazy weekend that-"
"Write it in your dream journal." - Conversation ender:
"Will you help me with this project?"
"Write it in your dream journal." (accompanied by hair flip and smoothly walking away)
Hello, internet. I often remember my dreams, but the coolness of this is offset by the banality of the dreams themselves. Even to me, they are not that compelling; perhaps I have stringent requirements for characterization, plot, and style --- and my own imagination fails to meet these standards.
I recently had a dream wherein I kept trying to remember what happened in my dream, and almost remembering it, then feeling it slip away. When I woke up, I had this feeling... but then I remembered: that was exactly a dream! So it didn't slip away. I found the bottom of the inception stack, and what was there was, frankly, not that interesting.
I also recently had a dream where I noticed a very vibrantly-colored spider, with rectangular pastel markings that looked a bit like eye spots. It also had a very elaborate web design. (Possibly this dream comes from watching too many nature documentaries.)
... and now: they are written in my dream journal. Of sorts. May my continued public expression of private thoughts please you, my readership.
This post's theme word is: antimeria (n), "a rhetorical device in which an existing word is used as if it were a different part of speech." English is insidious about verbing nouns and nouning verbs, and mushing all together until the meaning must coalesce, as from a dream, out of a certain invoked ambiance.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
The Girl With All The Gifts
The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey was my readerly attempt at palate-cleansing, or at least palate-overwriting, after Gone Girl. This book, too, had been in my queue for awhile, with mental annotations of "this got a lot of praise" and "might be a bit creepy", based solely on half-remembered, skimmed reviews. (And possibly associating the title with Lauren Beukes' The Shining Girls, which was also --- like Gone Girl --- terrifying and tense, but which I enjoyed.)
This blog is self-indulgently about me, and my thoughts and opinions, so I have no regrets about all the first-person used in that paragraph. Or in this one. I guess this is my spurt of reading books with "girl" in the title; stay tuned.
The book starts with children, strangely imprisoned and regimented, and gradually reveals hints about the broader situation of the world and the history of steps that established this near-future post(?)-apocalpyse(?). We get the sense that all is not well --- after all, imprisoning children is wrong and cruel --- and grow to sympathize with the children, which hook Carey uses to frame a lot of moral quandaries throughout the book. Children are monsters, and these children are particularly lethal and not-metaphorical monsters; they are also the most compassionate people in the book, and the adults whose decisions we criticize are those whose thoughts we can understand.
Children are foreign, and so on, childhood is a series of awakenings to harsh adult truths, adults and children are alien to each other, ... [all the trite things you might imagine can definitely go here]. I encourage you to think of them, even without having read the book, since I can't really discuss many details of the book without ruining the creepy surprises it holds. (One surprise from Google: this book's movie reversed the skin colors of the main characters. Why? That's weird.)
I liked this book, even though by the end I was firmly rooting for every character to die, and for human civilization to end. Also it was deeply creepy, in the skin-crawling way, edging along the spectrum towards that tear-off-your-own-skin-with-your-fingernails body horror of Scott Sigler's Infected.
As a palate-cleanser it failed, since it didn't leave me with warm fuzzy feelings OR with any cool new thoughts about science puzzles. I may have to resort to Terry Pratchett to reset my internal Delight Barometer. I'll probably never reread The Girl With All The Gifts, or any of the same-universe companion pieces, but I liked it.
This post's theme word is emesis (n), "the act or process of vomiting." Literary force alone has never yet induced emesis, but the mind is a powerful thing.
This blog is self-indulgently about me, and my thoughts and opinions, so I have no regrets about all the first-person used in that paragraph. Or in this one. I guess this is my spurt of reading books with "girl" in the title; stay tuned.
The book starts with children, strangely imprisoned and regimented, and gradually reveals hints about the broader situation of the world and the history of steps that established this near-future post(?)-apocalpyse(?). We get the sense that all is not well --- after all, imprisoning children is wrong and cruel --- and grow to sympathize with the children, which hook Carey uses to frame a lot of moral quandaries throughout the book. Children are monsters, and these children are particularly lethal and not-metaphorical monsters; they are also the most compassionate people in the book, and the adults whose decisions we criticize are those whose thoughts we can understand.
Children are foreign, and so on, childhood is a series of awakenings to harsh adult truths, adults and children are alien to each other, ... [all the trite things you might imagine can definitely go here]. I encourage you to think of them, even without having read the book, since I can't really discuss many details of the book without ruining the creepy surprises it holds. (One surprise from Google: this book's movie reversed the skin colors of the main characters. Why? That's weird.)
I liked this book, even though by the end I was firmly rooting for every character to die, and for human civilization to end. Also it was deeply creepy, in the skin-crawling way, edging along the spectrum towards that tear-off-your-own-skin-with-your-fingernails body horror of Scott Sigler's Infected.
As a palate-cleanser it failed, since it didn't leave me with warm fuzzy feelings OR with any cool new thoughts about science puzzles. I may have to resort to Terry Pratchett to reset my internal Delight Barometer. I'll probably never reread The Girl With All The Gifts, or any of the same-universe companion pieces, but I liked it.
This post's theme word is emesis (n), "the act or process of vomiting." Literary force alone has never yet induced emesis, but the mind is a powerful thing.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Gone Girl
I've been recommended Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn severally, and heard praise of it, so I took it off my reading queue and actually read it over winter break. This book is a thriller, and a departure from my usual reading in tone and subject matter. The voice, however, is perfect: unreliable narrators, all the way down, like nesting Russian dolls.
The book is an incredible feat of writing, tightly-plotted, intricately-woven, a virtuosic demonstration of writerly skill in manipulating the readers' attention, curiosity, and mental state. I read it in two sittings, and the one break I took was when one chapter ended in too-dramatic of a cliffhanger; this let me put down the book in disgust at such blatant attention-pandering. (A few hours later I picked it up and finished it.)
That said, I didn't like this book.
It made me feel bad.
First it lured me in, with multiple first-person unreliable narrators and lots of interesting setups for the central mystery (a missing woman). The unreliable narrators are awesomely well-written --- it feels like a true glimpse into another mind, recognizably like my own. The book had several points where characters voiced those little internal thoughts that never rise to enough significance to be mentioned in conversation, but keep cycling back and become normal internal mental refrains. I always wonder how authors manage to figure out such things to add to their writing, and to do it so smoothly that it deeply resonates with me. (Maybe they're trying all the time, and I don't register the notes that fail to resonate?)
Then, it gradually revealed that every. single. character. is a sociopath. Creepily, deviously, ingeniously. (And here I refer to both the characters and to the manner of reveal.) This was haunting, and unsettling, and --- I suppose, to give the genre its due --- thrilling. But horrible. I don't want to have such characters in my imagination, much less in the actual world I inhabit. I was actually upset about choices that these imaginary people were making in order to hurt each other, because I don't want to have such choices happen in the world around me. I don't want people to be evil, I don't want people to be hurt, I don't want people to hate each other. And this book is utterly, cleverly, unerringly twisted; the characters even acknowledge as much to each other:
I do not recommend, unless you already know you like the "thriller" genre.
This post's theme word is dysphemism, "a detrimental phrase used deliberately in place of a nicer one." The opposite of euphemism. It's a novel, but I refer to it as "an odious sequence of insidious, brain-infecting, evil words."
The book is an incredible feat of writing, tightly-plotted, intricately-woven, a virtuosic demonstration of writerly skill in manipulating the readers' attention, curiosity, and mental state. I read it in two sittings, and the one break I took was when one chapter ended in too-dramatic of a cliffhanger; this let me put down the book in disgust at such blatant attention-pandering. (A few hours later I picked it up and finished it.)
That said, I didn't like this book.
It made me feel bad.
First it lured me in, with multiple first-person unreliable narrators and lots of interesting setups for the central mystery (a missing woman). The unreliable narrators are awesomely well-written --- it feels like a true glimpse into another mind, recognizably like my own. The book had several points where characters voiced those little internal thoughts that never rise to enough significance to be mentioned in conversation, but keep cycling back and become normal internal mental refrains. I always wonder how authors manage to figure out such things to add to their writing, and to do it so smoothly that it deeply resonates with me. (Maybe they're trying all the time, and I don't register the notes that fail to resonate?)
Then, it gradually revealed that every. single. character. is a sociopath. Creepily, deviously, ingeniously. (And here I refer to both the characters and to the manner of reveal.) This was haunting, and unsettling, and --- I suppose, to give the genre its due --- thrilling. But horrible. I don't want to have such characters in my imagination, much less in the actual world I inhabit. I was actually upset about choices that these imaginary people were making in order to hurt each other, because I don't want to have such choices happen in the world around me. I don't want people to be evil, I don't want people to be hurt, I don't want people to hate each other. And this book is utterly, cleverly, unerringly twisted; the characters even acknowledge as much to each other:
"You two are the most fucked-up people I have ever met, and I specialize in fucked-up people." (page 415)The book is a masterpiece of writing, but not the kind of recreational fiction that I ever want to experience. I don't like being frightened or disgusted for fun; I like a challenge, a puzzle, an unreliable narrator, and I don't mind philosophical or ethical quandaries, but I want people to learn and grow and improve. This book doesn't do that; it's purely down, a descent into vicious, bitter, resentful psychosis.
I do not recommend, unless you already know you like the "thriller" genre.
This post's theme word is dysphemism, "a detrimental phrase used deliberately in place of a nicer one." The opposite of euphemism. It's a novel, but I refer to it as "an odious sequence of insidious, brain-infecting, evil words."
Thursday, January 18, 2018
everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too
everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too is a graphic novel by Jonathan Sun. It details the expedition of the main character, an alien sent to Earth to document the habits and peculiarities of humans. The titular alien is unusual, a bit of an outcast even among aliens, and so its expedition to Earth is full of self-doubt and self-reflection.
The book is cute and a very quick read (most pages contain only one or two sentences, with illustrations). It feels calm, simple, and reassuring, and has a strong undercurrent that gives me the sense it is aimed at adults who think about mental health and self-care a lot. It touches on issues of identity, loneliness, death, love, belonging, purpose, and friendship. Also there is one bouncy castle.
I wasn't in the right mood for it, but I'd recommend it anyway. (I was in turn recommended it by Tracy Clayton of the podcast Another Round.)
This post's theme word is verklempt (n), "overcome with emotion; choked up." The aliebn [sic] made many friends and made the reader verklempt throughout its wanderings and musings.
The book is cute and a very quick read (most pages contain only one or two sentences, with illustrations). It feels calm, simple, and reassuring, and has a strong undercurrent that gives me the sense it is aimed at adults who think about mental health and self-care a lot. It touches on issues of identity, loneliness, death, love, belonging, purpose, and friendship. Also there is one bouncy castle.
I wasn't in the right mood for it, but I'd recommend it anyway. (I was in turn recommended it by Tracy Clayton of the podcast Another Round.)
This post's theme word is verklempt (n), "overcome with emotion; choked up." The aliebn [sic] made many friends and made the reader verklempt throughout its wanderings and musings.
Monday, January 1, 2018
Stunningly efficacious
I have no particular, publicly-declarable goals to commemorate the incrementing of our calendar year, except that --- as always --- I want to hone myself into the startlingly effective, time-efficient, prosperous, merry, well-balanced person that other people (hopefully) think I already am.
I like circuitous sentences and superfluous verbiage, and I refuse to change either of those personal attributes in 2018. Come back and try again in 2019, haters.
Day 1 is marked by a high turnaround of holiday letters and emails, paying bills, updating all my yearly-in-January donations, and staring in awe at the truly prodigious list of half-written draft posts for this blog.
(Sorry about that.)
You, my diligent readers, whether my parents or my overcurious students or internet strangers looking to post advertisements as comments (don't, I delete them and it wastes everyone's time), will simply have to put up with me as I am, striving yet again, always, in a continual manner. I want to write more, and more cleverly, and because this platform is free and quick (except when stuck in draft limbo), it will likely be the recipient of this output.
Although frankly, a lot of it goes to /dev/null right now anyway, and that might be for the best.
My year-end phrase-stuck-in-my-head is "flamboyantly intelligent", which is a descriptor of the kind of people I'd like to surround myself with. Maybe there's a subreddit? I'm on a (mild) quest, in any case; if you find any such people, please send them my way. I am a diligent and snarky correspondent, and I have been told I am secretly kind and caring, but that was 2017 and I am looking to turn over a new leaf, so...
This post's theme word is palilalia (n), "a speech disorder characterized by involuntary repetition of words, phrases, or sentences." I am trying to remember the word for "having a phrase stuck in your head", but all I can come up with is palilalia, which is not-quite-it-but-close-enough-to-blot-it-from-recoverable-memory, plus: contains "lila" as a substring!
I like circuitous sentences and superfluous verbiage, and I refuse to change either of those personal attributes in 2018. Come back and try again in 2019, haters.
Day 1 is marked by a high turnaround of holiday letters and emails, paying bills, updating all my yearly-in-January donations, and staring in awe at the truly prodigious list of half-written draft posts for this blog.
(Sorry about that.)
You, my diligent readers, whether my parents or my overcurious students or internet strangers looking to post advertisements as comments (don't, I delete them and it wastes everyone's time), will simply have to put up with me as I am, striving yet again, always, in a continual manner. I want to write more, and more cleverly, and because this platform is free and quick (except when stuck in draft limbo), it will likely be the recipient of this output.
Although frankly, a lot of it goes to /dev/null right now anyway, and that might be for the best.
My year-end phrase-stuck-in-my-head is "flamboyantly intelligent", which is a descriptor of the kind of people I'd like to surround myself with. Maybe there's a subreddit? I'm on a (mild) quest, in any case; if you find any such people, please send them my way. I am a diligent and snarky correspondent, and I have been told I am secretly kind and caring, but that was 2017 and I am looking to turn over a new leaf, so...
This post's theme word is palilalia (n), "a speech disorder characterized by involuntary repetition of words, phrases, or sentences." I am trying to remember the word for "having a phrase stuck in your head", but all I can come up with is palilalia, which is not-quite-it-but-close-enough-to-blot-it-from-recoverable-memory, plus: contains "lila" as a substring!
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Quotes
Quotes that enterprising persons heard in my office, and recorded on the board, but which are now being erased so I can have more space for research:
- "Hot damn, man"
- "I have very large hips compared to a mice baby."
- "PLACENTAS, Lila"
- "On Thursday I have to give birth... I have to interview candidates, get inseminated, and fully gestate a human child."
- "Think faster... and also better."
"It's solid advice. If only you could follow it." - "You, in particular, need help."
- "Why is everything covered in metal?"
- "I didn't realize there was both a top and a bottom."
"How did you think boxes work?" - "It's gotta be true, right? There are so many emojis."
- "Christmas star" [accompanied by un-star-like diagram of a graph with 5 vertices]
- "I'm very professional, except for the hole in my pants."
- "Today is not. Halloween."
- "I do. Because I know stuff. Because that's what I am."
This post's theme word is farraginous (adj), "heterogeneous; having a mix of random things." What a silly, context-free, farraginous collection of quotes.
Saturday, December 30, 2017
How to announce sweeping policy changes
Firstly, have you considered not making sweeping policy changes?
While I am sure that you think you have considered every aspect of the change, you probably haven't, and may quickly regret and rescind your announcement when your user base is outraged. (I'm looking at you, Patreon, and thanking you for responding to my strident and vitriolic feedback by apologizing and not making the change.)
Secondly, have you considered making your policy change trivial, but having the announcement denigrate your user base?
I don't advise this, either, okcupid. Boo.
Thirdly, you had better grandfather in all your previous users under their former conditions, or I will quit.
I really will.
It's easy.
And then I will take my attention, and my patronage, and my money, and my life, and spend it somewhere else.
To celebrate the end of this offensive, horrible calendar year, during which I nevertheless achieved some life milestones, I am now reviewing my yearly donations and subscriptions, increasing my donations, and mostly cancelling subscriptions --- and adding that money to the donations pile. So my sweeping policy change is that I am donating more money than before, supporting charities and libraries and artists.
Look at me, supporting capitalism by laboring so that I can give my money away!
(A. pointed out that I behave not in my own best interests, economically, but in a socially-justified way. I am duly smug.)
This post's theme word is mammothrept (n), "a spoilt child; a person of immature judgment." Your sweeping policy change satisfies your mammothrept investors and causes a massive exodus of your site's users!
While I am sure that you think you have considered every aspect of the change, you probably haven't, and may quickly regret and rescind your announcement when your user base is outraged. (I'm looking at you, Patreon, and thanking you for responding to my strident and vitriolic feedback by apologizing and not making the change.)
Secondly, have you considered making your policy change trivial, but having the announcement denigrate your user base?
I don't advise this, either, okcupid. Boo.
Thirdly, you had better grandfather in all your previous users under their former conditions, or I will quit.
I really will.
It's easy.
And then I will take my attention, and my patronage, and my money, and my life, and spend it somewhere else.
To celebrate the end of this offensive, horrible calendar year, during which I nevertheless achieved some life milestones, I am now reviewing my yearly donations and subscriptions, increasing my donations, and mostly cancelling subscriptions --- and adding that money to the donations pile. So my sweeping policy change is that I am donating more money than before, supporting charities and libraries and artists.
Look at me, supporting capitalism by laboring so that I can give my money away!
(A. pointed out that I behave not in my own best interests, economically, but in a socially-justified way. I am duly smug.)
This post's theme word is mammothrept (n), "a spoilt child; a person of immature judgment." Your sweeping policy change satisfies your mammothrept investors and causes a massive exodus of your site's users!
Thursday, October 12, 2017
What is the unluckiest thing that ever happened to you?
I take attendance by having the students answer a question.
What is the unluckiest thing that ever happened to you?
Some people referenced the luckiest thing that ever happened or other earlier attendance questions:
Others had medical mishaps:
This post's theme word is contretemps (n), "an unforseen and unfortunate occurrence; a disagreement or dispute." Wednesday's child is full of woe; Grumbleday's child is caught in contretemps.
What is the unluckiest thing that ever happened to you?
Some people referenced the luckiest thing that ever happened or other earlier attendance questions:
- bird
- also existing
- not existing?
- I live next to [student X] -- student Y
- I live next to [student Y] -- student X
- bird?
Should I be worried about the recurring "bird"s?
- chipped my front teeth when i fell down laughing
- a week after getting surgery in preeschool, a kid kicked me in the stomach & I had to have the same surgery again
- deviated septum during a soccer game
- appendicitis is the only time my parents ever visited campus
- fire alarm night before test
- having all midterms on same day
- exponential runtime
- snapped my oneCard 2 times in 2 days
And then a smorgasbord of miscellaneous bad luck?
- missed 2 straight connecting flights
- :)
- I got left by my parents in Paris in a train station
- dropping my laptop
- dropping my laptop 3 times
- Hurricane Harvey hit my city on my birthday :(
- I fell over 5 times in 30 minutes wearing the best boots I've ever worn
- i once had to wait at a red light
The award for "Sounds Most Like a Cautionary Tale" goes to "brother pushed me in a well". The "Technically Unlikely but maybe not UnLUCKy" prize goes to "lost twenty coinflips in a row." The tip-of-the-hat for luck-n-privilege awareness goes to "i once had to wait at a red light."
This post is dedicated to students who are perusing the archive in search of something to brighten a day that feels unlucky.
This post's theme word is contretemps (n), "an unforseen and unfortunate occurrence; a disagreement or dispute." Wednesday's child is full of woe; Grumbleday's child is caught in contretemps.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?
I take attendance by having students answer a question.
What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?
A lot of people are grateful:
What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?
A lot of people are grateful:
- every day I get to wake up and live a pretty sweet life
- being here
- existing
- ^ that
- Already written, but existing
- unoriginal, but existing
- getting to be here today
- being born into my circumstances
- go to Swat
- My Mom
- Swat
- getting lotteried out of ML to take Algo.
Many people briefly summarized what must be a much longer story:
- meeting the same Spanish traveler twice in one city and finding out he prepared my medicinal bath from the day before.
- meeting my significant other
- One time I got a concussion and they thought I had broken my neck and was gonna die but I didn't.
- Finding a lost friend in Barcelona
- living with [two other students in the class]
- Last week I was stranded in Philly and ran into a friend.
- a star fell on me
Some people kept it brief:
- e72 pset got cancelled
- fall break
- sleep
- dogs
- Hi blog!
... yes, that last one is a real thing that an actual student wrote to mark their attendance today. They get the "You Almost Asked for This" Prize.
This post is dedicated to everyone reading it: you exist! Huzzah!
This post's theme word is uberty (n), "abundance; fruitfulness". I went through an uberty of thankfulness while contemplating the tenuous and unlikely events leading to my own existence.
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